"And down the sunny beach she paces slowly, With many doubtful pauses by the way; Grief hath an influence so hushed and holy." HOOD.
"Is not Margaret the heiress?" whispered Edith to her husband, as they were in their room alone at night after the sad journey to Oxford. She had pulled his tall head down, and stood upon tiptoe, and implored him not to be shocked, before she ventured to ask this question. Captain Lennox was, however, quite in the dark; if he had ever heard, he had forgotten; it could not be much that a Fellow of a small College had to leave; but he had never wanted her to pay for her board; and two hundred and fifty pounds a year was something ridiculous, considering that she did not take wine. Edith came down upon her feet a little bit sadder; with a romance blown to pieces.
A week afterwards, she came prancing towards her husband, and made him a low curtsey:
"I am right, and you are wrong, most noble Captain. Margaret has had a lawyer's letter, and she is residuary legatee--the legacies being about two thousand pounds, and the remainder about forty thousand, at the present value of property in Milton."
"Indeed! and how does she take her good fortune?"
"Oh, it seems she knew she was to have it all along; only she had no idea it was so much. She looks very white and pale, and says she's afraid of it; but that's nonsense, you know, and will soon go off. I left mamma pouring congratulations down her throat, and stole away to tell you."
It seemed to be supposed, by general consent, that the most natural thing was to consider Mr. Lennox henceforward as Margaret's legal adviser. She was so entirely ignorant of all forms of business that in nearly everything she had to refer to him. He chose out her attorney; he came to her with papers to be signed. He was never so happy as when teaching her of what all these mysteries of the law were the signs and types.
"Henry," said Edith, one day, archly; "do you know what I hope and expect all these long conversations with Margaret will end in?"
"No, I don't," said he, reddening. "And I desire you not to tell me."
"Oh, very well; then I need not tell Sholto not to ask Mr. Montagu so often to the house."
"Just as you choose," said he with forced coolness. "What you are thinking of may or may not happen; but this time, before I commit myself, I will see my ground clear. Ask whom you choose. It may not be very civil, Edith, but if you meddle in it you will mar it. She has been very farouche with me for a long time; and is only just beginning to thaw a little from her Zenobia ways. She has the making of a Cleopatra in her, if only she were a little more pagan."
"For my part," said Edith, a little maliciously, "I am very glad she is a Christian. I know so very few!"
There was no Spain for Margaret that autumn; although to the last she hoped that some fortunate occasion would call Frederick to Paris, whither she could easily have met with a convoy. Instead of Cadiz, she had to content herself with Cromer. To that place her aunt Shaw and the Lennoxes were bound. They had all along wished her to accompany them, and, consequently, with their characters, they made but lazy efforts to forward her own separate wish. Perhaps Cromer was, in one sense of the expression, the best for her. She needed bodily strengthening and bracing as well as rest.
Among other hopes that had vanished, was the hope, the trust she had had, that Mr. Bell would have given Mr. Thornton the simple facts of the family circumstances which had preceded the unfortunate accident that led to Leonards' death. Whatever opinion--however changed it might be from what Mr. Thornton had once entertained, she had wished it to be based upon a true understanding of what she had done, and why she had done it. It would have been a pleasure to her: would have given her rest on a point on which she should now all her life be restless, unless she could resolve not to think upon it. It was now so long after the time of these occurrences, that there was no possible way of explaining them save the one which she had lost by Mr. Bell's death. She might just submit, like many another, to be misunderstood; but, though reasoning herself into the belief that in this hers was no uncommon lot, her heart did not ache the less with longing that some time--years and years hence--before he died at any rate, he might know how much she had been tempted. She thought that she did not want to hear that all was explained to him, if only she could be sure that he would know. But this wish was vain, like so many others; and when she had schooled herself into this conviction, she turned with all her heart and strength to the life that lay immediately before her, and resolved to strive and make the best of that.
She used to sit long hours upon the beach, gazing intently on the waves as they chafed with perpetual motion against the pebbly shore,--or she looked out upon the more distant heave, and sparkle against the sky, and heard, without being conscious of hearing, the eternal psalm, which went up continually. She was soothed without knowing how or why. Listlessly she sat there, on the ground, her hands clasped round her knees, while her aunt Shaw did small shoppings, and Edith and Captain Lennox rode far and wide on shore and inland. The nurses, sauntering on with their charges, would pass and repass her, and wonder in whispers what she could find to look at so long, day after day. And when the family gathered at dinner-time, Margaret was so silent and absorbed that Edith voted her moped, and hailed a proposal of her husband's with great satisfaction, that Mr. Henry Lennox should be asked to take Cromer for a week, on his return from Scotland in October.
But all this time for thought enabled Margaret to put events in their right places, as to origin and significance, both as regarded her past life and her future. Those hours by the seaside were not lost, as any one might have seen who had had the perception to read, or the care to understand, the look that Margaret's face was gradually acquiring. Mr. Henry Lennox was excessively struck by the change.
"The sea has done Miss Hale an immense deal of good, I should fancy," said he, when she first left the room after his arrival in their family circle. "She looks ten years younger than she did in Harley Street."
"That's the bonnet I got her!" said Edith, triumphantly. "I knew it would suit her the moment I saw it."
