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JANE EYRE .

VOL. III.
 JANE EYRE .

An Autobiography.

BY

CURRER BELL.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL . III.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON :

SMITH, ELDER AND CO. CORNHILL.

1848.
 London :
Printed by STEWART and MURRAY,
Old Bailey.
 JANE EYRE.

CHAPTER I.

Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and

looking round and seeing the western sun gilding
the sign of its decline on the wall , I asked , " What
am I to do ? "

But the answer my mind gave—" Leave Thorn-

field at once "—was so prompt, so dread, that I
stopped my ears : I said, I could not bear such
words now . " That I am not Edward Rochester's

bride, is the least part of my woe ," I alleged :

" that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams,
and found them all void and vain, is a horror I
could bear and master ; but that I must leave him
decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable . I
cannot do it. "
But, then, a voice within me averred that I
could do it ; and foretold that I should do it. I
wrestled with my own resolution : I wanted to be
VOL. III. B
2 JANE EYRE.

weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further

suffering I saw laid out for me ; and conscience,
turned tyrant, held passion by the throat, told her,
tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty
foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm
of iron, he would thrust her down to unsounded
depths of agony .
66
Let me be torn away, then ! " I cried , " Let
another help me ! "
" No ; you shall tear yourself away, none shall
help you : you shall, yourself, pluck out your
right eye ; yourself cut off your right hand : your
heart shall be the victim ; and you, the priest, to
transfix it."
I rose up suddenly, terror - struck at the solitude
which so ruthless a judge haunted,—at the silence
which so awful a voice filled . My head swam as I
stood erect : I perceived that I was sickening
from excitement and inanition : neither meat nor

drink had passed my lips that day, for I had taken

no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I now
reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no
message had been sent to ask how I was, or to
invite me to come down : not even little Adele
had tapped at the door ; not even Mrs. Fairfax
had sought me. " Friends always forget those
whom fortune forsakes," I murmured, as I un-
drew the bolt and passed out. I stumbled over
 JANE EYRE. 3

an obstacle my head was still dizzy, my sight

was dim, and my limbs were feeble. I could not
soon recover myself. I fell, but not on to the
ground an out-stretched arm caught me ; I looked
up—I was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat
in a chair across my chamber threshold.
"You come out at last," he said. "Well, I
have been waiting for you long, and listening : yet
not one movement have I heard, nor one sob :
five minutes more of that death-like hush , and I
should have forced the lock like a burglar. So ,
you shun me ?—you shut yourself up and grieve
alone ! I would rather you had come and up-
braided me with vehemence. You are passionate :
I expected a scene of some kind . I was prepared
for the hot rain of tears ; only I wanted them to be
shed on my breast : now a senseless floor has
received them, or your drenched handkerchief.
But I err : you have not wept at all ! I see a
white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears.
I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping
blood !
" Well, Jane ; not a word of reproach ? No-
thing bitter—nothing poignant ? Nothing to cut
a feeling or sting a passion ? You sit quietly
where I have placed you, and regard me with a
weary, passive look.
Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If
B2
4 JANE EYRE.

the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was
dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread
and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had
by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles,
he would not have rued his bloody blunder more
than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive
me ? "
Reader !—I forgave him at the moment, and on
the spot. There was such deep remorse in his
eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy
in his manner ; and, besides, there was such un-
changed love in his whole look and mein —I for-
gave him all yet not in words, not outwardly ;
only at my heart's core.
" You know I am a scoundrel, Jane ?" ere long
he inquired wistfully—wondering, I suppose, at my
continued silence and tameness : the result rather
of weakness than of will .
66 Yes, sir."

" Then tell me so roundly and sharply— don't

spare me."
" I cannot : I am tired and sick. I want some
water." He heaved a sort of shuddering sigh and
taking me in his arms, carried me down stairs.
At first I did not know to what room he had borne

me ; all was cloudy to my glazed sight : presently

I felt the reviving warmth of a fire ; for, summer
as it was, I had become icy cold in my chamber.
 JANE EYRE. 5

He put wine to my lips ; I tasted it and revived ;

then I ate something he offered me, and was soon
myself. I was in the library—sitting in his chair
—he was quite near. " If I could go out of life
now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well
for me," I thought ; " then I should not have to
make the effort of cracking my heart-strings in
rending them from among Mr. Rochester's. I

must leave him, it appears. I do not want to

leave him—I cannot leave him."

" How are you now, Jane ? "

" Much better, sir : I shall be well soon."
" Taste the wine again , Jane. "
I obeyed him ; then he put the glass on the
table, stood before me, and looked at me atten-
tively. Suddenly he turned away, with an inarti-
culate exclamation , full of passionate emotion of
some kind : he walked fast through the room and
came back he stooped towards me as if to kiss
me ; but I remembered caresses were now forbid-
den. I turned my face away, and put his aside .
" What !—How is this ? " he exclaimed hastily,
" Oh , I know ! you won't kiss the husband of
Bertha Mason ? You consider my arms filled , and
my embraces appropriated ? "
" At any rate , there is neither room nor claim
for me, sir."
66
Why, Jane ? I will spare you the trouble of
6 JANE EYRE.

much talking : I will answer for you— because I

have a wife already, you would reply. —I guess
rightly ?"
" Yes."
" If you think so, you must have a strange opi-

nion of me you must regard me as a plotting

profligate a base and low rake who has been
simulati di love in order to draw you
ng sinterested
into a snare deliberate laid , and strip you of
ly
honour, and rob you of self-respect . What do you
say to that ? I see you can say nothing : in the
first place , you are faint , still , and have enough to
do to draw your breath ; in the second place , you
cannot yet accustom yourself to accuse and revile
me ; and , besides , the flood -gates of tears are
opened , and they would rush out if you spoke
much ; and you have no desire to expostulat , to
e
upbraid , to make a scene : you are thinking how to
act—talking, you consider, is of no use . I know
you — I am on my guard ."
" Sir, I do not wish to act against you," I said ;
and my unsteady voice warned me to curtail my
sentence.
" Not in your sense of the word but in mine,
you are scheming to destroy me. You have as
good as said that I am a married man--as a mar-
ried man you will shun me, keep out of my way :
just now you have refused to kiss me . You intend
 JANE EYRE . 7

to make yourself a complete stranger to me ; to

live under this roof only as Adele's governess : if
ever I say a friendly word to you ; if ever a
friendly feeling inclines you again to me, you will
say, That man had nearly made me his mistress :
I must be ice and rock to him;' and ice and rock
you will accordingly become."
I cleared and steadied my voice to reply : " All
is changed about me , sir ; I must change too—
there is no doubt of that ; and, to avoid fluctua-
tions of feeling, and continual combats with recol-
lections and associations, there is only one way—
Adele must have a new governess, sir."
66
Oh, Adele will go to school— I have settled
that already : nor do I mean to torment you with
the hideous associations and recollections of
Thornfield Hall — this accursed place—this tent of
Achan— this insolent vault, offering the ghastli-
ness of living death to the light of the open sky—
this narrow stone hell, with its one real fiend,
worse than a legion of such as we imagine.—Jane,
you shall not stay here, nor will I. I was wrong
ever to bring you to Thornfield Hall, knowing as
I did how it was haunted . I charged them to con-
ceal from you, before I ever saw you, all know-
ledge of the curse of the place ; merely because I
feared Adele never would have a governess to stay
if she knew with what inmate she was housed, and
8 JANE EYRE .

my plans would not permit me to remove the

maniac elsewhere — though I possess an old house,
Ferndean Manor, even more retired and hidden
than this, where I could have lodged her safely
enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness
of the situation, in the heart of a wood, made my
conscience recoil from the arrangement. Probably
those damp walls would soon have eased me of
her charge : but to each villain his own vice ; and
mine is not a tendency to indirect assassination ,
even of what I most hate.
" Concealing the mad-woman's neighbourhood
from you, however, was something like covering a
child with a cloak, and laying it down near a upas-
tree that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always
was. But I'll shut up Thornfield Hall : I'll nail
up the front door, and board the lower windows ;
I'll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live
here with my wife, as you term that fearful hag :
Grace will do much for money, and she shall have
her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to bear
her company and be at hand to give her aid in the
paroxysms, when my wife is prompted by her
familiar to burn people in their beds at night, to
stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones , and
so on "—
66
Sir," I interrupted him, " you are inexorable
for that unfortunate. lady : you speak of her with
 JANE EYRE. 9

hate— with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel— she

cannot help being mad."
"Jane, my little darling, (so I will call you, for
so you are), you don't know what you are talking
about ; you misjudge me again : it is not because
she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you
think I should hate you? "
" I do indeed, sir."
" Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing
about me, and nothing about the sort of love of
which I am capable . Every atom of your flesh is
as dear to me as my own : in pain and sickness it
would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure,
and if it were broken , it would be my treasure still :
if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not
a strait waistcoat — your grasp, even in fury, would
have a charm for me : if you flew at me as wildly
as that woman did this morning, I should receive
you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be
restrictive. I should not shrink from you with
disgust as I did from her : in your quiet moments
you should have no watcher and no nurse but
me ; and I could hang over you with untiring
tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return ;
and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though
they had no longer a ray of recognition for me.—
But why do I follow that train of ideas ? I was
talking of removing you from Thornfield . All,
10 JANE EYRE .

you know, is prepared for prompt departure : to-

morrow you shall go. I only ask you to endure
one more night under this roof, Jane ; and then,
farewell to its miseries and terrors for ever ! I
have a place to repair to, which will be a secure
sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from un-
welcome intrusion— even from falsehood and
slander."
" And take Adele with you , sir," I interrupted ;
" she will be a companion for you."
"What do you mean, Jane ? I told you I
would send Adele to school : and what do I want
with a child for a companion ? and not my own
child, - a French dancer's bastard. Why do you
importune me about her ? I say, why do you
assign Adele to me for a companion ? "
" You spoke of a retirement, sir ; and retirement
and solitude are dull : too dull for you."
" Solitude ! solitude ! " he reiterated, with irri-
tation. " I see I must come to an explanation.
I don't know what sphynx-like expression is form-
ing in your countenance. You are to share my
solitude. Do you understand ? "
I shook my head : it required a degree of cou-
rage, excited as he was becoming, even to risk
that mute sign of dissent. He had been walking
fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly
rooted to one spot. He looked at me long and
 JANE EYRE . 11

hard : I turned my eyes from him , fixed them on

the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet,
collected aspect.

" Now for the hitch in Jane's character," he

said at last, speaking more calmly than from his

look I had expected him to speak . "The reel of
silk has run smoothly enough so far ; but I always
knew there would come a knot and a puzzle : here
it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and
endless trouble ! By God ! I long to exert a frac-
tion of Samson's strength, and break the entan-
glement like tow ! "
He recommenced his walk but soon again
stopped, and this time just before me .
" Jane ! will you hear reason ? " (he stooped and
approached his lips to my ear) " because, if you
won't, I'll try violence ." His voice was hoarse ;
his look that of a man who is just about to burst
an insufferable bond and plunge headlong into
wild licence. I saw that in another moment, and
with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be able
to do nothing with him. The present the pass-
ing second of time—was all I had in which to
control and restrain him : a movement of repulsion,
flight, fear, would have sealed my doom, —and
his. But I was not afraid : not in the least. I

felt an inward power ; a sense of influence , which

supported me. The crisis was perilous ; but not
12 JANE EYRE.

without its charm : such as the Indian, perhaps,

feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe.
I took hold of his clenched hand ; loosened the
contorted fingers ; and said to him, soothingly,—
" Sit down ; I'll talk to you as long as you like,
and hear all you have to say, whether reasonable
or unreasonable."
He sat down but he did not get leave to speak
directly. I had been struggling with tears for
some time : I had taken great pains to repress
them , because I knew he would not like to see
me weep. Now, however, I considered it well to
let them flow as freely and as long as they liked.
If the flood annoyed him, so much the better.
So I gave way and cried heartily.
Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be
composed . I said I could not while he was in
such a passion.
" But I am not angry, Jane : I only love you
too well ; and you had steeled your little pale
face with such a resolute, frozen look, I could
not endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your
eyes."
His softened voice announced that he was sub-
dued ; so I, in my turn, became calm. Now he
made an effort to rest his head on my shoulder :
but I would not permit it. Then he would draw
me to him: no .
 JANE EYRE . 13

" Jane ! Jane ! " he said— in such an accent of

bitter sadness, it thrilled along every nerve I had ;
"you don't love me, then ? It was only my
station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued?
Now that you think me disqualified to become
your husband, you recoil from my touch as if I
were some toad or ape."
These words cut me : yet what could I do or
say? I ought probably to have done or said
nothing : but I was so tortured by a sense of
remorse at thus hurting his feelings, I could

not control the wish to drop balm where I had

wounded.
" I do love you," I said, " more than ever : but
I must not show or indulge the feeling ; and this
is the last time I must express it. "
" The last time, Jane ! What ! do you think

you can live with me, and see me daily, and yet,
if you still love me, be always cold and dis-
tant ?"
" No, sir ; that I am certain I could not ; and
therefore I see there is but one way :: but you will
be furious if I mention it."
" Oh, mention it ! If I storm, you have the art
of weeping."
" Mr. Rochester, I must leave you."
" For how long, Jane ? For a few minutes,
while you smooth your hair—which is somewhat
 14 JANE EYRE.

dishevelled ; and bathe your face—which looks

feverish ? "
66
" I must leave Adele and Thornfield. I must
part with you for my whole life : I must begin a
new existence amongst strange faces and strange
scenes."

" Of course : I told you you should .I pass

over the madness about parting from me. You

mean you must become a part of me. As to the
• new existence, it is all right : you shall yet be my
wife I am not married. You shall be Mrs.
Rochester—both virtually and nominally. I shall
keep only to you so long as you and I live. You
shall go to a place I have in the south of France :
a white-walled villa on the shores of the Mediter-
ranean. There you shall live a happy, and
guarded, and most innocent life. Never fear that
I wish to lure you into error—to make you my
mistress. Why do you shake your head ? Jane,
you must be reasonable ; or in truth I shall again
become frantic ."
His voice and hand quivered ; his large nostrils
dilated ; his eye blazed : still, I dared to speak :—
" Sir, your wife is living : that is a fact ac-
knowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived
with you as you desire, I should then be your
mistress : to say otherwise is sophistical — is
false."
 JANE EYRE. 15

" Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man—you

forget that I am not long-enduring ; I am not
cool and dispassionate . Out of pity to me and
yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it
throbs, and—beware ! "
He bared his wrist, and offered it to me : the
blood was forsaking his cheek and lips, they were
growing livid ; I was distressed on all hands. To
agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so
abhorred, was cruel to yield was out of the ques-
tion. I did what human beings do instinctively
when they are driven to utter extremity— looked
for aid to one higher than man : the words " God
help me !" burst involuntarily from my lips.
" I am a fool !" cried Mr. Rochester, suddenly.
" I keep telling her I am not married, and do not
explain to her why. I forget she knows nothing
of the character of that woman, or of the circum-
stances attending my infernal union with her.
Oh, I am certain Jane will agree with me in
opinion, when she knows all that I know ! Just
put your hand in mine, Janet—that I may have
•
the evidence of touch as well as sight, to prove
you are near me—and I will in a few words show
you the real state of the case. Can you listen to
me ?"
"Yes, sir ; for hours if you will."
" I ask only minutes. Jane , did you ever hear,
16 JANE EYRE.

or know, that I was not the eldest son of my house :

that I had once a brother older than I ? "
" I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once ."
" And did you ever hear that my father was an
avaricious , grasping man ?"
" I have understood something to that effect."
" Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to
keep the property together ; he could not bear
the idea of dividing his estate and leaving me a
fair portion all, he resolved , should go to my
brother, Russell. Yet as little could he endure
that a son of his should be a poor man, I must

be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He sought

me a partner betimes. Mr. Mason , a West India
planter and merchant, was his old acquaintance .
He was certain his possessions were real and vast :
he made inquiries. Mr. Mason , he found, had a
son and daughter ; and he learned from him that
he could and would give the latter a fortune of
When I
thirty thousand pounds : that sufficed .
left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse
a bride already courted for me. My father said
nothing about her money ; but he told me Miss
Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her
beauty and this was no lie. I found her a fine
woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram ; tall, dark,
and majestic. Her family wished to secure me,
because I was of a good race ; and so did she.
 JANE EYRE . 17

They showed her to me in parties, splendidly

dressed. I seldom saw her alone, and had very
little private conversation with her. She flattered
me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her
charms and accomplishments. All the men in her
circle seemed to admire her and envy me. I was
dazzled, stimulated : my senses were excited ; and
being ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought
I loved her. There is no folly so besotted that
the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the
rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a
man to its commission . Her relatives encouraged
me ; competitors piqued me ; she allured me : a
marriage was achieved almost before I knew where
I was. Oh, I have no respect for myself when I
think of that act !--an agony of inward contempt
masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I
did not even know her. I was not sure of the
existence of one virtue in her nature : I had
marked neither modesty, nor benevolence , nor
candour, nor refinement in her mind or manners—-
and, I married her :—gross, grovelling, mole-eyed
blockhead that I was ! With less sin I might have
—but let me remember to whom I am speaking.
66
My bride's mother I had never seen : I under-
stood she was dead. The honey-moon over, I
learned my mistake ; she was only mad, and shut
up in a lunatic asylum. There was a younger
VOL. III. C
18 JANE EYRE .

brother, too ; a complete dumb idiot. The elder

one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot
hate, whilst I abhor all his kindred , because he has
some grains of affection in his feeble mind ; shown
in the continued interest he takes in his wretched
sister, and also in a dog-like attachment he once
bore me), will probably be in the same state one
day. My father, and my brother Russell, knew
all this ; but they thought only of the thirty thou-
sand pounds, and joined in the plot against me.
"These were vile discoveries ; bat, except for
the treachery of concealment, I should have made
them no subject of reproach to my wife : even
when I found her nature wholly alien to mine ;
her tastes obnoxious to me ; her cast of mind com-
mon, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of
being led to anything higher, expanded to any-
thing larger—when I found that I could not pass
a single evening, nor even a single hour of the
day with her in comfort ; that kindly conversation
could not be sustained between us, because, what-
ever topic I started, immediately received from
her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and
imbecile — when I perceived that I should never
have a quiet or settled household, because no ser-
vant would bear the continued outbreaks of her
violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations
of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders-
 JANE EYRE. 19

even then I restrained myself: I eschewed up-

braiding, I curtailed remonstrance ; I tried to
devour my repentance and disgust in secret ; I
repressed the deep antipathy I felt .
" Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable
details : some strong words shall express what I
have to say. I lived with that woman up-stairs
four years, and before that time she had tried me
indeed : her character ripened and developed with
frightful rapidity ; her vices sprang up fast and
rank : they were so strong, only cruelty could
check them ; and I would not use cruelty. What a
pigmy intellect she had—and what giant propensi-
ties ! How fearful were the curses those propen-
sities entailed on me ! Bertha Mason, —the true
daughter of an infamous mother, —dragged me
through all the hideous and degrading agonies
which must attend a man bound to a wife at once
intemperate and unchaste.
" My brother in the interval was dead ; and at
the end of the four years my father died too . I
was rich enough now—yet poor to hideous indi-
gence a nature the most gross, impure, depraved
I ever saw, was associated with mine, and called
by the law and by society a part of me. And I
could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings :
for the doctors now discovered that my wife was
mad—her excesses had prematurely developed
C 2
20 JANE EYRE.

the germs of insanity :—Jane, you don't like my

narrative ; you look almost sick— shall I defer the
rest to another day ? "
" No, sir, finish it now : I pity you I do
earnestly pity you ."
66
Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and
insulting sort of tribute, which one is justified in
hurling back in the teeth of those who offer it ; but
that is the sort ofpity native to callous, selfish hearts :
it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes,
crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have
endured them. But that is not your pity, Jane : it
is not the feeling of which your whole face is full
at this moment—with which your eyes are now
almost overflowing - with which your heart is
heaving— with which your hand is trembling in
mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering
mother of love : its anguish is the very natal pang
of the divine passion . I accept it, Jane ; let the
daughter have free advent — my arms wait to
receive her."
" Now, sir, proceed : what did you do when
you found she was mad ?"
" Jane— I approached the verge of despair : a
remnant of self-respect was all that intervened
between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the
world, I was doubtless covered with grimy dis-
honour : but I resolved to be clean in my own
 JANE EYRE . 21

sight— and to the last I repudiated the contami-

nation of her crimes, and wrenched myself from
connexion with her mental defects. Still, society
associated my name and person with hers ; I yet
saw her and heard her daily : something of her
breath (faugh ! ) mixed with the air I breathed ;
and, besides, I remembered I had once been her
husband—that recollection was then, and is now,

inexpressibly odious to me : moreover, I knew

that while she lived I could never be the husband
of another and better wife ; and, though five years
my senior, (her family and my father had lied to
me even in the particular of her age), she was
likely to live as long as I, being as robust in frame
as she was infirm in mind. Thus, at the age of
twenty-six, I was hopeless.
" One night I had been awakened by her yells
—(since the medical men had pronounced her
mad, she had of course been shut up)—it was a
fiery West-Indian night ; one of the description
that frequently precede the hurricanes of those
climates ; being unable to sleep in bed, I got up
and opened the window. The air was like sul-
phur- steams—I could find no refreshment any-
where. Mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed
sullenly round the room ; the sea, which I could
hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake
—black clouds were casting up over it ; the moon
22 JANE EYRE .

was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot

cannon-ball —she threw her last bloody glance
over a world quivering with the ferment of tem-
pest. I was physically influenced by the atmo-
sphere and scene, and my ears were filled with the
curses the maniac still shrieked out ; wherein she
momentarily mingled my name with such a tone
of demon- hate, with such language ! —no professed
harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she :
though two rooms off, I heard every word—the
thin partitions of the West-India house opposing
but slight obstruction to her wolfish cries.
" This life,' said I at last, ' is hell ! this is the air
—those are the sounds of the bottomless pit ! I
have a right to deliver myself from it if I can. The
sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with
the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul . Of the
fanatic's burning eternity I have no fear : there is
not a future state worse than this present one— let
me break away, and go home to God !' :
66
I said this while I knelt down at, and unlocked
a trunk which contained a brace of loaded pistols :
I meant to shoot myself. I only entertained the
intention for a moment ; for, not being insane, the
crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair which had
originated the wish and design of self-destruction ,
was past in a second.
" A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean
 JANE EYRE. 23

and rushed through the open casement : the

storm broke, streamed , thundered, blazed, and the
air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolu-
tion. While I walked under the dripping orange-

trees of my wet garden, and amongst its drenched

pomegranates and pine-apples, and while the reful-
gent dawn of the tropics kindled round me — I
reasoned thus, Jane and now listen ; for it was
true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and
showed me the right path to follow.
" The sweet wind from Europe was still whis-
pering in the refreshed leaves, and the Atlantic was
thundering in glorious liberty ; my heart, dried
up and scorched for a long time , swelled to the
tone, and filled with living blood — my being
longed for renewal — my soul thirsted for a pure
draught. I saw Hope revive—and felt Regenera-
tion possible. From a flowery arch at the bottom
of my garden I gazed over the sea— bluer than the
sky the old world was beyond ; clear prospects
opened thus :—
" Go,' said Hope, and live again in Europe :
there it is not known what a sullied name you
bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you.
You may take the maniac with you to England ;
confine her with due attendance and precautions
at Thornfield : then travel yourself to what clime
you will, and form what new tie you like. That
24 JANE EYRE .

woman, who has so abused your long- suffering—

so sullied your name ; so outraged your honour ;
so blighted your youth—is not your wife ; nor are
you her husband. See that she is cared for as her
condition demands, and you have done all that
God and humanity require of you. Let her

identity, her connection with yourself, be buried

in oblivion you are bound to impart them to no
living being. Place her in safety and comfort :
shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave
her.'
" I acted precisely on this suggestion . My
father and brother had not made my marriage
known to their acquaintance ; because, in the
very first letter I wrote to apprise them of the
union—having already begun to experience ex-
treme disgust of its consequences ; and from the
family character and constitution, seeing a hideous
future opening to me—I added an urgent charge
to keep it secret : and very soon, the infamous
conduct of the wife my father had selected for
me, was such as to make him blush to own her as
his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring to publish
the connection, he became as anxious to conceal
it as myself.
"To England, then, I conveyed her ; a fearful
voyage I had with such a monster in the vessel .
Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield,
 JANE EYRE . 25

and saw her safely lodged in that third story

room , of whose secret inner cabinet she has now
for ten years made a wild beast's den— a goblin's
cell. I had some trouble in finding an attendant
for her ; as it was necessary to select one on

whose fidelity dependence could be placed ; for

her ravings would inevitably betray my secret :
besides, she had lucid intervals of days --- sometimes
weeks-- which she filled up with abuse of me. At
last I hired Grace Poole, from the Grimsby Re-
treat. She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed
Mason's wounds that night he was stabbed and
worried), are the only two I have ever admitted to
my confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have
suspected something ; but she could have gained
no precise knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on
the whole, proved a good keeper : though, owing
partly to a fault of her own , of which it appears
nothing can cure her, and which is incident to
her harassing profession , her vigilance has been
more than once lulled and baffled . The lunatic

is both cunning and malignant ; she has never

failed to take advantage of her guardian's tem-
porary lapses ; once to secret the knife with
which she stabbed her brother, and twice to pos-

sess herself of the key of her cell, and issue

therefrom in the night- time . On the first of
these occasions, she perpetrated the attempt to
26 JANE EYRE .

burn me in my bed ; on the second, she paid that

ghastly visit to you. I thank Providence, who
watched over you, that she then spent her fury
on your wedding apparel ; which perhaps brought
back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days :
but on what might have happened , I cannot en-
dure to reflect. When I think of the thing which
flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black
and scarlet visage over the nest of my dove, my
blood curdles "
" And what, sir," I asked , while he paused,
" did you do when you had settled her here ?
Where did you go ? "
" What did I do, Jane ? I transformed myself
into a Will-o'-the-wisp . Where did I go ? I pur-
sued wanderings as wild as those of the March-
spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious
through all its lands. My fixed desire was to
seek and find a good and intelligent woman,
whom I could love : a contrast to the fury I left
at Thornfield "
" But you could not marry, sir."
" I had determined, and was convinced, that, I
could and ought . It was not my original inten-
tion to deceive, as I have deceived you. I meant
to tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals
openly and it appeared to me so absolutely
rational that I should be considered free to love.
 JANE EYRE. 27

and be loved, I never doubted some woman

might be found willing and able to understand
my case and accept me, in spite of the curse with
which I was burdened ."
66
Well, sir ? "
66
When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always
make me smile. You open your eyes like an
eager bird, and make every now and then a rest-
less movement ; as if answers in speech did not
flow fast enough for you, and you wanted to read
the tablet of one's heart. But before I go on, tell
me what you mean by your 6 Well, sir ? ' It is
a small phrase very frequent with you ; and which
many a time has drawn me on and on through
interminable talk : I don't very well know why."
"I mean,—What next? How did you pro-
ceed ? What came of such an event ? "
" Precisely and what do you wish to know
now ?"
"Whether you found any one you liked :
whether you asked her to marry you ; and what
she said."
" I can tell you whether I found any one I
liked , and whether I asked her to marry me : but
what she said is yet to be recorded in the book
of Fate . For ten long years I roved about , living
first in one capital, then another : sometimes in
St. Petersburg ; oftener in Paris ; occasionally in
h
28 JANE EYRE .

Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with

plenty of money, and the passport of an old name,
I could choose my own society : no circles were
closed against me. I sought my ideal of a woman
amongst English ladies, French countesses, Italian
4
signoras, and German grafinnen . I could not
find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, I
thought I caught a glance, heard a tone, beheld a
form, which announced the realization of my
dream but I was presently undeceived . You
are not to suppose that I desired perfection , either
of mind or person. I longed only for what suited
me for the antipodes of the Creole and I
longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not
one, whom, had I been ever so free, I—warned as
I was of the risks, the horrors, the loathings of
incongruous unions—would have asked to marry
me. Disappointment made me reckless. I tried
dissipation— never debauchery : that I hated, and
hate . That was my Indian Messalina's attribute :
rooted disgust at it and her restrained me much,
even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered
on riot seemed to approach me to her and her
vices, and I eschewed it.
" Yet I could not live alone : so I tried the
companionship of mistresses . The first I chose
was Celine Varens—another of those steps which
make a man spurn himself when he recalls them.
 JANE EYRE. 29

You already know what she was, and how my

liaison with her terminated . She had two suc-
cessors : an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara ;
both considered singularly handsome. What was
their beauty to me in a few weeks ? Giacinta
was unprincipled and violent : I tired of her in
three months. Clara was honest and quiet ; but
heavy, mindless, unimpressible : not one whit to
my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum
to set her up in a good line of business, and so
get decently rid of her. But, Jane, I see by your
face you are not forming a very favourable opinion
of me just now. You think me an unfeeling ,
loose-principled rake : don't you ? "
" I don't like you so well as I have done some-
times, indeed, sir. Did it not seem to you in the
least wrong to live in that way : first with one
mistress and then another ? You talk of it as a
mere matter of course."
" It was with me ; and I did not like it. It
was a grovelling fashion of existence : I should
never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress is
the next worst thing to buying a slave : both are
often by nature, and always by position, inferior :
and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading.
I now hate the recollection of the time I passed
with Celine, Giacinta, and Clara."
I felt the truth of these words ; and I drew
30 JANE EYRE.

from them the certain inference, that if I were so

far to forget myself and all the teaching that had
ever been instilled into me, as—under any pre-
text—with any justification—through any temp-
tation to become the successor of these poor

girls, he would one day regard me with the same

feeling which now in his mind desecrated their
memory. I did not give utterance to this con-
viction : it was enough to feel it. I impressed it
on my heart, that it might remain there to serve
me as aid in the time of trial.
" Now, Jane, why don't you say ' Well, sir ?'
I have not done. You are looking grave. You
disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to
the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses—
in a harsh, bitter, frame of mind, the result of a
useless , roving, lonely life —corroded with disap-
pointment, sourly disposed against all men, and
especially against all womankind (for I began to
regard the notion of an intellectual, faithful, loving
woman as a mere dream ), recalled by business, I
came back to England .
" On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight
of Thornfield Hall. Abhorred spot ! I expected
no peace — no pleasure there . On a style in Hay-
lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I
passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow
opposite to it : I had no presentiment of what it
 JANE EYRE . 31

would be to me ; no inward warning that the

arbitress of my life—my genius for good or evil—
waited there in humble guise. I did not know
it, even when, on the occasion of Mesrour's acci-
dent, it came up and gravely offered me help.
Childish and slender creature ! It seemed as if
a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed to
bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly ; but the
thing would not go : it stood by me with strange
perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of
authority. I must be aided, and by that hand :
and aided I was.
" When once I had pressed the frail shoulder,
something new—a fresh sap and sense—stole into
my frame. It was well I had learnt that this elf
must return to me—that it belonged to my house
down below— or I could not have felt it pass
away from under my hand, and seen it vanish
behind the dim hedge, without singular regret.
I heard you come home that night , Jane : though
probably you were not aware that I thought of
you, or watched for you . The next day I ob-
served you— myself unseen —for half an hour,
while you played with Adele in the gallery. It
was a snowy day, I recollect, and you could not
go out of doors . I was in my room ; the door
was ajar : I could both listen and watch. Adele
claimed your outward attention for a while ; yet
32 JANE EYRE .

I fancied your thoughts were elsewhere : but you

were very patient with her, my little Jane ; you
talked to her and amused her a long time . When
at last she left you, you lapsed at once into deep
reverie : you betook yourself slowly to pace the
gallery. Now and then, in passing a casement,
you glanced out at the thick-falling snow ; you
listened to the sobbing wind, and again you paced
gently on, and dreamed. I think those day-
visions were not dark : there was a pleasurable
illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft
excitement in your aspect, which told of no bitter,
bilious, hypochondriac brooding : your look re-
vealed rather the sweet musings of youth, when
its spirit follows on willing wings the flight of
Hope, up and on to an ideal heaven. The voice
of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the hall,
wakened you and how curiously you smiled to
and at yourself, Janet ! There was much sense
in your smile it was very shrewd, and seemed to
make light of your own abstraction . It seemed
to say- My fine visions are all very well, but I
must not forget they are absolutely unreal. I
have a rosy sky, and a green flowery Eden in my
brain ; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at
my feet a rough tract to travel, and around me
gather black tempests to encounter.' You ran
down stairs and demanded of Mrs. Fairfax some
 JANE EYRE. 33

occupation : the weekly house- accounts to make

up, or something of that sort, I think it was.
I was vexed with you for getting out of my
sight.
"Impatiently I waited for evening , when I
might summon you to my presence. An unusual
—to me—a perfectly new character I suspected
was yours: I desired to search it deeper, and know
it better. You entered the room with a look and
air at once shy and independent; you were quaintly
dressed— much as you are now. I made you talk :

ere long I found you full of strange contrasts .

Your garb and manner were restricted by rule ;
your air was often diffident, and altogether that of
one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to
society, and a good deal afraid of making herself
disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism
or blunder ; yet, when addressed, you lifted a
keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your inter-
locutor's face : there was penetration and power in
each glance you gave ; when plied by close ques-
tions, you found ready and round answers. Very
soon, you seemed to get used to me—I believe you
felt the existence of sympathy between you and
your grim and cross master, Jane ; for it was
astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant
ease tranquillized your manner : snarl as I would,
you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance , or dis-
VOL. III. D
34 JANE EYRE.

pleasure at my moroseness ; you watched me, and

now and then smiled at me with a simple yet
sagacious grace I cannot describe . I was at once
content and stimulated with what I saw : I liked
what I had seen , and wished to see more. Yet,
for a long time, I treated you distantly, and sought
your company rarely. I was an intellectual epi-
cure, and wished to prolong the gratification of
making this novel and piquant acquaintance : be-
sides, I was for a while troubled with a haunting
fear that if I handled the flower freely its bloom
would fade — the sweet charm of freshness would
leave it. I did not then know that it was no tran-
sitory blossom ; but rather the radiant resemblance
of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover,
I wished to see whether you would seek me if I
shunned you—but you did not ; you kept in the
school-room as still as your own desk and easel :
if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon,
and with as little token of recognition , as was con-
Your habitual expression in
sistent with respect.
those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look : not
despondent, for you were not sickly ; but not
buoyant, for you had little hope, and no actual
pleasure. I wondered what you thought of me — or
if you ever thought of me : to find this out, I
resumed my notice of you. There was something
glad in your glance , and genial in your manner,
 JANE EYRE. 35

when you conversed : I saw you had a social heart ;

it was the silent school-room—it was the tedium
of your life that made you mournful. I permitted

myself the delight of being kind to you ; kindness

stirred emotion soon : your face became soft in
expression , your tones gentle ; I liked my name
pronounced by your lips in a grateful, happy
accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting with
you, Jane, at this time : there was a curious
hesitation in your manner ; you glanced at me
with a slight trouble— a hovering doubt : you did
not know what my caprice might be—whether I
was going to play the master and be stern, or the
friend and be benignant . I was now too fond of
you often to simulate the first whim ; and, when I
stretched my hand out cordially, such bloom and
light and bliss rose to your young , wistful features ,
I had much ado often to avoid straining you then
and there to my heart."
" Don't talk any more of those days, sir," I
interrupted, furtively dashing away some tears
from my eyes ; his language was torture to me ; for
I knew what I must do— and do soon— and all
these reminiscences, and these revelations of his
feelings only made my work more difficult.
66
No, Jane," he returned : " what necessity is
there to dwell on the Past , when the Present is
so much surer— the Future so much brighter ? "
D2
36 JANE EYRE.

I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion .

