North and South Page #35

North and South is a social novel published in 1854 by English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. With Wives and Daughters and Cranford, it is one of her best-known novels and was adapted for television three times. The 2004 version renewed interest in the novel and attracted a wider readership.

• Novel

								

that the letter in which he speaks of Captain Reid’s impatience with the
men, for not going through the ship’s manœuvres as quickly as the
Avenger? You see, he says that they had many new hands on board the
Russell, while the Avenger had been nearly three years on the station,
with nothing to do but to keep slavers off, and work her men, till they
ran up and down the rigging like rats or monkeys.”

Margaret slowly read the letter, half illegible through the fading of
the ink. It might be--it probably was--a statement of Captain Reid’s
imperiousness in trifles, very much exaggerated by the narrator, who had
written it while fresh and warm from the scene of altercation. Some
sailors being aloft in the main-topsail rigging, the captain had ordered
them to race down, threatening the hindmost with the cat-of-nine tails.
He who was the farthest on the spar, feeling the impossibility of
passing his companions, and yet passionately dreading the disgrace of
the flogging, threw himself desperately down to catch a rope
considerably lower, failed, and fell senseless on the deck. He only
survived for a few hours afterwards, and the indignation of the ship’s
crew was at boiling point when young Hale wrote.

“But we did not receive this letter till long, long after we heard of
the mutiny. Poor Fred! I dare say it was a comfort to him to write it,
even though he could not have known how to send it, poor fellow! And
then we saw a report in the papers--that’s to say, long before Fred’s
letter reached us--of an atrocious mutiny having broken out on board the
Russell, and that the mutineers had remained in possession of the ship,
which had gone off, it was supposed, to be a pirate; and that Captain
Reid was sent adrift in a boat with some men--officers or
something--whose names were all given, for they were picked up by a West
Indian steamer. Oh, Margaret! how your father and I turned sick over
that list, when there was no name of Frederick Hale. We thought it must
be some mistake; for poor Fred was such a fine fellow, only perhaps
rather too passionate; and we hoped that the name of Carr, which was in
the list, was a misprint for that of Hale--newspapers are so careless.
And towards post-time the next day, papa set off to walk to Southampton
to get the papers; and I could not stop at home, so I went to meet him.
He was very late--much later than I thought he would have been; and I
sat down under the hedge to wait for him. He came at last, his arms
hanging loose down, his head sunk, and walking heavily along, as if
every step was a labour and a trouble. Margaret, I see him now.”

“Don’t go on, mamma. I can understand it all,” said Margaret, leaning up
caressingly against her mother’s side, and kissing her hand.

“No, you can’t, Margaret. No one can who did not see him then. I could
hardly lift myself up to go and meet him--everything seemed so to reel
around me all at once. And when I got to him, he did not speak, or seem
surprised to see me there, more than three miles from home, beside the
Oldham beech-tree; but he put my arm in his, and kept stroking my hand,
as if he wanted to soothe me to be very quiet under some great heavy
blow; and when I trembled so all over that I could not speak, he took me
in his arms, and stooped down his head on mine, and began to shake and
to cry in a strange muffled, groaning voice, till I, for very fright,
stood quite still, and only begging him to tell me what he had heard.
And then, with his hand jerking, as if some one else moved it against
his will, he gave me a wicked newspaper to read, calling our Frederick a
‘traitor of the blackest dye,’ ‘a base, ungrateful disgrace to his
profession.’ Oh! I cannot tell what bad words they did not use. I took
the paper in my hands as soon as I had read it--I tore it up to little
bits--I tore it--oh! I believe, Margaret, I tore it with my teeth. I did
not cry. I could not. My cheeks were as hot as fire, and my very eyes
burnt in my head. I saw your father looking grave at me. I said it was a
lie, and so it was. Months after, this letter came, and you see what
provocation Frederick had. It was not for himself, or his own injuries,
he rebelled; but he would speak his mind to Captain Reid, and so it
went on from bad to worse; and you see, most of the sailors stuck by
Frederick.”

“I think, Margaret,” she continued, after a pause, in a weak, trembling,
exhausted voice, “I am glad of it--I am prouder of Frederick standing up
against injustice, than if he had been simply a good officer.”

“I am sure I am,” said Margaret, in a firm, decided tone. “Loyalty and
obedience to wisdom and justice are fine; but it is still finer to defy
arbitrary power, unjustly and cruelly used--not on behalf of ourselves,
but on behalf of others more helpless.”

“For all that, I wish I could see Frederick once more--just once. He was
my first baby, Margaret.” Mrs. Hale spoke wistfully, and almost as if
apologising for the yearning, craving wish, as though it were a
depreciation of her remaining child. But such an idea never crossed
Margaret’s mind. She was thinking how her mother’s desire could be
fulfilled.

“It is six or seven years ago--would they still prosecute him, mother.
If he came and stood his trial, what would be the punishment? Surely, he
might bring evidence of his great provocation.”

“It would do no good,” replied Mrs. Hale. “Some of the sailors who
accompanied Frederick were taken, and there was a court-martial held on
them on board the Amicia; I believed all they said in their defence,
poor fellows, because it just agreed with Frederick’s story--but it was
of no use,--” and for the first time during the conversation Mrs. Hale
began to cry; yet something possessed Margaret to force the information
she foresaw, yet dreaded, from her mother.

“What happened to them, mamma?” asked she.

“They were hung at the yard-arm,” said Mrs. Hale, solemnly. “And the
worst was that the court, in condemning them to death, said they had
suffered themselves to be led astray from their duty by their superior
officers.”

They were silent for a long time.

“And Frederick was in South America for several years, was he not?”

“Yes. And now he is in Spain. At Cadiz, or somewhere near it. If he
comes to England he will be hung. I shall never see his face again--for
if he comes to England he will be hung.”

There was no comfort to be given. Mrs. Hale turned her face to the wall,
and lay perfectly still in her mother’s despair. Nothing could be said
to console her. She took her hand out of Margaret’s with a little
impatient movement, as if she would fain be left alone with the
recollection of her son. When Mr. Hale came in, Margaret went out,
oppressed with gloom, and seeing no promise of brightness on any side of
the horizon.




CHAPTER XV

MASTERS AND MEN.

    “Thought fights with thought; out springs a spark of truth
    From the collision of the sword and shield.”
              W. S. LANDOR.


“Margaret,” said her father, the next day, “we must return Mrs.
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