North and South
Margaret, began to hope that he might have been mistaken, and that she
could recover permanently. As for Mr. Hale, although he had never had an
idea of the serious nature of their apprehensions, he triumphed over
their fears with an evident relief, which proved how much his glimpse
into the nature of them had affected him. Only Dixon croaked for ever
into Margaret’s ear. However, Margaret defied the raven, and would hope.
They needed this gleam of brightness in-doors, for out-of-doors, even to
their uninstructed eyes, there was a gloomy brooding appearance of
discontent. Mr. Hale had his own acquaintances among the working men,
and was depressed with their earnestly-told tales of suffering and
long-endurance. They would have scorned to speak of what they had to
bear to any one who might, from his position, have understood it without
their words. But here was this man, from a distant county, who was
perplexed by the workings of a system into the midst of which he was
thrown, and each was eager to make him a judge, and to bring witness of
his own causes for irritation. Then Mr. Hale brought all his budget of
grievances, and laid it before Mr. Thornton, for him, with his
experience as a master, to arrange them, and explain their origin; which
he always did, on sound economical principles; showing that, as trade
was conducted, there must always be a waxing and waning of commercial
prosperity; and that in the waning a certain number of masters, as well
as of men, must go down into ruin, and be no more seen among the ranks
of the happy and prosperous. He spoke as if this consequence were so
entirely logical, that neither employers nor employed had any right to
complain if it became their fate: the employer to turn aside from the
race he could no longer run, with a bitter sense of incompetency and
failure—wounded in the struggle—trampled down by his fellows in their
haste to get rich—slighted where he was once honoured—humbly asking
for, instead of bestowing, employment with a lordly hand. Of course,
speaking so of the fate that, as a master, might be his own in the
fluctuations of commerce, he was not likely to have more sympathy with
that of the workmen, who were passed by in the swift merciless
improvement or alteration; who would fain lie down and quietly die out
of the world that needed them not, but felt as they could never rest in
their graves for the clinging cries of the beloved and helpless they
would leave behind; who envied the power of the wild bird, that can feed
her young with her very heart’s blood. Margaret’s whole soul rose up
against him while he reasoned in this way—as if commerce were
everything and humanity nothing. She could hardly thank him for the
individual kindness, which brought him that very evening to offer
her—for the delicacy which made him understand that he must offer her
privately—every convenience for illness that his own wealth or his
mother’s foresight had caused them to accumulate in their household, and
which, as he learnt from Dr. Donaldson, Mrs. Hale might possibly
require. His presence, after the way he had spoken—his bringing before
her the doom, which she was vainly trying to persuade herself might yet
be averted from her mother—all conspired to set Margaret’s teeth on
edge, as she looked at him, and listened to him. What business had he to
be the only person, except Dr. Donaldson and Dixon, admitted to the
awful secret, which she held shut up in the most dark and sacred recess
of her heart—not daring to look at it, unless she invoked heavenly
strength to bear the sight—that, some day soon, she should cry aloud
for her mother, and no answer would come out of the blank, dumb
darkness? Yet he knew all. She saw it in his pitying eyes. She heard it
in his grave and tremulous voice. How reconcile those eyes, that voice,
with the hard, reasoning, dry, merciless way in which he laid down
axioms of trade, and serenely followed them out to their full
consequences? The discord jarred upon her inexpressibly. The more
because of the gathering woe of which she heard from Bessy. To be sure,
Nicholas Higgins, the father, spoke differently. He had been appointed a
committee-man, and said that he knew secrets of which the exoteric knew
nothing. He said this more expressly and particularly, on the very day
before Mrs. Thornton’s dinner-party. When Margaret, going in to speak to
Bessy, found him arguing the point with Boucher, the neighbour of whom
she had frequently heard mention, as by turns exciting Higgins’s
compassion, as an unskilful workman with a large family depending upon
him for support, and at other times enraging his more energetic and
sanguine neighbour by his want of what the latter called spirit. It was
very evident that Higgins was in a passion when Margaret entered.
Boucher stood, with both hands on the rather high mantelpiece, swaying
himself a little on the support which his arms, thus placed, gave him,
and looking wildly into the fire, with a kind of despair that irritated
Higgins, even while it went to his heart. Bessy was rocking herself
violently backwards and forwards, as was her wont (Margaret knew by this
time) when she was agitated. Her sister Mary was tying on her bonnet (in
great clumsy bows, as suited her great clumsy fingers), to go to her
fustian-cutting, blubbering out loud the while, and evidently longing to
be away from a scene that distressed her.
Margaret came in upon this scene. She stood for a moment at the
door—then, her finger on her lips, she stole to a seat on the squab
near Bessy. Nicholas saw her come in, and greeted her with a gruff, but
not unfriendly nod. Mary hurried out of the house, catching gladly at
the open door, and crying aloud when she got away from her father’s
presence. It was only John Boucher that took no notice whatever who came
in and who went out.
“It’s no use, Higgins. Hoo cannot live long a’ this’n. Hoo’s just
sinking away—not for want o’ meat hersel’—but because hoo cannot stand
th’ sight o’ the little ones clemming. Ay, clemming! Five shilling a
week may do well enough for thee, wi’ but two mouths to fill, and one on
’em a wench who can well earn her own meat. But it’s clemming to us. An’
I tell thee plain—if hoo dies, as I’m ’feard hoo will afore we’ve
getten th’ five per cent., I’ll fling the money back i’ th’ master’s
face, and say, ‘Be domned to yo’; be domned to th’ whole cruel world o’
yo’; that could na leave me th’ best wife that ever bore childer to a
man. An’ look thee lad, I’ll hate thee, and th’ whole pack o’ th’ Union.
