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when cold charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging:
reluctant sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before
my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved!
I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of
the summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star
twinkled just above the chasm ridge. The day fell, but with propitious
softness; no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good;
I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could
anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with
filial fondness. To-night, at least, I would be her guest, as I was
her child: my mother would lodge me without money and without price. I
had one morsel of bread yet: the remnant of a roll I had bought in a
town we passed through at noon with a stray penny- my last coin. I saw
ripe bilberries gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the
heath: I gathered a handful and ate them with the bread. My hunger,
sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased by this hermit's meal. I
said my evening prayers at its conclusion, and then chose my couch.
Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet
were buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow
space for the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and
spread it over me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow.
Thus lodged, I was not, at least at the commencement of the night,
cold.
My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it.
It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven
chords. It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him
with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and,
impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its
shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.
Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night
was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too
serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is
everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are
on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded
night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read
clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had
risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with
tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-way. Remembering what it was-
what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light- I
felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to
save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should
perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to
thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits.
Mr. Rochester was safe: he was God's, and by God would he be
guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long in