And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no condition
to note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to
the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard of
me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a
cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me.
Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.
"Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers,
and children, you all see this girl?"
Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-
glasses against my scorched skin.
"You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary
form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He
has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a
marked character. Who would think that the Evil One had already
found a servant and agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the
case."
A pause--in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to
feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to
be shirked, must be firmly sustained.
"My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos,
"this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to
warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is a
little castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an
interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against her; you
must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her
from your sports, and shut her out from your converse. Teachers,
you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her
words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul:
if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while
I tell it) this girl, this child, the native of a Christian land,
worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and
kneels before Juggernaut--this girl is--a liar!"
Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in
perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts
produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics,
while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two
younger ones whispered, "How shocking!" Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.
"This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable
lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own
daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl
repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her
excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young
ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their
purity: she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old
sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers,
superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnate
round her."