" You see now how the case stands— do you
not ?" he continued. " After a youth and man-
hood passed half in unutterable misery and half
in dreary solitude , I have for the first time found
what I can truly love— I have found you. You

are my sympathy— my better self—my good angel

—I am bound to you with a strong attachment.
I think you good , gifted , lovely : a fervent, a
solemn passion is conceived in my heart ; it
leans to you , draws you to my centre and spring
of life, wraps my existence about you — and, kind-
ling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me
in one.
"It was because I felt and knew this, that I
resolved to marry you. To tell me that I had

already a wife is empty mockery : you know now

that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to
attempt to deceive you ; but I feared a stubbornness
that exists in your character. I feared early
instilled prejudice : I wanted to have you safe
before hazarding confidences. This was cowardly :
I should have appealed to your nobleness and
magnanimity at first, as I do now— opened to you
plainly my life of agony—described to you my
hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier exis-
tence— shown to you, not my resolution (that word
is weak) but my resistless bent to love faithfully and
 JANE EYRE. 37

well, where I am faithfully and well loved in

return. Then I should have asked you to accept my
pledge of fidelity, and to give me yours : Jane—
give it me now."
A pause.
66
Why are you silent, Jane ? "
I was experiencing an ordeal : a hand of fiery
iron grasped my vitals. Terrible moment : full
of struggle, blackness, burning ! Not a human
being that ever lived could wish to be loved better
than I was loved ; and him who thus loved me I
absolutely worshipped : and I must renounce love
and idol. One drear word comprised my intoler-
able duty—" Depart ! "
66
Jane, you understand what I want of you ?
Just this promise -' I will be yours, Mr. Ro-
chester.'"
" Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours."
Another long silence.
" Jane ! " recommenced he, with a gentleness
that broke me down with grief, and turned me
stone-cold with ominous terror— for this still voice
was the pant of a lion rising—" Jane, do you
mean to go one way in the world, and to let me
go another ? "
" I do."
" Jane," (bending towards and embracing me)
" do you mean it now ? "
38 JANE EYRE .

"I do."

" And now ? " softly kissing my forehead and

cheek.
" I do " extricating myself from restraint ra-
pidly and completely.
" Oh, Jane, this is bitter ! This—this is wicked .
It would not be wicked to love me."
" It would to obey you ."
A wild look raised his brows— crossed his fea-
tures : he rose ; but he forbore yet. I laid my
hand on the back of a chair for support : I shook,
I feared— but I resolved .
" One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my
horrible life when you are gone. All happiness
will be torn away with you. What then is left ?
For a wife I have but the maniac up -stairs : as well
might you refer me to some corpse in yonder church-
yard. What shall I do , Jane ? Where turn for a
companion, and for some hope ? "
"Do as I do : trust in God and yourself. Be-
lieve in Heaven. Hope to meet again there. "
" Then you will not yield ?"
" No."
"Then you condemn me to live wretched , and
to die accursed ?" His voice rose.
" I advise you to live sinless ; and I wish you to
die tranquil. "
" Then you snatch love and innocence from
 JANE EYRE. 39

me ? You fling me back on lust for a passion—

vice for an occupation ? "
" Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to
you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born
to strive and endure—you as well as I do so.
You will forget me before I forget you."
" You make me a liar by such language : you
sully my honour . I declared I could not change :
you tell me to my face I shall change soon. And
what a distortion in your judgment, what a per-
versity in your ideas, is proved by your conduct !
Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair
than to transgress a mere human law—no man
being injured by the breach ? for you have
neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you
need fear to offend by living with me."
This was true and while he spoke my very
Conscience and Reason turned traitors against me,
and charged me with crime in resisting him. They
spoke almost as loud as Feeling and that
clamoured wildly. "Oh, comply ! " it said.
" Think of his misery ; think of his danger— look
at his state when left alone ; remember his head-
long nature ; consider the recklessness following
on despair—soothe him ; save him ; love him ;
tell him you love him and will be his. Who in
the world cares for you ? or who will be injured
by what you do ? "
40 JANE EYRE.

Still indomitable was the reply— " I care for

myself. The more solitary, the more friendless,
the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect
myself. I will keep the law given by God ; sanc-
tioned by man. I will hold to the principles
received by me when I was sane, and not mad—
as I am now. Laws and principles are not for
the times when there is no temptation : they are
for such moments as this, when body and soul
rise in mutiny against their rigour ; stringent are
they ; inviolate they shall be . If at my individual
convenience I might break them, what would be
their worth ? They have a worth—so I have

always believed ; and if I cannot believe it now,

it is because I am insane—quite insane : with my
veins running fire, and my heart beating faster
than I can count its throbs. Preconceived
opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have
at this hour to stand by : there I plant my
foot. "
I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my counte-
nance , saw I had done so . His fury was wrought
to the highest : he must yield to it for a moment,
whatever followed ; he crossed the floor and
seized my arm, and grasped my waist. He
seemed to devour me with his flaming glance :
physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as
stubble exposed to the draught and glow of a
 JANE EYRE. 41

furnace— mentally, I still possessed my soul, and

with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The
soul, fortunately, has an interpreter— often an
unconscious , but still a truthful interpreter—in the
eye. My eye rose to his ; and while I looked in
his fierce face, I gave an involuntary sigh : his
gripe was painful, and my over-tasked strength
almost exhausted .
66
Never," said he, as he ground his teeth,
66
never was anything at once so frail and so
indomitable . A mere reed she feels in my hand !
(and he shook me with the force of his hold . ) I

could bend her with my finger and thumb : and

what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if
I crushed her ? Consider that eye consider the
resolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defy-
ing me, with more than courage—with a stern
triumph. Whatever I do with its cage , I cannot
get at it—the savage, beautiful creature ! If I
tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will
only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might
be of the house ; but the inmate would escape to
heaven before I could call myself possessor of its
clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit— with
will and energy, and virtue and purity—that I
want : not alone your brittle frame . Of yourself,
you could come with soft flight and nestle against
my heart, if you would : seized against your will,
42 JANE EYRE .

you will elude the grasp like an essence —you will

vanish ere I inhale your fragrance . Oh ! come,
Jane , come ! "
As he said this, he released me from his clutch ,
and only looked at me . The look was far worse to
resist than the frantic strain : only an idiot, how-
ever, would have succumbed now. I had dared
and baffled his fury ; I must elude his sorrow :
I retired to the door.
" You are going, Jane ? "
" I am going, sir :"
"You are leaving me ? "
" Yes."
" You will not come ?—You will not be my
comforter, my rescuer ?—My deep love, my wild
woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you ? "
What unutterable pathos was in his voice !
How hard it was to reiterate firmly, " I am going."
" Jane !"
" Mr. Rochester !"
" Withdraw, then— I consent— but remember,
you leave me here in anguish. Go up to your
own room ; think over all I have said, and, Jane,
cast a glance on my sufferings—think of me. "
He turned away ; he threw himself on his face
on the sofa. " Oh, Jane ! my hope—my love— my
life ! " broke in anguish from his lips . Then
came a deep, strong sob.
 JANE EYRE . 43

I had already gained the door : but, reader, I

walked back—walked back as determinedly as I
had retreated . I knelt down by him ; I turned
his face from the cushion to me ; I kissed his
cheek ; I smoothed his hair with my hand.
"God bless you, my dear master ! " I said.
"God keep you from harm and wrong—direct
you, solace you —reward you well for your past
kindness to me."
" Little Jane's love would have been my best
reward," he answered : " without it, my heart is
broken. But Jane will give me her love : yes—
nobly, generously."
Up the blood rushed to his face ; forth flashed
the fire from his eyes ; erect he sprang ; he held
his arms out ; but I evaded the embrace, and at
once quitted the room.
" Farewell ! " was the cry of my heart, as
I left him. Despair added, " Farewell, for
ever ! "

That night I never thought to sleep : but a

slumber fell on me as soon as I lay down in bed.
I was transported in thought to the scenes of
childhood : I dreamt I lay in the red-room at
Gateshead ; that the night was dark, and my
mind impressed with strange fears. The light that
long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in
44 JANE EYRE .

this vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall,

and tremblingly to pause in the centre of the
obscured ceiling. I lifted up my head to look :
the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim ; the
gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours,
she is about to sever. I watched her come—
watched with the strangest anticipation ; as though
some word of doom were to be written on her
disk. She broke forth as never moon yet burst
from cloud a hand first penetrated the sable
folds and waved them away ; then, not a moon,
but a white human form shone in the azure, in-
clining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and
gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit : immeasure-
ably distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered
in my heart—
"6
My daughter, flee temptation ! "
" Mother, I will."
So I answered after I had waked from the
trance-like dream. It was yet night, but July
nights are short : soon after midnight, dawn
comes . " It cannot be too early to commence the
task I have to fulfil," thought I. I rose : I was
dressed ; for I had taken off nothing but my shoes.
I knew where to find in my drawers some linen,
a locket, a ring. In seeking these articles, I
encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr.
Rochester had forced me to accept a few days
 JANE EYRE. 45

ago. I left that ; it was not mine : it was the

visionary bride's, who had melted in air. The
other articles I made up in a parcel ; my purse,

containing twenty shillings (it was all I had), I

put in my pocket : I tied on my straw bonnet,
pinned my shawl, took the parcel and my slippers,
which I would not put on yet, and stole from my
room .
" Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax ! " I whispered ,
as I glided past her door . " Farewell, my dar-
ling Adele ! " I said, as I glanced towards the
nursery . No thought could be admitted of
entering to embrace her. I had to deceive

a fine ear : for aught I knew, it might now be

listening .
I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber
without a pause ; but my heart momentarily stop-
ping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced
to stop also. No sleep was there : the inmate
was walking restlessly from wall to wall ; and
again and again he sighed while I listened . There
was a heaven— a temporary heaven—in this room
for me, if I chose : I had but to go in and to
say—
" Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with
you through life till death," and a fount of rap-
ture would spring to my lips. I thought of
this.
46 JANE EYRE .

That kind master, who could not sleep now,

was waiting with impatience for day. He would
send for me in the morning ; I should be gone.
He would have me sought for : vainly. He would
feel himself forsaken ; his love rejected : he would
suffer ; perhaps grow desperate. I thought of this
too. My hand moved towards the lock : I caught
it back, and glided on .
Drearily I wound my way down stairs : I knew
what I had to do, and I did it mechanically . I
sought the key of the side- door in the kitchen ;
I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather ; I oiled
the key and the lock. I got some water, I got
some bread : for perhaps I should have to walk
far ; and my strength, sorely shaken of late , must
not break down . All this I did without one
sound. I opened the door, passed out, shut it

softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard. The

great gates were closed and locked ; but a wicket
in one of them was only latched. Through that
I departed : it, too, I shut ; and now I was out of
Thornfield .

A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which

stretched in the contrary direction to Millcote ;
a road I had never travelled, but often noticed,
and wondered where it led : thither I bent my
steps . No reflection was to be allowed now : not
one glance was to be cast back ; not even one
 JANE EYRE. 47

forward. Not one thought was to be given either

to the past or the future. The first was a page
so heavenly sweet —so deadly sad — that to read one
line of it would dissolve my courage and break
down my energy . The last was an awful blank :
something like the world when the deluge was
gone by.
I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes , till after
sunrise. I believe it was a lovely summer morn-
ing : I know my shoes, which I had put on when
I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But
I looked neither to rising sun , nor smiling sky,
nor wakening nature. He who is taken out to
pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks
not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of
the block and axe-edge ; of the disseverment of
bone and vein ; of the grave gaping at the end :
and I thought of drear flight and homeless wan-
dering —and, oh ! with agony I thought of what
I left. I could not help it. I thought of him
now—in his room—watching the sunrise ; hoping
I should soon come to say I would stay with him,
and be his. I longed to be his ; I panted to re-
turn : it was not too late ; I could yet spare him
the bitter pang of bereavement. As yet my flight,
I was sure, was undiscovered. I could go back

and be his comforter— his pride ; his redeemer

from misery ; perhaps from ruin. Oh, that fear
48 JANE EYRE.

of his self-abandonment far worse than my

abandonment—how it goaded me ! It was a

barbed arrow-head in my breast ; it tore me when

I tried to extract it ; it sickened me when Re-
membrance thrust it further in. Birds began
singing in brake and copse : birds were faithful
to their mates ; birds were emblems of love.
What was I ? In the midst of my pain of heart,
and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself.
I had no solace from self-approbation : none even
from self-respect. I had injured —wounded—left
my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. Still
I could not turn , nor retrace one step. God
must have led me on. As to my own will or

conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one

and stifled the other. I was weeping wildly as
I walked along my solitary way : fast, fast I went
like one delirious. A weakness, beginning in-
wardly, extending to the limbs, seized me , and
I fell I lay on the ground some minutes, press-
ing my face to the wet turf. I had some fear—or
hope that here I should die : but I was soon up ;
crawling forwards on my hands and knees, and then
again raised to my feet—as eager and as determined
as ever to reach the road.
When I got there I was forced to sit to rest
me under the hedge ; and while I sat, I heard
wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood up
 JANE EYRE. 49

and lifted my hand ; it stopped. I asked where it

was going the driver named a place a long way
off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had no
connexions. I asked for what sum he would take

me there ; he said thirty shillings ; I answered I

had but twenty ; well, he would try to make it do.
He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as
the vehicle was empty : I entered , was shut in , and
it rolled on its way.

Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then

felt ! May your eyes never shed such stormy,
scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine.
May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so
hopeless and so agonized as in that hour left my
lips : for never may you, like me , dread to be the
instrument of evil to what you wholly love .

VOL. III. E
50 JANE EYRE .

CHAPTER II.

Two days are passed . It is a summer evening ;

the coachman has set me down at a place called
Whitcross : he could take me no farther for the
sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another
shilling in the world . The coach is a mile off by
this time ; I am alone. At this moment I discover

that I forgot to take my parcel out of the pocket

of the coach, where I had placed it for safety ;
there it remains, there it must remain ; and now
I am absolutely destitute.
Whitcross is no town , nor even a hamlet ; it is
but a stone pillar set up where four roads meet :
white-washed , I suppose, to be more obvious at a
distance and in darkness. Four arms spring
from its summit : the nearest town to which these
point is, according to the inscription, distant ten
miles ; the farthest, above twenty. From the
well-known names of these towns I learn in what
county I have lighted ; a north-midland shire,
dusk with moorland, ridged with mountain : this
 JANE EYRE . 51

I see . There are great moors behind and on

each hand of me ; there are waves of mountains
far beyond that deep valley at my feet . The
population here must be thin , and I see no pas-
sengers on these roads : they stretch out east ,
west , north , and south — white , broad , lonely ; they
are all cut in the moor, and the heather grows
deep and wild to their very verge . Yet a chance
traveller might pass by ; and I wish no eye to see
me now : strangers would wonder what I am

doing, lingering here at the sign -post, evidently

objectless and lost . I might be questioned : I
could give no answer but what would sound
incredible , and excite suspicion .
Not a tie holds
me to human society at this moment — not a
charm or hope calls me where my fellow-creatures
are —none that saw me would have a kind thought
or a good wish for me. I have no relative but the
universal mother , Nature : I will seek her breast
and ask repose.
I struck straight into the heath : I held on to a
hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moor-
side ; I waded, knee-deep in its dark growth ; I
turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-
blackened granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat
down under it. High banks of moor were about
me ; the crag protected my head : the sky was
over that.
E2
52 JANE EYRE.

Some time passed before I felt tranquil even

here I had a vague dread that wild cattle might
be near, or that some sportsman or poacher might
discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste,

I looked up, fearing it was the rush of a bull ; if

a plover whistled , I imagined it a man . Find-
ing my apprehensions unfounded, however, and
calmed by the deep silence that reigned as even-
ing declined to night- fall, I took confidence. As
yet I had not thought ; I had only listened,
watched, dreaded : now I regained the faculty of
reflection.
What was I to do ? Where to go ? Oh, in-
tolerable questions, when I could do nothing and
go nowhere ! —when a long way must yet be
measured by my weary, trembling limbs, before
I could reach human habitation— when cold
charity must be entreated before I could get a
lodging : reluctant sympathy importuned : almost
certain repulse incurred : before my tale could be
listened to, or one of my wants relieved !
I touched the heath : it was dry, and yet warm
with the heat of the summer-day. I looked at
the sky ; it was pure : a kindly star twinkled just
above the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with
propitious softness ; no breeze whispered. Nature
seemed to me benign and good : I thought she
loved me, outcast as I was ; and I, who from
 JANE EYRE. 53

man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection,

insult, clung to her with filial fondness. To-
night, at least, I would be her guest—as I was her
child my mother would lodge me without
money and without price. I had one morsel of
bread yet : the remnant of a roll I had bought in
a town we passed through at noon with a stray
penny—my last coin . I saw ripe bilberries
gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the
heath : I gathered a handful and ate them with
the bread. My hunger, sharp before, was, if not
satisfied, appeased by this hermit's meal. I said
my evening prayers at its conclusion, and then
chose my couch.
Beside the crag, the heath was very deep :
when I lay down my feet were buried in it ; rising
high on each side, it left only a narrow space for
the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl
double, and spread it over me for a coverlet ; a
low, mossy swell was my pillow. Thus lodged, I
was not, at least at the commencement of the
night, cold.
My rest might have been blissful enough, only
a sad heart broke it. It plained of its gaping
wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords .
It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom : it

bemoaned him with bitter pity ; it demanded him

with ceaseless longing : and, impotent as a bird
54 JANE EYRE .

with both wings broken, it still quivered its shat-

tered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.
Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to
my knees. Night was come, and her planets
were risen : a safe , still night ; too serene for the
-companionship of fear. We know that God is
everywhere ; but certainly we feel His presence
most when His works are on the grandest scale
spread before us : and it is in the unclouded night-
sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course,
that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipo-
tence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my
knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. Looking up,
I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty milky-
way. Remembering what it was —what countless
systems there swept space like a soft trace of
light—I felt the might and strength of God.
Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He
had made convinced I grew that neither earth
should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured .
I turned my prayer to thanksgiving : the Source
of Life was also the Saviour of spirits. Mr.
Rochester was safe : he was God's, and by God
would he be guarded . I again nestled to the
breast of the hill ; and ere long, in sleep, forgot
sorrow.
But next day, Want came to me, pale and bare.
Long after the little birds had left their nests ;
 JANE EYRE . 55

long after bees had come in the sweet prime of

day to gather the heath honey before the dew was
dried—when the long morning shadows were cur-
tailed , and the sun filled earth and sky— I got up,
and I looked round me.
What a still, hot, perfect day ! What a golden
desert this spreading moor ! Everywhere sun-
shine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I
saw a lizard run over the crag ; I saw a bee busy
among the sweet bilberries. I would fain at the
moment have become bee or lizard, that I might
have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter
here. But I was a human being, and had a human
being's wants : I must not linger where there was
nothing to supply them. I rose ; I looked back
at the bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I
wished but this —that my Maker had that night
thought good to require my soul of me while I
slept ; and that this weary frame, absolved by
death from further conflict with fate , had now but
to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the
soil of this wilderness. Life , however, was yet
in my possession ; with all its requirements, and
pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be
carried ; the want provided for ; the suffering
endured ; the responsibility fulfilled. I set out.
Whitcross regained, I followed a road which
led from the sun, now fervent and high. By no
56 JANE EYRE.

other circumstance had I will to decide my choice.

I walked a long time, and when I thought I had
nearly done enough, and might conscientiously
yield to the fatigue that almost overpowered me—
might relax this forced action, and, sitting down
on a stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the
apathy that clogged heart and limb — I heard a
bell chime —a church bell.
I turned in the direction of the sound, and
there, amongst the romantic hills, whose changes
and aspect I had ceased to note an hour ago, I
saw a hamlet and a spire . All the valley at my
right hand was full of pasture-fields, and corn-
fields, and wood ; and a glittering stream ran
zig-zag through the varied shades of green, the
mellowing grain, the sombre wood-land, the clear
and sunny lea. Recalled by the rumbling of
wheels to the road before me, I saw a heavily-
laden waggon labouring up the hill ; and not far
beyond were two cows and their drover. Human
life and human labour were near. I must struggle
on strive to live and bend to toil like the rest.
About two o'clock, p. M., I entered the village.
At the bottom of its one street, there was a little
shop with some cakes of bread in the window.
I coveted a cake of bread. With that refresh-
ment I could perhaps regain a degree of energy ;
without it, it would be difficult to proceed. The
 JANE EYRE. 57

wish to have some strength and some vigour re-

turned to me as soon as I was amongst my fellow-

beings. I felt it would be degrading to faint with

hunger on the causeway of a hamlet. Had I
nothing about me I could offer in exchange for
one of these rolls ? I considered . I had a small
silk handkerchief tied round my throat ; I had
my gloves. I could hardly tell how men and
women in extremities of destitution proceeded .
I did not know whether either of these articles
would be accepted : probably they would not ; but
I must try.
I entered the shop : a woman was there. See-
ing a respectably-dressed person , a lady as she
supposed, she came forward with civility. How
could she serve me ? I was seized with shame :
my tongue would not utter the request I had
prepared. I dared not offer her the half- worn
gloves, the creased handkerchief: besides, I felt
it would be absurd . I only begged permission to
sit down a moment, as I was tired . Disappointed
in the expectation of a customer, she coolly ac-
ceded to my request. She pointed to a seat ; I
sank into it. I felt sorely urged to weep ; but
conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation
would be, I restrained it. Soon I asked her, " if
there were any dressmaker or plain- work-woman
in the village ?"
58 JANE EYRE.

" Yes ; two or three. Quite as many as there

was employment for."
I reflected . I was driven to the point now.
I was brought face to face with Necessity. I
stood in the position of one without a resource :
without a friend ; without a coin . I must do
something. What ? I must apply somewhere.
Where ?"
" Did she know of any place in the neighbour-
hood where a servant was wanted ? "
66
Nay ; she couldn't say."
" What was the chief trade in this place ? What
did most of the people do ? "
" Some were farm labourers ; a good deal
worked at Mr. Oliver's needle-factory, and at the
foundry."
" Did Mr. Oliver employ women ? "
" Nay ; it was men's work. "
" And what do the women do ? "
" I knawn't," was the answer. " Some does
one thing, and some another. Poor folk mun get
on as they can."
She seemed to be tired of my questions : and,
indeed, what claim had I to importune her ? A
neighbour or two came in ; my chair was evidently
wanted. I took leave.
I passed up the street, looking as I went at all
the houses to the right hand and to the left : but
 JANE EYRE . 59

I could discover no pretext, nor see an induce-

ment, to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet,
going sometimes to a little distance and returning
again, for an hour or more . Much exhausted ,

and suffering greatly now for want of food , I

turned aside into a lane and sat down under the
hedge. Ere many minutes had elapsed , I was
again on my feet, however, and again searching
something a resource, or at least an informant .
A pretty little house stood at the top of the lane,
with a garden before it ; exquisitely neat, and
brilliantly blooming . I stopped at it . What
business had I to approach the white door, or
touch the glittering knocker ? In what way

could it possibly be the interest of the inhabitants

of that dwelling to serve me ? Yet I drew near
and knocked. A mild-looking, cleanly- attired
young woman opened the door. In such a voice
as might be expected from a hopeless heart and
fainting frame — a voice wretchedly low and
faltering - I asked if a servant was wanted
here ?

" No," said she ; " we do not keep a servant."

" Can you tell me where I could get employ-
ment of any kind ? " I continued . " I am a

stranger, without acquaintance, in this place . I

want some work : no matter what."
But it was not her business to think for me, or
60 JANE EYRE.

to seek a place for me : besides, in her eyes, how

doubtful must have appeared my character, po-
sition , tale . She shook her head, she " was sorry
she could give me no information ," and the white
door closed, quite gently and civilly : but it shut
me out . If she had held it open a little longer, I
believe I should have begged a piece of bread ; for
I was now brought low.
I could not bear to return to the sordid village ;
where, besides, no prospect of aid was visible. I
should have longed rather to deviate to a wood
I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick
shade to offer inviting shelter ; but I was so sick,
so weak, so gnawed with nature's cravings, in-
stinct kept me roaming round abodes where there
was a chance of food . Solitude would be no soli-
tude—rest no rest—while the vulture, hunger,
thus sunk beak and talons in my side.
I drew near houses.; I left them, and came back
again, and again I wandered away : always re-
pelled by the consciousness of having no claim to
ask—no right to expect interest in my isolated
lot. Meantime, the afternoon advanced, while I
thus wandered about like a lost and starving dog.
In crossing a field, I saw the church-spire before
me: I hastened towards it. Near the church-

yard, and in the middle of a garden, stood a well-

built though small house, which I had no doubt
 JANE EYRE. 61

was the parsonage. I remembered that strangers

who arrive at a place where they have no friends,
and who want employment, sometimes apply to
the clergyman for introduction and aid. It is
the clergyman's function to help — at least with
advice —those who wish to help themselves. I
seemed to have something like a right to seek
counsel here. Renewing then, my courage , and
gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed
on. I reached the house, and knocked at the
kitchen-door. An old woman opened : I asked
was this the parsonage ?
" Yes."
" Was the clergyman in ? "
"No. "
"Would he be in soon ? "
" No, he was gone from home."
" To a distance ?"
" Not so far— happen three mile. He had
been called away by the sudden death of his
father : he was at Marsh End now, and would
very likely stay there a fortnight longer."
"Was there any lady of the house ? "
" Nay, there was naught but her, and she was
housekeeper ; " and of her, reader, I could not
bear to ask the relief for want of which I was

sinking ; I could not yet beg ; and again I crawled

away.
62 JANE EYRE.

Once more I took off my handkerchief— once

more I thought of the cakes of bread in the little
shop . Oh, for but a crust ! for but one mouthful
to allay the pang of famine ! Instinctively I
turned my face again to the village : I found the
shop again, and I went in ; and though others
were there besides the woman, I ventured the
request, " Would she give me a roll for this
handkerchief?"
She looked at me with evident suspicion :
66
Nay, she never sold stuff i' that way."
Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake ; she
again refused. " How could she tell where I had
got the handkerchief," she said.
" Would she take my gloves ? "
" No ? what could she do with them ? "
Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these
details . Some say there is enjoyment in looking

back to painful experience past ; but at this day I

can scarcely bear to review the times to which I
allude : the moral degradation , blent with the
physical suffering, form too distressing a recollec-
tion ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed
none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was

what was to be expected, and what could not be

helped an ordinary beggar is frequently an
object of suspicion ; a well-dressed beggar in-
evitably so. To be sure, what I begged was
 JANE EYRE . 63

employment : but whose business was it to pro-

vide me with employment ? Not, certainly that
of persons who saw me then for the first time,
and who knew nothing about my character.
character. And
as to the woman who would not take my hand-

kerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she

was right ; if the offer appeared to her sinister, or
the exchange unprofitable. Let me condense
now. I am sick of the subject.
A little before dark I passed a farm - house, at
the open door of which the farmer was sitting,
eating his supper of bread and cheese : I stopped
and said :—

" Will you give me a piece of bread ? for I am

very hungry." He cast on me a glance of surprise ;
but without answering, he cut a thick slice from
his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not
think I was a beggar, but only an eccentric sort of
lady, who had taken a fancy to his brown loaf. As
soon as I was out of sight of his house, I sat down
and ate it.

I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof,

and sought it in the wood I have before alluded
to. But my night was wretched, my rest broken :
the ground was damp, the air cold : besides, in-
truders passed near me more than once, and I
had again and again to change my quarters : no
sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me.
64 JANE EYRE .

Towards morning it rained ; the whole of the

following day was wet. Do not ask me, reader,
to give a minute account of that day : as before, I
sought work ; as before , I was repulsed ; as before,
starved ; but once did food pass my lips . At the
door of a cottage I saw a little girl about to
throw a mess of cold porridge into a pig-trough.
" Will you give me that ? " I asked .
She stared at me. " Mother !" she exclaimed ;
" there is a woman wants me to give her these
porridge ."
" Well, lass," replied a voice within, “ give it
her if she's a beggar. T' pig doesn't want it. "
The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my
hand, and I devoured it ravenously.
As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a
solitary bridle-path, which I had been pursuing an
hour or more.
66
My strength is quite failing me," I said, in
soliloquy. I feel I cannot go much further.
Shall I be an outcast again this night ? While
the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the
cold drenched ground ! I fear I cannot do
otherwise for who will receive me ? But it will
be very dreadful : with this feeling of hunger,
faintness, chill , and this sense of desolation —this
total prostration of hope. In all likelihood,
though, I should die before morning. And why
 JANE EYRE. 65

cannot I reconcile myself to the prospect of

death ? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless
life ? Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester
is still living : and then, to die of want and cold,
is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively.
Oh, Providence ! sustain me a little longer ! Aid
—direct me !"
My glazed eye wandered over the dim and
misty landscape. I saw I had strayed far from
the village : it was quite out of sight. The very
cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I
had, by cross-ways and by-paths, once more
drawn near the tract of moorland ; and now,
only a few fields, almost as wild and unproductive
as the heath from which they were scarcely re-
claimed, lay between me and the dusky hill.
" Well, I would rather die yonder than in a
street,or on a frequented road," I reflected.
" And far better that crows and ravens— if any
ravens there be in these regions —should pick my
flesh from my bones, than that they should be
prisoned in a workhouse coffin, and moulder in a
pauper s grave."
To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It
remained now only to find a hollow where I
could lie down, and feel at least hidden, if not
secure but all the surface of the waste looked
level. It showed no variation but of tint : green,
where rush and moss overgrew the marshes ; black,
VOL. III. F
66 JANE EYRE .

where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was

getting, I could still see these changes ; though

but as mere alternations of light and shade : for
colour had faded with the daylight.
My eye still roved over the sullen swell, and along
the moor- edge, vanishing amidst the wildest
scenery ; when, at one dim point, far in among
the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up .
" That is an ignis fatuus," was my first thought ;
and I expected it would soon vanish. It burnt
on, however, quite steadily ; neither receding nor
advancing. " Is it then a bonfire just kindled ? "
I questioned. I watched to see whether it would
spread : but no ; as it did not diminish, so it did
not enlarge. " It may be a candle in a house," I
then conjectured : " but if so, I can never reach
it. It is much too far away : and were it within
a yard of me, what would it avail? I should
but knock at the door to have it shut in my face."
And I sank down where I stood, and hid my
face against the ground. I lay still a while : the
night-wind swept over the hill and over me, and
died moaning in the distance ; the rain fell fast,
wetting me afresh to the skin. Could I but have
stiffened to the still frost—the friendly numbness
of death—it might have pelted on : I should not
have felt it ; but my yet living flesh shuddered to
its chilling influence. I rose ere long.
 JANE EYRE . 67

The light was yet there ; shining dim, but con-

stant, through the rain. I tried to walk again : I
dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it.
It led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog;
which would have been impassable in winter, and
was splashy and shaking even now, in the height
of summer. Here I fell twice ; but as often I rose
and rallied my faculties. This light was my for-
lorn hope : I must gain it.
Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of
white over the moor. I approached it ; it was a
road or a track : it led straight up to the light,
which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a
clump of trees—firs, apparently, from what I could
distinguish of the character of their forms and
foliage through the gloom. My star vanished as
I drew near : some obstacle had intervened be-
tween me and it. I put out my hand to feel the
dark mass before me ; I discriminated the rough
stones of a low wall— above it, something like
palisades, and within, a high and prickly hedge.
I groped on. Again a whitish object gleamed
before me it was a gate —a wicket ; it moved on
its hinges as I touched it. On each side stood a
sable bush—holly or yew.

Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the

silhouette of a house rose to view ; black, low, and
rather long : but the guiding light shone nowhere.
F2
68 JANE EYRE.

All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to

rest ? I feared it must be so. In seeking the
door, I turned an angle : there shot out the friendly
gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very
small latticed window, within a foot ofthe ground ;
made still smaller by the growth of ivy or some
other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick
over the portion of the house wall in which it
was set. The aperture was so screened and
narrow, that curtain or shutter had been deemed
unnecessary ; and when I stooped down and put
aside the spray of foliage shooting over it, I
could see all within. I could see clearly a room
with a sanded floor, clean scoured ; a dresser of
walnut, with pewter plates ranged in rows, reflect-
ing the redness and radiance of a glowing peat-
fire. I could see a clock, a white deal table, some
chairs. The candle, whose ray had been my
beacon, burnt on the table ; and by its light an
elderly woman, somewhat rough- looking, but
scrupulously clean, like all about her, was knitting
a stocking.
I noticed these objects cursorily only—in them
there was nothing extraordinary. A group of
more interest appeared near the hearth, sitting
still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing
it. Two young, graceful women—ladies in every
point— sat, one in a low rocking- chair, the other
 JANE EYRE. 69

on a lower stool ; both wore deep mourning of

crape and bombazeen, which sombre garb singu-
larly set off very fair necks and faces : a large old
pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of
one girl—in the lap of the other was cushioned a
black cat.
A strange place was this humble kitchen for
such occupants ! Who were they ? They could
not be the daughters of the elderly person at the
table ; for she looked like a rustic, and they were
all delicacy and cultivation . I had nowhere seen
such faces as theirs : and yet, as I gazed on them,
I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot
call them handsome—they were too pale and grave
for the word : as they each bent over a book, they
looked thoughtful almost to severity. A stand
between them supported a second candle and two
great volumes, to which they frequently referred ;
comparing them seemingly with the smaller books
they held in their hands, like people consulting a
dictionary to aid them in the task of translation .
This scene was as silent as if all the figures had
been shadows, and the fire -lit apartment a picture:
so hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall
from the grate, the clock tick in its obscure cor-
ner ; and I even fancied I could distinguish the
click-click of the woman's knitting-needles. When,
70 JANE EYRE.

therefore, a voice broke the strange stillness at last,

it was audible enough to me.
" Listen, Diana," said one of the absorbed stu-
dents ; " Franz and old Daniel are together in the
night-time, and Franz is telling a dream from
which he has wakened in terror— listen ! " And
in a low voice she read something, of which not
one word was intelligible to me ; for it was in an
unknown tongue— neither French nor Latin .
Whether it were Greek or German I could not
tell.
" That is strong," she said, when she had finished :
" I relish it." The other girl, who had lifted her
head to listen to her sister, repeated, while she
gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read. At
a later day, I knew the language and the book< ;
therefore I will here quote the line : though, when
I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on sound-
ing brass to me—conveying no meaning :—
" Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die
Sternen Nacht.' Good ! good ! " she exclaimed ,
while her dark and deep eye sparkled. " There
you have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set
before you ! The line is worth a hundred pages
of fustian. Ich wage die Gedanken in der
Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem
Gewichte meines Grimms.' I like it !"
 JANE EYRE. 71

Both were again silent.

" Is there ony country where they talk i' that
way?" asked the old woman , looking up from her
knitting.
"Yes, Hannah— a far larger country than Eng-
land ; where they talk in no other way."
"Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can
understand t' one t' other : and if either o' ye went
there, ye could tell what they said, I guess ? "
"We could probably tell something of what
they said, but not all—for we are not as clever as
you think us, Hannah. We don't speak German,
and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help
us."
" And what good does it do you ? "
"We mean to teach it some time— or at least
the elements, as they say ; and then we shall get
more money than we do now."
" Varry like : but give ower studying ; ye've
done enough for to -night."
"I think we have : at least, I'm tired. Mary,
are you ? "
66
Mortally after all, it's tough work fagging
away at a language with no master but a lexicon ."
" It is especially such a language as this crab-
bed but glorious Deutsch. I wonder when St.
John will come home."
66
Surely he will not be long now : it is justten"
72 JANE EYRE.

(looking at a little gold watch she drew from her

girdle). " It rains fast. Hannah, will you have
the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour? "
The woman rose ; she opened a door, through
which I dimly saw a passage : soon I heard her
stir a fire in an inner room ; she presently came
back.
" Ah, childer ! " said she, " it fair troubles me
to go into yond' room now : it looks so lonesome
wi' the chair empty and set back in a corner."
She wiped her eyes with her apron : the two
girls, grave before, looked sad now.
"But he is in a better place," continued
Hannah : " we shouldn't wish him here again.
And then, nobody need to have a quieter death
nor he had."

" You say he never mentioned us ? " inquired

one of the ladies.
" He hadn't time, bairn : he was gone in a
minute was your father. He had been a bit
ailing like the day before, but naught to signify;
and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like
either o' ye to be sent for, he fair laughed at him.
He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his
head the next day— that is, a fortnight sin'—and
he went to sleep and niver wakened : he wor
a'most stark when your brother went into t' chamber
and fand him. Ah, childer ! that's t' last o' t' old
 JANE EYRE. 73

stock—for ye and Mr. St. John is like of a different

soart to them ' at's gone ; for all your mother wor
mich i' your way ; and a'most as book-learned.
She wor the pictur' o ' ye, Mary : Diana is more
like your father."
I thought them so similar I could not tell where
the old servant (for such I now concluded her to
be) saw the difference. Both were fair com-
plexioned and slenderly made ; both possessed
faces full of distinction and intelligence . One, to
be sure, had hair a shade darker than the other,
and there was a difference in their style of wear-
ing it : Mary's pale brown locks were parted and
braided smooth ; Diana's duskier tresses covered
her neck with thick curls. The clock struck ten.

" Ye'll want your supper, I'm sure, " observed

Hannah ; " and so will Mr. St. John when he
comes in."

