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Title: Shirley
Author: Charlotte Bronte




Table of Contents

 1. Levitical
 2. The Wagons
 3. Mr. Yorke
 4. Mr. Yorke (Continued)
 5. Hollow's Cottage
 6. Coriolanus
 7. The Curates at Tea
 8. Noah and Moses
 9. Briarmains
10. Old Maids
11. Fieldhead
12. Shirley and Caroline
13. Further Communications on Business
14. Shirley Seeks to Be Saved by Works
15. Mr. Donne's Exodus
16. Whitsuntide
17. The School-Feast
18. Which the Genteel Reader is Recommended to Skip, Low Persons
     Being Here Introduced
19. A Summer Night
20. To-Morrow
21. Mrs. Pryor
22. Two Lives
23. An Evening Out
24. The Valley of the Shadow of Death
25. The West Wind Blows
26. Old Copy-Books
27. The First Blue-Stocking
28. Phoebe
29. Louis Moore
30. Rushedge, a Confessional
31. Uncle and Niece
32. The Schoolboy and the Wood-Nymph
33. Martin's Tactics
34. Case of Domestic Persecution--Remarkable Instance of Pious
     Perseverance in the Discharge of Religious Duties
35. Wherein Matters Make Some Progress, But Not Much
36. Written in the Schoolroom
37. The Winding-Up





Chapter 1 - Levitical


Of late years an abundant shower of curates has fallen upon the north of
England: they lie very thick on the hills; every parish has one or more
of them; they are young enough to be very active, and ought to be doing a
great deal of good. But not of late years are we about to speak; we are
going back to the beginning of this century: late years--present years
are dusty, sunburnt, hot, arid; we will evade the noon, forget it in
siesta, pass the midday in slumber, and dream of dawn.

If you think, from this prelude, that anything like a romance is
preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. Do you
anticipate sentiment, and poetry, and reverie? Do you expect passion, and
stimulus, and melodrama? Calm your expectations; reduce them to a lowly
standard. Something real, cool and solid lies before you; something
unromantic as Monday morning, when all who have work wake with the
consciousness that they must rise and betake themselves thereto. It is
not positively affirmed that you shall not have a taste of the exciting,
perhaps towards the middle and close of the meal, but it is resolved that
the first dish set upon the table shall be one that a Catholic--ay, even
an Anglo-Catholic--might eat on Good Friday in Passion Week: it shall be
cold lentils and vinegar without oil; it shall be unleavened bread with
bitter herbs, and no roast lamb.

Of late years, I say, an abundant shower of curates has fallen upon the
north of England, but in eighteen-hundred-eleven-twelve that affluent
rain had not descended. Curates were scarce then: there was no Pastoral
Aid--no Additional Curates' Society to stretch a helping hand to
worn-out old rectors and incumbents, and give them the wherewithal to
pay a vigorous young colleague from Oxford or Cambridge. The present
successors of the apostles, disciples of Dr. Pusey and tools of the
Propaganda, were at that time being hatched under cradle-blankets, or
undergoing regeneration by nursery-baptism in wash-hand basins. You
could not have guessed by looking at any one of them that the
Italian-ironed double frills of its net-cap surrounded the brows of a
preordained, specially-sanctified successor of St. Paul, St. Peter, or
St. John; nor could you have foreseen in the folds of its long nightgown
the white surplice in which it was hereafter cruelly to exercise the
souls of its parishioners, and strangely to nonplus its old-fashioned
vicar by flourishing aloft in a pulpit the shirt-like raiment which had
never before waved higher than the reading-desk.

Yet even in those days of scarcity there were curates: the precious plant
was rare, but it might be found. A certain favoured district in the West
Riding of Yorkshire could boast three rods of Aaron blossoming within a
circuit of twenty miles. You shall see them, reader. Step into this neat
garden-house on the skirts of Whinbury, walk forward into the little
parlour. There they are at dinner. Allow me to introduce them to you: Mr.
Donne, curate of Whinbury; Mr. Malone, curate of Briarfield; Mr.
Sweeting, curate of Nunnely. These are Mr. Donne's lodgings, being the
habitation of one John Gale, a small clothier. Mr. Donne has kindly
invited his brethren to regale with him. You and I will join the party,
see what is to be seen, and hear what is to be heard. At present,
however, they are only eating; and while they eat we will talk aside.

