CHAPTER XXXVI 532
doubts at once. Go up to that man, and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home."
The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to act on it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To prolong doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the Hall under the ray of her star. There was the stile before me-- the very fields through which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted with a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield: ere I well knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of them. How fast I walked! How I ran sometimes! How I looked forward to catch the first view of the well-known woods! With what feelings I welcomed single trees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between them!
At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing broke the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me: on I hastened. Another field crossed-- a lane threaded-- and there were the courtyard walls-- the back offices: the house itself, the rookery still hid. " My first view of it shall be in front," I determined, " where its bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can single out my master ' s very window: perhaps he will be standing at it-- he rises early: perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the pavement in front. Could I but see him!-- but a moment! Surely, in that case, I should not be so mad as to run to him? I cannot tell-- I am not certain. And if I did-- what then? God bless him! What then? Who would be hurt by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me? I rave: perhaps at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on the tideless sea of the south."
I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard-- turned its angle: there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between two stone pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I could peep round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom window-blinds were yet drawn up: battlements, windows, long front-- all from this sheltered station were at my command.