Deerbrook

by Harriet Martineau

Chapter Thirty Nine.

The Long Nights.

Almost as soon as Hope had left the house, Sydney Grey arrived, looking full of importance. He took care to shut the door before he would tell his errand. His mother had been obliged to trust him for want of another messenger; and he delivered his message with a little of the parade of mystery he had derived from her. Mr Grey’s family had become uneasy about his returning from the markets in the evening, since robberies had become so frequent as they now were, and the days so short; and had at length persuaded him to sleep at the more distant market-towns he had to visit, and return the next morning. From Blickley he could get home before the evening closed in; but on two days in the week he was to remain out all night. When he had agreed to this, his family had applauded him and felt satisfied: but as the evening drew on, on occasion of this his first absence, Mrs Grey and Sophia had grown nervous on their own account. They recalled story after story, which they had lately heard, of robberies at several solitary houses in the country round; and, though their house was not solitary, they could not reconcile themselves to going to rest without the comfort of knowing that there was, as usual, a strong man on their premises. If they had been aware how many strong men there were sometimes on their premises at night, they would not have been satisfied with having one within their walls. Not having been informed, however, how cleverly their dogs were silenced, how much poached game was divided under the shelter of their stacks of deals, and what dextrous abstractions were at such times made from the store of corn in their granaries, and coal in their lighters, they proposed nothing further than to beg the favour of Mr Hope that he would take a bed in their house for this one night. They dared not engage any of the men from the yards to defend them; they had not Mr Grey’s leave, and he might not be pleased if they showed any fear to their own servants: but it would be the greatest comfort if Mr Hope would come, as if to supper, and stay the night. The spare room was ready; and Mrs Grey hoped he would not object to leaving his family just for once. Mr Grey intended to do the same thing twice a week, till the days should lengthen, and the roads become safer.

Though Sydney made the most of his message, he declared himself not thoroughly pleased with it.

“They might have trusted me to take care of them,” said he. “If they had just let me have my father’s pistols—.”

“Come, come, Sydney, do not talk of pistols,” said Hester, who did not relish any part of the affair.

“He would not talk of them if he thought they were likely to be wanted,” observed Margaret.

“Likely! when were they ever more likely to be wanted, I should like to know! Did you hear what happened at the Russell Taylors’ last night?”

“No; and we do not wish to hear. Do not tell us any horrible stories, unless you mean my husband to stay at home to-night.”

“Oh, you must just hear this, because it ended well; that is, nobody was killed. Mr Walcot told Sophia all about it this morning; and it was partly that which made her so anxious to have some one sleep in the house to-night.”

“Well, then, do not tell us, or you will make us anxious for the same thing.”

“What would your mother say if you were to carry home word that Mr Hope could not come—that his family dare not part with him?”

“Oh, then she must let me have my father’s pistols, and watch for the fellows. If they came about our windows as they did about the Russell Taylors’, how I would let fly among them! They came rapping at the shutters, at two this morning; and when Mr Taylor looked out from his bedroom above, they said they would not trouble themselves to get in, if he would throw out his money!”

“And did he?”

“Yes. They raised a hat upon a pole, and he put in four or five pounds—all he had in the house, he told them. So they went away; but none of the family thought of going to bed again.”

“I dare say not. And what sort of thieves are these supposed to be? They set about their business very oddly.”

“Not like London thieves,” said Sydney, consequentially, as if he knew all about London thieves. “They are the distressed country people, no doubt—such as would no more think of standing a second shot from my pistol, than of keeping the straits of Thermopylae. Look here,” he continued, showing the end of a pistol, which peeped from a pocket inside his coat; “here’s a thing that will put such gentry into a fine taking.”

“Pray, is that pistol loaded?” inquired Hester, pressing her infant to her.

“To be sure. What is the use of a pistol if it is not loaded? It might as well be in the shop as in my pocket, then. Look at her, cousin Margaret! If she is not in as great a fright as the cowardly thieves! Why, cousin Hester, don’t you see, if this pistol went off, it would not shoot you or the baby. It would go straight through me.”