"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Lennox, in the half-contemptuous, half-indulgent tone he generally used to Edith. "But I believe I know the difference between the charms of a dress and the charms of a woman. No mere bonnet would have made Miss Hale's eyes so lustrous and yet so soft, or her lips so ripe and red--and her face altogether so full of peace and light.--She is like, and yet more,"--he dropped his voice,--"like the Margaret Hale of Helstone."
From this time the clever and ambitious man bent all his powers to gaining Margaret. He loved her sweet beauty. He saw the latent sweep of her mind, which could easily (he thought) be led to embrace all the objects on which he had set his heart. He looked upon her fortune only as a part of the complete and superb character of herself and her position; yet he was fully aware of the rise which it would immediately enable him, the poor barrister, to take. Eventually he would earn such success, and such honours, as would enable him to pay her back, with interest, that first advance in wealth which he should owe to her. He had been to Milton on business connected with her property, on his return from Scotland; and with the quick eye of a skilled lawyer, ready ever to take in and weigh contingencies, he had seen that much additional value was yearly accruing to the lands and tenements which she owned in that prosperous and increasing town. He was glad to find that the present relationship between Margaret and himself, of client and legal adviser, was gradually superseding the recollection of that unlucky, mismanaged day at Helstone. He had thus unusual opportunities of intimate intercourse with her, besides those that arose from the connection between the families.
Margaret was only too willing to listen as long as he talked of Milton, though he had seen none of the people whom she more especially knew. It had been the tone with her aunt and cousin to speak of Milton with dislike and contempt; just such feelings as Margaret was ashamed to remember she had expressed and felt on first going to live there. But Mr. Lennox almost exceeded Margaret in his appreciation of the character of Milton and its inhabitants. Their energy, their power, their indomitable courage in struggling and fighting; their lurid vividness of existence, captivated and arrested his attention. He was never tired of talking about them; and had never perceived how selfish and material were too many of the ends they proposed to themselves as the result of all their mighty, untiring endeavour, till Margaret, even in the midst of her gratification, had the candour to point this out, as the tainting sin in so much that was noble and to be admired. Still, when other subjects palled upon her, and she gave but short answers to many questions, Henry Lennox found out that an enquiry as to some Darkshire peculiarity of character called back the light into her eye, the glow into her cheek.
When they returned to town, Margaret fulfilled one of her sea-side resolves, and took her life into her own hands. Before they went to Cromer, she had been as docile to her aunt's laws as if she were still the scared little stranger who cried herself to sleep that first night in the Harley Street nursery. But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem for woman, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working. Mrs. Shaw was as good-tempered as could be; and Edith had inherited this charming domestic quality; Margaret herself had probably the worst temper of the three, for her quick perceptions and over-lively imagination made her hasty, and her early isolation from sympathy had made her proud: but she had an indescribable childlike sweetness of heart, which made her manners, even in her rarely wilful moods, irresistible of old; and now, chastened even by what the world called her good fortune, she charmed her reluctant aunt into acquiescence with her will. So Margaret gained the acknowledgment of her right to follow her own ideas of duty.
"Only don't be strong-minded," pleaded Edith. "Mamma wants you to have a footman of your own; and I'm sure you're very welcome, for they're great plagues. Only to please me, darling, don't go and have a strong mind; it's the only thing I ask. Footman or no footman, don't be strong-minded."
"Don't be afraid, Edith. I'll faint on your hands at the servants' dinner-time, the very first opportunity; and then, what with Sholto playing with the fire, and the baby crying, you'll begin to wish for a strong-minded woman, equal to any emergency."
"And you'll not grow too good to joke and be merry?"
"Not I. I shall be merrier than I have ever been, now I have got my own way."
"And you'll not go a figure, but let me buy your dresses for you?"
"Indeed I mean to buy them for myself. You shall come with me if you like; but no one can please me but myself."
"Oh! I was afraid you'd dress in brown and dust-colour, not to show the dirt you'll pick up in all those places. I'm glad you're going to keep one or two vanities, just by way of specimens of the old Adam."
"I am going to be just the same, Edith, if you and my aunt could but fancy so. Only as I have neither husband nor child to give me natural duties, I must make myself some, in addition to ordering my gowns."
In the family conclave, which was made up of Edith, her mother, and her husband, it was decided that perhaps all these plans of hers would only secure her the more for Henry Lennox. They kept her out of the way of other friends who might have been eligible sons or brothers; and it was also agreed that she never seemed to take much pleasure in the society of any one but Henry, out of their own family. The other admirers, attracted by her appearance or the reputation of her fortune, were swept away, by her unconscious smiling disdain, into the paths frequented by other beauties less fastidious, or other heiresses with a larger amount of gold. Henry and she grew slowly into closer intimacy; but neither he nor she were people to brook the slightest notice of their proceedings.

'Is not Margaret the heiress?' whispered Edith to her husband, as they were in their room that night. Captain Lennox was, however, quite in the dark; if he had ever heard, he had forgotten; and the Fellow of a small college could not have much to leave. Edith was a little sadder, with her romance blown to pieces.
A week afterwards, she came prancing towards her husband, and made him a low curtsey:
'I am right, and you are wrong, most noble Captain. Margaret has had a lawyer's letter, and she is legatee - the legacies being about two thousand pounds, and the remainder property in Milton worth about forty thousand.'
