"You are very angry with me," she said.
Tom's anger would have repelled and frightened her once; but just now she experienced an odd sort of consolation in the intensity of the wrath and grief he felt for his brother's sake. Tom "cared" as no one else did.
"I'm not such a good Christian as ye are," he said. His voice sounded gruff, and he spoke in sharp undertones, turning his head away. He was so angry that he could not trust himself to look at the fair face his brother loved, though he held his anger with a tight rein.
"So ye wouldn't ha' the man as has made our lad look like that—ay, and 'ull hang him, if he can,—so much as scratched, eh? Ye sent to warn him! Good Lord! it's Barnabas' wife as kindly warns Barnabas' murderer! Ye'll forgi'e the man as 'ud like to kill your husband wi' his lyin' tongue, till seventy times seven! I've known ye a bit hard on Barnabas times, but——" He checked himself, and swallowed the rest of that sentence; but the sharp pull up brought the colour to Meg's pale face.
"Oh, ye are right!" he said, after a silence. "An' uncommonly forgiving an' a remarkable good Christian lass, as I said afore; ye are right—only d——n me, if I wouldn't rayther have a sinner for a wife!"
"Ah," said Meg; "but you are giving me credit for more Christianity than I possess." He did look at her then, struck by something strange in her tone. Barnabas' wife was altered too. With that too vivid consciousness of what Barnabas had gone through, burning like fire somewhere at the bottom of her heart, it struck her as almost ludicrous that Tom should suppose she had pity on the preacher's enemy.
"I heard Long John swearing that he'd served with you man and boy for nigh thirty years, and had never in his life seen one of you put out; that, in fact, your mildness as a family was proverbial!" said Margaret. She did not speak like herself, she was like another woman to-day,—older and sterner and less gentle.
"Of course he did," said Tom. "It 'ud ha' been uncommon queer if one o' the L——shire lads as I've licked into shape wi' my own hands didn't swear by us."
"It would," said Meg gravely. "But if you and those same lads had caught and half murdered Mr. Sauls as he left the court, it would be an odd sort of comment on what we've been hearing, wouldn't it? Perhaps, after that, they'd hardly believe in the great gentleness of the Thorpe disposition, or see how unlikely it is that one of you should hit a man with a bill-hook."
Tom stood still in the middle of the road, and caught her arm with a grasp which hurt her, though neither of them was the least aware of that at the moment.