Latest / North and South / 037 - Looking South
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- 0:01Speaker 1: Chapter thirty seven of North and South. This is a
- 0:05Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
- 0:11Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
- 0:17Speaker 1: Recording by lee Anne Howlett. North and South by Elizabeth
- 0:22Speaker 1: Cleghorn Gaskell, chapter thirty seven, Looking South, A spade, a rake,
- 0:29Speaker 1: a hoe, a pickaxe or a bill, a hook to reap,
- 0:33Speaker 1: or a scythe to mow a flail, or what ye will,
- 0:37Speaker 1: And here's a ready hand to apply the needful tool
- 0:39Speaker 1: and skilled enough by lessons rough in Labour's Rugged school hood.
- 0:47Speaker 1: Higgins's door was locked the next day when they went
- 0:49Speaker 1: to pay their call on the widow Boucher, but they
- 0:52Speaker 1: learned this time from an officious neighbor that he was
- 0:54Speaker 1: really from home. He had, however, been in to see
- 0:57Speaker 1: Missus Boucher before starting on his day's business. Whatever that was,
- 1:02Speaker 1: it was but an unsatisfactory visit to Missus Boucher. She
- 1:05Speaker 1: considered herself as an ill used one by her poor
- 1:08Speaker 1: husband's suicide, and there was quite germ of truth enough
- 1:11Speaker 1: in this idea to make it a very difficult one
- 1:14Speaker 1: to refute. Still, it was unsatisfactory to see how completely
- 1:18Speaker 1: her thoughts were turned upon herself and her own position,
- 1:21Speaker 1: and this selfishness extended even to her relations with her children,
- 1:25Speaker 1: whom she considered as encumbrances. Even in the very midst
- 1:28Speaker 1: of her somewhat animal affection for them, Margaret tried to
- 1:32Speaker 1: make acquaintances with one or two of them, while her
- 1:34Speaker 1: father strove to raise the widow's thoughts into some higher
- 1:37Speaker 1: channel than that of mere helpless querulousness. She found that
- 1:41Speaker 1: the children were truer and simpler mourners than the widow.
- 1:45Speaker 1: Daddy had been a kind daddy to them. Each could
- 1:48Speaker 1: tell in their eager, stammering way of some tenderness shown,
- 1:52Speaker 1: some indulgence granted by the lost father. Is yon thing
- 1:57Speaker 1: upstairs really him? It does not look like him. I'm
- 2:00Speaker 1: feared on it. I never was fear of Daddy. Margaret's
- 2:04Speaker 1: heart bled to hear that the mother and her selfish
- 2:07Speaker 1: requirement of sympathy had taken her children upstairs to see
- 2:10Speaker 1: their disfigured father. It was intermingling the coarseness of horror
- 2:14Speaker 1: with the profoundness of natural grief. She tried to turn
- 2:17Speaker 1: their thoughts in some other direction on what they could
- 2:20Speaker 1: do for mother on what for this was a more
- 2:23Speaker 1: efficacious way of putting it, what father would have wished
- 2:26Speaker 1: them to do. Margaret was more successful than mister Hale
- 2:29Speaker 1: in her efforts. The children, seeing their little duties lie
- 2:32Speaker 1: in action close around them, began to try, each one
- 2:35Speaker 1: to do something that she suggested towards reading up the
- 2:38Speaker 1: slatternly room. But her father set too high a standard,
- 2:41Speaker 1: in too abstract a view before the indolent invalid. She
- 2:45Speaker 1: could not rouse her torpid mind into any vivid imagination
- 2:48Speaker 1: of what her husband's misery might have been before he
- 2:51Speaker 1: had resorted to the last terrible step. She could only
- 2:54Speaker 1: look upon it as it affected herself. She could not
- 2:57Speaker 1: enter into the enduring mercy of the God who had
- 2:59Speaker 1: not specially interposed to prevent the water from drowning her
- 3:02Speaker 1: prostrate husband. And although she was secretly blaming her husband
- 3:06Speaker 1: for having fallen into such drear despair, and denying that
- 3:09Speaker 1: he had any excuse for his last rash act, she
- 3:12Speaker 1: was inveterate in her abuse of all who could, by
- 3:15Speaker 1: any possibility, be supposed to have driven him to such desperation.
