When they came out a long time still remained to them and Jude
proposed that as soon as they had had something to eat they should
walk across the high country to the north of their present position,
and intercept the train of another railway leading back to
Melchester, at a station about seven miles off. Sue, who was
inclined for any adventure that would intensify the sense of her
day's freedom, readily agreed; and away they went, leaving the
adjoining station behind them.
It was indeed open country, wide and high. They talked and bounded
on, Jude cutting from a little covert a long walking-stick for Sue
as tall as herself, with a great crook, which made her look like a
shepherdess. About half-way on their journey they crossed a main
road running due east and west--the old road from London to Land's
End. They paused, and looked up and down it for a moment, and
remarked upon the desolation which had come over this once lively
thoroughfare, while the wind dipped to earth and scooped straws and
hay-stems from the ground.
They crossed the road and passed on, but during the next half-mile
Sue seemed to grow tired, and Jude began to be distressed for her.
They had walked a good distance altogether, and if they could not
reach the other station it would be rather awkward. For a long
time there was no cottage visible on the wide expanse of down and
turnip-land; but presently they came to a sheepfold, and next to the
shepherd, pitching hurdles. He told them that the only house near
was his mother's and his, pointing to a little dip ahead from which a
faint blue smoke arose, and recommended them to go on and rest there.
This they did, and entered the house, admitted by an old woman
without a single tooth, to whom they were as civil as strangers can
be when their only chance of rest and shelter lies in the favour of
the householder.
"A nice little cottage," said Jude.
"Oh, I don't know about the niceness. I shall have to thatch it
soon, and where the thatch is to come from I can't tell, for straw do
get that dear, that 'twill soon be cheaper to cover your house wi'
chainey plates than thatch."
They sat resting, and the shepherd came in. "Don't 'ee mind I," he
said with a deprecating wave of the hand; "bide here as long as ye
will. But mid you be thinking o' getting back to Melchester to-night
by train? Because you'll never do it in this world, since you don't
know the lie of the country. I don't mind going with ye some o' the
ways, but even then the train mid be gone."