"Mother," he went on, seeing that she would not speak, "I, too, have beenrebellious; but I am striving to be so no longer. Help me, as you helpedme when I was a child. Then you said many good words--when myfather died, and we were sometimes sorely short of comforts--which weshall never be now; you said brave, noble, trustful words then, mother,which I have never forgotten, though they may have lain dormant.
Speak to me again in the old way, mother. Do not let us have to thinkthat the world has too much hardened our hearts. If you would say theold good words, it would make me feel something of the pioussimplicity of my childhood. I say them to myself, but they would comedifferently from you, remembering all the cares and trials you have hadto bear."
"I have had a many," said she, sobbing, "but none so sore as this. To seeyou cast down from your rightful place! I could say it for myself, John,but not for you. Not for you! God has seen fit to be very hard on you,very."
She shook with the sobs that come so convulsively when an old personweeps. The silence around her struck her at last; and she quieted herselfto listen. No sound. She looked. Her son sate by the table, his armsthrown half across it, his head bent face downwards.
"Oh, John!" she said, and she lifted his face up. Such a strange, pallidlook of gloom was on it, that for a moment it struck her that this lookwas the forerunner of death; but, as the rigidity melted out of thecountenance and the natural colour returned, and she saw that he washimself once again, all worldly mortification sank to nothing before theconsciousness of the great blessing that he himself by his simpleexistence was to her. She thanked God for this, and this alone, with afervour that swept away all rebellious feelings from her mind.
He did not speak readily; but he went and opened the shutters, and letthe ruddy light of dawn flood the room. But the wind was in the east;the weather was piercing cold, as it had been for weeks; there would beno demand for light summer goods this year. That hope for the revivalof trade must utterly be given up.
It was a great comfort to have had this conversation with his mother;and to feel sure that, however they might henceforward keep silence onall these anxieties, they yet understood each other"s feelings, and were,if not in harmony, at least not in discord with each other, in their way ofviewing them. Fanny"s husband was vexed at Thornton"s refusal to takeany share in the speculation which he had offered to him, and withdrewfrom any possibility of being supposed able to assist him with the readymoney, which indeed the speculator needed for his own venture.
There was nothing for it at last, but that which Mr. Thornton haddreaded for many weeks; he had to give up the business in which he hadbeen so long engaged with so much. honour and success; and look outfor a subordinate situation. Marlborough Mills and the adjacentdwelling were held under a long lease; they must, if possible, be relet.
There was an immediate choice of situations offered to Mr. Thornton.
Mr. Hamper would have been only too glad to have secured him as asteady and experienced partner for his son, whom he was setting upwith a large capital in a neighbouring town; but the young man was half-educated as regarded information, and wholly uneducated as regardedany other responsibility than that of getting money, and brutalised bothas to his pleasures and his pains. Mr. Thornton declined having anyshare in a partnership, which would frustrate what few plans he had thatsurvived the wreck of his fortunes. He would sooner consent to be onlya manager, where he could have a certain degree of power beyond themere money-getting part, than have to fall in with the tyrannicalhumours of a moneyed partner with whom he felt sure that he shouldquarrel in a few months.
So he waited, and stood on one side with profound humility, as thenews swept through the Exchange, of the enormous fortune which hisbrother-in-law had made by his daring speculation. It was a nine days"
wonder. Success brought with it its worldly consequence of extremeadmiration. No one was considered so wise and far-seeing as Mr.
Watson.