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 farmhouse, 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 hands 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
