North and South

ISCHANCES.

“What! remain to be
Denounced—dragged, it may be, in chains.”
WERNER.

All the next day they sate together—they three. Mr. Hale hardly ever
spoke but when his children asked him questions, and forced him, as it
were, into the present. Frederick’s grief was no more to be seen or
heard; the first paroxysm had passed over, and now he was ashamed of
having been so battered down by emotion; and though his sorrow for the
loss of his mother was a deep real feeling, and would last out his life,
it was never to be spoken of again. Margaret, not so passionate at
first, was more suffering now. At times she cried a good deal; and her
manner, even when speaking on different things, had a mournful
tenderness about it, which was deepened whenever her looks fell upon
Frederick, and she thought of his rapidly approaching departure. She was
glad he was going, on her father’s account, however much she might
grieve over it on her own. The anxious terror in which Mr. Hale lived
lest his son should be detected and captured, far outweighed the
pleasure he derived from his presence. The nervousness had increased
since Mrs. Hale’s death, probably because he dwelt upon it more
exclusively. He started at every unusual sound, and was never
comfortable unless Frederick sate out of the immediate view of any one
entering the room. Towards evening he said:

“You will go with Frederick to the station, Margaret? I shall want to
know he is safely off. You will bring me word that he is clear of
Milton, at any rate?”

“Certainly,” said Margaret. “I shall like it, if you won’t be lonely
without me, papa.”

“No, no! I should always be fancying some one had known him, and that he
had been stopped, unless you could tell me you had seen him off. And go
to the Outwood station. It is quite as near, and not so many people
about. Take a cab there. There is less risk of his being seen. What time
is your train, Fred?”

“Ten minutes past six; very nearly dark. So what will you do, Margaret?”

“Oh, I can manage. I am getting very brave and very hard. It is a
well-lighted road all the way home, if it should be dark. But I was out
last week much later.”

Margaret was thankful when the parting was over—the parting from the
dead mother and the living father. She hurried Frederick into the cab,
in order to shorten a scene which she saw was so bitterly painful to her
father, who would accompany his son as he took his last look at his
mother. Partly in consequence of this, and partly owing to one of the
very common mistakes in the “Railway Guide” as to the times when trains
arrive at the smaller stations, they found, on reaching Outwood, that
they had nearly twenty minutes to spare. The booking-office was not
open, so they could not even take the ticket. They accordingly went down
the flight of steps that led to the level of the ground below the
railway. There was a broad cinder-path diagonally crossing a field which
lay alongside of the carriage-road, and they went there to walk
backwards and forwards for the few minutes they had to spare.

Margaret’s hand lay in Frederick’s arm. He took hold of it
affectionately.

“Margaret! I am going to consult Mr. Lennox as to the chance of
exculpating myself so that I may return to England whenever I choose,
more for your sake than for the sake of anyone else. I can’t bear to
think of your lonely position if any thing should happen to my father.
He looks sadly changed—terribly shaken. I wish you could get him to
think of the Cadiz plan, for many reasons. What could you do if he were
taken away? You have no friend near. We are curiously bare of
relations.”

Margaret could hardly keep from crying at the tender anxiety with which
Frederick was bringing before her an event which she herself felt was
not very improbable, so severely had the cares of the last few months
told upon Mr. Hale. But she tried to rally as she said:

“There have been such strange unexpected changes in my life during these
last two years, that I feel more than ever that it is not worth while to
calculate too closely what I should do if any future event took place. I
try to think only upon the present.” She paused; they were standing
still for a moment, close on the field side of the stile leading into
the road; the setting sun fell on their faces. Frederick held her hand
in his, and looked with wistful anxiety into her face, reading there
more care and trouble than she would betray by words. She went on:

“We shall write often to one another, and I will promise—for I see it
will set your mind at ease—to tell you every worry I have. Papa
is”—she started a little, a hardly visible start—but Frederick felt
the sudden motion of the hand he held, and turned his full face to the
road, along which a horseman was slowly riding, just passing the very
stile where they stood. Margaret bowed; her bow was stiffly returned.

“Who is that?” said Frederick, almost before he was out of hearing.

Margaret was a little drooping, a little flushed, as she replied: “Mr.
Thornton; you saw him before, you know.”

“Only his back. He is an unprepossessing-looking fellow. What a scowl he
has!”

“Something has happened to vex him,” said Margaret apologetically. “You
would not have thought him unprepossessing if you had seen him with
mamma.”

