“My dear Love,—The Shelleys are gone! have been gone these three weeks. I hope you hear the first from me; I dread lest every day may have brought you a letter from them, conveying this strange intelligence. I know you would conjure up a thousand frightful ideas of my situation under this disappointment. I have myself a disposition to take quietly any evil, when it can no longer be avoided, when it ceases to be attended with uncertainty, and when I can already compute the amount of it. I heard this news instantly on my arrival at this place, and therefore walked immediately (that is, as soon as I had dined) to the Valley of Stones, that, if I could not have what was gone away, I might at least not fail to visit what remained.
“You advise me to return by sea; I thank you a
thousand times for your kind and considerate motive in this, but certainly
nothing more could be proposed to me at this moment than a return by sea. I
left Bristol at one o’clock on Wednesday, and arrived here at four
o’clock on Friday, after a passage of fifty-one hours. We had fourteen
passengers, and only four berths, therefore I lay down only once for a few
hours. We had very little wind, and accordingly regularly tided it for six
hours, and lay at anchor for six, till we reached this place. This place is
fifteen miles short of Ilfracombe. If the Captain, after a great entreaty from
the mate and one of his passengers (for I cannot entreat for such things) [had
not] lent me his own boat to put me ashore, I really think I should have died
with ennui. We anchored, Wednesday night, somewhere within sight of the Holmes
(small islands,
| 212 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Since writing the above I have been to the house where Shelley lodged, and I bring good news. I saw the woman of the house, and I was delighted with her. She is a good creature, and quite loved the Shelleys. They lived here nine weeks and three days. They went away in a great hurry, in debt to her and two more. They gave her a draft upon the Honourable Mr Lawless, brother to Lord Cloncurry, and they borrowed of her twenty-nine shillings, besides that she got for them from a neighbour, all of which they faithfully returned when they got to Ilfracombe, the people not choosing to change a bank-note which had been cut in half for safety in sending it by the post. But the best news is that the woman says they will be in London in a fortnight. This quite comforts my heart.”