“That is a great comfort. But I had rather you would go away, you and your pistol. Pray, does your mother know that you carry one?”

“No. Mind you don’t tell her. I trust you not to tell her. Remember, I would not have told you if I had not felt sure of you.”

“You had better not have felt sure of us. However, we will not tell your mother; but my husband will tell Mr Grey to-morrow, when he comes home. If he chooses that you should carry loaded pistols about, there will be no harm done.”

“I have a great mind to say I will shoot you if you tell,” cried Sydney, presenting the pistol with a grand air. But he saw that he made his cousins really uneasy, and he laid it down on the table, offering to leave it with them for the night, if they thought it would make them feel any safer. There were plenty more at home.

“Thank you,” said Margaret, “but I believe we are more afraid of loaded pistols than of thieves. The sooner you take it away the better. You can go now, presently, for here comes my brother.”

Sydney quickly pocketed his pistol. Hope agreed to go, and promised to be at Mr Grey’s to supper by nine o’clock.

Margaret was incessantly thinking of Maria in these long evenings, when alarms of one kind or another were all abroad. She now thought she would go with Sydney, and spend an hour or two with Maria, returning by the time her brother would be going to the Greys’. Maria’s landlord would see her home, no doubt.

She found her friend busy with book and needle, and as well in health as usual, but obviously somewhat moved by the dismal stories which had travelled from mouth to mouth through Deerbrook during the day. It seemed hardly right that any person in delicate health should be lonely at such a time; and it occurred to Margaret that her friend might like to go home with her, and occupy the bed which was this night to spare. Maria thankfully accepted the offer, and let Margaret put up her little bundle for her. The farrier escorted them to the steps of the corner-house, and then left them.

The door was half-open, as Morris was talking with some one on the mat in the hall. An extremely tall woman, with a crying baby in her arms, made way for the ladies, not by going out of the house, but by stepping further into the hall.

“Morris, had you not better shut the door?” said Margaret; “the wind blows in so, it is enough to chill the whole house.”

But Morris held the door open, rather wider than before.

“So the gentleman is not at home,” said the tall woman, gruffly. “If I come again in an hour with my poor baby, will he be at home then?”

“Is my brother gone, Morris?”

“Yes, Miss, three minutes ago.”

“Then he will not be back in an hour. We do not expect him—.”

“This good woman had better go to Mr Walcot, ma’am, as I have been telling her. There’s no doubt he is at home.”

“I could wait here till the gentleman comes home,” said the tall woman; “and so get the first advice for my poor baby. ’Tis very ill, ma’am.”

“Better go to Mr Walcot,” persisted Morris.

“Or to my brother at Mr Grey’s,” said Margaret, unwilling to lose the chance of a new patient for Edward, and thinking his advice better, for the child’s sake, than Mr Walcot’s.

“It is far the readiest way to go to Mr Walcot’s,” declared Maria, whose arm Margaret felt to tremble within her own.

“I believe you are right,” said Margaret. “You had better not waste any more time here, good woman. It may make all the difference to your child.”

“If you would let me wait till the gentleman comes home,” said the tall woman.

“Impossible. It is too late to-night for patients to wait. This lady’s landlord, without there, will show you the way to Mr Walcot’s. Call him, Morris.”

Morris went out upon the steps, but the tall woman passed her, and was gone. Morris stepped in briskly, and put up the chain.

“You were very ready to send a new patient to Mr Walcot, Morris,” said Margaret, smiling.

“I had a fancy that it was a sort of patient that my master would not be the better for,” replied Morris. “I did not like the looks of the person.”

“Nor I,” said Maria.

