第78章 A BLOW AND ITS CONSEQUENCES (2)

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 work-people? In the factory there?' 'Yes! I left them cowered 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 measured 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 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 hack 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 let the soldiers come in and cut down poor-creatures who are driven mad. I see one there who is. If you have any courage or noble quality in you, go out and speak to them, man to man.' He turned and looked at her while she spoke. A dark cloud came over his face while he listened. He set his teeth as he heard her words. 'I will go. Perhaps I may ask you to accompany me downstairs, and bar the door behind me; my mother and sister will need that protection.' 'Oh! Mr. Thornton! I do not know--I may be wrong--only--' But he was gone; he was downstairs in the hall; he had unbarred the front door; all she could do, was to follow him quickly, and fasten it behind him, and clamber up the stairs again with a sick heart and a dizzy head.

Again she took her place by the farthest window. He was on the steps below;she saw that by the direction of a thousand angry eyes; but she could neither see nor hear any-thing save the savage satisfaction of the rolling angry murmur. She threw the window wide open. Many in the crowd were mere boys;cruel and thoughtless,--cruel because they were thoughtless; some were men, gaunt as wolves, and mad for prey. She knew how it was; they were like Boucher, with starving children at home--relying on ultimate success in their efforts to get higher wages, and enraged beyond measure at discovering that Irishmen were to be brought in to rob their little ones of bread.