vocation to renew inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the

traveller, set me at my ease: I retained my station when he waved to

me to go, and announced-

'I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this

solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse.'

He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes

in my direction before.

'I should think you ought to be at home yourself,' said he, 'if you

have a home in this neighbourhood: where do you come from?'

'From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when

it is moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if

you wish it: indeed, I am going there to post a letter.'

'You live just below- do you mean at that house with the

battlements?' pointing to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a

hoary gleam, bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods, that,

by contrast with the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow.

'Yes, sir.'

'Whose house is it?'

'Mr. Rochester's.'

'Do you know Mr. Rochester?'

'No, I have never seen him.'

'He is not resident, then?'

'No.'

'Can you tell me where he is?'

'I cannot.'

'You are not a servant at the hall, of course. You are-' He

stopped, ran his eye over my dress, which, as usual, was quite simple:

a black merino cloak, a black beaver bonnet; neither of them half fine

enough for a lady's-maid. He seemed puzzled to decide what I was; I

helped him.

'I am the governess.'

'Ah, the governess!' he repeated; 'deuce take me, if I had not

forgotten! The governess!' and again my raiment underwent scrutiny. In

two minutes he rose from the stile: his face expressed pain when he

tried to move.

'I cannot commission you to fetch help,' he said; 'but you may help

me a little yourself, if you will be so kind.'

'Yes, sir.'

'You have not an umbrella that I can use as a stick?'

'No.'

'Try to get hold of my horse's bridle and lead him to me: you are

not afraid?'

I should have been afraid to touch a horse when alone, but when

told to do it, I was disposed to obey. I put down my muff on the

stile, and went up to the tall steed; I endeavoured to catch the

bridle, but it was a spirited thing, and would not let me come near

its head; I made effort on effort, though in vain: meantime, I was

mortally afraid of its trampling forefeet. The traveller waited and

watched for some time, and at last he laughed.

'I see,' he said, 'the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet,

so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must

beg of you to come here.'

I came. 'Excuse me,' he continued: 'necessity compels me to make

you useful.' He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and leaning on me

with some stress, limped to his horse. Having once caught the

bridle, he mastered it directly and sprang to his saddle; grimacing

grimly as he made the effort, for it wrenched his sprain.

'Now,' said he, releasing his under lip from a hard bite, 'just

hand me my whip; it lies there under the hedge.'

I sought it and found it.

'Thank you; now make haste with the letter to Hay, and return as

fast as you can.'

A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear,

and then bound away; the dog rushed in his traces; all three vanished,

'Like heath that, in the wilderness,

The wild wind whirls away.'

I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and

was gone for me: it was an incident of no moment, no romance, no

interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a

monotonous life. My help had been needed and claimed; I had given

it: I was pleased to have done something; trivial, transitory though

the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an

existence all passive. The new face, too, was like a new picture

introduced to the gallery of memory; and it was dissimilar to all

the others hanging there: firstly, because it was masculine; and,

secondly, because it was dark, strong, and stern. I had it still

before me when I entered Hay, and slipped the letter into the

post-office; I saw it as I walked fast down-hill all the way home.

When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked round and

listened, with an idea that a horse's hoofs might ring on the causeway

again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland

dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard

willow before me, rising up still and straight to meet the

moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among

the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in

the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing the hall-front, caught

a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late, and I

hurried on.

I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to

return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome

staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet

tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and

her only, was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my

walk,- to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an

uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges

of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What

good it would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the

storms of an uncertain struggling life, and to have been taught by

rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now

repined! Yes, just as much good as it would do a man tired of

sitting still in a 'too easy chair' to take a long walk: and just as

natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be

under his.

I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced

backwards and forwards on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door

were closed; I could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and

spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house- from the grey hollow filled

with rayless cells, as it appeared to me- to that sky expanded

before me,- a blue sea absolved from taint of cloud; the moon

ascending it in solemn march; her orb seeming to look up as she left

the hill-tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below

her, and aspired to the zenith, midnight dark in its fathomless

depth and measureless distance; and for those trembling stars that

followed her course; they made my heart tremble, my veins glow when

I viewed them. Little things recall us to earth; the clock struck in

the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon and stars, opened a

side-door, and went in.

The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung

bronze lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the

oak staircase. This ruddy shine issued from the great dining-room,

whose two-leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the

grate, glancing on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing

purple draperies and polished furniture, in the most pleasant

radiance. It revealed, too, a group near the mantelpiece: I had

scarcely caught it, and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling

of voices, amongst which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adele,

when the door closed.

I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax's room; there was a fire there too,

but no candle, and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting

upright on the rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a

great black and white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the

lane. It was so like it that I went forward and said- 'Pilot,' and the

thing got up and came to me and snuffed me. I caressed him, and he

wagged his great tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone

with, and I could not tell whence he had come. I rang the bell, for

I wanted a candle; and I wanted, too, to get an account of this

visitant. Leah entered.

'What dog is this?'

'He came with master.'

'With whom?'

'With master- Mr. Rochester- he is just arrived.'

'Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?'

'Yes, and Miss Adele; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone

for a surgeon; for master has had an accident; his horse fell and

his ankle is sprained.'

'Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?'

'Yes, coming down-hill; it slipped on some ice.'

'Ah! Bring me a candle, will you, Leah?'

Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who

repeated the news; adding that Mr. Carter the surgeon was come, and

was now with Mr. Rochester: then she hurried out to give orders

about tea, and I went upstairs to take off my things.