'Indeed! and how does she take her good fortune?'
'Oh, it seems she knew all along; only she had no idea it was so much. She looks very white and pale, and says she's afraid of it; but that's nonsense, you know. I left mamma pouring congratulations down her throat.'
It seemed to be supposed, by general consent, that Mr. Lennox would naturally be Margaret's legal adviser. She was so ignorant of all forms of business that in nearly everything she had to refer to him. He chose her attorney, and brought her papers to be signed. He was never so happy as when teaching her of these mysteries of the law.
'Henry,' said Edith one day, archly; 'do you know what I hope and expect all these long conversations with Margaret will end in?'
'No, I don't,' said he, reddening, but speaking coolly. 'What you are thinking of, may or may not happen; but this time, before I commit myself, I will see my ground clear. It may not be very civil, Edith, but if you meddle in it you will mar it. She is only just beginning to thaw a little towards me. She has the making of a Cleopatra in her, if only she were more pagan.'
There was no Spain for Margaret that autumn. Instead of Cadiz, she had to content herself with Cromer, where her aunt Shaw and the Lennoxes were bound. They wished her to accompany them, and made only lazy efforts to consider her own separate wish. Perhaps Cromer would be best: she needed bodily strengthening.
Among other hopes that had vanished, was the hope that Mr. Bell would have given Mr. Thornton the facts of the family circumstances which had preceded Leonards' unfortunate accident and death. Whatever opinion Mr. Thornton held of her, she had wished it to be based upon a true understanding of what she had done, and why she had done it. It would have given her rest on a point on which she should now all her life be restless.
It was now so long since these occurrences, that there was no way of explaining them save the one which she had lost by Mr. Bell's death. She must just submit, like many another, to be misunderstood; but her heart did not ache the less with longing that some time, he might know the truth. But this wish was vain; and when she had schooled herself into this conviction, she turned with all her heart and strength to the life that lay immediately before her, and resolved to strive and make the best of that.
She used to sit long hours upon the beach at Cromer, gazing intently on the waves as they chafed against the pebbly shore - or she looked out upon the more distant heave, and sparkle against the sky, and was soothed without knowing how. She sat there, on the ground, her hands clasped round her knees, while her aunt Shaw went shopping, and Edith and Captain Lennox rode far and wide. When the family gathered at dinner-time, Margaret was so silent and absorbed that Edith agreed with her husband that Mr. Henry Lennox should be asked to visit Cromer for a week in October.
But all this time for thought enabled Margaret to put events in their right places. Those hours by the seaside were not lost, as anyone might have seen who could read the look that her face was gradually acquiring. Mr. Henry Lennox was excessively struck by the change.
'The sea has done Miss Hale an immense deal of good,' said he, on his arrival in their family circle, after Margaret had left the room. 'She looks ten years younger than she did in Harley Street.'
'That's the bonnet I got her!' said Edith triumphantly.
'I beg your pardon,' said Mr. Lennox, in the half-contemptuous, half-indulgent tone he generally used to Edith. 'No mere bonnet would have made Miss Hale's eyes so lustrous and yet so soft, or her face so full of peace and light. She is like the Margaret Hale of Helstone, and yet more.'
From this time the clever and ambitious man bent all his powers to gaining Margaret. He loved her sweet beauty. He saw the latent sweep of her mind, which could easily (he thought) be led to embrace all the objects on which he had set his heart. He looked upon her fortune only as a part of her superb self: yet he was fully aware of the rise which it would enable him, the poor barrister, to take. Eventually he would earn such success as would let him pay her back with interest.
He had been to Milton on business connected with her property, and had seen that much additional value was yearly accruing to the land and houses which she owned in that prosperous and growing town. He was glad to find that the present relationship between them, of client and legal adviser, was gradually superseding the recollection of that unlucky day at Helstone. It gave him many private opportunites to talk to her.
Margaret was only too willing to listen as long as he talked of Milton, though he had seen none of the people whom she knew. Her aunt and cousin would speak of Milton with dislike and contempt; just such feelings as Margaret was ashamed to remember she had expressed on first going to live there. But Mr. Lennox almost exceeded Margaret in his appreciation of Milton and its inhabitants. Their energy, their power, their courage in struggling; their lurid vividness of existence, captivated him. He never perceived how selfish and material were too many of the purposes of their mighty endeavour, till Margaret had the candour to point this out, as the tainting sin in so much that was admirable. Still, when she gave short answers on other subjects, Henry Lennox found that some enquiry about Darkshire called back the light into her eye.
When they returned to London Margaret fulfilled one of her sea-side resolves. Before they went to Cromer, she had been as docile to her aunt's laws as if she were still the scared little stranger who cried herself to sleep that first night in the Harley Street nursery. But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem for women, how much to be obedient to authority, and how much to assert one's freedom.
Mrs. Shaw and Edith were both good-tempered; Margaret herself had probably the worst temper of the three. Her quick perceptions and over-lively imagination made her hasty, and her early isolation from sympathy had made her proud. But she had a sweetness of heart which made her manner irresistible; and now, chastened by what the world called her good fortune, she charmed her reluctant aunt into allowing her the right to follow her own ideas of duty.
