CHAPTER XXVIII
Two days are passed. It is a summer evening; the coachman has set
me down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no farther for
the sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in
the world. The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone. At
this moment I discover that I forgot to take my parcel out of the
pocket of the coach, where I had placed it for safety; there it
remains, there it must remain; and now, I am absolutely destitute.
Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar
set up where four roads meet: whitewashed, I suppose, to be more
obvious at a distance and in darkness. Four arms spring from its
summit: the nearest town to which these point is, according to the
inscription, distant ten miles; the farthest, above twenty. From
the well-known names of these towns I learn in what county I have
lighted; a north-midland shire, dusk with moorland, ridged with
mountain: this I see. There are great moors behind and on each
hand of me; there are waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley
at my feet. The population here must be thin, and I see no
passengers on these roads: they stretch out east, west, north, and
south--white, broad, lonely; they are all cut in the moor, and the
heather grows deep and wild to their very verge. Yet a chance
traveller might pass by; and I wish no eye to see me now: strangers
would wonder what I am doing, lingering here at the sign-post,
evidently objectless and lost. I might be questioned: I could give
no answer but what would sound incredible and excite suspicion. Not
a tie holds me to human society at this moment--not a charm or hope
calls me where my fellow-creatures are--none that saw me would have
a kind thought or a good wish for me. I have no relative but the
universal mother, Nature: I will seek her breast and ask repose.
I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply
furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth;
I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite
crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor
were about me; the crag protected my head: the sky was over that.
Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague
dread that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or
poacher might discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I
looked up, fearing it was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled,
I imagined it a man. Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however,
and calmed by the deep silence that reigned as evening declined at
nightfall, I took confidence. As yet I had not thought; I had only
listened, watched, dreaded; now I regained the faculty of
reflection.
What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I
could do nothing and go nowhere!--when a long way must yet be
measured by my weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human
habitation--when cold charity must be entreated before I could get a
lodging: reluctant sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse
incurred, before my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants
relieved!
I touched the heath, it was dry, and yet warm with the beat of the
summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star
twinkled just above the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with
propitious softness; no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me
benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I,
who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult,
clung to her with filial fondness. To-night, at least, I would be
her guest, as I was her child: my mother would lodge me without
money and without price. I had one morsel of bread yet: the
remnant of a roll I had bought in a town we passed through at noon
with a stray penny--my last coin. I saw ripe bilberries gleaming
here and there, like jet beads in the heath: I gathered a handful
and ate them with the bread. My hunger, sharp before, was, if not
satisfied, appeased by this hermit's meal. I said my evening
prayers at its conclusion, and then chose my couch.
Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet
were buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow
space for the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and
spread it over me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow.
Thus lodged, I was not, at least--at the commencement of the night,
cold.
My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it.
It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven
chords. It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him
with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and,
impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its
shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.
Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night
was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too
serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is
everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works
are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the
unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course,
that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His
omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester.
Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-way.
Remembering what it was--what countless systems there swept space
like a soft trace of light--I felt the might and strength of God.
Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I
grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it
treasured. I turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life
was also the Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe; he was
God's, and by God would he be guarded. I again nestled to the
breast of the hill; and ere long in sleep forgot sorrow.
But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little
birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet
prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried--
when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled
earth and sky--I got up, and I looked round me.
What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading
moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it.
I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet
bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard,
that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here.
But I was a human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not
linger where there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked
back at the bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but
this--that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul
of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death
from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and
mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness. Life, however,
was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and
responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided
for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled. I set
out.
Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now
fervent and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my
choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done
enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost
overpowered me--might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on
a stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged
heart and limb--I heard a bell chime--a church bell.
I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the
romantic hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an
hour ago, I saw a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right
hand was full of pasture-fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a
glittering stream ran zig-zag through the varied shades of green,
the mellowing grain, the sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea.
Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to the road before me, I saw a
heavily-laden waggon labouring up the hill, and not far beyond were
two cows and their drover. Human life and human labour were near.
I must struggle on: strive to live and bend to toil like the rest.
