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.

Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague dread
that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or poacher might
discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it
was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man.
Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and calmed by the deep
silence that reigned as evening declined at nightfall, I took confid