"I did," said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing the panes, could not hear me, "and at first I thought it was Pilot: but Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one."
Chapter 16 · Jane Eyre
Context
Jane responds to Grace's question about whether she heard any noise the night before. She lowers her voice to prevent the servant Leah from overhearing, then describes hearing a strange laugh that she knows could not have come from the dog, Pilot.
Analysis
Jane's logic—"Pilot cannot laugh"—is almost childlike in its simplicity, yet it anchors her certainty in something undeniable, refusing to let Grace dismiss what she heard as imagination. The repetition of "laugh" emphasizes that this sound, not the fire itself, is what truly disturbs Jane; it's the human (or inhuman) quality of the laughter that resists explanation. By noting it was "strange," Jane marks it as outside normal experience, a sonic clue that something is deeply wrong at Thornfield.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that Brontë employs Gothic auditory imagery—disembodied laughter—as a marker of hidden female presence, with Jane's insistence on what she heard positioning her as a detective figure who trusts her own senses over convenient explanations.