'Only don't be strong-minded,' pleaded Edith. 'Mamma wants you to have a footman of your own; and I'm sure you're very welcome, for they're great plagues. Only darling, don't have a strong mind; it's the only thing I ask. Footman or no footman, don't be strong-minded.'
'Don't be afraid, Edith. I'll faint on your hands at the first opportunity; and then, what with Sholto playing with the fire, and the baby crying, you'll begin to wish for a strong-minded woman, equal to any emergency.'
'And you'll not grow too good to joke and be merry?'
'Not I. I shall be merrier than I have ever been, now I have got my own way.'
'And you'll let me buy your dresses for you?'
'I mean to buy them for myself, though you shall come with me if you like.'
'Oh! I was afraid you'd dress in brown and dust-colour, so as not to show the dirt you'll pick up in all those places. I'm glad you're going to keep one or two vanities.'
'I'm going to be just the same, Edith. Only as I have neither husband nor child to give me natural duties, I must make myself some, in addition to ordering my gowns.'
In the family conclave, which was made up of Edith, her mother, and her husband, it was decided that perhaps all these plans of hers would only secure her the more for Henry Lennox. They kept her out of the way of other eligible men; and she never seemed to take much pleasure in the society of anyone but Henry, outside their own family. Admirers attracted by the reputation of her fortune were swept away, by her unconscious smiling disdain, into the paths of other beauties less fastidious. Henry and she grew slowly into closer intimacy; but neither he nor she would tolerate the slightest notice of their friendship.


"There are briars besetting every path, Which call for patient care; There is a cross in every lot, And an earnest need for prayer." ANON.
Margaret went out heavily and unwillingly enough. But the length of a street--yes, the air of a Milton Street--cheered her young blood before she reached her first turning. Her step grew lighter, her lip redder. She began to take notice, instead of having her thoughts turned so exclusively inward. She saw unusual loiterers in the streets: men with their hands in their pockets sauntering along; loud-laughing and loud-spoken girls clustered together, apparently excited to high spirits, and a boisterous independence of temper and behaviour. The more ill-looking of the men--the discreditable minority--hung about on the steps of the beer-houses and gin-shops, smoking, and commenting pretty freely on every passer-by. Margaret disliked the prospect of the long walk through these streets, before she came to the fields which she had planned to reach. Instead, she would go and see Bessy Higgins. It would not be so refreshing as a quiet country walk, but still it would perhaps be doing the kinder thing.
Nicholas Higgins was sitting by the fire smoking, as she went in. Bessy was rocking herself on the other side.
Nicholas took the pipe out of his mouth, and standing up, pushed his chair towards Margaret; he leant against the chimney-piece in a lounging attitude, while she asked Bessy how she was.
"Hoo's rather down i' th' mouth in regard to spirits, but hoo's better in health. Hoo doesn't like this strike. Hoo's a deal too much set on piece and quietness at any price."
"This is th' third strike I've seen," said she, sighing, as if that was answer and explanation enough.
"Well, third time pays for all. See if we don't dang th' masters this time. See if they don't come and beg us to come back at our own price. That's all. We've missed it afore time, I grant yo'; but this time we'n laid our plans desperate deep."
"Why do you strike?" asked Margaret. "Striking is leaving off work till you get your own rate of wages, is it not? You must not wonder at my ignorance; where I come from I never heard of a strike."
"I wish I were there," said Bessie, wearily. "But it's not for me to get sick and tired o' strikes. This is the last I'll see. Before it's ended I shall be in the Great City--the Holy Jerusalem."
"Hoo's so full of th' life to come, hoo cannot think of th' present. Now I, yo see, am bound to do the best I can here. I think a bird i' th' hand is worth two i' th' bush. So them's the different views we take on th' strike question."
"But," said Margaret, "if the people struck, as you call it, where I come from, as they are mostly all field labourers, the seed would not be sown, the hay got in, the corn reaped."
"Well?" said he. He had resumed his pipe, and put his "well" in the form of an interrogation.
"Why," she went on, "what would become of the farmers?"
He puffed away. "I reckon, they'd have either to give up their farms, or to give fair rate of wage."
"Suppose they could not, or would not do the last; they could not give up their farms all in a minute, however much they might wish to do so; but they would have no hay, nor corn to sell that year; and where would the money come from to pay the labourers' wages the next?"
Still puffing away. At last he said:
"I know nought of your ways down South. I have heerd they're a pack of spiritless, down-trodden men; welly clemmed to death; too dazed wi' clemming to know when they're put upon. Now, it's not so here. We known when we're put upon; and we'en too much blood in us to stand it. We just take our hands fro' our looms, and say, 'Yo' may clem us, but yo'll not put upon us, my masters!' And be danged to 'em, they shan't this time!"
"I wished I lived down South," said Bessy.
"There's a deal to bear there," said Margaret. "There are sorrows to bear everywhere. There is very hard bodily labour to be gone through, with very little food to give strength."
"But it's out of doors," said Bessy. "And away from the endless, endless noise, and sickening heat."
"It's sometimes in heavy rain, and sometimes in bitter cold. A young person can stand it; but an old man gets racked with rheumatism, and bent and withered before his time; yet he must just work on the same, or else go to the workhouse."
"I thought yo were so taken wi' the ways of the South country."
