CHAPTER XXVIII 415
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 this 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 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 .