CHAPTER XXIX.
ON WHAT CONDITIONS?
In the morning I awoke with a lighter heart than I had known for a long time. Benjamin was going to release our prisoners! I should go to meet Robin at the gate of his prison. All would be well, except that my father would never recover. We should return to the village and everything would go on as before. Oh! poor fond wretch! how was I deluded! and, oh! miserable day that ended with such shame and sadness, yet began with so much hope.
Madam was already dressed. She was sitting at the window looking into the churchyard. She had been crying. Alas! how many women in Somersetshire were then weeping all day long!
'Madam,' I said, 'we now have hope. We must not weep and lament any more. Oh! to have at last a little hope—when we have lived so long in despair—it makes one breathe again. Benjamin will save our prisoners for us. Oh! after all, it is Benjamin who will help us. We did not use to love Benjamin, because he was rude and masterful and wanted everything for himself and would never give up anything. Yet, you see, he had, after all, a good heart.' Madam groaned. 'And he cannot forget, though he followeth not his grandfather's opinions, that he is his Honour's grandson—the son of his only daughter—and your nephew, and first cousin to Robin, and second cousin once removed to Humphrey and Barnaby; playfellows of old. Why, these are ties which bind him as if with ropes! He needs must bestir himself to save their lives. And since he says that he can save them, of course he must have bestirred himself to some purpose. Weep no more, dear Madam; your son will be restored to us! We shall be happy again—thanks to Benjamin!'
'Child,' she replied, 'my heart is broken! It is broken, I say! Oh, to be lying dead and at peace in yonder churchyard! Never before did I think that it must be a happy thing to be dead and at rest, and to feel nothing and to know nothing!'
'But, Madam, the dead are not in their graves. There lie only the bodies. Their souls are above.'
'Then they still think and remember. Oh! can a time ever come when things can be forgotten? Will the dead ever cease to reproach themselves?'
She wrung her hands in an ecstasy of grief, though I knew not what should move her so. Indeed, she was commonly a woman of sober and contained disposition, entirely governed both in her temper and her words. What was in her mind that she should accuse herself? Then, while I was dressing, she went on talking, being still full of this strong passion.