No More Learning

"

"Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in his
ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show him in here
and then leave me. "

"Yes, sir. "

I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight
among them. I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him
from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went upstairs.

At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors
repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester's voice, and
heard him say, "This way, Mason; this is your room. "

He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was soon
asleep.




CHAPTER XX


I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to let
down my window-blind. The consequence was, that when the moon, which was
full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course to that
space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me through the
unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awaking in the dead of
night, I opened my eyes on her disk--silver-white and crystal clear. It
was beautiful, but too solemn; I half rose, and stretched my arm to draw
the curtain.

Good God! What a cry!

The night--its silence--its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp,
a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.

My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed.
The cry died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being uttered that
fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the widest-winged condor on
the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the cloud
shrouding his eyrie. The thing delivering such utterance must rest ere
it could repeat the effort.

It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And
overhead--yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling--I now heard a
struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered
voice shouted--

"Help! help! help! " three times rapidly.

"Will no one come? " it cried; and then, while the staggering and stamping
went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:--

"Rochester! Rochester! for God's sake, come! "

A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery.
Another step stamped on the flooring above and something fell; and there
was silence.

I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued
from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations,
terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one
looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and
ladies alike had quitted their beds; and "Oh! what is it? "--"Who is
hurt? "--"What has happened? "--"Fetch a light! "--"Is it fire? "--"Are there
robbers? "--"Where shall we run? " was demanded confusedly on all hands.
But for the moonlight they would have been in complete darkness. They
ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the
confusion was inextricable.

"Where the devil is Rochester? " cried Colonel Dent. "I cannot find him
in his bed. "

"Here! here! " was shouted in return. "Be composed, all of you: I'm
coming. "

And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced
with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey. One of the
ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss Ingram.

"What awful event has taken place? " said she. "Speak! let us know the
worst at once! "

"But don't pull me down or strangle me," he replied: for the Misses
Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white
wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.

"All's right! --all's right! " he cried. "It's a mere rehearsal of Much
Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous. "

And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself
by an effort, he added--

"A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She's an excitable,
nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or something
of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright. Now, then, I
must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is settled,
she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the goodness to set the
ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in evincing
superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your nests like a
pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames" (to the dowagers), "you will take
cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill gallery any longer. "

And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived to get
them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories. I did not
wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as unnoticed I
had left it.

Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed myself
carefully. The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the words that
had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for they had
proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it was not a
servant's dream which had thus struck horror through the house; and that
the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention framed to
pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready for emergencies. When
dressed, I sat a long time by the window looking out over the silent
grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew not what. It seemed
to me that some event must follow the strange cry, struggle, and call.

No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and in
about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as a desert. It seemed
that sleep and night had resumed their empire. Meantime the moon
declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in the cold and
darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed as I was. I left
the window, and moved with little noise across the carpet; as I stooped
to take off my shoes, a cautious hand tapped low at the door.

"Am I wanted? " I asked.

"Are you up? " asked the voice I expected to hear, viz. , my master's.

"Yes, sir. "

"And dressed? "

"Yes. "

"Come out, then, quietly. "

I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.

"I want you," he said: "come this way: take your time, and make no
noise. "

My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a cat.
He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the dark, low
corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and stood at his
side.

"Have you a sponge in your room? " he asked in a whisper.

"Yes, sir. "

"Have you any salts--volatile salts? "

"Yes. "

"Go back and fetch both. "

I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer,
and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a key in his
hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock;
he paused, and addressed me again.

"You don't turn sick at the sight of blood? "

"I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet. "

I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no faintness.

"Just give me your hand," he said: "it will not do to risk a fainting
fit. "

I put my fingers into his. "Warm and steady," was his remark: he turned
the key and opened the door.

I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax
showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was
now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then
been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of the room
within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog
quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, "Wait a
minute," and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of laughter
greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole's
own goblin ha! ha! _She_ then was there. He made some sort of
arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him: he
came out and closed the door behind him.