These gentlemen are in the bloom of youth; they possess all the activity
of that interesting age--an activity which their moping old vicars would
fain turn into the channel of their pastoral duties, often expressing a
wish to see it expended in a diligent superintendence of the schools, and
in frequent visits to the sick of their respective parishes. But the
youthful Levites feel this to be dull work; they prefer lavishing their
energies on a course of proceeding which, though to other eyes it appear
more heavy with ennui, more cursed with monotony, than the toil of the
weaver at his loom, seems to yield them an unfailing supply of enjoyment
and occupation.

I allude to a rushing backwards and forwards, amongst themselves, to and
from their respective lodgings--not a round, but a triangle of visits,
which they keep up all the year through, in winter, spring, summer, and
autumn. Season and weather make no difference; with unintelligible zeal
they dare snow and hail, wind and rain, mire and dust, to go and dine, or
drink tea, or sup with each other. What attracts them it would be
difficult to say. It is not friendship, for whenever they meet they
quarrel. It is not religion--the thing is never named amongst them;
theology they may discuss occasionally, but piety--never. It is not the
love of eating and drinking: each might have as good a joint and pudding,
tea as potent, and toast as succulent, at his own lodgings, as is served
to him at his brother's. Mrs. Gale, Mrs. Hogg, and Mrs. Whipp--their
respective landladies--affirm that 'it is just for naught else but to
give folk trouble.' By 'folk' the good ladies of course mean themselves,
for indeed they are kept in a continual 'fry' by this system of mutual
invasion.

Mr. Donne and his guests, as I have said, are at dinner; Mrs. Gale waits
on them, but a spark of the hot kitchen fire is in her eye. She considers
that the privilege of inviting a friend to a meal occasionally, without
additional charge (a privilege included in the terms on which she lets
her lodgings), has been quite sufficiently exercised of late. The present
week is yet but at Thursday, and on Monday Mr. Malone, the curate of
Briarfield, came to breakfast and stayed dinner; on Tuesday Mr. Malone
and Mr. Sweeting of Nunnely came to tea, remained to supper, occupied the
spare bed, and favoured her with their company to breakfast on Wednesday
morning; now, on Thursday, they are both here at dinner, and she is
almost certain they will stay all night. 'C'en est trop,' she would say,
if she could speak French.

Mr. Sweeting is mincing the slice of roast beef on his plate, and
complaining that it is very tough; Mr. Donne says the beer is flat. Ay,
that is the worst of it: if they would only be civil Mrs. Gale wouldn't
mind it so much, if they would only seem satisfied with what they get she
wouldn't care; but 'these young parsons is so high and so scornful, they
set everybody beneath their "fit." They treat her with less than
civility, just because she doesn't keep a servant, but does the work of
the house herself; as her mother did afore her; then they are always
speaking against Yorkshire ways and Yorkshire folk,' and by that very
token Mrs. Gale does not believe one of them to be a real gentleman, or
come of gentle kin. 'The old parsons is worth the whole lump of college
lads; they know what belongs to good manners, and is kind to high and
low.'

'More bread!' cries Mr. Malone, in a tone which, though prolonged but to
utter two syllables, proclaims him at once a native of the land of
shamrocks and potatoes. Mrs. Gale hates Mr. Malone more than either of
the other two; but she fears him also, for he is a tall strongly-built
personage, with real Irish legs and arms, and a face as genuinely
national--not the Milesian face, not Daniel O'Connell's style, but the
high featured, North-American-Indian sort of visage, which belongs to a
certain class of the Irish gentry, and has a petrified and proud look,
better suited to the owner of an estate of slaves than to the landlord of
a free peasantry. Mr. Malone's father termed himself a gentleman: he was
poor and in debt, and besottedly arrogant; and his son was like him.

Mrs. Gale offered the loaf.

'Cut it, woman,' said her guest; and the woman cut it accordingly. Had
she followed her inclinations, she would have cut the parson also; her
Yorkshire soul revolted absolutely from his manner of command.

The curates had good appetites, and though the beef was 'tough,' they ate
a great deal of it. They swallowed, too, a tolerable allowance of the
'flat beer,' while a dish of Yorkshire pudding, and two tureens of
vegetables, disappeared like leaves before locusts. The cheese, too,
received distinguished marks of their attention; and a 'spice-cake,'
which followed by way of dessert, vanished like a vision, and was no more
found. Its elegy was chanted in the kitchen by Abraham, Mrs. Gale's son
and heir, a youth of six summers; he had reckoned upon the reversion
thereof, and when his mother brought down the empty platter, he lifted up
his voice and wept sore.

