第13页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第13页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only
Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.
Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing,
Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild,
God, in His mercy, protection is showing,
Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.
Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing,
Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,
Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,
Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.
There is a thought that for strength should avail me,
Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
God is a friend to the poor orphan child.'
'Come, Miss Jane, don't cry,' said Bessie as she finished. She
might as well have said to the fire, 'don't burn!' but how could she
divine the morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In the course of
the morning Mr. Lloyd came again.
'What, already up!' said he, as he entered the nursery. 'Well,
nurse, how is she?'
Bessie answered that I was doing very well.
'Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Mis Jane: your
name is Jane, is it not?'
'Yes, sir, Jane Eyre.'
'Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what
about? Have you any pain?'
'No, sir.'
'Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with
Missis in the carriage,' interposed Bessie.
'Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness.'
I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false
charge, I answered promptly, 'I never cried for such a thing in my
life: I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable.'
'Oh fie, Miss!' said Bessie.
The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing
before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small
and grey; not very bright, but I daresay I should think them shrewd
now: he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face. Having
considered me at leisure, he said-
'What made you ill yesterday?'
'She had a fall,' said Bessie, again putting in her word.
'Fall! why, that is like a baby again! Can't she manage to walk
at her age? She must be eight or nine years old.'
'I was knocked down,' was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me
by another pang of mortified pride; 'but that did not make me ill,'
I added; while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.
As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell
rang for the servants' dinner; he knew what it was. 'That's for you,
nurse,' said he; 'you can go down; I'll give Miss Jane a lecture
till you come back.'
Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because
punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gates-head Hall.
'The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?' pursued Mr.
Lloyd when Bessie was gone.