"Was the gate bolted, then?" he asked.
"Mr. Rochester desires to know if you had the audacity, sir, to scale
his garden wall," Jane said, turning sharply on me. "Shall I count the
strawberries, sir?" she added over her shoulder."
"Jane, Jane!" he exclaimed testily. "I have no wish to be uncivil,
sir. We are not of the world--a mere dark satellite. I am dim; and
suspicious of strangers, as this one treacherous eye should manifest.
I'll but ask your name, sir,--there are yet a few names left, once
pleasing to my ear."
"My name is Brocken, sir--Henry Brocken," I answered.
"And--did you walk? Pah! there's the mystery! God knows how else you
could have come, unless you are a modern Ganymede. Where then's your
aquiline steed, sir? We have no neighbours here--none to stare, and
pry, and prate, and slander."
I informed him that I was as ignorant as he what power had spirited me
to his house, but that so far as obvious means went, my old horse was
probably by this time fast asleep beside the green gate at which I had
entered. Jane stood on tip-toe and whispered in his ear, and, nodding
imperiously at him, withdrew into the house.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31