"Here, Jane! " he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large
bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of
the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it,
dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant
back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I
recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face--the stranger, Mason:
I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in
blood.

"Hold the candle," said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a basin
of water from the washstand: "Hold that," said he. I obeyed. He took
the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he asked
for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils. Mr. Mason
shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester opened the shirt of
the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged away
blood, trickling fast down.

"Is there immediate danger? " murmured Mr. Mason.

"Pooh! No--a mere scratch. Don't be so overcome, man: bear up! I'll
fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you'll be able to be removed by
morning, I hope. Jane," he continued.

"Sir? "

"I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an hour,
or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when it returns:
if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that stand to his
lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to him on any
pretext--and--Richard, it will be at the peril of your life if you speak
to her: open your lips--agitate yourself--and I'll not answer for the
consequences. "

Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear,
either of death or of something else, appeared almost to paralyse him.
Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded to
use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then saying,
"Remember! --No conversation," he left the room. I experienced a strange
feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating
step ceased to be heard.

Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic
cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and
hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes--that
was appalling--the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of
Grace Poole bursting out upon me.

I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly
countenance--these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose--these eyes now
shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, and
ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand again and
again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling gore.
I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment; the
shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round me, and grow black
under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver strangely over the
doors of a great cabinet opposite--whose front, divided into twelve
panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each
enclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; while above them at the top
rose an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ.

According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here or
glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that bent his
brow; now St. John's long hair that waved; and anon the devilish face of
Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed gathering life and
threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor--of Satan himself--in his
subordinate's form.

Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the
movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den. But since
Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I heard but
three sounds at three long intervals,--a step creak, a momentary renewal
of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan.

Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this that lived
incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor
subdued by the owner? --what mystery, that broke out now in fire and now
in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it, that,
masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a
mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?

And this man I bent over--this commonplace, quiet stranger--how had he
become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at him?
What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely season, when
he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr. Rochester assign him
an apartment below--what brought him here! And why, now, was he so tame
under the violence or treachery done him? Why did he so quietly submit
to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced? Why _did_ Mr. Rochester
enforce this concealment? His guest had been outraged, his own life on a
former occasion had been hideously plotted against; and both attempts he
smothered in secrecy and sank in oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was
submissive to Mr. Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held
complete sway over the inertness of the former: the few words which had
passed between them assured me of this. It was evident that in their
former intercourse, the passive disposition of the one had been
habitually influenced by the active energy of the other: whence then had
arisen Mr. Rochester's dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's arrival? Why
had the mere name of this unresisting individual--whom his word now
sufficed to control like a child--fallen on him, a few hours since, as a
thunderbolt might fall on an oak?

Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered:
"Jane, I have got a blow--I have got a blow, Jane. " I could not forget
how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no
light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the
vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester.

"When will he come? When will he come? " I cried inwardly, as the night
lingered and lingered--as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened:
and neither day nor aid arrived. I had, again and again, held the water
to Mason's white lips; again and again offered him the stimulating salts:
my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or mental suffering, or loss
of blood, or all three combined, were fast prostrating his strength. He
moaned so, and looked so weak, wild, and lost, I feared he was dying; and
I might not even speak to him.

The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived streaks
of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then approaching.
Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his distant kennel in the
courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted: in five minutes more
the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me my watch was relieved. It
could not have lasted more than two hours: many a week has seemed
shorter.

Mr.
Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to fetch.

"Now, Carter, be on the alert," he said to this last: "I give you but
half-an-hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages, getting the
patient downstairs and all. "

"But is he fit to move, sir? "

"No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his spirits must
be kept up. Come, set to work. "

Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland blind, let
in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and cheered to see how
far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were beginning to brighten the
east. Then he approached Mason, whom the surgeon was already handling.

"Now, my good fellow, how are you? " he asked.

"She's done for me, I fear," was the faint reply.

