CHAPTER XX 260
I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations, terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and ladies alike had quitted their beds; and " Oh! what is it?"-- " Who is hurt?"-- " What has happened?"-- " Fetch a light!"-- " Is it fire?"-- " Are there robbers?"-- " Where shall we run?" was demanded confusedly on all hands. But for the moonlight they would have been in complete darkness. They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the confusion was inextricable.
" Where the devil is Rochester?" cried Colonel Dent. " I cannot find him in his bed."
" Here! here!" was shouted in return. " Be composed, all of you: I ' m coming."
And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey. One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss Ingram.
" What awful event has taken place?" said she. " Speak! let us know the worst at once!"
" But don ' t pull me down or strangle me," he replied: for the Misses Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.
" All ' s right!-- all ' s right!" he cried. " It ' s a mere rehearsal of Much Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous."
And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself by an effort, he added-
" A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She ' s an excitable, nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or something of that