"So I am," said Margaret, smiling a little, as she found herself thus caught. "I only mean, Bessy, there's good and bad in everything in this world; and as you felt the bad up here, I thought it was but fair you should know the bad down there."
"And yo say they never strike down there?" asked Nicholas abruptly.
"No!" said Margaret; "I think they have too much sense."
"An' I think," replied he, dashing the ashes out of his pipe with so much vehemence that it broke, "it's not that they've too much sense, but that they've too little spirit."
"Oh, father!" said Bessy, "what have ye gained by striking? Just think of that first strike when mother died--how we all had to clem--you the worst of all; and yet many a one went in every week at the same wage, till all were gone in that there was work for; and some went beggars all their lives at after."
"Ay," said he. "That there strike was badly managed. Folk got into th' management of it, as were either fools or not true men. Yo'll see, it'll be different this time."
"But all this time you've not told me what you're striking for," said Margaret, again.
"Why, yo see, there's five or six masters who have set themselves again paying the wages they've been paying these two years past, and flourishing upon, and getting richer upon. And now they come to us, and say we're to take less. And we won't. We'll just clem them to death first; and see who'll work for 'em then. They'll have killed the goose that laid 'em the golden eggs, I reckon."
"And so you plan dying, in order to be revenged upon them!"
"No," said he, "I dunnot. I just look forward to the chance of dying at my post sooner than yield. That's what folk call fine and honourable in a soldier, and why not in a poor weaver-chap?"
"But," said Margaret, "a soldier dies in the cause of the Nation--in the cause of others."
He laughed grimly. "My lass," said he, "yo're but a young wench, but don't yo think I can keep three people--that's Bessy, and Mary, and me--on sixteen shillings a week? Dun yo think it's for mysel' I'm striking work at this time? It is just as much in the cause of others as yon soldier--only m'appen, the cause he dies for is just that of somebody he never clapt eyes on, nor heerd on all his born days, while I take up John Boucher's cause, as lives next door but one, wi' a sickly wife, and eight childer, none on 'em factory age; and I don't take up his cause only, though he's a poor good-for-nought, as can only manage two looms at a time, but I take up th' cause o' justice. Why are we to have less wage now, I ask, than two year ago?"
"Don't ask me," said Margaret; "I am very ignorant. Ask some of your masters. Surely they will give you a reason for it. It is not merely an arbitrary decision of theirs, come to without reason."
"Yo're just a foreigner, and nothing more," said he, contemptuously. "Much yo know about it. Ask th' masters! They'd tell us to mind our own business, and they'd mind theirs. Our business being, yo understand, to take the bated wage, and be thankful; and their business to bate us down to clemming point, to swell their profits. That's what it is."
"But," said Margaret, determined not to give way, although she saw she was irritating him, "the state of trade may be such as not to enable them to give you the same remuneration."
"State o' trade! That's just a piece o' masters' humbug. It's rate o' wages I was talking of. Th' masters keep th' state o' trade in their own hands; and just walk it forward like a black bug-a-boo, to frighten naughty children with into being good. I'll tell you it's their part,--their cue, as some folks call it,--to beat us down, to swell their fortunes; and it's ours to stand up and fight hard,--not for ourselves alone, but for them round about us--for justice and fair play. We help to make their profits, and we ought to help spend 'em. It's not that we want their brass so much this time, as we've done many a time afore. We'n getten money laid by; and we're resolved to stand and fall together; not a man on us will go in for less wage than th' Union says is our due. So I say, 'hooray for the strike,' and let Thornton, and Slickson, and Hamper, and their set look to it!"
"Thornton!" said Margaret. "Mr. Thornton of Marlborough Street?"
"Aye! Thornton o' Marlborough Mill, as we call him."
"He is one of the masters you are striving with, is he not? What sort of a master is he?"
"Did yo' ever see a bulldog? Set a bulldog on hind legs, and dress him up in coat and breeches, and yo'n just getten John Thornton."
"Nay," said Margaret, laughing, "I deny that. Mr. Thornton is plain enough, but he's not like a bulldog, with its short broad nose, and snarling upper lip."
"No! not in look, I grant yo. But let John Thornton get hold on a notion, and he'll stick to it like a bulldog; yo might pull him away wi' a pitchfork ere he'd leave go. He's worth fighting wi', is John Thornton. As for Slickson, I take it, some o' these days he'll wheedle his men back wi' fair promises; that they'll just get cheated out of as soon as they're in his power again. He'll work his fines well out on 'em, I'll warrant. He's as slippery as an eel, he is. He's like a cat,--as sleek, and cunning, and fierce. It'll never be an honest up and down fight wi' him, as it will be wi' Thornton. Thornton's as dour as a door-nail; an obstinate chap, every inch on him,--th' oud bulldog!"
"Poor Bessy!" said Margaret, turning round to her. "You sigh over it all. You don't like struggling and fighting as your father does, do you?"
"No!" said she, heavily. "I'm sick on it. I could have wished to have had other talk about me in my latter days, than just the clashing and clanging and clattering that has ever wearied a' my life long, about work and wages, and masters, and hands, and knobsticks.
"Poor wench! latter days be farred! Thou'rt looking a sight better already for a little stir and change. Beside, I shall be a deal here to make it more lively for thee."