The drawing-room door was heard to open, and Morris put her finger on her lips. Hester had been alone nearly ten minutes; she was growing nervous, and wanted to know what all this talking in the hall was about. She was told that Mr Hope had been inquired for, about a sick baby; and the rest of the discourse went to the account of Maria’s unexpected arrival. Hester welcomed Maria kindly, ordered up the cold pheasant and the wine, and then, leaving the friends to enjoy themselves over the fire, retired to rest. Morris was desired to go too, as she still slept in her mistress’s room, and ought to keep early hours, since, in addition to her labours of the day, she was at the baby’s call in the night. Margaret would see her friend to her room. Morris must not remain up on their account.

“How comfortable this is!” cried Maria, in a gleeful tone, as she looked round upon the crackling fire, the tray, the wine, and her companion. “How unlooked for, to pass a whole evening and night without being afraid of anything!”

“What an admission from you!—that you are afraid of something every night.”

“That is just the plain truth. When I used to read about the horrors of living in a solitary house in the country, I little thought how much of the same terror I should feel from living solitary in a house in a village. You wonder what could happen to me, I dare say; and perhaps it would not be very easy to suppose any peril which would stand examination.”

“I was going to say that you and we are particularly safe, from being so poor that there is no inducement to rob us. We and you have neither money nor jewels, nor plate, that can tempt thieves!—for our few forks and spoons are hardly worth breaking into a house for.”

“People who want bread, however, may think it worth while to break in for that: and while our thieves are this sort of people, and not the London gentry whom Sydney is so fond of talking of, it may be enough that gentlemen and ladies live in houses to make the starving suppose that they shall find something valuable there.”

“They would soon learn better if they came here. I doubt whether, when you and I have done our supper, they would find anything to eat. But how do you show your terrors, I should like to know? Do you scream?”

“I never screamed in my life, as far as I remember. Screaming appears to me the most unnatural of human sounds. I never felt the slightest inclination to express myself in that manner.”

“Nor I: but I never said so, because I thought no one would believe me.”

“No: the true mood for these doleful winter nights is, to sit trying to read, but never able to fix your attention for five minutes, for some odd noise or another. And yet it is almost worse to hear nothing but a cinder falling on the hearth now and then, startling you like a pistol-shot. Then it seems as if somebody was opening the shutter outside, and then tapping at the window. I have got so into the habit of looking at the window at night, expecting to see a face squeezed flat against the pane, that I have yielded up my credit to myself, and actually have the blinds drawn down when the outside shutters are closed.”

“How glad I am to find you are no braver than the rest of us!”

“No; do not be glad. It is very painful, night after night. Every step clinks or craunches in the farrier’s yard, you know. This ought to be a comfort: but sometimes I cannot clearly tell where the sound comes from. More than once lately I have fancied it was behind me, and have turned round in a greater hurry than you would think I could use. My rooms are a good way from the rest of the house; you remember the length of the passage between. I do not like disturbing the family in the evenings; but I have been selfish enough to ring, once or twice this week, without any sufficient reason, just for the sake of a sight of my landlady.”

“A very sufficient reason. But I had no idea of all this from you.”

“You have heard me say some fine things about the value of time to me—about the blessings of my long evenings. For all that (true as it is), I have got into the way of going to bed soon after ten, just because I know every one else in the house is in bed, and I do not like to be the only person up.”

“That is the reason why you are looking so well, notwithstanding all these terrors. But, Maria, what has become of your bravery?”

“It is just where it was. I am no more afraid than I used to be of evils which may be met with a mature mind: and just as much afraid as ever of those which terrified my childhood.”

“Our baby shall never be afraid of anything,” asserted Margaret. “But Maria, something must be done for your relief.”

“That is just what I hoped and expected you would say, and the reason why I exposed myself to you.”

“Why do not the Greys offer you a room there for the winter? That seems the simplest and most obvious plan.”

“It is not convenient.”

“How should that be?”

“The bed would have to be uncovered, you know; and the mahogany wash-stand might be splashed.”

“They can get a room ready for a guest, to relieve their own fears, but not yours. Can nothing be done about it?”

