第312页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第312页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always
faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting,
sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither
present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to
mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John's directions; and
in ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side
with him.
The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with
scents of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream
descending the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along
plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire
tints from the firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a
soft turf, mossy fine and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a
tiny white flower, and spangled with a star-like yellow blossom: the
hills, meantime, shut us quite in; for the glen, towards its head,
wound to their very core.
'Let us rest here,' said St. John, as we reached the first
stragglers of a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond
which the beck rushed down a waterfall; and where, still a little
farther, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for
raiment and crag for gem- where it exaggerated the wild to the savage,
and exchanged the fresh for the frowning- where it guarded the forlorn
hope of solitude, and a last refuge for silence.
I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and
down the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and
returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he
removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He
seemed in communion with the genius of the haunt: with his eye he bade
farewell to something.
'And I shall see it again,' he said aloud, 'in dreams when I
sleep by the Ganges: and again in a more remote hour- when another
slumber overcomes me- on the shore of a darker stream!'
Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot's passion for
his fatherland! He sat down; for half an hour we never spoke;
neither he to me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced-
'Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman
which sails on the 20th of June.'
'God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work,' I
answered.
'Yes,' said he, 'there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of
an infallible Master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject
to the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my
king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strange to
me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner,-
to join in the same enterprise.'
'All have not Your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble
to wish to march with the strong.'
'I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only