“I fancy it must be time to go and take my ticket. If I had known how
dark it would be, we wouldn’t have sent back the cab, Margaret.”

“Oh, don’t fidget about that. I can take a cab here, if I like; or go
back by the rail-road, when I should have shops and people and lamps all
the way from the Milton station-house. Don’t think of me; take care of
yourself. I am sick with the thought that Leonards may be in the same
train with you. Look well into the carriage before you get in.”

They went back to the station. Margaret insisted on going into the full
light of the flaring gas inside to take the ticket. Some idle-looking
young men were lounging about with the station-master. Margaret thought
she had seen the face of one of them before, and returned him a proud
look of offended dignity for his somewhat impertinent stare of
undisguised admiration. She went hastily to her brother, who was
standing outside, and took hold of his arm. “Have you got your bag? Let
us walk about here on the platform,” said she, a little flurried at the
idea of so soon being left alone, and her bravery oozing out rather
faster than she liked to acknowledge even to herself. She heard a step
following them along the flags; it stopped when they stopped, looking
out along the line and hearing the whizz of the coming train. They did
not speak; their hearts were too full. Another moment, and the train
would be here; a minute more, and he would be gone. Margaret almost
repented the urgency with which she had entreated him to go to London;
it was throwing more chances of detection in his way. If he had sailed
for Spain by Liverpool, he might have been off in two or three hours.

Frederick turned round, right facing the lamp, where the gas darted up
in vivid anticipation of the train. A man in the dress of a railway
porter started forward; a bad-looking man, who seemed to have drunk
himself into a state of brutality, although his senses were in perfect
order.

“By your leave, miss!” said he, pushing Margaret rudely on one side, and
seizing Frederick by the collar.

“Your name is Hale, I believe?”

In an instant, how, Margaret did not see, for everything danced before
her eyes—but by some sleight of wrestling, Frederick had tripped him
up, and he fell from the height of three or four feet, which the
platform was elevated above the space of soft ground, by the side of the
railroad. There he lay.

“Run, run!” gasped Margaret. “The train is here. It was Leonards, was
it? oh, run! I will carry your bag.” And she took him by the arm to push
him along with all her feeble force. A door was opened in a carriage—he
jumped in; and as he leant out to say, “God bless you, Margaret!” the
train rushed past her; and she was left standing alone. She was so
terribly sick and faint that she was thankful to be able to turn into
the ladies’ waiting-room, and sit down for an instant. At first she
could do nothing but gasp for breath. It was such a hurry; such a
sickening alarm; such a near chance. If the train had not been there at
the moment, the man would have jumped up again and called for assistance
to arrest him. She wondered if the man had got up: she tried to remember
if she had seen him move: she wondered if he could have been seriously
hurt. She ventured out; the platform was all alight, but still quite
deserted; she went to the end, and looked over, somewhat fearfully. No
one was there; and then she was glad she had made herself go, and
inspect, for otherwise terrible thoughts would have haunted her dreams.
And even as it was, she was so trembling and affrighted that she felt
she could not walk home along the road, which did indeed seem lonely and
dark, as she gazed down upon it from the blaze of the station. She would
wait till the down train passed and take her seat in it. But what if
Leonards recognized her as Frederick’s companion! She peered about,
before venturing into the booking-office to take her ticket. There were
only some railway officials standing about; and talking loud to one
another.

“So Leonards has been drinking again!” said one, seemingly in authority.
“He’ll need all his boasted influence to keep his place this time.”

“Where is he?” asked another, while Margaret, her back towards them, was
counting her change with trembling fingers, not daring to turn round
until she heard the answer to this question.

“I don’t know. He came in not five minutes ago, with some long story or
other about a fall he’d had, swearing awfully: and wanted to borrow some
money from me to go to London by the next up-train. He made all sorts of
tipsy promises, but I’d something else to do than listen to him; I told
him to go about his business; and he went off at the front door.”

“He’s at the nearest vaults, I’ll be bound,” said the first speaker.
“Your money would have gone there too, if you’d been such a fool as to
lend it.”

“Catch me! I knew better what his London meant. Why, he has never paid
me off that five shillings”—and so they went on.

And now all Margaret’s anxiety was for the train to come. She hid
herself once more in the ladies’ waiting-room, and fancied every noise
was Leonards’ step—every loud and boisterous voice was his. But no one
came near her until the train drew up; when she was civilly helped into
a carriage by a porter, into whose face she durst not look till they
were in motion, and then she saw that it was not Leonards’.