"Who'll plough their fields? Who'll do their drudgery for them? And
work like horses to give them the harvest?"--_Southey_.
Mrs Carbonel, having seen her two little ones laid down for their
midday nap, was sitting down to write a note to her husband, while
Sophia was gone to give her lesson at the school, when there came a tap
to the drawing-room window, and looking up she saw Tirzah Todd's brown
face and her finger making signs to her. She felt displeased, and rose
up, saying, "Why, Tirzah, if you want me, you had better come to the
back door!"
"Lady, you must come out this way. 'Tis Jack Swing a-coming, ma'am--
yes, he is--with a whole lot of mischievous folks, to break the machine
and burn the ricks, and what not. Hush, don't ye hear 'em a hollering
atop of the hill? They be gathering at the `Fox and Hounds,' and I just
couldn't abear that you and the dear little children should be scared
like, and the captain away. So," as Mrs Carbonel's lips moved in
thanks and alarm, "if you would come with me, lady, and take the
children, and come out this way, through the garden, where you wouldn't
meet none of 'em, I'll take you down the short way to Farmer Pearson's,
or wherever you liked, where you wouldn't hear nothing till 'tis over."
"Oh, Tirzah! You are very good. A fright would be a most fearful
shock, and might be quite fatal to my little Mary. But oh, my sister
and the servants and the Pucklechurches, I can't leave them."
"My Hoggie was at home with the baby, and I sent her off to see Miss
Sophy at the school, and tell her to come up to Pearson's."
"But the Pucklechurches?"
"Nobody will hurt them! Nobody means to hurt you," said Tirzah, "I
knows that! My man wouldn't ha' gone with them, but so as they promised
faithful not to lay a finger on you, so you give 'em the money and the
guns; but men don't think of the dear little gal as is so nesh, so I
thought I'd warn you to have her out of the way. Bless my heart,
they'll be coming. That was nigher."
Mrs Carbonel's mind went through many thoughts in those few moments.
She could not bear to desert her husband's property and people in this
stress, and yet she knew that to expose her tender little girl to the
terrors of a violent mob would be fatal. And she decided on accepting
Tirzah's offer of safety and shelter. She ran upstairs, put on her
bonnet, took her husband's most essential papers out of his desk and
pocketed them, together with some sovereigns and bank-notes, then
quietly went into the nursery, where she desired Rachel Mole to put on
her bonnet, take up the baby, and follow her, and herself was putting on
little Mary's small straw hat and cape, telling her that she was coming
with mamma for a walk to see Mrs Pearson's old turkey cock, when Mrs
Pucklechurch burst in with two or three maids behind her.
"Oh, ma'am, Jack Swing's coming and all the rabble rout. What ever
shall we do?" was the gasping, screaming cry.
"Only be quiet. There's nothing for any one to fear. If they do harm,
it is to things, not people. I only go away for the sake of this child!
No, Mary dear, nobody will hurt you. You are going for a nice early
walk with mamma and baby and Rachel. You,"--to the maids--"may follow
if you will feel safer so, but I do not believe there is any real danger
to you. Betty Pucklechurch, please tell your husband that I do beg him
not to resist. It would be of no use, his master would not wish it,
only if he will take care that the poor cattle and horses come to no
harm."
"He have gone to drive 'em off already to Longacre," said Betty. "I
tell'd he, he'd better stand by master's goods, but he be a man for his
cows, he be."
"Quite right of him," said Mrs Carbonel. "Have you baby's bottle,
Rachel? Now, Mary dear, here's your piece of seed cake."
The shouts and singing sounded alarmingly as if approaching by this
time, and little Mary listened and said, "Funny mens singing."
It was very loud as the fugitives gained the verandah, where Tirzah
waited with an angry light in her black eyes. "Oh! won't I give it to
Joe Todd," she cried, "for turning against the best friend Hoglah ever
had--or me either."
