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 confidence.
As yet I had not thought; I had only listened, watched, dreaded; now I regained the faculty of reflection.
What was I to do?
Where to go?
Oh, intolerable questions, when I could do nothing and go nowhere!--when a long way must yet be measured by my weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human habitation--when cold charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging: reluctant sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved! I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the summer day.

I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star twinkled just above the chasm ridge.

The dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze whispered.