And she proceeded to prepare the meal . The

ladies rose : they seemed about to withdraw to
the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so
intent on watching them, their appearance and
conversation had excited in me so keen an in-
terest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched
position : now it recurred to me. More desolate,
more desperate than ever, it seemed from contrast.
And how impossible did it appear to touch the
inmates of this house with concern on my behalf :
74 JANE EYRE .

to make them believe in the truth of my wants

and woes— to induce them to vouchsafe a rest for
my wanderings ! As I groped out the door, and
knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to
be indeed a mere chimera. Hannah opened.
" What do you want ? " she inquired, in a voice
of surprise, as she surveyed me by the light of the
candle she held .
"May I speak to your mistresses ? " I said.
"You had better tell me what you have to say
to them . Where do you come from ? "
" I am a stranger."
" What is your business here at this hour ?"
66
I want a night's shelter in an out- house or
anywhere, and a morsel of bread to eat."
Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded , appeared
in Hannah's face. " I'll give you a piece of
bread," she said, after a pause ; " but we can't
take in a vagrant to lodge. It isn't likely."
" Do let me speak to your mistresses."
" No ; not I. What can they do for you ?
You should not be roving about now it looks
very ill."
"But where shall I go if you drive me away?
What shall I do ?"

" Oh , I'll warrant you know where to go, and

what to do. Mind you don't do wrong, that's all.
"9
Here is a penny ; now go "
 JANE EYRE . 75

"A penny cannot feed me, and I have no

strength to go farther. Don't shut the door :—oh,
don't, for God's sake ! "
" I must ; the rain is driving in-
" Tell the young ladies. —Let me see them— "
" Indeed, I will not. You are not what you

ought to be, or you wouldn't make such a noise.

Move off!"
" But I must die if I am turned away."
" Not you . I'm fear'd you have some ill plans

agate , that bring you about folk's houses at this time

o' night. If you've any followers —housebreaker
s
or such like anywhere near, you may tell them
we are not by ourselves in the house : we have a
gentleman , and dogs , and guns ."
Here the honest
but inflexible servant clapped the door to and
bolted it within .
This was the climax. A pang of exquisite
suffering a throe of true despair — rent and heaved
my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was ; not another
step could I stir. I sank on the wet door-step :
I groaned—I wrung my hands—I wept in utter
anguish. Oh, this spectre of death ! Oh, this
last hour, approaching in such horror ! Alas, this
isolation—this banishment from my kind ! Not
only the anchor of home, but the footing of forti-
tude was gone — at least for a moment : but the last
I soon endeavoured to regain .
76 JANE EYRE.

" I can but die," I said, " and I believe in God.

Let me try to wait His will in silence."
These words I not only thought but uttered ;
and thrusting back all my misery into my heart, I
made an effort to compel it to remain there—
dumb and still.
" All men must die," said a voice quite close at
hand ; " but all are not condemned to meet a
lingering and premature doom, such as yours
would be if you perished here of want."
" Who or what speaks ? " I asked, terrified at
the unexpected sound, and incapable now of
deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A
form was near — what form, the pitch-dark night
and my enfeebled vision prevented me from dis-
tinguishing . With a loud , long knock, the new
comer appealed to the door.
" Is it you, Mr. St. John ? " cried Hannah.
" Yes—yes ; open quickly ."
" Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a
wild night as it is ! Come in—your sisters are
quite uneasy about you , and I believe there are
bad folks about. There has been a beggar-woman
—I declare she is not gone yet !—laid down there.
Get up! for shame ! Move off, I say !"
" Hush, Hannah ! I have a word to say to the
woman. You have done your duty in excluding,

now let me do mine in admitting her. I was

 JANE EYRE. 77

near, and listened to both you and her. I think

this is a peculiar case—I must at least examine
into it. Young woman, rise, and pass before me
into the house."

With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I

stood within that clean , bright kitchen — on the very
hearth— trembling, sickening ; conscious of an as-
pect in the last degree ghastly, wild , and weather-
beaten . The two ladies, their brother, Mr. St.
John, the old servant, were all gazing at me.
" St. John, who is it ? " I heard one ask.
" I cannot tell : I found her at the door," was
the reply.
" She does look white," said Hannah.
"As white as clay or death," was responded .
" She will fall : let her sit."
And indeed my head swam : I dropped ; but a
chair received me. I still possessed my senses ;
though just now I could not speak.
66
Perhaps a little water would restore her.
Hannah, fetch some. But she is worn to nothing.
How very thin, and how very bloodless ! "
"A mere spectre I "
" Is she ill, or only famished ? "
" Famished, I think . Hannah, is that milk?
Give it me, and a piece of bread."
Diana ( I knew her by the long curls which I
saw drooping between me and the fire as she bent
78 JANE EYRE.

over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk, and

put it to my lips. Her face was near mine : I saw
there was pity in it, and I felt sympathy in her
hurried breathing. In her simple words, too, the
same balm-like emotion spoke : " Try to eat."
" Yes—try," repeated Mary gently ; and Mary's
hand removed my sodden bonnet and lifted my
head. I tasted what they offered me : feebly at
first, eagerly soon.
"Not too much at first—restrain her," said the
brother ; " she has had enough." And he with-
drew the cup of milk and the plate of bread.
"A little more, St. John - look at the avidity in
her eyes ."
" No more at present, sister. Try if she can
speak now— ask her her name."
I felt I could speak, and I answered—" My name
is Jane Elliott." Anxious as ever to avoid dis-
covery, I had before resolved to assume an alias.
" And where do you live ? Where are your
friends ? "
I was silent.
" Can we send for any one you know ? "
I shook my head.
" What account can you give of yourself?"
Somehow, now that I had once crossed the
threshold of this house, and once was brought face
to face with its owners, I felt no longer outcast,
 JANE EYRE . 79

vagrant, and disowned by the wide world . I

dared to put off the mendicant — to resume my
natural manner and character. I began once more
to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded
an account— which at present I was far too weak
to render—I said after a brief pause, —

" Sir, I can give you no details to-night."

" But what, then," said he, " do you expect me
to do for you ? "
"Nothing," I replied . My strength sufficed for
but short answers . Diana took the word :—
"Do you mean," she asked, " that we have now
given you what aid you require ; and that we may
dismiss you to the moor and the rainy night ?"
I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable
countenance ; instinct both with power and good-
ness. I took sudden courage. Answering her
compassionate gaze with a smile, I said : " I will
trust you . If I were a masterless and stray dog, I

know that you would not turn me from your hearth

to-night as it is, I really have no fear. Do with
me and for me as you like ; but excuse me from
much discourse—my breath is short—I feel a
spasm when I speak." All three surveyed me, and
all three were silent.
" Hannah," said Mr. St. John, at last, " let her
sit there at present, and ask her no questions ; in
ten minutes more, give her the remainder of that
80 JANE EYRE.

milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into

the parlour and talk the matter over."
They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies
returned—I could not tell which. A kind of plea-
sant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the
genial fire. In an under tone she gave some direc-
tions to Hannah. Ere long, with the servant's aid,
I contrived to mount a staircase : my dripping
clothes were removed ; soon, a warm, dry bed
received me. I thanked God—experienced amidst
unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful joy—and
slept.
 JANE EYRE . 8L

CHAPTER III.

The recollection of about three days and nights

succeeding this is very dim in my mind. I
can recall some sensations felt in that interval ;
but few thoughts framed, and no actions per-
formed . I knew I was in a small room, and in a
narrow bed . To that bed I seemed to have
grown : I lay on it motionless as a stone ; and to
have torn me from it would have been almost to
kill me. I took
no note of the lapse of time—of
the change from morning to noon, from noon to
evening. I observed when any one entered or
left the apartment ; I could even tell who they
were ; I could understand what was said when
the speaker stood near to me ; but I could not an-
swer : to open my lips or move my limbs was
equally impossible. Hannah, the servant, was my
most frequent visitor.Her coming disturbed me.
I had a feeling that she wished me away ; that
she did not understand me or my circumstances ;
VOL. III. G
82 JANE EYRE .

that she was prejudiced against me. Diana and

Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day.

They would whisper sentences of this sort at my
bed-side :—
" It is very well we took her in."

" Yes ; she would certainly have been found

dead at the door in the morning , had she been
left out all night. I wonder what she has gone
through ? "
66
Strange hardships, I imagine—poor, emaciated,
pallid wanderer ! "
" She is not an uneducated person , I should
think, by her manner of speaking ; her accent was
quite pure ; and the clothes she took off, though
splashed and wet, were little worn and fine. "
" She has a peculiar face ; fleshless and haggard
as it is, I rather like it ; and when in good health
and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy would
be agreeable."
Never once in their dialogues did I hear a
syllable of regret at the hospitality they had ex-
tended to me ; or of suspicion of, or aversion to,
m self. Iwas comforted.
Mr. St. John came but once he looked at me,
and said my state of lethargy was the result of
reaction from excessive and protracted fatigue.
He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor :
nature, he was sure, would manage best, left to
 JANE EYRE. 83

herself. He said every nerve had been over-

strained in some way, and the whole system must
sleep torpid awhile . There was no disease . He
imagined my recovery would be rapid enough
when once commenced . These opinions he de-
livered in a few words, in a quiet, low voice ; and
added, after a pause, in the tone of a man little
accustomed to expansive comment, " rather an
unusual physiognomy ; certainly, not indicative of
vulgarity or degradation ."
" Far otherwise," responded Diana. " To speak
truth, St. John, my heart rather warms to the
poor little soul. I wish we may be able to benefit
her permanently."
" That is hardly likely," was the reply. " You
will find she is some young lady who has had a
misunderstanding with her friends, and has pro-
bably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps,
succeed in restoring her to them, if she is not ob-
stinate but I trace lines of force in her face which
make me sceptical of her tractability." He stood
considering me some minutes ; then added, " She
looks sensible, but not at all handsome ."
" She is so ill, St. John ."
" Ill or well, she would always be plain. The
grace and harmony of beauty are quite wanting in
those features."
On the third day, I was better ; on the fourth,
G2
84 JANE EYRE.

I could speak, move, rise in bed, and turn .

Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry
toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner hour. I
had eaten with relish : the food was good—void
of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned
what I had swallowed . When she left me, I felt
comparatively strong and revived ; ere long satiety
of repose, and desire for action stirred me. I
wished to rise ; but what could I put on ? Only
my damp and bemired apparel ; in which I had
slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh . I
felt ashamed to appear before my benefactors so
clad. I was spared the humiliation .
On a chair by the bed-side were all my own
things, clean and dry. My black silk frock hung
against the wall. The traces of the bog were
removed from it ; the creases left by the wet
smoothed out it was quite decent. My very
shoes and stockings were purified and rendered
presentable . There were the means of washing
in the room, and a comb and brush to smooth my
hair. After a weary process, and resting every
five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My
clothes hung loose on me ; for I was much wasted ,
but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and once
more, clean and respectable-looking—no speck of
the dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated, and
which seemed so to degrade me, left —I crept
 JANE EYRE. 85

down a stone staircase, with the aid of the ban-

nisters, to a narrow, low passage, and found my
way presently to the kitchen.
It was full of the fragrance of new bread, and
the warmth of a generous fire. Hannah was

baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are most

difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has
never been loosened or fertilized by education :
they grow there, firm as weeds among stones .
Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the
first : latterly, she had begun to relent a little ;
and when she saw me come in tidy and well-
dressed, she even smiled.
"What, you have got up ?" she said. " You are
better, then. You may sit you down in my chair
on the hearthstone, if you will."
She pointed to the rocking chair : I took it.
She bustled about, examining me every now and
then with the corner of her eye. Turning to me,
as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked,
bluntly—
" Did you ever go a-begging afore you came
here ?"
I was indignant for a moment : but remember-
ing that anger was out of the question, and that I
had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered
quietly ; but still not without a certain marked
firmness, -
86 JANE EYRE.

" You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar.

I am no beggar ; any more than yourself or your
young ladies."
After a pause, she said, " I dunnut understand
that you've like no house, nor no brass, I
guess ? "
" The want of house or brass (by which I sup-
pose you mean money) does not make a beggar in
your sense ofthe word."
" Are you book-learned ?" she inquired, pre-
sently.
" Yes, very."
" But you've never been to boarding-school ? "
" I was at a boarding-school eight years."
She opened her eyes wide. " Whatever cannot
ye keep yourseln for, then ? "
" I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep
myself again. What are you going to do with
these gooseberries ? " I inquired, as she brought
out a basket of the fruit.
"Mak'em into pies."
" Give them to me and I'll pick them ."
66
Nay ; I dunnut want ye to do nought."
" But I must do something. Let me have
them."
She consented ; and she even brought me a
clean towel to spread over my dress, "lest," as
she said, " I should mucky it."
 JANE EYRE . 87

" Ye've not been used to sarvant's wark, I see

by your hands," she remarked . "Happen ye've
been a dressmaker ? "

" No, you are wrong. And, now, never mind

what I have been : don't trouble your head fur-
ther about me ; but tell me the name of the house
where we are."
" Some calls it Marsh-End, and some calls it
Moor House."
" And the gentleman who lives here is called
Mr. St. John ?"

" Nay ; he doesn't live here : he is only staying

awhile. When he is at home, he is in his own
parish at Morton."
" That village a few miles off?"
66
' Aye."
" And what is he ? "
""
" He is a parson."
I remembered the answer of the old house-
keeper at the parsonage, when I had asked to see
the clergyman. " This, then, was his father's
residence ? "
" Aye ; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his
father, and grandfather, and gurt (great) grand-
father afore him."
" The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St.
John Rivers ?"
" Aye ; St. John is like his kirstened name."
88 JANE EYRE .

" And his sisters are called Diana and Mary

Rivers ?"
" Yes."
" Their father is dead ?"
" Dead three weeks sin', of a stroke."
"They have no mother ?"
"The mistress has been dead this mony a
year."
"Have you lived with the family long ?"
" I've lived here thirty year. I nursed them
all three ."
" That proves you must have been an honest
and faithful servant. I will say so much for you,

though you have had the incivility to call me a

beggar."
She again regarded me with a surprised stare.
" I believe," she said, " I was quite mista'en in
my thoughts ofyou : but there is so mony cheats
goes about, you mun forgie me."
" And though," I continued, rather severely,
" you wished to turn me from the door, on a
night when you should not have shut out a
dog. "
"Well, it was hard : but what can a body do ?
I thought more o' th' childer nor of mysel : poor
things ! They've like nobody to tak' care on 'em
but me. I'm like to look sharpish."
I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.
 JANE EYRE. 89

"You munnut think too hardly of me," she

again remarked .
" But I do think hardly of you," I said : " and
I'll tell you why— not so much because you refused
to give me shelter, or regarded me as an impostor,
as because you just now made it a species of re-
proach that I had no " brass, " and no house. Some
of the best people that ever lived have been as
destitute as I am ; and if you are a Christian, you
ought not to consider poverty a crime."
" No more I ought," said she : " Mr. St. John
tells me so too ; and I see I wor wrang—but I've
clear a different notion on you now to what I had.
You look a raight down dacent little crater."
" That will do— I forgive you now. Shake
hands."
She put her floury and horny hand into mine ;
another and heartier smile illumined her rough
face and from that moment we were friends.
Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While
I picked the fruit, and she made the paste for the
pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details
about her deceased master and mistress, and " the
childer," as she called the young people.
Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man
enough ; but a gentleman, and of as ancient a family
as could be found . Marsh-End had belonged to
the Rivers' ever since it was a house : and it was,
90 JANE EYRE .

she affirmed, " aboon two hundred year old —for

all it looked but a small , humble place, naught to
compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall down i' Mor-
ton Vale. But she could remember Bill Oliver's

father a journeyman needle- maker ; and th' Rivers'

wor gentry i' th' owd days o' th' Henrys, as ony-
body might see by looking into th' registers i'
Morton Church vestry." Still, she allowed, " the
owd maister was like other folk— naught mich out
o't' common way : stark mad o' shooting, and
farming, and sich like ." The mistress was differ-
ent. She was a great reader, and studied a deal ;
and the " bairns" had taken after her. There was
nothing like them in these parts, nor ever had been :
they had liked learning, all three, almost from
the time they could speak ; and they had always
been " of a mak' of their own." Mr. St. John,
when he grew up, would go to college and be a
parson ; and the girls, as soon as they left school,
would seek places as governesses : for they had
told her their father had some years ago lost a
great deal of money, by a man he had trusted turn-
ing bankrupt ; and as he was now not rich enough
to give them fortunes, they must provide for
themselves. They had lived very little at home
for a long while, and were only come now to stay
a few weeks on account of their father's death :
but they did so like Marsh-End and Morton, and
 JANE EYRE. 91

all these moors and hills about. They had been

in London, and many other grand towns ; but they
always said there was no place like home : and
then they were so agreeable with each other—
never fell out nor 66 threaped." She did not know
where there was such a family for being united.
Having finished my task of gooseberry picking,
I asked where the two ladies and their brother
were now.
" Gone over to Morton for a walk ; but they
would be back in half an hour to tea."
They returned within the time Hannah had
allotted them : they entered by the kitchen door.
Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and
passed through ; the two ladies stopped : Mary,
in a few words, kindly and calmly expressed the
pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be
able to come down ; Diana took my hand : she
shook her head at me.
" You should have waited for my leave to
" You still look very pale—
descend," she said.
and so thin ! Poor child !—poor girl !"
Diana had a voice toned , to my ear, like the
cooing of a dove. She possessed eyes whose gaze
I delighted to encounter. Her whole face seemed
to me full of charm. Mary's countenance was
equally intelligent —her features equally pretty :
but her expression was more reserved ; and her
92 JANE EYRE.

manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana

looked and spoke with a certain authority : she
had a will evidently. It was my nature to feel
pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like
hers ; and to bend, where my conscience and self-
respect permitted, to an active will.
" And what business have you here ?" she con-
tinued. " It is not your place. Mary and I sit
in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we
like to be free, even to license —but you are a
visitor, and must go into the parlour."
" I am very well here."
" Not at all —with Hannah bustling about and
covering you with flour."
Besides, the fire is too hot for you," interposed
Mary.
" To be sure," added her sister. " Come, you
must be obedient." And still holding my hand,
she made me rise, and led me into the inner
room .
" Sit there," she said, placing me on the sofa,
" while we take our things off and get the tea
ready : it is another privilege we exercise in our
little moorland home— to prepare our own meals
when we are so inclined ; or when Hannah is
baking, brewing, washing , or ironing,"
She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr.
St. John, who sat opposite ; a book or newspaper
 JANE EYRE . 93

in his hand. I examined, first, the parlour, and

then its occupant.
The parlour was rather a small room , very
plainly furnished ; yet comfortable, because clean
and neat. The old- fashioned chairs were very

bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a look-

ing-glass. A few strange, antique portraits of the
men and women of other days decorated the
stained walls ; a cupboard with glass doors con-
tained some books and an ancient set of china.
There was no superfluous ornament in the room—
not one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of
work-boxes and a lady's desk in rosewood, which
stood on a side-table : every thing—including the
carpet and curtains— looked at once well worn
and well saved.
Mr. St. John— sitting as still as one of the
dusky pictures on the walls ; keeping his eyes
fixed on the page he perused , and his lips mutely
sealed—was easy enough to examine. Had he been
a statue instead of a man, he could not have been
easier. He was young—perhaps from twenty-
eight to thirty— tall, slender ; his face riveted the
eye it was like a Greek face , very pure in out-
line ; quite a straight, classic nose ; quite an Athe-
nian mouth and chin. It is seldom, indeed, an
English face comes so near the antique models as
did his. He might well be a little shocked at the
94 JANE EYRE.

irregularity of my lineaments, his own being so

harmonious. His eyes were large and blue, with
brown lashes ; his high forehead, colourless as
ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks
of fair hair.
This is a gentle delineation , is it not, reader ?
Yet he whom it describes scarcely impressed one
with the idea of a gentle, a yielding, an impres-
sible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as
he now sat, there was something about his nostril,
his mouth, his brow, which, to my perceptions,
indicated elements within either restless, or hard,
or eager. He did not speak to me one word nor
even direct to me one glance, till his sisters re-
turned . Diana, as she passed in and out, in the
course of preparing tea, brought me a little cake,
baked on the top of the oven.
" Eat that now," she said : 66 you must be

hungry. Hannah says you have had nothing but

some gruel since breakfast. "
I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened
and keen. Mr. Rivers now closed his book, ap-

proached the table, and, as he took a seat, fixed

his blue, pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There
was an unceremonious directness, a searching, de-
cided steadfastness in his gaze now, which told
that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto
kept it averted from the stranger.
 JANE EYRE. 95

" You are very hungry," he said.

" I am, sir." It is my way—it always was my
way, by instinct—ever to meet the brief with bre-
vity, the direct with plainness ."
" It is well for you that a low fever has forced
you to abstain for the last three days there
would have been danger in yielding to the cravings
of your appetite at first. Now you may eat ;
though still not immoderately."
" I trust I shall not eat long at your expense,
sir," was my very clumsily- contrived, unpolished
answer.
" No," he said, coolly : " when you have in-
dicated to us the residence of your friends, we
can write to them, and you may be restored to
home."
66
That, I must plainly tell you, it is out of my
power to do ; being absolutely without home and
friends."
The three looked at me : but not distrustfully.
I felt there was no suspicion in their glances :
there was more of curiosity. I speak particularly
of the young ladies. St. John's eyes, though
clear enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one
were difficult to fathom. He seemed to use them
rather as instruments to search other people's
thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own : the
which combination of keenness and reserve was
96 JANE EYRE.

considerably more calculated to embarrass than to

encourage .
" Do you mean to say," he asked, " that you
are completely isolated from every connection ? "
" I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing :
not a claim do I possess to admittance under any
roof in England . ”
66
" A most singular position at your age !"
Here I saw his glance directed to my hands,
which were folded on the table before me. I

wondered what he sought there : his words soon

explained the quest.
"You have never been married ? You are a

spinster ? "
Diana laughed. 66
Why, she can't be above
seventeen or eighteen years old, St. John ," said
she.
" I am near nineteen : but I am not married .
No."

I felt a burning glow mount to my face ; for

bitter and agitating recollections were awakened
by the allusion to marriage. They all saw the
embarrassment, and the emotion. Diana and

Mary relieved me by turning their eyes elsewhere

than to my crimsoned visage ; but the colder and
sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble
he had excited forced out tears as well as
colour.
 JANE EYRE. 97

" Where did you last reside ? " he now

asked.
" You are too inquisitive, St. John," murmured
Mary, in a low voice ; but he leaned over the
table and required an answer, by a second firm and
piercing look.
" The name of the place where, and of the
person with whom I lived, is my secret," I re-
plied, concisely.
"Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion,
a right to keep, both from St. John and every
other questioner," remarked Diana.
" Yet if I know nothing about you or your
history, I cannot help you," he said. " And you
need help : do you not ? "
" I need it , and I seek it ; so far, sir, that some
true philanthropist will put me in the way of get-
ting work which I can do, and the remuneration
for which will keep me : if but in the barest neces-
saries of life."
" I know not whether I am a true philanthropist ;
yet I am willing to aid you to the utmost of my
power, in a purpose so honest. First, then , tell
me what you have been accustomed to do, and
what you can do."
I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily
refreshed by the beverage ; as much so as a
giant with wine : it gave new tone to my unstrung
VOL. III.
98 JANE EYRE.

nerves, and enabled me to address this pene-

trating young judge steadily.
" Mr. Rivers," I said, turning to him, and look-
ing at him, as he looked at me, openly and without
diffidence, " you and your sisters have done me a
great service — the greatest man can do his fellow-
being : you have rescued me, by your noble hospi-
tality, from death . This benefit conferred gives
you an unlimited claim on my gratitude ; and a
claim, to a certain extent, on my confidence. I
will tell you as much of the history of the wanderer
you have harboured, as I can tell without compro-
mising my own peace of mind— my own security,
moral and physical, and that of others.
" I am an orphan ; the daughter of a clergy-
man. My parents died before I could know
them. I was brought up a dependant ; educated
in a charitable institution. I will even tell you the
name of the establishment, where I passed six
years as a pupil, and two as a teacher—Lowood
Orphan Asylum, shire : you will have heard
of it, Mr. Rivers ?—the Rev. Robert Brocklehurst
is the treasurer."
" I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have
seen the school ."

" I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a

private governess. I obtained a good situation ,
and was happy. This place I was obliged to leave
 JANE EYRE. 99

four days before I came here. The reason of my

departure I cannot and ought not to explain : it
would be useless—dangerous ; and would sound
incredible. No blame attached to me: I am as

free from culpability as any one of you three.

Miserable I am, and must be for a time ; for the
catastrophe which drove me from a house I had
found a paradise was of a strange and direful
nature . I observed but two points in planning
my departure— speed, secrecy : to secure these, I
had to leave behind me everything I possessed,
except a small parcel ; which, in my hurry and
trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of the coach
that brought me to Whitcross. To this neighbour-
hood, then, I came, quite destitute. I slept two
nights in the open air, and wandered about two
days without crossing a threshold , but twice in
that space of time did I taste food ; and it was

when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair,

almost to the last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, for-
bade me to perish of want at your door, and took
me under the shelter of your roof. I know all
your sisters have done for me since—for I have
not been insensible during my seeming torpor—
and I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial
compassion, as large a debt as to your evangelical
charity."
" Don't make her talk any more now, St. John,"
H2
100 JANE EYRE.

said Diana, as I paused ; " she is evidently not yet

fit for excitement. Come to the sofa, and sit down
now, Miss Elliott."
I gave an involuntary half-start at hearing the

alias : I had forgotten my new name. Mr. Rivers,

whom nothing seemed to escape, noticed it at once.
"You said your name was Jane Elliott ? " he
observed.
" I did say so ; and it is the name by which I
think it expedient to be called at present but it
is not my real name, and when I hear it, it sounds
strange to me."
" Your real name you will not give ?"
" No : I fear discovery above all things ; and
whatever disclosure would lead to it I avoid."
" You are quite right, I am sure," said Diana.
" Now, do, brother, let her be at peace a while ."
But when St. John had mused a few moments,

he recommenced, as imperturbably, and with as

much acumen as ever.
" You would not like to be long dependent on
our hospitality—you would wish, I see, to dispense
as soon as may be with my sisters' compassion ;
and, above all, with my charity (I am quite sensible
of the distinction drawn, nor do I resent it—it is
just) : you desire to be independent of us ? "
"I do : I have already said so. Show me how
to work, or how to seek work : that is all I now
 JANE EYRE . 101

ask ; then let me go, if it be but to the meanest

cottage—but till then, allow me to stay here : I
dread another essay of the horrors of homeless
destitution."

" Indeed, you shall stay here," said Diana, put-

ting her white hand on my head. " You shall ,"
repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative
sincerity, which seemed natural to her.
"My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keep-
ing you," said Mr. St. John, " as they would have
a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen
bird, some wintry wind might have driven through
their casement, I feel more inclination to put
you in the way of keeping yourself ; and shall
endeavour to do so : but observe, my sphere is
narrow. I am but the incumbent of a poor country
parish my aid must be of the humblest sort.
And if you are inclined to despise the day of small
things , seek some more efficient succour than such
as I can offer."
" She has already said that she is willing to do
anything honest she can do," answered Diana, for
me; " and you know, St. John, she has no choice
of helpers she is forced to put up with such
crusty people as you."
" I will be a dressmaker : I will be a plain- work-
woman ; I will be a servant, a nurse-girl, if I can
be no better," I answered.
102 JANE EYRE .

" Right," said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. " If

such is your spirit, I promise to aid you ; in my
own time and way."
He now resumed the book with which he had
been occupied before tea . I soon withdrew ; for I
had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my
present strength would permit.
 JANE EYRE. 103

CHAPTER IV.

The more I knew of the inmates of Moor- House,

the better I liked them. In a few days I had so
far recovered my health that I could sit up all
day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with
Diana and Mary in all their occupations ; converse
with them as much as they wished, and aid them
when and where they would allow me . There was
a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind
now tasted by me for the first time— the pleasure
arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, senti-
ments, and principles .
I liked to read what they liked to read : what
they enjoyed, delighted me ; what they approved,
I reverenced. They loved their sequestered home.
I, too, in the gray, small, antique structure, with
its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering
walls, its avenue of aged firs —all grown aslant
under the stress of mountain winds ; its garden,
dark with yew and holly—and where no flowers
104 JANE EYRE .

but of the hardiest species would bloom—found a

charm , both potent and permanent. They clung
to the purple moors behind and around their
dwelling—to the hollow vale into which the pebbly
bridle-path leading from their gate descended ;
and which wound between fern -banks first, and
then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-
fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or
gave sustenance to a flock of gray moorland sheep,
with their little mossy-faced lambs :—they clung
to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of
attachment. I could comprehend the feeling, and
share both its strength and truth . I saw the fasci-
nation of the locality. I felt the consecration of
its loneliness my eye feasted on the outline of
swell and sweep —on the wild colouring commu-
nicated to ridge and dell, by moss, by heath-bell,
by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and
mellow granite crag. These details were just to
me what they were to them— so many pure and
sweet sources of pleasure . The strong blast and
the soft breeze ; the rough and the halcyon day ;
the hours of sunrise and sunset ; the moonlight
and the clouded night, developed for me, in these
regions, the same attraction as for them—wound
round my faculties the same spell that entranced
theirs.
In-doors we agreed equally well . They were
 JANE EYRE. 105

both more accomplished and better read than I

was but with eagerness I followed in the path of
knowledge they had trodden before me. I de-

voured the books they lent me : then it was full

satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening
what I had perused during the day. Thought
fitted thought ; opinion met opinion : we coin-
cided, in short, perfectly.
If in our trio there was a superior and a leader,
it was Diana. Physically, she far excelled me :
she was handsome ; she was vigorous. In her
animal spirits, there was an affluence of life, and
certainty of flow, such as excited my wonder,
while it baffled my comprehension. I could talk
a while when the evening commenced : but the
first gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain
to sit on a stool at Diana's feet, to rest my head
on her knee, and listen alternately to her and
Mary ; while they sounded thoroughly the topic
on which I had but touched. Diana offered to
teach me German. I liked to learn of her : I
saw the part of instructress pleased and suited
her ; that of scholar pleased and suited me no
less. Our natures dovetailed : mutual affection
--of the strongest kind—was the result. They
discovered I could draw : their pencils and colour-
boxes were immediately at my service . My skill,
greater in this one point than theirs, surprised
106 JANE EYRE.

and charmed them . Mary would sit and watch

me by the hour together : then she would take
lessons ; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil,
she made. Thus occupied, and mutually enter-
tained, days passed like hours, and weeks like
days.
As to Mr. St. John, the intimacy which had
arisen so naturally and rapidly between me and
his sisters, did not extend to him. One reason of
the distance yet observed between us was, that he
was comparatively seldom at home : a large pro-
portion of his time appeared devoted to visiting
the sick and poor among the scattered population
of his parish .
No weather seemed to hinder him in these
pastoral excursions : rain or fair, he would, when
his hours of morning study were over, take his
hat, and, followed by his father's old pointer,
Carlo, go out on his mission of love or duty—I
scarcely know in which light he regarded it.
Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable,
his sisters would expostulate. He would then say,
with a peculiar smile, more solemn than cheerful, —
" And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of
rain turn me aside from these easy tasks, what
preparation would such sloth be for the future I
propose to myself? "
Diana and Mary's general answer to this ques-
 JANE EYRE. 107

tion was a sigh, and some minutes of apparently

mournful meditation.
But besides his frequent absences, there was
another barrier to friendship with him : he seemed
of a reserved, an abstracted, and even of a brood-
ing nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours,
blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not
appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward
content, which should be the reward of every
sincere Christian and practical philanthropist.
Often, of an evening, when he sat at the window,
his desk and papers before him, he would cease
reading or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and
deliver himself up to I know not what course of
thought : but that it was perturbed and exciting
might be seen in the frequent flash and changeful
dilation of his eye .
I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him
that treasury of delight it was to his sisters . He
expressed once, and but once in my hearing, a
strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and
an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary
walls he called his home : but there was more of
gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in
which the sentiment was manifested ; and never
did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their
soothing silence— never seek out or dwell upon the

thousand peaceful delights they could yield.

108 JANE EYRE.

Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed

before I had an opportunity of gauging his mind.

I first got an idea of its calibre when I heard him
preach in his own church at Morton. I wish I
could describe that sermon : but it is past my
power. I cannot even render faithfully the effect
it produced on me.
It began calm—and indeed, as far as delivery
and pitch of voice went, it was calm to the end :
an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal breathed
soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the
nervous language . This grew to force— com-
pressed, condensed, controlled. The heart was
thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the
preacher : neither were softened . Throughout
there was a strange bitterness ; an absence of con-
solatory gentleness : stern allusions to Calvinistic
doctrines —election, predestination , reprobation—
were frequent ; and each reference to these points
sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom.
When he had done, instead of feeling better '
calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I ex-
perienced an inexpressible sadness ; for it seemed
to me--I know not whether equally so to others—
that the eloquence to which I had been listening
had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of
disappointment —where moved troubling impulses
of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations.
 JANE EYRE. 109

I was sure St. John Rivers—pure-lived, conscien-

tious, zealous as he was—had not yet found that
peace of God which passeth all understanding : he
had no more found it, I thought, than had I ; with
my concealed and racking regrets for my broken
idol and lost elysium -regrets to which I have
latterly avoided referring ; but which possessed me
and tyrannized over me ruthlessly.
Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary
were soon to leave Moor-House, and return to the
far different life and scene which awaited them, as
governesses in a large, fashionable , south-of- Eng-
land city ; where each held a situation in families,
by whose wealthy and haughty members they were
regarded only as humble dependants, and who
neither knew nor sought one of their innate ex-
cellences, and appreciated only their acquired
accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of
their cook, or the taste of their waiting- woman .
Mr. St. John had said nothing to me yet about the
employment he had promised to obtain for me : yet
it became urgent that I should have a vocation
of some kind. One morning, being left alone
with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured
to approach the window-recess—which his table,
chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of study — and
I was going to speak ; though not very well know-
ing in what words to frame my inquiry—for it is at
110 JANE EYRE.

all times difficult to break the ice of reserve glass-

ing over such natures as his— when he saved me
the trouble, by being the first to commence a
dialogue.
Looking up as I drew near—" You have a ques-
tion to ask of me ?" he said.
" Yes ; I wish to know whether you have heard
of any service I can offer myself to undertake."
" I found or devised something for you three
weeks ago ; but as you seemed both useful and
happy here as my sisters had evidently become
attached to you, and your society gave them un-
usual pleasure—I deemed it inexpedient to break
in on your mutual comfort, till their approaching
departure from Marsh-End should render yours
necessary."
" And they will go in three days now ? " I said.
" Yes ; and when they go, I shall return to the
parsonage at Morton : Hannah will accompany
me ; and this old house will be shut up."
I waited a few moments, expecting he would go
on with the subject first broached ; but he seemed
to have entered another train of reflection : his
look denoted abstraction from me and my business.
I was obliged to recall him to a theme which was
of necessity one of close and anxious interest to
me.
"What is the employment you had in view,
 JANE EYRE. 111

Mr. Rivers ? I hope this delay will not have in-

creased the difficulty of securing it."
" Oh, no ; since it is an employment which
depends only on me to give, and you to accept."
He again paused : there seemed a reluctance to
continue . I grew impatient : a restless movement
or two, and an eager and exacting glance fastened
on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effec-
tually as words could have done, and With less
trouble.
" You need be in no hurry to hear," he said :
" let me frankly tell you, I have nothing eligible or
profitable to suggest. Before I explain, recall, if
you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped
you, it must be as the blind man would help the
lame. I am poor ; for I find that, when I have
paid my father's debts, all the patrimony remaining
to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of
scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil,
with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in front. I
am obscure : Rivers is an old name ; but of the
three sole descendants of the race, two earn the
dependant's crust among strangers, and the third
considers himself an alien from his native country
—not only for life, but in death. Yes, and deems,
and is bound to deem, himself honoured by the lot ;
and aspires but after the day when the cross of
separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his
112 JANE EYRE.

shoulders, and when the Head of that church-

militant of whose humblest members he is one,
shall give the word, ' Rise, follow me ! ' "
St. John said these words as he pronounced his
sermons, with a quiet, deep voice ; with an unflushed
cheek, and a coruscating radiance of glance . He
resumed :—
" And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can
offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity.
You may even think it degrading—for I see now
your habits have been what the world calls refined :
your tastes lean to the ideal ; and your society has
at least been amongst the educated—but I con-
sider that no service degrades which can better our
race . I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed
the soil where the Christian labourer's task of til-
lage is appointed him—the scantier the meed his
toil brings—the higher the honour. His, under
such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer :
and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the
Apostles—their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer,
himself."
" Well ? " I said, as he again paused— " proceed."
He looked at me before he proceeded : indeed,
he seemed leisurely to read my face, as if its
features and lines were characters on a page. The
conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially
expressed in his succeeding observations.
 JANE EYRE . 113

" I believe you will accept the post I offer you,"

said he; "and hold it for a while : not permanently,
though : any more than I could permanently keep
the narrow and narrowing—the tranquil, hidden
office of English country incumbent : for in your
nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that
in mine ; though of a different kind."
66
" Do explain," I urged, when he halted once
more.
" I will ; and you shall hear how poor the pro-
posal is—how trivial— how cramping. I shall not
stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead ,
and that I am my own master. I shall leave the
place probably in the course of a twelvemonth :
but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the
utmost for its improvement. Morton, when I
came to it two years ago, had no school : the chil-
dren of the poor were excluded from every hope of
progress . I established one for boys : I mean now
to open a second school for girls. I have hired a
building for the purpose, with a cottage of two
rooms attached to it for the mistress's house. Her
salary will be thirty pounds a year : her house is
already furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by
the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver ; the onlydaugh-
ter of the sole rich man in my parish—Mr. Oliver,
the proprietor of a needle-factory and iron-foundry
in the valley. The same lady pays for the education
VOL. III. I
114 JANE EYRE .

and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse ; on

condition that she shall aid the mistress in such
menial offices connected with her own house and
the school, as her occupation of teaching will pre-
vent her having time to discharge in person . Will
you be this mistress ? "

He put the question rather hurriedly ; he seemed

half to expect an indignant, or at least a disdainful
rejection ofthe offer : not knowing all my thoughts
and feelings, though guessing some, he could not
tell in what light the lot would appear to me. In
truth it was humble —but then it was sheltered ,
and I wanted a safe asylum : it was plodding—but
then, compared with that of a governess in a rich
house, it was independent ; and the fear of servi-
tude with strangers entered my soul like iron : it
was not ignoble —not unworthy— not mentally de-
grading. I made my decision.
" I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers ; and
I accept it with all my heart. "
" But you comprehend me ? " he said. " It is
a village- school : your scholars will be only poor
girls — cottagers' children—at the best, farmers'
daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing,
cyphering, will be all you will have to teach.
What will you do with your accomplishments ?
What, with the largest portion of your mind—
sentiments—tastes ?"
 JANE EYRE. 115

" Save them till they are wanted. They will

keep."
" You know what you undertake, then ? "
"I do."
He now smiled : and not a bitter or a sad
smile ; but one well pleased and deeply gratified .
" And when will you commence the exercise of
your function ?"
" I will go to my house to-morrow ; and open
the school, if you like, next week."
66
Very well : so be it. "
He rose and walked through the room . Stand-
ing still, he again looked at me. He shook his
head.
" What do you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers ? " I
asked.

