prompt:
Chapter: 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."

"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 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 me if I was sure I was well enough to
travel.  I looked very pale, she observed.  I replied, that nothing 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 pursued 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 Thornfield, 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
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 himself may 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 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.
Another field crossed--a lane threaded--and there were the courtyard
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 window: perhaps he will be standing at it--he rises
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
pillars 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
precaution, 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, hardy gaze towards it.  "What
affectation of diffidence 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--fancying 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 features: he
lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate 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 movement 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--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 well-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
conflagration: 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 rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and
weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters.  And oh!
where meantime was the hapless owner of this wreck?  In what land?  Under
what auspices?  My eye involuntarily wandered to the grey 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 desolation 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 seem 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 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 answer 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 building 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.

"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 certain 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 endeavoured 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. Rochester 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 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 her myself; but I've heard Leah, the
house-maid, tell of her.  Leah liked her well enough.  Mr. Rochester 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 suspected 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 trustworthy, but for one
fault--a fault common to a deal of them nurses and matrons--she _kept a
private bottle of gin by her_, and now and then took a drop over-much.  It
is 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 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 storey, 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 handsomely, 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 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
before 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 shouting 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. Rochester ascend through the sky-light on to the roof; we
heard him call 'Bertha!'  We saw him approach her; and then, ma'am, she
yelled and gave a spring, and the next minute she lay smashed on the
pavement."

{The next minute she lay smashed on the pavement: p413.jpg}

"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 frightful!"

He shuddered.

"And afterwards?" I urged.

"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 marriage
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 running cold.  "Where is he?" I
demanded.  "Is he in England?"

"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 surgeon, 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?"

"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."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: At dawn the next morning, Jane rises. St. John slides a note under Jane's door, reminding her to resist temptation. It is the first of June, yet the day is chilly and overcast. Jane wanders the house, thinking about the previous night's visitation: Was it a delusion? It seemed to come from her, not from the external world. At breakfast, she tells Diana and Mary she'll be away at least four days. She catches a coach at Whitcross, the same one she road from Thornfield a year earlier. Alighting from the coach, Jane finds herself again on Rochester's lands. She is anxious to see him again and hurries the two miles from the coach stop to the house, worrying that he may be in Europe. Like a lover who wishes to catch a glimpse of his lover's face without waking her, then finds she is "stone dead," Jane is appalled by the sight that awaits her: Thornfield is a blackened ruin. What is the story behind this disaster, Jane wonders? Jane returns to the inn near the coach station, the Rochester Arms, to find an answer. She discovers that Bertha Mason set the house on fire last autumn. Before this happened, Rochester had shut himself up like a hermit in the house, as if he had gone mad. When the fire broke out, Rochester saved the servants, then tried to save Bertha, but she jumped from Thornfield's roof. Rochester has lost his sight and one of his hands in the fire. He now lives in Ferndean with two old servants, John and Mary.


prompt:
Chapter: The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity,
moderate size, and no architectural 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 purchased 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 insalubrious 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 evening 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 distance of the manor-house, you could see nothing 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 between 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 summer foliage--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,
distinguishable 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.  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 audible 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
whether it rained.  Dusk as it was, I had recognised him--it was my
master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, 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
advance.

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 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 blest 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 toward 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 vacancy still; for the trees were some yards off
where he stood.  He relinquished the endeavour, folded 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 lonely 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 turn-
pike-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 impossible, 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 business," 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 mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of the room.  His
old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, 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 mechanically 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, trying,
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?"

"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.

"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?"

"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 before 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 arouse
himself: the conviction of the reality of all this seized him.

"It is you--is it, Jane?  You are come back to me then?"

"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."

"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?"

"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 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 over-leaped conventionalities; 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 countenance becoming more overcast, I
suddenly remembered 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 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, perhaps, 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 sacrifices for
those you pity), and that ought to suffice for me no doubt.  I suppose I
should now entertain 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 sightless block!"

He relapsed again into gloom.  I, on the contrary, 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 embarrassment.  I resumed a livelier vein of
conversation.

