Meg Hawkes's Attempt to Rescue Maud

Meg Hawkes’s attempt to rescue Maud Ruthyn is an act of loyalty carried out under surveillance and threat. She warns Maud not to eat or drink what is offered at Bartram-Haugh, promises to bring help from Elverston, and endures an attack and confinement before escaping to join Maud’s flight. The effort makes Meg both a witness to the danger around Maud and one of the people who actively helps her get away.

Warning Maud at Bartram-Haugh

Meg reaches Maud’s room after the door is unlocked, but says she cannot come in: her father has gone downstairs, locked the cross-door, and left her to keep watch. Her limited access reflects the danger of being seen helping Maud. She explains that she has pieced together fragments of conversations between her father and Dudley Ruthyn, overheard while they meet in the mill. She does not claim to know the whole plan, but has heard enough to fear that Maud will be harmed.

Meg’s warning is practical rather than speculative. She tells Maud not to eat or drink anything there, gives her a piece of coarse bread, and recommends drinking only the clean spring water in the jug. This small provision gives Maud something she can do immediately while confined in a place where she no longer trusts what is supplied to her.

Meg then promises to go to Elverston after dark and seek Maud’s friends, hoping to return with them before two or three in the morning. She urges Maud not to attempt an escape herself, warning that the attempt would fail and put her in greater danger. Instead, Meg asks her to stay put and leave the effort to her. Her plan depends on secrecy, timing, and reaching people beyond Bartram-Haugh’s control.

Loyalty and the cost of intervention

Meg’s commitment is rooted in how Maud treated her: she tells Maud that Maud had been better to her than her own parents, and promises to stand by her. She embraces Maud and says she would give her life for her. The exchange reveals that Meg’s intervention is not simply a response to overheard talk; it is also an answer to a personal bond formed through Maud’s earlier kindness.

The immediate danger that constrains Meg is the presence of her father, Dickon Hawkes, and the men involved in the scheme against Maud. Meg senses or hears an approaching step and cuts off the conversation. Her warning and intended journey must therefore remain brief and hidden, while Maud is told not to alert anyone or try to escape alone.

Escape and reunion on the road

Meg’s effort to fetch help does not go unnoticed. As Maud and Tom Brice leave Bartram-Haugh by carriage and travel toward Elverston, Maud sees a running figure crossing a stile and hears Brice’s name called. Brice stops despite Maud’s fear that they are about to be caught. Meg appears at the carriage, having escaped and followed their route.

Meg cannot take Maud’s offered hand because her arm is broken. The narrative explains that Dickon caught her while she was trying to help Maud, struck her, and locked her in a cottage. She nevertheless contrived to get out and continued toward Elverston. Before that, she had tried and failed to find anyone in Feltram who would listen; the people there had been in bed for hours. Her reunion with the fleeing carriage is therefore the outcome of a rescue attempt interrupted by violence and delay, not a successful return with reinforcements.

Outcome and narrative significance

Meg joins Maud and Tom on the road, and the carriage sets off again at speed. Her appearance changes Maud’s immediate expectation: the figure at the stile first looks like a pursuer, but proves to be the ally who had risked herself to reach help. Meg’s broken arm makes the cost of that loyalty unmistakable without preventing her from completing the journey with Maud.

The episode gives the rescue plot a double movement. Meg first tries to bring Maud’s friends to Bartram-Haugh; after being intercepted, she escapes and reaches Maud instead. Her plan is thwarted in its original form, but her persistence brings her into the escape itself. In a story where Maud’s legal guardianship places her under Silas Ruthyn’s authority, Meg’s practical care offers a personal counterforce: she acts on what she has heard, supplies a cautious means of staying safe, and risks reprisal to help Maud reach the road to Elverston.