The curates, meantime, sat and sipped their wine, a liquor of
unpretending vintage, moderately enjoyed. Mr. Malone, indeed, would much
rather have had whisky; but Mr. Donne, being an Englishman, did not keep
the beverage. While they sipped they argued, not on politics, nor on
philosophy, nor on literature--these topics were now, as ever, totally
without interest for them--not even on theology, practical or doctrinal,
but on minute points of ecclesiastical discipline, frivolities which
seemed empty as bubbles to all save themselves. Mr. Malone, who contrived
to secure two glasses of wine, when his brethren contented themselves
with one, waxed by degrees hilarious after his fashion; that is; he grew
a little insolent, said rude things in a hectoring tone, and laughed
clamorously at his own brilliancy.

Each of his companions became in turn his butt. Malone had a stock of
jokes at their service, which he was accustomed to serve out regularly on
convivial occasions like the present, seldom vying his wit; for which,
indeed, there was no necessity, as he never appeared to consider himself
monotonous, and did not at all care what others thought. Mr. Donne he
favoured with hints about his extreme meagreness, allusions to his
turned-up nose, cutting sarcasms on a certain threadbare chocolate
surtout which that gentleman was accustomed to sport whenever it rained
or seemed likely to rain, and criticisms on a choice set of cockney
phrases and modes of pronunciation, Mr. Donne's own property, and
certainly deserving of remark for the elegance and finish they
communicated to his style.

Mr. Sweeting was bantered about his stature--he was a little man, a mere
boy in height and breadth compared with the athletic Malone; rallied on
his musical accomplishments--he played the flute and sang hymns like a
seraph, some young ladies of his parish thought; sneered at as 'the
ladies pet; teased about his mamma and sisters, for whom poor Mr.
Sweeting had some lingering regard, and of whom he was foolish enough now
and then to speak in the presence of the priestly Paddy, from whose
anatomy the bowels of natural affection had somehow been omitted.

The victims met these attacks each in his own way: Mr. Donne with a
stilted self-complacency and half-sullen phlegm, the sole props of his
otherwise somewhat rickety dignity; Mr. Sweeting with the indifference of
a light, easy disposition, which never professed to have any dignity to
maintain.

When Malone's raillery became rather too offensive, which it soon did,
they joined in an attempt to turn the tables on him by asking him how
many boys had shouted 'Irish Peter!' after him as he came along the road
that day (Malone's name was Peter--the Rev. Peter Augustus Malone);
requesting to be informed whether it was the mode in Ireland for
clergymen to carry loaded pistols in their pockets, and a shillelah in
their hands, when they made pastoral visits; inquiring the signification
of such words as vele, firrum, hellum, storrum (so Mr. Malone invariably
pronounced veil, firm, helm, storm), and employing such other methods of
retaliation as the innate refinement of their minds suggested.

This, of course, would not do. Malone, being neither good-natured nor
phlegmatic, was presently in a towering passion. He vociferated,
gesticulated; Donne and Sweeting laughed. He reviled them as Saxons and
snobs at the very top pitch of his high Celtic voice; they taunted him
with being the native of a conquered land. He menaced rebellion in the
name of his 'counthry,' vented bitter hatred against English rule; they
spoke of rags, beggary, and pestilence. The little parlour was in an
uproar; you would have thought a duel must follow such virulent abuse; it
seemed a wonder that Mr. and Mrs. Gale did not take alarm at the noise,
and send for a constable to keep the peace. But they were accustomed to
such demonstrations; they well knew that the curates never dined or took
tea together without a little exercise of the sort, and were quite easy
as to consequences, knowing that these clerical quarrels were as harmless
as they were noisy, that they resulted in nothing, and that, on whatever
terms the curates might part to-night, they would be sure to meet the
best friends in the world to-morrow morning.

As the worthy pair were sitting by their kitchen fire, listening to the
repeated and sonorous contact of Malone's fist with the mahogany plane of
the parlour table, and to the consequent start and jingle of decanters
and glasses following each assault, to the mocking laughter of the allied
English disputants, and the stuttering declamation of the isolated
Hibernian--as they thus sat, a foot was heard on the outer door-step, and
the knocker quivered to a sharp appeal.

Mr. Gale went and opened.

'Whom have you upstairs in the parlour?' asked a voice--a rather
remarkable voice, nasal in tone, abrupt in utterance.

'O Mr. Helstone, is it you, sir? I could hardly see you for the darkness;
it is so soon dark now. Will you walk in, sir?'

'I want to know first whether it is worth my while walking in. Whom have
you upstairs?'

'The curates, sir.'

'What! all of them?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Been dining here?'

'Yes, sir.'

