Fear no more the beat o' th' sun, Nor the furious winter's rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone and ta'en thy wages. Cymbeline . While day and night can bring delight, Or nature aught of pleasure give; While joys above my mind can move, For thee, and thee alone I live: When that grim foe of joy below Comes in between to make us part, The iron hand that breaks our band, It breaks my bliss--it breaks my heart. BURNS . She was where no words of peace, no soothing hopeful tidings could reach her; in the ghastly spectral world of delirium. Hour after hour, day after day, she started up with passionate cries on her father to save Jem; or rose wildly, imploring the winds and waves, the pitiless winds and waves, to have mercy; and over and over again she exhausted her feverish fitful strength in these agonised entreaties, and fell back powerless, uttering only the wailing moans of despair. They told her Jem was safe, they brought him before her eyes; but sight and hearing were no longer channels of information to that poor distracted brain, nor could human voice penetrate to her understanding. Jem alone gathered the full meaning of some of her strange sentences, and perceived that, by some means or other, she, like himself, had divined the truth of her father being the murderer. Long ago (reckoning time by events and thoughts, and not by clock or dial-plate), Jem had felt certain that Mary's father was Harry Carson's murderer; and although the motive was in some measure a mystery, yet a whole train of circumstances (the principal of which was that John Barton had borrowed the fatal gun only two days before) had left no doubt in Jem's mind. Sometimes he thought that John had discovered, and thus bloodily resented, the attentions which Mr Carson had paid to his daughter; at others, he believed the motive to exist in the bitter feuds between the masters and their workpeople, in which Barton was known to take so keen an interest. But if he had felt himself pledged to preserve this secret, even when his own life was the probable penalty, and he believed he should fall execrated by Mary as the guilty destroyer of her lover, how much more was he bound now to labour to prevent any word of hers from inculpating her father, now that she was his own now that she had braved so much to rescue him; and now that her poor brain had lost all guiding and controlling power over her words. All that night long Jem wandered up and down the narrow precincts of Ben Sturgis's house. In the little bedroom where Mrs Sturgis alternately tended Mary, and wept over the violence of her illness, he listened to her ravings; each sentence of which had its own peculiar meaning and reference, intelligible to his mind, till her words rose to the wild pitch of agony, that no one could alleviate, and he could bear it no longer, and stole, sick and miserable, down-stairs, where Ben Sturgis thought it his duty to snore away in an arm-chair instead of his bed, under the idea that he should thus be more ready for active service, such as fetching the doctor to revisit his patient. Before it was fairly light, Jem (wide awake, and listening with an earnest attention he could not deaden, however painful its results proved) heard a gentle subdued knock at the house door; it was no business of his, to be sure, to open it, but as Ben slept on, he thought he would see who the early visitor might be, and ascertain if there was any occasion for disturbing either host or hostess. It was Job Legh who stood there, distinct against the outer light of the street. "How is she? Eh! poor soul! is that her? No need to ask! How strange her voice sounds! Screech! screech! and she so low, sweet-spoken, when she's well! Thou must keep up heart, old boy, and not look so dismal, thysel." "I can't help it, Job; it's past a man's bearing to bear such a one as she is, going on as she is doing; even if I did not care for her, it would cut me sore to see one so young, and--I can't speak of it, Job, as a man should do," said Jem, his sobs choking him. "Let me in, will you?" said Job, pushing past him, for all this time Jem had stood holding the door, unwilling to admit Job where he might hear so muchthat would be suggestive to one acquainted with the parties that Mary named. "I'd more than one reason for coming betimes. I wanted to hear how yon poor wench was;--that stood first. Late last night I got a letter from Margaret very anxious-like. The doctor says the old lady yonder can't last many days longer, and it seems so lonesome for her to die with no one but Margaret and Mrs Davenport about her. So I thought I'd just come and stay with Mary Barton, and see as she's well done to, and you and your mother and Will go and take leave of old Alice." Jem's countenance, sad at best just now, fell lower and lower. But Job went on with his speech. "She still wanders, Margaret says, and thinks she's with her mother at home; but for all that, she should have some kith and kin near her to close her eyes, to my thinking." "Could not you and Will take mother home? I'd follow when----" Jem faltered out thus far, when Job interrupted, "Lad! if thou knew what thy mother has suffered for thee, thou'd not speak of leaving her just when she's got thee from the grave as it were. Why, this very night she roused me up, and 'Job,' says she, 'I ask your pardon for wakening you, but tell me, am I awake or dreaming? Is Jem proved innocent?
Oh, Job Legh! God send I've not been dreaming it!' For thou see'st she can't rightly understand why thou'rt with Mary, and not with her. Aye, aye! I know why; but a mother only gives up her son's heart inch by inch to his wife, and then she gives it up with a grudge. No, Jem! thou must go with thy mother just now, if ever thou hopest for God's blessing. She's a widow, and has none but thee. Never fear for Mary! She's young, and will struggle through. They are decent people, these folk she is with, and I'll watch o'er her as though she was my own poor girl, that lies cold enough in London town. I grant ye, it's hard enough for her to be left among strangers.