- 3:19Speaker 1: The masters, mister Thornton in particular, whose mill had been
- 3:22Speaker 1: attacked by Boucher, and who, after the warrant had been
- 3:25Speaker 1: issued for his apprehension on the charge of rioting, had
- 3:29Speaker 1: caused it to be withdrawn. The union of which Higgins
- 3:32Speaker 1: was representative to the poor woman, the children, so numerous,
- 3:36Speaker 1: so hungry, and so noisy, all made up one great
- 3:39Speaker 1: army of personal enemies, whose fault it was that she
- 3:42Speaker 1: was now a helpless widow. Margaret heard enough of this
- 3:46Speaker 1: unreasonableness to dishearten her, and when they came away, she
- 3:50Speaker 1: found it impossible to cheer her father. It is the
- 3:53Speaker 1: town life, said she. Their nerves are quickened by the
- 3:56Speaker 1: haste and bustle and speed of everything around them, to
- 3:59Speaker 1: say nothing of the confinement in these pent up houses,
- 4:03Speaker 1: which of itself is enough to induce depression and worry
- 4:05Speaker 1: of spirits. Now in the country people live so much
- 4:08Speaker 1: more out of doors, even children, and even in the winter.
- 4:13Speaker 1: But people must live in towns, and in the country
- 4:15Speaker 1: some get such stagnant habits of mind that they are
- 4:17Speaker 1: almost fatalists. Yes, I acknowledge that I suppose each mode
- 4:23Speaker 1: of life produces its own trials and its own temptations.
- 4:26Speaker 1: The dweller in towns must find it is difficult to
- 4:29Speaker 1: be patient and calm, as the country bred man must
- 4:31Speaker 1: find it to be active and equal to unwanted emergencies.
- 4:36Speaker 1: Both must find it hard to realize a future of
- 4:38Speaker 1: any kind, the one because the present is so living
- 4:41Speaker 1: and hurrying and close around him, the other because his
- 4:45Speaker 1: life tempts him to revel in the mere sense of
- 4:47Speaker 1: animal existence, not knowing of and consequently not caring for
- 4:51Speaker 1: any pungency of pleasure for the attainment of which he
- 4:53Speaker 1: can plan and deny himself and look forward. And thus
- 4:58Speaker 1: both the necessity for engrossment in the stupid content in
- 5:00Speaker 1: the present produce the same effects. But this poor missus Boucher,
- 5:04Speaker 1: how little we can do for her, And yet we
- 5:08Speaker 1: dare not leave her without our efforts, although they may
- 5:10Speaker 1: seem so useless. Oh Papa, it's a hard world to
- 5:13Speaker 1: live in. So it is my child, We feel it
- 5:17Speaker 1: so just now at any rate. But we have been
- 5:19Speaker 1: very happy, even in the midst of our sorrow. What
- 5:22Speaker 1: her pleasure Frederick's visit was? Yes, that it was, said
- 5:26Speaker 1: Margaret brightly. It was such a charming, snatched, forbidden thing.
- 5:31Speaker 1: But she suddenly stopped speaking. She had spoiled the remembrance
- 5:35Speaker 1: of Frederick's visit to herself by her own cowardice. Of
- 5:38Speaker 1: all faults, the one she most despised in others was
- 5:41Speaker 1: the want of bravery, the meanness of heart which leads
- 5:43Speaker 1: to untruth, and here had she been guilty of it.
- 5:47Speaker 1: Then came the thought of mister Thornton's cognizance of her falsehood.
- 5:51Speaker 1: She wondered if she should have minded detection half so
- 5:54Speaker 1: much from any one else. She tried herself in imagination
- 5:58Speaker 1: with her aunt Shaw and Edith, with her father, with Captain,
- 6:01Speaker 1: and mister Lennox, with Frederick. The thought of the last
- 6:04Speaker 1: knowing what she had done, even in his own behalf,
- 6:07Speaker 1: was the most painful, for the brother and sister were
- 6:09Speaker 1: in the first flush of their mutual regard and love.
