It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering through space.  Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of the chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven:  the trunk, split down the centre, gasped ghastly.  The cloven halves were not broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; though community of vitality was destroyed —­ the sap could flow no more:  their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter’s tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth:  as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree —­ a ruin, but an entire ruin.

“You did right to hold fast to each other,” I said:  as if the monster-splinters were living things, and could hear me.  “I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots:  you will never have green leaves more —­ never more see birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you:  but you are not desolate:  each of you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay.”  As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood- red and half overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud.  The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water, poured a wild, melancholy wail:  it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again.

Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the apples with which the grass round the tree roots was thickly strewn; then I employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried them into the house and put them away in the store-room.  Then I repaired to the library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for, though summer, I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would like to see a cheerful hearth when he came in:  yes, the fire had been kindled some time, and burnt well.  I placed his arm-chair by the chimney-corner:  I wheeled the table near it:  I let down the curtain, and had the candles brought in ready for lighting.  More restless than ever, when I had completed these arrangements I could not sit still, nor even remain in the house:  a little time-piece in the room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten.

“How late it grows!” I said.  “I will run down to the gates:  it is moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road.  He may be coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense.”

The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the gates; but the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the left, was all still and solitary:  save for the shadows of clouds crossing it at intervals as the moon looked out, it was but a long pale line, unvaried by one moving speck.