North and South
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.
CHAPTER XXII.
A BLOW AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
“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