" You will not stay at Morton long : no, no ! "

" Why ? What is your reason for saying
so ?"
" I read it in your eye : it is not of that
description which promises the maintenance of an
even tenor in life."
"I am not ambitious."
He started at the word " ambitious." He re-
peated, " No. What made you think of ambition ?
Who is ambitious ? I know I am : but how did
you find it out ?"
"I was speaking of myself. "
I 2
116 JANE EYRE .

"Well, if you are not ambitious, you are

He paused .
" What ? "

" I was going to say, impassioned : but perhaps

you would have misunderstood the word, and been
displeased . I mean, that human affections and
sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I
am sure you cannot long be content to pass your
leisure in solitude, and to devote your working
hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of
stimulus ; any more than I can be content," he
added, with emphasis, " to live here buried in
morass, pent in with mountain -- my nature, that
God gave me, contravened ; my faculties, heaven-
bestowed, paralyzed— made useless . You hear

now how I contradict myself. I, who preached

contentment with a humble lot, and justified the
vocation even of hewers of wood, and drawers of
water, in God's service— I, his ordained minister,
almost rave in my restlessness . Well , propensi-
ties and principles must be reconciled by some
means.99
He left the room. In this brief hour I had
learnt more of him than in the whole previous
month: yet still he puzzled me.
Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad
and silent as the day approached for leaving
their brother, and their home. They both tried
 JANE EYRE . 117

to appear as usual ; but the sorrow they had to

struggle against was one that could not be entirely
conquered or concealed . Diana intimated that
this would be a different parting from any they
had ever yet known. It would probably, as far as
St. John was concerned , be a parting for years :
it might be a parting for life.
" He will sacrifice all to his long-framed re-
solves," she said : " natural affection and feelings
more potent still. St. John looks quiet, Jane ;
but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would

think him gentle, yet in some things he is in-

exorable as death ; and the worst of it is, my
conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him
from his severe decision : certainly, I cannot
for a moment blame him for it. It is right, noble,
Christian : yet it breaks my heart." And the
tears gushed to her fine eyes. Mary bent her
head low over her work.
" We are now without father : we shall soon be
without home and brother," she murmured.
At that moment a little accident supervened,
which seemed decreed by fate, purposely to prove
the truth of the adage, that " misfortunes never
come singly ;" and to add to their distresses the
vexing one of the slip between the cup and the
lip. St. John passed the window reading a letter.
He entered.
118 JANE EYRE .

" Our uncle John is dead ," said he.

Both the sisters seemed struck : not shocked or
appalled : the tidings appeared in their eyes rather
momentous than afflicting.
" Dead ? " repeated Diana.
" Yes."
She riveted a searching gaze on her brother's face.
" And what then ? " she demanded, in a low voice.
" What then, Die ? " he replied, maintaining
a marble immobility of feature. " What then ?
Why— nothing. Read ."
He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced
over it, and handed it to Mary. Mary perused
it in silence, and returned it to her brother.
All three looked at each other, and all three
smiled—a dreary, pensive smile enough.
" Amen ! We can yet live," said Diana, at last .
" At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we
were before," remarked Mary.
" Only it forces rather strongly on the mind
the picture of what might have been," said Mr.
Rivers ; " and contrasts it somewhat top vividly
with what is."
He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and
again went out.
For some minutes no one spoke. Diana then
turned to me.

" Jane, you will wonder at us and our mys-

 JANE EYRE. 119

teries," she said ; " and think us hard-hearted

beings not to be more moved at the death of so
near a relation as an uncle ; but we have never
seen him or known him. He was my mother's
brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago.
It was by his advice that my father risked most
of his property in the speculation that ruined him.
Mutual recriminations passed between them: they
parted in anger, and were never reconciled . My
uncle engaged afterwards in more prosperous
undertakings : it appears he realized a fortune of
twenty thousand pounds. He was never married,
and had no near kindred but ourselves, and one
other person, not more closely related than we.
My father always cherished the idea that he would
atone for his error, by leaving his possessions to
us ; that letter informs us that he has bequeathed
every penny to the other relation ; with the ex-
ception of thirty guineas, to be divided between
St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers, for the pur-
chase of three mourning rings. He had a right,
of course, to do as he pleased : and yet a mo-
mentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt
of such news. Mary and I would have esteemed
ourselves rich with a thousand pounds each ; and
to St. John such a sum would have been valuable,
for the good it would have enabled him to do."
This explanation given, the subject was dropped,
120 . JANE EYRE .

and no further reference made to it, by either Mr.

Rivers or his sisters. The next day, I left Marsh
End for Morton . The day after, Diana and Mary
quitted it for distant B—. In a week, Mr. Rivers
and Hannah repaired to the parsonage and so
the old grange was abandoned .

2
 JANE EYRE . 121

CHAPTER V.

My home, then, —when I at last find a home, —is

a cottage a little room with white -washed walls,
and a sanded floor ; containing four painted chairs
and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or
three plates and dishes, and a set of tea-things in
delf. Above, a chamber of the same dimensions
as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead, and chest of
drawers ; small, yet too large to be filled with my
scanty wardrobe : though the kindness of my
gentle and generous friends has increased that,
by a modest stock of such things as are ne-
cessary.
It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee
of an orange, the little orphan who serves me as
a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth.
This morning, the village school opened . I had
twenty scholars. But three of the number can
read : none write or cypher. Several knit, and
a few sew a little . They speak with the broadest
122 JANE EYRE .

accent of the district. At present, they and I

have a difficulty in understanding each other's
language . Some of them are unmannered, rough,
intractable, as well as ignorant ; but others are
docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a dispo-
sition that pleases me. I must not forget that
these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and
blood as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy ;
and that the germs of native excellence , refine-
ment, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to
exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born.
My duty will be to develop these germs : surely
I shall find some happiness in discharging that
office . Much enjoyment I do not expect in the
life opening before me : yet it will, doubtless, if I
regulate my mind, and exert my powers as I
ought, yield me enough to live on from day to
day.
Was I very gleeful, settled , content, during the
hours I passed in yonder bare, humble school-
room this morning and afternoon ? Not to deceive
myself, I must reply— No : I felt desolate to a
degree . I felt— yes, idiot that I am —I felt de-
graded . I doubted I had taken a step which sank
instead of raising me in the scale of social existence.
I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the
poverty, the coarseness of all I heard and saw
round me. But let me not hate and despise my-
 JANE EYRE. 123

self too much for these feelings : I know them to

be wrong that is a great step gained ; I shall
strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, I
shall get the better of them partially; and in a few
weeks, perhaps, they will be quite subdued . In a
few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing
progress, and a change for the better in my scholars,
may substitute gratification for disgust.
Meantime, let me ask myself one question-
Which is better ?—To have surrendered to tempta-
tion ; listened to passion ; made no painful effort
—no struggle ; —but to have sunk down in the
silken snare ; fallen asleep on the flowers covering
it ; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the
luxuries of a pleasure-villa : to have been now living
in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress ; delirious with
his love half my time—for he would— oh , yes, he
would have loved me well for a while. He did love
me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall
never more know the sweet homage given to
beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else
shall I seem to possess these charms. He was
fond and proud of me- -it is what no man besides

will ever be . But where am I wandering, and

what am I saying ; and, above all, feeling ? Whe-
ther is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's
paradise at Marseilles —fevered with delusive bliss
one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of
124 JANE EYRE.

remorse and shame the next —or to be a village-

schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy moun-
tain nook in the healthy heart of England ?
Yes ; I feel now that I was right when I adhered
to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the
insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God
directed me to a correct choice : I thank His pro-
vidence for the guidance !
Having brought my eventide musings to this
point, I rose, went to my door, and looked at the
sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet fields
before my cottage ; which, with the school, was
distant half a mile from the village. The birds
were singing their last strains—
" The air was mild ; the dew was balm."
While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was
surprised to find myself ere long weeping—and
why? For the doom which had reft me from
adhesion to my master : for him I was no more to
see ; for the desperate grief and fatal fury—conse-
quences of my departure—which might now, per-
haps, be dragging him from the path of right, too
far to leave hope of ultimate restoration thither.
At this thought, I turned my face aside from the
lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton— I
say lonely, for in that bend of it visible to me, there
was no building apparent save the church and the
parsonage, half- hid in trees ; and, quite at the
 JANE EYRE . 125

extremity, the roof of Vale- Hall, where the rich

Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived . I hid my eyes,
and leant my head against the stone frame of my
door ; but soon a slight noise near the wicket which
shut in my tiny garden from the meadow beyond
it, made me look up. A dog—old Carlo, Mr.
Rivers' pointer, as I sawin a moment—was pushing
the gate with his nose, and St. John himself leant
upon it with folded arms ; his brow knit, his gaze,
grave almost to displeasure, fixed on me. I asked
him to come in.
"No, I cannot stay : I have only brought you a
little parcel my sisters left for you. I think it con-
tains a colour -box , pencils , and paper."
I approached to take it : a welcome gift it was.
He examined my face, I thought, with austerity,
as I came near : the traces of tears were doubtless
very visible upon it .
"Have you found your first day's work harder
than you expected ?" he asked.
" Oh, no ! On the contrary, I think in time I
shall get on with my scholars very well."
"But perhaps your accommodations—your cot-
tage—your furniture—have disappointed your
expectations ? They are, in truth, scanty enough ;
but ―" I interrupted :—
" My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my
furniture sufficient and commodious. All I see
126 JANE EYRE.

has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not

absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret
the absence of a carpet, a sofa, and silver-plate :
besides, five weeks ago I had nothing—I was an
outcast, a beggar, a vagrant ; now I have acquaint-
ance, a home, a business. I wonder at the good-
ness of God ; the generosity of my friends ; the
bounty of my lot . I do not repine ."
"But you feel solitude an oppression ? The
little house there behind you is dark and empty."
" I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of
tranquillity, much less to grow impatient under
one of loneliness."
66
Very well ; I hope you feel the content you
express : at any rate, your good sense will tell you
that it is too soon yet to yield to the vacillating
fears of Lot's wife. What you had left before I
saw you, of course I do not know ; but I counsel
you to resist, firmly, every temptation which would
incline you to look back : pursue your present
career steadily, for some months at least."
" It is what I mean to do," I answered . St.
John continued :—
" It is hard work to control the workings of
inclination, and turn the bent of nature : but that
it may be done, I know from experience . God
has given us, in a measure, the power to make
our own fate ; and when our energies seem to
 JANE EYRE. 127

demand a sustenance they cannot get— when our

will strains after a path we may not follow—we
need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still
in despair : we have but to seek another nourish-
ment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden
food it longed to taste—and perhaps purer ; and
to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as
direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked
up against us, if rougher than it.
" A year ago, I was myself intensely miserable,
because I thought I had made a mistake in enter-
ing the ministry : its uniform duties wearied me
to death. I burnt for the more active life of the
world—for the more exciting toils of a literary
career for the destiny of an artist, author, orator ;
anything rather than that of a priest : yes, the
heart of a politician , of a soldier, of a votary of
glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power,
beat under my curate's surplice. I considered ;
my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I
must die. After a season of darkness and strug-
gling, light broke and relief fell : my cramped
existence all at once spread out to a plain without
bounds— my powers heard a call from heaven to
rise, gather their full strength, spread their wings
and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for
me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well , skill
and strength, courage and eloquence, the best
128 JANE EYRE.

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 en-
tanglement or two of the feelings broken through
or cut asunder—a last conflict with human weak-
ness, 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 em-
phatic voice ; looking, when he had ceased speak-
ing, 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, ex-
claimed :—
1
" Good-evening, Mr. Rivers. And good- even-
ing, old Carlo. Your dog is quicker to recognise 1
།
 JANE EYRE . 129

his friends than you are, sir : he pricked his ears

and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of
the field, and you have your back towards me
now."
It was true . Though Mr. Rivers had started
at the first of those musical accents, as if a
thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he
stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the
same attitude in which the speaker had surprised
him : his arm resting on the gate, his face directed
towards the west. He turned at last, with mea-
sured deliberation . A vision, as it seemed to me ,
had risen at his side . There appeared, within
three feet of him, a form clad in pure white — a
youthful, graceful form : full, yet fine in contour ;
and when, after bending to caress Carlo, it lifted
up its head, and threw back a long veil, there
bloomed under his glance a face of perfect beauty.
Perfect beauty is a strong expression ; but I do
not retrace or qualify it : as sweet features as
ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded ; as
pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid
gales and vapoury skies generated and screened,
justified, in this instance, the term . No charm
was wanting, no defect was perceptible : the
young girl had regular and delicate lineaments ;
eyes shaped and coloured as we see them in
lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full ; the
VOL. III. K
130 JANE EYRE .

long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine

eye with so soft a fascination ; the pencilled brow
which gives such clearness ; the white, smooth
forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier
beauties of tint and ray ; the cheek, oval, fresh
and smooth ; the lips, fresh too, ruddy, healthy,
sweetly formed ; the even and gleaming teeth
without flaw ; the small, dimpled chin ; the orna-
ment of rich, plenteous tresses, —all advantages, in
short, which combined, realize the ideal of beauty,
were fully hers. I wondered, as I looked at this
fair creature : I admired her with my whole heart.
Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood ;
and, forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole
of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, with a
granddame's bounty.
What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly
angel ? I naturally asked myself that question as
I saw him turn to her and look at her ; and, as
naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in
his countenance. He had already withdrawn his
eye from the Peri, and was looking at a humble
tuft of daisies which grew by the wicket.
" A lovely evening ; but late for you to be out
alone," he said, as he crushed the snowy heads of
the closed flowers with his foot.
" Oh, I only came home from S― (she men-
tioned the name of a large town some twenty
 JANE EYRE. 131

miles distant) this afternoon. Papa told me you

had opened your school, and that the new mistress
was come ; and so I put on my bonnet after tea,
and ran up the valley to see her : this is she ? "
pointing to me.
" It is," said St. John.
"Do you think you shall like Morton ?" she
asked of me, with a direct and naive simplicity of
tone and manner, pleasing, if child-like.
" I hope I shall. I have many inducements to
do so.99"
" Did you find your scholars as attentive as you
expected ? "
" Quite."
" Do you like your house ?"
66
'Very much . "
"Have I furnished it nicely ?"
" Very nicely, indeed."
"And made a good choice of an attendant for
you in Alice Wood ?"
" You have, indeed. She is teachable and
handy." (This, then, I thought, is Miss Oliver,
the heiress : favoured, it seems, in the gifts of
fortune, as well as in those of nature ! What
happy combination of the planets presided over
her birth, I wonder ?)
" I shall come up and help you to teach some-
times," she added. " It will be a change for me
K2
132 JANE EYRE .

to visit you now and then ; and I like a change.

Mr. Rivers, I have been so gay during my stay at
S. Last night, or rather this morning, I was
dancing till two o'clock . Theth regiment are
stationed there, since the riots ; and the officers are
the most agreeable men in the world : they put all
our young knife-grinders and scissor merchants to 3
shame."
It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip
protruded, and his upper lip curled a moment. W
His mouth certainly looked a good deal compress-
་
ed, and the lower part of his face unusually stern
and square, as the laughing girl gave him this in-
formation. He lifted his gaze, too, from the
daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a
searching, a meaning gaze it was. She answered
it with a second laugh : and laughter well be-
came her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright
eyes.
As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to
caressing Carlo. " Poor Carlo loves me," said she.
"He is not stern and distant to his friends ; and if
he could speak, he would not be silent."
As she patted the dog's head, bending with
native grace before his young and austere master,
I saw a glow rise to that master's face . I saw his
solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with
resistless emotion . Flushed and kindled thus, he
 JANE EYRE . 133

looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she for a

woman. His chest heaved once, as if his large

heart, weary of despotic constriction , had expanded,

despite the will, and made a vigorous bound for the
attainment of liberty. But he curbed it, I think,
as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed. He
responded neither by word nor movement to the
gentle advances made him .
" Papa says you never come to see us now,"
continued Miss Oliver, looking up. " You are
quite a stranger at Vale- Hall . He is alone this
evening, and not very well : will you return with
me and visit him ? "
" It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr.
Oliver," answered St. John .
"Not a seasonable hour ! But, I declare, it is.
It is just the hour when papa most wants company :
when the works are closed, and he has no business
to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, do come. Why
are you so very shy, and so very sombre ?" She
filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of her
own.
" I forgot ! " she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful
curled head, as if shocked at herself. " I am so
giddy and thoughtless ! Do excuse me. It had
slipped my memory that you have good reasons to
be indisposed for joining in my chatter. Diana
and Mary have left you, and Moor-House is shut
134 JANE EYRE.

up, and you are so lonely. o co e an ee p pa."

I m su e I pit you.
" Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night."
Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton :
himself only knew the effort it cost him thus to
refuse.
" Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you ;
for I dare not stay any longer : the dew begins to
fall. Good-evening ! "
She held out her hand . He just touched it.
" Good-evening ! " he repeated, in a voice low and
hollow as an echo. She turned ; but in a moment
returned .
"Are you well ? " she asked . Well might she
put the question : his face was blanched as her
gown.
" Quite well," he enunciated ; and, with a bow,
he left the gate. She went one way ; he another.
She turned twice to gaze after him , as she tripped
fairy-like down the field ; he , as he strode firmly
across, never turned at all.

This spectacle of another's suffering and sacri-

fice, rapt my thoughts from exclusive meditation
on my own . Diana Rivers had designated her
brother " inexorable as death." She had not ex-

aggerated.
 JANE EYRE . 135

CHAPTER VI.

I continued the labours of the village-school

as actively and faithfully as I could . It was
truly hard work at first. Some time elapsed
before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend
my scholars and their nature. Wholly untaught,
with faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me
hopelessly dull ; and, at first sight, all dull
alike : but I soon found I was mistaken. There
was a difference amongst them as amongst the
educated ; and when I got to know them, and
they me, this difference rapidly developed itself.
Their amazement at me, my language, my rules
and ways, once subsided, I found some of these
heavy-looking, gaping rustics wake up into sharp-
witted girls enough. Many showed themselves
obliging, and amiable too ; and I discovered
amongst them not a few examples of natural
politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of
excellent capacity, that won both my good-will
136 JANE EYRE .

and my admiration . These soon took a pleasure

in doing their work well ; in keeping their per-
sons neat ; in learning their tasks regularly ; in
acquiring quiet and orderly manners. The rapid-
ity of their progress, in some instances, was even
surprising ; and an honest and happy pride I
took in it besides, I began personally to like
some of the best girls ; and they liked me. I

had amongst my scholars several farmers' daugh-

ters : young women grown , almost. These could
already read, write, and sew ; and to them I
taught the elements of grammar, geography, his-
tory, and the finer kinds of needlework. I found
estimable characters amongst them— characters
desirous of information, and disposed for im-
provement— with whom I passed many a pleasant
evening hour in their own homes. Their parents
then (the farmer and his wife) loaded me with
attentions. There was an enjoyment in accept-
ing their simple kindness, and in repaying it by
a consideration— a scrupulous regard to their feel-
ings to which they were not, perhaps, at all
times accustomed, and which both charmed and
benefited them ; because, while it elevated them
in their own eyes, it made them emulous to merit
the deferential treatment they received.
I felt I became a favourite in the neighbour-
hood. Whenever I went out, I heard on all
 JANE EYRE. 137

sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with

friendly smiles. To live amidst general regard,
though it be but the regard of working- people,
is like " sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet :"
serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the
ray. At this period of my life, my heart far
oftener swelled with thankfulness than sank with

dejection and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the

midst of this calm, this useful existence —after a
day passed in honourable exertion amongst my
scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading
contentedly alone—I used to rush into strange
dreams at night : dreams many-coloured, agi-
tated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy—
dreams where, amidst unusual scenes, charged
with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic
chance, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester,
always at some exciting crisis ; and then the sense
of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting
his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him,
being loved by him— the hope of passing a life-
time at his side, would be renewed, with all its
first force and fire. Then I awoke. Then I
recalled where I was, and how situated. Then
I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and
quivering ; and then the still, dark night wit-
nessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the
burst of passion. By nine o'clock the next
138 JANE EYRE.

morning, I was punctually opening the school ;

tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties
of the day.
Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming
to visit me. Her call at the school was gene-
C
rally made in the course of her morning ride.
She would canter up to the door on her pony,
followed by a mounted livery servant. Any-
thing more exquisite than her appearance , in
her purple habit, with her Amazon's cap of
black velvet placed gracefully above the long
curls that kissed her cheek and floated to her

shoulders, can scarcely be imagined : and it was

thus she would enter the rustic building, and
glide through the dazzled ranks of the village
children. She generally came at the hour
when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving his
daily catechising lesson. Keenly, I fear, did
the eye of the visitress pierce the young pas-
tor's heart. A sort of instinct seemed to warn
him of her entrance, even when he did not see
it ; and when he was looking quite away from
the door, if she appeared at it, his cheek would
glow, and his marble-seeming features, though
they refused to relax, changed indescribably ;
and in their very quiescence became expressive
of a repressed fervour, stronger than working
muscle or darting glance could indicate.
 JANE EYRE. 139

Of course, she knew her power : indeed, he did

not, because he could not, conceal it from her. In
spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went up
and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encourag-
ingly, even fondly in his face, his hand would
tremble, and his eye burn . He seemed to say,
with his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it
with his lips, " I love you, and I know you prefer
me. It is not despair of success that keeps me
dumb. If I offered my heart, I believe you would
accept it. But that heart is already laid on a
sacred altar : the fire is arranged round it. It
will soon be no more than a sacrifice consumed ."
And then she would pout like a disappointed
child ; a pensive cloud would soften her radiant
vivacity ; she would withdraw her hand hastily
from his, and turn in transient petulance from his
aspect, at once so heroic and so martyr-like. St.
John, no doubt, would have given the world to
follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him :
but he would not give one chance of Heaven ; nor
relinquish , for the elysium of her love, one hope
of the true, eternal Paradise . Besides, he could
not bound all that he had in his nature—the rover,
the aspirant, the poet, the priest— in the limits
of a single passion . He could not—he would not
—renounce his wild field of mission warfare for
the parlours and the peace of Vale - Hall. I learnt
140 JANE EYRE.

so much from himself, in an inroad I once, despite

his reserve, had the daring to make on his con-
fidence.
Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent
visits to my cottage . I had learnt her whole
character ; which was without mystery or dis-
guise she was coquettish, but not heartless ; ex-
acting, but not worthlessly selfish. She had been
indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely
spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured ; vain
(she could not help it, when every glance in
the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness),
but not affected ; liberal-handed ; innocent of
the pride of wealth ; ingenuous ; sufficiently
intelligent ; gay, lively, and unthinking : she
was very charming, in short, even to a cool
observer of her own sex like me ; but she was not
profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive.
A very different sort of mind was hers from that,
for instance, of the sisters of St. John . Still, I
liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adele :
except that, for a child whom we have watched
over and taught, a closer affection is engendered
than we can give an equally attractive adult
acquaintance.
She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She
said I was like Mr. Rivers (only, certainly, she-
allowed, " not one-tenth so handsome ; though I
 JANE EYRE. 141

was a nice neat little soul enough, but he was an

angel " ) . I was, however, good, clever, composed,
and firm, like him. I was a lusus naturœ, she
affirmed, as a village-schoolmistress : she was sure
my previous history, if known, would make a
delightful romance.
One evening, while, with her usual child-like
activity, and thoughtless yet not offensive inqui-
sitiveness , she was rummaging the cupboard and
the table-drawer of my little kitchen , she dis-
covered first two French books, a volume of Schil-
ler, a German grammar and dictionary ; and then
my drawing- materials and some sketches, includ-
ing a pencil-head of a pretty, little cherub -like girl,
one of my scholars, and sundry views from nature ,
taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surround-
ing moors. She was first transfixed with surprise,
and then electrified with delight .
" Had I done these pictures ? Did I know
French and German ? What a love — what a
miracle I was ! I drew better than her master in
the first school in S. Would I sketch a por-
trait of her, to show to papa?"
" With pleasure ," I replied ; and I felt a thrill
of artist-delight at the idea of copying from so
perfect and radiant a model. She had then on a
dark-blue silk dress ; her arms and her neck were
bare ; her only ornament was her chestnut tresses,
142 JANE EYRE .

which waved over her shoulders with all the wild

grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine card-
board, and drew a careful outline . I promised
myself the pleasure of colouring it ; and, as it was
getting late then, I told her she must come and
sit another day.
She made such a report of me to her father,
that Mr. Oliver himself accompanied her next
evening a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged,
and gray-headed man, at whose side his lovely
daughter looked like a bright flower near a hoary
turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a
proud personage ; but he was very kind to me.
The sketch of Rosamond's portrait pleased him
highly he said I must make a finished picture of
it. He insisted , too, on my coming the next day
to spend the evening at Vale- Hall .
I went. I found it a large , handsome resi-
dence, shewing abundant evidences of wealth in
the proprietor . Rosamond was full of glee and
pleasure all the time I stayed . Her father was
affable ; and when he entered into conversation
with me after tea, he expressed in strong terms
his approbation of what I had done in Morton
school ; and said he only feared, from what he
Saw and heard, I was too good for the place, and
would soon quit it for one more suitable .
"Indeed !" cried Rosamond, " she is clever
 JANE EYRE . 143

enough to be a governess in a high family,

papa."
I thought I would far rather be where I am
than in any high family in the land. Mr.
Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers —of the Rivers
family—with great respect . He said it was a
very old name in that neighbourhood ; that the
ancestors of the house were wealthy ; that all
Morton had once belonged to them ; that even
now he considered the representative of that
house might, if he liked, make an alliance with
the best. He accounted it a pity that so fine

and talented a young man should have formed

the design of going out as a missionary ; it was
quite throwing a valuable life away. It appeared,
then, that her father would throw no obstacle
in the way of Rosamond's union with St. John .
Mr. Oliver evidently regarded the young
clergyman's good birth, old name, and sacred
profession, as sufficient compensation for the want
of fortune .
It was the fifth of November, and a holiday.
My little servant, after helping me to clean my
house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a
penny for her aid. All about me was spotless
and bright scoured floor, polished grate, and
well rubbed chairs. I had also made myself
144 JANE EYRE.

neat, and had now the afternoon before me to

spend as I would .
The translation of a few pages of German
occupied an hour ; then I got my palette and
pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because 1
easier occupation, of completing Rosamond
Oliver's miniature . The head was finished
already there was but the background to tint,
and the drapery to shade off ; a touch of car-
mine, too, to add to the ripe lips—a soft curl
here and there to the tresses--a deeper tinge to
the shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid.
I was absorbed in the execution of these nice
details, when, after one rapid tap, my door
unclosed, admitting St. John Rivers .
" I am come to see how you are spending
your holiday," he said. "Not, I hope in
thought ? No, that is well while you draw
you will not feel lonely. You see, I mistrust
you still : though you have borne up wonder-
fully so far. I have brought you a book for even-
ing solace," and he laid on the table a new publi-
cation—a poem : one of those genuine productions
so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those
days - the golden age of modern literature .
Alas ! the readers of our era are less favoured .

But, courage ! I will not pause either to accuse

 JANE EYRE. 145

or repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor

genius lost ; nor has Mammon gained power
over either, to bind or slay : they will both assert
their existence, their presence, their liberty, and
strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe in
heaven ! they smile when sordid souls triumph,
and feeble ones weep over their destruction .
Poetry destroyed ? Genius banished ? No!
Mediocrity, no : do not let envy prompt you
to the thought. No ; they not only live, but
reign, and redeem : and without their divine
influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell
—the hell of your own meanness.
While I was eagerly glancing at the bright
pages of Marmion (for Marmion it was), St. John
stooped to examine my drawing. His tall figure
sprang erect again with a start : he said nothing .
I looked up at him : he shunned my eye. I knew
his thoughts well, and could read his heart
plainly ; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler
than he : I had then temporarily the advantage of
him ; and I conceived an inclination to do him
some good, if I could.
" With all his firmness and self- control," thought
I, " he tasks himself too far : locks every feeling
and pang within—expresses, confesses, imparts
nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk
a little about this sweet Rosamond, whom he
VOL. III. L
146 JANE EYRE.

thinks he ought not to marry : I will make him

talk. "
I said first : " Take a chair, Mr. Rivers. " But
he answered, as he always did, that he could not
stay. "Very well," I responded, mentally, " stand
if you like ; but you shall not go just yet, I am
determined : solitude is at least as bad for you as
it is for me. I'll try if I cannot discover the
secret spring of your confidence, and find an
aperture in that marble breast through which I
can shed one drop of the balm of sympathy."
"Is this portrait like ? " I asked, bluntly.
" Like ! Like whom ? I did not observe it
closely."
" You did, Mr. Rivers."
He almost started at my sudden and strange
abruptness he looked at me astonished. " Oh,
that is nothing yet," I muttered within. "I
don't mean to be baffled by a little stiffness
on your part ; I'm prepared to go to considerable
lengths." I continued , " You observed it closely
and distinctly but I have no objection to your
looking at it again," and I rose and placed it in his
hand
" A well- executed picture," he said ; " very soft,
clear colouring ; very graceful and correct drawing."
" Yes, yes ; I know all that. But what of the
resemblance ? Who is it like ? "
 JANE EYRE. 147

Mastering some hesitation, he answered , " Miss

Oliver, I presume."
" Of course . And now, sir, to reward you for
the accurate guess , I will promise to paint you a
careful and faithful duplicate of this very pic-
ture, provided you admit that the gift would be
acceptable to you. I don't wish to throw away
my time and trouble on an offering you would
deem worthless ."
He continued to gaze at the picture : the
longer he looked, the firmer he held it, the more
he seemed to covet it. " It is like ! " he murmured ;
"the eye is well managed : the colour, light, ex-
pression, are perfect. It smiles ! "
"Would it comfort, or would it wound you
to have a similar painting ? Tell me that.
When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape,
or in India, would it be a consolation to have
that memento in your possession ? or would the
sight of it bring recollections calculated to ener-
vate and distress ? "
He now furtively raised his eyes : he glanced at
me, irresolute, disturbed : he again surveyed the
picture.
" That I should like to have it, is certain :
whether it would be judicious or wise is another
question."
Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really
L2
148 JANE EYRE.

preferred him, and that her father was not likely

to oppose the match, I—less exalted in my views
than St. John— had been strongly disposed inmy
own heart to advocate their union. It seemed to
me that, should he become the possessor of Mr.
Oliver's large fortune, he might do as much good
with it as if he went and laid his genius out
to wither, and his strength to waste, under
a tropical sun. With this persuasion I now
answered :—
" As far as I can see, it would be wiser and
more judicious if you were to take to yourself the
original at once."
By this time he had sat down : he had laid
the picture on the table before him, and , with his
brow supported on both hands, hung fondly
over it. I discerned he was now neither angry
nor shocked at my audacity. I saw even that
to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had
deemed unapproachable—to hear it thus freely
handled—was beginning to be felt by him as a
new pleasure — an unhoped-for relief. Reserved
people often really need the frank discussion of
their sentiments and griefs more than the expan-
sive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after
all ; and to " burst" with boldness and good will
into "the silent sea" of their souls, is often to
confer on them the first of obligations.
 JANE EYRE . 149

" She likes you, I am sure," said I, as I stood

behind his chair, " and her father respects you.
Moreover, she is a sweet girl— rather thought-
less ; but you would have sufficient thought for
both yourself and her. You ought to marry
her. "
" Does she like me ?" he asked.
66
Certainly ; better than she likes any one
else . She talks of you continually there is no
subject she enjoys so much, or touches upon so
often."

"It is very pleasant to hear this," he said—" very :

go on for another quarter of an hour." And he
actually took out his watch and laid it upon the
table to measure the time.
" But where is the use of going on," I asked,
" when you are probably preparing some iron blow
of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to fetter
your heart ? "
" Don't imagine such hard things. Fancy me
yielding and melting, as I am doing : human love
rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind,
and overflowing with sweet inundation all the field
I have so carefully, and with such labour prepared
—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good in-
tentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is
deluged with a nectarous flood — the young germs
swamped —delicious poison cankering them now
150 JANE EYRE.

