"But work grew scarce, while bread grew dear, And wages lessened, too; For Irish hordes were bidders here, Our half-paid work to do." CORN LAW RHYMES.
Margaret was shown into the drawing-room. It had returned into its normal state of bag and covering. The windows were half open because of the heat, and the Venetian blinds covered the glass,--so that a gray grim light, reflected from the pavement below, threw all the shadows wrong, and combined with the green-tinged upper light to make even Margaret's own face, as she caught it in the mirrors, look ghastly and wan. She sat and waited; no one came. Every now and then, the wind seemed to bear the distant multitudinous sound nearer; and yet there was no wind! It died away into profound stillness between whiles.
Fanny came in at last.
"Mamma will come directly, Miss Hale. She desired me to apologise to you as it is. Perhaps you know my brother has imported hands from Ireland, and it has irritated the Milton people excessively--as if he hadn't a right to get labour where he could; and the stupid wretches here wouldn't work for him; and now they've frightened these poor Irish starvelings so with their threats, that we daren't let them out. You may see them huddled in that top room in the mill,--and they're to sleep there, to keep them safe from those brutes, who will neither work or let them work. And mamma is seeing about their food, and John is speaking to them, for some of the women are crying to go back. Ah! here's mamma!"
Mrs. Thornton came in with a look of black sternness on her face, which made Margaret feel she had arrived at a bad time to trouble her with her request. However, it was only in compliance with Mrs. Thornton's expressed desire, that she would ask for whatever they might want in the progress of her mother's illness. Mrs. Thornton's brow contracted, and her mouth grew set, while Margaret spoke with gentle modesty of her mother's restlessness, and Dr. Donaldson's wish that she should have the relief of a water-bed. She ceased. Mrs. Thornton did not reply immediately. Then she started up and exclaimed--
"They're at the gates! Call John, Fanny,--call him in from the mill! They're at the gates! They'll batter them in! Call John, I say!"
And simultaneously, the gathering tramp--to which she had been listening, instead of heeding Margaret's words--was heard just right outside the wall, and an increasing din of angry voices raged behind the wooden barrier, which shook as if the unseen maddened crowd made battering rams of their bodies, and retreated a short space only to come with more united steady impetus against it, till their great beats made the strong gates quiver, like reeds before the wind.
The women gathered round the windows, fascinated to look on the scene which terrified them. Mrs. Thornton, the women-servants, Margaret,--all were there. Fanny had returned, screaming upstairs as if pursued at every step, and had thrown herself in hysterical sobbing on the sofa. Mrs. Thornton watched for her son, who was still in the mill. He came out, looked up at them--the pale cluster of faces--and smiled good courage to them, before he locked the factory door. Then he called to one of the women to come down and undo his own door, which Fanny had fastened behind her in her mad flight. Mrs. Thornton herself went. And the sound of his well-known and commanding voice, seemed to have been like the taste of blood to the infuriated multitude outside. Hitherto they had been voiceless, wordless, needing all their breath for their hard-laboured efforts to break down the gates. But now, hearing him speak inside, they set up such a fierce, unearthly groan, that even Mrs. Thornton was white with fear as she preceded him into the room. He came in a little flushed, but his eyes gleamed, as in answer to the trumpet-call of danger, and with a proud look of defiance on his face, that made him a noble, if not a handsome man. Margaret had always dreaded lest her courage should fail her in any emergency, and she should be proved to be, what she dreaded lest she was--a coward. But now, in this real great time of reasonable fear and nearness of terror, she forgot herself, and felt only an intense sympathy--intense to painfulness--in the interests of the moment.
Mr. Thornton came frankly forwards:
"I'm sorry, Miss Hale, you have visited us at this unfortunate moment, when, I fear, you may be involved in whatever risk we have to bear. Mother! hadn't you better go into the back rooms? I'm not sure whether they may not have made their way from Pinner's Lane into the stable-yard; but if not, you will be safer there than here. Go, Jane!" continued he, addressing the upper-servant. And she went, followed by the others.
"I stop here!" said his mother. "Where you are, there I stay." And indeed, retreat into the back rooms was of no avail; the crowd had surrounded the outbuildings at the rear, and were sending forth their awful threatening roar behind. The servants retreated into the garrets, with many a cry and shriek. Mr. Thornton smiled scornfully as he heard them. He glanced at Margaret, standing all by herself at the window nearest the factory. Her eyes glittered, her colour was deepened on cheek and lip. As if she felt his look, she turned to him and asked a question that had been for some time in her mind:
"Where are the poor imported workpeople? In the factory there?"
"Yes! I left them cowed up in a small room, at the head of a back flight of stairs; bidding them run all risks, and escape down there, if they heard any attack made on the mill doors. But it is not them--it is me they want."
"When can the soldiers be here?" asked his mother, in a low but not unsteady voice.
He took out his watch with the same steady composure with which he did everything. He made some little calculation:--
"Supposing Williams got straight off when I told him, and hadn't to dodge about amongst them--it must be twenty minutes yet."
"Twenty minutes!" said his mother, for the first time showing her terror in the tones of her voice.
"Shut down the windows instantly, mother," exclaimed he: "the gates won't bear such another shock. Shut down that window, Miss Hale."
Margaret shut down her window, and then went to assist Mrs. Thornton's trembling fingers.
From some cause or other, there was a pause of several minutes in the unseen street. Mrs. Thornton looked with wild anxiety at her son's countenance, as if to gain the interpretation of the sudden stillness from him. His face was set into rigid lines of contemptuous defiance; neither hope nor fear could be read there.
Fanny raised herself up:
"Are they gone?" asked she, in a whisper.
"Gone!" replied he. "Listen!"
She did listen; they all could hear the one great straining breath; the creak of wood slowly yielding; the wrench of iron; the mighty fall of the ponderous gates. Fanny stood up tottering--made a step or two towards her mother, and fell forwards into her arms in a fainting fit. Mrs. Thornton lifted her up with a strength that was as much that of the will as of the body, and carried her away.
"Thank God!" said Mr. Thornton, as he watched her out. "Had you not better go upstairs, Miss Hale?"
Margaret's lips formed a "No!"--but he could not hear her speak, for the tramp of innumerable steps right under the very wall of the house, and the fierce growl of low deep angry voices that had a ferocious murmur of satisfaction in them, more dreadful than their baffled cries not many minutes before.
"Never mind!" said he, thinking to encourage her. "I am very sorry that you should have been entrapped into all this alarm; but it cannot last long now; a few minutes more, and the soldiers will be here."
"Oh, God!" cried Margaret, suddenly; "there is Boucher. I know his face, though he is livid with rage,--he is fighting to get to the front--look! look!"
"Who is Boucher?" asked Mr. Thornton coolly, and coming close to the window to discover the man in whom Margaret took such an interest. As soon as they saw Mr. Thornton, they set up a yell, to call it not human is nothing,--it was as the demoniac desire of some terrible wild beast for the food that is withheld from his ravening. Even he drew back for a moment, dismayed at the intensity of hatred he had provoked.
"Let them yell!" said he. "In five minutes more--. I only hope my poor Irishmen are not terrified out of their wits by such a fiendlike noise. Keep up your courage for five minutes, Miss Hale."
"Don't be afraid for me," she said hastily. "But what in five minutes? Can you do nothing to soothe these poor creatures? It is awful to see them."
"The soldiers will be here directly, and that will bring them to reason."
"To reason!" said Margaret, quickly. "What kind of reason?"
"The only reason that does with men that make themselves into wild beasts. By heaven! they've turned to the mill-door!"
"Mr. Thornton," said Margaret, shaking all over with her passion, "go down this instant, if you are not a coward. Go down and face them like a man. Save these poor strangers, whom you have decoyed here. Speak to your workmen as if they were human beings. Speak to them kindly. Don't let the soldiers come in and cut down poor creatures who are driven mad. I see one there who is. If you have any courage or noble quality in you, go out and speak to them, man to man!"
He turned and looked at her while she spoke. A dark cloud came over his face while he listened. He set his teeth as he heard her words.
"I will go. Perhaps I may ask you to accompany me downstairs, and bar the door behind me; my mother and sister will need that protection."
