Then, snatching up her girl's bonnet, she bustled away to look after her evening's milking; roughly refusing to hearken to any sort of explanation from Juliet, and saying that she never knew any good come of listening to talking; which was no better than idling away time.
Juliet remained confounded; while the tender old cottager shed tears, saying that she had never before had so pretty a companion in her life. But Juliet would not tempt the good woman to defy the persons upon whom her children chiefly depended; and, once more, therefore, she was reduced to make up her little packet.
She entreated of the cottager that, if a letter came for her to the farm, it might be kept till she sent her direction; then doubled the pay of all that she owed for board and lodging; and, kindly taking leave of the old dame, who wept bitterly at the parting; quitted the cottage; and again, in search of a new asylum, became a Wanderer.
Which way to turn, she made no enquiry, wholly ignorant what choice might bring security.
It was the end of August, and still not more than six o'clock in the afternoon. She avoided the high road, in the fear of some unfortunate encounter, and went down a pleasant looking lane; purposing to proceed as far, and as fast, as she could go, while it was yet light; and then to enter some new humble dwelling.
The evening was serene and warm, and occasional openings, through the hedges on either side, presented views so picturesque, that, had her mind been more at ease, they would have rendered her walk delightful.
She crossed various corn-fields, and beautiful meadows; but met with no cottage from which some lounging labourer did not frighten her; till, at length, overtaken by the dusk of the evening, she was fain to turn back, and seek, with whatever apprehension, some lodging, for the night, upon the public road.
But to do this was no longer easy. She mistook what she thought was her direction, and, instead of arriving at the road, found herself upon a broad, open, dreary heath.
She endeavoured to discover the track of some carriage, and succeeded; and followed the mark, till she thought that she perceived a cottage.
She hastened towards it, with all the speed that her wearied limbs would permit; but the expected habitation proved merely a group of Pollards.
She would then have recovered the wheel-track; but the moon became suddenly clouded, a general darkness overspread the face of the country around, and she could discover no kind of path.
She now grew apprehensive that she should pass the night in the open air; with not a human being within hearing, nor any house, nor any succour within reach. What she might have to dread she knew not; but, in a situation so wildly solitary, the very ignorance of what there might be to fear, was intimidating, nay, awful.
The darkness encreased; cautiously and slowly she went on; starting at every breeze, and in continual terrour of meeting some unknown mischief.
She wandered thus for some hours, now sinking into marshy ground, now wounded by rude stones, now upon a soft, smooth plain, and now stung or torn by bushes, nettles, and briars; till she concluded it to be about midnight. A light wind then arose, the clouds were dispersed; and the moon, which, though upon the wane, afforded a gentle, melancholy light, shewed her that she was once again in the midst of the New Forest.
Few sights could have been less welcome; what already she had suffered, and, far more, what she had apprehended, filled her with terrour; and her imagination was fearfully at work, now to bring her to the hut which she had so suspiciously fled; now to the encounter of disorderly young assailants, with no Dash for her protection; now to the attack of lurking thieves, and strolling vagabonds; and now to the danger of being bewildered and lost in the mazes of the Forest.
The last of these evils soon ceased to be a mere phantasm of fear; the wind no sooner was calmed than the moon again was obscured, and all around her was darker, and therefore more tremendous than ever.
She continued to move on, though without knowing whether she were advancing or retrograding. But, ere long, her walk became embarrassed and difficult; her progress was every way obstructed; and her retreat at the same time impeded; and she found herself in a thick wood, of which the deep hanging boughs continually annoyed her face and her limbs; while the unscythed grass, the growth of ages, entangled her feet, and made every step a labour.
Wearied and dejected, she leaned against a tree, and determined to make no further attempt to proceed, till some gleam of dawn should direct her way.
She had not remained long in this position of despondence, ere she discerned, through the trees, at a considerable distance, a dim light.
She concluded that this must proceed from some dwelling; and, feeling instantly revived, re-commenced her journey: yet, presently, she stopt and hesitated, – it might emit from the hut! In the dead of the night there was little probability that any common cottagers would require a light.
Discomfited, discouraged, she again leaned against a tree.
Yet some one might be ill; and the chamber of sickness and danger could no more, in the cottage, than in the palace, be consigned to darkness. She determined, therefore, to approach the spot, and, at break of day, to examine the premises; certain she could not ever mistake, or ever forget, the situation of the hut.
She went forward.
The light, in a few moments, disappeared; but she was not, therefore, led to consider it as a Will with the Wisp, to beguile her to some illusion; for, ere it vanished, it displayed, in passing sideways, a view of a cottage double or treble the length of the dreaded hut.
This was a sight truly consoling; yet, though it happily removed the most terrible of her fears, it awakened new perplexity. The light had been evidently without doors: the suggestion, therefore, of a sick chamber proved unfounded. Yet what, in the middle of the night, could replace it, that was natural, and free from suspicion of evil?
Nevertheless, she moved on; seeking to guide herself by the recollection of the spot which she had transiently seen; till she was startled by a murmuring of human voices.
But for the alarm left upon her mind, by the adventure of the hut, and the pursuit of the wood-cutters, this would have been a sound in which her ears would have rejoiced, as the fore-runner of succour and of safety; for, till then, she had always connected the idea of rusticity with innocence, and of rural life with felicity. But now, she had fatally learnt, that no class, and no station, appropriatively merit trust; and that the poor, like the rich, the humble, like the proud, can only by principle be worthy of confidence: whether that principle be the happy inherent growth of favouring Providence; or the fruit of religion, and cultivated virtue.
But fear and incertitude, though they slackened, did not long stop her progress: the terrour of her lonely situation pointed out to her, indeed, the danger of falling into evil hands; yet peremptorily, at the same time, urged her to seek almost any protection, that might rescue her from the vague horrours of this dark and tremendous solitude. It was, at least, possible that these might be the voices of some unfortunate travellers, belated, or lost, like herself, in the Forest. On, therefore, she glided, till she distinguished three different tones, all of which were male, but none of which sounded either youthful or gay. They spoke so low, that not a word reached her ears; nor could she have caught even a sound, but for the total stillness of the air. That they spoke in whispers, therefore, was certain: Was it from fear? Was it from guilt?
The doubt sufficed to check all project of addressing them; but, as she meant to retreat, she trod upon a broken bough of a tree, which made a crackling noise under her feet, that, she had reason to believe, was heard by the interlocutors, as it was followed by profound silence.
She was now forced to remain immovable; for she felt herself entangled in some of the branches of the bough, and feared that any attempt to dissembarrass herself might cause a new commotion, and point out her position.