I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the draw-

ing-room at Vale- Hall, at my bride Rosamond Oli-
ver's feet : she is talking to me with her sweet voice
—gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful
hand has copied so well— smiling at me with these
coral lips. She is mine— I am hers — this pre-
Hush !
sent life and passing world suffice to me.
say nothing — my heart is full of delight— my
senses are entranced — let the time I marked pass
in peace ."
I humoured him : the watch ticked on he
breathed fast and low : I stood silent. Amidst
this hush the quarter sped : he replaced the watch,
laid the picture down, rose, and stood on the
hearth.
" Now," said he, " that little space was given
to delirium and delusion . I rested my temples
on the breast of temptation, and put my neck
voluntarily under her yoke of flowers ; I tasted
her cup. The pillow was burning : there is an
asp in the garland : the wine has a bitter taste :
her promises are hollow— her offers false : I see
and know all this."
I gazed at him in wonder .
" It is strange," pursued he, " that while I
love Rosamond Oliver so wildly—with all the
intensity, indeed, of a first passion , the object
of which is exquisitely beautiful , graceful, and
 JANE EYRE. 151

fascinating—I experience at the same time a

calm, unwarped consciousness, that she would
not make me a good wife ; that she is not the
partner suited to me ; that I should discover
this within a year after marriage ; and that to
twelve months' rapture would succeed a lifetime
of regret. This I know."
66
Strange, indeed ! " I could not help ejacu-
lating.
" While something in me," he went on , "is
acutely sensible to her charms, something else
is as deeply impressed with her defects : they
are such that she could sympathize in nothing I
aspired to —co-operate in nothing I undertook .
Rosamond sufferer, a labourer, a female
apostle ? Rosamond a missionary's wife ? No ! "
" But you need not be a missionary. You
might relinquish that scheme."
" Relinquish ! What ! my vocation ? My
great work ? My foundation laid on earth for
a mansion in heaven ? My hopes of being
numbered in the band who have merged all
ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their
race—of carrying knowledge into the realms of
ignorance—of substituting peace for war— free-
dom for bondage—religion for superstition— the
hope of heaven for the fear of hell ? Must I
relinquish that ? It is dearer than the blood in
152 JANE EYRE.

my veins. It is what I have to look forward to,

and to live for." serve
After a considerable pause, I said " And ad
Miss Oliver ? Are her disappointment and
sorrow of no interest to you ? "
" Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors There
and flatterers : in less than a month, my image penet
will be effaced from her heart. She will forget
me ; and will marry, probably, some one who Ton
will make her far happier than I should do."
" You speak coolly enough ; but you suffer
in the conflict. You are wasting away." Icold
" No. If I get a little thin , it is with an- Ido
xiety about my prospects , yet unsettled — my
departure , continually procrastinated . Only
this morning, I received intelligence that the
successor, whose arrival I have been so long
expecting , cannot be ready to replace me for &co
three months to come yet : and perhaps the three I
months may extend to six."
" You tremble and become flushed whenever
Miss Oliver enters the school-room."
Again the surprised expression crossed his of
face . He had not imagined that a woman
would dare to speak so to a man . For me, I
felt at home in this sort of discourse. I could the
never rest in communication with strong, dis- Re
creet, and refined minds, whether male or female,
E
 JANE EYRE. 153

till I had passed the outworks of conventional

reserve, and crossed the threshold of confidence,
and won a place by their heart's very hearth-
stone.
" You are original," said he, " and not timid .
There is something brave in your spirit, as well as
penetrating in your eye : but allow me to assure
you that you partially misinterpret my emotions.
You think them more profound and potent than
they are. You give me a larger allowance of
sympathy than I have a just claim to . When
I colour, and when I shake before Miss Oliver,
I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness.
I know it is ignoble ; a mere fever of the flesh :
not, I declare , a convulsion of the soul. That

is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in the depths

of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am-
a cold, hard man .”
I smiled incredulously.
" You have taken my confidence by storm,"
he continued ; " and now it is much at your ser-
vice. I am simply, in my original state—stripped
of that blood-bleached robe with which Chris-
tianity covers human deformity— a cold, hard,
ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all
the sentiments, has permanent power over me.
Reason, and not Feeling, is my guide : my
ambition is unlimited ; my desire to rise higher,
154 JANE EYRE.

to do more than others, insatiable. I honour

endurance, perseverance, industry, talent ; because
these are the means by which men achieve great
ends, and mount to lofty eminence. I watch
your career with interest, because I consider
you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic
woman : not because I deeply compassionate
what you have gone through, or what you still
suffer."
" You would describe yourself as a mere pagan
philosopher," I said .
" No. There is this difference between me
and deistic philosophers : I believe ; and I
believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet.
I am not a pagan, but a Christian philosopher
- a follower of the sect of Jesus. As his
disciple, I adopt his pure, his merciful, his be-
nignant doctrines. I advocate them : I am sworn
to spread them . Won in youth to religion, she
has cultivated my original qualities thus :—From
the minute germ, natural affection , she has deve-
loped the overshadowing tree, philanthropy. From
the wild, stringy root of human uprightness, she
has reared a due sense of the Divine justice. Of
the ambition to win power and renown for my
wretched self, she has formed the ambition to
spread my Master's kingdom ; to achieve victories
for the standard of the cross. So much has religion
 JANE EYRE . 155

done for me ; turning the original materials to the

best account ; pruning and training nature . But
she could not eradicate nature : nor will it be
eradicated " till this mortal shall put on immor-
tality."
Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on
the table beside my palette. Once more he looked
at the portrait.
" She is lovely," he murmured. " She is well
named the Rose of the World , indeed ! "
" And may I not paint one like it for you ?"
" Cui bono ? No."
He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper
on which I was accustomed to rest my hand in
painting to prevent the card-board from being
sullied . What he suddenly saw on this blank
paper, it was impossible for me to tell : but some-
thing had caught his eye. He took it up with a
snatch ; he looked at the edge ; then shot a glance
at me, inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incom-
prehensible : a glance that seemed to take and
make note of every point in my shape, face, and
dress ; for it traversed all, quick, keen as lightning.
His lips parted, as if to speak : but he checked the
coming sentence, whatever it was.
"What is the matter ?" I asked .
Nothing in the world ," was the reply ; and,
replacing the paper, I saw him dexterously tear a
156 JANE EYRE.

narrow slip from the margin. It disappeared in

his glove ; and, with one hasty nod and " good-
afternoon," he vanished.
" Well ! " I exclaimed, using an expression of
the district ; " that caps the globe, however !"
I, in my turn, scrutinized the paper ; but saw
nothing on it, save a few dingy stains of paint,
where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I pon-
dered the mystery a minute or two ; but finding it
insolvable, and being certain it could not be of
much moment, I dismissed, and soon forgot it.
 JANE EYRE. 157

CHAPTER VII.

When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to

snow : the whirling storm continued all night.
The next day a keen wind brought fresh and
blinding falls : by twilight the valley was drifted
up and almost impassable . I had closed my shutter,
laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from
blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after
sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to
the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle, took
down Marmion, and beginning—
" Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
And Cheviot mountains lone ;
The massive towers , the donjon keep,
The flanking walls that round them sweet,
In yellow lustre shone."
I soon forgot storm in music .
I heard a noise : the wind, I thought, shook the
158 JANE EYRE .

door. No ; it was St. John Rivers, who, lifting

the latch, came in out of the frozen hurricane—the
howling darkness —and stood before me ; the cloak
that covered his tall figure all white as a glacier.
I was almost in consternation ; so little had I ex-
pected any guest from the blocked-up vale that
night .
" Any ill news ? " I demanded. " Has anything
happened ?"
" No. How very easily alarmed you are !" he
answered, removing his cloak and hanging it up
against the door : towards which he again coolly
pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged.
He stamped the snow from his boots.
" I shall sully the purity of your floor," said he,
" but you must excuse me for once." Then he
approached the fire : " I have had hard work to
get here, I assure you," he observed, as he warmed
me. "One rift too me up h is ands ver he fl
to the waist : happily the snow is quite soft yet."
" But why are you come ? " I could not forbear
saying.
" Rather an inhospitable question to put to
a visitor ; but since you ask it, I answer, simply
to have a little talk with you ; I got tired of my
mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since
yesterday, I have experienced the excitement of a
 JANE EYRE . 159

person to whom a tale has been half- told, and who

is impatient to hear the sequel."
He sat down . I recalled his singular conduct
of yesterday, and really I began to fear his wits
were touched . If he were insane, however, his
was a very cool and collected insanity : I had never
seen that handsome- featured face of his, look more
like chiselled marble than it did just now; as he put
aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and let
the fire-light shine free on his pale brow and check
as pale where it grieved me to discover the hollow
trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved . I
waited, expecting he would say something I could
at least comprehend ; but his hand was now at his
chin, his finger on his lip : he was thinking. It
struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face.

A perhaps uncalled -for gush of pity came over my

heart : I was moved to say :--

"I wish Diana or Mary would come and live

with you : it is too bad that you should be quite
alone ; and you are recklessly rash about your own
health."
" Not at all," said he : " I care for myself when
necessary : I am well now. What do you see amiss
in me ?"
This was said with a careless, abstracted indif-
ference, which showed that my solicitude was, at
160 JANE EYRE.

least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I was

silenced.
He still slowly moved his finger over his upper
lip, and still his eye dwelt dreamily on the glowing
grate thinking it urgent to say something, I asked
him presently if he felt any cold draught from the
door, which was behind him.
"No, no ;" he responded, shortly and somewhat
testily.
66
Well," I reflected, " if you won't talk, you
may be still : I'll let you alone now, and return to
my book."
So I snuffed the candle, and resumed the perusal
of Marmion. He soon stirred ; my eye was in-
stantly drawn to his movements : he only took out
a morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter,
which he read in silence, folded it, put it back, re-
lapsed into meditation. It was vain to try to read
with such an inscrutable fixture before me ; nor
could I, in my impatience, consent to be dumb :
he might rebuff me if he liked, but talk I would.
" Have you heard from Diana and Mary
lately ?"
" Not since the letter I showed you a week
ago."
" There has not been any change made about
your own arrangements ? You will not be sum-
moned to leave England sooner than you ex-
pected ?"
 JANE EYRE . 161

" I fear not, indeed : such chance is too good to

befall me." Baffled so far, I changed my ground—
I bethought myself to talk about the school and my
scholars.
66
Mary Garrett's mother is better, and Mary
came back to the school this morning, and I shall
have four new girls next week from the Foundry
Close—they would have come to-day but for the
snow."
" Indeed ! "
" Mr. Oliver pays for two."
"Does he ?"
" He means to give the whole school a treat at
Christmas."
" I know. "

"Was it your suggestion ? "

" No."
" Whose then ?"
" His daughter's, I think."
"It is like her : she is so good-natured ."
"Yes."
Again came the blank of a pause : the clock
struck eight strokes. It aroused him ; he uncross-
ed his legs, sat erect, turned to me.
" Leave your book a moment, and come a little
nearer the fire ," he said .
Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end,
I complied .
VOL. III. M
162 JANE EYRE .

" Half an hour ago," he pursued, " I spoke of

my impatience to hear the sequel of a tale : on re-
flection, I find the matter will be better managed
by my assuming the narrator's part, and converting
you into a listener . Before commencing, it is but
fair to warn you that the story will sound some-
what hackneyed in your ears : but stale details
often regain a degree of freshness when they pass
through new lips. For the rest, whether trite or
novel, it is short.
" Twenty years ago, a poor curate— never mind
his name at this moment— fell in love with a rich
man's daughter : she fell in love with him, and mar-
ried him, against the advice of all her friends ; who
consequently disowned her immediately after the
wedding. Before two years passed, the rash pair
were both dead, and laid quietly side by side under
one slab. (I have seen their grave ; it formed part of
the pavement of a huge churchyard surrounding
the grim, soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown
manufacturing town in -shire .) They left a
daughter, which, at its very , birth, Charity re-
ceived in her lap—cold as that of the snow-drift
I almost stuck fast in to-night. Charity carried
the friendless thing to the house of its rich, ma-
ternal relations ; it was reared by an aunt-in-law,
called ( I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gates-
head —you start—did you hear a noise ? I dare-
 JANE EYRE. 163

say it is only a rat scrambling along the rafters of

the adjoining schoolroom : it was a barn before I
had it repaired and altered , and barns are gene-
rally haunted by rats . To proceed . Mrs. Reed
kept the orphan ten years : whether it was happy
or not with her, I cannot say, never having been
told ; but at the end of that time she transferred
it to a place you know— being no other than
Lowood school, where you so long resided your-
self. It seems her career there was very honour-

able : from a pupil, she became a teacher, like

yourself—really it strikes me there are parallel
points in her history and yours— she left it to be a
governess : there, again, your fates were analogous ;
she undertook the education of the ward of a cer-
tain Mr. Rochester."
" Mr. Rivers ! " I interrupted .
" I can guess your feelings," he said, " but re-
strain them for a while : I have nearly finished ;
hear me to the end . Of Mr. Rochester's character
I know nothing, but the one fact that he professed
to offer honourable marriage to this young girl,
and that at the very altar she discovered he had
a wife yet alive, though a lunatic . What his sub-
sequent conduct and proposals were is a matter of
pure conjecture ; but when an event transpired
which rendered inquiry after the governess neces-
sary, it was discovered she was gone — no one could
M 2
164 JANE EYRE .

tell when, where, or how. She had left Thorn-

field - Hall in the night ; every research after her
course had been vain : the country had been
scoured far and wide ; no vestige of information
could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she
should be found is become a matter of serious ur-
gency advertisements have been put in all the
papers ; I myself have received a letter from one
Mr. Briggs, a solicitor, communicating the details
I have just imparted. Is it not an odd tale ? "
" Just tell me this," said I, " and since you know
so much, you surely can tell it me—what of Mr.
Rochester ? How and where is he ? What is he
doing ? Is he well ?"
"I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester:
the letter never mentions him but to narrate the
fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to.
You should rather ask the name of the governess—
the nature of the event which requires her appear-
ance."
"Did no one go to Thornfield- Hall then ? Did
no one see Mr. Rochester ?"
" I suppose not."
"But they wrote to him ?"
99
" Of course."
" And what did he say? Who has his letters ? "
" Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his ap-
 JANE EYRE . 165

plication was not from Mr. Rochester but from a

6
lady : it is signed Alice Fairfax."
I felt cold and dismayed : my worst fears then
were probably true : he had in all probability left
England and rushed in reckless desperation to some
former haunt on the continent. And what opiate
for his severe sufferings—what object for his strong
passions — had he sought there ? I dared not
answer the question . Oh, my poor master—once
almost my husband—whom I had often called
" my dear Edward ! "
" He must have been a bad man," observed Mr.
Rivers.
" You don't know him— don't pronounce an
opinion upon him," I said, with warmth .
"Very well," he answered, quietly : " and indeed
my head is otherwise occupied than with him : I
have my tale to finish. Since you won't ask the
governess's name, I must tell it of my own accord
—stay—I have it here—it is always more satisfac-
tory to see important points written down, fairly
committed to black and white."
And the pocket-book was again deliberately
produced, opened, sought through ; from one of
its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of
paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture
and its stains of ultra-marine, and lake, and ver-
166 JANE EYRE.

milion, the ravished margin of the portrait-cover.

He got up, held it close to my eyes : and I read,
traced in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the
words "Jane Eyre "—the work doubtless of some
moment of abstraction .
66
Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre :" he said,
"the advertisements demanded a Jane Eyre : I
knew a Jane Elliot.—I confess I had my suspi-

cions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they

were at once resolved into certainty. You own
the name and renounce the alias ? "
"Yes—yes— but where is Mr. Briggs ? He

perhaps knows more of Mr. Rochester than you

do."
66 Briggs is in London ; I should doubt his

knowing anything at all about Mr. Rochester ;

it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested.
Meantime, you forget essential points in pur-
suing trifles : you do not inquire why Mr.
Briggs sought after you—what he wanted with
99
you.
" Well, what did he want ?"
66
Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre
of Madeira, is dead ; that he has left you all his
property, and that you are now rich— merely that
—nothing more."
" I! rich ?"
" Yes, you, rich— quite an heiress."
 JANE EYRE. 167

Silence succeeded .

"You must prove your identity of course,"

resumed St. John, presently : " a step which will
offer no difficulties ; you can then enter on im-
mediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the
English funds ; Briggs has the will and the neces
sary documents. "

Here was a new card turned up ! It is a

fine thing, reader, to be lifted in a moment
from indigence to wealth—a very fine thing :
but not a matter one can comprehend, or con-
sequently enjoy, all at once. And then there
are other chances in life far more thrilling
and rapture-giving : this is solid, an affair of
the actual world , nothing ideal about it : all its
associations are solid and sober, and its mani-
festations are the same . One does not jump,

and spring, and shout hurrah ! at hearing one

has got a fortune ; one begins to consider respon-
sibilities, and to ponder business ; on a base of
steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares—and
we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with
a solemn brow.
Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side
by side with the words Death, Funeral. My
uncle I had heard was dead— my only relative ;
ever since being made aware of his existence,
I had cherished the hope of one day seeing
168 JANE EYRE.

him : now, I never should . And then this

money came only to me : not to me and a re-
It was
joicing family, but to my isolated self.
a grand boon doubtless ; and independence would
be glorious — yes , I felt that —that thought swelled
my heart.
" You unbend your forehead at last," said
Mr. Rivers : " I thought Medusa had looked
at you, and that you were turning to stone—
perhaps now you will ask how much you are
worth ?"
" How much am I worth ? "
" Oh, a trifle ! Nothing of course to speak
of—twenty thousand pounds, I think they say—
but what is that ?"
66
Twenty thousand pounds !"
Here was a new stunner—I had been calculat-

ing on four or five thousand. This news actually

took my breath for a moment : Mr. St. John,
whom I had never heard laugh before, laughed
now.
" Well," said he, " if you had committed a mur-
der, and I had told you your crime was discovered,
you could scarcely look more aghast."
" It is a large sum— don't you think there is a
mistake ? "
" No mistake at all ."
 JANE EYRE . 169

66
Perhaps you have read the figures wrong— it
may be 2000 ? "
" It is written in letters, not figures,—twenty
thousand."
I again felt rather like an individual of but
average gastronomical powers, sitting down to
feast alone at a table spread with provisions for
a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his
cloak on.

" Ifit were not such a very wild night," he said,

" I would send Hannah down to keep you com-
pany you look too desperately miserable to be
left alone. But Hannah, poor woman ! could not
stride the drifts so well as I : her legs are not quite
so long : so I must e'en leave you to your sorrows.
Good- night."
He was lifting the latch : a sudden thought
occurred to me.
66' Stop one minute ! " I cried .

"Well ? "

" It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote

to you about me ; or how he knew you, or could

fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the- way

place, had the power to aid in my discovery."
" Oh ! I am a clergyman," he said ; " and the
clergy are often appealed to about odd matters."
Again the latch rattled.
170 JANE EYRE.

" No : that does not satisfy me ! " I exclaimed : 1

and, indeed, there was something in the hasty and
unexplanatory reply, which, instead of allaying,
piqued my curiosity more than ever.
" It is a very strange piece of business," I added :
"I must know more about it."
"Another time."
"No : to-night ! —to-night ! " and as he turned
from the door, I placed myself between it and him .
He looked rather embarrassed .

" You certainly shall not go till you have told

me all !" I said.
" I would rather not, just now."
" You shall !—you must ! "
" I would rather Diana or Mary informed you . "
Of course these objections wrought my eager-
ness to a climax : gratified it must be , and that
without delay ; and I told him so.
" But I apprised you that I was a hard man ,"
said he ; " difficult to persuade."
" And I am a hard woman, —impossible to put
off."
" And then," he pursued, " I am cold : no fer-
vour infects me."
" Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice.
The blaze there has thawed all the snow from
your cloak ; by the same token, it has streamed
on to my floor, and made it like a trampled
 JANE EYRE. 171

street. As you hope ever to be forgiven, Mr.

Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanor of
spoiling a sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish
to know."
"Well, then," he said, " I yield ; if not to your
earnestness, to your perseverance : as stone is
worn by continual dropping. Besides, you must
know some day,-- as well now as later. Your
name is Jane Eyre ? "
" Of course that was all settled before."
" You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your
namesake ?—that I was christened St. John Eyre
Rivers ? "
" No, indeed ! I remember now seeing the
letter E comprised in your initials written in
books you have at different times lent me ; but I
never asked for what name it stood . But what
then ? Surely――"
I stopped : I could not trust myself to enter-
tain, much less to express, the thought that
rushed upon me—that embodied itself,—that, in
a second, stood out a strong, solid probability.
Circumstances knit themselves, fitted themselves,
shot into order : the chain that had been lying
hitherto a formless lump of links, was drawn out
straight, - every ring was perfect, the connection
complete. I knew, by instinct, how the matter
stood, before St. John had said another word : but
172 JANE EYRE.

I cannot expect the reader to have the same

intuitive perception, so I must repeat his explana-
tion. 6

" My mother's name was Eyre : she had two 6

brothers ; one a clergyman, who married Miss

Jane Reed, of Gateshead ; the other, John Eyre,
Esq., merchant, late of Funchal , Madeira. Mr.
Briggs, being Mr. Eyre's solicitor, wrote to us last
August to inform us of our uncle's death ; and to
say that he had left his property to his brother the
clergyman's orphan daughter ; overlooking us, in
consequence of a quarrel, never forgiven , between
him and my father. He wrote again a few weeks
since, to intimate that the heiress was lost ; and
asking if we knew anything of her. A name
casually written on a slip of paper has enabled
me to find her out. You know the rest." Again

he was going, but I set my back against the door.

" Do let me speak," I said ; " let me have one
moment to draw breath and reflect." I paused—
he stood before me , hat in hand, looking composed
enough. I resumed :—
" Your mother was my father's sister."
" Yes."
66
My aunt, consequently ? "
He bowed.
66
My uncle John was your uncle John ? You,
 JANE EYRE. 173

Diana and Mary, are his sister's children ; as I am

his brother's child ? "
" Undeniably ."
" You three, then, are my cousins : half our
blood on each side flows from the same source ? "
" We are cousins ; yes."
I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a
brother : one I could be proud of, —one I could
love ; and two sisters, whose qualities were such ,
that, when I knew them but as mere strangers,
they had inspired me with genuine affection and
admiration . The two girls, on whom, kneeling
down on the wet ground, and looking through
the low, latticed window of Moor-House kitchen,
I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest
and despair, were my near kinswomen ; and the
young and stately gentleman who had found me
almost dying at his threshold, was my blood rela-
tion . Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch !
This was wealth indeed !—wealth to the heart ! —
a mine of pure , genial affections. This was a
blessing, bright, vivid, and exhilarating ! —not
like the ponderous gift of gold : rich and welcome
enough in its way, but sobering from its weight.
I now clapped my hands in sudden joy — my pulse
bounded, my veins thrilled.
" Oh, I am glad !—I am glad ! " I exclaimed.
174 JANE EYRE.

St. John smiled. " Did I not say you neglected

essential points to pursue trifles ? " he asked.
" You were serious when I told you you had got
a fortune ; and now, for a matter of no moment,
you are excited."
"What can you mean ? It may be of no
moment to you : you have sisters, and don't
care for a cousin ; but I had nobody ; and now
three relations, or two, if you don't choose to
be counted, are born into my world, full grown.
I say again, I am glad ! "
I walked fast through the room : I stopped, half
suffocated with the thoughts that rose faster than I
could receive, comprehend, settle them : —thoughts
of what might, could, would, and should be , and
that ere long. I looked at the blank wall : it
seemed a sky, thick with ascending stars, —every
one lit me to a purpose or delight. Those who
had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved
barrenly, I could now benefit. They were under
a yoke: I could free them : they were scattered,—
I could reunite them - the independence, the
affluence which was mine, might be theirs too.
Were we not four ? Twenty thousand pounds
shared equally, would be five thousand each, —
enough and to spare justice would be done,—
mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did
 JANE EYRE. 175

not weigh on me now it was not a mere bequest

of coin,-it was a legacy of life, hope, enjoy-
ment.
How I looked while these ideas were taking my
spirit by storm, I cannot tell ; but I perceived
soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind
me, and was gently attempting to make me sit
down on it. He also advised me to be composed.
I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and dis-
traction, shook off his hand, and began to walk
about again .
" Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow," I said,
" and tell them to come home directly ; Diana
said they would both consider themselves rich with
a thousand pounds, so with five thousand, they will
do very well. "
" Tell me where I can get you a glass of water,"
said St. John ; " you must really make an effort to
tranquillize your feelings."
" Nonsense ! and what sort of an effect will the
bequest have on you ? Will it keep you in Eng-
land, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and settle
down like an ordinary mortal ? "
" You wander : your head becomes confused.
I have been too abrupt in communicating the
news : it has excited you beyond your strength."
" Mr. Rivers ! you quite put me out of patience ;
176 JANE EYRE .

I am rational enough ; it is you who misunder-

stand ; or rather, who affect to misunderstand . "
66
Perhaps if you explained yourself a little more
fully, I should comprehend better."
66
Explain ! What is there to explain ? You
cannot fail to see that twenty thousand pounds, the
sum in question, divided equally between the
nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give
five thousand to each ? What I want is, that you
should write to your sisters and tell them of the
fortune that has accrued to them ."
66 To you, you mean .'""

" I have intimated my view of the case : I am

incapable of taking any other. I am not brutally
selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly ungrateful.
Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and
connexions. I like Moor- House, and I will live
at Moor- House ; I like Diana, and Mary, and I
will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary. It
would please and benefit me to have five thousand
pounds ; it would torment and oppress me to have
twenty thousand ; which, moreover, could never be
mine in justice, though it might in law. I abandon
to you, then, what is absolutely superfluous to me .
Let there be no opposition, and no discussion
about it ; let us agree amongst each other, and
decide the point at once."
" This is acting on first impulses ; you must
 JANE EYRE . 177

take days to consider such a matter, ere your word

can be regarded as valid."
" Oh ! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am
easy you see the justice of the case ?"
" I do see a certain justice ; but it is contrary to
all custom. Besides, the entire fortune is your
right : my uncle gained it by his own efforts ; he
was free to leave it to whom he would : he left it
to you. After all, justice permits you to keep it :
you may, with a clear conscience, consider it abso-
lutely your own."
" With me," said I, " it is fully as much a matter
of feeling as of conscience : I must indulge my
feelings ; I so seldom have had an opportunity of
doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy
me for a year, I could not forego the delicious
pleasure of which I have caught a glimpse — that
of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation , and
winning to myself life-long friends."
" You think so now," rejoined St. John ; " be-
cause you do not know what it is to possess, nor
consequently to enjoy wealth : you cannot form a
notion of the importance twenty thousand pounds
would give you ; of the place it would enable you
to take in society ; of the prospects it would open
―"
to you : you cannot
" And you," I interrupted, "cannot at all imagine
the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love.
VOL. III. N
178 JANE EYRE.

I never had a home, I never had brothers or sisters ;

I must and will have them now : you are not
reluctant to admit me and own me, are you ?"

" Jane : I will be your brother— my sisters

will be your sisters —without stipulating for this
Sacrifice of your just rights."
" Brother ? Yes ; at the distance of a thou-
sand leagues ! Sisters ? Yes ; slaving amongst
strangers ! I, wealthy —gorged with gold I never
earned and do not merit ! You, pennyless !
Famous equality and fraternization ! Close union !
Intimate attachment ! "

" But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties

and domestic happiness may be realized other-
wise than by the means you contemplate : you
may marry."
66
Nonsense, again ! Marry ! I don't want to
marry, and never shall marry."
" That is saying too much such hazardous
affirmations are a proof of the excitement under
which you labour."

" It is not saying too much : I know what I

feel, and how averse are my inclinations to the
bare thought of marriage. No one would take
me for love ; and I will not be regarded in the
light of a mere money-speculation . And I do
not want a stranger— unsympathizing, alien, diffe-
rent from me ; I want my kindred : those with
 JANE EYRE . 179

whom I have full fellow-feeling. Say again you

will be my brother : when you uttered the words
I was satisfied, happy ; repeat them, if you can .
repeat them sincerely."
" I think I can . I know I have always

loved my own sisters ; and I know on what my

affection for them is grounded, —respect for their
worth , and admiration of their talents. You too
have principle and mind : your tastes and habits
resemble Diana's and Mary's ; your presence is
always agreeable to me ; in your conversation I
have already for some time found a salutary solace .
I feel I can easily and naturally make room in my
heart for you, as my third and youngest sister."
" Thank you : that contents me for to-night.
Now you had better go ; for if you stay longer ,
you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some mis-
trustful scruple."
" And the school, Miss Eyre ? It must now
be shut up, I suppose ? "
" No. I will retain my post of mistress till you
get a substitute."
He smiled approbation : we shook hands, and
he took leave.
I need not narrate in detail the further struggles
I had, and arguments I used , to get matters re-
garding the legacy settled as I wished. My task
was a very hard one : but, as I was absolutely
N2
180 JANE EYRE.

resolved—as my cousins saw at length that my

mind was really and immutably fixed on making
a just division of the property—as they must in
their own hearts have felt the equity of the inten-
tion ; and must, besides, have been innately con-
scious that in my place they would have done
precisely what I wished to do— they yielded at
length so far as to consent to put the affair to
arbitration. The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver
and an able lawyer : both coincided in my
opinion : I carried my point. The instruments
of transfer were drawn out : St. John, Diana,
Mary, and I, each became possessed of a com-
petency.
 JANE EYRE. 181

CHAPTER VIII.

It was near Christmas by the time all was settled :

the season of general holiday approached . I now
closed Morton school ; taking care that the part-
ing should not be barren on my side. Good
fortune opens the hand as well as the heart won-

derfully ; and to give somewhat when we have

largely received , is but to afford a vent to the
unusual ebullition of the sensations . I had long
felt with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars
liked me, and when we parted , that consciousness
was confirmed : they manifested their affection
plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification
to find I had really a place in their unsophisticated
hearts I promised them that never a week should
pass in future that I did not visit them, and give
them an hour's teaching in their school.
Mr. Rivers came up, as — having seen the
classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before
182 JANE EYRE.

me, and locked the door— I stood with the key

in my hand, exchanging a few words of special
farewell with some half-dozen of my best scholars :
as decent, respectable, modest, and well-informed
young women as could be found in the ranks of
the British peasantry. And that is saying a great
deal ; for after all, the British peasantry are the
best taught, best mannered, most self-respecting
of any in Europe : since those days I have seen
paysannes and Bauerinnen ; and the best of them
seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, com-
pared with my Morton girls.
" Do you consider you have got your reward for
a season of exertion ? " asked Mr. Rivers when
they were gone. "Does not the consciousness of
having done some real good in your day and gene-
ration give pleasure ? "
" Doubtless."

" And you have only toiled a few months !

Would not a life devoted to the task of regenerat-
ing your race be well spent ? "
66 Yes," I said ; " but I could not go on for ever
so : I want to enjoy my own faculties as well as to
cultivate those of other people. I must enjoy them
now : don't recall either my mind or body to the
school ; I am out of it and disposed for full holi-
day."
He looked grave. " What now ? What sudden
 JANE EYRE . 183

eagerness is this you evince ? What are you going

to do ? "
"To be active : as active as I can. And first I

must beg you to set Hannah at liberty, and get

somebody else to wait on you."
"Do you want her? "
66
Yes, to go with me to Moor-House : Diana
and Mary will be at home in a week, and I want
to have everything in order against their arrival."
" I understand : I thought you were for flying
off on some excursion. It is better so : Hannah
shall go with you."
"Tell her to be ready by to-morrow then ; and
here is the school- room key : I will give you the
key of my cottage in the morning."
He took it. " You give it up very gleefully,"
said he : " I don't quite understand your light-
heartedness ; because I cannot tell what employ-
ment you propose to yourself as a substitute for
the one you are relinquishing . What aim, what
purpose, what ambition in life have you now ?"
" My first aim will be to clean down (do you
comprehend the full force of the expression ?) to
clean down Moor- House from chamber to cellar ;
my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an
indefinite number of cloths, 'till it glitters again ;
my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet,
with mathematical precision ; afterwards I shall go
184 JANE EYRE.

near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good with

fires in every room ; and lastly, the two days pre- then,
ceding that on which your sisters are expected , Hous
14
will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beat- setis
ing of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, affe
compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of MOTE
materials for mince-pies, and solemnizing of other I
culinary rites, as words can convey but an inade- Isai
quate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My Iam
purpose, in short, is to have all things in an abso-
lutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and
Mary, before next Thursday ; and my ambition is
to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they
come."

St. John smiled slightly : still he was dissatis-

fied.
" It is all very well for the present," said he :
" but seriously, I trust that when the first flush of
vivacity is over, you will look a little higher than
domestic endearments and household joys."
"The best things the world has !" I interrupted. bea
" No, Jane, no : this world is not the scene of
fruition ; do not attempt to make it so : nor of rest ;
do not turn slothful."

" I mean, on the contrary, to be busy."

" Jane, I excuse you for the present : two
months' grace I allow you for the full enjoyment
of your new position, and for pleasing yourself
 JANE EYRE. 185

with this late-found charm of relationship ; but

then, I hope you will begin to look beyond Moor-
House and Morton, and sisterly society, and the
selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilized
affluence. I hope your energies will then once
more trouble you with their strength ."
I looked at him with surprise. " St. John, "
I said, " I think you are almost wicked to talk so.
I am disposed to be as content as a queen, and
you try to stir me up to restlessness ! To what
end ? "

"To the end of turning to profit the talents

which God has committed to your keeping ; and
of which he will surely one day demand a strict
account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and
anxiously—I warn you of that. And try to restrain
the disproportionate fervour with which you throw
yourself into common-place home pleasures. Don't
cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh ; save your
constancy and ardour for an adequate cause ; for-
bear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do
you hear, Jane ? "
" Yes ; just as if you were speaking Greek. I
feel I have adequate cause to be happy, and I will
be happy. Good-bye ! "
Happy at Moor-House I was, and hard I
worked ; and so did Hannah : she was charmed
to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of
186 JANE EYRE .

a house turned topsy-turvy— how I could brush,

and dust, and clean, and cook. And really after a
day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was
delightful, by degrees, to invoke order from the
chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken
a journey to S , to purchase some new furni-
ture my cousins having given me carte blanche
to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum
having been set aside for that purpose . The ordi-
nary sitting-room and bed-rooms I left much as
they were : for I knew Diana and Mary would de-
rive more pleasure from seeing again the old
homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the
spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still some
novelty was necessary, to give to their return the
piquancy with which I wished it to be invested.
Dark handsome new carpets and curtains, an
arrangement of some carefully selected antique
ornaments in porcelain and bronze , new coverings ,
and mirrors, and dressing- cases for the toilet tables ,
answered the end : they looked fresh without
being glaring. A spare parlour and bed-room I
refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crim-
son upholstery : I laid canvass on the passage, and
carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I
thought Moor- House as complete a model of
bright modest snugness within, as it was, at this
 JANE EYRE. 187

season, a specimen of wintry waste and desert

dreariness without.
The eventful Thursday at length came. They
were expected about dark, and ere dusk, fires were
lit up stairs and below ; the kitchen was in perfect
trim ; Hannah and I were dressed and all was in
readiness.
St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to

keep quite clear of the house til everything

was arranged : and, indeed, the bare idea of the
commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on
within its walls sufficed to scare him to estrange-
ment. He found me in the kitchen, watching
the progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking.
Approaching the hearth, he asked , " If I was at
last satisfied with house-maid's work ? " I an-
swered by inviting him to accompany me on a
general inspection of the result of my labours .
With some difficulty, I got him to make the tour
of the house . He just looked in at the doors I
opened ; and when he had wandered up stairs and
down stairs, he said I must have gone through a
great deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected
such considerable changes in so short a time : but
not a syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in
the improved aspect of his abode.
This silence damped me. I thought perhaps
188 JANE EYRE.

the alterations had disturbed some old associations

he valued. I inquired whether this was the case :
no doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone.
"Not at all ; he had, • on the contrary, re-
marked that I had scrupulously respected every
association he feared, indeed, I must have be-
stowed more thought on the matter than it was
worth. How many minutes, for instance, had I
devoted to studying the arrangement of this very
room ?—By-the-bye, could I tell him where such
a book was ? "
I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took
it down and withdrawing to his accustomed window
recess, be began to read it.
Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John
was a good man ; but I began to feel he had
spoken truth of himself, when he said he was hard
and cold. The humanities and amenities of life
had no attraction for him— its peaceful enjoyments
no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire—
after what was good and great, certainly : but still
he would never rest ; nor approve of others rest-
ing round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead,
still and pale as a white stone—at his fine linea-
ments fixed in study— I comprehended all at once
that he would hardly make a good husband : that
it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I un-
derstood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love
 JANE EYRE. 189

for Miss Oliver ; I agreed with him that it was but

a love of the senses. I comprehended how he
should despise himself for the feverish influence it
exercised over him ; how he should wish to stifle
and destroy it ; how he should mistrust its ever
conducing permanently to his happiness, or hers.
I saw he was of the material from which nature
hews her heroes — Christian and Pagan— her law-
givers, her statesmen, her conquerors : a steadfast
bulwark for great interests to rest upon ; but, at the
fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy
and out of place.
" This parlour is not his sphere," I reflected :
"the Himalayan ridge, or Caffre bush, even the
plague-cursed Guinea coast swamp, would suit
him better. Well may he eschew the calm of
domestic life ; it is not his element : there his
faculties stagnate — they cannot develope or ap-
pear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife and
danger—where courage is proved, and energy ex-
ercised, and fortitude tasked —that he will speak
and move, the leader and superior. A merry
child would have the advantage of him on this
hearth. He is right to choose a missionary's
career—I see it now."
"They are coming ! they are coming ! " cried
Hannah, throwing open the parlour door . At the
same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I
190 JANE EYRE.

ran. It was now dark ; but a rumbling of wheels

was audible. Hannah soon had a lantern lit. The
vehicle had stopped at the wicket ; the driver opened
the door : first one well-known form , then another,
stepped out. In a minute I had my face under
their bonnets, in contact, first with Mary's soft
cheek, then with Diana's flowing curls. They
laughed—kissed me—then Hannah : patted Carlo,
who was half wild with delight, asked eagerly if
all was well ; and being assured in the affirmative,
hastened into the house.