About two o'clock p.m. I entered the village. At the bottom of its
one street there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the
window. I coveted a cake of bread. With that refreshment I could
perhaps regain a degree of energy: without it, it would be
difficult to proceed. The wish to have some strength and some
vigour returned to me as soon as I was amongst my fellow-beings. I
felt it would be degrading to faint with hunger on the causeway of a
hamlet. Had I nothing about me I could offer in exchange for one of
these rolls? I considered. I had a small silk handkerchief tied
round my throat; I had my gloves. I could hardly tell how men and
women in extremities of destitution proceeded. I did not know
whether either of these articles would be accepted: probably they
would not; but I must try.
I entered the shop: a woman was there. Seeing a respectably-
dressed person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with
civility. How could she serve me? I was seized with shame: my
tongue would not utter the request I had prepared. I dared not
offer her the half-worn gloves, the creased handkerchief: besides,
I felt it would be absurd. I only begged permission to sit down a
moment, as I was tired. Disappointed in the expectation of a
customer, she coolly acceded to my request. She pointed to a seat;
I sank into it. I felt sorely urged to weep; but conscious how
unseasonable such a manifestation would be, I restrained it. Soon I
asked her "if there were any dressmaker or plain-workwoman in the
village?"
"Yes; two or three. Quite as many as there was employment for."
I reflected. I was driven to the point now. I was brought face to
face with Necessity. I stood in the position of one without a
resource, without a friend, without a coin. I must do something.
What? I must apply somewhere. Where?
"Did she know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant was
wanted?"
"Nay; she couldn't say."
"What was the chief trade in this place? What did most of the
people do?"
"Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver's
needle-factory, and at the foundry."
"Did Mr. Oliver employ women?"
"Nay; it was men's work."
"And what do the women do?"
"I knawn't," was the answer. "Some does one thing, and some
another. Poor folk mun get on as they can."
She seemed to be tired of my questions: and, indeed, what claim had
I to importune her? A neighbour or two came in; my chair was
evidently wanted. I took leave.
I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to the
right hand and to the left; but I could discover no pretext, nor see
an inducement to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet, going
sometimes to a little distance and returning again, for an hour or
more. Much exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of food, I
turned aside into a lane and sat down under the hedge. Ere many
minutes had elapsed, I was again on my feet, however, and again
searching something--a resource, or at least an informant. A pretty
little house stood at the top of the lane, with a garden before it,
exquisitely neat and brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it. What
business had I to approach the white door or touch the glittering
knocker? In what way could it possibly be the interest of the
inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me? Yet I drew near and
knocked. A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young woman opened the
door. In such a voice as might be expected from a hopeless heart
and fainting frame--a voice wretchedly low and faltering--I asked if
a servant was wanted here?
"No," said she; "we do not keep a servant."
"Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?" I
continued. "I am a stranger, without acquaintance in this place. I
want some work: no matter what."
But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for
me: besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must have appeared my
character, position, tale. She shook her head, she "was sorry she
could give me no information," and the white door closed, quite
gently and civilly: but it shut me out. If she had held it open a
little longer, I believe I should have begged a piece of bread; for
I was now brought low.
I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no
prospect of aid was visible. I should have longed rather to deviate
to a wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to
offer inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with
nature's cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there
was a chance of food. Solitude would be no solitude--rest no rest--
while the vulture, hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side.
I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I
wandered away: always repelled by the consciousness of having no
claim to ask--no right to expect interest in my isolated lot.
Meantime, the afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a
lost and starving dog. In crossing a field, I saw the church spire
before me: I hastened towards it. Near the churchyard, and in the
middle of a garden, stood a well-built though small house, which I
had no doubt was the parsonage. I remembered that strangers who
arrive at a place where they have no friends, and who want
employment, sometimes apply to the clergyman for introduction and
aid. It is the clergyman's function to help--at least with advice--
those who wished to help themselves. I seemed to have something
like a right to seek counsel here. Renewing then my courage, and
gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed on. I reached the
house, and knocked at the kitchen-door. An old woman opened: I
asked was this the parsonage?
"Yes."
"Was the clergyman in?"
"No."
"Would he be in soon?"
"No, he was gone from home."
"To a distance?"
"Not so far--happen three mile. He had been called away by the
sudden death of his father: he was at Marsh End now, and would very
likely stay there a fortnight longer."
"Was there any lady of the house?"
"Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper;" and of
her, reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I
was sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away.
Once more I took off my handkerchief--once more I thought of the
cakes of bread in the little shop. Oh, for but a crust! for but one
mouthful to allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my
face again to the village; I found the shop again, and I went in;
and though others were there besides the woman I ventured the
request--"Would she give me a roll for this handkerchief?"
She looked at me with evident suspicion: "Nay, she never sold stuff
i' that way."
Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused. "How
could she tell where I had got the handkerchief?" she said.
"Would she take my gloves?"
"No! what could she do with them?"
Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say
there is enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but
at this day I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I
allude: the moral degradation, blent with the physical suffering,
form too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on.
I blamed none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to
be expected, and what could not be helped: an ordinary beggar is
frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably
so. To be sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business
was it to provide me with employment? Not, certainly, that of
persons who saw me then for the first time, and who knew nothing
about my character. And as to the woman who would not take my
handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the
offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me
condense now. I am sick of the subject.
A little before dark I passed a farm-house, at the open door of
which the farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese.
I stopped and said -
"Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry." He cast
on me a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick
slice from his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think
I was a beggar, but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a
fancy to his brown loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his
house, I sat down and ate it.
I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the
wood I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my rest
broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders
passed near me more than once, and I had again and again to change
my quarters; no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me.
Towards morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet.
Do not ask me, reader, to give a minute account of that day; as
before, I sought work; as before, I was repulsed; as before, I
starved; but once did food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage I
saw a little girl about to throw a mess of cold porridge into a pig
trough. "Will you give me that?" I asked.
She stared at me. "Mother!" she exclaimed, "there is a woman wants
me to give her these porridge."
"Well lass," replied a voice within, "give it her if she's a beggar.
T pig doesn't want it."
The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it
ravenously.
As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path,
which I had been pursuing an hour or more.
"My strength is quite failing me," I said in a soliloquy. "I feel I
cannot go much farther. Shall I be an outcast again this night?
While the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched
ground? I fear I cannot do otherwise: for who will receive me?
But it will be very dreadful, with this feeling of hunger,
faintness, chill, and this sense of desolation--this total
prostration of hope. In all likelihood, though, I should die before
morning. And why cannot I reconcile myself to the prospect of
death? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life? Because I
know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is living: and then, to die of want
and cold is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively. Oh,
Providence! sustain me a little longer! Aid!--direct me!"
My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape. I saw I
had strayed far from the village: it was quite out of sight. The
very cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by cross-
ways and by-paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and
now, only a few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the heath
from which they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the
dusky hill.
"Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a frequented
road," I reflected. "And far better that crows and ravens--if any
ravens there be in these regions--should pick my flesh from my
bones, than that they should be prisoned in a workhouse coffin and
moulder in a pauper's grave."
To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It remained now only to
find a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden, if
not secure. But all the surface of the waste looked level. It
showed no variation but of tint: green, where rush and moss
overgrew the marshes; black, where the dry soil bore only heath.
Dark as it was getting, I could still see these changes, though but
as mere alternations of light and shade; for colour had faded with
the daylight.
My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge,
vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in
among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. "That is an
ignis fatuus," was my first thought; and I expected it would soon
vanish. It burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor
advancing. "Is it, then, a bonfire just kindled?" I questioned. I
watched to see whether it would spread: but no; as it did not
diminish, so it did not enlarge. "It may be a candle in a house," I
then conjectured; "but if so, I can never reach it. It is much too
far away: and were it within a yard of me, what would it avail? I
should but knock at the door to have it shut in my face."
And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the ground.
I lay still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and over
me, and died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me
afresh to the skin. Could I but have stiffened to the still frost--
the friendly numbness of death--it might have pelted on; I should
not have felt it; but my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling
influence. I rose ere long.
The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain.
I tried to walk again: I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards
it. It led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would
have been impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even
now, in the height of summer. Here I fell twice; but as often I
rose and rallied my faculties. This light was my forlorn hope: I
must gain it.
Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor. I
approached it; it was a road or a track: it led straight up to the
light, which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of
trees--firs, apparently, from what I could distinguish of the
character of their forms and foliage through the gloom. My star
vanished as I drew near: some obstacle had intervened between me
and it. I put out my hand to feel the dark mass before me: I
discriminated the rough stones of a low wall--above it, something
like palisades, and within, a high and prickly hedge. I groped on.
