Jane Eyre - Page 100/412

This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the

middle, I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field.

Gathering my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I

did not feel the cold, though it froze keenly; as was attested by a

sheet of ice covering the causeway, where a little brooklet, now

congealed, had overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since. From

my seat I could look down on Thornfield: the grey and battlemented

hall was the principal object in the vale below me; its woods and

dark rookery rose against the west. I lingered till the sun went

down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and clear behind them. I

then turned eastward.

On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud,

but brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost

in trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a

mile distant, but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin

murmurs of life. My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what

dales and depths I could not tell: but there were many hills beyond

Hay, and doubtless many becks threading their passes. That evening

calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of

the most remote.

A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once

so far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic

clatter, which effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture,

the solid mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn

in dark and strong on the foreground, efface the aerial distance of

azure hill, sunny horizon, and blended clouds where tint melts into

tint.

The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of

the lane yet hid it, but it approached. I was just leaving the

stile; yet, as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In

those days I was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark

tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there

amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added

to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give. As

this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the

dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a

North-of-England spirit called a "Gytrash," which, in the form of

horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came

upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me.