“Not unless the Rowlands should take in Mr Walcot, because he is afraid to live alone: in such case, the Greys would take me in for the same reason. But that will not be so, Margaret, I will ask you plainly, and you will answer as plainly—could you, without too much pain, trouble, and inconvenience, spend an evening or two a week with me, just till this panic is passed? If you could put it in my power to be always looking forward to an evening of relief, it would break the sense of solitude, and make all the difference to me. I see the selfishness of this; but I really think it is better to own my weakness than to struggle uselessly against it any longer.”

“I could do that—should like of all things to do it till Morris goes: but that will be so soon—.”

“Morris! where is she going?”

Margaret related this piece of domestic news, too private to be told to any one else till the last moment. Maria forgot her own troubles, or despised them as she listened, so grieved was she for her friends, including Morris. Margaret was not very sorry on Morris’s own account. Morris wanted rest—an easier place. She had had too much upon her for some time past.

“What then will you have, when she is gone?”

“If I have work enough to drive all thought out of my head, I shall be thankful. Meantime, I will bestow my best wit upon your case.”

“I am ashamed of my case already. While sitting in all this comfort here, I can hardly believe in my own tremors, of no earlier date than last night. Come, let us draw to the fire. I hope we shall not end with sitting up all night; but I feel as if I should like it very much.”

Margaret stirred up a blaze, and put out the candles. No economy was now beneath her care. As she took her seat beside her friend, she said:

“Maria, did you ever know any place so dull and dismal as Deerbrook is now? Is it not enough to make any heart as heavy as the fortunes of the place?”

“Even the little that I see of it, in going to and from the Greys, looks sad enough. You see the outskirts, which I suppose are worse still.”

“The very air feels too heavy to breathe. The cottages, and even the better houses, appear to my eyes damp and weather-stained on the outside, and silent within. The children sit shivering on the thresholds—do not they?—instead of shouting at their play as they did. Every one looks discontented, and complains—the poor of want of bread, and every one else of hard times, and all manner of woes, that one never hears of in prosperous seasons. Mr James says the actions for trespass are beyond all example; Mr Tucker declares his dog, that died the other day, was poisoned; and I never pass the Green but the women are even quarrelling for precedence at the pump.”

“I have witnessed some of this, but not all: and neither, I suspect, have you, Margaret, though you think you have. We see the affairs of the world in shadow, you know, when our own hearts are sad.”

“My heart is not so sad as you think. You do not believe me: but that is because you do not believe what I am sure of—that he is not to blame for anything that has happened—that, at least, he has only been mistaken,—that there his been no fickleness, no selfishness, in him. I could not speak of this, even to you, Maria, if it were not a duty to him. You must not be left to suppose from my silence that he is to blame, as you think he is. I suffer from no sense of injury from him. I got over that, long ago.”

Maria would not say, as she thought, “You had to get over it, then?”

“It makes me very unhappy to think how he is suffering,—how much more he has to bear than I; so much more than the separation and the blank. He cannot trust me as I trusted him; and that is, indeed, to be without consolation.”

“Do men ever trust as women do?”

“Yes, Edward does. If he were to go to India for twenty years, he would know, as certainly as I should, that Hester would be widowed in every thought till his return. And the time will come when Philip will know this as certainly of me. It is but a little while yet that I have waited, Maria; but it does sometimes seem a weary waiting.”

Maria took her friend’s hand, in token of the sympathy she could not speak,—so much of hopelessness was there mingled with it.

“I know you and others think that this waiting is to go on for ever.”

“No, love; not so.”

“Or that a certainty which is even worse will come some day. But it will be otherwise. His love can no more be quenched or alienated by the slanders of a wicked woman, than the sun can be put out by an eclipse, or sent to enlighten another world, leaving us mourning.”

“You judge by your own soul, Margaret; and that should be a faithful guide. You judge him by your own soul,—and how much by this?” she added, with a smile, fixing her eyes on the turquoise ring, which was Philip’s gift, and which, safely guarded, was on a finger of the hand she held.

