"What has he done, ma'am? he has disobeyed me. I'll teach you to do it again, you little villain you!"
"Phillis!"
Never before had Phillis's new mistress addressed her in that tone; it made her pause a second, and then her blows fell with redoubled strength on the shrinking shoulders, even the head, of the frantic, furious boy.
Now there was one thing which in all her life Christian never could stand, and that was, to see a child beaten, or in any way ill used. The tyranny which calls itself authority, the personal revenge which hides under the name of punishment, and both used, cowardly, by the stronger against the weaker, were, to her keen sense of justice, so obnoxious, so detestable that they always roused in her a something, which is at the root of all the righteous rebellions in the world—a something which God, who ordained righteous authority, implants in every honest human heart as a safeguard against authority unrighteous and therefore authority no longer. If Christian had been a mother, and seen the father of her own children beating one of them in the way Phillis beat Arthur, it would have made her, as she was wont to say, with a curious flash of her usually quiet eyes, "dangerous."
She wasted no words. It was not her habit. She merely with her firm, strong hand, wrenched the victim out of the oppressor's grasp.
"Arthur, go to my room. I will hear what you have done amiss. Phillis, remember, henceforward no children in my house shall be struck or punished except by their father or myself."
Clear and determined rang out the mistress's voice—mother and mistress—in this, her first assertion of both her rights. Phillis drew back astonished, and then, recovering herself, darted after the retreating boy. But it was too late; he had already gained the staircase. It was steep, dark, twisted, very unsafe for children; still, in his fear, Arthur plunged down it. In a minute there was heard a cry and a heavy fall.
Fierce-tempered woman as she was, Phillis had a heart. She rushed down after the child, but he turned screaming from her, and it was his stepmother who lifted him up and carried him into her own room.
Christian, young as she was, had had necessarily much experience with children. She soothed the boy, and felt that no limbs were broken; indeed, he complained of nothing, but he turned whiter and whiter, and shrank from the slightest touch.
"Something is certainly wrong with him. We must send for the doctor.
Whom do you have ordinarily?"