'That will do.'

With these words a person entered--a middle-aged man, in black. He walked
straight across the kitchen to an inner door, opened it, inclined his
head forward, and stood listening. There was something to listen to, for
the noise above was just then louder than ever.

'Hey!' he ejaculated to himself; then turning to Mr. Gale--'Have you
often this sort of work?'

Mr. Gale had been a churchwarden, and was indulgent to the clergy.

'They're young, you know, sir--they're young,' said he deprecatingly.

'Young! They want caning. Bad boys--bad boys! And if you were a
Dissenter, John Gale, instead of being a good Churchman, they'd do the
like--they'd expose themselves; but I'll...'

By way of finish to this sentence, he passed through the inner door, drew
it after him, and mounted the stair. Again he listened a few minutes when
he arrived at the upper room. Making entrance without warning, he stood
before the curates.

And they were silent; they were transfixed; and so was the invader. He--a
personage short of stature, but straight of port, and bearing on broad
shoulders a hawk's head, beak, and eye, the whole surmounted by a
Rehoboam, or shovel hat, which he did not seem to think it necessary to
lift or remove before the presence in which he then stood--he folded his
arms on his chest and surveyed his young friends, if friends they were,
much at his leisure.

'What!' he began, delivering his words in a voice no longer nasal, but
deep--more than deep--a voice made purposely hollow and cavernous 'what!
has the miracle of Pentecost been renewed? Have the cloven tongues come
down again? Where are they? The sound filled the whole house just now. I
heard the seventeen languages in full action: Parthians, and Medes, and
Elamites, the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in the parts of
Libya about Cyrene, strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and
Arabians; every one of these must have had its representative in this
room two minutes since.'

'I beg your pardon, Mr. Helstone,' began Mr. Donne; 'take a seat, pray,
sir. Have a glass of wine?'

His civilities received no answer. The falcon in the black coat
proceeded,--

'What do I talk about the gift of tongues? Gift, indeed! I mistook the


Chapter, and book, and Testament--gospel for law, Acts for Genesis, the
city of Jerusalem for the plain of Shinar. It was no gift but the
confusion of tongues which has gabbled me deaf as a post. You, apostles?
What! you three? Certainly not; three presumptuous Babylonish
masons--neither more nor less!'

'I assure you, sir, we were only having a little chat together over a
glass of wine after a friendly dinner--settling the Dissenters!'

'Oh! settling the Dissenters, were you? Was Malone settling the
Dissenters? It sounded to me much more like settling his co-apostles. You
were quarrelling together, making almost as much noise--you three
alone--as Moses Barraclough, the preaching tailor, and all his hearers
are making in the Methodist chapel down yonder, where they are in the
thick of a revival. I know whose fault it is.--It is yours, Malone.'

'Mine, sir?'

'Yours, sir. Donne and Sweeting were quiet before you came, and would be
quiet if you were gone. I wish, when you crossed the Channel, you had
left your Irish habits behind you. Dublin student ways won't do here, The
proceedings which might pass unnoticed in a wild bog and mountain
district in Connaught will, in a decent English parish, bring disgrace on
those who indulge in them, and, what is far worse, on the sacred
institution of which they are merely the humble appendages.'

There was a certain dignity in the little elderly gentleman's manner of
rebuking these youths, though it was not, perhaps, quite the dignity most
appropriate to the occasion. Mr. Helstone, standing straight as a ramrod,
looking keen as a kite, presented, despite his clerical hat, black coat,
and gaiters, more the air of a veteran officer chiding his subalterns
than of a venerable priest exhorting his sons in the faith. Gospel
mildness, apostolic benignity, never seemed to have breathed their
influence over that keen brown visage, but firmness had fixed the
features, and sagacity had carved her own lines about them.

'I met Supplehough,' he continued, 'plodding through the mud this wet
night, going to preach at Milldean opposition shop. As I told you, I
heard Barraclough bellowing in the midst of a conventicle like a
possessed bull; and I find you, gentlemen, tarrying over your half-pint
of muddy port wine, and scolding like angry old women. No wonder
Supplehough should have dipped sixteen adult converts in a day--which he
did a fortnight since; no wonder Barraclough, scamp and hypocrite as he
is, should attract all the weaver-girls in their flowers and ribbons, to
witness how much harder are his knuckles than the wooden brim of his tub;
as little wonder that you, when you are left to yourselves, without your
rectors--myself, and Hall, and Boultby--to back you, should too often
perform the holy service of our church to bare walls, and read your bit
of a dry discourse to the clerk, and the organist, and the beadle. But
enough of the subject. I came to see Malone.--I have an errand unto thee,
O captain!'

