TWENTY THREE.

THE MACHINE.

"In bursts of outrage spread your judgment wide,
And to your wrath cry out, `Be thou our guide.'"
_Wordsworth_.

Sophy was endeavouring to make the children remember who Joseph was, and
thinking them unusually stupid, idle, and talkative, when, without
ceremony, the door was banged open, and in tramped Hoglah Todd, with the
baby in her arms, her sun-bonnet on her neck, and her black hair
sticking wildly out. "Please, ma'am," she began, "Jack Swing is up
a-breaking the machine, and mother says you are to go to Farmer
Pearson's to be safe out of the way!"

"Hoggie Todd," began Mrs Thorpe, "that's not the way to come into
school," but she could not finish, for voices broke out above the
regulation school hush: "Yes, yes, father said," and "Our Jem said," and
it ended in "Jack Swing's a-coming to break up the machine." Only one
or two said, "Mother said as how it was a shame, and they'd get into
trouble."

"Your mother sent you?" said Sophy to Hoglah.

"Yes, ma'am. She's gone up herself to tell madam, and take she to
Pearson's, and her said you'd better go there, back ways, or else stay
here with governess till 'twas quieted down."

"Hark! They are holloaing."

Strange sounds were in fact to be heard, and the children, losing all
sense of discipline, made a rush to snatch hats and bonnets, and poured
out in a throng, tumbling over one another, Hoglah among the foremost.
Mrs Thorpe, much terrified, began to clasp her hands and say, "Oh dear!
oh dear, the wicked, ungrateful men, that they should do such things.
Oh! Miss Sophy, you will stay here, won't you?"

"No, I must go and see after my sister and the children," said Sophy,
already at the door.

"But they'll be at Mr Pearson's. The girl said so. Oh, stay, ma'am!
Don't venture. Pray, pray--"

But Sophy had the door open, and with "I can't. Thank you, no, I
can't."

There were the confused sounds of howling and singing on the top of the
hill. Betsy Seddon, at her cottage door, called out, "Don't go up
there, miss; it's no place for the likes of you!" but Sophy only
answered, "My sister," and dashed on.

She could get into a field of Edmund's by scrambling over a difficult
gate, and, impelled by the sight of some rough-looking men slouching
along, she got over it--she hardly knew how--and, after crossing it,
came upon all the cows, pigs, and horses, with Pucklechurch presiding
over them. He, too, said, "Doan't