Fanny raised herself up:
“Are they gone?” asked she, in a whisper.
“Gone!” replied he. “Listen!”
She did listen; they all could hear the one great straining breath; the creak of wood slowly yielding; the wrench of iron; the mighty fall of the ponderous gates. Fanny stood up tottering—made a step or two towards her mother, and fell forwards into her arms in a fainting fit. Mrs. Thornton lifted her up with a strength that was as much that of the will as of the body, and carried her away.
“Thank God!” said Mr. Thornton, as he watched her out. “Had you not better go upstairs, Miss Hale?”
Margaret’s lips formed a “No!”—but he could not hear her speak, for the tramp of innumerable steps right under the very wall of the house, and the fierce growl of low deep angry voices that had a ferocious murmur of satisfaction in them, more dreadful than their baffled cries not many minutes before.
“Never mind!” said he, thinking to encourage her. “I am very sorry that you should have been entrapped into all this alarm; but it cannot last long now; a few minutes more, and the soldiers will be here.”
“Oh, God!” cried Margaret, suddenly; “there is Boucher. I know his face, though he is livid with rage,—he is fighting to get to the front—look! look!”
“Who is Boucher?” asked Mr. Thornton coolly, and coming close to the window to discover the man in whom Margaret took such an interest. As soon as they saw Mr. Thornton, they set up a yell, to call it not human is nothing,—it was as the demoniac desire of some terrible wild beast for the food that is withheld from his ravening. Even he drew back for a moment, dismayed at the intensity of hatred he had provoked.
“Let them yell!” said he. “In five minutes more—. I only hope my poor Irishmen are not terrified out of their wits by such a fiendlike noise. Keep up your courage for five minutes, Miss Hale.”