'Ay!' said he. 'I've seen and heerd too much on him.' 'He refused you, then?' said Margaret, sorrowfully.
'To be sure. I knew he'd do it all long. It's no good expecting
marcy at the hands o' them measters. Yo're a stranger and a
foreigner, and aren't likely to know their ways; but I knowed
it.' 'I am sorry I asked you. Was he angry? He did not speak to you as
Hamper did, did he?' 'He weren't o'er-civil!' said Nicholas, spinning the penny again,
as much for his own amusement as for that of the children. 'Never
yo' fret, I'm only where I was. I'll go on tramp to-morrow. I
gave him as good as I got. I telled him, I'd not that good
opinion on him that I'd ha' come a second time of mysel'; but
yo'd advised me for to come, and I were beholden to yo'.' 'You told him I sent you?' 'I dunno' if I ca'd yo' by your name. I dunnot think I did. I
said, a woman who knew no better had advised me for to come and
see if there was a soft place in his heart.' 'And he--?' asked Margaret.
'Said I were to tell yo' to mind yo'r own business.--That's the
longest spin yet, my lads.--And them's civil words to what he
used to me. But ne'er mind. We're but where we was; and I'll
break stones on th' road afore I let these little uns clem.' Margaret put the struggling Johnnie out of her arms, back into
his former place on the dresser.
'I am sorry I asked you to go to Mr. Thornton's. I am
disappointed in him.' There was a slight noise behind her. Both she and Nicholas turned
round at the same moment, and there stood Mr. Thornton, with a
look of displeased surprise upon his face. Obeying her swift
impulse, Margaret passed out before him, saying not a word, only
bowing low to hide the sudden paleness that she felt had come
over her face. He bent equally low in return, and then closed the
door after her. As she hurried to Mrs. Boucher's, she heard the
clang, and it seemed to fill up the measure of her mortification.
He too was annoyed to find her there. He had tenderness in his
heart--'a soft place,' as Nicholas Higgins called it; but he had
some pride in concealing it; he kept it very sacred and safe, and
was jealous of every circumstance that tried to gain admission.
But if he dreaded exposure of his tenderness, he was equally
desirous that all men should recognise his justice; and he felt
that he had been unjust, in giving so scornful a hearing to any
one who had waited, with humble patience, for five hours, to
speak to him. That the man had spoken saucily to him when he had
the opportunity, was nothing to Mr. Thornton. He rather liked him
for it; and he was conscious of his own irritability of temper at
the time, which probably made them both quits. It was the five
hours of waiting that struck Mr. Thornton. He had not five hours
to spare himself; but one hour--two hours, of his hard
penetrating intellectual, as well as bodily labour, did he give
up to going about collecting evidence as to the truth of
Higgins's story, the nature of his character, the tenor of his
life. He tried not to be, but was convinced that all that Higgins
had said was true. And then the conviction went in, as if by
some spell, and touched the latent tenderness of his heart; the
patience of the man, the simple generosity of the motive (for he
had learnt about the quarrel between Boucher and Higgins), made
him forget entirely the mere reasonings of justice, and overleap
them by a diviner instinct. He came to tell Higgins he would give
him work; and he was more annoyed to find Margaret there than by
hearing her last words, for then he understood that she was the
woman who had urged Higgins to come to him; and he dreaded the
admission of any thought of her, as a motive to what he was doing
solely because it was right.