But I have a kindness for all Susans, for simple Susan's sake.' 'My little Susan was disappointed when I left without wishing her goodbye;and it has been on my conscience ever since, that I gave her pain which a little more exertion on my part might have prevented. But it is a long way. Are you sure you will not be tired?' 'Quite sure. That is, if you don't walk so fast. You see, here there are no views that can give one an excuse for stopping to take breath. You would think it romantic to be walking with a person "fat and scant o' breath"if I were Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Have compassion on my infirmities for his sake.' 'I will walk slower for your own sake. I like you twenty times better than Hamlet.' 'On the principle that a living ass is better than a dead lion?' 'Perhaps so. I don't analyse my feelings.' 'I am content to take your liking me, without examining too curiously into the materials it is made of. Only we need not walk at a snail's' pace.' 'Very well. Walk at your own pace, and I will follow. Or stop still and meditate, like the Hamlet you compare yourself to, if I go too fast.' 'Thank you. But as my mother has not murdered my father, and afterwards married my uncle, I shouldn't know what to think about, unless it were balancing the chances of our having a well-cooked dinner or not. What do you think?' 'I am in good hopes. She used to be considered a famous cook as far as Helstone opinion went.' 'But have you considered the distraction of mind produced by all this haymaking?' Margaret felt all Mr. Bell's kindness in trying to make cheerful talk about nothing, to endeavour to prevent her from thinking too curiously about the past. But she would rather have gone over these dear-loved walks in silence, if indeed she were not ungrateful enough to wish that she might have been alone. They reached the cottage where Susan's widowed mother lived. Susan was not there. She was gone to the parochial school. Margaret was disappointed, and the poor woman saw it, and began to make a kind of apology. 'Oh! it is quite right,' said Margaret. 'I am very glad to hear it. I might have thought of it. Only she used to stop at home with you.' 'Yes, she did; and I miss her sadly. I used to teach her what little Iknew at nights. It were not much to be sure. But she were getting such a handy girl, that I miss her sore. But she's a deal above me in learning now.' And the mother sighed. 'I'm all wrong,' growled Mr. Bell. 'Don't mind what I say. I'm a hundred years behind the world. But I should say, that the child was getting a better and simpler, and more natural education stopping at home, and helping her mother, and learning to read a chapter in the New Testament every night by her side, than from all the schooling under the sun.' Margaret did not want to encourage him to go on by replying to him, and so prolonging the discussion before the mother. So she turned to her and asked, 'How is old Betty Barnes?' 'I don't know,' said the woman rather shortly. 'We'se not friends.' 'Why not?' asked Margaret, who had formerly been the peacemaker of the village. 'She stole my cat.' 'Did she know it was yours?' 'I don't know. I reckon not.' 'Well! could not you get it back again when you told her it was yours?' 'No! for she'd burnt it.' 'Burnt it!' exclaimed both Margaret and Mr. Bell. 'Roasted it!' explained the woman. It was no explanation. By dint of questioning, Margaret extracted from her the horrible fact that Betty Barnes, having been induced by a gypsy fortune-teller to lend the latter her husband's Sunday clothes, on promise of having them faithfully returned on the Saturday night before Goodman Barnes should have missed them, became alarmed by their non-appearance, and her consequent dread of her husband's anger, and as, according to one of the savage country superstitions, the cries of a cat, in the agonies of being boiled or roasted alive, compelled (as it were) the powers of darkness to fulfil the wishes of the executioner, resort had been had to the charm. The poor woman evidently believed in its efficacy; her only feeling was indignation that her cat had been chosen out from all others for a sacrifice. Margaret listened in horror; and endeavoured in vain to enlighten the woman's mind; but she was obliged to give it up in despair.
Step by step she got the woman to admit certain facts, of which the logical connexion and sequence was perfectly clear to Margaret; but at the end, the bewildered woman simply repeated her first assertion, namely, that 'it were very cruel for sure, and she should not like to do it; but that there were nothing like it for giving a person what they wished for; she had heard it all her life; but it were very cruel for all that.' Margaret gave it up in despair, and walked away sick at heart. 'You are a good girl not to triumph over me,' said Mr. Bell. 'How? What do you mean?' 'I own, I am wrong about schooling. Anything rather than have that child brought up in such practical paganism.' 'Oh! I remember. Poor little Susan! I must go and see her; would you mind calling at the school?' 'Not a bit. I am curious to see something of the teaching she is to receive.' They did not speak much more, but thridded their way through many a bosky dell, whose soft green influence could not charm away the shock and the pain in Margaret's heart, caused by the recital of such cruelty; a recital too, the manner of which betrayed such utter want of imagination, and therefore of any sympathy with the suffering animal. The buzz of voices, like the murmur of a hive of busy human bees, made itself heard as soon as they emerged from the forest on the more open village-green on which the school was situated. The door was wide open, and they entered.