Margaret blushed. She could not have denied, if closely pressed, that some little tinge of the Eastern superstition had entered into this sacred ring, and lay there, like the fire in the opal. She could not have denied, that, when she drew it on every morning, she noted with satisfaction that its blue was as clear and bright as ever.

“How is it that this ring is still here?” asked Maria. “Is it possible that he retains gifts of yours? Yet, I think, if he did not, this ring would not be on your finger.”

“He does keep whatever I gave him. Thank God! he keeps them. This is one of my greatest comforts: it is the only way I have left of speaking to him. But if it were not so, this ring would still be where it is. I would not give it up. I am not altered. I am not angry with him. His love is as precious to me as it ever was, and I will not give up the tokens of it. Why, Maria, you surely cannot suppose that these things have any other value or use but as given by him! You cannot suppose that I dread the imputation of keeping them for their own sakes!”

“No: but—”

“But what?”

“Is any proof of his former regard of value now? That is the question. It has only very lately become a question with me. I have only lately learned to think him in fault. I excused him before... I excused him as long as I could.”

“You will unlearn your present opinion of him. Yes; everything that was ever valuable from him is more precious than ever now,—now that he is under a spell, and cannot speak his soul. If it were, as you think, if he loved me no longer, they would be still more precious, as a relic of the dead. But it is not so.”

“If faith can remove mountains, we may have to rejoice for you still, Margaret; for there can be no mass of calumnies between you and him which you have not faith enough to overthrow.”

“Thank you for that. It is the best word of comfort that has come to me from without for many a day. Now there is one thing more in which you can perhaps help me. I have heard nothing about him for so long! You see Mr Rowland sometimes (I know he feels a great friendship for you); and you meet the younger children. Do you hear nothing whatever about him?”

“Nothing: nor do they. Mr Rowland told me, a fortnight ago, that Mrs Rowland and he are seriously uneasy at obtaining no answers to their repeated letters to Mr Enderby. Mrs Rowland is more disturbed, I believe, than she chooses to show. She must feel herself responsible. She has tried various means of accounting for his silence, all the autumn. Now she gives that up, and is silent in her turn. If it were not for the impossibility of leaving home at such a time as this, Mr Rowland would go to London to satisfy himself. Margaret, I believe you are the only person who has smiled at this.”

“Perhaps I am the only one who understands him. I had rather know of this silence than of all the letters he could have written to Mrs Rowland. If he had been ill, they would certainly have heard.”

“Yes; they say so.”

“Then that is enough. Let us say no more now.”

“You have said that which has cheered me for you, Margaret, though, as we poor irreligious human beings often say to each other, ‘I wish I had your faith.’ You have given me more than I had, however. But are we to say no more about anything? Must we leave this comfortable fire, and go to sleep?”

“Not unless you wish it. I have more to ask, if you are not tired.”

“Come, ask me.”

“Cannot you tell me of some way in which a woman may earn money?”

“A woman? What rate of woman? Do you mean yourself? That question is easily answered. A woman from the uneducated classes can get a subsistence by washing and cooking, by milking cows and going to service, and, in some parts of the kingdom, by working in a cotton mill, or burnishing plate, as you have no doubt seen for yourself at Birmingham. But, for an educated woman, a woman with the powers which God gave her, religiously improved, with a reason which lays life open before her, an understanding which surveys science as its appropriate task, and a conscience which would make every species of responsibility safe,—for such a woman there is in all England no chance of subsistence but by teaching—that almost ineffectual teaching, which can never countervail the education of circumstances, and for which not one in a thousand is fit—or by being a superior Miss Nares—the feminine gender of the tailor and the hatter.”

“The tutor, the tailor, and the hatter. Is this all?”