- 6:12Speaker 1: But even any fall in Frederick's opinion was as nothing
- 6:14Speaker 1: to the shame, the shrinking shame she felt at the
- 6:17Speaker 1: thought of meeting mister Thornton again, And yet she longed
- 6:21Speaker 1: to see him, to get it over, to understand where
- 6:24Speaker 1: she stood in his opinion. Her cheeks burnt as she
- 6:27Speaker 1: recollected how proudly she had implied an objection to trade
- 6:30Speaker 1: in the early days of their acquaintance, because it too
- 6:34Speaker 1: often led to the deceit of passing off inferior for
- 6:36Speaker 1: superior goods in the one branch, of assuming credit for
- 6:40Speaker 1: wealth and resources not possessed in the other. She remembered
- 6:44Speaker 1: mister Thornton's look of calm disdain, as in few words
- 6:47Speaker 1: he gave her to understand that in the great scheme
- 6:49Speaker 1: of commerce, all dishonorable ways of acting were sure to
- 6:53Speaker 1: prove injurious in the long run, and that testing such
- 6:56Speaker 1: actions simply according to the poor standards of success, there
- 7:00Speaker 1: was folly and not wisdom in all such and every
- 7:02Speaker 1: kind of deceit in trade, as well as in other things.
- 7:07Speaker 1: She remembered. She then, strong in her own untempted truth,
- 7:11Speaker 1: asking him if he did not think that buying in
- 7:14Speaker 1: the cheapest and selling in the dearest market proof some
- 7:16Speaker 1: want of the transparent justice which is so intimately connected
- 7:19Speaker 1: with the idea of truth. And she had used the
- 7:22Speaker 1: word chivalric, and her father had corrected her with the
- 7:25Speaker 1: higher word Christian, and so drawn the argument upon himself,
- 7:29Speaker 1: while she sat silent by with a slight feeling of contempt.
- 7:34Speaker 1: No more contempt for her, nor more talk about the
- 7:37Speaker 1: chivalric henceforward, she must feel humiliated and disgraced in his sight.
- 7:43Speaker 1: But when should she see him? Her heart leaped up
- 7:46Speaker 1: an apprehension at every ring of the door bell, and
- 7:49Speaker 1: yet when it fell down to calmness, she felt strangely
- 7:51Speaker 1: saddened and sick at heart at each disappointment. It was
- 7:55Speaker 1: very evident that her father expected to see him, and
- 7:57Speaker 1: was surprised that he did not come. The truth was
- 8:00Speaker 1: that there were points in their conversation the other night
- 8:03Speaker 1: on which they had no time then to enlarge. But
- 8:06Speaker 1: it had been understood that if possible, on the succeeding evening,
- 8:09Speaker 1: if not then at least the very first evening that
- 8:11Speaker 1: mister Thornton could command, they should meet for further discussion.
- 8:16Speaker 1: Mister Hale had looked forward to this meeting ever since
- 8:18Speaker 1: they had parted. He had not yet resumed the instruction
- 8:22Speaker 1: to his pupils, which he had relinquished at the commencement
- 8:24Speaker 1: of his wife's more serious illness. So he had fewer
- 8:27Speaker 1: occupations than usual, and the great interests of the last
- 8:31Speaker 1: day or so Boucher's suicide had driven him back with
- 8:34Speaker 1: more eagerness than ever. Upon his speculations, he was restless
- 8:38Speaker 1: all evening, he kept saying, I quite expected to have
- 8:42Speaker 1: seen mister Thornton. I think the messenger who brought the
- 8:45Speaker 1: book last night must have had some note and forgot
- 8:47Speaker 1: to deliver it. Do you think there's been any message
- 8:50Speaker 1: left to day? I will go and inquire, Papa, said Margaret,
- 8:54Speaker 1: after the changes on these sentences had been rung once
- 8:57Speaker 1: or twice. Stay, there's a ring. She sat down instantly
- 9:01Speaker 1: and bent her head attentively over her work. She heard
- 9:05Speaker 1: a step on the stairs, but it was only one,
- 9:07Speaker 1: and she knew it was Dixon's. She lifted up her
- 9:09Speaker 1: head and sighed and believed she felt glad it's that Higgins, sir.
- 9:14Speaker 1: He wants to see you or else Miss Hale. Or
- 9:16Speaker 1: it might be Miss Hale first and then you, sir,
- 9:19Speaker 1: For he's in a strange kind of way. He had
- 9:22Speaker 1: better come up here, Dixon, and then he can see
- 9:24Speaker 1: us both and choose which he likes for his listener.
