he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a’most stark8 when your brother went into t’ chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that’s t’ last o’ t’ old stock – for ye and Mr St John is like of different soart to them ’at’s gone; for all your mother wor mich i’ your way, and a’most as book-learned. She wor the pictur’ o’ ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father.’
I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing it: Mary’s pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth; Diana’s duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck ten.
‘Ye’ll want your supper, I am sure,’ observed Hannah; ‘and so will Mr St John when he comes in.’
And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited in me so keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible did it appear to touch the inmates of this house with concern on my behalf; to make them believe in the truth of my wants and woes; to induce them to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As I groped out the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah opened.
‘What do you want?’ she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she surveyed me by the light of the candle she held.
‘May I speak to your mistresses?’ I said.
‘You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you come from?’
‘I am a stranger.’
‘What is your business here at this hour?’
‘I want a night’s shelter in an outhouse or anywhere, and a morsel of bread to eat.’
Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah’s face. ‘I’ll give you a piece of bread,’ she said, after a pause; ‘but we can’t take in a vagrant to lodge. It isn’t likely.’
‘Do let me speak to your mistresses.’
‘No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about now; it looks very ill.’
‘But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?’
‘Oh, I’ll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don’t do wrong, that’s all. Here is a penny; now go—’
‘A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don’t shut the door: – oh, don’t, for God’s sake!’
‘I must; the rain is driving in—’
‘Tell the young ladies. Let me see them—’
‘Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn’t make such a noise. Move off.’
‘But I must die if I am turned away.’
‘Not you. I’m fear’d you have some ill plans agate,9 that bring you about folk’s houses at this time o’ night. If you’ve any followers – housebreakers or such like – anywhere near, you may tell them we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and guns.’ Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and bolted it within.
This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering – a throe of true despair – rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned – I wrung my hands – I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation – this banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone – at least for a moment; but the last I soon endeavoured to regain.
‘I can but die,’ I said, ‘and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His will in silence.’
These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain there – dumb and still.