“You had better not have felt sure of us. However, we will not tell your mother; but my husband will tell Mr Grey to-morrow, when he comes home. If he chooses that you should carry loaded pistols about, there will be no harm done.”
“I have a great mind to say I will shoot you if you tell,” cried Sydney, presenting the pistol with a grand air. But he saw that he made his cousins really uneasy, and he laid it down on the table, offering to leave it with them for the night, if they thought it would make them feel any safer. There were plenty more at home.
“Thank you,” said Margaret, “but I believe we are more afraid of loaded pistols than of thieves. The sooner you take it away the better. You can go now, presently, for here comes my brother.”
Sydney quickly pocketed his pistol. Hope agreed to go, and promised to be at Mr Grey’s to supper by nine o’clock.
Margaret was incessantly thinking of Maria in these long evenings, when alarms of one kind or another were all abroad. She now thought she would go with Sydney, and spend an hour or two with Maria, returning by the time her brother would be going to the Greys’. Maria’s landlord would see her home, no doubt.
She found her friend busy with book and needle, and as well in health as usual, but obviously somewhat moved by the dismal stories which had travelled from mouth to mouth through Deerbrook during the day. It seemed hardly right that any person in delicate health should be lonely at such a time; and it occurred to Margaret that her friend might like to go home with her, and occupy the bed which was this night to spare. Maria thankfully accepted the offer, and let Margaret put up her little bundle for her. The farrier escorted them to the steps of the corner-house, and then left them.
The door was half-open, as Morris was talking with some one on the mat in the hall. An extremely tall woman, with a crying baby in her arms, made way for the ladies, not by going out of the house, but by stepping further into the hall.
“Morris, had you not better shut the door?” said Margaret; “the wind blows in so, it is enough to chill the whole house.”
But Morris held the door open, rather wider than before.
“So the gentleman is not at home,” said the tall woman, gruffly. “If I come again in an hour with my poor baby, will he be at home then?”