- 9:28Speaker 1: Oh very well, sir, I've no wish to hear what
- 9:30Speaker 1: he's got to say. I'm sure only if you could
- 9:33Speaker 1: see his shoes, I'm sure you'd say the kitchen was
- 9:35Speaker 1: the fitter place he can wipe them. I suppose, said
- 9:39Speaker 1: mister Hale, So Dixon flung off to bid him walk
- 9:42Speaker 1: up stairs. She was a little mollified. However, when he
- 9:45Speaker 1: looked his feet with the hesitating air, and then sitting
- 9:48Speaker 1: down on the bottom stair, he took off the offending
- 9:50Speaker 1: shoes and without a word walked up stairs. Servant Sir said,
- 9:56Speaker 1: he slicking his hair down when he came into the room.
- 9:59Speaker 1: If who looks, excuse me looking at Margaret for being
- 10:02Speaker 1: in my stockings. I's been tramping a day in streets
- 10:05Speaker 1: as none of the cleanest. Margaret thought that fatigue might
- 10:09Speaker 1: account for the change in his manner, for he was
- 10:11Speaker 1: unusually quiet and subdued, and he had evidently some difficulty
- 10:14Speaker 1: in saying what he came to say. Mister Hale's ever
- 10:19Speaker 1: ready sympathy with anything of shyness or hesitation or want
- 10:22Speaker 1: of self possession made him come to his aid, we
- 10:25Speaker 1: shall have tea up directly, and then you'll have a
- 10:27Speaker 1: cup with us. Mister Higgins, I am sure you are
- 10:30Speaker 1: tired if you've been out much this wet, relaxing day. Margaret,
- 10:33Speaker 1: my dear, can't you hasten tea? Margaret could only hasten
- 10:38Speaker 1: tea by taking the preparation of it into her own hands,
- 10:41Speaker 1: and so offending Dixon, who was emerging out of her
- 10:44Speaker 1: sorrow for her late mistress into a very touchy, irritable state.
- 10:48Speaker 1: But Martha, like all who came in contact with Margaret,
- 10:51Speaker 1: even Dixon herself, in the long run, felt it a
- 10:53Speaker 1: pleasure and an honor to forward any of her wishes,
- 10:56Speaker 1: and her readiness in Margaret's sweet forbearance soon made Dixon
- 10:59Speaker 1: ashamed of her. Why, Master, and you must always be
- 11:03Speaker 1: asking the lower classes upstairs since we came to Milton.
- 11:05Speaker 1: I cannot understand. Folk at Helstone were never brought higher
- 11:09Speaker 1: than the kitchen, and I've let one or two of
- 11:11Speaker 1: them know before now that they might think it an
- 11:13Speaker 1: honor to be even there. Higgins found it easier to
- 11:17Speaker 1: unburden himself to one than to two. After Margaret left
- 11:20Speaker 1: the room, he went to the door and assured himself
- 11:22Speaker 1: that it was shut. Then he came and stood close
- 11:25Speaker 1: to mister Hale. Master said he you'd not guess easy
- 11:30Speaker 1: what I've been tramping after to day, Special, if you
- 11:32Speaker 1: remember my manner of talk yesterday. I've been a seeking work,
- 11:36Speaker 1: I have said, he. I said to myself i'd keep
- 11:40Speaker 1: a civil tongue in my head. Let who would say what?
- 11:42Speaker 1: Um would? I'd set my teeth into my tongue sooner,
- 11:45Speaker 1: nor speak in haste for that man's sake, you understand,
- 11:49Speaker 1: jerking his thumb back in some unknown direction. No, I don't,
- 11:53Speaker 1: said mister Hale, seeing he waited for some kind of assent,
- 11:56Speaker 1: and completely bewildered as to who that man could be.
- 12:00Speaker 1: That chap As lies there, said he, with another jerk
- 12:03Speaker 1: him as went and drowned himself. Poor chap I didna
- 12:06Speaker 1: think he got it in him to lie still and
- 12:08Speaker 1: let the water creep o'er him till he died. Boucher.
- 12:10Speaker 1: You know, yes, I know now, said mister Hale. Go
- 12:14Speaker 1: back to what you were saying. You'd not speak in
- 12:16Speaker 1: haste for his sake. Yet, not for his sake, for
- 12:21Speaker 1: where he is and what air he'll never know other
- 12:23Speaker 1: climming or cold again. But for the wife's sake and
- 12:26Speaker 1: the bits of childer. God bless you, said mister Hale,
- 12:29Speaker 1: starting up, then calming down, he said, breathlessly, what do
- 12:32Speaker 1: you mean? Tell me out? I have telled you, said Higgins,
- 12:37Speaker 1: a little surprised at mister Hale's agitation. I wouldn't ask
- 12:40Speaker 1: for work myself, but them's left as a charge on me.
