CHAPTER XXVIII 406
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 .