“All; except that there are departments of art and literature from which it is impossible to shut women out. These are not, however, to be regarded as resources for bread. Besides the number who succeed in art and literature being necessarily extremely small, it seems pretty certain that no great achievements, in the domains of art and imagination, can be looked for from either men or women who labour there to supply their lower wants, or for any other reason than the pure love of their work. While they toil in any one of the arts of expression, if they are not engrossed by some loftier meaning, the highest which they will end with expressing will be, the need of bread.”

“True—quite true. I must not think of any of those higher departments of labour, because, even if I were qualified, what I want is not employment, but money. I am anxious to earn some money, Maria. We are very poor. Edward is trying, one way and another, to earn money to live upon, till his practice comes back to him, as he is for ever trusting it will. I wish to earn something too, if it be ever so little. Can you tell me of no way?”

“I believe I should not if I could. Why? Because I think you have quite enough to do already, and will soon have too much. Just consider. When Morris goes, what hour of the day will you have to spare? Let us see;—do you mean to sweep the rooms with your own hands?”

“Yes,” said Margaret, smiling.

“And to scour them too?”

“No; not quite that. We shall hire a neighbour to come two or three times a week to do the rougher parts of the work. But I mean to light the fire in the morning (and we shall have but one), and get breakfast ready; and Hester will help me to make the beds. That is nearly all I shall let her do besides the sewing; for baby will give her employment enough.”

“Indeed, I think so; and that will leave you too much. Do not think, dear, of earning money. You are doing all you ought in saving it.”

“I must think about it, because earning is so much nobler and more effectual than saving. I cannot help seeing that it would be far better to earn the amount of Morris’s maintenance, than to save it by doing her work badly myself. Not that I shrink from the labour: I am rather enjoying the prospect of it, as I told you. Hark! what footstep is that?”

“I heard it a minute or two ago,” whispered Maria, “but I did not like to mention it.”

They listened in the deepest silence for a while. At first they were not sure whether they heard anything above the beating of their own hearts; but they were soon certain that there were feet moving outside the room door.

“The church clock has but lately gone twelve,” said Maria, in the faint hope that it might be some one of the household yet stirring.

Margaret shook her head. She rose softly from her seat, and took a candle from the table to light it, saying she would go and see. Her hand trembled a little as she held the match, and the candle would not immediately light. Meantime, the door opened without noise, and some one walked in and quite up to the gazing ladies. It was the tall woman. Maria made an effort to reach the bell, but the tall woman seized her arm, and made her sit down. A capricious jet of flame from a coal in the fire at this moment lighted up the face of the stranger for a moment, and enabled Maria to “spy a creat peard under the muffler.”

“What do you want at this time?” said Margaret.

“I want money, and what else I can get,” said the intruder, in the no longer disguised voice of a man. “I have been into your larder, but you seem to have nothing there.”

“That is true,” said Margaret, firmly; “nor have we any money. We are very poor. You could not have come to a worse place, if you are in want.”

“Here is something, however,” said the man, turning to the tray. “With your leave, I’ll see what you have left us to eat.”

He thrust one of the candles between the bars of the grate to light it, telling the ladies they had better start no difficulty, lest they should have reason to repent it. There were others with him in the house, who would show themselves in an instant, if any noise were made.

“Then do you make none—I beg it as a favour,” said Margaret. “There is a lady asleep up-stairs, with a very young infant. If you respect her life you will be quiet.”

The man did not answer, but he was quiet. He cut slices from the loaf, and carried them to the door, and they were taken by somebody outside. He quickly devoured the remains of the pheasant, tearing the meat from the bones with his teeth. He drank from the decanter of wine, and then carried it where he had taken the bread. Two men put their heads in at the door, nodded to the ladies before they drank, and again withdrew. The girls cast a look at each other—a glance of agreement that resistance was not to be thought of: yet each was conscious of a feeling of rather pleasant surprise that she was not more alarmed.

“Now for it!” said the man, striding oddly about in his petticoats, and evidently out of patience with them. “Now for your money!” As he spoke, he put the spoons from the tray into the bosom of his gown, proceeding to murmur at his deficiency of pockets.

