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
stile; yet, as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In
those days I was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark
tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there
amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added
to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give. As
this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the
dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a
North-of-England spirit called a "Gytrash," which, in the form of
horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came
upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me.