On the forty-first day, the Neversink heights rose on the horizon. Vessels innumerable passed--steamers, merchantmen, war ships. The highlands of Staten Island, with its villages and villas, lay close on their left, and the Bay of New York opened before them, sparkling in the morning sun, and alive with moving sails. On the right lay a forest of masts; in front, the Castle lifted its ugly familiar front; and farther on, the spire of Trinity towered over the wilderness of brick. Morton called a boat alongside, embarked his luggage, and went on shore. And, in spite of that depression which follows long and deep excitement, in spite of the anxieties that engrossed him, he felt a thrill of delight as his foot pressed American soil. This pleasure, however, was short. The thought of Edith Leslie had been so long the solace of his confinement, that it seemed to have grown into a part of himself; at all events, now that his doubts were on the verge of decision, for good or evil, it drove every other thought from his mind. Reaching his hotel, he found that he could not set out for Boston till the afternoon; and to get rid of the interval, he turned over the Boston newspapers in the reading room, searching for the mention of any familiar names. Here he was more successful than he cared to be; for he presently discovered the name of Horace Vinal, figuring in the list of directors of a joint stock company. "The hound!" muttered Morton; "so he is alive yet!" And leaving the hotel, he walked up the crowded sidewalk of Broadway, in a mood any thing but tranquil. CHAPTER XLIX. Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity.--_Romeo and Juliet_. He had not gone far, when he became aware of a footstep closely following him. He was about to look back, when a little man passed before him, glancing furtively in his face with a ludicrous expression of doubt, amazement, and curiosity. Morton at once recognized the features of an odd, simple-minded classmate, named Shingles. "Charley," he exclaimed, "how do you do?" "It _is_ you," cried Shingles, with an ejaculation of profound astonishment; "solid flesh and blood!"--grasping Morton's extended hand--"and not your ghost. Why, we all thought you were dead!" "Not quite," said Morton. "Dead and buried," repeated Shingles, "off in Transylvania, or some such place." "I _was_ buried, but they buried me alive." Shingles, who had a taste for the horrible, took the assertion literally, and dilated his eyes like an owl on the lookout for a mouse. "But how did you manage to get out?" "I contrived to break loose, after a few years." Shingles stared in horror and perplexity. "Don't be frightened, Charley. I'm all right,--neither ghost nor vampire. But we shall be pushed off the sidewalk, if we stand here."