Neither recovered. The unwounded lady, sorely shaken, succumbed to the shock her nervous system had received; and Master Laurence, already petted and wilful, was left to be still farther spoiled by his widowed father and Kitty, his mother’s old nurse. Sally, strong of frame and will, impatient of pain and of restraint, was restive under the surgeons’ hands, and defeated their efforts to ascertain her injuries. She exhausted herself with shrieks and cries, tossed about and disturbed bandages, rejected physic, which she called “poison,” and soon put her case beyond the cure of physicians. Too late, she became sensible of her own folly. Then, when recovery was impossible, she repented of many misdeeds, and of none more than her slander of poor Bess.
And thus it was. When the mother was taken from the head of Cooper’s home, Bessy’s kind heart yearned to help the disconsolate man and his troop of children. Fortunately, the eldest was a girl of sixteen, and there was a younger girl of ten. Both of these had gone out to work, but now Molly had to stay at home and try to keep all right and tight there. And here Bess came to her aid. Without scolding or brawling, she put the girl into the way of doing things quickly and quietly. She encouraged her to persevere, so that her cleanly mother should detect no eyesores when she came home restored. She tried to persuade the boys to be less refractory—to help, not to irritate, their sister; and somehow Cooper’s home began to miss Sal, much as one misses a whirlwind.
The kindness of Bess o’ Sim’s was duly reported to the Infirmary patient, and at first chafed her sorely. She “hated to be under obligations, and to that lass o’ all others.” But Bess, leaving her own work—and the loss of an hour meant the loss of an hour’s earnings—herself went to see Sally; and such was the influence of her gentle voice and touch, that Sally’s chagrin imperceptibly wore away.
Towards the last she grew delirious, raved of Bess and Tom Hulme and forgiveness, and in the short calm preceding dissolution, confessed to Matt Cooper and the attendant nurse that she had cast a slur on Bess Clegg’s good name. Had made Tom Hulme believe that Simon had taken the lass from Skinner’s Yard to hide her shame. That everybody in the yard knew that Bess had a child. And that she had bade him inquire for himself. And almost her last word was a hope that Bess would forgive her.
Matthew Cooper himself hardly forgave his dead wife. How, therefore, should he carry this confession to Bess, and ask her to forgive? He took a medium course; and after a few days’ consideration, while they and the rest of the tanners were eating their “baggin” (a workman’s luncheon, so called from the bag it is, or was, usually carried in), sat down beside Simon on a bundle of thick leather, and told him as well as he was able.
Simon was troubled; but he was not vindictive. He would have been less than a man had he not been bitter against the cruel woman who had causelessly wrecked his good daughter’s life. But he was sorry for Matt, and broke out into no revilings. The woman was dead. The ill she had done had been fearfully punished, and neither curses nor reproaches could affect her or undo the mischief.
He left his cheese and jannock on the hides untasted, drew his hand across his forehead, and went down to the river-side and across the wooden bridge for a breath of fresh air and a waft of fresh thought. He was only a rugged tanner, but he had a heart within his breast; he had a daughter on his hearth with a great wound in her heart, a blast on her good name, and he was called upon to forgive the author of this mischief!
Simon had long been used to commune with his own heart. He had built up a wall round it with the leaves of that one book on his bureau; and whenever he was in doubt or difficulty, he read the precepts inscribed upon that wall. He went back to Cooper, whose appetite had been no better than his own.
“Aw mun think this ower, Matt. Aw connot say aw furgive yo’r Sal o’ at a dash. Hoo’s done that as may niver be undone whoile thee an’ me’s alive; an’ aw connot frame to say as aw furgive her loike o’ on a sudden. An’ aw mun think it ower before eawt be said to eawr Bess, poor wench!”