"Tobacco-smoke chokes me!" said she, querulously.
"Then I'll never smoke no more i' the house!" he replied, tenderly. "But why didst thou not tell me afore, thou foolish wench?"
She did not speak for a while, and then so low that only Margaret heard her:
"I reckon, he'll want a' the comfort he can get out o' either pipe or drink afore he's done."
Her father went out of doors, evidently to finish his pipe.
Bessy said passionately,
"Now am not I a fool,--am I not, Miss?--there, I knew I ought for to keep father at home, and away fro' the folk that are always ready for to tempt a man, in time o' strike, to go drink,--and there my tongue must needs quarrel with this pipe o' his'n--and he'll go off, I know he will,--as often as he wants to smoke--and nobody knows where it'll end. I wish I'd letten myself be choked first."
"But does your father drink?" said Margaret.
"No--not to say drink," replied she, still in the same wild excited tone. "But what win ye have? There are days wi' you as wi' other folk, I suppose, when yo' get up and go through th' hours, just longing for a bit of a change--a bit of a fillip, as it were. I know I ha' gone and bought a four-pounder out o' another baker's shop to common on such days, just because I sickened at the thought of going on for ever wi' the same sight in my eyes, and the same sound in my ears, and the same taste i' my mouth, and the same thought (or no thought, for that matter) in my head, day after day, for ever. I've longed for to be a man to go spreeing, even if it were only a tramp to some new place in search o' work. And father--all men--have it stronger in 'em than me to get tired o' sameness and work for ever. And what is 'em to do? It's little blame to them if they do go into th' gin-shop for to make their blood flow quicker, and more lively, and see things they never see at no other time--pictures, and looking-glass, and such like. But father never was a drunkard, though maybe, he's got worse for drink, now and then. Only yo' see," and now her voice took a mournful, pleading tone, "at times o' strike there's much to knock a man down, for all they start so hopefully; and where's the comfort to come fro'? He'll get angry and mad--they all do--and then they get tired out wi' being angry and mad, and maybe ha' done things in their passion they'd be glad to forget. Bless yo'r sweet pitiful face! but yo' dunnot know what a strike is yet."
"Come, Bessy," said Margaret, "I won't say you're exaggerating, because I don't know enough about it: but, perhaps, as you're not well, you're only looking on one side, and there is another and a brighter to be looked to."
"It's all well enough for yo' to say so, who have lived in pleasant green places all your life long, and never known want or care, or wickedness either, for that matter."
"Take care," said Margaret, her cheek flushing, and her eye lightening, "how you judge, Bessy. I shall go home to my mother, who is so ill--so ill, Bessy, that there's no outlet but death for her out of prison of her great suffering; and yet I must speak cheerfully to my father, who has no notion of her real state, and to whom the knowledge must come gradually. The only person--the only one who could sympathise with me and help me--whose presence could comfort my mother more than any other earthly thing--is falsely accused--would run the risk of death if he came to see his dying mother. This I tell you--only you, Bessy. You must not mention it. No other person in Milton--hardly any other person in England knows. Have I not care? Do I not know anxiety, though I go about well-dressed, and have food enough? Oh, Bessy, God is just, and our lots are well portioned out by Him, although none but He knows the bitterness of our souls."
"I ask your pardon," replied Bessy, humbly. "Sometimes, when I've thought o' my life, and the little pleasure I've had in it, I've believed that, maybe, I was one of those doomed to die by the falling of a star from heaven; 'And the name of the star is called Wormwood; and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.' One can bear pain and sorrow better if one thinks it has been prophesied long before for one: somehow, then it seems as if my pain was needed for the fulfilment; otherways it seems all sent for nothing."
"Nay, Bessy--think!" said Margaret. "God does not willingly inflict. Don't dwell so much on the prophecies, but read the clearer parts of the Bible."
"I dare say it would be wiser; but where would I hear such grand words of promise--hear tell o' anything so far different fro' this dreary world, and this town above a' as in Revelations? Many's the time I've repeated the verses in the seventh chapter to myself, just for the sound. It's as good as an organ, and as different from every day, too. No, I cannot give up Revelations. It gives me more comfort than any other book i' the Bible."
"Let me come and read you some of my favourite chapters."
"Ay," said she greedily, "come. Father will maybe hear yo.' He's deaved wi' my talking; he says it's all nought to do with the things o' to-day, and that's his business."
"Where is your sister?"
"Gone fustian cutting. I were loth to let her go; but somehow we must live; and th' Union can't afford us much."
"Now I must go. You have done me good, Bessy."
"I done you good!"
"Yes, I came here very sad, and rather too apt to think my own cause for grief was the only one in the world. And now I hear how you have had to bear for years, and that makes me stronger."
"Bless yo'! I thought a' the good-doing was on the side of gentlefolk. I shall get proud if I think I can do good to yo'."
"You won't do it if you think about it. But you'll only puzzle yourself if you do, that's one comfort."
"You're not like no one I ever seed. I dunno what to make of yo'."
"Nor I of myself. Good-bye!"
Bessy stilled her rocking to gaze after her.