"Not a whit! --courage! This day fortnight you'll hardly be a pin the
worse of it: you've lost a little blood; that's all. Carter, assure him
there's no danger. "

"I can do that conscientiously," said Carter, who had now undone the
bandages; "only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would not have
bled so much--but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well
as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there have been teeth
here! "

"She bit me," he murmured. "She worried me like a tigress, when
Rochester got the knife from her. "

"You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at once,"
said Mr. Rochester.

"But under such circumstances, what could one do? " returned Mason. "Oh,
it was frightful! " he added, shuddering. "And I did not expect it: she
looked so quiet at first. "

"I warned you," was his friend's answer; "I said--be on your guard when
you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-morrow, and had
me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the interview to-night, and
alone. "

"I thought I could have done some good. "

"You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear you: but,
however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer enough for not
taking my advice; so I'll say no more. Carter--hurry! --hurry! The sun
will soon rise, and I must have him off. "

"Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this other
wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think. "

"She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart," said Mason.

I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust,
horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he only
said--

"Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don't repeat
it. "

"I wish I could forget it," was the answer.

"You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish
Town, you may think of her as dead and buried--or rather, you need not
think of her at all. "

"Impossible to forget this night! "

"It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you were as
dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and talking now.
There! --Carter has done with you or nearly so; I'll make you decent in a
trice. Jane" (he turned to me for the first time since his re-entrance),
"take this key: go down into my bedroom, and walk straight forward into
my dressing-room: open the top drawer of the wardrobe and take out a
clean shirt and neck-handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble. "

I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles named,
and returned with them.

"Now," said he, "go to the other side of the bed while I order his
toilet; but don't leave the room: you may be wanted again. "

I retired as directed.

"Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane? " inquired Mr.
Rochester presently.

"No, sir; all was very still. "

"We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both for your
sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have striven long
to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at last. Here,
Carter, help him on with his waist-coat. Where did you leave your furred
cloak? You can't travel a mile without that, I know, in this damned cold
climate. In your room? --Jane, run down to Mr. Mason's room,--the one
next mine,--and fetch a cloak you will see there. "

Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined and
edged with fur.

"Now, I've another errand for you," said my untiring master; "you must
away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane! --a
clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open
the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a
little glass you will find there,--quick! "

I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.

"That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a
dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of an
Italian charlatan--a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not a
thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as now,
for instance. Jane, a little water. "

He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on
the washstand.

"That will do;--now wet the lip of the phial. "

I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it
to Mason.

"Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so. "

"But will it hurt me? --is it inflammatory? "

"Drink! drink! drink! "

Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was
dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied.
Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the
liquid; he then took his arm--

"Now I am sure you can get on your feet," he said--"try. "

The patient rose.

"Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard;
step out--that's it! "

"I do feel better," remarked Mr. Mason.

"I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the backstairs;
unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the post-chaise you
will see in the yard--or just outside, for I told him not to drive his
rattling wheels over the pavement--to be ready; we are coming: and, Jane,
if any one is about, come to the foot of the stairs and hem. "

It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of
rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The side-passage
door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as possible: all the
yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there was a
post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box,
stationed outside. I approached him, and said the gentlemen were coming;
he nodded: then I looked carefully round and listened. The stillness of
early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet drawn over the
servants' chamber windows; little birds were just twittering in the
blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped like white garlands
over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped
from time to time in their closed stables: all else was still.

The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the
surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him into the
chaise; Carter followed.

"Take care of him," said Mr. Rochester to the latter, "and keep him at
your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two to
see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you? "

"The fresh air revives me, Fairfax. "

"Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind--good-bye,
Dick. "

"Fairfax--"

"Well what is it? "

"Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: let
her--" he stopped and burst into tears.

"I do my best; and have done it, and will do it," was the answer: he shut
up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.

"Yet would to God there was an end of all this! " added Mr. Rochester, as
he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates.

