* * * * *

My brain was in such a way, that it was several days before the
perfectly obvious means of finding my way to London, since I wished to
go there, at all occurred to me; and the engine went wandering the
intricate railway-system of the south country, I having twice to water
her with a coal-bucket from a pool, for the injector was giving no water
from the tank under the coals, and I did not know where to find any near
tank-sheds. On the fifth evening, instead of into London, I ran into
Guildford.

* * * * *

That night, from eleven till the next day, there was a great storm over
England: let me note it down. And ten days later, on the 17th of the
month came another; and on the 23rd another; and I should be put to it
to count the great number since. And they do not resemble English
storms, but rather Arctic ones, in a certain very suggestive something
of personalness, and a carousing malice, and a Tartarus gloom, which I
cannot quite describe. That night at Guildford, after wandering about,
and becoming very weary, I threw myself upon a cushioned pew in an old
Norman church with two east apses, called St. Mary's, using a
Bible-cushion for pillow, and placing some distance away a little tin
lamp turned low, whose ray served me for _veilleuse_ through the night.
Happily I had taken care to close up everything, or, I feel sure, the
roof must have gone. Only one dead, an old lady in a chapel on the north
side of the chancel, whom I rather mistrusted, was there with me: and
there I lay listening: for, after all, I could not sleep a wink, while
outside vogued the immense tempest. And I communed with myself,