Again a whitish object gleamed before me: it was a gate--a wicket;
it moved on its hinges as I touched it. On each side stood a sable
bush-holly or yew.
Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house
rose to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light
shone nowhere. All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to
rest? I feared it must be so. In seeking the door, I turned an
angle: there shot out the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged
panes of a very small latticed window, within a foot of the ground,
made still smaller by the growth of ivy or some other creeping
plant, whose leaves clustered thick over the portion of the house
wall in which it was set. The aperture was so screened and narrow,
that curtain or shutter had been deemed unnecessary; and when I
stooped down and put aside the spray of foliage shooting over it, I
could see all within. I could see clearly a room with a sanded
floor, clean scoured; a dresser of walnut, with pewter plates ranged
in rows, reflecting the redness and radiance of a glowing peat-fire.
I could see a clock, a white deal table, some chairs. The candle,
whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on the table; and by its light
an elderly woman, somewhat rough-looking, but scrupulously clean,
like all about her, was knitting a stocking.
I noticed these objects cursorily only--in them there was nothing
extraordinary. A group of more interest appeared near the hearth,
sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two
young, graceful women--ladies in every point--sat, one in a low
rocking-chair, the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning
of crape and bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very
fair necks and faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive
head on the knee of one girl--in the lap of the other was cushioned
a black cat.
A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who
were they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at
the table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy
and cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet,
as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I
cannot call them handsome--they were too pale and grave for the
word: as they each bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost
to severity. A stand between them supported a second candle and two
great volumes, to which they frequently referred, comparing them,
seemingly, with the smaller books they held in their hands, like
people consulting a dictionary to aid them in the task of
translation. This scene was as silent as if all the figures had
been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so hushed was it,
I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock tick in its
obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the click-
click of the woman's knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice
broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me.
"Listen, Diana," said one of the absorbed students; "Franz and old
Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream
from which he has awakened in terror--listen!" And in a low voice
she read something, of which not one word was intelligible to me;
for it was in an unknown tongue--neither French nor Latin. Whether
it were Greek or German I could not tell.
"That is strong," she said, when she had finished: "I relish it."
The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister,
repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read.
At a later day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will
here quote the line: though, when I first heard it, it was only
like a stroke on sounding brass to me--conveying no meaning:-
"'Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.' Good!
good!" she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. "There
you have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line
is worth a hundred pages of fustian. 'Ich wage die Gedanken in der
Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.'
I like it!"
Both were again silent.
"Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?" asked the old
woman, looking up from her knitting.
"Yes, Hannah--a far larger country than England, where they talk in
no other way."
"Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t' one
t'other: and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they
said, I guess?"
"We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all--
for we are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don't speak
German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us."
"And what good does it do you?"
"We mean to teach it some time--or at least the elements, as they
say; and then we shall get more money than we do now."
"Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for to-
night."
"I think we have: at least I'm tired. Mary, are you?"
"Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language
with no master but a lexicon."
"It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious
Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home."
"Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a
little gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah:
will you have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?"
The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a
passage: soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she
presently came back.
"Ah, childer!" said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond' room
now: it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a
corner."
She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before,
looked sad now.
"But he is in a better place," continued Hannah: "we shouldn't wish
him here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor
he had."
"You say he never mentioned us?" inquired one of the ladies.
"He hadn't time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father.
He had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify;
and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be sent
for, he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a
heaviness in his head the next day--that is, a fortnight sin'--and
he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a'most stark when your
brother went into t' chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that's t'
last o' t' old stock--for ye and Mr. St. John is like of different
soart to them 'at's gone; for all your mother wor mich i' your way,
and a'most as book-learned. She wor the pictur' o' ye, Mary: Diana
is more like your father."
I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant
(for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were
fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of
distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade
darker than the other, and there was a difference in their style of
wearing it; Mary's pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth:
Diana's duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls. The
clock struck ten.
"Ye'll want your supper, I am sure," observed Hannah; "and so will
Mr. St. John when he comes in."