"Oh! Mr. Thornton! I do not know--I may be wrong--only--"
But he was gone; he was downstairs in the hall; he had unbarred the front door; all she could do, was to follow him quickly, and fasten it behind him, and clamber up the stairs again with a sick heart and a dizzy head. Again she took her place by the farthest window. He was on the steps below; she saw that by the direction of a thousand angry eyes; but she could neither see nor hear anything save the savage satisfaction of the rolling angry murmur. See threw the window wide open. Many in the crowd were mere boys; cruel and thoughtless,--cruel because they were thoughtless; some were men, gaunt as wolves, and mad for prey. She knew how it was; they were like Boucher,--with starving children at home--relying on ultimate success in their efforts to get higher wages, and enraged beyond measure at discovering that Irishmen were to be brought in to rob their little ones of bread. Margaret knew it all; she read it in Boucher's face, forlornly desperate and livid with rage. If Mr. Thornton would but say something to them--let them hear his voice only--it seemed as if it would be better than this wild beating and raging against the stony silence that vouchsafed them no word, even of anger or reproach. But perhaps he was speaking now; there was a momentary hush of their noise, inarticulate as that of a troop of animals. She tore her bonnet off, and bent forward to hear. She could only see; for if Mr. Thornton had indeed made the attempt to speak, the momentary instinct to listen to him was past and gone, and the people were raging worse than ever. He stood with his arms folded; still as a statue; his face pale with repressed excitement. They were trying to intimidate him--to make him flinch; each was urging the other on to some immediate act of personal violence. Margaret felt intuitively, that in an instant all would be uproar; the first touch would cause an explosion, in which, among such hundreds of infuriated men and reckless boys, even Mr. Thornton's life would be unsafe,--that in another instant the stormy passions would have passed their bounds, and swept away all barriers of reason, or apprehension of consequence. Even while she looked, she saw lads in the background stooping to take off their heavy wooden clogs--the readiest missile they could find; she saw it was the spark to the gunpowder, and, with a cry, which no one heard, she rushed out of the room, down stairs,--she had lifted the great iron bar of the door with an imperious force--had thrown the door open wide--and was there, in face of that angry sea of men, her eyes smiting them with flaming arrows of reproach. The clogs were arrested in the hands that held them--the countenances, so fell not a moment before, now looked irresolute, and as if asking what this meant. For she stood between them and their enemy. She could not speak, but held out her arms towards them till she could recover breath.
"Oh, do not use violence! He is one man, and you are many;" but her words died away, for there was no tone in her voice; it was but a hoarse whisper. Mr. Thornton stood a little on one side; he had moved away from behind her, as if jealous of anything that should come between him and danger.
"Go!" said she, once more (and now her voice was like a cry). "The soldiers are sent for--are coming. Go peaceably. Go away. You shall have relief from your complaints, whatever they are."
"Shall them Irish blackguards be packed back again?" asked one from out the crowd, with fierce threatening in his voice.
"Never, for your bidding!" exclaimed Mr. Thornton. And instantly the storm broke. The hootings rose and filled the air,--but Margaret did not hear them. Her eye was on the group of lads who had armed themselves with their clogs some time before. She saw their gesture--she knew its meaning--she read their aim. Another moment, and Mr. Thornton might be smitten down,--he whom she had urged and goaded to come to this perilous place. She only thought how she could save him. She threw her arms around him; she made her body into a shield from the fierce people beyond. Still, with his arms folded, he shook her off.
"Go away," said he, in his deep voice. "This is no place for you."
"It is," said she. "You did not see what I saw." If she thought her sex would be a protection,--if, with shrinking eyes she had turned away from the terrible anger of these men, in any hope that ere she looked again they would have paused and reflected, and slunk away, and vanished,--she was wrong. Their reckless passion had carried them too far to stop--at least had carried some of them too far; for it is always the savage lads, with their love of cruel excitement, who head the riot--reckless to what bloodshed it may lead. A clog whizzed through the air. Margaret's fascinated eyes watched its progress; it missed its aim, and she turned sick with affright, but changed not her position, only hid her face on Mr. Thornton's arm. Then she turned and spoke again:
"For God's sake! do not damage your cause by this violence. You do not know what you are doing." She strove to make her words distinct.
A sharp pebble flew by her, grazing forehead and cheek, and drawing a blinding sheet of light before her eyes. She lay like one dead on Mr. Thornton's shoulder. Then he unfolded his arms, and held her encircled in one for an instant:
"You do well!" said he. "You come to oust the innocent stranger. You fall--you hundreds--on one man; and when a woman comes before you, to ask you for your own sakes to be reasonable creatures, your cowardly wrath falls upon her! You do well!" They were silent while he spoke. They were watching, open-eyed and open-mouthed, the thread of dark-red blood which wakened them up from their trance of passion. Those nearest the gate stole out ashamed; there was a movement through all the crowd--a retreating movement. Only one voice called out:
"Th' stone was meant for thee; but thou wert sheltered behind a woman!"
Mr. Thornton quivered with rage. The blood-flowing had made Margaret conscious--dimly, vaguely conscious. He placed her gently on the door-step, her head leaning against the frame.
"Can you rest there?" he asked. But without waiting for her answer, he went slowly down the steps right into the middle of the crowd. "Now kill me, if it is your brutal will. There is no woman to shield me here. You may beat me to death--you will never move me from what I have determined upon--not you!" He stood amongst them with his arms folded, in precisely the same attitude as he had been in on the steps.
But the retrograde movement towards the gate had begun--as unreasoningly, perhaps as blindly, as the simultaneous anger. Or, perhaps, the idea of the approach of the soldiers, and the sight of that pale, upturned face, with closed eyes, still and sad as marble, though the tears welled out of the long entanglement of eyelashes, and dropped down; and, heavier, slower plash than even tears, came the drip of blood from her wound. Even the most desperate--Boucher himself--drew back, faltered away, scowled, and finally went off, muttering curses on the master, who stood in his unchanging attitude, looking after their retreat with defiant eyes. The moment that retreat had changed into a flight (as it was sure from its very character to do), he darted up the steps to Margaret.
She tried to rise without his help.
"It is nothing," she said, with a sickly smile. "The skin is grazed, and I was stunned at the moment. Oh, I am so thankful they are gone!" And she cried without restraint.
He could not sympathise with her. His anger had not abated; it was rising the more as his sense of immediate danger was passing away. The distant clank of the soldiers was heard: just five minutes too late to make this vanished mob feel the power of authority and order. He hoped they would see the troops, and be quelled by the thought of their narrow escape. While these thoughts crossed his mind, Margaret clung to the doorpost to steady herself: but a film came over her eyes--he was only just in time to catch her. "Mother--mother!" cried he; "Come down--they are gone, and Miss Hale is hurt!" He bore her into the dining-room, and laid her on the sofa there; laid her down softly, and looking on her pure white face, the sense of what she was to him came upon him so keenly that he spoke it out in his pain:
"Oh, my Margaret--my Margaret! no one can tell what you are to me! Dead--cold as you lie there, you are the only woman I ever loved! Oh, Margaret--Margaret!"
Inarticulately as he spoke, kneeling by her, and rather moaning than saying the words, he started up, ashamed of himself, as his mother came in. She saw nothing, but her son a little paler, a little sterner than usual.
"Miss Hale is hurt, mother. A stone has grazed her temple. She has lost a good deal of blood, I'm afraid."
"She looks very seriously hurt,--I could almost fancy her dead," said Mrs. Thornton, a good deal alarmed.
"It is only a fainting-fit. She has spoken to me since." But all the blood in his body seemed to rush inwards to his heart as he spoke, and he absolutely trembled.
"Go and call Jane,--she can find me the things I want; and do you go to your Irish people, who are crying and shouting as if they were mad with fright."
He went. He went away as if weights were tied to every limb that bore him from her. He called Jane; he called his sister. She should have all womanly care, all gentle tendance. But every pulse beat in him as he remembered how she had come down and placed herself in foremost danger--could it be to save him? At the time, he had pushed her aside, and spoken gruffly; he had seen nothing but the unnecessary danger she had placed herself in. He went to his Irish people, with every nerve in his body thrilling at the thought of her, and found it difficult to understand enough of what they were saying to soothe and comfort away their fears. There, they declared, they would not stop; they claimed to be sent back.