'What is it?' inquired Malone discontentedly. 'There can be no funeral to
take at this time of day.'

'Have you any arms about you?'

'Arms, sir?--yes, and legs.' And he advanced the mighty members.

'Bah! weapons I mean.'

'I have the pistols you gave me yourself. I never part with them. I lay
them ready cocked on a chair by my bedside at night. I have my
blackthorn.'

'Very good. Will you go to Hollow's Mill?'

'What is stirring at Hollow's Mill?'

'Nothing as yet, nor perhaps will be; but Moore is alone there. He has
sent all the workmen he can trust to Stilbro'; there are only two women
left about the place. It would be a nice opportunity for any of his
well-wishers to pay him a visit, if they knew how straight the path was
made before them.'

'I am none of his well-wishers, sir. I don't care for him.'

'Soh! Malone, you are afraid.'

'You know me better than that. If I really thought there was a chance of
a row I would go: but Moore is a strange, shy man, whom I never pretend
to understand; and for the sake of his sweet company only I would not
stir a step.'

'But there is a chance of a row; if a positive riot does not take
place--of which, indeed, I see no signs--yet it is unlikely this night
will pass quite tranquilly. You know Moore has resolved to have new
machinery, and he expects two wagon-loads of frames and shears from
Stilbro' this evening. Scott, the overlooker, and a few picked men are
gone to fetch them.'

'They will bring them in safely and quietly enough, sir.'

'Moore says so, and affirms he wants nobody. Some one, however, he must
have, if it were only to bear evidence in case anything should happen. I
call him very careless. He sits in the counting-house with the shutters
unclosed; he goes out here and there after dark, wanders right up the
hollow, down Fieldhead Lane, among the plantations, just as if he were
the darling of the neighbourhood, or--being, as he is, its
detestation--bore a "charmed life," as they say in tale-books. He takes
no warning from the fate of Pearson, nor from that of Armitage--shot, one
in his own house and the other on the moor.'

'But he should take warning, sir, and use precautions too,' interposed
Mr. Sweeting; 'and I think he would if he heard what I heard the other
day.'

'What did you hear, Davy?'

'You know Mike Hartley, sir?'

'The Antinomian weaver? Yes.'

'When Mike has been drinking for a few weeks together, he generally winds
up by a visit to Nunnely vicarage, to tell Mr. Hall a piece of his mind
about his sermons, to denounce the horrible tendency of his doctrine of
works, and warn him that he and all his hearers are sitting in outer
darkness.'

'Well that has nothing to do with Moore.'

'Besides being an Antinomian, he is a violent Jacobin and leveller, sir.'

'I know. When he is very drunk, his mind is always running on regicide.
Mike is not unacquainted with history, and it is rich to hear him going
over the list of tyrants of whom, as he says, "the revenger of blood has
obtained satisfaction." The fellow exults strangely in murder done on
crowned heads or on any head for political reasons. I have already heard
it hinted that he seems to have a queer hankering after Moore. Is that
what you allude to, Sweeting?'

'You use the proper term, sir. Mr. Hall thinks Mike has no personal
hatred of Moore. Mike says he even likes to talk to him and run after
him, but he has a hankering that Moore should be made an example of. He
was extolling him to Mr. Hall the other day as the mill-owner with the
most brains in Yorkshire, and for that reason he affirms Moore should be
chosen as a sacrifice, an oblation of a sweet savour. Is Mike Hartley in
his right mind, do you think, sir?' inquired Sweeting simply.

'Can't tell, Davy. He may be crazed, or he may be only crafty, or perhaps
a little of both.'

'He talks of seeing visions, sir.'

'Ay! He is a very Ezekiel or Daniel for visions. He came just when I was
going to bed last Friday night to describe one that had been revealed to
him in Nunnely Park that very afternoon.'

'Tell it, sir. What was it?' urged Sweeting.

'Davy, thou hast an enormous organ of wonder in thy cranium. Malone, you
see, has none. Neither murders nor visions interest him. See what a big
vacant Saph he looks at this moment'

'Saph! Who was Saph, sir?'

'I thought you would not know. You may find it out It is biblical. I know
nothing more of him than his name and race; but from a boy upwards I have
always attached a personality to Saph. Depend on it he was honest, heavy,
and luckless. He met his end at Gob by the hand of Sibbechai.'

'But the vision, sir?'