- 12:44Speaker 1: I reckon I would have guided Boucher to a better
- 12:46Speaker 1: end by sett em off the road, And so I'm
- 12:48Speaker 1: an answer for him. Mister Hale got hold of Higgins's
- 12:51Speaker 1: hand and shook it heartily, without speaking. Higgins looked awkward
- 12:55Speaker 1: and ashamed. There there, Master, there's ne'er a man to
- 12:59Speaker 1: call a man amongst us? But what would do the same? Ay?
- 13:02Speaker 1: And better too? For believe me, I's never got a
- 13:05Speaker 1: stroke o work, nor yet a sight of any For all,
- 13:08Speaker 1: I telled Hamper that let alone his pledge, which I
- 13:10Speaker 1: would not sign. No, I could not not even for this.
- 13:14Speaker 1: He'd narrow such a worker on his mill as I
- 13:16Speaker 1: would be. He'd have none of me, no more would
- 13:19Speaker 1: none of the others. I am a poor black, feckless
- 13:21Speaker 1: sheep childer may clem for aught. I can do n less, Parson,
- 13:24Speaker 1: you'd help me, help you, how I would do anything?
- 13:29Speaker 1: But what can I do? Miss there? For Margaret had
- 13:33Speaker 1: re entered the room and stood silent, listening as often
- 13:36Speaker 1: talked Grand to the south and the ways down there. Now,
- 13:39Speaker 1: I dunnot know how far off it is. But I've
- 13:41Speaker 1: been thinking if I could get em down there, where
- 13:43Speaker 1: food is cheap and wage is good, and all the
- 13:45Speaker 1: folk rich and poor, Master and man friendly like you
- 13:48Speaker 1: could maybe help me to work. I'm not forty five,
- 13:51Speaker 1: and I've a deal o strength in me, Master. But
- 13:54Speaker 1: what kind of work could you do, my man? Well,
- 13:57Speaker 1: I reckon I could spade a bit, And for that,
- 14:00Speaker 1: said Margaret, stepping forwards. For anything you could do, Higgins,
- 14:03Speaker 1: with the best will in the world. You would maybe
- 14:06Speaker 1: get nine shillings a week, maybe ten. At the outside.
- 14:09Speaker 1: Food is much the same as here, except that you
- 14:11Speaker 1: might have a little garden. The childer could work at it,
- 14:15Speaker 1: said he. I'm sick of Milton anyways, and Milton is
- 14:17Speaker 1: sick of me. You must not go to the south,
- 14:20Speaker 1: said Margaret, for all that you could not stand it.
- 14:23Speaker 1: You would have to be out all weathers. It would
- 14:25Speaker 1: kill you with rheumatism. The mere bodily work at your
- 14:28Speaker 1: time of life would break you down. The fair is
- 14:30Speaker 1: far different to what you have been accustomed to. I
- 14:34Speaker 1: is not particular about my meat, said he, as if offended.
- 14:37Speaker 1: But you've reckoned on having butcher's meat once a day.
- 14:40Speaker 1: If you're in work. Pay for that out of your
- 14:42Speaker 1: ten shillings, and keep those poor children if you can.
- 14:45Speaker 1: I owe it to you, since it's my way of
- 14:47Speaker 1: talking that has set you off on this idea. To
- 14:49Speaker 1: put it all clear before you. You would not bear
- 14:52Speaker 1: the dullness of the life you don't know what it is.
- 14:54Speaker 1: It would eat you away like rust. Those that have
- 14:57Speaker 1: lived there all their lives are used to soaking in
- 14:59Speaker 1: the stag waters. They labor on from day to day
- 15:02Speaker 1: in the great solitude of steaming fields, never speaking or
- 15:05Speaker 1: lifting up their poor, bent downcast heads. The hard spade
- 15:09Speaker 1: work robs their brain of life. The sameness of their
- 15:12Speaker 1: toil deadens their imagination. They don't care to meet to
- 15:15Speaker 1: talk over thoughts and speculations, even of the weakest, wildest kind.
