In a week she was at Taunton.

Then the weather, which had hitherto been fair and pleasant, broke up, and still she held on, with the rain beating from the westward in her face, as though to stay her from her refuge, dizzy and confused, but determined still, along the miry high-road.
She had learnt from a gipsy woman, with whom she had walked in company for some hours, how to carry her child across her back, slung in her shawl.

So, with her breast bare to the storm, she fought her way over the high bleak downs, glad and happy when the boy ceased his wailing, and lay warm and sheltered behind her, swathed in every poor rag she could spare from her numbed and dripping body.
Late on a wild rainy night she reached Exeter, utterly penniless, and wet to the skin.

She had had nothing to eat since noon, and her breast was failing from want of nourishment and over-exertion.

Still it was only twenty miles further.