CHAPTER I 12 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, & c. 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.