North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell (popular books to read .TXT) 📗

she was rather confirmed in this idea by the evident anxiety Bessy showed to hasten her departure. Bessy said to her,—

‘The twenty-first—that’s Thursday week. I may come and see yo’ dressed for Thornton’s, I reckon. What time is yo’r dinner?’

Before Margaret could answer, Higgins broke out,

‘Thornton’s! Ar’ t’ going to dine at Thornton’s? Ask him to give yo’ a bumper to the success of his orders. By th’ twenty-first, I reckon, he’ll be pottered in his brains how to get ‘em done in time. Tell him, there’s seven hundred’ll come marching into Marlborough Mills, the morning after he gives the five per cent, and will help him through his contract in no time. You’ll have ‘em all there. My master, Hamper. He’s one o’ th’ oud-fashioned sort. Ne’er meets a man bout an oath or a curse; I should think he were going to die if he spoke me civil; but arter all, his bark’s waur than his bite, and yo’ may tell him one o’ his turnouts said so, if yo’ like. Eh! but yo’ll have a lot of prize mill-owners at Thornton’s! I should like to get speech o’ them, when they’re a bit inclined to sit still after dinner, and could na run for the life on ‘em. I’d tell ‘em my mind. I’d speak up again th’ hard way they’re driving on us!’

‘Goodbye!’ said Margaret, hastily. ‘Goodbye, Bessy! I shall look to see you on the twenty-first, if you’re well enough.’

The medicines and treatment which Dr. Donaldson had ordered for Mrs. Hale, did her so much good at first that not only she herself, but 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 the 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 once was 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 if 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 mantel-piece, 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 welly 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 th’ 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’ getten 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’ th’ Union,—that’s to say, I—will take care yo’ve enough for th’ childer and th’ missus. So dunnot turn faintheart, 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 ‘em. 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