- 15:19Speaker 1: After their work is done, they go home, brutishly tired,
- 15:22Speaker 1: poor creatures, caring for nothing but food and rest. You
- 15:26Speaker 1: could not stir them up into any companionship which you
- 15:28Speaker 1: get in a town as plentiful as the air you breathe,
- 15:31Speaker 1: whether it be good or bad, and that I don't know,
- 15:34Speaker 1: but I do know that you, of all men, are
- 15:35Speaker 1: not one to bear a life among such laborers. What
- 15:38Speaker 1: would be peace to them would be eternal fretting to you.
- 15:41Speaker 1: Think no more of it, Nicholas, I beg. Besides, you
- 15:44Speaker 1: could never pay to get mother and children all there.
- 15:46Speaker 1: That's one good thing I've reckoned for that one houseman
- 15:51Speaker 1: do for us, and the furniture another would do a
- 15:53Speaker 1: good way. And men there mun have their families to
- 15:56Speaker 1: keep mappen. Six or seven childer, God help them, said he,
- 16:00Speaker 1: more convinced by his own presentation of the facts than
- 16:03Speaker 1: by all Margaret had said, and suddenly renouncing the idea
- 16:06Speaker 1: which had but recently formed itself in a brain worn
- 16:08Speaker 1: out by the day's fatigue and anxiety. God help him
- 16:12Speaker 1: North and south of each getting their own troubles. If
- 16:15Speaker 1: works sure and steady, There labors paid at starvation prices,
- 16:18Speaker 1: while here we're in rocks of money coming in one
- 16:21Speaker 1: quarter and nearer farthing the next. For sure, the world
- 16:24Speaker 1: is in a confusion that passes me or any other
- 16:26Speaker 1: man to understand. It needs fettling. And who's to fettle
- 16:29Speaker 1: it if it's as yon folks say, And there's not
- 16:32Speaker 1: but what we see mister Hale was busy cutting bread
- 16:35Speaker 1: and butter. Margaret was glad of this, for she saw
- 16:38Speaker 1: that Higgins was better left to himself, that if her
- 16:41Speaker 1: father began to speak, ever so mildly on the subject
- 16:44Speaker 1: of Higgins's thoughts, the latter would consider himself challenged to
- 16:47Speaker 1: an argument and would feel himself bound to maintain his
- 16:49Speaker 1: own ground. She and her father kept up an indifferent
- 16:53Speaker 1: conversation until Higgins, scarcely aware whether he ate or not,
- 16:57Speaker 1: had made a very substantial meal. Then he pushed his
- 17:00Speaker 1: chair away from the table and tried to take an
- 17:01Speaker 1: interest in what they were saying, but it was of
- 17:03Speaker 1: no use, and he fell back into dreamy gloom. Suddenly,
- 17:07Speaker 1: Margaret said she had been thinking of it for some time,
- 17:10Speaker 1: but the words had stuck in her throat. Higgins, have
- 17:13Speaker 1: you been to Marlborough Mills to seek for work Thornton's
- 17:17Speaker 1: asked He Aye, I've been at Thornton's. And what did
- 17:21Speaker 1: he say? Such a chap as me is not likely
- 17:25Speaker 1: to see the master the ore looker bid me go,
- 17:27Speaker 1: and be damned. I wish you had seen mister Thornton, said,
- 17:31Speaker 1: mister Hale. He might not have given you work, but
- 17:33Speaker 1: he would not have used such language. As to the
- 17:37Speaker 1: language I'm welly used to it. It does not matter
- 17:39Speaker 1: to me. I'm not nesh my soul when I'm put out.
- 17:42Speaker 1: It were the fact that I were not wanted there
- 17:44Speaker 1: no more, nor any other places I minded. But I
- 17:48Speaker 1: wish you had seen, mister Thornton repeated Margaret. Would you
- 17:51Speaker 1: go again? It's a good deal to ask, I know,
- 17:53Speaker 1: but would you go tomorrow and try him? I should
- 17:56Speaker 1: be so glad if you would. I'm afraid it would
- 18:00Speaker 1: be of no use, said mister Hale in a low voice.
- 18:03Speaker 1: It would be better to let me speak to him.