And so he had to think, and talk, and reason.
Mrs. Thornton bathed Margaret's temples with eau de Cologne. As the spirit touched the wound, which till then neither Mrs. Thornton nor Jane had perceived, Margaret opened her eyes; but it was evident she did not know where she was, nor who they were. The dark circles deepened, the lips quivered and contracted, and she became insensible once more.
"She has had a terrible blow," said Mrs. Thornton. "Is there any one who will go for a doctor?"
"Not me, ma'am, if you please," said Jane, shrinking back. "Them rabble may be all about; I don't think the cut is so deep, ma'am, as it looks."
"I will not run the chance. She was hurt in our house. If you are a coward, Jane, I am not. I will go."
"Pray, ma'am, let me send one of the police. There's ever so many come up, and soldiers too."
"And yet you're afraid to go! I will not have their time taken up with our errands. They'll have enough to do to catch some of the mob. You will not be afraid to stop in this house," she asked contemptuously, "and go on bathing Miss Hale's forehead, shall you? I shall not be ten minutes away."
"Couldn't Hannah go, ma'am?"
"Why Hannah? Why any but you? No, Jane, if you don't go, I do."
Mrs. Thornton went first to the room in which she had left Fanny stretched on the bed. She started up as her mother entered.
"Oh, mamma, how you terrified me! I thought you were a man that had got into the house."
"Nonsense! The men are all gone away. There are soldiers all round the place, seeking for their work now it is too late. Miss Hale is lying on the dining-room sofa badly hurt. I am going for the doctor."
"Oh! don't, mamma! they'll murder you." She clung to her mother's gown. Mrs. Thornton wrenched it away with no gentle hand.
"Find me some one else to go; but that girl must not bleed to death."
"Bleed! oh, how horrid! How has she got hurt?"
"I don't know,--I have no time to ask. Go down to her, Fanny, and do try to make yourself of use. Jane is with her; and I trust it looks worse than it is. Jane has refused to leave the house, cowardly woman! And I won't put myself in the way of any more refusals from my servants, so I am going myself."
"Oh, dear, dear!" said Fanny, crying, and preparing to go down rather than be left alone, with the thought of wounds and bloodshed in the very house.
"Oh, Jane!" said she, creeping into the dining-room, "What is the matter? How white she looks! How did she get hurt? Did they throw stones into the drawing-room?"
Margaret did indeed look white and wan, although her senses were beginning to return to her. But the sickly daze of the swoon made her still miserably faint. She was conscious of movement around her, and of refreshment from the eau de Cologne, and a craving for the bathing to go on without intermission; but when they stopped to talk, she could no more have opened her eyes, or spoken to ask for more bathing, than the people who lie in death-like trance can move, or utter sound, to arrest the awful preparations for their burial, while they are yet fully aware, not merely of the actions of those around them, but of the idea that is the motive for such actions.
Jane paused in her bathing, to reply to Miss Thornton's question.
"She'd have been safe enough, miss, if she'd stayed in the drawing-room, or come up to us; we were in the front garret, and could see it all, out of harm's way."
"Where was she then?" said Fanny, drawing nearer by slow degrees, as she became accustomed to the sight of Margaret's pale face.
"Just before the front door--with master!" said Jane, significantly.
"With John! with my brother! How did she get there?"
"Nay, miss, that's not for me to say," answered Jane, with a slight toss of her head. "Sarah did----"
"Sarah what?" said Fanny, with impatient curiosity.
Jane resumed her bathing, as if what Sarah did or said was not exactly the thing she liked to repeat.
"Sarah what?" asked Fanny, sharply. "Don't speak in these half sentences, or I can't understand you."
"Well, miss, since you will have it--Sarah, you see, was in the best place for seeing, being at the right-hand window; and she says, and said at the very time too, that she saw Miss Hale with her arms about master's neck, hugging him before all the people."
"I don't believe it," said Fanny. "I know she cares for my brother; any one can see that; and I dare say, she'd give her eyes if he'd marry her,--which he never will, I can tell her. But I don't believe she'd be so bold and forward as to put her arms round his neck."
"Poor young lady! she's paid for it dearly if she did. It's my belief, that the blow has given her such an ascendancy of blood to the head as she'll never get the better from. She looks like a corpse now."
"Oh, I wish mamma would come!" said Fanny, wringing her hands. "I never was in the room with a dead person before."
"Stay, miss! She's not dead: her eye-lids are quivering, and here's wet tears a-coming down her cheeks. Speak to her, Miss Fanny!"
"Are you better now?" asked Fanny, in a quavering voice.
No answer; no sign of recognition; but a faint pink colour returned to her lips, although the rest of her face was ashen pale.
Mrs. Thornton came hurriedly in, with the nearest surgeon she could find.
"How is she? Are you better, my dear?" as Margaret opened her filmy eyes, and gazed dreamily at her. "Here is Mr. Lowe come to see you."
Mrs. Thornton spoke loudly and distinctly, as to a deaf person. Margaret tried to rise, and drew her ruffled, luxuriant hair instinctively over the cut.
"I am better now," said she, in a very low, faint voice. "I was a little sick."
She let him take her hand and feel her pulse. The bright colour came for a moment into her face, when he asked to examine the wound in her forehead; and she glanced up at Jane, as if shrinking from her inspection more than from the doctor's.
"It is not much, I think. I am better now. I must go home."
"Not until I have applied some strips of plaster, and you have rested a little."
She sat down hastily, without another word, and allowed it to be bound up.
"Now, if you please," said she, "I must go. Mamma will not see it, I think. It is under the hair, is it not?"
"Quite; no one could tell."
"But you must not go," said Mrs. Thornton, impatiently. "You are not fit to go."
"I must," said Margaret, decidedly. "Think of mamma. If they should hear---- Besides, I must go," said she, vehemently. "I cannot stay here. May I ask for a cab?"
"You are quite flushed and feverish," observed Mr. Lowe.
"It is only with being here, when I do so want to go. The air--getting away, would do me more good than anything," pleaded she.
"I really believe it is as she says," Mr. Lowe replied. "If her mother is so ill as you told me on the way here, it may be very serious if she hears of this riot, and does not see her daughter back at the time she expects. The injury is not deep. I will fetch a cab, if your servants are still afraid to go out."
"Oh, thank you!" said Margaret. "It will do me more good than anything. It is the air of this room that makes me feel so miserable."
She leant back on the sofa, and closed her eyes. Fanny beckoned her mother out of the room, and told her something that made her equally anxious with Margaret for the departure of the latter. Not that she fully believed Fanny's statement; but she credited enough to make her manner to Margaret appear very much constrained, at wishing her good-bye.
Mr. Lowe returned in the cab.
"If you will allow me, I will see you home, Miss Hale. The streets are not very quiet yet."
Margaret's thoughts were quite alive enough to the present to make her desirous of getting rid of both Mr. Lowe and the cab before she reached Crampton Crescent, for fear of alarming her father and mother. Beyond that one aim she would not look. That ugly dream of insolent words spoken about herself, could never be forgotten--but could be put aside till she was stronger--for, oh! she was very weak; and her mind sought for some present fact to steady itself upon, and keep it from utterly losing consciousness in another hideous, sickly swoon.

Margaret was shown into the drawing-room. It had returned into its normal state of bag and covering. The windows were half open because of the heat, and Venetian blinds covered the glass, giving the light a green tinge that made her face in the mirrors look ghastly and wan. She sat and waited; no one came. Every now and then, the distant multitudinous sound drew nearer; and then died away into profound stillness.
Fanny came in at last.
'Mamma will come directly, Miss Hale. She desired me to apologise to you. Perhaps you know my brother has imported hands from Ireland, and it has irritated the Milton people excessively - as if he hadn't a right to get labour where he could; and now they've frightened these poor Irish starvelings so with their threats, that we daren't let them out. They're huddled in that top room in the mill - and they're to sleep there, to keep them safe from those brutes. Mamma is seeing about their food, and John is speaking to them. Ah! here's mamma!'
Mrs. Thornton came in with a look of black sternness on her face, which made Margaret feel she had arrived at a bad time to trouble her. However, Mrs. Thornton had expressed the wish that she would ask for whatever they might need for her mother; though her brow contracted while Margaret spoke with gentle modesty of her mother's restlessness, and Dr. Donaldson's wish that she should have a water-bed.
