Page:Jane Eyre (1st edition), Volume 3.djvu/133

 qualifications of soldier, statesman and orator, were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary.

"A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind changed: the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving nothing of bondage but its galling soreness—which time only can heal. My father, indeed, opposed the determination; but since his death, I have not a legitimate obstacle to contend with: some affairs settled, a successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings broken through or cut asunder—a last conflict with human weakness, in which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed that I will overcome—and I leave Europe for the East."

He said this in his peculiar, subdued yet emphatic voice; looking, when he had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting sun: at which I looked too. Both he and I had our backs towards the path leading up the field to the wicket. We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the water running in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and scene: we might well then start, when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed:—

"Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is quicker to recognize