How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got

back! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied: each

hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row

of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in

groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.

A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of

bread--a whole, instead of a half, slice--with the delicious

addition of a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to

which we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally

contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself;

but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.

The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church

Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St.

Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller,

whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent

interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of

Eutychus by some half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with

sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the

fourth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust

them forward into the centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them to

stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet

failed them, and they sank together in a heap; they were then

propped up with the monitors' high stools.

I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed

that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first

month after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend

the archdeacon: his absence was a relief to me. I need not say

that I had my own reasons for dreading his coming: but come he did

at last.

One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was

sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long

division, my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight

of a figure just passing: I recognised almost instinctively that

gaunt outline; and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers

included, rose en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up in

order to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride

measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who

herself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on

me so ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced

sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it was

Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer,

narrower, and more rigid than ever.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024