- 18:06Speaker 1: Margaret still looked at Higgins for his answer. Those grave,
- 18:09Speaker 1: soft eyes of hers were difficult to resist. He gave
- 18:12Speaker 1: a great sigh. It would tax my pride above a
- 18:17Speaker 1: bit if it were for myself. I could stand a
- 18:19Speaker 1: deal o Clemming First. I'd sooner knock him down than
- 18:22Speaker 1: ask a favor from him. I'd a deal sooner be
- 18:24Speaker 1: flogged myself. But you're not a common wench asking your pardon,
- 18:28Speaker 1: nor yet have yo common ways about you. I'll even
- 18:31Speaker 1: make a wry face and go at it tomorrow. Dunno,
- 18:34Speaker 1: you think he'll do it. That man has it in
- 18:37Speaker 1: him to be burnt at the stake before he'll give
- 18:38Speaker 1: in I'll do it for your sake, Miss Hale, and
- 18:41Speaker 1: its first time in my life is ere I give
- 18:43Speaker 1: way to a woman. Neither my wife nor best could
- 18:45Speaker 1: e'er say that much again? Me? All the more do?
- 18:49Speaker 1: I thank you, said Margaret, smiling. Though I don't believe you,
- 18:53Speaker 1: I believe you have just given way to wife and
- 18:54Speaker 1: daughter as much as most men. And as to mister Thornton,
- 18:59Speaker 1: said mister Hale, I'll give you a note to him,
- 19:01Speaker 1: which I think I may venture to say will ensure
- 19:03Speaker 1: you a hearing. I thank you kindly, sir, but i'd
- 19:07Speaker 1: as leave stand in my own bottom. I donnot stomach
- 19:10Speaker 1: the notion of having favor curaged for me by one
- 19:12Speaker 1: as doesn't know the ins and outs of the quarrel.
- 19:16Speaker 1: Meddling Twix's master and man is like her meddling Twit's
- 19:18Speaker 1: husband and wife than aught else. It takes a deal
- 19:20Speaker 1: o wisdom for to do any good. I'll stand guard
- 19:24Speaker 1: at the lodge door. I'll stand there from six in
- 19:26Speaker 1: the morning till I get speech on him. But i'dly
- 19:28Speaker 1: for sweep the streets if paupers hadn't got hold of
- 19:30Speaker 1: that work dunnet. You hope miss there'll be no more
- 19:34Speaker 1: chance of getting milk out of a flint. I wish
- 19:36Speaker 1: you a very good night, and many thanks to you.
- 19:39Speaker 1: You'll find your shoes by the kitchen fire. I took
- 19:42Speaker 1: them there to dry, said Margaret. He turned round and
- 19:45Speaker 1: looked at her steadily, and then he brushed his lean
- 19:47Speaker 1: hand across his eyes and went his way. How proud
- 19:51Speaker 1: that man is, said her father, who was a little
- 19:53Speaker 1: annoyed at the manner in which Higgins had declined his
- 19:56Speaker 1: intercession with mister Thornton. He is, said Margaret. But what
- 20:00Speaker 1: grand makings of a man there are in him, pride
- 20:03Speaker 1: and all. It's amusing to see how he evidently respects
- 20:07Speaker 1: the part in mister Thornton's character which is like his own. There's, granted,
- 20:13Speaker 1: in all these northern people, Papa, is there not? There
- 20:17Speaker 1: was none in poor Boucher. I am afraid none, and
- 20:19Speaker 1: his wife either. I should guess from their tones that
- 20:23Speaker 1: they had Irish blood in them. I wonder what success
- 20:26Speaker 1: he'll have tomorrow if he and mister Thornton would speak
- 20:29Speaker 1: out together as man to man. If Higgins would forget
- 20:31Speaker 1: that mister Thornton was a master, and speak to him
- 20:33Speaker 1: as he does to us, and if mister Thornton would
- 20:36Speaker 1: be patient enough to listen to him with his human heart,
- 20:38Speaker 1: not with his master's ears. You are getting to do
- 20:42Speaker 1: mister Thornton justice at last, Margaret said her father, pinching
- 20:45Speaker 1: her ear. Margaret had a strange choking at her heart,
- 20:49Speaker 1: which made her unable to answer. Oh, thought she. I
- 20:53Speaker 1: wish I were a man, that I could go and
- 20:55Speaker 1: force him to express his disapprobation and tell him honestly
- 20:58Speaker 1: that I knew I deserved it. It seems hard to
- 21:01Speaker 1: lose him as a friend, just when I had begun
- 21:02Speaker 1: to feel his value, how tender he was with dear Mamma.
- 21:06Speaker 1: If it were only for her sake, I wish he
- 21:08Speaker 1: would come, and then at least I should know how
- 21:10Speaker 1: much I was abased in his eyes. End of Chapter
- 21:14Speaker 1: thirty seven, recording by Leanne Howlett