"A spade! a rake! a hoe!
A pickaxe or a bill!
A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow,A flail, or what ye will-And here"s a ready handTo ply the needful tool,And skill"d enough, by lessons rough,In Labour"s rugged school."
HOOD.
Higgins"s door was locked the next day, when they went to pay theircall on the widow Boucher: but they learnt this time from an officiousneighbour, that he was really from home. He had, however, been in tosee Mrs. Boucher, before starting on his day"s business, whatever thatwas. It was but an unsatisfactory visit to Mrs. Boucher; she consideredherself as an ill-used woman by her poor husband"s suicide; and therewas quite germ of truth enough in this idea to make it a very difficultone to refute. Still, it was unsatisfactory to see how completely herthoughts were turned upon herself and her own position, and thisselfishness extended even to her relations with her children, whom sheconsidered as incumbrances, even in the very midst of her somewhatanimal affection for them. Margaret tried to make acquaintances withone or two of them, while her father strove to raise the widow"sthoughts into some higher channel than that of mere helplessquerulousness. She found that the children were truer and simplermourners than the widow. Daddy had been a kind daddy to them; eachcould tell, in their eager stammering way, of some tenderness shownsome indulgence granted by the lost father.
"Is yon thing upstairs really him? it doesna look like him. I"m feared onit, and I never was feared o" daddy."
Margaret"s heart bled to hear that the mother, in her selfish requirementof sympathy, had taken her children upstairs to see their disfiguredfather. It was intermingling the coarseness of horror with theprofoundness of natural grief She tried to turn their thoughts in someother direction; on what they could do for mother; on what--for this wasa more efficacious way of putting it--what father would have wishedthem to do. Margaret was more successful than Mr. Hale in her efforts.
The children seeing their little duties lie in action close around them,began to try each one to do something that she suggested towardsredding up the slatternly room. But her father set too high a standard,and too abstract a view, before the indolent invalid. She could not rouseher torpid mind into any vivid imagination of what her husband"smisery might have been before he had resorted to the last terrible step;she could only look upon it as it affected herself; she could not enterinto the enduring mercy of the God who had not specially interposed toprevent the water from drowning her prostrate husband; and althoughshe was secretly blaming her husband for having fallen into such dreardespair, and denying that he had any excuse for his last rash act, shewas inveterate in her abuse of all who could by any possibility besupposed to have driven him to such desperation. The masters--Mr.
Thornton in particular, whose mill had been attacked by Boucher, andwho, after the warrant had been issued for his apprehension on thecharge of rioting, had caused it to be withdrawn,--the Union, of whichHiggins was the representative to the poor woman,--the children sonumerous, so hungry, and so noisy--all made up one great army ofpersonal enemies, whose fault it was that she was now a helplesswidow.
Margaret heard enough of this unreasonableness to dishearten her; andwhen they came away she found it impossible to cheer her father.
"It is the town life," said she. "Their nerves are quickened by the hasteand bustle and speed of everything around them, to say nothing of theconfinement in these pent-up houses, which of itself is enough to inducedepression and worry of spirits. Now in the country, people live somuch more out of doors, even children, and even in the winter."
"But people must live in towns. And in the country some get suchstagnant habits of mind that they are almost fatalists."
"Yes; I acknowledge that. I suppose each mode of life produces its owntrials and its own temptations. The dweller in towns must find it asdifficult to be patient and calm, as the country-bred man must find it tobe active, and equal to unwonted emergencies. Both must find it hard torealise a future of any kind; the one because the present is so living andhurrying and close around him; the other because his life tempts him torevel in the mere sense of animal existence, not knowing of, andconsequently not caring for any pungency of pleasure for the attainmentof which he can plan, and deny himself and look forward."
"And thus both the necessity for engrossment, and the stupid content inthe present, produce the same effects. But this poor Mrs. Boucher! howlittle we can do for her."
"And yet we dare not leave her without our efforts, although they mayseem so useless. Oh papa! it"s a hard world to live in!"
"So it is, my child. We feel it so just now, at any rate; but we have beenvery happy, even in the midst of our sorrow. What a pleasureFrederick"s visit was!"
"Yes, that it was," said Margaret; brightly. "It was such a charming,snatched, forbidden thing." But she suddenly stopped speaking. She hadspoiled the remembrance of Frederick"s visit to herself by her owncowardice. Of all faults the one she most despised in others was thewant of bravery; the meanness of heart which leads to untruth. And herehad she been guilty of it! Then came the thought of Mr. Thornton"scognisance of her falsehood. She wondered if she should have mindeddetection half so much from any one else. She tried herself inimagination with her Aunt Shaw and Edith; with her father; withCaptain and Mr. Lennox; with Frederick. The thought of the lastknowing what she had done, even in his own behalf, was the mostpainful, for the brother and sister were in the first flush of their mutualregard and love; but even any fall in Frederick"s opinion was as nothingto the shame, the shrinking shame she felt at the thought of meeting Mr.