"Like heath that, in the wilderness, The wild wind whirls away."
I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and
was gone for me: it WAS an incident of no moment, no romance,
no interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one single hour
of a monotonous life. My help had been needed and claimed; I had
given it: I was pleased to have done something; trivial, transitory
though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary
of an existence all passive. The new face, too, was like a new
picture introduced to the gallery of memory; and it was dissimilar
to all the others hanging there: firstly, because it was masculine;
and, secondly, because it was dark, strong, and stern. I had it
still before me when I entered Hay, and slipped the letter into
the post- office; I saw it as I walked fast down-hill all the way
home. When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked round
and listened, with an idea that a horse's hoofs might ring on the
causeway again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like
Newfoundland dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge
and a pollard willow before me, rising up still and straight to
meet the moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming
fitful among the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when
I glanced down in the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing
the hall-front, caught a light kindling in a window: it reminded
me that I was late, and I hurried on.
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