"It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting his
thick and long uncut 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 showing 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
cicatrised 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."

"And you see the candles?"

"Very dimly--each is a luminous cloud."

"Can you see me?"

"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 daresay,
only you forget."

Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I prepared
him, likewise, a comfortable 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 consciousness!  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 questions, 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 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?"

{You are altogether a human being, Jane?  You are certain of that?:
p422.jpg}

"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 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 commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own disturbed
ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring 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 would 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
undiscoverable?

"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 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
substantiality."

"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 exorcised without the aid of the
harp."

"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 upstairs.  "A good
idea!"  I thought with 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 corporeal 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 re-lit--and alas! it was not himself that could
now kindle the lustre of animated expression: 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."

I had wakened the glow: his features beamed.

"Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark!  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 lachrymose: I dashed
off the salt drops, and busied myself 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 feel when I discovered you
had fled from Thornfield, 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 penniless?  And what did
she do?  Let me hear now."

Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last year.  I
softened considerably 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, without 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 endured, he
was certain, more than I had confessed to him.

"Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short," I
answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received at
Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, &c.  The
accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in due
order.  Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in frequently 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: do 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
guiltlessness 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?  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 neckcloth, and stilted
up on his thick-soled high-lows, 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 interlocutor.  Jealousy had got
hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him
respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy.  I would not, therefore,
immediately charm the snake.

"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
bargain."

"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
question or two."  He paused.

"What questions, Mr. Rochester?"

Then followed this cross-examination.

"St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were his
cousin?"

"Yes."

"You would often see him?  He would visit the school sometimes?"

"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?"

"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 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, because 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--go--"

"Where must I go, sir?"

"Your own way--with the husband you have chosen."

"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 I must leave you, sir, to go to him?"

I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively 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 tease 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 content.  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."

Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened 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, because 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."

Again he smiled: I gave him comfort.

"You speak of friends, Jane?" he asked.

"Yes, of friends," I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew I meant
more than friends, but could not tell what other word to employ.  He
helped me.

"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 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?  If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice."

"And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to overlook 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 protector."

"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 perpetual 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.

"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 heeding me.

"Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart swells
with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now.  He sees 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
acknowledge 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 impression 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 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 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!' a voice--I cannot tell whence the
voice came, but I know whose voice it was--replied, 'I am coming: 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 comfort 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
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
communicated 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 lifting his hat from his
brow, and bending his sightless 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!"

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.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Jane rushes to Ferndean, a building buried deep in the woods. While she watches the building, the door slowly opens, and Rochester reaches out a hand to see if it's raining. She notes that his body hasn't changed, but his face looks "desperate and brooding." After Rochester has returned to the house, Jane knocks on the door. Mary is surprised to see her so late at night and in this lonely place. Mary is taking a tray with candles and a glass of water to Rochester, and Jane volunteers to carry it instead. As she walks into the parlor, Rochester's dog, Pilot, is excited to see Jane, almost knocking the tray from her hand. Rochester wonders what is wrong. Realizing Jane is in the room with him, Rochester initially thinks she is only a disembodied voice. He grabs her hand, and wraps her in his arms. She assures him she's not a dream and promises to stay with him forever. The next morning, as they wander through the woods, Jane tells Rochester the story of her experiences during the year they've been apart. Rochester is jealous of St. John Rivers, believing she has fallen in love with her handsome cousin. Jane assures him she could never love the cold and despotic St. John. He proposes to her, and she accepts. Rochester then apologizes for trying to make Jane his mistress; he now regrets that decision. He reveals that four nights earlier, during a low point in his life, he had frantically called Jane's name and thought he heard her answer. Jane doesn't tell him about her similar experience, because she doesn't want to upset him in his weakened state. Rochester thanks God for his mercy, vowing to live a purer life from then on.


prompt:
Chapter: 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 of that 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 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 sanctum 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 immediately, to say what I had
done: fully explaining also why I had thus acted.  Diana and Mary
approved the step unreservedly.  Diana announced that she would just give
me time to get over the honeymoon, 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
honeymoon 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 communicated it: yet six months after he wrote to me,
without, 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, correspondence 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 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 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 was a pleasure in my services, most full, most
exquisite, even though sad--because he claimed these services without
painful shame or damping humiliation.  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?"

