'When did you write to Frederick, Margaret? Yesterday, or the day
before?' 'Yesterday, mamma.' 'Yesterday. And the letter went?' 'Yes. I took it myself' 'Oh, Margaret, I'm so afraid of his coming! If he should be
recognised! If he should be taken! If he should be executed,
after all these years that he has kept away and lived in safety!
I keep falling asleep and dreaming that he is caught and being
tried.' 'Oh, mamma, don't be afraid. There will be some risk no doubt;
but we will lessen it as much as ever we can. And it is so
little! Now, if we were at Helstone, there would be twenty--a
hundred times as much. There, everybody would remember him and if
there was a stranger known to be in the house, they would be sure
to guess it was Frederick; while here, nobody knows or cares for
us enough to notice what we do. Dixon will keep the door like a
dragon--won't you, Dixon--while he is here?' 'They'll be clever if they come in past me!' said Dixon, showing
her teeth at the bare idea.
'And he need not go out, except in the dusk, poor fellow!' 'Poor fellow!' echoed Mrs. Hale. 'But I almost wish you had not
written. Would it be too late to stop him if you wrote again,
Margaret?' 'I'm afraid it would, mamma,' said Margaret, remembering the
urgency with which she had entreated him to come directly, if he
wished to see his mother alive.
'I always dislike that doing things in such a hurry,' said Mrs.
Hale.
Margaret was silent.
'Come now, ma am,' said Dixon, with a kind of cheerful authority,
'you know seeing Master Frederick is just the very thing of all
others you're longing for. And I'm glad Miss Margaret wrote off
straight, without shilly-shallying. I've had a great mind to do
it myself. And we'll keep him snug, depend upon it. There's only
Martha in the house that would not do a good deal to save him on
a pinch; and I've been thinking she might go and see her mother
just at that very time. She's been saying once or twice she
should like to go, for her mother has had a stroke since she came
here, only she didn't like to ask. But I'll see about her being
safe off, as soon as we know when he comes, God bless him! So
take your tea, ma'am, in comfort, and trust to me.' Mrs. Hale did trust in Dixon more than in Margaret. Dixon's words
quieted her for the time. Margaret poured out the tea in silence,
trying to think of something agreeable to say; but her thoughts
made answer something like Daniel O'Rourke, when the
man-in-the-moon asked him to get off his reaping-hook. 'The more
you ax us, the more we won't stir.' The more she tried to think
of something anything besides the danger to which Frederick would
be exposed--the more closely her imagination clung to the
unfortunate idea presented to her. Her mother prattled with
Dixon, and seemed to have utterly forgotten the possibility of
Frederick being tried and executed--utterly forgotten that at her
wish, if by Margaret's deed, he was summoned into this danger.
Her mother was one of those who throw out terrible possibilities,
miserable probabilities, unfortunate chances of all kinds, as a
rocket throws out sparks; but if the sparks light on some
combustible matter, they smoulder first, and burst out into a
frightful flame at last. Margaret was glad when, her filial
duties gently and carefully performed, she could go down into the
study. She wondered how her father and Higgins had got on.