'Davy, thou shalt hear. Donne is biting his nails, and Malone yawning, so
I will tell it but to thee. Mike is out of work, like many others,
unfortunately. Mr. Grame, Sir Philip Nunnely's steward, gave him a job
about the priory. According to his account, Mike was busy hedging rather
late in the afternoon; but before dark, when he heard what he thought was
a band at a distance--bugles, fifes, and the sound of a trumpet; it came
from the forest, and he wondered that there should be music there. He
looked up. All amongst the trees he saw moving objects, red, like
poppies, or white, like may blossom. The wood was full of them; they
poured out and filled the park. He then perceived they were
soldiers--thousands and tens of thousands; but they made no more noise
than a swarm of midges on a summer evening. They formed in order, he
affirmed, and marched, regiment after regiment, across the park. He
followed them to Nunnely Common; the music still played soft and distant
On the common be watched them go through a number of evolutions. A man
clothed in scarlet stood in the centre and directed them. They extended,
he declared, over fifty acres. They were in sight half an hour; then they
marched away quite silently. The whole time he heard neither voice nor
tread nothing but the faint music playing a solemn march.'

'Where did they go, sir?'

'Towards Briarfield. Mike followed them. They seemed passing Fieldhead,
when a column of smoke, such as might be vomited by a park of artillery,
spread noiseless over the fields, the road, the common, and roiled, he
said, blue and dim, to his very feet. As it cleared away he looked again
for the soldiers, but they were vanished; he saw them no more. Mike, like
a wise Daniel as he is, not only rehearsed the vision but gave the
interpretation thereof. It signifies, he intimated, bloodshed and civil
conflict.'

'Do you credit it, sir?' asked Sweeting.

'Do you, Davy?--But come, Malone; why are you not off?'

'I am rather surprised, sir, you did not stay with Moore yourself. You
like this kind of thing.'

'So I should have done, had I not unfortunately happened to engage
Boultby to sup with me on his way home from the Bible Society meeting at
Nunnely. I promised to send you as my substitute; for which, by-the-bye,
he did not thank me. He would much rather have had me than you, Peter.
Should there be any real need of help I shall join you. The mill-bell
will give warning. Meantime, go--unless (turning suddenly to Messrs.
Sweeting and Donne)--unless Davy Sweeting or Joseph Donne prefers
going.--What do you say, gentlemen? The commission is an honourable one,
not without the seasoning of a little real peril; for the country is in a
queer state, as you all know, and Moore and his mill and his machinery
are held in sufficient odium. There are chivalric sentiments, there is
high-beating courage, under those waistcoats of yours, I doubt not
Perhaps I am too partial to my favourite Peter. Little David shall be the
champion, or spotless Joseph.--Malone, you are but a great floundering
Saul after all, good only to lend your armour. Out with your firearms;
fetch your shillelah. It is there--in the corner.'

With a significant grin Malone produced his pistols, offering one to each
of his brethren. They were not readily seized on. With graceful modesty
each gentleman retired a step from the presented weapon.

'I never touch them. I never did touch anything of the kind,' said Mr.
Donne.

'I am almost a stranger to Mr. Moore,' murmured Sweeting.

'If you never touched a pistol, try the feel of it now, great satrap of
Egypt As to the little minstrel, he probably prefers encountering the
Philistines with no other weapon than his flute.--Get their hats, Peter.
They'll both of 'em go.'

'No, sir; no, Mr. Helstone. My mother wouldn't like it,' pleaded
Sweeting.

'And I make it a rule never to get mixed up in affairs of the kind,'
observed Donne.

Helstone smiled sardonically; Malone laughed a horse-laugh. He then
replaced his arms, took his hat and cudgel, and saying that 'he never
felt more in tune for a shindy in his life, and that he wished a score of
greasy cloth-dressers might beat up Moore's quarters that night,' he made
his exit, clearing the stairs at a stride or two, and making the house
shake with the bang of the front-door behind him.



