Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/296

 enough to do to catch some of the mob. You will not be afraid to stop in this house," she asked contemptuously, "and go on bathing Miss Hale's forehead, shall you? I shall not be ten minutes away."

"Couldn't Hannah go, ma'am?"

"Why Hannah? Why any but you? No, Jane, if you don't go, I do."

Mrs. Thornton went first to the room in which she had left Fanny stretched on the bed. She started up as her mother entered.

Oh, mamma, how you terrified me! I thought you were a man that had got into the house."

"Nonsense! The men are all gone away. There are soldiers all round the place, seeking for their work now it is too late. Miss Hale is lying on the dining-room sofa badly hurt. I am going for the doctor."

"Oh! don't, mamma! they'll murder you." She clung to her mother's gown. Mrs. Thornton wrenched it away with no gentle hand.

"Find me some one else to go; but that girl must not bleed to death."

"Bleed! oh, how horrid! How has she got hurt?"

"I don't know,—I have no time to ask. Go down to her, Fanny, and do try to make yourself of use. Jane is with her; and I trust it looks worse than it is. Jane has refused to leave the house, cowardly woman! And I won't put myself in the way of any more refusals from my servants, so I am going myself."

"Oh, dear, dear!" said Fanny, crying, and preparing to go down rather than be left alone, with