第84页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第84页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
replied to her 'Revenez bientot, ma bonne amie, ma chere Mdlle.
Jeannette,' with a kiss I set out.
The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I
walked fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and
analyse the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and
situation. It was three o'clock; the church bell tolled as I passed
under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in its approaching
dimness, in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from
Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and
blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral
treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter delight lay in its
utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of air stirred, it
made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to
rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as
the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path. Far
and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now
browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the
hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.
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