"Can there be life here?" I asked.
Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement--that
narrow front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue
from the grange.
It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on
the step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to
feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised him--it
was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.
I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him--to
examine him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible. It was a
sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by
pain. I had no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation,
my step from hasty advance.
His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his
port was still erect, his heir was still raven black; nor were his
features altered or sunk: not in one year's space, by any sorrow,
could his athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime
blighted. But in his countenance I saw a change: that looked
desperate and brooding--that reminded me of some wronged and
fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen
woe. The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has
extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson.
And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity?--if
you do, you little know me. A soft hope blest with my sorrow that
soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those
lips so sternly sealed beneath it: but not yet. I would not accost
him yet.
He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards
the grass-plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he paused,
as if he knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and opened
his eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky,
and toward the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him was
void darkness. He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the
mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by
touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy
still; for the trees were some yards off where he stood. He
relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet and
mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this
moment John approached him from some quarter.
"Will you take my arm, sir?" he said; "there is a heavy shower
coming on: had you not better go in?"