Mr. Rochester's dog

Re-reading Jane Eyre. Why not? I read Jane Eyre for the first time in 9th grade, which is just about the perfect age for it. Let's say I've read it a mere twice per year since then, which is a conservative estimate. In that case, I've read it about 70 times. Yet this is the first time I really noticed that Mr. Rochester's dog, Pilot, is a long-haired dog.

It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie's Gytrash--a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected.

She even names the breed:

When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked round and listened, with an idea that a horse's hoofs might ring on the causeway again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard willow before me, rising up still and straight to meet the moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing the hall-front, caught a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late, and I hurried on.

Well, how should I know what a Newfoundland dog looks like? I always just pictured some kind of pointer.

German Shorthaired Pointer

Perhaps I read past the long hair and pictured a dog like this because when I was reading Jane Eyre for the first time, we had a dog that somewhat resembled a pointer. I don't have a scanned picture of him handy.

Anyway, tonight I caught: long hair, black and white, Newfoundland dog, And I looked it up online:

Newfoundland dog

I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax's room; there was a fire there too, but no candle, and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting upright on the rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a great black and white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the lane. It was so like it that I went forward and said--"Pilot" and the thing got up and came to me and snuffed me. I caressed him, and he wagged his great tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone with, and I could not tell whence he had come.

Now I have a whole new picture of these scenes in the story I've read so many times.