Mary, carrying her little Mary, and trying to keep a smile that might
reassure her, followed Tirzah across the orchard on the opposite side of
the house. They had to scramble through a gap in the hedge; Tirzah went
over first, breaking it down further, then the baby was put into her
arms, and Rachel came next, receiving Mary from her mother, who was
telling her how funny it was to get over poor papa's fence, all among
the apple trees, and here was Don jumping after them. Don, the Clumber
spaniel, wanted a bit of Mary's cake, and this and her mother's jump
down from the hedge and over the ditch, happily distracted her
attention, and made her laugh, while the three maids were screaming that
here were the rascals, hundreds of them a-coming up the drive; they saw
them over the apple trees when on the top of the hedge, and heard their
horrid shouts. "Oh, the nasty villains, with black faces and all!"
Mrs Carbonel dreaded these cries almost as much as the mob itself for
her delicate child, and went on talking to her and saying all the
nursery rhymes that would come into her head, walking as fast as she
could without making her pace felt, though the little maid--albeit small
and thin for five years old--was a heavy weight to carry for some
distance over a rough stubble field for unaccustomed arms. Tirzah had
the baby, who happily was too young to be even disturbed in his noontide
sleep, and Rachel Mole had tarried with the other maids, unable to
resist her curiosity to see what was doing at the farm since they were
out of reach.
The fugitives reached a stile which gave entrance to a rough pathway,
through a copse, and it was only here, when her mother sat down on the
trunk of a tree taking breath with a sense of safety, that little Mary
began to cry and sob. "Oh, we are lost in the wood! Please, please,
mamma, get out of it. Let us go home."
"No indeed, Mary, we aren't lost! See, here's the path. We are going
to see Mrs Pearson's pussy cat and her turkey."
"I don't want to. Oh! the wolves will come and eat us up," and she
clung round her mother in real terror.
"Wolves! No, indeed! There are no wolves in England, darling, here or
anywhere."
"Rachel said the wolves would come if I went in here."
"Then Rachel was very silly. No, there are no wolves. No, Mary, only--
see! the little rabbit. Come along, take hold of my hand, we will soon
get out. Never mind; God is taking care of us. Come, we will say our
hymn as we go on."
The mother said her verse, and Mary tried to follow, in a voice
quivering with sobs. Those imaginary wolves were a far greater alarm
and trouble to her than the real riot at her father's farm. She clung
round her mother's gown, and there was no pacifying her but by taking
her up in arms.
"Let me take her, ma'am," said Tirzah Todd, making over the sleeping
Edmund to his mother. "Come, little lady, I'll carry you so nice."
"No, no! Go away, ugly woman," cried Mary ungratefully, flapping at her
with her hands in terror at the brown face and big black eyes.
"Oh, naughty, naughty Mary," sighed the mother, "when Tirzah is so good,
and wants to help you! Don't be a naughty child!"
But the word naughty provoked such a fit of crying that there was
nothing for it but for Mrs Carbonel to pick the child up and struggle
on as best she could, soothing her terror at the narrow paths and the
unknown way, and the mysterious alarm of the woodlands, as well,
perhaps, as the undefined sense of other people's dread and agitation.
However, the crying was quiet now, and the sounds of tumult at the farm
were stifled by the trees, so that after a time--which seemed terribly
long--the party emerged into an open meadow, whence they could see the
gate leading to the high road, and beyond that the roof of Mrs
Pearson's house.
But something else was to be seen far up the road. There was the flash
of the sun from helmets! The Yeomanry were coming!
"There's papa!" cried Mrs Carbonel. "Papa in his pretty silver dress.
Run on, run on, Mary, and see him."
Mary was let down, still drawing long sobs as she half ran, half toddled
on, allowing herself to be pulled by Tirzah Todd's free hand, while her
mother sped on to the gate, just in time for the astonished greeting of
one of the little troop.
"Mrs Carbonel! What?"
And the next moment her husband was off his horse and by her side with
anxious inquiries.
"Yes, yes, dear Edmund! We are all safe. Good Tirzah came to warn us.
Make haste! They are at the farm. We shall be at Mrs Pearson's.
She," (pointing to Tirzah) "sent to fetch Sophy from school. She'll be
there. Here are the children all safe."
"Papa, papa," cried little Mary, feeling his silver-laced collar, and
stroking his face as he kissed her.
And from that time she was comforted though he had to leave her again at
once. She had felt a father's arm.
"Tirzah Todd!" exclaimed Captain Carbonel, "I shall never forget what
you have done for us. Never!"