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.