Mrs. Thornton did not reply immediately. Then she started up and exclaimed:
'They're at the gates! Call John from the mill, Fanny! They're at the gates! They'll batter them in!'
And the gathering tramp - to which she had been listening, instead of Margaret's words - was heard right outside the wall. An increasing din of angry voices raged behind the gates, which shook as if the unseen maddened crowd made battering-rams of their bodies, with a steady rhythm which made the strong gates quiver.
The women, servants and all, gathered round the windows, fascinated and terrified. Fanny had returned, screaming as if pursued at every step, and had thrown herself in hysterical sobbing on the sofa. Mrs. Thornton watched for her son, who was still in the mill. He came out, looked up at the pale cluster of faces - and smiled good courage to them, before he locked the factory-door. Then he called for someone to come down and undo his own door, which Fanny had fastened behind her in her mad flight. Mrs. Thornton went.
The sound of his well-known and commanding voice seemed to infuriate the mob outside. Hitherto they had been voiceless, needing all their breath for their efforts to break down the gates. But now, hearing him speak inside, they set up such a fierce unearthly groan, that even Mrs. Thornton was white with fear as she preceded him into the room. He came in a little flushed, but with his eyes gleaming, and a proud and noble look of defiance on his face.
Margaret had always dreaded lest her courage should fail her in any emergency, and she should be proved a coward. But now, in this real nearness of terror, she forgot herself, and felt only an intense sympathy in the interests of the moment.
Mr. Thornton came forwards. 'I'm sorry, Miss Hale, you have visited us at this unfortunate moment, when I fear you may be at risk. Mother! hadn't you better go into the back rooms? I'm not sure whether they have got into the stable-yard; but if not, you will be safer there than here.'
'I stop here!' said his mother. 'Where you are, I stay.' And indeed, retreat into the back rooms was useless; the crowd had surrounded the outbuildings, and were sending forth their awful threatening roar. The servants retreated up into the garrets, with many a cry. Mr. Thornton smiled scornfully as he heard them. He glanced at Margaret, standing at the window. Her eyes glittered; her colour was deepened. As if she felt his look, she turned to him and asked:
'Where are the poor imported work-people? In the factory there?'
'Yes! I left them cowering in a small room, at the top of a back flight of stairs; bidding them escape down there, if they heard any attack made on the mill-doors. But it is me they want.'
'When can the soldiers be here?' asked his mother, in a low but steady voice.
He took out his watch with measured composure. 'Supposing Williams managed to get straight off when I told him - it must be twenty minutes yet.'
'Twenty minutes!' said his mother, her voice showing her terror for the first time.
'Shut down the windows, mother. The gates won't bear such another shock. Shut down that window, Miss Hale.'
Margaret shut down her window, and went to assist Mrs. Thornton's trembling fingers.
There was a pause of several minutes in the unseen street. Mrs. Thornton looked with wild anxiety at her son's face, which was set into rigid lines of contemptuous defiance. Neither hope nor fear could be read there.
Fanny raised herself up. 'Are they gone?' she whispered.
'Listen!'
She listened. They all could hear the great straining breath; the creak of wood slowly yielding; the wrench of iron; the mighty fall of the gates. Fanny stood up tottering - and fell into her mother's arms in a fainting fit. Mrs. Thornton lifted her up with a strength that was as much that of the will as of the body, and carried her away.
'Thank God!' said Mr. Thornton, as he watched her out. 'Had you not better go upstairs, Miss Hale?'
Margaret's lips formed a 'No!' - but he could not hear her speak for the tramp of many steps right under the wall of the house, and the fierce growl of deep angry voices that had a ferocious murmur of satisfaction in them.
'I am very sorry you have been entrapped into all this alarm; but it cannot last long now; a few minutes more, and the soldiers will be here.'
'Oh, God!' cried Margaret, suddenly; 'there is Boucher. He is livid with rage, and fighting to get to the front - look! look!'
'Who is Boucher?' asked Mr. Thornton coolly, coming close to the window to see. As soon as the men saw him, they set up a yell like the demoniac desire of some terrible wild beast for the food that is withheld from his ravening. Even he drew back for a moment, dismayed at the intensity of hatred he had provoked.
'Let them yell!' said he. 'I only hope my poor Irishmen are not terrified out of their wits. Keep up your courage for five minutes, Miss Hale.'
'Don't worry about me,' she said hastily. 'But what in five minutes? Can you do nothing to soothe these poor creatures? It is awful to see them.'
'The soldiers will be here directly, and that will bring them to reason.'
'To reason!' said Margaret, quickly. 'What kind of reason?'
'The only reason that works with men that make themselves into wild beasts. By heaven! they've turned to the mill-door!'
'Mr. Thornton,' said Margaret, shaking all over with passion, 'go down this instant, if you are not a coward. Go down and face them like a man. Speak to your workmen as if they were human beings. Speak to them kindly. Don't let the soldiers come in and cut down poor creatures who are driven mad. I see one there who is. If you have any courage or noble quality in you, go out and speak to them, man to man.'
He turned and looked at her, a dark cloud coming over his face. He set his teeth as he listened.
'I will go. Perhaps I may ask you to accompany me downstairs, and bar the door behind me, for my family's protection.'
'Oh! Mr. Thornton! I do not know - I may be wrong - only-'
But he was gone downstairs; he had unbarred the front door; all she could do was to follow him quickly, and fasten it behind him, and clamber up the stairs again with a sick heart. Again she took her place by the window. He was on the steps below; she knew that by the direction of a thousand angry eyes; but she could neither see nor hear anything except the savage, rolling murmur.
She threw the window wide open. Many in the crowd were mere boys, cruel and thoughtless - cruel because they were thoughtless; some were men, gaunt as wolves, and mad for prey. She knew they were like Boucher, with starving children at home, enraged at discovering that Irishmen were brought in to rob their little ones of bread. Margaret knew it all; she read it in Boucher's desperate face. If Mr. Thornton would only speak to them - it would be better than the stony silence that gave them no word, even of anger or reproach.
But perhaps he was speaking now; there was a momentary hush. She bent forwards to hear, but she could only see Mr. Thornton standing with his arms folded, still as a statue, his face pale with repressed excitement. They were trying to intimidate him - to make him flinch; each was urging the other on to some act of personal violence.
Margaret felt intuitively that in an instant all would be uproar. The first touch would cause an explosion, in which even Mr. Thornton's life would be unsafe - in another instant, the stormy passions would have passed their bounds, and swept away all barriers of reason. Even while she looked, she saw lads at the back stooping to take off their heavy wooden clogs - the readiest missiles they could find. She saw it was the spark to the gunpowder, and with a cry, she rushed out of the room, down the stairs - had lifted the great iron bar of the door with imperious force - had thrown the door open - and was there, facing that angry sea of men, her eyes smiting them with reproach.
The clogs were arrested in the hands that held them. The faces looked irresolute, as if asking what this meant. For she stood between them and their enemy. She could not speak, but held out her arms towards them till she could recover breath.
'Oh, do not use violence! He is one man, and you are many"; but her words died away, for her voice was only a hoarse whisper. Mr. Thornton moved away from behind her, as if jealous of anything that should come between him and danger.
'Go!' said she, once more (and now her voice was like a cry). 'The soldiers are sent for - are coming. Go peaceably. You shall have relief from your complaints, whatever they are.'
'Shall them Irish blackguards be packed back again?' asked one of the crowd fiercely.
'Never, for your bidding!' exclaimed Mr. Thornton.
Instantly the storm broke. Hootings rose and filled the air, but Margaret did not hear them. Her eye was on the lads who had armed themselves with their clogs. She saw their gesture - she knew its meaning - she read their aim. Another moment, and Mr. Thornton might be smitten down - he whom she had urged to come to this perilous place.
She only thought how she could save him. She threw her arms around him; she made her body into a shield from the fierce people beyond. Still, with his arms folded, he shook her off.
'Go away,' said he, in his deep voice. 'This is no place for you.'
