CHAPTER XXVII 405
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 .