Margaret held out her purse to him. It contained one single shilling.

“You don’t mean this is all you are going to give me?”

“It is all I have: and I believe there is not another shilling in the house. I told you we have no money.”

“And you?” said he, turning to Maria.

“I have not my purse about me; and if I had there is nothing in it worth your taking. I assure you I have not got my purse. I am only a visitor here for this one night—and an odd night it is to have chosen, as it turns out.”

“Give me your watches.”

“I have no watch. I have not had a watch these five years,” said Maria.

“I have no watch,” said Margaret. “I sold mine a month ago. I told you we were very poor.”

The man muttered something about the plague of gentlefolks being so poor, and about wondering that gentlefolks were not ashamed of being so poor. “You have got something, however,” he continued, fixing his eye on the ring on Margaret’s finger. “Give me that ring. Give it me, or else I’ll take it.”

Margaret’s heart sank with a self-reproach worse than her grief, when she remembered how easily she might have saved this ring—how easily she might have thrust it under the fender, or dropped it into her shoe, into her hair, anywhere, while the intruder was gone to the room door to his companions. She felt that she could never forgive herself for this neglect of the most precious thing she had in the world—of that which most belonged to Philip.

“She cannot part with that ring,” said Maria. “Look! you may see she had rather part with any money she is ever likely to have than with that ring.”

She pointed to Margaret, who was sitting with her hands clasped as if they were never to be disjoined, and with a face of the deepest distress.

“I can’t help that,” said the man. “I must have what I can get.”

He seized her hands, and, with one gripe of his, made hers fly open. Margaret could no longer endure to expose any of her feelings to the notice of a stranger of this character. “Be patient a moment,” said she; and she drew off the ring after its guard, made of Hester’s hair, and put them into the large hand which was held out to receive them; feeling, at the moment, as if her heart was breaking. The man threw the hair ring back into her lap, and tied the turquoise in the corner of the shawl he wore.

“The lady up-stairs has got a watch, I suppose.”

“Yes, she has: let me go and fetch it. Do let me go. I am afraid of nothing so much as her being terrified. If you have any humanity, let me go. Indeed I will bring the watch.”

“Well, there is no man in the house, I know, for you to call. You may go, Miss: but I must step behind you to the room door; no further—she shan’t see me, nor know any one is there, unless you tell her. This young lady will sit as still as a mouse till we come back.”

“Never mind me,” said Maria, to her friend. While they were gone, she sat as she was desired, as still as a mouse, enforced thereto by the certainty that a man stood in the shadow by the door, with his eye upon her the whole time.

Margaret lighted a chamber candle, in order, as she said, to look as usual if her sister should see her. The robber did tread very softly on the stairs, and stop outside the chamber-door. Morris was sitting up in her truckle-bed, evidently listening, and was on the point of starting out of it on seeing that Margaret’s face was pale, when Margaret put her finger on her lips, and motioned to her to lie down. Hester was asleep, with her sleeping infant on her arm. Margaret set down the light, and leaned over her, to take the watch from its hook at the head of the bed.

“Are you still up?” said Hester, drowsily, and just opening her eyes. “What do you want? It must be very late.”

“Nearly half-past twelve, by your watch. I am sorry I disturbed you. Good-night.”

As she withdrew with the watch in her hand, she whispered to Morris:

“Lie still. Don’t be uneasy. I will come again presently.” So, in a few minutes, as seemed to intently listening ears, the house was clear of the intruders. Within a quarter of an hour Margaret had beckoned Morris out of Hester’s room, and had explained the case to her. They went round the house, and found that all the little plate they had was gone, and the cheese from the pantry. Morris’s cloth cloak was left hanging on its pin, and even Edward’s old hat. From these circumstances, and from the dialect of the only speaker, Margaret thought the thieves must be country people from the neighbourhood, who could not wear the old clothes of the gentry without danger of detection. They had come in from the surgery, whose outer door was sufficiently distant from the inhabited rooms of the house to be forced without the noise being heard. Morris and Margaret barricaded this door as well as they could, with such chests and benches as they were able to move without making themselves heard up-stairs: and then Morris, at Margaret’s earnest desire, stole back to bed. Anything rather than alarm Hester.

