简爱英文版

              Chapter 34

  IT was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of general holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their affection plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place in their unsophisticated hearts: I promised them that never a week should pass in future that I did not visit them, and give them an hour's teaching in their school.

  Mr Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some halfdozen of my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest, and wellinformed young women as could be found in the ranks of the British peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for, after all, the British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most self- respecting of any in Europe: since those days I have seen paysannes and Baucrinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton girls.

  'Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?' asked Mr Rivers, when they were gone. 'Does not the consciousness of having done some real good in your day and generation give pleasure?'

  'Doubtless.'

  'And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the task of regenerating your race be well spent?'

  'Yes, ' I said; 'but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy my own faculties as well as to cultivate those of other people. I must enjoy them now; don't recall either my mind or body to the school — I am out of it and disposed for full holiday.'

  He looked grave. 'What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince? What are you going to do?'

  'To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you.'

  'Do you want her?'

  'Yes; to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a week, and I want to have everything in order against their arrival.'

  'I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It is better so: Hannah shall go with you.'

  'Tell her to be ready by to-morrow then; and here is the schoolroom key: I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning.'

  He took it. 'You give it up very gleefully, ' said he; 'I don't quite understand your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life have you now?'

  'My first aim will be to clean down (do you comprehend the full force of the expression? ) — to clean down Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to rub it up with beeswax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision, afterwards I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince pies, and solemnizing of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come.'

  St John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied.

  'It is all very well for the present, ' said he; 'but seriously, I trust when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little higher than domestic endearments and household joys.'

  'The best thing the world has!' I interrupted.

  'No, Jane, no; this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt to make it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful.'

  'I mean, on the contrary, to be busy.'

  'Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months' grace I allow you for the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with this late-found charm of relationship; but then, I hope you will begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society and the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilized affluence. I hope your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength.'

  I looked at him with surprise. 'St John, ' I said, 'I think you are almost wicked to talk so. l am disposed to be as content as a queen, and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?'

  'To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously — I warn you of that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you throw yourself into commonplace home pleasure. Don't cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?'

  'Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause to be happy, and I will be happy. Good- bye!'

  Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house turned topsy-turvey — how I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook. And really, after a day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken a journey to S — to purchase some new furniture: my cousins having given me carte blanche to effect what alterations I pleased; and a sum having been set aside for that purpose. The ordinary sitting- room and bedrooms I left much as they were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still some novelty was necessary, to give to their return the piquancy with which I wished it to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and dressing-cases, for the toilet-tables, answered the end: they looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model of bright modest snugness within as it was, at this season, a specimen of wintry waste and desert dreariness without.

  The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below, the kitchen was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in readiness.

  St John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the house till everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its walls, sufficed to scare him to estrangement. He found me in the kitchen, watching the progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking. Approaching the hearth, he asked, 'If I was at last satisfied with housemaid's work?' I answered by inviting him to accompany me on a general inspection of the result of my labours. With some difficulty, I got him to make the tour of the house. He just looked in at the doors I opened; and when he had wandered upstairs and downstairs, he said I must have gone through a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected such considerable changes in so short a time: but not a syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the improved aspect of his abode.

  This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed some old associations he valued. I inquired whether this was the case, no doubt in a somewhat crestfallen tone.

  'Not at all, he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously respected every association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed more thought on the matter than it was worth. How many minutes, for instance, had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this very room? By the by, could I tell him where such a book was?'

  I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and withdrawing to his accustomed window recess, he began to read it.

  Now, I did not like this, reader. St John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him-its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire-after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone — at his fine lineaments fixed in study — I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love for Miss Oliver, I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducing permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes — Christian and Pagan — her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place.

  'This parlour is not his sphere, ' I reflected: 'the Himalayan ridge, or Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp, would suit him better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his element: there his faculties stagnate — they cannot develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife and danger — where courage is proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked — that he will speak and move, the leader and superior. A merry child would have the advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a missionary career — I see it now.'

  'They are coming! They are coming!' cried Hannah, throwing open the parlour door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran. It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened the door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped out. In a minute I had my face under their bonnets in contact first with Mary's soft cheek, then with Diana's flowing curls. They laughed — kissed me — then Hannah: patted Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked eagerly if all was well; and being assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house.

  They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah brought in the boxes, they demanded St John. At this moment he advanced from the parlour. They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave each one a quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a while to be talked to, and then, intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.

  I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed me. They were delighted with the renovation and decorations of their rooms; with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and richtinted china vases: they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I had the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly, and that what I had done added a vivid charm to their joyous return home.

  Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St John's taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathize. The event of the day — that is, the return of Diana and Mary — pleased him; but the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee of reception, irked him: I saw he wished the calmer morrow was come. In the very meridian of the night's enjoyment, about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered with the intimation that 'a poor lad was come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr Rivers to see his mother, who was drawing away.

  'Where does she live, Hannah?'

  'Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and moss all the way.'

  'Tell him I will go.'

  'I'm sure, sir, you had better not. It's the worst road to travel after dark that can be: there's no track at all over the bog. And then it is such a bitter night — the keenest wind you ever felt. You had better send word, sir, that you will be there in the morning.'

