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I had dreaded he was mad. "As he came down the great staircase it fell, and he was taken out of the ruins with one eye knocked out and one hand so crushed that the surgeon had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed, and he lost the sight of that also." "Where does he live now?" "At Ferndean, a manor house on a farm he has quite a desolate spot.
It was a still greater surprise to Leslie when Hector Garret came again the next evening. He had never been with them on two successive days before. She supposed he had gone back to Ayrshire, although he had not distinctly referred to his speedy return. But he was here, and Leslie entertained him as usual. "Should you not like to see Ferndean?" inquired Hector Garret.
"At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has, about thirty miles off: quite a desolate spot." "Who is with him?" "Old John and his wife: he would have none else. He is quite broken down, they say." "Have you any sort of conveyance?" "We have a chaise, ma'am, a very handsome chaise."
Leslie started up with pleased surprise, "Hector Garret of Otter! he will come upstairs to see us; he will tell us how the country is looking; he will bring news from Ferndean," and for the next hour she sat in happy, patient expectation. Mrs. Bower, a fair, faded, grave woman, came into the room, and sat down with her needlework in the other window.
Old John and his wife are with him; he would have none else." To Ferndean I came just ere dusk, walking the last mile. As I approached, the narrow front door of the grange slowly opened, and a figure came out into the twilight; a man without a hat. He stretched forth his hand to feel whether it rained. It was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester.
"Ferndean is my Highland hill. When papa is very stiff and helpless from rheumatism, he talks of it sometimes. It is so long ago; he was so different then." Mr. Garret and Mrs.
His father had purchased the estate for the sake of the game covers. He would have let the house, but could find no tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and insalubrious site. Ferndean then remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for the accommodation of the squire when he went there in the season to shoot.
"I may err, but I can take refuge in my intentions. You may see Ferndean and Otter, if you can consent to go there, and dwell there as a grave man's friend and wife." Leslie started violently, and the blood rushed over her face. "I beg your pardon, Sir, but you don't mean it?"
He pondered upon her future; he was well acquainted with her prospects; he knew much better than she did that the money with which his father had bought up the mortgages on Ferndean, and finally the estate itself, was drained and scattered long ago, and that the miserable annuity upon which the Professor rested peacefully as a provision for his widow and child, died with the former.
And its lord and master was generous and indulgent, and wasted, he did not care to say how many days, in displaying to her the green ruinousness of Ferndean in climbing the hills and hunting out the widest views for her in taking her out in his boat, and rowing her in sunshine and shade, enjoying her wonder and exultation most benevolently.
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