North and South
wet with tears. Mrs. Thornton was a little mollified.
“Come, Miss Hale. There may be circumstances, I’ll allow, that, if
explained, may take off from the seeming impropriety.”
Still no answer. Margaret was considering what to say; she wished to
stand well with Mrs. Thornton; and yet she could not, might not, give
any explanation. Mrs. Thornton grew impatient.
“I shall be sorry to break off an acquaintance; but for Fanny’s sake—as
I told my son, if Fanny had done so we should consider it a great
disgrace—and Fanny might be led away——”
“I can give you no explanation,” said Margaret, in a low voice. “I have
done wrong, but not in the way you think or know about. I think Mr.
Thornton judges me more mercifully than you;”—she had hard work to keep
herself from choking with her tears—“but, I believe, madam, you mean to
do rightly.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Thornton, drawing herself up; “I was not aware
that my meaning was doubted. It is the last time I shall interfere. I
was unwilling to consent to do it, when your mother asked me. I had not
approved of my son’s attachment to you, while I only suspected it. You
did not appear to me worthy of him. But when you compromised yourself as
you did at the time of the riot, and exposed yourself to the comments of
servants and workpeople, I felt it was no longer right to set myself
against my son’s wish of proposing to you—a wish, by the way, which he
had always denied entertaining until the day of the riot.” Margaret
winced, and drew in her breath with a long, hissing sound; of which,
however, Mrs. Thornton took no notice. “He came; you had apparently
changed your mind. I told my son yesterday, that I thought it possible,
short as was the interval, you might have heard or learnt something of
this other lover——”
“What must you think of me, madam?” asked Margaret, throwing her head
back with proud disdain, till her throat curved outwards like a swan’s.
“You can say nothing more, Mrs. Thornton. I decline every attempt to
justify myself for anything. You must allow me to leave the room.”
And she swept out of it with the noiseless grace of an offended
princess. Mrs. Thornton had quite enough of natural humour to make her
feel the ludricrousness of the position in which she was left. There was
nothing for it but to show herself out. She was not particularly annoyed
at Margaret’s way of behaving. She did not care enough for her for that.
She had taken Mrs. Thornton’s remonstrance to the full as keenly to
heart as that lady expected; and Margaret’s passion at once mollified
her visitor, far more than any silence or reserve could have done. It
showed the effect of her words. “My young lady,” thought Mrs. Thornton
to herself; “you’ve a pretty good temper of your own. If John and you
had come together, he would have had to keep a tight hand over you, to
make you know your place. But I don’t think you will go a-walking again
with your beau, at such an hour of the day, in a hurry. You’ve too much
pride and spirit in you for that. I like to see a girl fly out at the
notion of being talked about. It shows they’re neither giddy, nor bold
by nature. As for that girl, she might be bold, but she’d never be
giddy. I’ll do her that justice. Now as to Fanny, she’d be giddy, and
not bold. She’s no courage in her, poor thing!”
Mr. Thornton was not spending the morning so satisfactorily as his
mother. She, at any rate, was fulfilling her determined purpose. He was
trying to understand where he stood; what damage the strike had done
him. A good deal of his capital was locked up in new and expensive
machinery; and he had also bought cotton largely, with a view to some
great orders which he had in hand. The strike had thrown him terribly
behindhand, as to the completion of these orders. Even with his own
accustomed and skilled workpeople, he would have had some difficulty in
fulfilling his engagements; as it was, the incompetence of the Irish
hands, who had to be trained to their work, at a time requiring unusual
activity, was a daily annoyance.
It was not a favourable hour for Higgins to make his request. But he had
promised Margaret to do it at any cost. So, though every moment added to
his repugnance, his pride, and his sullenness of temper, he stood
leaning against the dead wall, hour after hour, first on one leg, then
on the other. At last the latch was sharply lifted, and out came Mr.
Thornton.
“I want for to speak to yo’, sir.”
“Can’t stay now, my man. I’m too late as it is.”
“Well, sir, I reckon I can wait till yo’ come back.”
Mr. Thornton was half way down the street. Higgins sighed. But it was no
use. To catch him in the street, was his only chance of seeing “the
measter!” if he had rung the lodge bell or even gone up to the house to
ask for him, he would have been referred to the overlooker. So he stood
still again, vouchsafing no answer, but a short nod of recognition to
the few men who knew and spoke to him, as the crowd drove out the
millyard at dinner-time, and scowling with all his might at the Irish
“knobsticks” who had just been imported. At last Mr. Thornton returned.
“What! you there still!”
“Ay, sir, I mun speak to yo’.”
“Come in here, then. Stay, we’ll go across the yard; the men are not
come back, and we shall have it to ourselves. These good people, I see,
are at dinner,” said he, closing the door of the porter’s lodge.
He stopped to speak to the overlooker. The latter said in a low tone:
“I suppose you know, sir, that that man is Higgins, one of the leaders
of the Union; he that made that speech in Hurstfield.”
“No, I didn’t,” said Mr. Thornton, looking round sharply at his
follower. Higgins was known to him by name as a turbulent spirit.
“Come along,” said he, and his tone was rougher than before. “It is men
such as this,” thought he, “who interrupt commerce and injure the very
town they live in: mere demagogues, lovers of power at whatever cost to
others.”
“Well, sir! what do you want with me?” said Mr. Thornton, facing round
at him, as soon as they were in the counting-house of the mill.
