‘All these years since the mutiny, papa?’

’Yes; it is necessary, of course, for government to take very stringent measures for the repression of offences against authority, more particularly in the navy, where a commanding officer needs to be surrounded in his men’s eyes with a vivid consciousness of all the power there is at home to back him, and take up his cause, and avenge any injuries offered to him, if need be.  Ah! it’s no matter to them how far their authorities have tyrannised,—­galled hasty tempers to madness,—­or, if that can be any excuse afterwards, it is never allowed for in the first instance; they spare no expense, they send out ships,—­they scour the seas to lay hold of the offenders,—­the lapse of years does not wash out the memory of the offence,—­it is a fresh and vivid crime on the Admiralty books till it is blotted out by blood.’

’Oh, papa, what have I done!  And yet it seemed so right at the time.  I’m sure Frederick himself, would run the risk.’

’So he would; so he should!  Nay, Margaret, I’m glad it is done, though I durst not have done it myself.  I’m thankful it is as it is; I should have hesitated till, perhaps, it might have been too late to do any good.  Dear Margaret, you have done what is right about it; and the end is beyond our control.’

It was all very well; but her father’s account of the relentless manner in which mutinies were punished made Margaret shiver and creep.  If she had decoyed her brother home to blot out the memory of his error by his blood!  She saw her father’s anxiety lay deeper than the source of his latter cheering words.  She took his arm and walked home pensively and wearily by his side.

CHAPTER XXVI

MOTHER AND SON

’I have found that holy place of rest
Still changeless.’ 
Mrs. Hemans.

When Mr. Thornton had left the house that morning he was almost blinded by his baffled passion.  He was as dizzy as if Margaret, instead of looking, and speaking, and moving like a tender graceful woman, had been a sturdy fish-wife, and given him a sound blow with her fists.  He had positive bodily pain,—­a violent headache, and a throbbing intermittent pulse.  He could not bear the noise, the garish light, the continued rumble and movement of the street.  He called himself a fool for suffering so; and yet he could not, at the moment, recollect the cause of his suffering, and whether it was adequate to the consequences it had produced.  It would have been a relief to him, if he could have sat down and cried on a door-step by a little child, who was raging and storming, through his passionate tears, at some injury he had received.  He said to himself, that he hated Margaret, but a wild, sharp sensation of love cleft his dull, thunderous feeling like lightning, even as he shaped the words expressive of hatred.  His greatest comfort was in hugging his torment; and in feeling, as he had indeed said to her, that though she might despise him, contemn him, treat him with her proud sovereign indifference, he did not change one whit.  She could not make him change.  He loved her, and would love her; and defy her, and this miserable bodily pain.