Chapter 2 - The Wagons


The evening was pitch dark: star and moon were quenched in gray
rain-clouds--gray they would have been by day; by night they looked
sable. Malone was not a man given to close observation of nature; her
changes passed, for the most part, unnoticed by him. He could walk miles
on the most varying April day and never see the beautiful dallying of
earth and heaven--never mark when a sunbeam kissed the hill-tops, making
them smile clear in green light, or when a shower wept over them, hiding
their crests With the low-hanging, dishevelled tresses of a cloud. He did
not, therefore, care to contrast the sky as it now appeared--a muffled,
streaming vault, all black, save where, towards the east, the furnaces of
Stilbro' ironworks threw a tremulous lurid shimmer on the horizon--with
the same sky on an unclouded frosty night He did not trouble himself to
ask where the constellations and the planets were gone, or to regret the
'black-blue' serenity of the air-ocean which those white islets stud, and
which another ocean, of heavier and denser element, now rolled below and
concealed. He just doggedly pursued his way, leaning a little forward as
he walked, and wearing his hat on the back of his head, as his Irish
manner was. 'Tramp, tramp,' he went along the causeway, where the road
boasted the privilege of such an accommodation; 'splash, splash,' through
the mire-filled cart ruts, where the flags were exchanged for soft mud.
He looked but for certain landmarks--the spire of Briarfield Church;
farther on, the lights of Redhouse. This was an inn; and when he reached
it, the glow of a fire through a half-curtained window, a vision of
glasses on a round table, and of revellers on an oaken settle, had nearly
drawn aside the curate from his course. He thought longingly of a tumbler
of whisky-and-water. In a strange place he would instantly have realised
the dream; but the company assembled in that kitchen were Mr. Helstone's
own parishioners; they all knew him. He sighed, and passed on.

The highroad was now to be quitted, as the remaining distance to Hollow's
Mill might be considerably reduced by a short cut across fields. These
fields were level and monotonous. Malone took a direct course through
them, jumping hedge and wall. He passed but one building here, and that
seemed large and hall-like, though irregular. You could see a high
gable, then a long front, then a low gable, then a thick, lofty stack of
chimneys. There were some trees behind it. It was dark; not a candle
shone from any window. It was absolutely still; the rain running from the
eaves, and the rather wild but very low whistle of the wind round the
chimneys and through the boughs were the sole sounds in its
neighbourhood.

This building passed, the fields, hitherto flat, declined in a rapid
descent Evidently a vale lay below, through which you could hear the
water run. One light glimmered in the depth. For that beacon Malone
steered.

He came to a little white house--you could see it was white even through
this dense darkness--and knocked at the door. A fresh-faced servant
opened it. By the candle she held was revealed a narrow passage,
terminating in a narrow stair. Two doors covered with crimson baize, a
strip of crimson carpet down the steps, contrasted with light-coloured
walls and white floor, made the little interior look clean and fresh.

'Mr. Moore is at home, I suppose?'

'Yes, sir, but he is not in?'

'Not in! Where is he then?'

'At the mill--in the counting-house.'

Here one of the crimson doors opened.

'Are the wagons come, Sarah?' asked a female voice, and a female head at
the same time was apparent It might not be the head of a goddess--indeed
a screw of curl-paper on each side the temples quite forbade that
supposition--but neither was it the head of a Gorgon; yet Malone seemed
to take it in the latter light. Big as he was, he shrank bashfully back
into the rain at the view thereof; and saying, 'I'll go to him,' hurried
in seeming trepidation down a short lane, across an obscure yard, towards
a huge black mill.

The work-hours were over; the 'hands' were gone. The machinery was at
rest, the mill shut up. Malone walked round it somewhere in its great
sooty flank he found another chink of light; he knocked at another door,
using for the purpose the thick end of his shillelah, with which he beat
a rousing tattoo. A key turned; the door unclosed.

'Is it Joe Scott? What news of the wagons, Joe?'

'No; it's myself. Mr. Helstone would send me.'

'Oh! Mr. Malone.' The voice in uttering this name had the slightest
possible cadence of disappointment. After a moment's pause it continued,
politely but a little formally,--

'I beg you will come in, Mr. Malone. I regret extremely Mr. Helstone
should have thought it necessary to trouble you so far. There was no
necessity--I told him so--and on such a night; but walk forwards.'

Through a dark apartment, of aspect undistinguishable, Malone followed
the speaker into a light and bright room within--very light and bright
indeed it seemed to eyes which, for the last hour, had been striving to
penetrate the double darkness of night and fog; but except for its
excellent fire, and for a lamp of elegant design and vivid lustre burning
on a table, it was a very plain place. The boarded floor was carpetless;
the three or four stiff-backed, green-painted chairs seemed once to have
furnished the kitchen of some farm-house; a desk of strong, solid
formation, the table aforesaid, and some framed sheets on the
stone-coloured walls, bearing plans for building, for gardening, designs
of machinery, etc., completed the furniture of the place.

Plain as it was, it seemed to satisfy Malone, who, when he had removed
and hung up his wet surtout and hat, drew one of the rheumatic-looking
chairs to the hearth, and set his knees almost within the bars of the red
grate.

