very laborious march to
Exeter, which we were ordered to besiege. The town soon surrendered, and
his majesty built a castle there, which he garrisoned with his Normans,
and unhappily I had the misfortune to be one of the number.

"Here we were confined closer than I had been at Dover; for, as the
citizens were extremely disaffected, we were never suffered to go
without the walls of the castle; nor indeed could we, unless in large
bodies, without the utmost danger. We were likewise kept to continual
duty, nor could any solicitations prevail with the commanding officer
to give me a month's absence to visit my love, from whom I had no
opportunity of hearing in all my long absence.

"However, in the spring, the people being more quiet, and another
officer of a gentler temper succeeding to the principal command, I
obtained leave to go to Dover; but alas! what comfort did my long
journey bring me? I found the parents of my darling in the utmost misery
at her loss; for she had died, about a week before my arrival, of a
consumption, which they imputed to her pining at my sudden departure.

"I now fell into the most violent and almost raving fit of despair. I
cursed myself, the king, and the whole world, which no longer seemed
to have any delight for me. I threw myself on the grave of my deceased
love, and lay there without any kind of sustenance for two whole days.
At last hunger, together with the persuasions of some people who took
pity on me, prevailed with me to quit that situation, and refresh myself
with food. They then persuaded me to return to my post, and abandon a
place where almost every object I saw recalled ideas to my mind which,
as they said, I should endeavor with my utmost force to expel from it.
This advice at length succeeded; the rather, as the father and mother of
my beloved refused to see me, looking on me as the innocent but certain
cause of the death of their only child.

"The loss of one we tenderly love, as it is one of the most bitter and
biting evils which attend human life, so it wants the lenitive which
palliates and softens every other calamity; I mean that great reliever,
hope. No man can be so totally undone, but that he may still cherish
expectation: but this deprives us of all such comfort, nor can anything
but time alone lessen it. This, however, in most minds, is sure to
work a slow but effectual remedy; so did it in mine: for within a
twelve-month I was entirely reconciled to my fortune