'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 begged 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.