This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a door in
the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done with me,
prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call "Jane! "
He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for me.

"Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments," he said; "that
house is a mere dungeon: don't you feel it so? "

"It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir. "

"The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes," he answered; "and you
see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is
slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate,
and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now _here_" (he
pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) "all is real, sweet, and
pure. "

He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, and
cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all sorts of
old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies,
mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant herbs. They
were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a
lovely spring morning, could make them: the sun was just entering the
dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and dewy orchard trees
and shone down the quiet walks under them.

"Jane, will you have a flower? "

He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to
me.

"Thank you, sir. "

"Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light clouds
which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm--this placid and balmly
atmosphere? "

"I do, very much. "

"You have passed a strange night, Jane. "

"Yes, sir. "

"And it has made you look pale--were you afraid when I left you alone
with Mason? "

"I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room. "

"But I had fastened the door--I had the key in my pocket: I should have
been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb--my pet lamb--so near a
wolf's den, unguarded: you were safe. "

"Will Grace Poole live here still, sir? "

"Oh yes! don't trouble your head about her--put the thing out of your
thoughts. "

"Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays. "

"Never fear--I will take care of myself. "

"Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir? "

"I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. To
live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and
spue fire any day. "

"But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently
potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or wilfully injure
you. "

"Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me--but,
unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me,
if not of life, yet for ever of happiness. "

"Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show him
how to avert the danger. "

He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it
from him.

"If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated
in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only had to say to
him 'Do that,' and the thing has been done. But I cannot give him orders
in this case: I cannot say 'Beware of harming me, Richard;' for it is
imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is possible.
Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you further. You are my little
friend, are you not? "

"I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right. "

"Precisely: I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait and
mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing me--working
for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say, '_all that is
right_:' for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there would be no
light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no lively glance and
animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, quiet and pale,
and would say, 'No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot do it, because it
is wrong;' and would become immutable as a fixed star. Well, you too
have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare not show you where I am
vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you are, you should transfix
me at once. "

"If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me, sir,
you are very safe. "

"God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down. "

The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic
seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me: but I stood
before him.

"Sit," he said; "the bench is long enough for two. You don't hesitate to
take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane? "

I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been unwise.

"Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew--while all the
flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their
young ones' breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do their
first spell of work--I'll put a case to you, which you must endeavour to
suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you are at ease, and
not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you err in staying. "

"No, sir; I am content. "

"Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:--suppose you were no longer a
girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood
upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you
there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what
motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life and
taint all your existence. Mind, I don't say a _crime_; I am not speaking
of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the
perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is _error_. The results of what
you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take
measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor
culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very
confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel
will not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base associations
have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there,
seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure--I mean in heartless,
sensual pleasure--such as dulls intellect and blights feeling.
Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary
banishment: you make a new acquaintance--how or where no matter: you find
in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have
sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all
fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives,
regenerates: you feel better days come back--higher wishes, purer
feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains
to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this
end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom--a mere
conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your
judgment approves? "

He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good spirit
to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain aspiration! The
west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its
breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their
song, however sweet, was inarticulate.

Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:

"Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant, man
justified in daring the world's opinion, in order to attach to him for
ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own
peace of mind and regeneration of life? "

"Sir," I answered, "a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation should
never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; philosophers
falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has
suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to
amend and solace to heal. "

"But the instrument--the instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the
instrument. I have myself--I tell it you without parable--been a
worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the
instrument for my cure in--"

He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling. I
almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch the
suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many minutes--so
long was the silence protracted. At last I looked up at the tardy
speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.

"Little friend," said he, in quite a changed tone--while his face changed
too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh and
sarcastic--"you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: don't
you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a vengeance? "

He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and when he
came back he was humming a tune.

"Jane, Jane," said he, stopping before me, "you are quite pale with your
vigils: don't you curse me for disturbing your rest? "

"Curse you? No, sir. "

"Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers!