I had taken the steward[40] with me for he, much better than I[,] could make the requisite enquiries—­the poor old man could not restrain his tears as he saw my deep distress and knew the cause—­he sometimes uttered a few broken words of consolation:  in moments like these the mistress and servant become in a manner equals and when I saw his old dim eyes wet with sympathizing tears; his gray hair thinly scattered on an age-wrinkled brow I thought oh if my father were as he is—­decrepid & hoary—­then I should be spared this pain—­

When I had arrived at the nearest town I took post horses and followed the road my father had taken.  At every inn where we changed horses we heard of him, and I was possessed by alternate hope and fear.  A length I found that he had altered his route; at first he had followed the London road; but now he changed it, and upon enquiry I found that the one which he now pursued led towards the sea.  My dream recurred to my thoughts; I was not usually superstitious but in wretchedness every one is so.  The sea was fifty miles off, yet it was towards it that he fled.  The idea was terrible to my half crazed imagination, and almost over-turned the little self possession that still remained to me.  I journied all day; every moment my misery encreased and the fever of my blood became intolerable.  The summer sun shone in an unclouded sky; the air was close but all was cool to me except my own scorching skin.  Towards evening dark thunder clouds arose above the horrizon and I heard its distant roll—­after sunset they darkened the whole sky and it began to rain[,] the lightning lighted up the whole country and the thunder drowned the noise of our carriage.  At the next inn my father had not taken horses; he had left a box there saying he would return, and had walked over the fields to the town of ——­ a seacost town eight miles off.

For a moment I was almost paralized by fear; but my energy returned and I demanded a guide to accompany me in following his steps.  The night was tempestuous but my bribe was high and I easily procured a countryman.  We passed through many lanes and over fields and wild downs; the rain poured down in torrents; and the loud thunder broke in terrible crashes over our heads.  Oh!  What a night it was!  And I passed on with quick steps among the high, dank grass amid the rain and tempest.  My dream was for ever in my thoughts, and with a kind of half insanity that often possesses the mind in despair, I said aloud; “Courage!  We are not near the sea; we are yet several miles from the ocean”—­Yet it was towards the sea that our direction lay and that heightened the confusion of my ideas.  Once, overcome by fatigue, I sunk on the wet earth; about two hundred yards distant, alone in a large meadow stood a magnificent oak; the lightnings shewed its myriad boughs torn by the storm.  A strange idea seized me; a person must have felt all the agonies of doubt concerning the life and death