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1There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in
2the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with
3it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question. I was glad of
4it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight,
5with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the
6consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed. The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were
7now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings
8about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the
9group; saying, "She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from
10Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable
11and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner--something lighter, franker, more natural, as it
12were--she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children." "What does Bessie
13say I have done?" I asked. "Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in
14a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent." A
15breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a
16volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I
17sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double
18retirement. Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass,
19protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I
20studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn
21and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast. I returned to my
22book--Bewick's History of British Birds: the letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there
23were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of
24the haunts of sea-fowl; of "the solitary rocks and promontories" by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded
25with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape-- "Where the Northern Ocean, in vast
26whirls, Boils round the naked, melancholy isles Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge Pours in among the stormy
27Hebrides." Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla,
28Iceland, Greenland, with "the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,--that reservoir
29of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above
30heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold." Of these death-white realms I formed
31an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children's brains, but
32strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave
33significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate
34coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking. I cannot tell what sentiment
35haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled
36by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the hour of eventide. The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea,
37I believed to be marine phantoms. The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed over quickly: it was an
38object of terror. So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.
39Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly
40interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good
41humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she
42got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and
43adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela,
44and Henry, Earl of Moreland. With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but
45interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast-room door opened. "Boh! Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed;
46then he paused: he found the room apparently empty. "Where the dickens is she!" he continued. "Lizzy! Georgy! (calling
47to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain--bad animal!" "It is well I drew the curtain,"
48thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself;
49he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once-- "She is
50in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack." And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by
51the said Jack. "What do you want?" I asked, with awkward diffidence. "Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed?'" was the
52answer. "I want you to come here;" and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach
53and stand before him. John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large
54and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large
55extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and
56flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two, "on account of
57his delicate health." Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats
58sent him from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea
59that John's sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after home. John had not much affection for
60his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once
61or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he
62came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against
63either his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against
64him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both
65now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back. Habitually obedient to John, I came up to
66his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots:
67I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would
68presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly
69and strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair. "That is for your
70impudence in answering mama awhile since," said he, "and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the
71look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!" Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying
72to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult. "What were you doing behind the
73curtain?" he asked.
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