In Consequence: A Retelling of North and South Read Online Free PDF Page A

that the protection he had requested would arrive before irreparable damage was done.
                       “Reason ... what kind of reason?” Margaret demanded, alarmed at the Master’s intransigence and seeming indifference to the fate of the men below. “Mr. Thornton, go down there this instant and face them like a man! Speak to your workmen as if they were human beings. They’re driven mad with hunger. Don't let the soldiers harm them. If you have any courage or noble quality in you, go out and speak to them, man to man,” she ordered him with a moral rectitude and authority beyond her years.
                       He stared at her with wrinkled brow, stunned silent at the power she seemed to wield over him. Her impassioned reasoning struck a tone of truth in his conscience, and he was at once uncertain of his formulated plans. Her expression bespoke her adamant expectation that he should speedily act.
                       He could not do otherwise. Giving her one last look of concentrated amazement at her directive, he turned on his heel to take flight for the stairs.
                       “Oh! Mr. Thornton, perhaps I am wrong … only … take care!” she called out after him.
                       Margaret looked anxiously over the crowd below and cried out in horror when she spied several men stoop to gather up stones. Picking up her skirts, she immediately ran to stop them from hurling their ammunition upon the figure of their accumulated misery. She raced down the stairs with alarming speed and swung open the heavy door to the portico where Mr. Thornton silently stood, his arms crossed in defiance above the clamoring sea of angry faces.
                       She rushed past him to make her impassioned plea.
                       “Stop! Do no violence. He is one man and you are many. The soldiers are coming. Go in peace. Your complaints have been heard.”
                       “Will you send back the Irish?” a hostile voice shouted over the hush.
                       “Not at your bidding!” the Master bellowed contemptuously in reply.
                       The mob roared in frenzied fury at his obstinacy.
                       “Go inside, this is no place for you,” Mr. Thornton demanded of the woman standing beside him as he brusquely endeavored to maneuver her inside.
                       “No, you did not see …” she protested as she threw her arms around his neck, convinced that her presence would protect him from violence.
                       “Go inside,” he commanded again, seething with anger at her stubborn resistance. Did she not see the danger of the situation?
                       He fought to disengage himself from her hold, but as he turned to force her inside, a rock grazed the side of his head. A blazing light flashed before his eyes. He stumbled in shock before the world began to spin and all turned black.
                       Margaret let out a cry as the strong man in her arms swayed and began to sink to the ground. She grasped at him, vainly trying to stay his fall, but his weight was too much for her to bear. Nevertheless, she clung to him at her own peril and awkwardly managed to break his fall as she, too, tumbled to the ground, collapsing with him in a tangled heap.
                       She slid her shoulder and arm out from underneath the weight of his torso, and gently rolled him onto his back, scrambling to her knees to kneel beside him. She paid no heed to the awed hush that had descended over the crowd at his toppling.
                       She vaguely registered the sharp whistles of the mounted soldiers who brandished their sticks to disperse the mob. Her only focus was the man who