CHAPTER XXIII 313
CHAPTER XXIII
A splendid Midsummer shone over England : skies so pure , suns so radiant as were then seen in long succession , seldom favour even singly , our wave-girt land . It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South , like a flock of glorious passenger birds , and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion . The hay was all got in ; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn ; the roads white and baked ; the trees were in their dark prime ; hedge and wood , full-leaved and deeply tinted , contrasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between .
On Midsummer-eve , Adele , weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay Lane half the day , had gone to bed with the sun . I watched her drop asleep , and when I left her , I sought the garden .
It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four : - " Day its fervid fires had wasted ," and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit . Where the sun had gone down in simple state -- pure of the pomp of clouds -- spread a solemn purple , burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point , on one hill-peak , and extending high and wide , soft and still softer , over half heaven . The east had its own charm or fine deep blue , and its own modest gem , a casino and solitary star : soon it would boast the moon ; but she was yet beneath the horizon .
I walked a while on the pavement ; but a subtle , well-known scent -- that of a cigar -- stole from some window ; I saw the library casement open a handbreadth ; I knew I might be watched thence ; so I went apart into the orchard . No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like ; it was full of trees , it bloomed with flowers : a very high wall shut it out from the court , on one side ; on the other , a beech avenue screened it from the lawn . At the bottom was a sunk fence ; its sole separation from lonely fields : a winding walk , bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse-chestnut , circled at the base by a seat , led down to the fence . Here one could wander unseen . While such honey-dew fell , such silence reigned , such gloaming gathered , I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever ; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure ,