"I have no watch," said Margaret. "I sold mine a month ago. I told you we were very poor."

The man muttered something about the plague of gentlefolks being so poor, and about wondering that gentlefolks were not ashamed of being so poor. "You have got something, however," he continued, fixing his eye on the ring on Margaret's finger. "Give me that ring. Give it me, or else I'll take it."

Margaret's heart sank with a self-reproach worse than her grief, when she remembered how easily she might have saved this ring--how easily she might have thrust it under the fender, or dropped it into her shoe, into her hair, anywhere, while the intruder was gone to the room door to his companions. She felt that she could never forgive herself for this neglect of the most precious thing she had in the world--of that which most belonged to Philip.

"She cannot part with that ring," said Maria. "Look! you may see she had rather part with any money she is ever likely to have than with that ring."

She pointed to Margaret, who was sitting with her hands clasped as if they were never to be disjoined, and with a face of the deepest distress.

"I can't help that," said the man. "I must have what I can get."

He seized her hands, and, with one gripe of his, made hers fly open.

Margaret could no longer endure to expose any of her feelings to the notice of a stranger of this character. "Be patient a moment," said she; and she drew off the ring after its guard, made of Hester's hair, and put them into the large hand which was held out to receive them; feeling, at the moment, as if her heart was breaking. The man threw the hair ring back into her lap, and tied the turquoise in the corner of the shawl he wore.

"The lady up-stairs has got a watch, I suppose."

"Yes, she has: let me go and fetch it. Do let me go. I am afraid of nothing so much as her being terrified. If you have any humanity, let me go. Indeed I will bring the watch."

"Well, there is no man in the house, I know, for you to call. You may go, Miss: but I must step behind you to the room door; no further--she shan't see me, nor know any one is there, unless you tell her. This young lady will sit as still as a mouse till we come back."

"Never mind me," said Maria, to her friend. While they were gone, she sat as she was desired, as still as a mouse, enforced thereto by the certainty that a man stood in the shadow by the door, with his eye upon her the whole time.

Margaret lighted a chamber candle, in order, as she said, to look as usual if her sister should see her. The robber did tread very softly on the stairs, and stop outside the chamber-door. Morris was sitting up in her truckle-bed, evidently listening, and was on the point of starting out of it on seeing that Margaret's face was pale, when Margaret put her finger on her lips, and motioned to her to lie down. Hester was asleep, with her sleeping infant on her arm. Margaret set down the light, and leaned over her, to take the watch from its hook at the head of the bed.

"Are you still up?" said Hester, drowsily, and just opening her eyes.

"What do you want? It must be very late."

"Nearly half-past twelve, by your watch. I am sorry I disturbed you.

Good-night."

As she withdrew with the watch in her hand, she whispered to Morris:

"Lie still. Don't be uneasy. I will come again presently." So, in a few minutes, as seemed to intently listening ears, the house was clear of the intruders. Within a quarter of an hour Margaret had beckoned Morris out of Hester's room, and had explained the case to her. They went round the house, and found that all the little plate they had was gone, and the cheese from the pantry. Morris's cloth cloak was left hanging on its pin, and even Edward's old hat. From these circ.u.mstances, and from the dialect of the only speaker, Margaret thought the thieves must be country people from the neighbourhood, who could not wear the old clothes of the gentry without danger of detection. They had come in from the surgery, whose outer door was sufficiently distant from the inhabited rooms of the house to be forced without the noise being heard. Morris and Margaret barricaded this door as well as they could, with such chests and benches as they were able to move without making themselves heard up-stairs: and then Morris, at Margaret's earnest desire, stole back to bed. Anything rather than alarm Hester.

While they were below, Maria had put on more coals, and restored some order and comfort to the table and the fireside. She concluded that sleep was out of the question for this night. For some moments after Margaret came and sat down by her, neither of them spoke. At length Margaret said, half laughing:

"That you should have come here for rest this night, of all nights in the year!"

"I am glad it happened so. Yes; indeed, I am. I know it must have been a comfort to you to have some one with you, though only poor lame me.

And I am glad on my own account too, I a.s.sure you. Such a visitation is not half so dreadful as I had fancied--not worth half the fear I have spent upon it all my life. I am sure you felt as I did while he was here; you felt quite yourself, did not you? If it had not been for the woman's clothes, it would really have been scarcely terrifying at all.

There is something much more human about a housebreaker than I had fancied. But yet it was very inhuman of him to take your ring."

Margaret wept more bitterly than any one had seen her weep since her unhappy days began, and her friend could not comfort her. It was a case in which there was no comfort to be given, unless in the very faint and unreasonable hope that the ring might be offered for sale to some jeweller in some market town in the county; a hope sadly faint and unreasonable; since country people who would take plate and ornaments must, in all probability, be in communication with London rogues, who would turn the property into money in the great city. Still, there was a possibility of recovering the lost treasure; and on this possibility Maria dwelt perseveringly.

"But, Margaret," she went on to ask, "what is this about your watch?

Have you indeed sold it?"

"Yes. Morris managed that for me while Hester was confined. I am glad now that I parted with it as I did. It has paid some bills which I know made Edward anxious; and that is far better than its being in a housebreaker's hands."

"Yes, indeed: but I am sorry you all have such a struggle to live. Not a shilling in the house but the one you gave up!"

"So much for Edward's being out. It happened very well; for he could not have helped us, if he had been here. You saw there were three of them. What I meant was, that Edward has about him the little money that is to last us till Christmas. The rent is safe enough. It is in Mr Grey's strong box or the bank at Blickley. The rent is too important a matter to be put to any hazard, considering that Mr Rowland is our landlord. It is all ready and safe."

"That is well. Now, Margaret, could you swear to this visitor of ours?"

"No," said Margaret, softly, looking round, as if to convince herself that he was not there still. "No: his bonnet was so large, and he kept the shadow of it so carefully upon his face, that I should not know him again--at least, not in any other dress; and we shall never see him again in this. It is very disagreeable," she continued, shuddering slightly, "to think that we may pa.s.s him any day or every day, and that he may say to himself as we go by, 'There go the ladies that sat with their feet on the fender so comfortably when I went in, without leave!'"

"Poor wretch! he will rather say, 'There goes the young lady that I made so unhappy about her ring. I wish I had choked with the wine I drank, before I took that ring!' The first man you meet that cannot look you in the face is the thief, depend upon it, Margaret."

"I must not depend upon that. But, Maria, could you swear to him?"

"I am not quite sure at this moment, but I believe I could. The light from the fire shone brightly upon his black chin, and a bit of lank hair that came from under his mob cap. I could swear to the shawl."

"So could I: but that will be burned to-morrow morning. Now, Maria, do go to bed."

"Well, if you had rather--. Cannot we be together? Must I be treated as a guest, and have a room to myself?"

"Not if you think we can make room in mine. We shall be most comfortable there, shall not we--near to Morris and Hester?"

Rather than separate, they both betook themselves to the bed in Margaret's room. Maria lay still, as if asleep, but wide awake and listening. Margaret mourned her turquoise with silent tears all the rest of the night.

CHAPTER FORTY.

LIGHTSOME DAYS.

Before he returned home in the morning, Hope went to Dr Levitt's, to report of what he had seen and heard on Mr Grey's premises in the course of the night. He was persuaded that several persons had been about the yards; and he had seen a light appearing and disappearing among the shrubs which grew thick in the rear of the house. Sydney and he had examined the premises this morning, in company with Mr Grey's clerk; and they had found the flower-beds trampled, and drops of tallow from a candle which had probably been taken out of a lantern, and ashes from tobacco-pipes, scattered under the lee of a pile of logs. Nothing was missed from the yards: it was probable that they were the resort of persons who had been plundering elsewhere: but the danger from fire was so great, and the unpleasantness of having such night neighbours so extreme, that the gentlemen agreed that no time must be lost in providing a watch, which would keep the premises clear of intruders.

The dog, which had by some means been cajoled out of his duty, must be replaced by a more faithful one; and Dr Levitt was disposed to establish a patrol in the village.

The astonishment of both was great when Margaret appeared, early as it was, with her story. It was the faint hope of recovering her ring which brought her thus early to the magistrate's. Her brother was satisfied to stay and listen, when he found that Hester knew as yet nothing of the matter. It was a clear case that the Greys must find some other guardian for the nights that Mr Grey spent from home; and Dr Levitt said that no man was justified in leaving his family unprotected for a single night in such times as these. He spoke with the deepest concern of the state of the neighbourhood this winter, and of his own inability to preserve security, by his influence either as clergyman or magistrate. The fact was, he said, that neither law nor gospel could deter men from crime, when pressed by want, and hardened against all other claims by those of their starving families. Such times had never been known within his remembrance; and the guardians of the public peace and safety were almost as much at their wits' end as the sickly and savage population they had to control. He must to-day consult with as many of his brother magistrates as he could reach, as to what could be done for the general security and relief.

