There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had beenwandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning;but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early)the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and arain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out ofthe question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chillyafternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight,with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidingsof Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of myphysical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round theirmama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by thefireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neitherquarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she haddispensed from joining the group; saying, "She regretted to be underthe necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heardfrom Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I wasendeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable andchildlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner--something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were--she reallymust exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy,little children."

"What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked.

"Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there issomething truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in thatmanner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly,remain silent."

A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. Itcontained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, takingcare that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into thewindow-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk;and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrinedin double retirement.

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to theleft were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separatingme from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning overthe leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winterafternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near ascene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweepingaway wildly before a long and lamentable blast.

I returned to my book--Bewick's History of British Birds: theletterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yetthere were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I couldnot pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of thehaunts of sea-fowl; of "the solitary rocks and promontories" by themonly inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from itssouthern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape -

"Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,Boils round the naked, melancholy islesOf farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surgePours in among the stormy Hebrides."

Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores ofLapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with"the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions ofdreary space,--that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fieldsof ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpineheights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre themultiplied rigours of extreme cold." Of these death-white realms Iformed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehendednotions that float dim through children's brains, but strangelyimpressive. The words in these introductory pages connectedthemselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance tothe rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to thebroken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastlymoon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.

I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard,with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its lowhorizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent,attesting the hour of eventide.

The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marinephantoms.

The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed overquickly: it was an object of terror.

So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying adistant crowd surrounding a gallows.

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undevelopedunderstanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundlyinteresting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narratedon winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when,having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowedus to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills,and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention withpassages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and otherballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages ofPamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.

With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way.I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. Thebreakfast-room door opened.

"Boh! Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused:he found the room apparently empty.

"Where the dickens is she!" he continued. "Lizzy! Georgy! (callingto his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into therain--bad animal!"

"It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished ferventlyhe might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed havefound it out himself; he was not quick either of vision orconception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said atonce -

"She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack."

And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of beingdragged forth by the said Jack.

"What do you want?" I asked, with awkward diffidence.

"Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed?'" was the answer. "I want youto come here;" and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated bya gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.

John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years olderthan I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with adingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage,heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually attable, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eyeand flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but hismama had taken him home for a month or two, "on account of hisdelicate health." Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would dovery well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home;but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclinedrather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness was owing toover-application and, perhaps, to pining after home.

John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and anantipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three timesin the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: everynerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrankwhen he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by theterror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against eitherhis menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offendtheir young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed wasblind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heardhim abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence,more frequently, however, behind her back.

Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent somethree minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he couldwithout damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and whiledreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance ofhim who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion inmy face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly andstrongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired backa step or two from his chair.

"That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since," saidhe, "and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and forthe look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"

Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying toit; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly followthe insult.

"What were you doing behind the curtain?" he asked.

"I was reading."

"Show the book."

I returned to the window and fetched it thence.

"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mamasays; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought tobeg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eatthe same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense. Now,I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they ARE mine; allthe house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand bythe door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows."

I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I sawhim lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, Iinstinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough,however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking myhead against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain wassharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.

"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said. "You are like a murderer--you arelike a slave-driver--you are like the Roman emperors!"

I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion ofNero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which Inever thought thus to have declared aloud.

"What! what!" he cried. "Did she say that to me? Did you hear her,Eliza and Georgiana? Won't I tell mama? but first--"

He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder:he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant,a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle downmy neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: thesesensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received himin frantic sort. I don't very well know what I did with my hands,but he called me "Rat! Rat!" and bellowed out aloud. Aid was nearhim: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was goneupstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and hermaid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words -

"Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!"

"Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!"

Then Mrs. Reed subjoined -

"Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there." Four handswere immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.