I continued
to tramp forward in the night, contending with gloomy thoughts and
accompanied by the dismal ululation of the dogs. What ailed them
that they should have been thus wakeful, and perceived the small
sound of my steps amid the general reverberation of the rain, was
more than I could fancy. I remembered tales with which I had been
entertained in childhood. I told myself some murderer was going
by, and the brutes perceived upon him the faint smell of blood; and
the next moment, with a physical shock, I had applied the words to
my own case!
Here was a dismal disposition for a lover. 'Was ever lady in this
humour wooed?' I asked myself, and came near turning back. It is
never wise to risk a critical interview when your spirits are
depressed, your clothes muddy, and your hands wet! But the
boisterous night was in itself favourable to my enterprise: now,
or perhaps never, I might find some way to have an interview with
Flora; and if I had one interview (wet clothes, low spirits and
all), I told myself there would certainly be another.
Arrived in the cottage-garden I found the circumstances mighty
inclement. From the round holes in the shutters of the parlour,
shafts of candle-light streamed forth; elsewhere the darkness was
complete. The trees, the thickets, were saturated; the lower parts
of the garden turned into a morass.
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