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in him a tyrant a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of some pungent suffering: these sensations, for the time, predominated over fear, and I received him on frantic sort. I don't very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me "Rat! rat!" and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him; Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone up stairs; she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and the maid Abbot. We were parted; I heard the words:

"Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!" "Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!" Then Mrs. Reed subjoined:

"Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there." Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne up stairs.

CHAPTER II.

I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or, rather, out of myself, as the French would say; I was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.

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Hold her arms, Miss Abbot; she's like a mad cat."

For shame! for shame!" cried the lady's maid. "What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress' son! your young master!"

"Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?"

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No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down and think over your wicked

ness."

They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had thrust me upon a stool; my impulse was to rise from it like a spring; their two pairs of hands arrested me instantly

"If you don't sit still, you must be tied down," said Bescie. "Miss Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly."

Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me "Don't take them off," I cried; "I will not stir."

In guaranty whereof I attached myself to my seat by my

hands

"Mind you don't," said Bessie; and when she had ascer tained that I was really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as incredulous of my sanity.

"She never did so before," at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.

"But it was always in her," was the reply. "I've told missis often my opinion about the child, and missis agreed with me. She's an underhand little thing; I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover."

Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said.

"You ought to be aware, miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed. She keeps you; if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poor-house."

I had nothing to say to these words; they were not new to me; my very first recollection of existence included hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear; very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible. Miss Abbot joined in:

"And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed, because missis kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none; it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to them."

"What we tell you is for your good," added Bessie, in no harsh voice; "you should try to be useful and pleasant, then perhaps you would have a home here; but if you be come passionate and rude, missis will send you away, I am sure."

"Besides," said Miss Abbot, "God will punish her; he might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her; I would n't have her heart for anything. Say your prayers Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away."

They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them. The bed-room was a spare chamber, very seldom slept in ; I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained; yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed, supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the car et was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls a soft fawn-color, with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs, were of darkly-polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample, cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking as I thought, like a pale throne.

This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchens; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. The housemaid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe from the mir rors and the furniture a week's quiet dust; and Mrs. Reed, herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room—the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur.

Mr. Reed had been dead nine years; it was in this cham ber he breathed his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by undertaker's men; and, since that day

4 sense of dreary consecration had guarded t from frequent mtrusion.

My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottoman, near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up, and went to see. Alas! yes; no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality; and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit. I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories represented as coming up out of lone, ferny dells, in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my stool.

Superstition was with me at that moment, but it was not yet her hour for coinplete victory. My blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigor; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present.

All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference, all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one's favor? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty - her pink cheeks, and golden curls -seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault. John, no one thwarted, much less punished, though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep

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stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory; he called his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still her own darling." I dared commit no fault; I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night.

My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received. No one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert further irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.

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Unjust! unjust!" said my reason, forc d by the agoniz. ing stimulus into precocious though trans tory power; and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated so ne strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.

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What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense igno rance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question—why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of—I will not say how many years, I see it clearly

I was a discord in Gateshead Hall; I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed, or her children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathize with one among them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment- of contempt of their judgment. I know that, had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child, though equally dependent and friendless, Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cor diality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scape-goat of the nurserv

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