'It is!' said she. 'You did not see what I saw.' If she thought her sex would be a protection, and that the men would slink away, then she was wrong. Their reckless passion had carried them too far to stop - at least had carried some of them too far; for it is always the reckless savage lads, with their love of cruel excitement, who head the riot. A clog whizzed through the air. Margaret's fascinated eyes watched; it missed its aim, and she turned sick with fright, but did not move, only hid her face on Mr. Thornton s arm. Then she turned and spoke again, trying to make her voice distinct:
'For God's sake! do not damage your cause by this violence. You do not know what you are doing.'
A sharp pebble flew by her, grazing forehead and cheek, and drawing a blinding sheet of light before her eyes. She lay like one dead on Mr. Thornton's shoulder. Then he unfolded his arms, and held her encircled in one for an instant:
'You do well!' said he. 'You fall - you hundreds - on one man; and when a woman comes before you, to ask you for your own sakes to be reasonable, your cowardly wrath falls upon her! You do well!'
They were silent, watching - open-eyed and open-mouthed - the thread of dark-red blood which wakened them from their trance of passion. Those nearest the gate stole out ashamed; there was a retreating movement through all the crowd. Only one voice cried out:
'Th' stone were meant for thee; but thou wert sheltered behind a woman!'
Mr. Thornton quivered with rage. Margaret was dimly conscious. He placed her gently on the door-step, her head leaning against the frame.
'Can you rest there?' he asked. But without waiting for her answer, he went slowly down the steps right into the middle of the crowd. 'Now kill me, if you wish. There is no woman to shield me here. You may beat me to death - but you will never move me from what I have determined upon!' He stood amongst them with his arms folded, in precisely the same attitude as he had been in on the steps.
But the withdrawal towards the gate had begun. Perhaps it was the idea of the soldiers' approach; perhaps the sight of that pale, upturned face, with closed eyes, though the tears welled beneath the long eyelashes; and, heavier, slower than tears, came the drip of blood from her wound. Even the most desperate faltered, scowled, and finally went off, muttering curses on the master, who stood in his unchanging attitude. The moment the retreat had changed into a flight, he darted up the steps to Margaret. She tried to rise.
'It is nothing,' she said, with a sickly smile. 'The skin is grazed, and I was stunned for the moment. Oh, I am so thankful they are gone!' And she cried without restraint.
He could not sympathise with her. His anger had not abated; it was rather rising as the immediate danger passed. The distant clank of the soldiers was heard, five minutes too late to make this vanished mob feel the power of authority. He hoped they would see the troops, and be quelled by the thought of their narrow escape.
While these thoughts crossed his mind, Margaret clung to the doorpost to steady herself: but a film came over her eyes - he was only just in time to catch her.
'Mother!' cried he; 'Come down - they are gone, and Miss Hale is hurt!' He bore her into the dining-room, and laid her on the sofa there. Looking on her pure white face, the sense of what she was to him came upon him so keenly that he spoke it out in his pain:
'Oh, my Margaret - my Margaret! no one can tell what you are to me! Cold as you lie there, you are the only woman I ever loved!' Inarticulately as he spoke, kneeling by her, he started up, ashamed of himself, as his mother came in. She saw nothing but her son, a little paler and sterner than usual.
'Miss Hale is hurt, mother. A stone has grazed her temple. She has lost a good deal of blood, I'm afraid.'
'She looks very seriously hurt,' said Mrs. Thornton, alarmed.
'It is only a fainting-fit. She has spoken to me since.' But all the blood in his body seemed to rush inwards to his heart as he spoke, and he trembled.
'Go and call Jane,' she said, 'and you go to your Irish people, who are crying and shouting, mad with fright.'
He went away as if weights were tied to every limb. He called the servant, and his sister. Margaret should have womanly care. But every pulse beat in him as he remembered how she had placed herself in foremost danger - could it be to save him? At the time, he had pushed her aside, and spoken gruffly; he had seen nothing but the unnecessary danger she had placed herself in.
He went to his Irish people, with every nerve in his body thrilling at the thought of her, and found it difficult to understand enough of what they were saying to soothe away their fears. They declared they would not stay; they wanted to be sent back. And so he had to think, and talk, and reason.
Mrs. Thornton bathed Margaret's temples with eau de Cologne. As it touched the wound, which till then neither Mrs. Thornton nor Jane had perceived, Margaret opened her eyes; but it was evident she did not know where she was, nor who they were. The lips quivered, and she became insensible once more.
'She has had a terrible blow,' said Mrs. Thornton. 'Is there anyone who will go for a doctor?'
'Not me, ma'am, if you please,' said Jane, shrinking back. 'Them rabble may be all about; I don't think the cut is so deep as it looks.'
'I will not run the chance. She was hurt in our house. If you are a coward, Jane, I will go. You will not be afraid to stay in this house,' Mrs. Thornton asked contemptuously, 'and go on bathing Miss Hale's forehead, shall you?'
She went first to the room in which she had left Fanny on the bed. Fanny started up as her mother entered.
'Oh, mamma, how you terrified me! I thought you were a man that had got into the house.'
'Nonsense! The men are all gone away. There are soldiers everywhere, now it is too late. Miss Hale is lying on the dining-room sofa badly hurt. I am going for the doctor.'
'Oh! don't, mamma! they'll murder you.' She clung to her mother's gown. Mrs. Thornton wrenched it away.
'That girl must not bleed to death.'
'Bleed! oh, how horrid! How has she got hurt?'
'I don't know; I have no time to ask. Go down to her, Fanny, and do try to make yourself of use. Jane is with her; and I trust it looks worse than it is. Jane has refused to leave the house, cowardly woman! So I am going myself.'
'Oh, dear!' said Fanny, crying with the thought of wounds and bloodshed in the house.
'Oh, Jane!' said she, creeping into the dining-room, 'how did she get hurt? How white she looks! Did they throw stones into the drawing-room?'
Margaret did indeed look white and wan, although her senses were beginning to return. But she still felt sick and faint. She was conscious of movement around her, and of the eau de Cologne; but when they stopped bathing her head, she could neither move her eyes nor speak.
Jane answered Miss Thornton.
'She'd have been safe enough, miss, if she'd stayed in the drawing-room; we were in the front garret, and could see it all.'
'Where was she, then?' said Fanny.
'Just before the front door - with master!' said Jane, significantly.
'With John! How did she get there?'
'Nay, miss, that's not for me to say,' answered Jane, with a slight toss of her head. 'Sarah did-'
'Sarah what?' said Fanny, with impatient curiosity, and then more sharply. 'Sarah what? Don't speak in these half sentences.'
'Well, miss, Sarah says that she saw Miss Hale with her arms about master's neck, hugging him before all the people.'
'I don't believe it,' said Fanny. 'I know she cares for my brother; any one can see that; and I dare say, she'd give her eyes if he'd marry her - which he never will, I can tell her. But I don't believe she'd be so bold as to put her arms round his neck.'
'Poor young lady! she's paid for it dearly if she did. It's my belief that she won't recover. She looks like a corpse.'
'Oh, I wish mamma would come!' said Fanny, wringing her hands. 'I never was in the room with a dead person before.'
'Stay, miss! She's not dead: her eyelids are quivering, and here's tears a-coming down her cheeks. Speak to her, Miss Fanny!'
'Are you better now?' asked Fanny, in a quavering voice.
No answer; no sign of recognition; but a faint pink colour returned to her lips, although the rest of her face was ashen pale.
Mrs. Thornton came hurriedly in, with the nearest surgeon she could find. 'How is she? Are you better, my dear?' Margaret opened her filmy eyes, and gazed dreamily at her. 'Here is Mr. Lowe come to see you.' Mrs. Thornton spoke loudly and distinctly, as to a deaf person.
Margaret tried to rise, and drew her ruffled hair instinctively over the cut.
'I am better now,' said she, in a very low voice. 'I was a little sick.' She let the doctor take her hand and feel her pulse. When he asked to examine the wound in her forehead, she shrank from the inspection.
'It is not much, I think. I am better now. I must go home.'
'Not until I have applied some strips of plaster; and you have rested a little.'
She sat down, and allowed it to be bound up. 'Now, if you please,' said she, 'I must go. Mamma will not see it, I think. It is under the hair, is it not?'
'Quite; no one could tell.'