Ay, an’ chase yo’ through heaven wi’ my hatred,—I will, lad! I
will,—if yo’re leading me astray i’ this matter. Thou saidst, Nicholas,
on Wednesday sennight—and it’s now Tuesday i’ th’ second week—that
afore a fortnight we’d ha’ the masters coming a-begging to us to take
back our work, at our own wage—and time’s nearly up,—and there’s our
lile Jack lying a-bed, too weak to cry, but just every now and then
sobbing up his heart for want o’ food,—our lile Jack, I tell thee, lad!
Hoo’s never looked up sin’ he were born, and hoo loves him as if he were
her very life,—as he is,—for I reckon he’ll ha’ cost me that precious
price,—our lile Jack, who wakened me each morn wi’ putting his sweet
little lips to my great rough fou’ face, a-seeking a smooth place to
kiss,—an’ he lies clemming.” Here the deep sobs choked the poor man and
Nicholas looked up, with eyes brimful of tears, to Margaret, before he
could gain courage to speak.
“Hou’d up, man. Thy lile Jack shall na’ clem. I ha’ gotten brass, and
we’ll go buy the chap a sup o’ milk an’ a good four-pounder this very
minute. What’s mine’s thine, sure enough, i’ thou’st i’ want. Only,
dunnot lose heart, man!” continued he, as he fumbled in a tea-pot for
what money he had. “I lay yo my heart and soul we’ll win for a’ this:
it’s but bearing on one more week, and yo’ just see th’ way th’ masters
’ll come round, praying on us to come back to our mills. An’ the
Union—that’s to say, I—will take care yo’ve enough for th’ childer and
th’ missus. So dunnot turn faint-heart, and go to th’ tyrants a-seeking
work.”
The man turned round at these words,—turned round a face so white, and
gaunt, and tear-furrowed, and hopeless, that its very calm forced
Margaret to weep.
“Yo’ know well, that a worser tyrant than e’er th’ masters were says,
‘Clem to death, and see ’em a’ clem to death, ere yo’ dare go again th’
Union.’ Yo’ know it well, Nicholas, for a’ yo’re one on e’m. Yo’ may be
kind hearts, each separate; but once banded together, yo’ve no more pity
for a man than a wild hunger-maddened wolf.”
Nicholas had his hand on the lock of the door—he stopped and turned
round on Boucher, close following:
“So help me God! man alive—if I think not I’m doing best for thee, and
for all on us. If I’m going wrong when I think I’m going right, it’s
their sin, who ha’ left me where I am, in my ignorance. I ha’ thought
till my brains ached,—Beli’ me, John, I have. An’ I say again, there’s
no help for us but having faith i’ th’ Union. They’ll win the day, see
if they dunnot!”
Not one word had Margaret or Bessy spoken. They had hardly uttered the
sighing, that the eyes of each called to the other to bring up from the
depths of her heart. At last Bessy said,
“I never thought to hear father call on God again. But yo’ heard him
say, ‘So help me God!’”
“Yes!” said Margaret. “Let me bring you what money I can spare,—let me
bring you a little food for that poor man’s children. Don’t let them
know it comes from any one but your father. It will be but little.”
Bessy lay back without taking any notice of what Margaret said. She did
not cry—she only quivered up her breath.
“My heart’s drained dry o’ tears,” she said. “Boucher’s been in these
days past, a telling me of his fears and his troubles. He’s but a weak
kind of chap, I know, but he’s a man for a’ that; and tho’ I’ve been
angry, many a time afore now, wi’ him an’ his wife, as knew no more nor
him how to manage, yet yo’ see, all folks isn’t wise, yet God lets ’em
live—ay, an’ gives ’em some one to love, and be loved by, just as good
as Solomon. An’ if sorrow comes to them they love, it hurts ’em as sore
as e’er it did Solomon. I can’t make it out. Perhaps it’s as well such a
one as Boucher has th’ Union to see after him. But I’d just like for to
see th’ men as make th’ Union, and put ’em one by one face to face wi’
Boucher. I reckon, if they heard him, the’d tell him (if I cotched ’em
one by one), he might go back and get what he could for his work, even
if it weren’t so much as they ordered.”
Margaret sat utterly silent. How was she ever to go away into comfort
and forget that man’s voice, with the tone of unutterable agony, telling
more by far than his words of what he had to suffer? She took out her
purse; she had not much in it of what she could call her own, but what
she had she put into Bessy’s hands without speaking.
“Thank yo’. There’s many on ’em gets no more, and is not so bad
off,—leastways does not show it as he does. But father won’t let ’em
want, now he knows. Yo’ see, Boucher’s been pulled down wi’ his
childer,—and her being so cranky, and a’ they could pawn has gone this
last twelvemonth. Yo’re not to think we’d ha’ letten ’em clem, for all
we’re a bit pressed oursel’; if neighbours doesn’t see after neighbours,
I dunno who will.” Bessy seemed almost afraid lest Margaret should think
they had not the will, and, to a certain degree, the power of helping
one whom she evidently regarded as having a claim upon them. “Besides,”
she went on, “father is sure and positive the masters must give in
within these next few days,—that they canna hould on much longer. But I
thank yo’ all the same,—I thank yo’ for mysel’, as much as for Boucher,
for it jus makes my heart warm to yo’ more and more.”