However, though Mr. Sk—n—st—n has his little peculiarities, still I must say he is not so very bad a man at heart, after all, for he looked at Norah’s shameful goings on towards me in a very proper light, observing, that after what I had said to a woman of her passionate disposition, it was a mercy that she hadn’t killed me on the spot. Though, of course, he couldn’t let well alone, but must go and side with Miss Norah in the end; for he told me that I ought not to have insulted the girl in the way I had, and that if, in her anger, she had put an end to my life—though the woman would have suffered for it—still I should have been nearly as much to blame as she was; adding, that it really struck him, that if I happened to get hold of a good, honest, industrious servant, who merely wanted to be humoured a little, that I must needs go driving continually at her weak point, until I forced her out of the house; for I seemed to think that the wages were all that was due from the mistress to her servants, forgetting that I had undertaken to make my house their home, and that if I stripped it of all the attributes of one, and converted it into a prison instead, where they were to see no friends, and be kept to so many months’ hard labour, why, it was only natural that they, poor things, finding I had forgotten my duty to them, should, in their turn, forget their duty to me. Besides, he added, I should remember that though there was little or no excuse for the mistress’s non-performance of her part of the contract, still some allowance should be made for the poor creatures, whose very deficiencies of education made them often do wrong merely because they had never been lucky enough to have learnt better. And then he had the impudence to ask me what I should say if, when I asked my next servant what kind of a character she could have from her last mistress, the girl in return were to ask me what kind of a character I could have from my last servant? I told him that I should say that it was very like her impudence, indeed, and tell her to get out of the house directly—adding, that I never heard of such an absurd idea in all my life before.
“Of course,” Edward replied, smiling at what I had said, (though I’m sure I could see nothing to laugh at;) “and yet, perhaps, it is not quite so absurd a notion as you seem to fancy. You forget that the girl comes into your house to be subject to your every little whim and caprice, and that not only her bread, but also her comfort and happiness are dependent upon your character; and it stands to reason, from the very nature of things, that the slave must suffer more from the tyrant, than the tyrant can possibly suffer from the slave.”
I told him very plainly that I had no patience with him, talking in such a way about tyrants and slaves, indeed, and that they were sentiments only worthy of a low radical meeting. I was quite pleased, however, when I dumbfounded him, by asking him how he ever thought society would get on upon such dreadful principles?—adding, that for my own part, I would have everybody who went putting such horrid ideas into the poor ignorant things’ heads drawn and quartered as they used to be in the good old times. And I told him, too, that as he seemed to know so much about the management of servants, I should just like to hear how he would behave to Miss Norah after chasing me round the table with a knife in her hand, as she had; and that of course I supposed he would carry out his fine principles with her, and go making the toad a present for it—just as an encouragement for the future. But he merely replied, that he should do no such thing; adding, that I should see how he would act, for he would have her up then and there, and talk to her. Accordingly, he rang the bell, and in my lady came.
“Shut the door, Norah; I want to speak to you,” he began; and when she had done so, he continued—“Your mistress has been telling me about this sad affair with the knife, Norah.”
“Yes, masther,” she replied, with her usual impudence; “but sure an’ I’ve forgotten it all long ago—so I have. Wasn’t it myself that tould her I’d think no more about it.”
“Yes; but, Norah,” he continued, “don’t you think that it’s you who require your mistress’s forgiveness, after attempting her life, as you did yesterday.”
“Thrue, masther,” answered Norah; “but, faith, an’ didn’t she say that ould Ireland, the first jim of the sa, was a pigsty, and I thought of nothing else at all at all.”
“Well, now, listen to me, Norah,” he said. “Perhaps I should astonish you if I were to tell you that you could be transported for what you did to your mistress yesterday.”
“Thransported, did ye say,” she replied. “An’ sure an’ the misthress had no rights to be afther blaggearding my counthry as she did.”
“No, Norah,” he replied; “that was very inconsiderate of her; but it was both wicked and mad of you to think that you could add to your country’s honour by shedding the blood of one whom you were bound to respect.”