'But you are not fit to go,' said Mrs. Thornton.
'I must,' said Margaret, decidedly. 'Think of mamma. If they should hear - I cannot stay here. May I ask for a cab?'
'You are quite flushed and feverish,' observed Mr. Lowe.
'It is only because I do so want to go. The air would do me more good than anything.'
Mr. Lowe spoke to Mrs. Thornton. 'If her mother is so ill as you told me on the way here, it may be very serious if she hears of this riot, and does not see her daughter back at the time she expects. The injury is not deep. I will fetch a cab.'
'Oh, thank you!' said Margaret. She leant back on the sofa, and closed her eyes.
Fanny beckoned her mother out of the room, and told her something that made her equally anxious for Margaret to leave. Not that she fully believed Fanny's statement; but she believed enough to make her manner to Margaret appear very much constrained.
Mr. Lowe returned with the cab, saying, 'If you will allow me, I will see you home, Miss Hale. The streets are not quiet yet.'
Margaret thought only of getting home without alarming her father and mother. Beyond that aim she would not look. That ugly dream of insolent words spoken about herself could be put aside till she was stronger - for, oh! she was very weak; and her mind sought for some fact to steady itself upon, and keep it from utterly losing consciousness in another hideous, sickly swoon.


"On earth is known to none The smile that is not sister to a tear." ELLIOTT.
Margaret and her father walked home. The night was fine, the streets clean, and with her pretty white silk, like Leezie Lindsay's gown o' green satin, in the ballad, "kilted up to her knee," she was off with her father--ready to dance along with the excitement of the cool, fresh night air.
"I rather think Thornton is not quite easy in his mind about this strike. He seemed very anxious to-night."
"I should wonder if he were not. But he spoke with his usual coolness to the others, when they suggested different things, just before we came away."
"So he did after dinner as well. It would take a good deal to stir him from his cool manner of speaking; but his face strikes me as anxious."
"I should be, if I were he. He must know of the growing anger and hardly smothered hatred of his workpeople, who all looked upon him as what the Bible calls a 'hard man,'--not so much unjust as unfeeling; clear in judgment, standing upon his 'rights' as no human being ought to stand, considering what we and all our petty rights are in the sight of the Almighty. I am glad you think he looks anxious. When I remember Boucher's half mad words and ways, I cannot bear to think how coolly Mr. Thornton spoke."
"In the first place, I am not so convinced as you are about that man Boucher's utter distress; for the moment, he was badly off, I don't doubt. But there is always a mysterious supply of money from these Unions; and, from what you said, it was evident the man was of a passionate, demonstrative nature, and gave strong expression to all he felt."
"Oh, papa!"
"Well! I only want you to do justice to Mr. Thornton, who is, I suspect, of an exactly opposite nature--a man who is far too proud to show his feelings. Just the character I should have thought beforehand, you would have admired, Margaret."
"So I do--so I should; but I don't feel quite so sure as you do of the existence of those feelings. He is a man of great strength of character--of unusual intellect, considering the few advantages he has had."
"Not so few. He has led a practical life from a very early age, has been called upon to exercise judgment and self-control. All that developes one part of the intellect. To be sure, he needs some of the knowledge of the past, which gives the truest basis for conjecture as to the future; but he knows this need--he perceives it, and that is something. You are quite prejudiced against Mr. Thornton, Margaret."
"He is the first specimen of a manufacturer--of a person engaged in trade--that I had ever the opportunity of studying, papa. He is my first olive: let me make a face while I swallow it. I know he is good of his kind, and by and by I shall like the kind. I rather think I am already beginning to do so. I was very much interested by what the gentlemen were talking about, although I did not understand half of it. I was quite sorry when Miss Thornton came to take me to the other end of the room, saying she was sure I should be uncomfortable at being the only lady among so many gentlemen. I had never thought about it, I was so busy listening; and the ladies were so dull, papa--oh, so dull! Yet I think it was clever too. It reminded me of our old game of having each so many nouns to introduce into a sentence."
"What do you mean, child?" asked Mr. Hale.
"Why, they took nouns that were signs of things which gave evidence of wealth,--housekeepers, under-gardeners, extent of glass, valuable lace, diamonds, and all such things; and each one formed her speech so as to bring them all in, in the prettiest accidental manner possible."
"You will be as proud of your one servant when you get her, if all is true about her that Mrs. Thornton says."
"To be sure, I shall. I felt like a great hypocrite to-night, sitting there in my white silk gown, with my idle hands before me, when I remembered all the good, thorough, house-work they had done to-day. They took me for a fine lady, I'm sure."
"Even I was mistaken enough to think you looked like a lady, my dear," said Mr. Hale, quietly smiling.
But smiles were changed to white and trembling looks when they saw Dixon's face, as she opened the door.
"Oh, master!--Oh, Miss Margaret! Thank God you are come! Dr. Donaldson is here. The servant next door went for him, for the charwoman is gone home. She's better now; but, oh sir! I thought she'd have died an hour ago."
Mr. Hale caught Margaret's arm to steady himself from falling. He looked at her face, and saw an expression upon it of surprise and extremest sorrow, but not the agony of terror that contracted his own unprepared heart. She knew more than he did, and yet she listened with that hopeless expression of awed apprehension.
"Oh! I should not have left her--wicked daughter that I am!" moaned forth Margaret, as she supported her trembling father's hasty steps upstairs. Dr. Donaldson met them on the landing.
"She is better now," he whispered. "The opiate has taken effect. The spasms were very bad: no wonder they frightened your maid; but she'll rally this time."
"This time! Let me go to her!" Half an hour ago Mr. Hale was a middle-aged man; now his sight was dim, his senses wavering, his walk tottering, as if he were seventy years of age.
Dr. Donaldson took his arm, and led him into the bedroom. Margaret followed close. There lay her mother, with an unmistakeable look on her face. She might be better now; she was sleeping, but Death had signed her for his own, and it was clear that ere long he would return to take possession. Mr. Hale looked at her for some time without a word. Then he began to shake all over, and, turning away from Dr. Donaldson's anxious care, he groped to find the door; he could not see it, although several candles, brought in the sudden affright, were burning and flaring there. He staggered into the drawing-room, and felt about for a chair. Dr. Donaldson wheeled one to him, and placed him in it. He felt his pulse.
"Speak to him, Miss Hale. We must rouse him."
"Papa!" said Margaret, with a crying voice that was wild with pain. "Papa! Speak to me!" The speculation came again into his eyes, and he made a great effort.
"Margaret, did you know of this? Oh, it was cruel of you!"
"No, sir, it was not cruel!" replied Dr. Donaldson, with quick decision. "Miss Hale acted under my directions. There may have been a mistake, but it was not cruel. Your wife will be a different creature to-morrow, I trust. She has had spasms, as I anticipated, though I did not tell Miss Hale of my apprehensions. She has taken the opiate I brought with me; she will have a good long sleep; and to-morrow that look which has alarmed you so much will have passed away."
"But not the disease?"
Dr. Donaldson glanced at Margaret. Her bent head, her face raised with no appeal for a temporary reprieve, showed that quick observer of human nature that she thought it better that the whole truth should be told.
"Not the disease. We cannot touch the disease, with all our poor vaunted skill. We can only delay its progress--alleviate the pain it causes. Be a man, sir--a Christian. Have faith in the immortality of the soul, which no pain, no mortal disease, can assail or touch!"
But all the reply he got was in the choked words, "You have never been married, Dr. Donaldson; you don't know what it is," and in the deep, manly sobs, which went through the stillness of the night like heavy pulses of agony.
Margaret knelt by him, caressing him with tearful caresses. No one, not even Dr. Donaldson, knew how the time went by. Mr. Hale was the first to dare to speak of the necessities of the present moment.
"What must we do?" asked he. "Tell us both. Margaret is my staff--my right hand."
Dr. Donaldson gave his clear, sensible directions. No fear for to-night--nay, even peace for to-morrow, and for many days yet. But no enduring hope of recovery. He advised Mr. Hale to go to bed, and leave only one to watch the slumber, which he hoped would be undisturbed. He promised to come again early in the morning. And, with a warm and kindly shake of the hand, he left them.