And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed
about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so
intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation had
excited in me so keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own
wretched position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more
desperate than ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible
did it appear to touch the inmates of this house with concern on my
behalf; to make them believe in the truth of my wants and woes--to
induce them to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As I groped out
the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to
be a mere chimera. Hannah opened.
"What do you want?" she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she
surveyed me by the light of the candle she held.
"May I speak to your mistresses?" I said.
"You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you
come from?"
"I am a stranger."
"What is your business here at this hour?"
"I want a night's shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel
of bread to eat."
Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face.
"I'll give you a piece of bread," she said, after a pause; "but we
can't take in a vagrant to lodge. It isn't likely."
"Do let me speak to your mistresses."
"No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving
about now; it looks very ill."
"But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?"
"Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you
don't do wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go--"
"A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther.
Don't shut the door:- oh, don't, for God's sake!"
"I must; the rain is driving in--"
"Tell the young ladies. Let me see them- "
"Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you
wouldn't make such a noise. Move off."
"But I must die if I am turned away."
"Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring you
about folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any followers-
-housebreakers or such like--anywhere near, you may tell them we are
not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and
guns." Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to
and bolted it within.
This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering--a throe of true
despair--rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not
another step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned--
I wrung my hands--I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of
death! Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this
isolation--this banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of
hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone--at least for a moment;
but the last I soon endeavoured to regain.
"I can but die," I said, "and I believe in God. Let me try to wait
His will in silence."
These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all
my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain
there--dumb and still.
"All men must die," said a voice quite close at hand; "but all are
not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours
would be if you perished here of want."
"Who or what speaks?" I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound,
and incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A
form was near--what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled
vision prevented me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock,
the new-comer appealed to the door.
"Is it you, Mr. St. John?" cried Hannah.
"Yes--yes; open quickly."
"Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is!
Come in--your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe
there are bad folks about. There has been a beggar-woman--I declare
she is not gone yet!--laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move
off, I say!"
"Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done
your duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was
near, and listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar
case--I must at least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass
before me into the house."
With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean,
bright kitchen--on the very hearth--trembling, sickening; conscious
of an aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten.
The two ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were
all gazing at me.
"St. John, who is it?" I heard one ask.
"I cannot tell: I found her at the door," was the reply.
"She does look white," said Hannah.
"As white as clay or death," was responded. "She will fall: let
her sit."
And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I
still possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak.
"Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some. But
she is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!"
"A mere spectre!"
"Is she ill, or only famished?"
"Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece
of bread."
Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me
and the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in
milk, and put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there
was pity in it, and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In
her simple words, too, the same balm-like emotion spoke: "Try to
eat."
"Yes--try," repeated Mary gently; and Mary's hand removed my sodden
bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me: feebly
at first, eagerly soon.
"Not too much at first--restrain her," said the brother; "she has
had enough." And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of
bread.
"A little more, St. John--look at the avidity in her eyes."
"No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now--ask her her
name."
I felt I could speak, and I answered--"My name is Jane Elliott."
Anxious as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume
an ALIAS.
"And where do you live? Where are your friends?"
I was silent.
"Can we send for any one you know?"
I shook my head.
"What account can you give of yourself?"
Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house,
and once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer
outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put
off the mendicant--to resume my natural manner and character. I
began once more to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an
account--which at present I was far too weak to render--I said after
a brief pause -
"Sir, I can give you no details to-night."
"But what, then," said he, "do you expect me to do for you?"
"Nothing," I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers.
Diana took the word -
"Do you mean," she asked, "that we have now given you what aid you
require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy
night?"
I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance,
instinct both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage.
Answering her compassionate gate with a smile, I said--"I will trust
you. If I were a masterless and stray dog, I know that you would
not turn me from your hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no
fear. Do with me and for me as you like; but excuse me from much
discourse--my breath is short--I feel a spasm when I speak." All
three surveyed me, and all three were silent.
"Hannah," said Mr. St. John, at last, "let her sit there at present,
and ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the
remainder of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into
the parlour and talk the matter over."
They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned--I could not
tell which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat
by the genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to
Hannah. Ere long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a
staircase; my dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed
received me. I thanked God--experienced amidst unutterable
exhaustion a glow of grateful joy--and slept.