As Hope and Margaret returned home to breakfast, they agreed that their little household was more free to discharge the duties of such a time than most of their neighbours of their own rank could possibly be. They had now little or nothing of which they could be robbed. It was difficult to conceive how they could be further injured. They might now, wholly free from fear and self-regards, devote themselves to forgive and serve their neighbours. Such emanc.i.p.ation from care as is the blessing of poverty, even more than of wealth, was theirs; and, as a great blessing in the midst of very tolerable evil, they felt it.

Margaret laughed, as she asked Edward if he could spare a few pence to buy horn spoons in the village, as all the silver ones were gone.

Hester was not at all too much alarmed or disturbed, when she missed her watch, and heard what had happened. She was chiefly vexed that she had slept through it all. It seemed so ridiculous that the master of the house should be safe at a distance, and the mistress comfortably asleep, during such an event, leaving it to sister, maid, and guest, to bear all the terror of it!

Dr Levitt's absence of mind did not interfere with the activity of his heart, or with his penetration in cases where the hearts of others were concerned. He perceived that the lost turquoise was, from some cause, inestimable to Margaret, and he spared no pains to recover it: but weeks pa.s.sed on without any tidings of it. Margaret told herself that she must give up this, as she had given up so much else, with as much cheerfulness as she could; but she missed her ring every hour of the day.

Christmas came; and the expected contest took, place about the rent of the corner-house. Mr Rowland showed his lady the bank-notes on the morning of quarter-day, and then immediately and secretly sent them back. Mrs Rowland had never been so sorry to see bank-notes; yet she would have been so angry at their being returned, that her husband concealed the fact from her. Within an hour the money was in Mr Rowland's hands again, with a request that he would desist from pressing favours upon those who could not but consider them as pecuniary obligation, and not as justice. Mr Rowland sighed, turned the key of his desk upon the money, and set forth to the corner-house, to see whether no repairs were wanted--whether there was nothing that he could do as landlord to promote the comfort and security of his excellent tenants.

Christmas came; and Morris found she could not leave her young ladies while the days were so very short. She would receive no wages after Christmas, and she would take care that she cost them next to nothing; but she could not be easy to go till brighter days--days externally brighter, at least--were at hand, nor till the baby was a little less tender, and had shown beyond dispute that he was likely to be a stout little fellow. She could not think of Miss Margaret getting up quite in the dark, to light the fire; it was a dismal time to begin such a new sort of work. Margaret privately explained to her that these little circ.u.mstances brought no discouragement to persons who undertake such labour with sufficient motive; and Morris admitted this. She saw the difference between the case of a poor girl first going to service, who trembles half the night at the idea of her mistress's displeasure if she should not happen to wake in time; such poor girl undertaking service for a maintenance, and by no means from love in either party towards the other--Morris saw the difference between the morning waking to such a service and Margaret's being called from her bed by love of those whom she was going to serve through the day, and by an exhilarating sense of honour and duty. Morris saw that, while to the solitary dependant every accessory of cheerfulness is necessary to make her willingly leave her rest--the early sunshine through her window, and the morning songs of birds--it mattered little to Margaret under what circ.u.mstances she went about her business--whether in darkness or in light, in keen frost or genial warmth. She had the strength of will, in whose glow all the disgust, all the meanness, all the hardship of the most sordid occupations is consumed, leaving unimpaired the dignity and delight of toil. Morris saw and fully admitted all this; and yet she stayed on till the end of January.

By that time her friends were not satisfied to have her remain any longer. It was necessary that she should earn money; and she had an opportunity now of earning what she needed at Birmingham. The time was come when Morris must go.

The family had their sorrow all to themselves that dismal evening; for not a soul in Deerbrook, except Maria, knew that Morris was going at all. Maria had known all along; and it had been settled that Maria should occupy Morris's room, after it was vacated, as often as she felt nervous and lonely in her lodging. But she was not aware of the precise day when the separation of these old and dear friends was to take place.

So they mourned Morris as privately as she had long grieved over their adversity.