"I wonder if there are many folk like her down South. She's like a breath of country air, somehow. She freshens me up above a bit. Who'd a thought that face--as bright and as strong as the angel I dream of--could have known the sorrow she speaks on? I wonder how she'll sin. All on us must sin. I think a deal on her, for sure. But father does the like, I see. And Mary even. It's not often hoo's stirred up to notice much."

Margaret went out heavily and unwillingly. But the length of a street cheered her young blood. Her step grew lighter; she began to take notice, instead of having her thoughts turned inward.
She saw unusual loiterers in the streets: men with their hands in their pockets sauntering along; loud-laughing girls clustered together, in high spirits, with a boisterous independence. Discreditable-looking men hung about on the steps of the beer-houses and gin-shops, smoking, and commenting pretty freely on every passer-by. Margaret disliked the prospect of the long walk through these streets, before she came to the fields which she had planned to reach. Instead, she would go and see Bessy Higgins.
Nicholas Higgins was sitting at one side of the fire smoking, as she went in. Bessy was rocking herself on the other side.
Nicholas took the pipe out of his mouth, and standing up, pushed his chair towards Margaret. He leant against the chimney piece, while she asked how Bessy was.
'Hoo's rather down i' th' mouth, but hoo's better in health. Hoo doesn't like this strike. Hoo's a deal too much set on peace and quietness at any price.'
'This is th' third strike I've seen,' said Bessy, sighing, as if that was explanation enough.
'Well, third time pays for all. See if we don't dang th' masters this time. See if they don't beg us to come back at our own price, that's all. This time we'n laid our plans desperate deep.'
'Why do you strike?' asked Margaret. 'Excuse my ignorance; where I come from I never heard of a strike.'
'I wish I were there,' said Bessy, wearily. 'But this is the last strike I'll see. Before it's ended I shall be in the Great City - the Holy Jerusalem.'
'Hoo's so full of th' life to come, hoo cannot think of th' present. Now I am bound to do the best I can here. So them's the different views we take on th' strike question.'
'But,' said Margaret, 'if the people struck, where I come from, as they are mostly field labourers, the seed would not be sown, or the corn reaped. So what would become of the farmers?'
He puffed at his pipe. 'They'd have either to give up their farms, or to give fair rate of wage.'
'Suppose they could not do the latter; they could not give up their farms all in a minute, but they would have no corn to sell that year; and where would the money come from to pay the labourers' wages the next?'
Still puffing away, he said:
'I know nought of your ways down South. I have heerd they're a pack of spiritless, down-trodden men; too much dazed wi' hunger to know when they're put upon. It's not so here. We know when we're put upon; and we won't stand it. Be danged to 'em, they shan't put upon us this time!'
'I wish I lived down South,' said Bessy.
'There are sorrows to bear everywhere,' said Margaret. 'There is very hard labour to be gone through there, with very little food to give strength.'
'But it's out of doors,' said Bessy. 'And away from the endless, endless noise, and heat.'
'It's sometimes in heavy rain, and sometimes in bitter cold. A young person can stand it; but an old man gets bent and withered before his time; yet he must just work on, or go to the workhouse.'
'I thought yo' were so taken wi' the ways of the South country.'
'So I am,' said Margaret, smiling. 'I only mean, Bessy, there's good and bad in everything in this world; and I thought it was only fair you should know the bad down there.'
'And yo' say they never strike down there?' asked Nicholas, abruptly.
'No!' said Margaret; 'I think they have too much sense.'
'An' I think,' replied he, dashing the ashes out of his pipe vehemently, 'that they've too little spirit.'
'O, father!' said Bessy, 'what have ye gained by striking? Think of that first strike when mother died - how we all had to clem and go hungry - you the worst of all; and yet many men went in every week at the same wage, and took all the jobs; and some went beggars after.'
'Ay,' said he. 'That there strike was badly managed. It'll be different this time.'
'But you've not told me what you're striking for,' said Margaret.
'Why, yo' see, there's five or six masters who have set themselves against paying the wages they've been paying these two years past. Now they say we're to take less. And we won't. We'll just clem them to death first; and see who'll work for 'em then. They'll have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, I reckon.'
'And so you plan dying, in order to be revenged upon them!'
'No,' said he, 'I dunnot. But I'd die at my post sooner than yield. That's what folk call fine and honourable in a soldier, and why not in a poor weaver?'
'But,' said Margaret, 'a soldier dies for his country - for others.'
He laughed grimly. 'My lass,' said he, 'do yo' think I can keep three people - Bessy, and Mary, and me - on sixteen shilling a week? It's not for mysel' I'm striking. Yon soldier might die for somebody he never clapt eyes on, while I take up John Boucher's cause, as lives next door but one, wi' a sickly wife, and eight childer, even though he's a poor good-for-nought, as can only manage two looms at a time - but I take up th' cause o' justice. Why are we to have less wage now, I ask, than two year ago?'
'Don't ask me,' said Margaret. 'Ask some of your masters. Surely they will give you a reason.'
'Much yo' know about it,' said he, contemptuously. 'Ask th' masters! They'd tell us to mind our own business. Our business being, yo' understand, to take the smaller wage, and be thankful, and their business to starve us, and swell their profits. That's what it is.'
'But,' said Margaret, determined not to give way, although she saw she was irritating him, 'the state of trade may be such that they cannot pay you the same wage.'