They spoke but few words; they were too much exhausted by their terror to do more than decide upon the immediate course of action. Mr. Hale was resolved to sit up through the night, and all that Margaret could do was to prevail upon him to rest on the drawing-room sofa. Dixon stoutly and bluntly refused to go to bed; and, as for Margaret, it was simply impossible that she should leave her mother, let all the doctors in the world speak of "husbanding resources," and "one watcher only being required." So, Dixon sat, and stared, and winked, and drooped, and picked herself up again with a jerk, and finally gave up the battle, and fairly snored. Margaret had taken off her gown and tossed it aside with a sort of impatient disgust, and put on her dressing-gown. She felt as if she never could sleep again; as if her whole senses were acutely vital, and all endued with double keenness, for the purpose of watching. Every sight and sound--nay, even every thought, touched some nerve to the very quick. For more than two hours, she heard her father's restless movements in the next room. He came perpetually to the door of her mother's chamber, pausing there to listen, till she, not hearing his close unseen presence, went and opened it to tell him how all went on, in reply to the questions his baked lips could hardly form. At last he, too, fell asleep, and all the house was still. Margaret sat behind the curtain thinking. Far away in time, far away in space, seemed all the interests of past days. Not more than thirty-six hours ago, she cared for Bessy Higgins and her father, and her heart was wrung for Boucher; now, that was all like a dreaming memory of some former life;--everything that had passed out of doors seemed dissevered from her mother, and therefore unreal. Even Harley Street appeared more distinct; there she remembered, as if it were yesterday, how she had pleased herself with tracing out her mother's features in her Aunt Shaw's face,--and how letters had come, making her dwell on the thoughs of home with all the longing of love. Helstone, itself, was in the dim past. The dull gray days of the preceding winter and spring, so uneventless and monotonous, seemed more associated with what she cared for now above all price. She would fain have caught at the skirts of that departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while it was yet in her possession. What a vain show Life seemed! How unsubstantial, and flickering, and flitting! It was as if from some arial belfry, high up above the stir and jar of the earth, there was a bell continually tolling, "All are shadows!--all are passing!--all is past!" And when the morning dawned, cool and gray, like many a happier morning before--when Margaret looked one by one at the sleepers, it seemed as if the terrible night were unreal as a dream; it, too, was a shadow. It, too, was past.
Mrs. Hale herself was not aware when she awoke, how ill she had been the night before. She was rather surprised at Dr. Donaldson's early visit, and perplexed by the anxious faces of husband and child. She consented to remain in bed that day, saying she certainly was tired; but, the next, she insisted on getting up; and Dr. Donaldson gave his consent to her returning into the drawing-room. She was restless and uncomfortable in every position, and before night she became very feverish. Mr. Hale was utterly listless, and incapable of deciding on anything.
"What can we do to spare mamma such another night?" asked Margaret on the third day.
"It is to a certain degree, the reaction after the powerful opiates I have been obliged to use. It is more painful for you to see than for her to bear, I believe. But, I think, if we could get a water-bed it might be a good thing. Not but what she will be better to-morrow; pretty much like herself as she was before this attack. Still, I should like her to have a water-bed. Mrs. Thornton has one, I know. I'll try and call there this afternoon. Stay," said he, his eye catching on Margaret's face, blanched with watching in a sick room, "I'm not sure whether I can go; I've a long round to take. It would do you no harm to have a brisk walk to Marlborough Street, and ask Mrs. Thornton if she can spare it."
"Certainly," said Margaret. "I could go while mamma is asleep this afternoon. I'm sure Mrs. Thornton would lend it to us."
Dr. Donaldson's experience told him rightly. Mrs. Hale seemed to shake off the consequences of her attack, and looked brighter and better this afternoon than Margaret had ever hoped to see her again. Her daughter left her after dinner, sitting in her easy chair, with her hand lying in her husband's, who looked more worn and suffering than she by far. Still, he could smile now--rather slowly, rather faintly, it is true; but a day or two before, Margaret never thought to see him smile again.
It was about two miles from their house in Crampton Crescent to Marlborough Street. It was too hot to walk very quickly. An August sun beat straight down into the street at three o'clock in the afternoon. Margaret went along, without noticing anything very different from usual in the first mile and a half of her journey; she was absorbed in her own thoughts, and had learnt by this time to thread her way through the irregular stream of human beings that flowed through Milton streets. But, by and by, she was struck with an unusual heaving among the mass of people in the crowded road on which she was entering. They did not appear to be moving on, so much as talking, and listening, and buzzing with excitement without much stirring from the spot where they might happen to be. Still, as they made way for her, and, wrapt up in the purpose of her errand, and the necessities that suggested it, she was less quick of observation than she might have been, if her mind had been at ease. She had got into Marlborough Street before the full conviction forced itself upon her, that there was a restless, oppressive sense of irritation abroad among the people; a thunderous atmosphere, morally as well as physically, around her. From every narrow lane opening out on Marlborough Street came up a low distant roar, as of myriads of fierce indignant voices. The inhabitants of each poor squalid dwelling were gathered round the doors and windows, if indeed they were not actually standing in the middle of the narrow ways--all with looks intent towards one point. Marlborough Street itself was the focus of all those human eyes, that betrayed intensest interest of various kinds; some fierce with anger, some lowering with relentless threats! some dilated with fear, or imploring entreaty; and as Margaret reached the small side-entrance by the folding doors, in the great dead wall of Marlborough mill-yard, and waited the porter's answer to the bell, she looked round and heard the first long far-off roll of the tempest;--saw the first slow-surging wave of the dark crowd come, with its threatening crest, tumble over, and retreat, at the far end of the street, which a moment ago seemed so full of repressed noise, but which now was ominously still; all these circumstances forced themselves on Margaret's notice, but did not sink down into her pre-occupied heart. She did not know what they meant--what was their deep significance; while she did know, did feel the keen sharp pressure of the knife that was soon to stab her through and through by leaving her motherless. She was trying to realise that, in order that, when it came, she might be ready to comfort her father.
The porter opened the door cautiously, not nearly wide enough to admit her.
"It's you, is it, ma'am?" said he, drawing a long breath, and widening the entrance, but still not opening it fully. Margaret went in. He hastily bolted it behind her.
"Th' folk are all coming up here, I reckon?" asked he.
"I don't know. Something unusual seemed going on; but this street is quite empty, I think."
She went across the yard and put up the steps to the house door. There was no near sound,--no steam engine at work with beat and pant,--no click of machinery, no mingling and clashing of many sharp voices; but far away, the ominous gathering roar, deep-clamouring.

Margaret and her father walked home. The night was fine, and with her pretty white silk hitched up, she was ready to dance along with the excitement of the cool, fresh night air.
'I rather think Thornton is not easy in his mind about this strike,' said Mr. Hale. 'He seemed very anxious tonight.'
'I should wonder if he were not. But he spoke with his usual coolness.'
'It would take a good deal to stir him from his cool manner; but his face strikes me as anxious.'
'He must know of the growing anger and hatred of his workpeople, who look upon him as what the Bible calls a "hard man" - not so much unjust as unfeeling; standing upon his "rights" as no human being ought to stand, considering what our petty rights are in the sight of the Almighty. I am glad you think he looks anxious. When I remember Boucher's half mad words, I cannot bear to think how coolly Mr. Thornton spoke.'
'I am not so convinced about that man Boucher's utter distress. For the moment, he was badly off, I don't doubt. But there is always a mysterious supply of money from these Unions; and it was evident the man was of a passionate nature, and gave strong expression to all he felt.'
'Oh, papa!'
'Well! I only want you to do justice to Mr. Thornton, who is, I suspect, exactly opposite - a man too proud to show his feelings. I should have thought you would admire that, Margaret.'
'So I do; but I don't feel quite so sure as you do of the existence of those feelings. He is a man of great strength of character - of unusual intellect, considering the few advantages he has had.'
'Not so few. He has led a practical life from a very early age; has been called upon to exercise judgment and self-control. To be sure, he needs some knowledge of the past, which gives the truest basis for conjecture as to the future; but he perceives this need. You are quite prejudiced against Mr. Thornton, Margaret.'