They were stiff with their long and jolting drive

from Whitcross, and chilled with the frosty night
air ; but their pleasant countenances expanded
to the cheering fire light. While the driver and
Hannah brought in the boxes, they demanded St.
John. At this moment he advanced from the
parlour. They both threw their arms round his
neck at once . He gave each one quiet kiss , said
in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood
a while to be talked to , and then, intimating that
he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the
parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.
I had lit their candles to go up stairs, but Diana
had first to give hospitable orders respecting the
driver ; this done, both followed me. They were
delighted with the renovation and decoration of
their rooms ; with the new drapery, and fresh
 JANE EYRE. 191

carpets, and rich tinted china vases : they ex-

pressed their gratification ungrudgingly . I had
the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met
their wishes exactly ; and that what I had done
added a vivid charm to their joyous return home.
Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of
exhilaration, were so eloquent in narrative and
comment, that their fluency covered St. John's
taciturnity he was sincerely glad to see his sis-
ters ; but in their glow of fervour and flow of joy
he could not sympathize. The event of the day—
that is, the return of Diana and Mary—pleased
him ; but the accompaniments of that event, the
glad tumult, the garrulous glee of reception, irked
him : I saw he wished the calmer morrow was
come. In the very meridian of the night's enjoy-

ment, about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at

the door. Hannah entered with the intimation

that " a poor lad was come, at that unlikely time,

to fetch Mr. Rivers to see his mother, who was
drawing away."
" Where does she live, Hannah ? "
" Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles
off; and moor and moss all the way."
" Tell him I will go ."
" I'm sure, sir, you had better not. It's the
worst road to travel after dark that can be : there's
no track at all over the bog. And then it is such
 192 JANE EYRE.

a bitter night— the keenest wind you ever felt.

You had better send word, sir, that you will be
there in the morning."
But he was already in the passage, putting on
his cloak ; and without one objection, one mur-
mur, he departed. It was then nine o'clock : he
did not return till midnight. Starved and tired
enough he was : but he looked happier than when
he set out. He had performed an act of duty ;
made an exertion ; felt his own strength to do
and deny, and was on better terms with himself.
I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried
his patience . It was Christmas week : we took to
no settled employment, but spent it in a sort of
merry domestic dissipation . The air of the moors,
the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity,
acted on Diana and Mary's spirits like some life-
giving elixir : they were gay from morning till
noon, and from noon till night. They could al-
ways talk ; and their discourse, witty, pithy,
original, had such charms for me, that I preferred
listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything
else. St. John did not rebuke our vivacity ; but
he escaped from it : he was seldom in the house :
his parish was large, the population scattered, and
he found daily business in visiting the sick and
poor in its different districts.
One morning, at breakfast, Diana, after looking
 JANE EYRE . 193

a little pensive for some minutes, asked him, " If

his plans were yet unchanged ? "
" Unchanged and unchangeable," was the reply.
And he proceeded to inform us that his departure
from England was now definitively fixed for the
ensuing year.
" And Rosamond Oliver ? " suggested Mary :
the words seeming to escape her lips involun-
tarily ; for no sooner had she uttered them, than
she made a gesture as if wishing to recall them.
St. John had a book in his hand— it was his un-
social custom to read at meals— he closed it, and
looked up.

" Rosamond Oliver," said he , " is about to be

married to Mr. Granby ; one of the best connected
and most estimable residents in S- , grandson
and heir to Sir Frederic Granby : I had the intel-
ligence from her father yesterday. "
His sisters looked at each other, and at me ; we
all three looked at him : he was serene as glass .
" The match must have been got up hastily,"
said Diana : " they cannot have known each
other long. "
" But two months : they met in October at
the county ball at S-- . But where there
are no obstacles to a union, as in the present
case, where the connection is in every point
desirable , delays are unnecessary : they will be
VOL. III.
194 JANE EYRE .

married as soon as S Place, which Sir Fre-

deric gives up to them, can be refitted for their
reception."
The first time I found St. John alone after this
communication, I felt tempted to inquire if the
event distressed him : but he seemed so little

to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing

to offer him more, I experienced some shame
at the recollection of what I had already hazarded .
Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him :
his reserve was again frozen over, and my frank-
ness was congealed beneath it. He had not

kept his promise of treating me like his sisters ;

he continually made little, chilling differences
between us, which did not at all tend to the
development of cordiality : in short, now that I
was acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived
under the same roof with him, I felt the distance
between us to be far greater than when he had
known me only as the village schoolmistress.
When I remembered how far I had once been
admitted to his confidence, I could hardly com-
prehend his present frigidity.
Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised
when he raised his head suddenly from the desk
over which he was stooping, and said :--
" You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the
victory won."
 JANE EYRE . 195

Startled at being thus addressed , I did not

immediately reply : after a moment's hesitation I
answered :—

" But are you sure, you are not in the position
of those conquerors whose triumphs have cost
them too dear ? Would not such another ruin
you? "
" I think not ; and if I were, it does not
much signify : I shall never be called upon to
contend for such another. The event of the con-

flict is decisive : my way is now clear ; I thank

God for it ! " So saying, he returned to his
papers and his silence.
As our mutual happiness ( i. e . Diana's, Mary's,
and mine) settled into a quieter character, and we
resumed our usual habits and regular studies,
St. John stayed more at home : he sat with us in
the same room , sometimes for hours together.
While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course of
Encyclopædic reading she had ( to my awe and
amazement ) undertaken, and I fagged away at
German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own :
that of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition of
which he thought necessary to his plans.
Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own
recess, quiet and absorbed enough ; but that blue
eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish-
looking grammar, and wandering over, and some-
02
196 JANE EYRE.

times fixing upon us, his fellow-students, with

a curious intensity of observation : if caught, it
would be instantly withdrawn ; yet ever and anon ,
it returned searchingly to our table. I wondered
what it meant I wondered, too, at the punctual
satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occa-
sion that seemed to me of small moment, namely,
—my weekly visit to Morton school ; and still
more was I puzzled when, if the day was unfa-
vourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high
wind, and his sisters urged me not to go, he
would invariably make light of their solicitude ,
and encourage me to accomplish the task without
regard to the elements.
" Jane is not such a weakling as you would
make her," he would say : " she can bear a
mountain blast , or a shower, or a few flakes of
snow, as well as any of us. Her constitution is
both sound and elastic ; — better calculated to
endure variations of climate than many more
robust."
And when I returned, sometimes a good deal
tired, and not a little weather-beaten, I never
dared complain , because I saw that to murmur
would be to vex him : on all occasions fortitude
pleased him ; the reverse was a special annoy-
ance.
One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at
 JANE EYRE . 197

home, because I really had a cold. His sisters

were gone to Morton in my stead : I sat reading
Schiller ; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental
scrolls. As I exchanged a translation for an
exercise, I happened to look his way : there I
found myself under the influence of the ever-
watchful blue eye. How long it had been
searching me through and through, and over
and over, I cannot tell : so keen was it, and yet
so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious—
as if I were sitting in the room with some-
thing uncanny.
" Jane, what are you doing? "
" Learning German."
" I want you to give up German, and learn
Hindostanee."
" You are not in earnest ? "
" In such earnest that I must have it so : and I
will tell you why."
He then went on to explain that Hindostanee
was the language he was himself at present study-
ing : that, as he advanced , he was apt to forget the
commencement ; that it would assist him greatly
to have a pupil with whom he might again and
again go over the elements, and so fix them
thoroughly in his mind ; that his choice had hovered
for some time between me and his sisters ; but that
he had fixed on me, because he saw I could sit at
198 JANE EYRE.

a task the longest of the three. Would I do him

this favour ? I should not, perhaps, have to make
the sacrifice long ; as it wanted now barely three
months to his departure .
St. John was not a man to be lightly refused :
you felt that every impression made on him, either
for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and perma-
nent. I consented. When Diana and Mary re-
turned, the former found her scholar transferred
from her to her brother : she laughed ; and both
she and Mary agreed that St. John should never
have persuaded them to such a step. He answered ,
quietly :—
"I knew it."

I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and

yet an exacting master : he expected me to do a
great deal ; and when I fulfilled his expectations
he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation.
By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over
me that took away my liberty of mind : his praise
and notice were more restraining than his indif-
ference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely
when he was by ; because a tiresomely importunate
instinct reminded me that vivacity ( at least in me)
was distasteful to him. I was so fully aware that
only serious moods and occupations were accept-
able, that in his presence every effort to sustain or
follow any other became vain : I fell under a
 JANE EYRE. 199

freezing spell. When he said " go," I went ;

"come," I came ; " do this," I did it. But I did
not love my servitude : I wished, many a time, he
had continued to neglect me.
One evening when, at bed-time, his sisters and
I stood round him, bidding him good-night, he
kissed each of them, as was his custom ; and, as
was equally his custom, he gave me his hand .
Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicksome humour
(she was not painfully controlled by his will ; for
-
hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed : -
" St. John ! you used to call Jane your third
sister, but you don't treat her as such you should
kiss her too."
She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana
very provoking, and felt uncomfortably confused ;
and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St.
John bent his head, his Greek face was brought to
a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes
piercingly he kissed me. There are no such
things as marble kisses, or ice kisses, or I should
say, my ecclesiastical cousin's salute belonged to
one of these classes ; but there may be experiment
kisses, and his was an experiment kiss . When
given, he viewed me to learn the result ; it was
not striking : I am sure I did not blush ; perhaps
I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if
this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He
200 JANE EYRE.

never omitted the ceremony afterwards, and the

gravity and quiescence with which I underwent
it, seemed to invest it for him with a certain
charm .

As for me, I daily wished more to please him :

but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I
must disown half my nature, stifle half my facul-

ties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force

myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had
no natural vocation . He wanted to train me to an
elevation I could never reach ; it racked me hourly
to aspire to the standard he uplifted . The thing
was as impossible as to mould my irregular fea-
tures to his correct and classic pattern, to give to
my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and
solemn lustre of his own.

Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in

thrall at present. Of late it had been easy enough
for me to look sad : a cankering evil sat at my
heart and drained my happiness at its source —the
evil of suspense .

Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester,

reader, amidst these changes of place and fortune.
Not for a moment. His idea was still with me ;
because it was not a vapour sunshine could dis-
perse ; nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash
away : it was a name graven on a tablet, fated to
last as long as the marble it inscribed. The crav-
 JANE EYRE. 201

ing to know what had become of him followed me

everywhere ; when I was at Morton, I re-entered
my cottage every evening to think of that ; and
now at Moor- House, I sought my bed-room each
night to brood over it.
In the course of my necessary correspondence
with Mr. Briggs about the will, I had inquired if
he knew anything of Mr. Rochester's present resi-
dence and state of health : but, as St. John had
conjectured, he was quite ignorant of all concern-
ing him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, entreating
information on the subject. I had calculated with
certainty on this step answering my end : I felt
sure it would elicit an early answer. I was
astonished when a fortnight passed without reply ;
but, when two months wore away, and day after
day the post arrived and brought nothing for me,
I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety.
I wrote again : there was a chance of my first

letter having missed . Renewed hope followed

renewed effort : it shone like the former for some
weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered : not a line,
not a word reached me. When half a year wasted
in vain expectancy, my hope died out ; and then
I felt dark indeed.
A fine spring shone round me, which I could
not enjoy. Summer approached ; Diana tried
202 JANE EYRE.

to cheer me : she said I looked ill, and wished

to accompany me to the sea- side. This St. John
opposed ; he said I did not want dissipation , I
wanted employment : my present life was too
purposeless, I required an aim ; and , I suppose, by
way of supplying deficiencies, he prolonged still
further my lessons in Hindostanee, and grew more
urgent in requiring their accomplishment : and I,
like a fool, never thought of resisting him —I
could not resist him.
One day I had come to my studies in lower
spirits than usual ; the ebb was occasioned by
poignantly felt disappointment : Hannah had told
me in the morning there was a letter for me, and
when I went down to take it, almost certain that
the long looked-for tidings were vouchsafed me at
last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr.
Briggs on business . The bitter check had wrung
from me some tears ; and now as I sat poring
over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes
ofan Indian scribe, my eyes filled again.
St. John called me to his side to read ; in
attempting to do this my voice failed me : words
were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occu-
pants of the parlour : Diana was practising her
music in the drawing-room, Mary was gardening
—it was a very fine May-day, clear, sunny, and
 JANE EYRE . 203

breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at

this emotion, nor did he question me as to its
cause ; he only said :—
" We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are
more composed. " And while I smothered the
paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient,
leaning on his desk and looking like a physician
watching with the eye of science an expected and
fully-understood crisis in a patient's malady.
Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and mut-
tered something about not being very well that
morning, I resumed my task, and succeeded in
completing it. St. John put away my books and
his, locked his desk, and said : —
66
Now, Jane, you shall take a walk ; and with
me. "
" I will call Diana and Mary."
" No. I want only one companion this morn-
ing, and that must be you put on your things ;
go out by the kitchen door ; take the road towards
the head of Marsh-Glen : I will join you in a
moment. "
I know no medium : I never in my life have
known any medium in my dealings with positive,
hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between
absolute submission and determined revolt. I

have always faithfully observed the one, up to the

very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic
204 JANE EYRE.

vehemence, into the other ; and as neither present

circumstances warranted, nor my present mood
inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful obe-
dience to St. John's directions ; and in ten minutes
I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by
side with him.
The breeze was from the west : it came over
the hills, sweet with scents of heath and rush ;
the sky was of stainless blue ; the stream descend-
ing the ravine, swelled with past spring rains,
poured along plentiful and clear, catching golden
gleams from the sun, and sapphire tints from the
firmament. As we advanced and left the track,
we trod a soft turf, mossy fine and emerald green,
minutely enamelled with a tiny white flower, and
spangled with a star-like yellow blossom : the
hills, meantime, shut us quite in ; for the glen,
towards its head, wound to their very core.
" Let us rest here," said St. John, as we reached
the first stragglers of a battalion of rocks, guarding
a sort of pass, beyond which the beck rushed
down a waterfall ; and where, still a little fur-
ther, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had
only heath for raiment, and crag for gem—where
it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and. ex-
changed the fresh for the frowning—where it
guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, and a last
refuge for silence.
 JANE EYRE. 205

I took a seat : St. John stood near me. He

looked up the pass and down the hollow ; his
glance wandered away with the stream, and re-
turned to traverse the unclouded heaven which
coloured it : he removed his hat, let the breeze
stir his hair and kiss his brow. He seemed in
communion with the genius of the haunt : with
his eye he bade farewell to something.
" And I shall see it again," he said aloud, " in
dreams, when I sleep by the Ganges : and again,
in a more remote hour— when another slumber
overcomes me—on the shore of a darker stream ."
Strange words of a strange love ! An austere
patriot's passion for his fatherland ! He sat down ;
for half an hour we never spoke ; neither he to me
nor I to him : that interval past, he recom-
menced :- -

" Jane, I go in six weeks ; I have taken my

berth in an East Indiaman which sails on the
twentieth of June."

" God will protect you ; for you have undertaken

His work," I answered.
"Yes," said he, " there is my glory and joy.
I am the servant of an infallible master. I am not
going out under human guidance, subject to the
defective laws and erring control of my feeble fel-
low-worms : my king, my lawgiver, my captain , is
the All-perfect. It seems strange to me that all
206 JANE EYRE .

round me do not burn to enlist under the same

banner, to join in the same enterprise ."
" All have not your powers ; and it would be
folly for the feeble to wish to march with the
strong.
"6
I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them :
I address only such as are worthy of the work, and
competent to accomplish it."
"Those are few in number, and difficult to dis-
cover."

" You say truly : but when found, it is right to

stir them up—to urge and exhort them to the
effort to show them what their gifts are, and why
they were given—to speak Heaven's message in
their ear,—to offer them, direct from God, a place
in the ranks of his chosen. "
" If they are really qualified for the task, will
not their own hearts be the first to inform them
of it ?"
I felt as if an awful charm was framing round
and gathering over me : I trembled to hear some
fatal word spoken which would at once declare and
rivet the spell.
" And what does your heart say ? " demanded
St. John .
"My heart is mute,—my heart is mute," I
answered, struck and thrilled.
"Then I must speak for it," continued the deep,
 JANE EYRE . 207

relentless voice. " Jane, come with me to India :

come as my help-meet and fellow-labourer."
The glen and sky spun round : the hills heaved !
It was as if I had heard a summons from Heaven—
as if a visionary messenger, like him of Macedonia,
had enounced, " Come over and help us !" But
I was no apostle,—I could not behold the herald ,
—I could not receive his call.
"
" Oh, St. John ! " I cried, " have some mercy !"
I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what
he believed his duty, knew neither mercy nor
remorse. He continued :—
" God and nature intended you for a mission-
ary's wife. It is not personal, but mental endow-
ments they have given you : you are formed for
labour, not for love. A missionary's wife you must
—shall be. You shall be mine : I claim you — not
for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign's service ."
66 I am not fit for it : I have no vocation," I
"
said.
He had calculated on these first objections : he
was not irritated by them. Indeed , as he leaned
back against the crag behind him, folded his arms
on his chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he
was prepared for a long and trying opposition, and
had taken in a stock of patience to last him to its
close— resolved, however, that that close should be
conquest for him.
208 JANE EYRE .

" Humility, Jane," said he, " is the ground-

work of Christian virtues : you say right that you 10
are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it ? Or COT

who , that ever was truly called, believed himself

worthy of the summons ? I, for instance, am but
dust and ashes . With St. Paul, I acknowledge bet
myselfthe chiefest of sinners : but I do not suffer ac

this sense of my personal vileness to daunt me. I

know my Leader : that He is just as well as wa
mighty ; and while he has chosen a feeble instru- ma
ment to perform a great task, He will, from the
boundless stores of His providence, supply the
inadequacy of the means to the end . Think like SC
me, Jane— trust like me. It is the Rock of Ages
I ask you to lean on : do not doubt but it will bear an
the weight of your human weakness." Ca
" I do not understand a missionary life : I have
never studied missionary labours."
" There, I, humble as I am, can give you the
aid you want : I can set you your task from hour 01
to hour ; stand by you always ; help you from
moment to moment . This I could do in the 01
beginning soon (for I know your powers ) you to
would be as strong and apt as myself, and would th
not require my help ."
" But my powers — where are they for this
undertaking ? I do not feel them . Nothing an
speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sen-
 JANE EYRE. 209

sible of no light kindling —no life quickening—

no voice counselling or cheering. Oh , I wish I
could make you see how much my mind is at
this moment like a rayless dungeon, with one
shrinking fear fettered in its depths —the fear of
being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot
accomplish !"
" I have an answer for you— hear it. I have
watched you ever since we first met : I have
made you my study for ten months. I have
proved you in that time by sundry tests : and
what have L seen and elicited ? In the village
school I found you could perform well, punctu-
ally, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits
and inclinations ; I saw you could perform it with
capacity and tact : you could win while you con-
trolled. In the calm with which you learnt you
had become suddenly rich , I read a mind clear of
the vice of Demas :—lucre had no undue power
over you. In the resolute readiness with which
you cut your wealth into four shares, keeping but
one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others
to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul
that revelled in the flame and excitement of sacri-
fice. In the tractability with which, at my wish,
you forsook a study in which you were interested,
and adopted another, because it interested me ; in
the untiring assiduity with which you have since
VOL. III. P
210 JANE EYRE .

persevered in it— in the unflagging energy and

unshaken temper with which you have met its
difficulties —I acknowledge the complement of
the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile , dili-
gent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and coura-
geous ; very gentle, and very heroic : cease to
mistrust yourself—I can trust you unreservedly..
As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper
amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to
me invaluable."
My iron shroud contracted round me : persua-
sion advanced with slow sure step, shut my eyes
as I would, these last words of his succeeded in
making the way, which had seemed blocked up,
comparatively clear. My work, which had ap-
peared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed
itself as he proceeded , and assumed a definite form
under his shaping hand . He waited for an answer.
I demanded a quarter of an hour to think, before
I again hazarded a reply.
66
Very willingly," he rejoined : and rising, he
strode a little distance up the pass, threw himself
down on a swell of heath , and there lay still.
" I can do what he wants me to do : I am

forced to see and acknowledge that," I meditated

" That is, if life be spared me. But I feel
mine is not the existence to be long protracted
under an Indian sun. — What then ? He does not
 JANE EYRE. 211

care for that : when my time came to die he

would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to
the God who gave me. The case is very plain
before me. In leaving England, I should leave

a loved but empty land — Mr. Rochester is not

there : and if he were, what is, what can that
ever be to me ? My business is to live without
him now nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag
on from day to day, as if I were waiting some
impossible change in circumstances, which might
reunite me to him . Of course ( as St. John once
said) I must seek another interest in life to replace
the one lost is not the occupation he now offers
me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God
assign ? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime
results, the one best calculated to fill the void left
by uptorn affections and demolished hopes ? I
-
believe I must say, yes and yet I shudder.
Alas ! If I join St. John, I abandon half my-
self: if I go to India, I go to premature death.
And how will the interval between leaving Eng-
land for India, and India for the grave, be filled ?
Oh, I know well ! That, too , is very clear to
my vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till
my sinews ache, I shall satisfy him—to the finest
central point and farthest outward circle of his
expectations. If I do go with him—if I do make
P2
212 JANE EYRE.

the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely :

I will throw all on the altar—heart, vitals, the
entire victim. He will never love me ; but he
shall approve me : I will show him energies he
has not yet seen, resources he has never sus-
pected. Yes I can work as hard as he can ;
and with as little grudging.
" Consent, then, to his demand is possible : but
for one item— one dreadful item. It is that he
asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a
husband's heart for me than that frowning giant
of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in
yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would
a good weapon ; and that is all. Unmarried to
him, this would never grieve me ; but can I let
him complete his calculations — coolly put into
practice his plans—go through the wedding cere-
mony ? Can I receive from him the bridal ring,
endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not
he would scrupulously observe) and know that
the spirit was quite absent ? Can I bear the
consciousness that every endearment he bestows
is a sacrifice made on principle ? No : such a
martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never
undergo it : As his sister, I might accompany
him— not as his wife : I will tell him so."
I looked towards the knoll : there he lay, still as
 JANE EYRE. 213

a prostrate column ; his face turned to me : his eye

beaming watchful, and keen. He started to his
feet, and approached me.
" I am ready to go to India, if I may go free."
" Your answer requires a commentary," he said;
" it is not clear."

" You have hitherto been my adopted brother :

I, your adopted sister ; let us continue as such :
you and I had better not marry."
He shook his head. 66 Adopted fraternity will
not do in this case. If you were my real sister it

would be different : I should take you, and seek

no wife. But, as it is, either our union must be
consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it cannot
exist : practical obstacles oppose themselves to any
other plan. Do you not see it, Jane ? Consider
a moment your strong sense will guide you."
I did consider : and still my sense, such as it
was, directed me only to the fact that we did not
love each other as man and wife should ; and
therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said
so. " St. John," I returned , " I regard you as a

brother—you, me as a sister : so let us continue."

" We cannot— we cannot," he answered, with
short, sharp determination : " it would not do.
You have said you will go with me to India : re-
member—you have said that."
66 Conditionall
y."
214 JANE EYRE .

" Well — well. To the main point — the de-

parture with me from England, the co -operation
with me in my future labours — you do not object.
You have already as good as put your hand to the
plough you are too consistent to withdraw it.
You have but one end to keep in view—how the
work you have undertaken can best be done.
Simplify your complicated interests, feelings,
thoughts, wishes, aims ; merge all considerations in
one purpose : that of fulfilling with effect — with
power—the mission of your great Master. To do
so, you must have a coadjutor—not a brother ;
that is a loose tie : but a husband. I, too, do not
want a sister : a sister might any day be taken from
me. I want a wife : the sole helpmeet I can
influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely
till death ."

I shuddered as he spoke : I felt his influence in

my marrow— his hold on my limbs.
" Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John :
seek one fitted to you."
"One fitted to my purpose, you mean— fitted to
my vocation. Again I tell you it is not the insig-
nificant private individual — the mere man, with
the man's selfish senses— I wish to mate : it is the
missionary."
" And I will give the missionary my energies—
it is all he wants—but not myself : that would be
 JANE EYRE . 215

only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For

them he has no use : I retain them ."

" You cannot—you ought not . Do you think

God will be satisfied with half an oblation ? Will
He accept a mutilated sacrifice ? It is the cause of
God I advocate : it is under his standard I enlist
e
you. I cannot accept on His behalf a divided
allegiance it must be entire."
" Oh ! I will give my heart to God," I said, " You
do not want it."
I will not swear, reader, that there was not some-
thing of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in
which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling
that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John
till now, because I had not understood him. He
had held me in awe, because he had held me in
doubt. How much of him was saint, how much
mortal, I could not heretofore tell ; but revelations
were being made in this conference : the analysis
of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I
saw his fallibilities : I comprehended them. I un-
derstood that, sitting there where I did, on the
bank of heath, and with that handsome form before
me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I. The
veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having
felt in him the presence of these qualities, I felt
his imperfection, and took courage. I was with an
216 JANE EYRE.

equal — one with whom I might argue— one whom,

if I saw good, I might resist.
He was silent after I had uttered the last sen-
tence, and I presently risked an upward glance at
his countenance . His eye, bent on me, expressed
at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. " Is she
sarcastic, and sarcastic to me ! " it seemed to say.
" What does this signify ? "
" Do not let us forget that this is a solemn
matter," he said, ere long ; " one of which we may
neither think nor talk lightly without sin . I trust,
Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will
give your heart to God : it is all I want. Once
wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your
Maker, the advancement of that Maker's spiritual
kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and
endeavour : you will be ready to do at once what-
ever furthers that end. You will see what impetus
would be given to your efforts and mine by our
physical and mental union in marriage : the only
union that gives a character of permanent con-
formity to the destinies and designs of human
beings : and, passing over all minor caprices— all
trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling—all
scruple about the degree , kind , strength, or tender-
ness of mere personal inclination —you will hasten
to enter Into that union at once."
 JANE EYRE . 217

" Shall I ? " I said, briefly ; and I looked at his

features, beautiful in their harmony, but strangely
formidable in their still severity ; at his brow, com-
manding but not open ; at his eyes, bright and
deep, and searching, but never soft ; at his tall,
imposing figure ; and fancied myself in idea his
wife. Oh ! it would never do ! As his curate,
his comrade, all would be right : I would cross
oceans with him in that capacity ; toil under
eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that
office ; admire and emulate his courage, and devo-
tion, and vigour ; accommodate quietly to his
masterhood ; smile undisturbed at his ineradicable
ambition ; discriminate the Christian from the
man : profoundly esteem the one, and freely for-
give the other. I should suffer often, no doubt,
attached to him only in this capacity : my body
would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my
heart and mind would be free. I should still have

my unblighted self to turn to : my natural unen-

slaved feelings with which to communicate in
moments of loneliness . There would be recesses in
my mind which would be only mine, to which he
never came ; and sentiments growing there fresh
and sheltered, which his austerity could never
blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample
down : but as his wife —at his side always, and
always restrained, and always checked—forced to
218 JANE EYRE,

keep the fire of my nature continually low, to com-

pel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry,
though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after
vital—this would be unendurable .
" St. John !" I exclaimed , when I had got so far
in my meditation.
“ Well ? " he answered, icily.
" I repeat : I freely consent to go with you as

your fellow-missionary ; but not as your wife ; I

cannot marry you and become a part of you. "
" A part of me you must become," he answered
steadily ; " otherwise the whole bargain is void.
How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me
to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married
to me ? How can we be for ever together—some-
times in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage tribes
—and unwed ?"
" Very well," I said, shortly ; " under the cir-
cumstances, quite as well as if I were either your
real sister ; or a man and a clergyman like your-
self."
A " It is known that you are not my sister ; I can-
not introduce you as such : to attempt it would be
to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And
for the rest, though you have a man's vigorous
brain, you have a woman's heart, and—it would
not do."
" It would do," I affirmed with some disdain,
 JANE EYRE. 219

" perfectly well. I have a woman's heart ; but not

where you are concerned : for you I have only a
comrade's constancy ; a fellow-soldier's frankness ,
fidelity, fraternity, ifyou like ; a neophyte's respect
and submission to his hierophant : nothing more
—don't fear."

" It is what I want," he said, speaking to him-

self; " it is just what I want . And there are
obstacles in the way : they must be hewn down .
Jane, you would not repent marrying me ; be cer-
tain of that ; we must be married . I repeat it :
there is no other way ; and undoubtedly enough
of love would follow upon marriage to render the
union right even in your eyes."
" I scorn your idea of love," I could not help
saying ; as I rose up and stood before him, leaning
my back against the rock . " I scorn the counter-

feit sentiment you offer : yes, St. John, and I scorn

you when you offer it."

He looked at me fixedly : compressing his well-

cut lips while he did so . Whether he was incensed
or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell : he
could command his countenance thoroughly.
" I scarcely expected to hear that expression
from you," he said : " I think I have done and
uttered nothing to deserve scorn."
I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed
by his high, calm mien.
220 JANE EYRE.
66 h
Forgive me the words, St. John : but it is your
I
own fault that I have been roused to speak so un-
guardedly. You have introduced a topic on which
our natures are at variance—a topic we should
I
never discuss : the very name of love is an apple
d
of discord between us—if the reality were required
what should we do ? How should we feel ? My
dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage—
25
forget it."
이
" No," said he ; " it is a long-cherished scheme,
and the only one which can secure my great end :
SC
but I shall urge you no further at present. To-
morrow I leave home for Cambridge : I have many
friends there to whom I should wish to say fare-
well. I shall be absent a fortnight— take that
I
space of time to consider my offer : and do not
forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny,
but God. Through my means, He opens to you te

a noble career : as my wife only can you enter

upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit J

yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren B

obscurity. Tremble, lest in that case you should

be numbered with those who have denied the faith
and are worse than infidels ! " St
He had done . Turning from me, he once DI
more.- of
" Looked to river, looked to hill :"

But this time his feelings were all pent in his

 JANE EYRE. 221

heart : I was not worthy to hear them uttered. As

I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his
iron silence all he felt towards me : the disappoint-
ment of an austere and despotic nature, which has
met resistance where it expected submission—the
disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment,
which has detected in another feelings and views
in which it has no power to sympathize : in short,
as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into
obedience : it was only as a sincere Christian he
bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed
so long a space for reflection and repentance.
That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he
thought proper to forget even to shake hands with
me ; but left the room in silence. I —who , though
I had no love, had much friendship for him— was
hurt by the marked omission : so much hurt that
tears started to my eyes .

" I see you and St. John have been quarrelling,

Jane," said Diana, " during your walk on the moor.
But go after him ; he is now lingering in the pass-
age, expecting you—he will make it up ."
I have not much pride under such circum-
stances : I would always rather be happy than dig-
nified ; and I ran after him— he stood at the foot
of the stairs.
66 Good-night, St. John," said I.

" Good-night, Jane," he replied, calmly.

222 JANE EYRE.

" Then shake hands," I added.

What a cold, loose touch he impressed on my
fingers ! He was deeply displeased by what had
occurred that day : cordiality would not warm, nor
tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to
be had with him—no cheering smile or generous
word : but still the Christian was patient and
placid ; and when I asked him if he forgave me,
he answered that he was not in the habit of
cherishing the remembrance of vexation ; that he
had nothing to forgive ; not having been of-
fended .
And with that answer, he left me. I would
much rather he had knocked me down.
 JANE EYRE. 223

CHAPTER IX.

He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as

he had said he would. He deferred his departure
a whole week ; and during that time he made me
feel what severe punishment a good, yet stern, a
conscientious, yet implacable man can inflict on
one who has offended him. Without one overt

act of hostility, one upbraiding word, he contrived

to impress me momently with the conviction that
I was put beyond the pale of his favour.
Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchris-
tian vindictiveness — not that he would have in-

jured a hair of my head , if it had been fully in his

power to do so. Both by nature and principle he
was superior to the mean gratification of ven-
geance : he had forgiven me for saying I scorned
him and his love, but he had not forgotten the
words ; and as long as he and I lived he never
would forget them. I saw by his look, when he
224 JANE EYRE.

turned to me, that they were always written on

the air between me and him ; whenever I spoke,
they sounded in my voice to his ear ; and their
echo toned every answer he gave me.
He did not abstain from conversing with me :
he even called me as usual each morning to join
him at his desk ; and I fear the corrupt man within
him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared
by, the pure Christian, in evincing with what skill
he could, while acting and speaking apparently just
as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase
the spirit of interest and approval which had for-
merly communicated a certain austere charm to
his language and manner. To me, he was in
reality become no longer flesh, but marble : his eye
was a cold, bright , blue gem ; his tongue, a speak-
ing instrument — nothing more.
All this was torture to me—refined , lingering
torture . It kept up a slow fire of indignation,
and a trembling trouble of grief, which harassed
and crushed me altogether. I felt how— if I were
his wife—this good man, pure as the deep sunless
source, could soon kill me : without drawing from
my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on
his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of
crime. Especially I felt this, when I made any
attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth.

He experienced no suffering from estrangement-

 JANE EYRE . 225

no yearning after reconciliation ; and though, more

than once, my fast falling tears blistered the page
over which we both bent, they produced no more
effect on him than if his heart had been really a
matter of stone or metal, To his sisters, mean-
time, he was somewhat kinder than usual : as if
afraid that mere coldness would not sufficiently
convince me how completely I was banished and
banned, he added the force of contrast : and this I
am sure he did, not by malice, but on principle.
The night before he left home, happening to
see him walking in the garden about sunset, and
remembering, as I looked at him, that this man,
li
alienated as he now was, had once saved my fe,
and that we were near relations, I was moved to
make a last attempt to regain his friendship. I
went out and approached him , as he stood leaning
over the little gate : I spoke to the point at once.
" St. John, I am unhappy, because you are still
angry with me. Let us be friends."
" I hope we are friends," was the unmoved
reply ; while he still watched the rising of the
moon, which he had been contemplating as I
approached.
" No, St. John, we are not friends as we were.
You know that."
"Are we not ? That is wrong. For my part,
I wish you no ill and all good ."
VOL. III.
226 JANE EYRE .

"I believe you, St. John ; for I am sure you

are incapable of wishing any one ill : but, as I
am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat
more of affection than that sort of general philan-
thropy you extend to mere strangers. "
" Of course," he said. " Your wish is reason-
able ; and I am far from regarding you as a
stranger. "
This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mor-
tifying and baffling enough. Had I attended to
the suggestions of pride and ire, I should imme-
diately have left him : but something worked
within me more strongly than those feelings could .
I deeply venerated my cousin's talent and princi-
ple . His friendship was of value to me : to lose it
tried me severely. I would not so soon relinquish
the attempt to reconquer it.
" Must we part in this way, St. John ? And
when you go to India, will you leave me so, with-
out a kinder word than you have yet spoken ? "
He now turned quite from the moon, and faced
me.
" When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you ?
What ! do you not go to India ? "
" You said I could not, unless I married you ."
" And you will not marry me ? You adhere to
that resolution ? "

Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those

 JANE EYRE. 227

cold people can put into the ice of their questions ?

How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their
anger ? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in
their displeasure ?
" No, St. John, I will not marry you . I adhere
to my resolution."
The avalanche had shaken and slid a little
forward ; but it did not yet crash down .
" Once more, why this refusal ? " he asked .
" Formerly," I answered, " because you did
not love me ; now, I reply, because you almost
hate me . If I were to marry you, you would
kill me . You are killing me now."

His lips and cheeks turned white- quite

white.
" I should kill you—I am killing you ? Your
words are such as ought not to be used : violent,
unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an unfor-
tunate state of mind : they merit severe reproof :
they would seem inexcusable ; but that it is the
duty of man to forgive his fellow, even until
seventy-and-seven times."
I had finished the business now. While
earnestly wishing to erase from his mind the
trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that
tenacious surface, another and far deeper im-
pression : I had burnt it in .
" Now you will indeed hate me," I said. " It
Q2
228 JANE EYRE.

is useless to attempt to conciliate you : I see I

have made an eternal enemy of you."
A fresh wrong did these words inflict : the
worse, because they touched on the truth. That
bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm.
I knew the steelly ire I had whetted . I was
heart- wrung.

" You utterly misinterpret my words," I said ,

at once seizing his hand : " I have no inten-
tion to grieve or pain you — indeed, I have
not."
Most bitterly he smiled— most decidedly he
withdrew his hand from mine. " And now you
recall your promise, and will not go to India at
all, I presume ? " said he, after a considerable
pause.
" Yes I will, as your assistant," I answered .
A very long silence succeeded . What struggle
there was in him between Nature and Grace
in this interval, I cannot tell : only singular
gleams scintillated in his eyes, and strange
shadows passed over his face. He spoke at
last.

