She took out her money from her purse, and looked
at it. She had still two-and-twenty shillings;
it would serve her for many days more, or it would
help her to get on faster to Stonyshire, within reach
of Dinah. The thought of Dinah urged itself more
strongly now, since the experience of the night had
driven her shuddering imagination away from the pool.
If it had been only going to Dinah—if nobody
besides Dinah would ever know—Hetty could
have made up her mind to go to her. The soft
voice, the pitying eyes, would have drawn her.
But afterwards the other people must know, and she
could no more rush on that shame than she could rush
on death.
She must wander on and on, and wait for a lower depth
of despair to give her courage. Perhaps death
would come to her, for she was getting less and less
able to bear the day’s weariness. And yet—such
is the strange action of our souls, drawing us by
a lurking desire towards the very ends we dread—Hetty,
when she set out again from Norton, asked the straightest
road northwards towards Stonyshire, and kept it all
that day.
Poor wandering Hetty, with the rounded childish face
and the hard, unloving, despairing soul looking out
of it—with the narrow heart and narrow
thoughts, no room in them for any sorrows but her own,
and tasting that sorrow with the more intense bitterness!
My heart bleeds for her as I see her toiling along
on her weary feet, or seated in a cart, with her eyes
fixed vacantly on the road before her, never thinking
or caring whither it tends, till hunger comes and makes
her desire that a village may be near.
What will be the end, the end of her objectless wandering,
apart from all love, caring for human beings only
through her pride, clinging to life only as the hunted
wounded brute clings to it?
God preserve you and me from being the beginners of
such misery!
Chapter XXXVIII
The Quest
The first ten days after Hetty’s departure
passed as quietly as any other days with the family
at the Hall Farm, and with Adam at his daily work.
They had expected Hetty to stay away a week or ten
days at least, perhaps a little longer if Dinah came
back with her, because there might then be something
to detain them at Snowfield. But when a fortnight
had passed they began to feel a little surprise that
Hetty did not return; she must surely have found it
pleasanter to be with Dinah than any one could have
supposed. Adam, for his part, was getting very
impatient to see her, and he resolved that, if she
did not appear the next day (Saturday), he would set
out on Sunday morning to fetch her. There was
no coach on a Sunday, but by setting out before it
was light, and perhaps getting a lift in a cart by
the way, he would arrive pretty early at Snowfield,
and bring back Hetty the next day—Dinah
too, if she were coming. It was quite time Hetty
came home, and he would afford to lose his Monday
for the sake of bringing her.