“My name is Higgins”——
“I know that,” broke in Mr. Thornton. “What do you want, Mr. Higgins?
That’s the question.”
“I want work.”
“Work! You’re a pretty chap to come asking me for work. You don’t want
impudence, that’s very clear.”
“I’ve getten enemies and backbiters, like my betters; but I ne’er heerd
o’ ony of them calling me o’er-modest,” said Higgins. His blood was a
little roused by Mr. Thornton’s manner, more than by his words.
Mr. Thornton saw a letter addressed to himself on the table. He took it
up and read it through. At the end, he looked up and said, “What are you
waiting for?”
“An answer to th’ question I axed.”
“I gave it you before. Don’t waste any more of your time.”
“Yo’ made a remark, sir, on my impudence: but I were taught that it was
manners to say either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ when I were axed a civil question.
I should be thankfu’ to yo’ if yo’d give me work. Hamper will speak to
my being a good hand.”
“I’ve a notion you’d better not send me to Hamper to ask for a
character, my man. I might hear more than you’d like.”
“I’d take th’ risk. Worst they could say of me is, that I did what I
thought best, even to my own wrong.”
“You’d better go and try them, then, and see whether they’ll give you
work. I’ve turned off upwards of a hundred of my best hands, for no
other fault than following you and such as you; and d’ye think I’ll take
you on? I might as well put a fire-brand into the midst of the
cotton-waste.”
Higgins turned away: then the recollection of Boucher came over him, and
he faced round with the greatest concession he could persuade himself to
make.
“I’d promise yo’, measter, I’d not speak a word as could do harm, if so
be yo’ did right by us; and I’d promise more: I’d promise that when I
seed yo’ going wrong, and acting unfair, I’d speak to yo’ in private
first; and that would be a fair warning. If yo’ and I did na agree in
our opinion o’ your conduct, yo’ might turn me off at an hour’s notice.”
“Upon my word, you don’t think small beer of yourself! Hamper has had a
loss of you. How came he to let you and your wisdom go?”
“Well, we parted wi’ mutual dissatisfaction. I wouldn’t gi’e the pledge
they were asking; and they wouldn’t have me at no rate. So I’m free to
make another engagement; and as I said before, though I should na’ say
it, I’m a good hand, measter, and a steady man—specially when I can
keep fro’ drink; and that I shall do now, if I ne’er did afore.”
“That you may have more money laid up for another strike, I suppose?”
“No! I’d be thankful if I was free to do that; it’s for to keep th’
widow and childer of a man who was drove mad by them knobsticks o’
yourn; put out of his place by a Paddy that did na know weft fro’ warp.”
“Well! you’d better turn to something else, if you’ve any such good
intention in your head. I shouldn’t advise you to stay in Milton: you’re
too well known here.”
“If it were summer,” said Higgins, “I’d take to Paddy’s work, and go as
a navvy, or haymaking, or summat, and ne’er see Milton again. But it’s
winter, and th’ childer will clem.”
“A pretty navvy you’d make! why you couldn’t do half a day’s work at
digging against an Irishman.”
“I’d only charge half-a-day for th’ twelve hours, if I could only do
half-a-day’s work in th’ time. Yo’re not knowing of any place, where
they could gi’ me a trial, away fro’ the mills, if I’m such a firebrand?
I’d take any wage they thought I was worth, for the sake of those
childer.”
“Don’t you see what you would be? You’d be a knobstick. You’d be taking
less wages than the other labourers—all for the sake of another man’s
children. Think how you’d abuse any poor fellow who was willing to take
what he could get to keep his own children. You and your Union would
soon be down upon him. No! no! if it’s only for the recollection of the
way in which you’ve used the poor knobsticks before now, I say No! to
your question. I’ll not give you work. I won’t say, I don’t believe your
pretext for coming and asking for work; I know nothing about it. It may
be true, or it may not. It’s a very unlikely story, at any rate. Let me
pass. I’ll not give you work. There’s your answer.”
“I hear, sir. I would na ha’ troubled you’, but that I were bid to come,
by one as seemed to think yo’d getten some place in your heart. Hoo were
mistook, and I were misled. But I’m not the first man as is misled by a
woman.”
“Tell her to mind her own business the next time, instead of taking up
your time and mine too. I believe women are at the bottom of every
plague in this world. Be off with you.”
“I’m obleeged to you for a’ yo’r kindness, measter, and most of a’ for
yo’r civil way o’ saying good-bye.”
Mr. Thornton did not deign a reply. But, looking out of the window a
minute later, he was struck with the lean, bent figure going out of the
yard; the heavy walk was in strange contrast with the resolute, clear
determination of the man to speak to him. He crossed to the porter’s
lodge:
“How long has that man Higgins been waiting to speak to me?”
“He was outside the gate before eight o’clock, sir. I think he’s been
there ever since.”
“And it is now—?”
“Just one, sir.”
“Five hours,” thought Mr. Thornton; “it’s a long time for a man to wait,
doing nothing but first hoping and then fearing.”
CHAPTER XXXIX.
MAKING FRIENDS.
“Nay, I have done; you get no more of me;
And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,
That thus so clearly I myself am free.”
DRAYTON.
Margaret shut herself up in her own room, after she had quitted Mrs.
Thornton. She began to walk backwards and forwards, in her old habitual
way of showing agitation; but, then, remembering that in that