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.




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