"Who, father?" I asked, rather hypocritically.
"Thee knowest well enough—John Halifax."
I thought it best to say no more; but I never let go one thread of hope which could draw me nearer to my heart's desire.
On the Monday morning my father went to the tan-yard as usual. I spent the day in my bed-room, which looked over the garden, where I saw nothing but the waving of the trees and the birds hopping over the smooth grass; heard nothing but the soft chime, hour after hour, of the Abbey bells. What was passing in the world, in the town, or even in the next street, was to me faint as dreams.
At dinner-time I rose, went down-stairs, and waited for my father; waited one, two, three hours. It was very strange. He never by any chance overstayed his time, without sending a message home. So after some consideration as to whether I dared encroach upon his formal habits so much, and after much advice from Jael, who betrayed more anxiety than was at all warranted by the cause she assigned, viz. the spoiled dinner, I despatched Jem Watkins to the tan-yard to see after his master.
He came back with ill news. The lane leading to the tan-yard was blocked up with a wild mob. Even the stolid, starved patience of our Norton Bury poor had come to an end at last—they had followed the example of many others. There was a bread-riot in the town.
God only knows how terrible those "riots" were; when the people rose in desperation, not from some delusion of crazy, blood-thirsty "patriotism," but to get food for themselves, their wives, and children. God only knows what madness was in each individual heart of that concourse of poor wretches, styled "the mob," when every man took up arms, certain that there were before him but two alternatives, starving or—hanging.
The riot here was scarcely universal. Norton Bury was not a large place, and had always abundance of small-pox and fevers to keep the poor down numerically. Jem said it was chiefly about our mill and our tan-yard that the disturbance lay.
"And where is my father?"
Jem "didn't know," and looked very much as if he didn't care.