While they were below, Maria had put on more coals, and restored some order and comfort to the table and the fireside. She concluded that sleep was out of the question for this night. For some moments after Margaret came and sat down by her, neither of them spoke. At length Margaret said, half laughing:

“That you should have come here for rest this night, of all nights in the year!”

“I am glad it happened so. Yes; indeed, I am. I know it must have been a comfort to you to have some one with you, though only poor lame me. And I am glad on my own account too, I assure you. Such a visitation is not half so dreadful as I had fancied—not worth half the fear I have spent upon it all my life. I am sure you felt as I did while he was here; you felt quite yourself, did not you? If it had not been for the woman’s clothes, it would really have been scarcely terrifying at all. There is something much more human about a housebreaker than I had fancied. But yet it was very inhuman of him to take your ring.”

Margaret wept more bitterly than any one had seen her weep since her unhappy days began, and her friend could not comfort her. It was a case in which there was no comfort to be given, unless in the very faint and unreasonable hope that the ring might be offered for sale to some jeweller in some market town in the county; a hope sadly faint and unreasonable; since country people who would take plate and ornaments must, in all probability, be in communication with London rogues, who would turn the property into money in the great city. Still, there was a possibility of recovering the lost treasure; and on this possibility Maria dwelt perseveringly.

“But, Margaret,” she went on to ask, “what is this about your watch? Have you indeed sold it?”

“Yes. Morris managed that for me while Hester was confined. I am glad now that I parted with it as I did. It has paid some bills which I know made Edward anxious; and that is far better than its being in a housebreaker’s hands.”

“Yes, indeed: but I am sorry you all have such a struggle to live. Not a shilling in the house but the one you gave up!”

“So much for Edward’s being out. It happened very well; for he could not have helped us, if he had been here. You saw there were three of them. What I meant was, that Edward has about him the little money that is to last us till Christmas. The rent is safe enough. It is in Mr Grey’s strong box or the bank at Blickley. The rent is too important a matter to be put to any hazard, considering that Mr Rowland is our landlord. It is all ready and safe.”

“That is well. Now, Margaret, could you swear to this visitor of ours?”

“No,” said Margaret, softly, looking round, as if to convince herself that he was not there still. “No: his bonnet was so large, and he kept the shadow of it so carefully upon his face, that I should not know him again—at least, not in any other dress; and we shall never see him again in this. It is very disagreeable,” she continued, shuddering slightly, “to think that we may pass him any day or every day, and that he may say to himself as we go by, ‘There go the ladies that sat with their feet on the fender so comfortably when I went in, without leave!’”

“Poor wretch! he will rather say, ‘There goes the young lady that I made so unhappy about her ring. I wish I had choked with the wine I drank, before I took that ring!’ The first man you meet that cannot look you in the face is the thief, depend upon it, Margaret.”

“I must not depend upon that. But, Maria, could you swear to him?”

“I am not quite sure at this moment, but I believe I could. The light from the fire shone brightly upon his black chin, and a bit of lank hair that came from under his mob cap. I could swear to the shawl.”

“So could I: but that will be burned to-morrow morning. Now, Maria, do go to bed.”

“Well, if you had rather—. Cannot we be together? Must I be treated as a guest, and have a room to myself?”

“Not if you think we can make room in mine. We shall be most comfortable there, shall not we—near to Morris and Hester?”

Rather than separate, they both betook themselves to the bed in Margaret’s room. Maria lay still, as if asleep, but wide awake and listening. Margaret mourned her turquoise with silent tears all the rest of the night.

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