'State o' trade! That's just a piece o' masters' humbug. Th' masters keep th' state o' trade in their own hands; and use it like a bug-a-boo, to frighten naughty children into being good. I tell yo' they want to beat us down; and we have to stand up and fight hard for justice - not for ourselves alone, but for them round about us. We've getten money laid by; and we're resolved to stand and fall together; not a man on us will go in for less wage than th' Union says is our due. So I say, "hooray for the strike," and let Thornton, Slickson, and Hamper, and the rest look to it!'
'Thornton!' said Margaret. 'Mr. Thornton of Marlborough Street?'
'Aye! Thornton o' Marlborough Mill.'
'What sort of a master is he?'
'Did yo' ever see a bulldog? Set a bulldog on hind legs, and dress him up in coat and breeches, and yo'n just getten John Thornton.'
'Nay,' said Margaret, laughing, 'I deny that. Mr. Thornton is plain enough, but he's not like a bulldog.'
'No! not in looks, I grant yo'. But let John Thornton get hold on a notion, and he'll stick to it like a bulldog. He's worth fighting wi', is John Thornton. As for Slickson, he'll wheedle his men back wi' fair promises, and cheat them as soon as they're in his power again. He's as slippery as an eel, he is. It'll never be an honest up and down fight wi' him, as it will be wi' Thornton. Thornton's as dour as a door-nail.'
'Poor Bessy!' said Margaret, turning to her. 'You sigh over it all. You don't like fighting, do you?'
'No!' said she, heavily. 'I'm sick on it. I've been wearied all my life wi' the clashing and clattering about work and wages.'
'Poor wench! Thou'rt looking a sight better already for a little stir and change. Besides, I shall be home to make it more lively for thee.'
'Tobacco-smoke chokes me!' said she, querulously.
'Then I'll never smoke i' th' house!' he replied tenderly. 'But why didst thou not tell me afore, thou foolish wench?'
She answered so low that only Margaret heard her: 'He'll want a' the comfort he can get out o' either pipe or drink afore he's done.'
Her father went outside to finish his pipe, and Bessy said passionately,
'Now am not I a fool? I knew I ought to keep father at home, and away fro' the folk that are always ready for to tempt a man, in time o' strike, to go drink - and now he'll go off, I know he will, whenever he wants to smoke - and nobody knows where it'll end.'
'But does your father drink?' asked Margaret.
'No - not to say drink,' replied she, still in the same wild tone. 'But there are days when yo're just longing for a bit of a change - a bit of a fillip, as it were. I've longed for to be a man, and to go spreeing. And men have the feeling stronger than me. And what is 'em to do? It's little blame if they do go into th' gin-shop to make their blood flow more lively. But father never was a drunkard, though maybe he's got worse for drink now and then. Only yo' see,' and now her voice took a mournful, pleading tone, 'at times o' strike there's much to knock a man down, for all they start so hopefully; and where's the comfort to come fro'? He'll get angry and mad - they all do - and maybe do things in their passion they'd be glad to forget. Bless your sweet pitiful face! but yo' dunnot know what a strike is yet.'
'Come, Bessy,' said Margaret, 'I won't say you're exaggerating, because I don't know enough about it: but, perhaps, as you're not well, you're only looking on the dark side.'
'It's well enough for yo' to say, who have lived in pleasant green places all your life, and never known want or wickedness.'
'Take care how you judge,' said Margaret, flushing. 'I shall go home to my mother, who is so ill that only death will free her from her great suffering; and yet I must speak cheerfully to my father, who has no notion of her real state. The only person who could help me - who could comfort my mother more than any other - is falsely accused, and would risk death if he came to see her. You must not mention this, Bessy. No other person in Milton knows it. I know anxiety, though I go about well-dressed, and have food enough. Oh, Bessy, God is just, and our lots are well portioned out by Him, although none but He knows the bitterness of our souls.'
'I ask your pardon,' replied Bessy humbly. 'Sometimes, when I've thought o' my life, and the little pleasure I've had in it, I think I'm one of them as is prophesied to die in Revelations. Otherwise it seems all for nothing.'
'Nay, Bessy!' said Margaret. 'God does not willingly afflict. Don't dwell so much on the prophecies, but read the clearer parts of the Bible.'
'I dare say it would be wiser; but where would I hear such grand words of promise as in Revelations? Many's the time I've repeated the seventh chapter to myself, just for the sound. It's as good as an organ. It gives me more comfort than any other book i' the Bible.'
'Let me come and read you some of my favourite chapters.'
'Ay,' said she, greedily, 'come. Father will maybe hear yo'.'
'Now I must go. You have done me good, Bessy.'
'I done you good!'
'Yes. I came here very sad, and thinking my own cause for grief was the only one in the world. And now I hear what you have had to bear for years, and that makes me stronger.'
'Bless yo'! I shall get proud if I think I can do yo' good. Yo're not like no one I ever seed. I dunno what to make of yo'.'
'Nor I of myself. Good-bye!'
Bessy gazed after her.
'I wonder if there are many folk like her down South. She's like a breath of country air, somehow. Who'd ha' thought that bright face could have known the sorrow she speaks on? I wonder how she'll sin. All on us must sin. I think of her a lot, for sure. But father does the same. And Mary even. It's not often hoo's stirred up to notice much.'
.