{And have you a pale blue dress on?: p435.jpg}

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 of it.

He and I went up to London.  He had the advice of an eminent oculist; and
he eventually recovered 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, with a
full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered 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 married:
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 connection.  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
resolute, 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 improvement; he hews
down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it.  He
may be stern; he may be 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 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!'"

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Rochester and Jane finally marry with a quiet ceremony. Immediately, Jane writes to the Rivers, explaining what she has done. Diana and Mary both approve of her marriage, but Jane receives no response from St. John. Not having forgotten Adele, Jane visits her at school. The girl is pale, thin, and unhappy, so Jane moves her to a more indulgent school. Adele grows into a docile, good-natured young woman. At the writing of this story, Jane has been married for ten years. She feels blessed beyond anything language can express, because she and Rochester love each other absolutely. For two years, Rochester remained almost completely blind, but slowly his sight has returned to him. He was able to see his first-born son. And what has happened to the rest of the cast? Diana and Mary Rivers have both married. St. John is still a missionary in India, but is nearing death. The final words of the novel are his: "Amen; even so, come, Lord Jesus!"


prompt:
Chapter: There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.  We had been
wandering, 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 a rain so
penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

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

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama
in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with
her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying)
looked perfectly happy.  Me, she had dispensed from joining the group;
saying, "She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a
distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her
own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a
more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly
manner--something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were--she really
must 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 is something
truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner.  Be
seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent."

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

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

I returned to my book--Bewick's History of British Birds: the letterpress
thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were
certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite
as a blank.  They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of
"the solitary rocks and promontories" by them only inhabited; of the
coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the
Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape--

   "Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,
   Boils round the naked, melancholy isles
   Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge
   Pours in among the stormy Hebrides."

Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland,
Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with "the vast
sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,--that
reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation
of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround
the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold."  Of
these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all
the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children's brains,
but strangely impressive.  The words in these introductory pages
connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance
to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken
boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon 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 low horizon,
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 marine phantoms.

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

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

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped
understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as
interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings,
when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her
ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and
while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap
borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure
taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I
discovered) from the pages of Pamela, 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.  The breakfast-
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! (calling to
his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain--bad
animal!"

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

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

And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged
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 you to
come here;" and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a
gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.

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

John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy
to me.  He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week,
nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared
him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near.
There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired,
because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his
inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by
taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the
subject: she never saw him strike or heard him 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 some three
minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without
damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the
blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would
presently deal it.  I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all
at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly.  I tottered,
and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his
chair.

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

Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it;
my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the
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, mama says;
you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not
to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the 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; all the house belongs to me,
or will do in a few years.  Go and stand by the 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 saw him
lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively
started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume
was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and
cutting it.  The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its
climax; other feelings succeeded.

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

I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of
Nero, Caligula, etc.  Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never
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 down my neck, and was
sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time
predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort.  I don't very
well know what I did with my hands, but he called me "Rat!  Rat!" and
bellowed out aloud.  Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for
Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed
by Bessie and her maid Abbot.  We were parted: I heard the words--

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

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

Then Mrs. Reed subjoined--

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

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The novel opens on a dreary November afternoon at Gateshead, the home of the wealthy Reed family. A young girl named Jane Eyre sits in the drawing room reading Bewick's History of British Birds. Jane's aunt, Mrs. Reed, has forbidden her niece to play with her cousins Eliza, Georgiana, and the bullying John. John chides Jane for being a lowly orphan who is only permitted to live with the Reeds because of his mother's charity. John then hurls a book at the young girl, pushing her to the end of her patience. Jane finally erupts, and the two cousins fight. Mrs. Reed holds Jane responsible for the scuffle and sends her to the "red-room"--the frightening chamber in which her Uncle Reed died--as punishment