“I cannot leave you, ma’am, among these wretches,” cried John, looking round on the mob of women and children who were collecting.
“Do not call them wretches, or look as if there was anything to be afraid of,” said his mistress, “but make haste, and then come to me under that tree.”
What she had written was, “Say nothing to my husband, but come and help me to clear up a mistake of some consequence.” When John disappeared with the note, which everybody had seen her write, the cry of abuse rose louder than ever. It was hard to bear; but the lady felt that if she retreated now, she should lose her own and injure her husband’s influence for ever among these people. The thought came across her, too, that she might owe some of this to the reserve of her usual demeanour; and as a punishment also she resolved to stand it well. She therefore only made her way to the tree she had pointed out, and sat down under it; a necessary proceeding, for she could scarcely stand. There she waited for John’s return with Mr. Bernard, longing to look every instant whether they were coming, but carefully refraining from turning her head that way, lest the people should see her anxiety.
“What is all this?” cried Mr. Bernard, when at length he arrived breathless, with John at his heels, wiping his brows. “Have these people dared to hurt you?”
“No: they have only railed at me, so that I could not make myself heard; and I want you to help me to find out why. Keep your temper, I implore you. I sent for you instead of my husband, because I was afraid he would not command himself.”
John was eager to explain why he had been so long. Mr. Bernard was not at the office, as John expected. Mr. Wallace was, and John had much ado to avoid telling him; but he held his peace and went on his errand. It seemed as if he had been gone for hours, he said, for he did not know what might have happened in his absence.
Mr. Bernard knew more of the present disposition and complaints of the people than Mrs. Wallace, and—what was on this occasion of as much consequence—he had a stronger voice; so that he soon got to the bottom of the matter.
He showed them the folly of supposing that the lady’s object was different now from what it had been in many former cases where she had shown kindness; and began to rate them soundly for their ingratitude and savage behaviour, when the lady interceded for them. When he stopped to listen to her, there was a dead silence. She said that she did not wish them to be reproached more than she was sure they would soon reproach themselves; that she did not come among them for the sake of making them grateful to her, but in order to show her good-will at times when good-will is worth more than anything else that can be given. As long as her neighbours were willing to accept this good-will as freely as it was offered, she should come among them, undeterred by the mistakes about her motives which a few might fall into; but that no person was called upon to encounter a second time such treatment as she had met with that day; and therefore, unless she was sent for, she should not appear among them again. If this should be the last time they should ever speak to one another, she hoped they would remember it was not by her wish, but their own.
The people were now in a condition to hear reason, and they believed the lady’s assurance, that when she came down the day before, she knew nothing whatever of the cause of the boy’s death, and was silent on the subject of the new machinery only because she had no idea how much the people were thinking and feeling on the subject. She was ready henceforth to talk about it as much as they pleased.
When she stood up and took Mr. Bernard’s arm to go homewards, nothing could exceed the attention of the people—so changeable were they in their moods. One brought water, which the lady accepted with a kind smile; and glad she was of it, for she was very thirsty. The mourner’s door was now wide open; and, with many curtseys, Mrs. Wallace was invited to enter and rest herself. This, however, she declined for the present day. The mothers called their children off as a huntsman calls off his dogs, and the hunted lady was at last left in peace with her friend and her servant. When Mr. Bernard had left her safe at home, her spirits sank. She did not fall into hysterics, nor alarm her household with an account of what she had gone through; but she sat alone in her dressing-room, dropping many a bitter tear over the blindness and folly of the people whose happiness seemed quite overthrown, and unable to keep down a thousand fears of what was to happen next.