第80章 A BLOW AND ITS CONSEQUENCES (4)

Only one voice cried out: 'Th' stone were meant for thee; but thou wert sheltered behind a woman!' Mr. Thornton quivered with rage. The blood-flowing had made Margaret conscious--dimly, vaguely conscious. He placed her gently on the door-step, her head leaning against the frame. 'Can you rest there?' he asked. But without waiting for her answer, he went slowly down the steps right into the middle of the crowd. 'Now kill me, if it is your brutal will. There is no woman to shield me here. You may beat me to death--you will never move me from what I have determined upon--not you!' He stood amongst them, with his arms folded, in precisely the same attitude as he had been in on the steps. But the retrograde movement towards the gate had begun--as unreasoningly, perhaps as blindly, as the simultaneous anger. Or, perhaps, the idea of the approach of the soldiers, and the sight of that pale, upturned face, with closed eyes, still and sad as marble, though the tears welled out of the long entanglement of eyelashes and dropped down; and, heavier, slower plash than even tears, came the drip of blood from her wound. Even the most desperate--Boucher himself--drew back, faltered away, scowled, and finally went off, muttering curses on the master, who stood in his unchanging attitude, looking after their retreat with defiant eyes. The moment that retreat had changed into a flight (as it was sure from its very character to do), he darted up the steps to Margaret. She tried to rise without his help. 'It is nothing,' she said, with a sickly smile. 'The skin is grazed, and I was stunned at the moment. Oh, I am so thankful they are gone!' And she cried without restraint. He could not sympathise with her. His anger had not abated; it was rather rising the more as his sense of immediate danger was passing away. The distant clank of the soldiers was heard just five minutes too late to make this vanished mob feel the power of authority and order. He hoped they would see the troops, and be quelled by the thought of their narrow escape.

While these thoughts crossed his mind, Margaret clung to the doorpost to steady herself:but a film came over her eyes--he was only just in time to catch her. 'Mother--mother!' cried he; 'Come down--they are gone, and Miss Hale is hurt!' He bore her into the dining-room, and laid her on the sofa there; laid her down softly, and looking on her pure white face, the sense of what she was to him came upon him so keenly that he spoke it out in his pain: 'Oh, my Margaret--my Margaret! no one can tell what you are to me! Dead--cold as you lie there, you are the only woman I ever loved! Oh, Margaret--Margaret!' Inarticulately as he spoke, kneeling by her, and rather moaning than saying the words, he started up, ashamed of himself, as his mother came in. She saw nothing, but her son a little paler, a little sterner than usual. 'Miss Hale is hurt, mother. A stone has grazed her temple. She has lost a good deal of blood, I'm afraid.' 'She looks very seriously hurt,--I could almost fancy her dead,' said Mrs.

Thornton, a good deal alarmed. 'It is only a fainting-fit. She has spoken to me since.' But all the blood in his body seemed to rush inwards to his heart as he spoke, and he absolutely trembled. 'Go and call Jane,--she can find me the things I want; and do you go to your Irish people, who are crying and shouting as if they were mad with fright.' He went. He went away as if weights were tied to every limb that bore him from her. He called Jane; he called his sister. She should have all womanly care, all gentle tendance. But every pulse beat in him as he remembered how she had come down and placed herself in foremost danger,--could it be to save him? At the time, he had pushed her aside, and spoken gruffly;he had seen nothing but the unnecessary danger she had placed herself in.

He went to his Irish people, with every nerve in his body thrilling at the thought of her, and found it difficult to understand enough of what they were saying to soothe and comfort away their fears. There, they declared, they would not stop; they claimed to be sent back. And so he had to think, and talk, and reason. Mrs. Thornton bathed Margaret's temples with eau de Cologne. As the spirit touched the wound, which till then neither Mrs. Thornton nor Jane had perceived, Margaret opened her eyes; but it was evident she did not know where she was, nor who they were. The dark circles deepened, the lips quivered and contracted, and she became insensible once more. 'She has had a terrible blow,' said Mrs. Thornton. 'Is there any one who will go for a doctor?' 'Not me, ma'am, if you please,' said Jane, shrinking back. 'Them rabble may be all about; I don't think the cut is so deep, ma'am, as it looks.' 'I will not run the chance. She was hurt in our house. If you are a coward, Jane, I am not. I will go.' 'Pray, ma'am, let me send one of the police. There's ever so many come up, and soldiers too.' 'And yet you're afraid to go! I will not have their time taken up with our errands. They'll have enough to do to catch some of the mob. You will not be afraid to stop in this house,' she asked contemptuously, 'and go on bathing Miss Hale's forehead, shall you? I shall not be ten minutes away.' 'Couldn't Hannah go, ma'am?' 'Why Hannah? Why any but you? No, Jane, if you don't go, I do.' Mrs. Thornton went first to the room in which she had left Fanny stretched on the bed. She started up as her mother entered. 'Oh, mamma, how you terrified me! I thought you were a man that had got into the house.' 'Nonsense! The men are all gone away. There are soldiers all round the place, seeking for their work now it is too late. Miss Hale is lying on the dining-room sofa badly hurt. I am going for the doctor.' 'Oh! don't, mamma! they'll murder you.' She clung to he mother's gown.