" I before proved to you the absurdity of a

single woman of your age proposing to accom-
pany abroad a single man of mine . I proved it
to you in such terms as, I should have thought,
would have prevented your ever again alluding to
 JANE EYRE. 229

the plan. That you have done so, I regret—for

your sake."

I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible

reproach gave me courage at once. " Keep to
common sense, St. John : you are verging on
nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what
I have said . You are not really shocked ; for,
with your superior mind, you cannot be either
so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my
meaning. I say again, I will be your curate, if
you like, but never your wife."
Again he turned lividly pale ; but, as before,
controlled his passion perfectly. He answered
emphatically, but calmly :
" A female curate, who is not my wife, would
never suit me. With me, then, it seems, you

cannot go but if you are sincere in your offer,

I will, while in town, speak to a married mis-
sionary, whose wife needs a coadjutor .Your
own fortune will make you independent of the
Society's aid ; and thus you may still be spared
the dishonour of breaking your promise, and
deserting the band you engaged to join. "
Now I never had, as the reader knows, either
given any formal promise, or entered into any
engagement ; and this language was all much
too hard, and much too despotic for the occasion .
I replied :-
230 JANE EYRE .

" There is no dishonour ; no breach of pro-

mise ; no desertion in the case. I am not under
the slightest obligation to go to India : especially
with strangers . With you, I would have ven-
tured much ; because I admire, confide in, and,
as a sister, I love you : but I am convinced that,
go when and with whom I would, I should not
live long in that climate ."
" Ah ! you are afraid of yourself," he said,
curling his lip.
" I am. God did not give me my life to throw
away ; and to do as you wish me, would , I begin
to think, be almost equivalent to committing
suicide . Moreover , before I definitively resolve
on quitting England , I will know for certain ,
whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining
in it than by leaving it."
" What do you mean ? "
" It would be fruitless to attempt to explain :
but there is a point on which I have long endured
painful doubt ; and I can go nowhere till by some
means that doubt is removed."

" I know where your heart turns, and to what

it clings. The interest you cherish is lawless and
unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have
crushed it now you should blush to allude to it.
You think of Mr. Rochester ? "
It was true. I confessed it by silence.
 JANE EYRE. 231

" Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester ? "

" Imust find out what is become of him ."
" It remains for me, then," he said, "to re-
member you in my prayers ; and to entreat God
for you, in all earnestness, that you may not in-
deed become a castaway. I had thought I re-
cognised in you one of the chosen . But God
sees not as man sees : His will be done."
He opened the gate, passed through it, and
strayed away down the glen . He was soon out of
sight.
On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana
standing at the window, looking very thoughtful .
Diana was a great deal taller than I : she put her
hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined
my face.
66
Jane," she said, " you are always agitated and
pale now. I am sure there is something the mat-
ter. Tell me what business St. John and you
have on hands. I have watched you this half hour
from the window : you must forgive my being
such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I
hardly know what . St. John is a strange being
—"

She paused - I did not speak : soon she re-

sumed :—

" That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views

232 JANE EYRE .

of some sort respecting you, I am sure : he has

long distinguished you by a notice and interest he
never showed to any one else to what end ? I
wish he loved you— does he , Jane ? "
I put her cool hand to my hot forehead : " No,
Die, not one whit."
" Then why does he follow you so with his
eyes—and get you so frequently alone with him,
and keep you so continually at his side ? Mary
and I had both concluded he wished you to marry
him."
" He does he has asked me to be his wife."
Diana clapped her hands. " That is just what
we hoped and thought ! And you will marry
him, Jane, won't you ? And then he will stay in
England ."
" Far from that, Diana ; his sole idea in propos-
ing to me is to procure a fitting fellow-labourer in
his Indian toils."
"What ! He wishes you to go to India ?"
" Yes."
" Madness !" she exclaimed. " You would not
live three months there, I am certain . You never
shall go you have not consented— have you,
Jane ? "
—"
" I have refused to marry him
" And have consequently displeased him ? " she
suggested.
 JANE EYRE. 233

"Deeply : he will never forgive me, I fear : yet

I offered to accompany him as his sister."
" It was frantic folly to do so, Jane . Think of
the task you undertook—one of incessant fatigue :
where fatigue kills even the strong ; and you are
weak. St. John — you know him — would urge
you to impossibilities : with him there would be
no permission to rest during the hot hours ; and
unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts,
you force yourself to perform. I am astonished
you found courage to refuse his hand . You do
not love him then , Jane ? "
" Not as a husband."
" Yet he is a handsome fellow."
" And I am so plain you see, Die. We should
never suit."
" Plain ! You ? Not at all. You are much
too pretty, as well as too good, to be grilled alive
in Calcutta." And again she earnestly conjured
me to give up all thoughts of going out with her
brother.

" I must, indeed," I said ; " for when just now

I repeated the offer of serving him for a deacon,
he expressed himself shocked at my want of de-
cency. He seemed to think I had committed an

impropriety in proposing to accompany him un-

married : as i I had not from the first hoped to
234 JANE EYRE .

find in him a brother ; and habitually regarded

him as such. "
"What makes you say he does not love you,
Jane ? "
" You should hear himself on the subject. He
has again and again explained that it is not him-
self, but his office he wishes to mate. He has told
me I am formed for labour— not for love : which
is true, no doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not
formed for love, it follows that I am not formed
for marriage. Would it not be strange, Die, to be
chained for life to a man who regarded one but as
a useful tool ? "
"Insupportable—unnatural —out of the ques-
tion ! "
" And then," I continued, " though I have only
sisterly affection for him now, yet, if forced to be
his wife, I can imagine the possibility of conceiv-
ing an inevitable, strange , torturing kind of love
for him because he is so talented ; and there is
often a certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner,
and conversation. In that case, my lot would be-
come unspeakably wretched. He would not want
me to love him ; and if I showed the feeling, he
would make me sensible that it was a superfluity,
unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know
he would."
 JANE EYRE . 235

" And yet, St. John is a good man ," said Diana.
" He is a good and a great man : but he forgets,
pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people,
in pursuing his own large views . It is better, there-
fore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way ; lest,
in his progress, he should trample them down .
Here he comes ! I will leave you, Diana." And I hast-
ened up stairs, as I saw him entering the garden .
But I was forced to meet him again at supper.
During that meal he appeared just as composed as
usual . I had thought he would hardly speak to
me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit
of his matrimonial scheme : the sequel showed I
was mistaken on both points. He addressed me
precisely in his ordinary manner ; or what had , of
late, been his ordinary manner : one scrupulously
polite . No doubt he had invoked the help of the
Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in
him, and now believed he had forgiven me once
more.
For the evening reading before prayers, he
selected the twenty-first chapter of Revelations.
It was at all times pleasant to listen, while from his
lips fell the words of the Bible : never did his fine
voice sound at once so sweet and full—never did
his manner become so impressive in its noble sim-
plicity, as when he delivered the oracles of God ;
and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone-
236 JANE EYRE.

that manner a more thrilling meaning—as he sat

in the midst of his household circle (the May moon
shining in through the uncurtained window, and
rendering almost unnecessary the light of the
candle on the table) : as he sat there, bending over
the great old Bible, and described from its page
the vision of the new heaven and the new earth—
told how God would come to dwell with men,
how he would wipe away all tears from their eyes,
and promised that there should be no more death,
neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, be-
cause the former things were passed away.
The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he
spoke them : especially as I felt, by the slight, in-
describable alteration in sound, that in uttering
them , his eye had turned on me.
" He that overcometh shall inherit all things ;
and I will be his God, and he shall be my son .
But," was slowly, distinctly read, the " fearful, the
unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake
which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is
the second death."
Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared
for me.

A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing

earnestness, marked his enunciation of the last
glorious verses of that chapter. The reader be-
lieved his name was already written in the Lamb's
 JANE EYRE . 237

book of life, and he yearned after the hour which

should admit him to the city to which the kings of
the earth bring their glory and honour ; which
has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because
the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the
light thereof.
In the prayer following the chapter, all his
energy gathered— all his stern zeal woke : he was
in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved
on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the
weak-hearted ; guidance for wanderers from the
fold a return, even at the eleventh hour, for
those whom the temptations of the world and
the flesh were luring from the narrow path. He
asked, he urged, he claimed the boon of a brand
snatched from the burning. Earnestness is ever
deeply solemn first, as I listened to that prayer,
I wondered at his ; then, when it continued and
rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed . He
felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so
sincerely : others who heard him plead for it,
could not but feel it too.
The prayer over, we took leave of him : he
was to go at a very early hour in the morning.
Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the room
—in compliance, I think, with a whispered hint
from him : I tendered my hand, and wished him
a pleasant journey.
238 JANE EYRE.

“ Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return

from Cambridge in a fortnight : that space, then,
is yet left you for reflection . If I listened to
human pride, I should say no more to you of
marriage with me ; but I listen to my duty, and
keep steadily in view my first aim to do all
things to the glory of God. My Master was
long-suffering : so will I be. I cannot give you
up to perdition as a vessel of wrath : repent—
resolve ; while there is yet time. Remember,
we are bid to work while it is day— warned that
' the night cometh when no man shall work .'
Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good
things in this life. God give you strength to
choose that better part which shall not be taken
from you ! "
He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the
last words . He had spoken earnestly, mildly :
his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding
his mistress ; but it was that of a pastor recalling
his wandering sheep—or better, of a guardian
angel watching the soul for which he is respon-
sible . All men of talent, whether they be men
of feeling or not ; whether they be zealots, or
aspirants, or despots— provided only they be sin-
cere— have their sublime moments : when they
subdue and rule. I felt veneration for St. John
—veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me
 JANE EYRE . 239

at once to the point I had so long shunned . I

was tempted to cease struggling with him—to
rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf
of his existence, and there lose my own. I was
almost as hard beset by him now as I had been
once before, in a different way, by another. I
was a fool both times . To have yielded then
would have been an error of principle ; to have
yielded now would have been an error of judg-
ment. So I think at this hour, when I look
back to the crisis through the quiet medium of
time : I was unconscious of folly at the instant.
I stood motionless under my hierophant's touch .
My refusals were forgotten— my fears overcome
my wrestlings paralyzed . The Impossible —i.e.
my marriage with St. John— was fast becoming
the Possible. All was changing utterly, with a
sudden sweep . Religion called — Angels beckoned
—God commanded —life rolled together like a
scroll—death's gates opening, shewed eternity be-
yond : it seemed , that for safety and bliss there,
all here might be sacrificed in a second. The
dim room was full of visions.

" Could you decide now ?" asked the missionary.

The inquiry was put in gentle tones : he drew me
to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness ! how far
more potent is it than force ! I could resist St.
John's wrath : I grew pliant as a reed under his
240 JANE EYRE.

kindness. Yet I knew all the time, if I yielded

now, I should not the less be made to repent, some
day, of my former rebellion . His nature was not
changed by one hour of solemn prayer : it was
only elevated.
" I could decide if I were but certain," I an-
swered : " were I but convinced that it is God's
will I should marry you, I could vow to marry you
here and now— come afterwards what would ! "
66
' My prayers are heard ! " ejaculated St. John.
He pressed his hand firmer on my head, as if he
claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm, almost
as if he loved me (I say almost — I knew the dif-
ference for I had felt what it was to be loved ;
but, like him, I had now put love out of the ques-
tion, and thought only of duty) : I contended with
my inward dimness of vision , before which clouds
yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply, fervently longed
to do what was right ; and only that. " Shew me,
shew me the path ! " I entreated of Heaven. I was
excited more than I had ever been ; and whether
what followed was the effect of excitement, the
reader shall judge .
All the house was still ; for I believe all, except
St. John and myself, were now retired to rest.
The one candle was dying out : the room was full
of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick : I
heard its throb. Suddenly it stood still to an in-
 JANE EYRE. 241

expressible feeling that thrilled it through, and

passed at once to my head and extremities. The
feeling was not like an electric shock ; but it was
quite as sharp, as strange, as startling : it acted on
my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had
been but torpor ; from which they were now sum-
moned, and forced to wake. They rose expectant :
eye and ear waited, while the flesh quivered on
my bones.
"What have you heard ? What do you see ?"
asked St. John . I saw nothing : but I heard a
voice somewhere cry—
" Jane ! Jane ! Jane ! " nothing more.
" Oh, God ! what is it ?" I gasped.
I might have said, " Where is it ?" for it did not
seem in the room— nor in the house— nor in the
garden : it did not come out of the air— nor from
under the earth—nor from overhead. I had heard
it— where, or whence, for ever impossible to know!
And it was the voice of a human being— a known,
loved, well-remembered voice —that of Edward

Fairfax Rochester ; and it spoke in pain and woe

wildly, eerily, urgently.
" I am coming ! " I cried. " Wait for me ! Oh,
I will come ! " I flew to the door, and looked into
the passage : it was dark. I ran out into the gar-
den : it was void.
"Where are you ? " I exclaimed .
VOL . III. R
242 JANE EYRE.

The hills beyond Marsh- Glen sent the answer

faintly back—" Where are you? " I listened . The
wind sighed low in the firs t all was moorland lone-
liness and midnight hush.
" Down superstition ! " I commented, as that
spectre rose up black by the black yew at the gate.
" This is not thy deception , nor thy witchcraft : it
is the work of nature . She was roused, and did—
no miracle—but her best."
I broke from St. John ; who had followed, and
would have detained me. It was my turn to
assume ascendancy. My powers were in play, and
in force. I told him to forbear question or remark ;
I desired him to leave me : I must, and would be
alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is
energy to command well enough, obedience never
fails. I mounted to my chamber ; locked myself
in ; fell on my knees ; and prayed in my way—a
different way to St. John's, but effective in its own
fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty
Spirit ; and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His
feet. I rose from the thanksgiving—took a resolve
—and lay down, unscared , enlightened— eager but
for the daylight .
 JANE EYRE. 243

CHAPTER X.

The daylight came. I rose at dawn. I busied

myself for an hour or two with arranging my

things in my chamber, drawers and wardrobe,
in the order wherein I should wish to leave them
during a brief absence. Meantime, I heard St.
John quit his room. He stopped at my door : I
feared he would knock— no, but a slip of paper

was passed under the door. I took it up . It

bore these words-
" You left me too suddenly last night. Had
you stayed but a little longer, you would have
laid your hand on the Christian's cross and the
angel's crown. I shall expect your clear decision
when I return this day fortnight. Meantime,
watch and pray that you enter not into temptation :
the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see,
is weak. I shall pray for you hourly.— Yours ,
St. John ."
R2
 244 JANE EYRE .

My spirit," I answered , mentally, " is willing

to do what is right ; and my flesh, I hope, is
strong enough to accomplish the will of Heaven,
when once that will is distinctly known to me.
At any rate, it shall be strong enough to search—
inquire to grope an outlet from this cloud of
doubt, and find the open day of certainty."
It was the first of June ; yet the morning was
overcast and chilly : rain beat fast on my casement.
I heard the front-door open, and St. John pass
out. Looking through the window, I saw him
traverse the garden . He took the way over the
misty moors in the direction of Whitcross—there
he would meet the coach.
" In a few more hours I shall succeed you in
that track, cousin, " thought I : " I too have a
coach to meet at Whitcross. I too have some to see
and ask after in England , before I depart for ever."
It wanted yet two hours of breakfast-time. I
filled the interval in walking softly about my room ,
and pondering the visitation which had given my
plans their present bent. I recalled that inward
sensation I had experienced : for I could recall it,
with all its unspeakable strangeness . I recalled
the voice I had heard ; again I questioned whence
it came, as vainly as before : it seemed in me— not
in the external world . I asked , was it a mere
nervous impression—a delusion ? I could not
 JANE EYRE. 245

conceive or believe : it was more like an inspiration .

The wondrous shock of feeling had come like the
earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul
and Silas's prison : it had opened the doors of the
soul's cell, and loosed its bands—it had wakened
it out of its sleep, whence it sprang trembling,
listening, aghast ; then vibrated thrice a cry on my
startled ear , and in my quaking heart, and through
my spirit ; which neither feared nor shook, but
exulted as if in joy over the success of one effort
it had been privileged to make, independent of
the cumbrous body .
" Ere many days, " I said, as I terminated my
musings, " I will know something of him whose
voice seemed last night to summon me. Letters

have proved of no avail— personal inquiry shall

replace them . "
At breakfast, I announced to Diana and Mary
that I was going a journey, and should be absent
at least four days.
"Alone, Jane ?" they asked .
" Yes ; it was to see, or hear news of, a friend
about whom I had for some time been uneasy."
They might have said, as I have no doubt they
thought, that they had believed me to be without
any friends save them : for, indeed, I had often
said so ; but with their true, natural delicacy, they
abstained from comment : except that Diana asked
246 JANE EYRE .

me if I was sure I was well enough to travel. I

looked very pale, she observed. I replied, that no-
thing ailed me save anxiety of mind , which I hoped
soon to alleviate .
It was easy to make my further arrangements ;
for I was troubled with no inquiries—no surmises.
Having once explained to them that I could not
now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and
wisely acquiesced in the silence with which I pur-
sued them ; according to me the privilege of free
action I should, under similar circumstances, have
accorded them.
I left Moor-House at three o'clock P. M. , and
soon after four, I stood at the foot of the sign- post
of Whitcross, waiting the arrival of the coach
which was to take me to distant Thornfield .
Amidst the silence of those solitary roads and desert
hills, I heard it approach from a great distance.
It was the same vehicle whence, a year ago, I had
alighted one summer evening on this very spot—
how desolate, and hopeless, and objectless ! It
stopped as I beckoned . I entered — not now obliged
to part with my whole fortune as the price of its
accommodation. Once more on the road to Thorn-
field, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home.
It was a journey of six-and -thirty hours. I had
set out from Whitcross on a Tuesday afternoon,
and early on the succeeding Thursday morning the
 JANE EYRE . 247

coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn

situated in the midst of scenery whose green hedges
and large fields, and low pastoral hills, (how mild of
feature and verdant of hue compared with the
stern north- midland moors of Morton ! ) met my
eye like the lineaments of a once familiar face.
Yes, I knew the character of this landscape : I was
sure we were near my bourne.
" How far is Thornfield-Hall from here?" I
asked of the ostler.
"Just two miles, ma'am, across the fields. "
" My journey is closed , " I thought to myself.
I got out of the coach, gave a box I had into the
ostler's charge, to be kept till I called for it ; paid
my fare ; satisfied the coachman , and was going :
the brightening day gleamed on the sign of the inn,
and I read in gilt letters, " The Rochester Arms ."
My heart leapt up : I was already on my master's
very lands. It fell again : the thought struck it :—
" Your master himselfmay be beyond the British
Channel, for aught you know : and then , if he is
at Thornfield-Hall, towards which you hasten, who
besides him is there ? His lunatic wife ; and you
have nothing to do with him : you dare not speak
to him or seek his presence. You have lost your
labour— you had better go no farther," urged the
monitor. " Ask information of the people at the
inn ; they can give you all you seek : they can
248 JANE EYRE .

solve your doubts at once. Go up to that man,

and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home."
The suggestion was sensible ; and yet I could
not force myself to act on it. I so dreaded a reply
that would crush me with despair. To prolong
doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more
see the Hall under the ray of her star. There
was the stile before me —the very fields through
which I had hurried , blind , deaf, distracted , with
a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on
the morning I fled from Thornfield : ere I well
knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in
the midst of them. How fast I walked ! How I
ran sometimes ! How I looked forward to catch
the first view of the well-known woods ! With
what feelings I welcomed single trees I knew, and
familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between
them !
At last the woods rose ; the rookery clustered
dark ; a loud cawing broke the morning stillness.
Strange delight inspired me : on I hastened . An-
other field crossed —a lane threaded—and there
were the court-yard walls—the back-offices : the
house itself, the rookery still hid . " My first view
of it shall be in front," I determined, " where its
bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at once,
and where I can single out my master's very win-
dow: perhaps he will be standing at it— he rises.
 JANE EYRE. 249

early perhaps he is now walking in the orchard,

or on the pavement in front. Could I but see him!
—but a moment ! Surely, in that case , I should not
be so mad as to run to him ? I cannot tell— I am
not certain. And if I did—what then ? God bless
him ! What then ? Who would be hurt by my
once more tasting the life his glance can give me ?
—I rave: perhaps at this moment he is watching
the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on the tideless
sea of the south ."
I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard
—turned its angle : there was a gate just there,
opening into the meadow, between two stone pil-
lars, crowned by stone balls. From behind one
pillar, I could peep round quietly at the full front
of the mansion . I advanced my head with pre-
caution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom
window-blinds were yet drawn up : battlements,
windows, long front—all from this sheltered station
were at my command.
The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me
while I took this survey. I wonder what they
thought they must have considered I was very
careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew
very bold and reckless . A peep, and then a long
stare ; and then a departure from my niche and a
straying out into the meadow ; and a sudden stop
full in front of the great mansion, and a protracted ,
250 JANE EYRE.

hardy gaze towards it. "What affectation of diffi-

dence was this at first !" they might have demanded ,
" What stupid regardlessness now? "
Hear an illustration , reader.
A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy

bank ; he wishes to catch a glimpse of her fair

face without waking her. He steals softly over the
grass, careful to make no sound ; he pauses —fan-
cying she has stirred : he withdraws ; not for worlds
would he be seen . All is still : he again advances :

he bends above her ; a light veil rests on her fea-

tures : he lifts it, bends lower ; now his eyes anti-
cipate the vision of beauty— warm, and blooming,
and lovely, in rest. How hurried was their first
glance ! But how they fix ! How he starts ! How
he suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms
the form he dared not, a moment since, touch with
his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops
his burden, and gazes on it wildly ! He thus grasps
and cries, and gazes, because he no longer fears to
waken by any sound he can utter— by any move-
ment he can make. He thought his love slept
sweetly he finds she is stone-dead.
I looked with timorous joy towards a stately
house I saw a blackened ruin .
No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed ! —
to peep up at chamber lattices, fearing life was astir
behind them ! No need to listen for doors opening
 JANE EYRE . 251

-to fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel-

walk ! The lawn , the grounds were trodden and
waste : the portal yawned void . The front was, as
I had once seen it in a dream, but a shell-like wall,
very high and very fragile looking ; perforated with
paneless windows : no roof, no battlements, no
chimneys—all had crashed in.
And there was the silence of death about it :
the solitude of a lonesome wild. No wonder that
letters addressed to people here had never received
an answer : as well despatch epistles to a vault in
a church-aisle. The grim blackness of the stones
told by what fate the Hall had fallen— by confla-
gration but how kindled ? What story belonged
to this disaster ? What loss , besides mortar, and

marble, and wood -work, had followed upon it ?

Had life been wrecked , as well as property ? If
so, whose ? Dreadful question : there was no one
here to answer it — not even dumb sign, mute
token.
In wandering round the shattered walls and
through the devastated interior, I gathered evidence
that the calamity was not of late occurrence .
Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that
void arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow
casements ; for, amidst the drenched piles of rub-
bish, spring had cherished vegetation : grass and
weed grew here and there between the stones and
252 JANE EYRE .

fallen rafters. And oh ! where, meantime, was the

hapless owner of this wreck ? In what land ?
Under what auspices ? My eye involuntarily wan-
dered to the gray church tower near the gates, and
I asked , " Is he with Damer de Rochester, sharing
the shelter of his narrow marble house ?"
Some answer must be had to these questions.
I could find it nowhere but at the inn, and thither,
ere long, I returned . The host himself brought
my breakfast into the parlour. I requested him to
shut the door and sit down : I had some questions
to ask him. But when he complied , I scarcely
knew how to begin ; such horror had I of the
possible answers. And yet the spectacle of deso-
lation I had just left, prepared me in a measure
for a tale of misery. The host was a respectable-
looking, middle- aged man.
" You know Thornfield Hall, of course ?" I
managed to say at last.
" Yes, ma'am ; I lived there once."
" Did you ?" Not in my time, I thought : you
are a stranger to me .
" I was the late Mr. Rochester's butler," he
added.
The late ! I seemed to have received with full
force the blow I had been trying to evade.
" The late !" I gasped . " Is he dead ? "
"I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edward's
 JANE EYRE. 253

father," he explained . I breathed again : my blood

resumed its flow. Fully assured by these words
that Mr. Edward —my Mr. Rochester (God bless
him , wherever he was ! )—was at least alive : was,
in short, " the present gentleman." Gladdening
words ! It seemed I could hear all that was to
come—whatever the disclosures might be—with
comparative tranquillity. Since he was not in the
grave, I could bear, I thought, to learn that he
was at the Antipodes.
" Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield - Hall
now ? " I asked , knowing, of course, what the an-
swer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the
direct question as to where he really was .
" No, ma'am—oh, no ! No one is living there .
I suppose you are a stranger in these parts, or you
would have heard what happened last autumn.—
Thornfield - Hall is quite a ruin : it was burnt down
just about harvest time. A dreadful calamity !
such an immense quantity of valuable property
destroyed hardly any of the furniture could be
saved . The fire broke out at dead of night, and
before the engines arrived from Millcote, the build-
ing was one mass of flame. It was a terrible
spectacle I witnessed it myself."
" At dead of night !" I muttered . Yes, that was
ever the hour of fatality at Thornfield . " Was it
known how it originated ?" I demanded .
254 JANE EYRE.

66
They guessed, ma'am : they guessed . Indeed ,
I should say it was ascertained beyond a doubt.
You are not perhaps aware," he continued , edging
his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low,
"that there was a lady, —a —a lunatic, kept in the
house? "
" I have heard something of it."
" She was kept in very close confinement, ma'am :
people even for some years was not absolutely cer-
tain of her existence . No one saw her : they only
knew by rumour that such a person was at the
Hall ; and who or what she was it was difficult to
conjecture. They said Mr. Edward had brought
her from abroad ; and some believed she had been
his mistress. But a queer thing happened a year
since—a very queer thing."
I feared now to hear my own story, I endea-
voured to recall him to the main fact.
" And this lady ?"
" This lady, ma'am," he answered , " turned out
to be Mr. Rochester's wife ! The discovery was
brought about in the strangest way. There was a
young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Ro-
chester fell in -
" But the fire," I suggested.
" I'm coming to that, ma'am—that Mr. Edward
fell in love with . The servants say they never saw
anybody so much in love as he was : he was after
 JANE EYRE. 255

her continually. They used to watch him- servants

will, you know, ma'am—and he set store on her
past everything : for all, nobody but him thought
her so very handsome. She was a little small
thing, they say, almost like a child , I never saw
herself; but I've heard Leah, the housemaid , tell
of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Ro-
chester was about forty, and this governess not
twenty ; and, you see, when gentlemen of his age
fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they
were bewitched : well, he would marry her."
" You shall tell me this part of the story another
time," I said ; " but now I have a particular reason
for wishing to hear all about the fire . Was it sus-
pected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any
hand in it ? "
" You've hit it, ma'am : it's quite certain that it
was her, and nobody but her, that set it going.
She had a woman to take care of her called Mrs.
Poole—an able woman in her line, and very trust-
worthy, but for one fault—a fault common to a
deal of them nurses and matrons—she kept a pri-
vate bottle of gin by her, and now and then took a
drop over much. It's excusable, for she had a
hard life of it : but still it was dangerous ; for,
when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep, after the gin and
water, the mad lady, who was as cunning as a witch ,
would take the keys out of her pocket, let herself
256 JANE EYRE .

out of her chamber, and go roaming about the

house, doing any wild mischief that came into her
head . They say she had nearly burnt her husband
in his bed once : but I don't know about that.
However, on this night, she set fire first to the
hangings of the room next her own ; and then she
got down to a lower story, and made her way to
the chamber that had been the governess's—(she
was like as if she knew somehow how matters had
gone on, and had a spite at her)—and she kindled
the bed there but there was nobody sleeping in
it, fortunately. The governess had run away two
months before ; and for all Mr. Rochester sought
her as if she had been the most precious thing he
had in the world , he never could hear a word of
her ; and he grew savage —quite savage on his
disappointment : he never was a wild man, but he
got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone,
too . He sent Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper, away
to her friends at a distance ; but he did it hand-
somely, for he settled an annuity on her for life :
and she deserved it— she was a very good woman.
Miss Adele , a ward he had, was put to school. He
broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and
shut himself up, like a hermit, at the Hall."
" What ! did he not leave England ?"
" Leave England ? Bless you, no ! He would
not cross the door-stones of the house ; except at
 JANE EYRE . 257

night, when he walked just like a ghost about the

grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his
senses— which it is my opinion he had ; for a more
spirited, bolder, keener gentleman than he was be-
fore that midge of a governess crossed him, you
never saw, ma'am. He was not a man given to
wine, or cards , or racing, as some are, and he was
not so very handsome ; but he had a courage and
a will of his own , if ever man had . I knew him
from a boy, you see : and for my part I have often
wished that Miss Eyre had been sunk in the sea
before she came to Thornfield- Hall ."
" Then Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire
broke out ?"

" Yes, indeed was he ; and he went up to the

attics when all was burning above and below, and
got the servants out of their beds and helped them
down himself— and went back to get his mad wife
out of her cell. And then they called out to him
that she was on the roof ; where she was standing ,
waving her arms, above the battlements, and shout-
ing out till they could hear her a mile off : I saw
her and heard her with my own eyes. She was a
big woman, and had long, black hair : we could
see it streaming against the flames as she stood .
I witnessed, and several more witnessed Mr. Ro-
chester ascend through the skylight on to the
-roof: we heard him call " Bertha !" We saw
VOL. III. S
258 JANE EYRE .

him approach her ; and then, ma'am, she yelled ,

and gave a spring, and the next minute she lay
smashed on the pavement. "
" Dead ?"
" Dead ? Ay, dead as the stones on which her
brains and blood were scattered ."
" Good God ! "
" You may well say so, ma'am : it was fright-
ful !"
He shuddered.
"And afterwards ?" I urged.
66
Well, ma'am, afterwards the house was burnt
to the ground : there are only some bits of walls
standing now."
Were any other lives lost ? "

" No—perhaps it would have been better if there

had."
" What do you mean ? "
" Poor Mr. Edward ! " he ejaculated, " I little
thought ever to have seen it ! Some say it was a
just judgment on him for keeping his first mar-
riage secret, and wanting to take another wife
while he had one living : but I pity him, for my
part."
" You said he was alive ?" I exclaimed .
" Yes, yes : he is alive ; but many think he had
better be dead ."

" Why? How ? " My blood was again run-

ning cold.
 JANE EYRE. 259

"Where is he ?" I demanded . " Is he in Eng-

land ?"

" Ay— ay— he's in England ; he can't get out

of England, I fancy—he's a fixture now."
What agony was this ! And the man seemed
resolved to protract it.
" He is stone-blind," he said at last. " Yes—
he is stone-blind — is Mr. Edward."
I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was
mad. I summoned strength to ask what had
caused this calamity.
" It was all his own courage, and a body may
say, his kindness, in a way, ma'am : he wouldn't
leave the house till every one else was out before
him. As he came down the great staircase at

last, after Mrs. Rochester had flung herself from

the battlements, there was a great crash —all fell .
He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but
sadly hurt a beam had fallen in such a way as to
protect him partly ; but one eye was knocked out,
and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the sur-
geon, had to amputate it directly. The other eye
inflamed : he lost the sight of that also. He is
now helpless, indeed— blind and a cripple."
"Where is he ? Where does he now live ? "
" At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has,
about thirty miles off : quite a desolate spot."
" Who is with him ?”
$2
260 JANE EYRE.

" Old John and his wife : he would have none

else. He is quite broken down, they say."
" Have you any sort of conveyance ? "
" We have a chaise, ma'am, a very handsome
chaise."

" Let it be got ready instantly ; and if your

post- boy can drive me to Ferndean before dark
this day, I'll pay both you and him twice the hire
you usually demand .”
 JANE EYRE . 261

CHAPTER XI.

The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of

considerable antiquity, moderate size , and no archi-
tectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood . I had
heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often spoke of
it, and sometimes went there. His father had pur-
chased the estate for the sake of the game covers .
He would have let the house ; but could find no
tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and insa-
lubrious site. Ferndean then remained uninhabited
and unfurnished ; with the exception of some two
or three rooms fitted up for the accommodation of
the squire when he went there in the season to
shoot.
To this house I came, just ere dark, on an even-
ing marked by the characteristics of sad sky, cold
gale, and continued small, penetrating rain . The
last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the
chaise and driver with the double remuneration I

had promised. Even when within a very short

262 JANE EYRE .

distance of the manor-house, you could see no-

thing of it ; so thick and dark grew the timber of
the gloomy wood about it. Iron gates between
granite pillars showed me where to enter, and
passing through them, I found myself at once in
the twilight of close-ranked trees . There was a
grass-grown track descending the forest-aisle, be-
tween hoar and knotty shafts and under branched
arches. I followed it, expecting soon to reach the
dwelling ; but it stretched on and on, it wound far
and farther : no sign of habitation or grounds was
visible.
I thought I had taken a wrong direction and
lost my way . The darkness of natural as well as
of sylvan dusk gathered over me : I looked round
in search of another road. There was none : all
was interwoven stem, columnar trunk, dense, sum-
merfoliage— no opening anywhere.
I proceeded : at last my way opened, the trees
thinned a little ; presently I beheld a railing, then
the house— scarce, by this dim light, distinguish-
able from the trees ; so dank and green were its
decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only
by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed
ground, from which the wood swept away in a
semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-
beds ; only a broad gravel-walk girdling a grass-
plat, and this set in the heavy frame of the forest.
 JANE EYRE . 263

The house presented two pointed gables in its

front ; the windows were latticed and narrow : the
front-door was narrow too, one step led up to it.
The whole looked , as the host of the Rochester
Arms had said , " quite a desolate spot." It was
as still as a church on a week-day : the pattering
rain on the forest leaves was the only sound audi-
ble in its vicinage .
" Can there be life here ?" I asked .
Yes : life of some kind there was ; for I heard a
movement— that narrow front-door was unclosing,
and some shape was about to issue from the grange.
It opened slowly : a figure came out into the
twilight and stood on the step ; a man without a
hat he stretched forth his hand as if to feel whe-
ther it rained . Dusk as it was, I had recognised
him— it was my master, Edward Fairfax Roches-
ter, and no other.
I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood
to watch him—to examine him, myself unseen, and
alas ! to him invisible. It was a sudden meeting,
and one in which rapture was kept well in check
by pain. I had no difficulty in restraining my
voice from exclamation, my step from hasty ad-
vance.
His form was of the same strong and stalwart
contour as ever : his port was still erect, his hair
was still raven-black ; nor were his features altered
264 JANE EYRE.

or sunk not in one year's space, by any sorrow,

could his athletic strength be quelled , or his vigorous
prime blighted. But in his countenance , I saw a
change that looked desperate and brooding—
that reminded me of some wronged and fettered
wild beast or bird , dangerous to approach in his
sullen woe. The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed
eyes cruelty has extinguished , might look as looked
that sightless Samson.
And, reader, do you think I feared him in his
blind ferocity ?—if you do, you little know me. A
soft hope blent with my sorrow that soon I should
dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock , and on
those lips so sternly sealed beneath it : but not yet.
I would not accost him yet.
He descended the one step, and advanced slowly
and gropingly towards the grass-plat. Where was
his daring stride now ? Then he paused, as if
he knew not which way to turn . He lifted his
hand and opened his eyelids ; gazed blank , and
with a straining effort, on the sky, and towards the
amphitheatre of trees : one saw that all to him
was void darkness. He stretched his right hand
(the left arm, the mutilated one, he kept hidden in
his bosom) ; he seemed to wish by touch to gain
an idea of what lay around him : he met but va-
cancy still ; for the trees were some yards off where
he stood . He relinquished the endeavour, folded
 JANE EYRE . 265

his arms, and stood quiet and mute in the rain,

now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this
moment John approached him from some quarter.
" Will you take my arm, sir ?" he said ; " there
is a heavy shower coming on : had you not better
go in?"
" Let me alone," was the answer.
John withdrew, without having observed me.
Mr. Rochester now tried to walk about : vainly,—
all was too uncertain . He groped his way back to
the house, and, re-entering it, closed the door.
I now drew near and knocked : John's wife

opened for me. " Mary," I said, " how are you ? "
She started as if she had seen a ghost : I calmed
her. To her hurried " Is it really you , Miss, come
at this late hour to this ' only place?" I answered
by taking her hand ; and then I followed her into
the kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire.
I explained to them, in few words, that I had heard
all which had happened since I left Thornfield, and
that I was come to see Mr. Rochester. I asked

John to go down to the turnpike-house, where I

had dismissed the chaise, and bring my trunk,
which I had left there : and then, while I removed
my bonnet and shawl, I questioned Mary as to
whether I could be accommodated at the Manor
House for the night ; and finding that arrangements
to that effect, though difficult, would not be impos-
266 JANE EYRE .

sible, I informed her I should stay. Just at this

moment the parlour-bell rang.
"When you go in," said I, " tell your master
that a person wishes to speak to him, but do not
give my name."
" I don't think he will see you, " she answered ;
" he refuses everybody."
When she returned, I inquired what he had
said.
" You are to send in your name and your busi-
ness," she replied . She then proceeded to fill a
glass with water, and place it on a tray, together
with candles .
" Is that what he rang for ?" I asked .
" Yes : he always has candles brought in at dark,
though he is blind ."
" Give the tray to me, I will carry it in."
I took it from her hand : she pointed me out the
parlour door. The tray shook as I held it ; the
water spilt from the glass ; my heart struck my
ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me,
and shut it behind me.