  But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o'clock: he did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was: but he looked happier than when he set out. He had performed an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and deny, and was on better terms with himself.

  I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a sort of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary's spirits like some life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning till noon, and from noon till night. They could always talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything else. St John did not rebuke our vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was seldom in the house; his parish was large, the population scattered, and he found daily business in visiting the sick and poor in its different districts.

  One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some minutes, asked him, ' If his plans were yet unchanged?'

  'Unchanged and unchangeable, 'was the reply. And he proceeded to inform us that his departure from England was now definitely fixed for the ensuing year.

  'And Rosamond Oliver? 'suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her lips involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a gesture as if wishing to recall them. St John had a book in his hand — it was his unsocial custom to read at meals — he dosed it, and looked up.

  'Rosamond Oliver, 'said he, ' is about to be married to Mr Granby, one of the best connected and most estimable residents in S — , grandson and heir to Sir Frederic Granby: I had the intelligence from her father yesterday.'

  His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at him: he was serene as glass.

  'The match must have been got up hastily, 'said Diana: ' they cannot have known each other long.'

  'But two months: they met in October at the county ball at S — . But where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where the connexion is in every point desirable, delays are unnecessary; they will be married as soon as S — Place, which Sir Frederic gives up to them, can be refitted for their reception.'

  The first time I found St John alone after this communication, I felt tempted to inquire if the event distressed him; but he seemed so little to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing to offer him more, I experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had already hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him: his reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed beneath it. He had not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters; he continually made little chilling differences between us, which did not at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short, now that I was acknowledged his kinswoman and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the distance between us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been admitted to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.

  Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said

  'You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won.'

  Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a moment's hesitation, I answered —

  'But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin you?'

  'I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall never be called upon to contend for such another. The event of the conflict is decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!' So saying he returned to his papers and his silence.

  As our mutual happiness (i. e. Diana's, Mary's, and mine) settled into a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and regular studies, St John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the same room sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course of encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own — that of some eastern tongue, the acquisition of which he thought necessary to his plans.

  Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet, and absorbed enough: but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish-looking grammar, and wandering ever, and sometimes fixing upon us, his fellow- students, with a curious intensity of observation: if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what it meant: I wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment, namely, my weekly visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled when, if the day was unfavourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind, and his sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of their solicitude, and encourage me to accomplish the task without regard to the elements.

  'Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her, 'he would say: 'she can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of us. Her constitution is both sound and elastic; better calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust.'

  And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little weather-beaten, I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him: on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse was a special annoyance.

  One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really had a cold. His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exchanged a translation for an exercise, I happened to look his way: there I found myself under the influence of the ever- watchful blue eye. How long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I cannot tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious — as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny.

  'Jane, what are you doing?'

  'Learning German.'

  'I want you to give up German and learn Hindustani.'

  'You are not in earnest?'

  'In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why.'

  He then went on to explain that Hindustani was the language he was himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements, and so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do him this favour? I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his departure.

  St John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent. I consented. When Diana and Mary returned, the former found her scholar transferred from her to her brother: she laughed, and both she and Mary agreed that St John should never have persuaded them to such a step. He answered quietly —

  'I know it.'

  I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master: he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation. By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said 'go', I went; 'come', I came; 'do this', I did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.

  One evening, when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicsome humour (she was not painfully controlled by his will; for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed —

  'St John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don't treat her as such: you should kiss her too.'

  She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly — he kissed me. There are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin's salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted the ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent it, seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm.

  As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, l felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes the sea- blue tint and solemn lustre of his own.

  Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of late it had been easy enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat at my heart and drained my happiness at its source — the evil of suspense.

  Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr Rochester, reader, amidst these changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse, nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving to know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at Morton, I re-entered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now at Moor House, I sought my bedroom each night to brood over it.

  In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr Briggs about the will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr Rochester's present residence and state of health; but as St John had conjectured, he was quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs Fairfax, entreating information on the subject. I had calculated with ccrtainty on this step answering my end: I felt sure it would elicit an early answer. I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but when two months wore away, and day after day the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety.

  I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed. Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed.

  A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer opproached; Diana tried to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and wished to accompany me to the seaside. This St John opposed; he said I did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindustani, and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him — I could not resist him.

  One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had told me in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take it, almost certain that the long-looked-for tidings were vouchsafed me at last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr Briggs on business. The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again.

  St John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice failed me: words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of the parlour: Diana was practising her music in the drawingroom, Mary was gardening — it was a very fine May day, clear, sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said —

  'We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed.' And while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his desk, and looking like a physician watching with the eye of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient's malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something about not being very well that morning, I resumed my task, and succeeded in completing it. St John put away my books and his, locked his desk, and said —

  'Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me.'

  'I will call Diana and Mary.'

  'No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put on your things; go out by the kitchen door: take the road towards the head of Marsh Glen: I will join you in a moment.'

  I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St John's directions; and in ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side with him.

 

  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 was 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 the 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 bypaths, 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 death. 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 dearly 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 rays 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 rockingchair, 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 sometime — or at least, 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 tonight.'

  'I think we have: at least I am 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 with 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 the 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 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 of you 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 then 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 outhouse 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 to?'

  '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 feared you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about folks' 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 that 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 but for 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 gaze 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 bread and milk. 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.