The false Thomas Leicester let them run on, in dogged silence; but every word was a stab.
And, one day, when he had been baited sore with hints, he turned round on them fiercely, and said, "Did I get you into this mess? It's all your own doing. Learn to see your own faults, and not be so hard on one that has been the best servant you ever had, gentleman or not."
Men can resist the remonstrances that wound them, and so irritate them, better than they can those gentle appeals that rouse no anger, but soften the whole heart. The old people stung him; but Mercy, without design, took a surer way. She never said a word; but sometimes, when the discussions were at their height, she turned her dove-like eyes on him, with a look so loving, so humbly inquiring, so timidly imploring, that his heart melted within him.
Ah, that is a true touch of nature, and genuine observation of the sexes, in the old song—
My feyther urged me sair;
My mither didna speak;
But she looked me in the face,
Till my hairt was like to break.
These silent, womanly, imploring looks of patient Mercy, were mightier than argument, or invective.
The man knew all along where to get money, and how to get it. He had only to go to Hernshaw Castle. But his very soul shuddered at the idea. However, for Mercy's sake, he took the first step: he compelled himself to look the thing in the face, and discuss it with himself. A few months ago he could not have done this, he loved his lawful wife too much; hated her too much. But now, Mercy, and Time, had blunted both those passions; and he could ask himself whether he could not encounter Kate and her priest without any very violent emotion.
When they first set up house together, he had spent his whole fortune, a sum of two thousand pounds, on repairing and embellishing Hernshaw Castle and grounds. Since she had driven him out of the house, he had a clear right to have back the money; and now he resolved he would have it; only what he wanted was to get it without going to the place in person.
And now Mercy's figure, as well as her imploring looks, moved him greatly. She was in that condition which appeals to a man's humanity, and masculine pity, as well as to his affection. To use the homely words of Scripture, she was great with child: and, in that condition, moved slowly about him, filling his pipe, and laying his slippers, and ministering to all his little comforts; she would make no difference: and when he saw the poor dove move about him so heavily, and rather languidly, yet so zealously and tenderly, the man's very bowels yearned over her, and he felt as if he could die to do her a service.
So, one day, when she was standing by him, bending over his little round table, and filling his pipe with her neat hand, he took her by the other hand and drew her gently on his knee, her burden and all.