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.