so I'll e'en lay aside all
thoughts of future business, and make the best of my way to Cornwall, and
there find out some safe and solitary retreat, where I may have liberty
to meditate and make my melancholy observations upon the several
occurrences of human life.

This resolution prevailed so far, that no time was let slip to get
everything in readiness to go with the first ship. As to his money, he
always kept that locked up by him, unless he sometimes lent it to a
friend without interest, for he had a mortal hatred to all sorts of usury
or extortion. His books, of which he had a considerable quantity, and
some of them very good ones, together with his other equipage, he got
packed up, that nothing might be wanting against the first opportunity.

In a few days he heard of a vessel bound to Padstow, the very port he
wished to go to, being within four or five miles of the place where he
was born. When he came thither, which was in less than a week, his first
business was to inquire after the state of his family. It was some time
before he could get any information of them, until an old man that knew
his father and mother, and remembered they had a son was born dumb,
recollected him, and after a great deal of difficulty, made him
understand that all his family except his youngest sister were dead, and
that she was a widow, and lived at a little town called St. Helen's,
about ten miles farther in the country.

This doleful news, we must imagine, must be extremely shocking, and add a
new sting to his former affliction; and here it was that he began to
exercise the philosopher, and to demonstrate himself both a wise and a
good man. All these things, thinks he, are the will of Providence, and
must not be disputed; and so he bore up under them with an entire
resignation, resolving that, as soon as he could find a place where he
might deposit his trunk and boxes with safety, he would go to St. Helen's
in quest of his sister.

How his sister and he met, and how transported they were to see each
other after so long an interval, I think is not very material. It is
enough for the present purpose that Dickory soon recollected his sister,
and she him; and after a great many endearing tokens of love and
tenderness, he wrote to her, telling her that he believed Providence had
bestowed on him as much as would support him as long as he lived, and
that if she thought proper he would come and spend the remainder of his
days with