No More Learning

"

"It would to obey you. "

A wild look raised his brows--crossed his features: he rose; but he
forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I
shook, I feared--but I resolved.

"One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are
gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left? For
a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer me to some
corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for a
companion and for some hope? "

"Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet
again there. "

"Then you will not yield? "

"No. "

"Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed? " His voice
rose.

"I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil. "

"Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on lust
for a passion--vice for an occupation? "

"Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for
myself. We were born to strive and endure--you as well as I: do so. You
will forget me before I forget you. "

"You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I declared I
could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change soon. And what a
distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in your ideas, is proved
by your conduct! Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than
to transgress a mere human law, no man being injured by the breach? for
you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend
by living with me? "

This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned
traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They
spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. "Oh,
comply! " it said. "Think of his misery; think of his danger--look at his
state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the
recklessness following on despair--soothe him; save him; love him; tell
him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for _you_? or
who will be injured by what you do? "

Still indomitable was the reply--"_I_ care for myself. The more
solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will
respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I
will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not
mad--as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there
is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul
rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they
shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would
be their worth? They have a worth--so I have always believed; and if I
cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane--quite insane: with my
veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its
throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have
at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot. "

I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so. His
fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment,
whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped my
waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance: physically, I
felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the draught and glow
of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the
certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an
interpreter--often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter--in
the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I
gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and my over-taxed
strength almost exhausted.

"Never," said he, as he ground his teeth, "never was anything at once so
frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand! " (And he
shook me with the force of his hold. ) "I could bend her with my finger
and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed
her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing looking
out of it, defying me, with more than courage--with a stern triumph.
Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it--the savage, beautiful
creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only
let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmate
would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay
dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit--with will and energy, and virtue
and purity--that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself you
could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you would:
seized against your will, you will elude the grasp like an essence--you
will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come! "

As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at me.
The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only an idiot,
however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled his fury; I
must elude his sorrow: I retired to the door.

"You are going, Jane? "

"I am going, sir. "

"You are leaving me? "

"Yes. "

"You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep
love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you? "

What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to reiterate
firmly, "I am going. "

"Jane! "

"Mr. Rochester! "

"Withdraw, then,--I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish.
Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a
glance on my sufferings--think of me. "

He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. "Oh, Jane! my
hope--my love--my life! " broke in anguish from his lips. Then came a
deep, strong sob.

I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back--walked back as
determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him; I turned his face
from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his hair with my
hand.

"God bless you, my dear master! " I said. "God keep you from harm and
wrong--direct you, solace you--reward you well for your past kindness to
me. "

"Little Jane's love would have been my best reward," he answered;
"without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love:
yes--nobly, generously. "

Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes;
erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace, and at
once quitted the room.

"Farewell! " was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added,
"Farewell for ever! "

* * * * *

That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as soon as
I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the scenes of
childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that the night
was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The light that long
ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this vision, seemed glidingly
to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of the obscured
ceiling. I lifted up my head to look: the roof resolved to clouds, high
and dim; the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours she is about
to sever. I watched her come--watched with the strangest anticipation;
as though some word of doom were to be written on her disk. She broke
forth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first penetrated the
sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a white human form
shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and
gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone,
yet so near, it whispered in my heart--

"My daughter, flee temptation. "

"Mother, I will. "

So I answered after I had waked from the trance-like dream. It was yet
night, but July nights are short: soon after midnight, dawn comes. "It
cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil," thought I. I
rose: I was dressed; for I had taken off nothing but my shoes. I knew
where to find in my drawers some linen, a locket, a ring. In seeking
these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr. Rochester
had forced me to accept a few days ago. I left that; it was not mine: it
was the visionary bride's who had melted in air. The other articles I
made up in a parcel; my purse, containing twenty shillings (it was all I
had), I put in my pocket: I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl,
took the parcel and my slippers, which I would not put on yet, and stole
from my room.

"Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax! " I whispered, as I glided past her door.
"Farewell, my darling Adele! " I said, as I glanced towards the nursery.
No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I had to
deceive a fine ear: for aught I knew it might now be listening.

I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause; but my
heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced
to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was walking restlessly from
wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I listened. There was
a heaven--a temporary heaven--in this room for me, if I chose: I had but
to go in and to say--

"Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till
death," and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of
this.

That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with impatience
for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be gone. He
would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself forsaken; his
love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow desperate. I thought of
this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I caught it back, and glided
on.

Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and I did it
mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the kitchen; I
sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the lock.
I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I should have to walk
far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must not break down. All
this I did without one sound. I opened the door, passed out, shut it
softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard. The great gates were closed and
locked; but a wicket in one of them was only latched. Through that I
departed: it, too, I shut; and now I was out of Thornfield.

A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the contrary
direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, but often noticed,
and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps. No reflection was to
be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward.
Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The
first was a page so heavenly sweet--so deadly sad--that to read one line
of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was
an awful blank: something like the world when the deluge was gone by.

I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. I believe it
was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had put on when I
left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked neither to rising
sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is taken out to pass
through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that
smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge; of the disseverment of
bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I thought of drear
flight and homeless wandering--and oh! with agony I thought of what I
left. I could not help it. I thought of him now--in his room--watching
the sunrise; hoping I should soon come to say I would stay with him and
be his. I longed to be his; I panted to return: it was not too late; I
could yet spare him the bitter pang of bereavement. As yet my flight, I
was sure, was undiscovered. I could go back and be his comforter--his
pride; his redeemer from misery, perhaps from ruin. Oh, that fear of his
self-abandonment--far worse than my abandonment--how it goaded me! It
was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract
it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it farther in. Birds began
singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their mates; birds
were emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of my pain of heart and
frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself. I had no solace from
self-approbation: none even from self-respect. I had
injured--wounded--left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. Still I
could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me on. As to my
own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one and stifled
the other. I was weeping wildly as I walked along my solitary way: fast,
fast I went like one delirious. A weakness, beginning inwardly,
extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell: I lay on the ground some
minutes, pressing my face to the wet turf. I had some fear--or hope--that
here I should die: but I was soon up; crawling forwards on my hands and
knees, and then again raised to my feet--as eager and as determined as
ever to reach the road.

When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge; and
while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood up and
lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going: the driver named
a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had no
connections. I asked for what sum he would take me there; he said thirty
shillings; I answered I had but twenty; well, he would try to make it do.
He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the vehicle was
empty: I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way.

Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never
shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May
you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in
that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the
instrument of evil to what you wholly love.




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 heat 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.

{I said my evening prayers: p311. jpg}

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.

{"Will you give me that? " I asked: p316. jpg}

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!