'He is the first specimen of a manufacturer that I had ever the opportunity of studying, papa. He is my first olive: let me make a face while I swallow it. I know he is good of his kind, and by and by I shall like the kind. I think I am already beginning to do so. I was very much interested by what the gentlemen were talking about, although I did not understand half of it. I was quite sorry when Miss Thornton took me to the other end of the room, saying she was sure I was uncomfortable at being the only lady among so many gentlemen. I had never thought about it, I was so busy listening; and the ladies were so dull, papa! Yet clever too, at seeing how many nouns they could put into a sentence.'
'What do you mean, child?' asked Mr. Hale.
'Why, they took nouns that indicated wealth: housekeepers, under-gardeners, glass, lace, diamonds, and so on; and brought them all into their speches, in the prettiest accidental manner possible.'
'You will be as proud of your one servant when you get her.'
'To be sure, I shall. I felt like a great hypocrite tonight, sitting idle in my white silk gown, when I remembered all the house-work I had done today. They took me for a fine lady, I'm sure.'
'Even I thought you looked like a lady, my dear,' said Mr. Hale, smiling.
But smiles were changed to white and trembling looks, when they saw Dixon's face as she opened the door.
'Oh, master! - Oh, Miss Margaret! Thank God you are come! Dr. Donaldson is here. She's better now; but, oh, sir! I thought she'd have died an hour ago.'
Mr. Hale caught Margaret's arm to steady himself. He looked at her face, and saw upon it surprise and extreme sorrow, but not the agony of terror that contracted his own heart. She knew more than he did.
'Oh! I should not have left her - wicked daughter that I am!' she moaned as she supported her trembling father's steps. Dr. Donaldson met them on the landing.
'She is better now,' he whispered. 'The opiate has taken effect. The spasms were very bad; but she'll rally this time.'
'This time! Let me go to her!' Mr. Hale tottered as if he were seventy. Dr. Donaldson took his arm, and led him into the bedroom. Margaret followed.
There lay her mother, with an unmistakable look on her face. She was sleeping, but Death had signed her for his own, and it was clear that before long he would return to take possession. Mr. Hale looked at her for some time without a word. Then he began to shake all over, and, turning away from Dr. Donaldson, he groped blindly for the door. He staggered into the drawing-room, where Dr. Donaldson brought him a chair and felt his pulse.
'Speak to him, Miss Hale. We must rouse him.'
'Papa!' said Margaret, her voice wild with pain. 'Papa! Speak to me!'
He made a great effort. 'Margaret, did you know of this? Oh, it was cruel of you!'
'No, sir, it was not cruel!' replied Dr. Donaldson quickly. 'Miss Hale acted under my directions. Your wife will be a different creature tomorrow, I trust. She has had spasms, as I anticipated, though I did not tell Miss Hale of my apprehensions. She will have a good long sleep; and tomorrow, that alarming look will have passed.'
'But not the disease?'
Dr. Donaldson glanced at Margaret. Her bent head showed him that she thought it better that the whole truth should be told.
'Not the disease. We cannot touch the disease. We can only delay its progress and alleviate the pain. Be a man, sir - be a Christian. Have faith in the immortality of the soul, which no disease can touch!'
'You have never been married, Dr. Donaldson; you do not know what it is.' Deep, manly sobs went through the stillness of the night like heavy pulses of agony. Margaret knelt by her father, caressing him tearfully. At last Mr. Hale spoke again.
'What must we do? Tell us both. Margaret is my right hand.'
Dr. Donaldson gave his clear, sensible directions. No fear for tonight - nay, even peace for many days yet. But no enduring hope of recovery. He advised Mr. Hale to go to bed, and leave only one person to watch the slumber, which he hoped would be undisturbed. He promised to come again early in the morning. And with a kindly shake of the hand, he left them.
They spoke but few words; they were too exhausted by their terror to do more than decide upon the immediate course of action. Mr. Hale was resolved to sit up through the night, and all that Margaret could do was to persuade him to rest on the drawing-room sofa. Dixon stoutly refused to go to bed; and, as for Margaret, it was simply impossible that she should leave her mother.
So Dixon sat, and stared, and drooped, and picked herself up again with a jerk, and finally gave up and fairly snored. Margaret, who had exchanged her gown for her dressing-gown, felt as if she never could sleep again; as if her senses were doubly keen. Every sight and sound touched some nerve to the very quick. She heard her father's restless movements in the next room, coming to the door of her mother's chamber, and pausing to listen, till she opened it to tell him how all went on.
At last he, too, fell asleep, and the house was still. Margaret sat thinking. Only thirty-six hours ago, her heart was wrung for Bessy and for Boucher; now, that was like a dreaming memory of some former life. Even Harley Street appeared more distinct; she remembered, as if it were yesterday, how she had pleased herself with tracing out her mother's features in her Aunt Shaw's face - and the letters that had come from home.
Helstone itself was in the dim past. She would fain have caught at the skirts of that departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while she had it. What a vain show Life seemed! How unsubstantial, and flickering!
And when the morning dawned, cool and grey, like many a happier morning before - when Margaret looked at the sleepers, it seemed as if the terrible night were as unreal as a dream; it, too, was a shadow. It, too, was past.
Mrs. Hale herself was not aware, when she awoke, of how ill she had been the night before. She was rather surprised at Dr. Donaldson's early visit, and perplexed by the anxious faces of husband and child. She consented to remain in bed, saying she certainly was tired; but the next day, she insisted on getting up; and Dr. Donaldson allowed her to return into the drawing-room. She was restless and uncomfortable, and before night she became very feverish. Mr. Hale was utterly listless, and incapable of deciding on anything.
'What can we do to spare mamma such another night?' Margaret asked the doctor on the third day.
'It is, to some degree, the reaction after the powerful opiates I have been obliged to use. It is more painful for you to see than for her to bear, I believe. But, I think, if we could get a water-bed it might be a good thing. Though she will be better tomorrow; pretty much like herself again. Still, I should like her to have a water-bed. Mrs. Thornton has one, I know, made of rubber-coated canvas. I'll try and call there this afternoon. Stay,' said he, seeing Margaret's pale face. 'I'm not sure whether I can go; I've a long round to take. It would do you no harm to have a brisk walk to Marlborough Street, and ask Mrs. Thornton if she can spare it.'
'Certainly,' said Margaret.
That afternoon Mrs. Hale seemed to shake off the consequences of her attack, and looked brighter and better than Margaret had hoped to see her again. Her daughter left her after dinner, sitting in her easy chair beside her husband, who looked more worn and suffering than she. Still, he could smile now - if only faintly.
It was about two miles to Marlborough Street. It was too hot to walk very quickly; an August sun beat down. At first Margaret went along without noticing anything very different from usual; she was absorbed in her own thoughts. But, by and by, she was struck with an unusual heaving among the mass of people in the crowded road. They did not appear to be moving on, so much as talking, and listening, and buzzing with excitement, without stirring from the spot. Still, since they made way for her, and she was wrapped in her errand and so less observant than she might have been, she had got into Marlborough Street before she realised that there was a restless, oppressive sense of irritation among the people; a thunderous atmosphere around her.
From every narrow lane opening on to the street came a low distant roar of fierce indignant voices. The inhabitants of each squalid dwelling were gathered at the doors, or standing in the middle of the lane - all looking towards Marlborough Street with intense interest in their eyes; some fierce with anger, some threatening, some dilated with fear, or imploring.
As Margaret reached the small side-entrance in the great dead wall of the mill-yard and waited for the porter to answer the bell, she looked round and heard the first long roll of the tempest; - saw the first slow-surging wave of the dark crowd come and then retreat, at the far end of the street, which now seemed ominously still.
Although Margaret noticed all these things, she was still pre-occupied. She did not know what they meant; while she did know and feel the keen sharp pressure of the knife that was soon to stab her through by leaving her motherless. She was trying to realise that, so that she might be ready to comfort her father.
The porter opened the door cautiously.
'It's you, is it, ma'am?' said he, drawing a long breath, and widening the entrance a little. Margaret went in. He hastily bolted it behind her.
'Th' folk are all coming up here, I reckon?' asked he.
'I don't know. Something unusual seemed to be going on; but this street is quite empty, I think.'
She went across the yard to the house door. There was no beat and pant of the steam-engine - no click of machinery; but far away, the ominous gathering roar.