ffled by a
breath, and realizing all the images of evening serenity, a flight of
curlews shot screaming by, and awoke me from my reverie. I took my gun,
and followed them along the shore. My sportsmanship was never of the
most zealous order, and my success on this occasion did not add much to
the mortality of the curlews. But the fresh air revived me, I felt my
elasticity of foot and frame return, and I followed for some miles along
the windings of the shore. At last I had reached the pool where they,
probably more aware of the weather than I was, seemed intending to take
up their quarters for the night. I took my ground, and was preparing to
attack them with both barrels; when a gust that swept with sudden
violence between the hills nearly blew me down, and scattered all my
prey, screaming and startled, on the wing far into the interior. I had
now leisure to look to myself. The sea was rolling in huge billows to
the shore. The sun had sunk as suddenly as if it had been drowned. The
hills were visible but for a moment, gleamed ghastly in the last light,
and were then covered with mist. One of those storms common in Autumn,
and which brings all the violence of winter into the midst of the
loveliest season of the year, had come on, and I was now to find shelter
where I could in the wilderness.

I was vigorous and hardy, but my situation began to be sufficiently
embarrassing; for I was at least half-a-dozen miles from home; and the
fog, which wrapped every thing, soon rendered the whole face of the
country one cloud. To move a single step now was hazardous. I could
judge even of my nearness to the ocean only by its roar. The rain soon
added to my perplexities, for it began to descend less in showers than
in sheets. I tried the shelter of the solitary thicket in these wilds,
but was quickly driven from my position. I next tried the hollow of a
sand-hill, but there again I was beaten by the enemy; and before I had
screened myself from the gust a quarter of an hour, a low rumbling
sound, and the fall of pieces of the hill above, awoke me to the chance
of being buried alive. I now disclaimed all shelter, and painfully
gained the open country, with no other guide than my ear, which told me
that I was leaving the sea further and further behind, but hearing the
rush of many a rivulet turned into a river before me, and in no slight
peril of finishing my history in the bed of some pool, or being swept on
the surface of some overcha