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