This parlour looked gloomy : a neglected handful

of fire burnt low in the grate ; and , leaning over
it, with his head supported against the high, old-
fashioned mantel- piece, appeared the blind tenant
of the room . His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side,
 JANE EYRE. 267

removed out of the way, and coiled up as if afraid

of being inadvertently trodden upon. Pilot pricked
up his ears when I came in ; then he jumped up
with a yelp and a whine, and bounded towards
me : he almost knocked the tray from my hands.
I set it on the table ; then patted him , and said
softly, " Lie down ! " Mr. Rochester turned me-
chanically to see what the commotion was : but as
he saw nothing, he returned and sighed .
" Give me the water, Mary," he said.
I approached him with the now only half-filled
glass : Pilot followed me, still excited .
"What is the matter ?" he inquired .
" Down, Pilot !" I again said . He checked the
water on its way to his lips, and seemed to listen :
he drank, and put the glass down. " This is you,
Mary, is it not ? "
" Mary is in the kitchen," I answered .
He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but
not seeing where I stood , he did not touch me.
"Who is this ? Who is this ?" he demanded , try-
ing, as it seemed, to see with those sightless eyes—
unavailing and distressing attempt ! " Answer
me—speak again ! " he ordered , imperiously and
aloud.
"Will you have a little more water, sir ? I spilt
half of what was in the glass," I said .
"Who is it? What is it ? Who speaks ?"
268 JANE EYRE.

" Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I

am here. I came only this evening," I answered.
" Great God ! —what delusion has come over
me? What sweet madness has seized me ?"
" No delusion — no madness : your mind, sir, is
too strong for delusion, your health too sound for
frenzy."
" And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice?
Oh ! I cannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will
stop and my brain burst. Whatever—whoever you
are—be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live ! "
He groped : I arrested his wandering hand, and
prisoned it in both mine.
" Her very fingers ! " he cried ; " her small ,
slight fingers ! If so, there must be more of her."
The muscular hand broke from my custody ;
my arm was seized , my shoulder— neck—waist— I
was entwined and gathered to him.
" Is it Jane ? What is it ? This is her shape-
""
this is her size-
" And this her voice," I added . " She is all here :
her heart, too. God bless you, sir ! I am glad to
be so near you again."
" Jane Eyre !—Jane Eyre, " was all he said.
66
My dear master," I answered , " I am Jane
Eyre : I have found you out— I am come back
to you."
" In truth ?—in the flesh ? My living Jane ? ',
 JANE EYRE . 269

" You touch me, sir, —you hold me, and fast
enough : I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant
like air, am I ?"
My living darling ! These are certainly her
limbs, and these her features : but I cannot be so
blest after all my misery. It is a dream : such
dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped
her once more to my heart, as I do now ; and
kissed her, as thus— and felt that she loved me,
and trusted that she would not leave me."
" Which I never will, sir, from this day."
" Never will, says the vision ? But I always
woke and found it an empty mockery ; and I was
desolate and abandoned — my life dark , lonely,
hopeless —my soul athirst and forbidden to drink
my heart famished and never to be fed .
Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now,
you will fly, too ; as your sisters have all fled be-
fore you but kiss me before you go— embrace
me, Jane."
" There, sir— and there !"
I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now
rayless eyes— I swept his hair from his brow,
and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to rouse
himself : the conviction of the reality of all this
seized him.

" It is you— is it Jane ? You are come back to

me then ?"
270 JANE EYRE.

" I am."

" And you do not lie dead in some ditch, under

some stream? And you are not a pining outcast
amongst strangers ?"
" No, sir ; I am an independent woman now. "
66
Independent ! What do you mean, Jane ?"
"My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me
five thousand pounds."
" Ah, this is practical—this is real ! " he cried :
" I should never dream that. Besides , there is
that peculiar voice of hers, so animating and
piquant, as well as soft : it cheers my withered
heart ; it puts life into it. - What Janet ! Are
you an independent woman ? A rich woman ?"
"Quite rich, sir. If you won't let me live with
you, I can build a house of my own close up to
your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour
when you want company of an evening."
" But as you are rich , Jane, you have now, no
doubt, friends who will look after you, and not
suffer you to devote yourself to a blind lameter
like me ?"

" I told you I am independent, sir, as well as

rich : I am my own mistress."
" And you will stay with me ?"
" Certainly—unless you object. I will be your
neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find
you lonely I will be your companion— to read to
 JANE EYRE . 271

you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on

you, to be eyes and hands to you . Cease to look
so melancholy, my dear master ; you shall not be
left desolate, so long as I live. "
He replied not : he seemed serious —abstracted ;
he sighed ; he half-opened his lips as if to speak :
he closed them again . I felt a little embarrassed .
Perhaps I had too rashly overleaped convention-
alities ; and he, like St. John , saw impropriety in
my inconsiderateness . I had indeed made my
proposal from the idea that he wished and would
ask me to be his wife : an expectation , not the less
certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up ,
that he would claim me at once as his own. But

no hint to that effect escaping him and his counte-

nance becoming more overcast, I suddenly re-
membered that I might have been all wrong, and
was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly ; and I
began gently to withdraw myself from his arms—
but he eagerly snatched me closer.
" No—no— Jane ; you must not go. No— I

have touched you, heard you , felt the comfort of

your presence the sweetness of your consolation :
I cannot give up these joys . I have little left in
myself I must have you . The world may laugh
—may call me absurd, selfish—but it does not
signify. My very soul demands you : it will be
272 JANE EYRE.

satisfied or it will take deadly vengeance on its

frame."

" Well, sir, I will stay with you : I have said

so."
"Yes— but you understand one thing by staying
with me ; and I understand another. You , per-
haps, could make up your mind to be about my
hand and chair— to wait on me as a kind little
nurse (for you have an affectionate heart and a
generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacri-
fices for those you pity), and that ought to suffice
for me no doubt. I suppose I should now enter-
tain none but fatherly feelings for you : do you
think so ? Come— tell me."
" I will think what you like, sir : I am content
to be only your nurse, if you think it better."
" But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet :
you are young—you must marry one day."
" I don't care about being married ."
" You should care, Janet : if I were what I once
was, I would try to make you care—but— a sight-
less block !"

He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the con-

trary, became more cheerful, and took fresh
courage these last words gave me an insight as to
where the difficulty lay ; and as it was no difficulty
with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous
 JANE EYRE. 273

embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of con

versation.
" It is time some one undertook to rehumanize

you," said I, parting his thick and long uncut

86
locks ; for I see you are being metamorphosed
into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a
' faux air' of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about
you, that is certain your hair reminds me of
eagles' feathers ; whether your nails are grown like
birds ' claws or not, I have not yet noticed ."
" On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails,"
he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his
breast, and shewing it to me. " It is a mere stump
—a ghastly sight ! Don't you think so , Jane ? "
" It is a pity to see it ; and a pity to see your
eyes—and the scar of fire on your forehead : and
the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you
too well for all this ; and making too much of
you."
" I thought you would be revolted , Jane, when
you saw my arm, and my cicatrized visage."
" Did you ? Don't tell me so—lest I should
say something disparaging to your judgment .
Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better
fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell
when there is a good fire ? "
" Yes ; with the right eye I see a glow— a ruddy
haze."
VOL. III. T
274 JANE EYRE .

" And you see the candles ? "

" Very dimly—each is a luminous cloud. "
" Can you see me ?"
66
'No, my fairy : but I am only too thankful to
hear and feel you;"
"When do you take supper ?"
" I never take supper."
" But you shall have some to-night. I am
hungry so are you, I dare say, only you forget. "
Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more
cheerful order : I prepared him, likewise, a com-
fortable repast. My spirits were excited, and with
pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper,
and for a long time after. There was no harassing
restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with
him ; for with him I was at perfect ease, because
I knew I suited him : all I said or did seemed
either to console or revive him . Delightful con-
sciousness ! It brought to life and light my whole
nature : in his presence I thoroughly lived ; and
he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles played
over his face, joy dawned on his forehead : his
lineaments softened and warmed.
After supper, he began to ask me many ques-
tions, of where I had been, what I had been doing,
how I had found him out ; but I gave him only
very partial replies : it was too late to enter into
particulars that night. Besides, I wished to touch
 JANE EYRE . 275

no deep-thrilling chord—to open no fresh well of

emotion in his heart : my sole present aim was to
cheer him. Cheered , as I have said , he was : and
yet but by fits. If a moment's silence broke the
conversation, he would turn restless, touch me,
then say, "Jane."

" You are altogether a human being, Jane ? You

are certain of that ? "
" I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester."
- " Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening,
could you so suddenly rise on my lone hearth ? I
stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a
hireling, and it was given me by you : I asked a
question, expecting John's wife to answer me, and
your voice spoke at my ear."
" Because I had come in, in Mary's stead , with
the tray."
" And there is enchantment in the very hour I
am now spending with you. Who can tell what a
dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for
months past ? Doing nothing, expecting nothing ;
merging night in day ; feeling but the sensation of
cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I
forgot to eat and then a ceaseless sorrow, and ,
at times, a very delirium of desire to behold
my Jane again. Yes : for her restoration I longed
far more than for that of my lost sight. How can
T2
276 JANE EYRE .

it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me ?

Will she not depart as suddenly as she came ? To-
morrow I fear I shall find her no more."
A common-place, practical reply , out of the train
of his own disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the
best and most re-assuring for him in this frame of
mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and
remarked that they were scorched, and that I
would apply something which should make them
grow as broad and black as ever.
"Where is the use of doing me good in any
way, beneficent spirit, when, at some fatal

moment, you will again desert me—passing like

a shadow, whither and how, to me unknown ;
and for me, remaining afterwards undiscover-
able ?"
" Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir? "
"What for, Jane ? "
"Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I
find you rather alarming, when I examine you
close at hand : you talk of my being a fairy; but
I am sure, you are more like a brownie."
"Am I hideous, Jane ?"
" Very, sir : you always were, you know."
" Humph ! The wickedness has not been taken
out of you, wherever you have sojourned ."
" Yet I have been with good people ; far better
than you: a hundred times better people ; possessed
 JANE EYRE . 277

of ideas and views you never entertained in your

life : quite more refined and exalted . "
"Who the deuce have you been with ?"
"If you twist in that way, you will make me
pull the hair out of your head ; and then I think
you will cease to entertain doubts of my substan-
tiality."
" Who have you been with , Jane?"
" You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir;
you must wait till to-morrow: to leave my tale
half-told, will, you know, be a sort of security that
I shall appear at your breakfast- table to finish it.
By-the-bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth
with only a glass of water, then : I must bring an
egg at the least, to say nothing of fried ham. "
"You mocking changeling—fairy-born and
human-bred ! You make me feel as I have not felt
these twelve months. If Saul could have had you
for his David, the evil spirit would have been exor-
cised without the aid of the harp."
66
There, sir, you are redd up and made decent.
Now I'll leave you : I have been travelling these last
three days, and I believe I am tired . Good-night !"
" Just one word, Jane : were there only ladies in
the house where you have been ?"
I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as
I ran up stairs. "A good idea ! " I thought, with
278 JANE EYRE .

glee. " I see I have the means of fretting him out

of his melancholy for some time to come."
Very early the next morning, I heard him up
and astir, wandering from one room to another.
As soon as Mary came down, I heard the question :
" Is Miss Eyre here ?" Then : "Which room did
you put her into ? Was it dry ? Is she up ? Go
and ask if she wants anything ; and when she will
come down."

I came down as soon as I thought there was a

prospect of breakfast. Entering the room very
softly, I had a view of him before he discovered
my presence. It was mournful, indeed , to witness
the subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corpo-
real infirmity. He sat in his chair,—still, but not
at rest : expectant evidently ; the lines of now
habitual sadness marking his strong features. His
countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched ,
waiting to be relit— and alas ! it was not himself
that could now kindle the lustre of animated ex-
pression he was dependent on another for that
office ! I had meant to be gay and careless, but the
powerlessness of the strong man touched my heart
to the quick still I accosted him with what vivacity
I could :—

" It is a bright, sunny morning, sir," I said .

" The rain is over and gone, and there is a tender
shining after it you shall have a walk soon."
 JANE EYRE . 279

I had wakened the glow : his features beamed .

" Oh, you are indeed there, my sky-lark ! Come
to me. You are not gone : not vanished ? I heard
one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over
the wood but its song had no music for me, any

more than the rising sun had rays. All the melody
on earth is concentrated in my Jane's tongue to
my ear : (I am glad it is not naturally a silent one),
all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence."
The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal
of his dependence : just as if a royal eagle, chained
to a perch, should be forced to entreat a sparrow to
become its purveyor. But I would not be lachry-
mose : I dashed off the salt-drops, and busied my-
self with preparing breakfast.
Most of the morning was spent in the open air.
I led him out of the wet and wild wood into some
cheerful fields : I described to him how brilliantly
green they were ; how the flowers and hedges
looked refreshed ; how sparklingly blue was the
sky. I sought a seat for him in a hidden and
lovely spot : a dry stump of a tree ; nor did I
refuse to let him, when seated, place me on his
knee : why should I, when both he and I were
happier near than apart ? Pilot lay beside us : all
was quiet. He broke out suddenly while clasping
me in his arms :—
" Cruel, cruel deserter ! Oh, Jane, what did I
280 JANE EYRE.

feel when I discovered you had fled from Thorn-

field, and when I could nowhere find you ; and,
after examining your apartment, ascertained that
you had taken no money, nor anything which
could serve as an equivalent ! A pearl necklace I
had given you lay untouched in its little casket ;
your trunks were left corded and locked as they
had been prepared for the bridal tour. What
could my darling do, I asked , left destitute and
pennyless ? And what did she do ? Let me hear
now."
Thus urged, I began the narrative of my expe-
I softened considerably
rience for the last year.
what related to the three days of wandering and
starvation, because to have told him all would
have been to inflict unnecessary pain : the little I
did say lacerated his faithful heart deeper than I
wished.
I should not have left him thus, he said, with-
out any means of making my way : I should have
told him my intention . I should have confided in
him : he would never have forced me to be his
mistress. Violent as he had seemed in his despair,
he, in truth, loved me far too well and too tenderly
to constitute himself my tyrant : he would have
given me half his fortune, without demanding so
much as a kiss in return, rather than I should have
flung myself friendless on the wide world. I had
 JANE EYRE. 281

endured, he was certain, more than I had con-

fessed to him.

" Well, whatever my sufferings had been they

were very short," I answered : and then I pro-
ceeded to tell him how I had been received at
Moor-House ; how I had obtained the office of
school- mistress, &c. The accession of fortune , the
discovery of my relations, followed in due order.
Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in fre-
quently in the progress of my tale. When I had
done, that name was immediately taken up .
" This St. John, then, is your cousin ? "
" Yes."
" You have spoken of him often : did you like
him ?"

" He was a very good man, sir ; I could not

help liking him."
"A good man ? Does that mean a respectable ,
well-conducted man of fifty ? Or what does it
mean ?"

" St. John was only twenty-nine, sir."

" Jeune encore,' as the French say. Is he a

person of low stature, phlegmatic, and plain ? A

person whose goodness consists rather in his guilt-
lessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue ?"
" He is untiringly active. Great and exalted
deeds are what he lives to perform."
" But his brain ? That is probably rather soft ?
282 JANE EYRE .

He means well : but you shrug your shoulders to

hear him talk ?"
" He talks little, sir : what he does say is ever
to the point. His brain is first rate, I should
think not impressible, but vigorous ."
" Is he an able man , then ? "
" Truly able."
"A thoroughly educated man ?"
" St. John is an accomplished and profound
scholar."
" His manners, I think, you said are not to your
taste ?—priggish and parsonic ?"
" I never mentioned his manners ; but, unless
I had a very bad taste, they must suit it : they
are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike. "
" His appearance,—I forget what description.
you gave of his appearance ; —a sort of raw curate,
half strangled with his white neck-cloth , and stilt-
ed up on his thick -soled highlows, eh ? "
" St. John dresses well. He is a handsome
man : tall, fair, with blue eyes, and a Grecian
profile."
(Aside.) " Damn him ! "—(To me.) " Did you
like him , Jane ?"
" Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him : but you
asked me that before."
I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlo-
cutor. Jealousy had got hold of him : she stung
 JANE EYRE . 283

him ; but the sting was salutary : it gave him

respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy.
I would not, therefore, immediately charm the
snake.
66
Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer
on my knee, Miss Eyre ?" was the next somewhat
unexpected observation .
"Why not, Mr. Rochester ?"
" The picture you have just drawn is suggestive
of a rather too overwhelming contrast. Your words
have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo : he
is present to your imagination ,—tall, fair, blue-
eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell
on a Vulcan, a real blacksmith, brown, broad-
shouldered ; and blind and lame into the bar-
gain."
"I never thought of it, before ; but you certainly
are rather like Vulcan , sir."
"Well, you can leave me, ma'am : but before
you go (and he retained me by a firmer grasp than

ever), you will be pleased just to answer me a ques-

tion or two." He paused .
" What questions, Mr. Rochester ?"
Then followed this cross-examination :—
" St. John made you school -mistress of Morton
before he knew you were his cousin ? "
" Yes."
284 JANE EYRE.

" You would often see him ? He would visit the

school sometimes ?"
66
Daily."
" He would approve of your plans, Jane ? I

know they would be clever, for you are a talented

creature ?"

" He approved of them— yes."

" He would discover many things in you he
could not have expected to find ? Some of your
accomplishments are not ordinary."
" I don't know about that."
"You had a little cottage near the school, you
say : did he ever come there to see you ?"
" Now and then."
" Of an evening ?"
" Once or twice ."
A pause.
" How long did you reside with him and his
sisters after the cousinship was discovered ?"
" Five months."

" Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies

of his family ? "
" Yes ; the back parlour was both his study and
ours : he sat near the window, and we by the table."
" Did he study much ? "
" A good deal."
" What ? "
 JANE EYRE. 285

" Hindostanee."
" And what did you do meantime ? "
"I learnt German, at first."
" Did he teach you ? "
" He did not understand German."
" Did he teach you nothing ? "
" A little Hindostanee."
"Rivers taught you Hindostanee ? "
" Yes, sir."
" And his sisters also ? "
" No."
" Only you ?"
" Only me."
" Did you ask to learn ? "
" No."
"He wished to teach you ? "
" Yes."
A second pause .
"Why did he wish it? Of what use could
Hindostanee be to you ? "
" He intended me to go with him to India."
" Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He

wanted you to marry him ? "

" He asked me to marry him."
"That is a fiction—an impudent invention to
vex me."
" I beg your pardon , it is the literal truth : he
286 JANE EYRE.

asked me more than once, and was as stiff about

urging his point as ever you could be."
" Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How
often am I to say the same thing ? Why do you
remain pertinaciously perched on my knee, when
I have given you notice to quit ?"
" Because I am comfortable there ."
" No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, be-
cause your heart is not with me : it is with this
cousin— this St. John. Oh, till this moment, I
thought my little Jane was all mine ! I had
a belief she loved me even when she left me : that
was an atom of sweet in much bitter. Long as
we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over
our separation, I never thought that while I was
mourning her, she was loving another ! But it is
useless grieving. Jane, leave me go and marry
Rivers."
" Shake me off, then, sir—push me away, for
I'll not leave you of my own accord ."
" Jane, I ever like your tone of voice : it still
renews hope, it sounds so truthful. When I hear
it, it carries me back a year. I forget that you
have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool-
‫وو‬
go-
" Where must I go, sir ? "
" Your own way— with the husband you have
chosen."
 JANE EYRE . 287

"Who is that ? "

" You know— this St. John Rivers ."
" He is not my husband , nor ever will be. He
does not love me : I do not love him. He loves
(as he can love, and that is not as you love) a
beautiful young lady called Rosamond . He wanted
to marry me only because he thought I should
make a suitable missionary's wife, which she would
not have done. He is good and great, but severe ;
and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like
you, sir: I am not happy at his side, nor near him,
nor with him. He has no indulgence for me— no
fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me : not
even youth— only a few useful mental points.—
Then must I leave you , sir, to go to him ?"
I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinct-
ively closer to my blind but beloved master. He
smiled .
" What, Jane ! Is this true ? Is such really the
state of matters between you and Rivers ? "
" Absolutely, sir. Oh, you need not be jealous !
I wanted to teaze you a little to make you less sad :
I thought anger would be better than grief. But
if you wish me to love you , could you but see how
much I do love you, you would be proud and con-
tent. All my heart is yours, sir : it belongs to you ;
and with you it would remain , were fate to exile the
rest of me from your presence for ever."
288 JANE EYRE .

Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts dark-

ened his aspect .
My seared vision ! My crippled strength ! " he
murmured regretfully.
I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of
what he was thinking, and wanted to speak for
him ; but dared not. As he turned aside his face
a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed
eyelid, and trickle down the manly cheek. My
heart swelled.
" I am no better than the old lightning-struck
chestnut tree in Thornfield orchard ;" he remarked ,
ere long. " And what right would that ruin have
to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with
freshness ? "
" You are no ruin , sir—no lightning- struck tree :
you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow
about your roots, whether you ask them or not, be-
cause they take delight in your bountiful shadow ;
and as they grow they will lean towards you, and
wind round you, because your strength offers them
so safe a prop.'99

Again he smiled : I gave him comfort.

" You speak of friends , Jane ? " he asked .
" Yes ; of friends," I answered rather hesita-
tingly for I knew I meant more than friends, but
could not tell what other word to employ. He
helped me.
 JANE EYRE. 289

" Ah ! Jane. But I want a wife."

" Do you, sir ?"
" Yes : is it news to you ?"
" Of course you said nothing about it before."
" Is it unwelcome news ?"
" That depends on circumstances, sir— on your
choice . "

"Which you shall make for me, Jane, I will

abide by your decision."
" Choose then, sir—her who loves you best. "
" I will at least choose— her I love best. Jane,
will you marry me ? "
" Yes, sir."
" A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead
about by the hand ? "
" Yes, sir."
" A crippled man, twenty years older than you,
whom you will have to wait on ?"
" Yes, sir."
Truly, Jane ?"
" Most truly, sir."
" Oh ! my darling ! God bless you and reward
you ! "
" Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in
my life—if ever I thought a good thought— if ever
I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer— if ever I
wished a righteous wish,—I am rewarded now. To
VOL. III. U
290 JANE EYRE.

be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be

on earth ."
" Because you delight in sacrifice ."
"Sacrifice ! What do I sacrifice ? Famine for
food, expectation for content. To be privileged to
put my arms round what I value—to press my lips
to what I love to repose on what I trust : is that
to make a sacrifice ? Ifso, then certainly I delight
in sacrifice."
" And to bear with my infirmities, Jane : to over-
look my deficiencies."
"Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better
now, when I can really be useful to you, than I did
in your state of proud independence, when you
disdained every part but that of the giver and pro-
tector."
" Hitherto I have hated to be helped — to be led :
henceforth, I feel, I shall hate it no more. I did

not like to put my hand into a hireling's, but it is

pleasant to feel it circled by Jane's little fingers. I
preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance
of servants ; but Jane's soft ministry will be a per-
petual joy. Jane suits me : do I suit her ?"
" To the finest fibre of my nature, sir."
" The case being so, we have nothing in the
world to wait for : we must be married instantly."
He looked and spoke with eagerness : his old
impetuosity was rising.
 JANE EYRE. 291

" We must become one flesh without any delay,

Jane there is but the licence to get —then we
marry."
" Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun
is far declined from its meridian , and Pilot is
actually gone home to his dinner. Let me look at
your watch."
" Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it
henceforward : I have no use for it."
" It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon , sir.
Don't you feel hungry ?"
" The third day from this must be our wedding-
day, Jane. Never mind fine clothes and jewels,
now all that is not worth a fillip.
" The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir.
The breeze is still : it is quite hot. "
" Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl
necklace at this moment fastened round my bronze
scrag under my cravat? I have worn it since the
day I lost my only treasure : as a memento
of her."
" We will go home through the wood : that will
be the shadiest way."
He pursued his own thoughts without heed-
ing me.
" Jane ! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious
dog but my heart swells with gratitude to the
He sees
beneficent God of this earth just now.
U2
292 JANE EYRE.

not as man sees, but far clearer : judges not as

man judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong : I
would have sullied my innocent flower—breathed
guilt on its purity : the Omnipotent snatched it
from me. I, in my stiff- necked rebellion, almost
cursed the dispensation : instead of bending to
the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued
its course ; disasters came thick on me : I was
forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of
death. His chastisements are mighty ; and one
smote me which has humbled me for ever. You
know I was proud of my strength : but what is it
now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance,
as a child does its weakness ? Of late, Jane—
only—only of late—I began to see and acknow-
ledge the hand of God in my doom . I began
to experience remorse, repentance ; the wish for
reconcilement to my Maker. I began sometimes
to pray very brief prayers they were, but very
sincere .

" Some days since : nay, I can number them—

four ; it was last Monday night, a singular mood
came over me : one in which grief replaced frenzy
—sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impres-
sion that since I could nowhere find you, you must
be dead. Late that night— perhaps it might be
between eleven and twelve o'clock—ere I retired
to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it
 JANE EYRE . 293

seemed good to Him, I might soon be taken

from this life, and admitted to that world to
come, where there was still hope of rejoining
Jane.

" I was in my own room, and sitting by the

window, which was open : it soothed me to feel
the balmy night-air ; though I could see no stars
and only by a vague, luminous haze, knew
the presence of a moon . I longed for thee,
Janet ! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul and
flesh ! I asked of God, at once in anguish and
humility, if I had not been long enough desolate,
afflicted , tormented ; and might not soon taste
bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I
endured , I acknowledged —that I could scarcely
endure more, I pleaded ; and the alpha and omega
of my heart's wishes broke involuntarily from my
lips, in the words " Jane ! Jane ! Jane ! "
" Did you speak these words aloud ? "
" I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me,
he would have thought me mad : I pronounced
them with such frantic energy."

" And it was last Monday night : somewhere

near midnight ? "
" Yes ; but the time is of no consequence :

what followed is the strange point. You will

think me superstitious—some superstition I have
294 JANE EYRE .

in my blood, and always had : nevertheless, this

is true—true at least it is that I heard what I
now relate.
" As I exclaimed Jane ! Jane ! Jane l' a
voice—I cannot tell whence the voice came, but
I know whose voice it was—replied, I am com-
ing wait for me ;' and a moment after, went
whispering on the wind, the words Where are
you?'
" I'll tell you , if I can, the idea, the picture
these words opened to my mind : yet it is difficult
to express what I want to express. Ferndean is
buried, as you see, in a heavy wood , where sound
falls dull, and dies unreverberating. ' Where are
you ?' seemed spoken amongst mountains ; for I
heard a hill-sent echo repeat the words. Cooler
and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit
my brow : I could have deemed that in some
wild, lone scene, I and Jane were meeting. In
spirit, I believe, we must have met. You no doubt
were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane :
perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to com-
fort mine ; for those were your accents—as certain
as I live—they were yours !"
Reader, it was on Monday night — near midnight
—that I too had received the mysterious summons :
those were the very words by which I replied to
 JANE EYRE . 295

it. I listened to Mr. Rochester's narrative ; but

made no disclosure in return . The coincidence
struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be com-
municated or discussed. If I told anything, my tale
would be such as must necessarily make a profound
impression on the mind of my hearer ; and that
mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom ,
needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural.
I kept these things, then, and pondered them
in my heart.
"You cannot now wonder," continued my master,
" that when you rose upon me so unexpectedly
last night, I had difficulty in believing you any
other than a mere voice and vision : something
that would melt to silence and annihilation , as
the midnight whisper and mountain echo had
melted before. Now, I thank God ! I know it to
be otherwise. Yes, I thank God !"
He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lift-
ing his hat from his brow, and bending his sight-
less eyes to the earth, he stood in mute devotion.

Only the last words of the worship were audible.

" I thank my Maker, that in the midst of
judgment he has remembered mercy. I humbly
entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to
lead henceforth a purer life than I have done
hitherto ! "
296 JANE EYRE.

Then he stretched his hand out to be led . I

took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips ,
then let it pass round my shoulder : being so much
lower of stature than he, I served both for his
prop and guide. We entered the wood, and wended
homeward.
 JANE EYRE . 297

CHAPTER XII.

CONCLUSION.

Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had :

he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present .
When we got back from church, I went into the
kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was
cooking the dinner, and John cleaning the knives,
and I said :
"Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester
this morning." The housekeeper and her husband
were both ofthat decent phlegmatic order of people,
to whom one may at any time safely communicate a
remarkable piece of news without incurring the
danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill
ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent
of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and
she did stare at me : the ladle with which she was
basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire , did
for some three minutes hang suspended in air ; and
for the same space of time John's knives also had
298 JANE EYRE .

rest from the polishing process : but Mary, bending

again over the roast, said only-
"Have you, miss ? Well, for sure ! "
A short time after she pursued : " I seed you go
out with the master, but I didn't know you were
gone to church to be wed ; " and she basted away.
John, when I turned to him, was grinning from
ear to ear.
"I telled Mary how it would be," he said : "I
knew what Mr. Edward" (John was an old servant ,
and had known his master when he was the cadet
of the house, therefore, he often gave him his
Christian name)—"I knew what Mr. Edward would
do ; and I was certain he would not wait long neither :
and he's done right, for aught I know. I wish you
joy, miss ! " and he politely pulled his forelock .
" Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to
give you and Mary this." I put into his hand a
five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I
left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanc-
tum some time after, I caught the words,—
"She'll happen do better for him nor ony o't'
grand ladies." And again , " If she ben't one o'
th' handsomest, she's noan faal and varry good-
natured ; and i' his een she's fair beautiful, onybody
may see that."
I wrote to Moor-House and to Cambridge im-
mediately, to say what I had done : fully explaining
 JANE EYRE. 299

also why I had thus acted. Diana and Mary ap-

proved the step unreservedly. Diana announced
that she would just give me time to get over the
honey-moon, and then she would come and see me.
"She had better not wait till then, Jane," said
Mr. Rochester, when I read her letter to him ; "if
she does, she will be too late, for our honey-moon
will shine our life-long : its beams will only fade
over your grave or mine."
How St. John received the news, I don't know ;
he never answered the letter in which I communi-
cated it: yet six months after, he wrote to me ; with-
out, however, mentioning Mr. Rochester's name, or
alluding to my marriage. His letter was then
calm ; and, though very serious, kind. He has
maintained a regular, though not frequent corre-
spondence ever since : he hopes I am happy, and
trusts I am not of those who live without God in
the world, and only mind earthly things.
You have not quite forgotten little Adele, have
you, reader ? I had not ; I soon asked and obtained
leave of Mr. Rochester, to go and see her at the
school where he had placed her. Her frantic joy
at beholding me again moved me much. She
looked pale and thin : she said she was not happy.
I found the rules of the establishment were too
strict, its course of study too severe, for a child of
her age: I took her home with me. I meant to
300 JANE EYRE.

become her governess once more ; but I soon found

this impracticable ; my time and cares were now
required by another — my husband needed them
all. So I sought out a school conducted on a
more indulgent system ; and near enough to permit
of my visiting her often, and bringing her home
sometimes. I took care she should never want for
anything that could contribute to her comfort: she
soon settled in her new abode, became very happy
there, and made fair progress in her studies. As
she grew up, a sound English education corrected
in a great measure her French defects ; and when
she left school, I found in her a pleasing and
obliging companion : docile, good- tempered and
well-principled. By her grateful attention to me
and mine, she has long since well repaid any
little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer
her.

My tale draws to its close : one word respecting

my experience of married life, and one brief glance
at the fortunes of those whose names have most
frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have
done.
I have now been married ten years. I know
what it is to live entirely for and with what I love
best on earth . I hold myself supremely blest—
blest beyond what language can express ; because
I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. No
 JANE EYRE . 301

woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am :

ever more absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of
his flesh . I know no weariness of my Edward's
society he knows none of mine, any more than
we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats
in our separate bosoms ; consequently, we are ever
together. To be together is for us to be at once
as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We
talk, I believe, all day long : to talk to each other
is but a more animated and an audible thinking .
All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his
confidence is devoted to me ; we are precisely
suited in character—perfect concord is the result.
Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years
of our union : perhaps it was that circumstance
that drew us so very near— that knit us so very
close ; for I was then his vision , as I am still his
right hand . Literally, I was ( what he often called
me) the apple of his eye . He saw nature he saw
books through me ; and never did I weary of gazing
for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect
of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam—of the
landscape before us ; of the weather round us—
and impressing by sound on his ear what light
could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I
weary of reading to him ; never did I weary of
conducting him where he wished to go : of doing
for him what he wished to be done. And there
302 JANE EYRE.

was a pleasure in my services, most full , most ex-

quisite, even though sad— because he claimed these
services without painful shame or damping humi-
liation . He loved me so truly, that he knew no
reluctance in profiting by my attendance : he felt
I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance
was to indulge my sweetest wishes.
One morning at the end of the two years , as I
was writing a letter to his dictation , he came and
bent over me, and said—
" Jane, have you a glittering ornament round
your neck ?"
I had a gold watch-chain : I answered " Yes."
" And have you a pale blue dress on ?"
I had. He informed me then , that for some
time he had fancied the obscurity clouding one eye
was becoming less dense ; and that now he was
sure ofit.
He and I went up to London. He had the ad-
vice of an eminent oculist ; and he eventually reco-
vered the sight of that one eye. He cannot now
see very distinctly : he cannot read or write much ;
but he can find his way without being led by the
hand the sky is no longer a blank to him—the
earth no longer a void. When his first-born was
put into his arms, he could see that the boy had
inherited his own eyes, as they once were— large,
brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again,
 JANE EYRE. 303

with a full heart, acknowledged that God had tem-

pered judgment with mercy.
My Edward and I, then , are happy : and the
more so, because those we most love are happy
likewise. Diana and Mary Rivers are both mar-
ried alternately, once every year, they come to
see us, and we go to see them . Diana's husband
is a captain in the navy ; a gallant officer, and a
good man. Mary's is a clergyman : a college
friend of her brother's ; and, from his attainments
and principles, worthy of the connexion. Both
Captain Fitzjames and Mr. Wharton love their
wives, and are loved by them .
As to St. John Rivers, he left England : he
went to India. He entered on the path he had
marked for himself; he pursues it still. A more re-
solute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst
rocks and dangers. Firm, faithful, and devoted ;
full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labours for
his race he clears their painful way to improve-
ment ; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of
creed and caste that encumber it. He may be
stern ; he may he exacting ; he may be ambitious
yet ; but his is the sternness of the warrior
Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim-convoy from
the onslaught of Apollyon . His is the exaction of
the apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he
says " Whosoever will come after me, let him
304 JANE EYRE .

deny himself, and take up his cross and follow

me." His is the ambition of the high master-
spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of
those who are redeemed from the earth— who
stand without fault before the throne of God ; who
share the last mighty victories of the Lamb ; who
are called , and chosen , and faithful .
St. John is unmarried : he never will marry now.
Himself has hitherto sufficed to the toil ; and the
toil draws near its close : his glorious sun hastens
to its setting. The last letter I received from him
drew from my eyes human tears, and yet filled my
heart with Divine joy : he anticipated his sure
reward, his incorruptible crown. I know that a

stranger's hand will write to me next, to say that

the good and faithful servant has been called at
length into the joy of his Lord. And why weep
for this ? No fear of death will darken St. John's
last hour : his mind will be unclouded ; his heart
will be undaunted ; his hope will be sure ; his faith
steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this :—
" My Master," he says, " has forewarned me.
Daily he announces more distinctly,- Surely I
come quickly ;' and hourly I more eagerly respond,
- Amen ; even so come, Lord Jesus !' "

FINIS.
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