Bab Bab 5 · Turning A New Leaf

. Turning A New Leaf

TURNING A NEW LEAF.

My mistress being dead, and I once more alone, I had to look out for a

new place. About this time I might be a little—a very little—shaken in

nerves. I grant I was not looking well, but, on the contrary, thin,

haggard, and hollow-eyed; like a sitter-up at night, like an

overwrought servant, or a placeless person in debt. In debt, however, I

was not; nor quite poor; for though Miss Marchmont had not had time to

benefit me, as, on that last night, she said she intended, yet, after

the funeral, my wages were duly paid by her second cousin, the heir, an

avaricious-looking man, with pinched nose and narrow temples, who,

indeed, I heard long afterwards, turned out a thorough miser: a direct

contrast to his generous kinswoman, and a foil to her memory, blessed

to this day by the poor and needy. The possessor, then, of fifteen

pounds; of health, though worn, not broken, and of a spirit in similar

condition; I might still; in comparison with many people, be regarded

as occupying an enviable position. An embarrassing one it was, however,

at the same time; as I felt with some acuteness on a certain day, of

which the corresponding one in the next week was to see my departure

from my present abode, while with another I was not provided.

In this dilemma I went, as a last and sole resource, to see and consult

an old servant of our family; once my nurse, now housekeeper at a grand

mansion not far from Miss Marchmont’s. I spent some hours with her; she

comforted, but knew not how to advise me. Still all inward darkness, I

left her about twilight; a walk of two miles lay before me; it was a

clear, frosty night. In spite of my solitude, my poverty, and my

perplexity, my heart, nourished and nerved with the vigour of a youth

that had not yet counted twenty-three summers, beat light and not

feebly. Not feebly, I am sure, or I should have trembled in that lonely

walk, which lay through still fields, and passed neither village nor

farmhouse, nor cottage: I should have quailed in the absence of

moonlight, for it was by the leading of stars only I traced the dim

path; I should have quailed still more in the unwonted presence of that

which to-night shone in the north, a moving mystery—the Aurora

Borealis. But this solemn stranger influenced me otherwise than through

my fears. Some new power it seemed to bring. I drew in energy with the

keen, low breeze that blew on its path. A bold thought was sent to my

mind; my mind was made strong to receive it.

“Leave this wilderness,” it was said to me, “and go out hence.”

“Where?” was the query.

I had not very far to look; gazing from this country parish in that

flat, rich middle of England—I mentally saw within reach what I had

never yet beheld with my bodily eyes: I saw