'Comfortable quarters you have here, Mr. Moore; and all snug to
yourself.'

'Yes; but my sister would be glad to see you, if you would prefer
stepping into the house.'

'Oh no! The ladies are best alone. I never was a lady's man. You don't
mistake me for my friend Sweeting, do you, Mr. Moore?'

'Sweeting! Which of them is that? The gentleman in the chocolate
overcoat, or the little gentleman?'

'The little one--he of Nunnely; the cavalier of the Misses Sykes, with
the whole six of whom he is in love, ha! ha!'

'Better be generally in love with all than especially with one, I should
think, in that quarter.'

'But he is specially in love with one besides, for when I and Donne urged
him to make a choice amongst the fair bevy, he named--which do you
think?'

With a queer, quiet smile Mr. Moore replied, 'Dora, of course, or
Harriet'

'Ha! ha! you've an excellent guess. But what made you hit on those two?'

'Because they are the tallest, the handsomest, and Dora, at least, is the
stoutest; and as your friend Mr. Sweeting is but a little slight figure,
I concluded that, according to a frequent rule in such cases, he
preferred his contrast.'

'You are right; Dora it is. But he has no chance, has he, Moore?'

'What has Mr. Sweeting besides his curacy?'

This question seemed to tickle Malone amazingly. He laughed for full
three minutes before he answered it.

'What has Sweeting? Why, David has his harp, or flute, which comes to the
same thing. He has a sort of pinchbeck watch; ditto, ring; ditto,
eyeglass. That's what he has.'

'How would he propose to keep Miss Sykes in gowns only?'

'Ha! ha! Excellent! I'll ask him that next time I see him. I'll roast him
for his presumption. But no doubt he expects old Christopher Sykes would
do something handsome. He is rich, is he not? They live in a large
house.'

'Sykes carries on an extensive concern.'

'Therefore he must be wealthy, eh?'

'Therefore he must have plenty to do with his wealth, and in these times
would be about as likely to think of drawing money from the business to
give dowries to his daughters as I should be to dream of pulling down the
cottage there, and constructing on its ruins a house as large as
Fieldhead.'

'Do you know what I heard, Moore, the other day?'

'No. Perhaps that I was about to effect some such change. Your Briarfield
gossips are capable of saying that or sillier things.'

'That you were going to take Fieldhead on a lease (I thought it looked a
dismal place, by-the-bye, to-night, as I passed it), and that it was your
intention to settle a Miss Sykes there as mistress--to be married, in
short, ha! ha! Now, which is it? Dora, I am sure. You said she was the
handsomest'

'I wonder how often it has been settled that I was to be married since I
came to Briarfield. They have assigned me every marriageable single woman
by turns in the district. Now it was the two Misses Wynns--first the
dark, then the light one; now the red-haired Miss Armitage, then the
mature Ann Pearson. At present you throw on my shoulders all the tribe of
the Misses Sykes. On what grounds this gossip rests God knows. I visit
now here; I seek female society about as assiduously as you do, Mr.
Malone. If ever I go to Whinbury, it is only to give Sykes or Pearson a
call in their counting-house, where our discussions run on other topics
than matrimony, and our thoughts are occupied with other things than
courtships, establishments, dowries. The cloth we can't sell, the hands
we can't employ, the mills we can't run, the perverse course of events
generally, which we cannot alter, fill our hearts, I take it, pretty well
at present, to the tolerably complete exclusion of such figments as
lovemaking, etc.'

'I go along with you completely, Moore. If there is one notion I hate
more than another, it is that of marriage--I mean marriage in the vulgar
weak sense, as a mere matter of sentiment--two beggarly fools agreeing to
unite their indigence by some fantastic tie of feeling. Humbug! But an
advantageous connection, such as can be formed in consonance with dignity
of views and permanency of solid interests, is not so bad--eh?'

'No,' responded Moore, in an absent manner. The subject seemed to have no
interest for him; he did not pursue it. After sitting for some time
gazing at the fire with a preoccupied air, he suddenly turned his head.

'Hark!' said he. 'Did you hear wheels?'

Rising, he went to the window, opened it, and listened. He soon closed
it. 'It is only the sound of the wind rising', he remarked, 'and the
rivulet a little swollen, rushing down the hollow. I expected those
wagons at six; it is near nine now.'

'Seriously, do you suppose that the putting up of this new machinery will
bring you into danger?' inquired Malone. 'Helstone seems to think it
will.'

'I only wish the machines--the frames--were safe here, and lodged within
the walls of this mill. Once put up, I defy the frame-breakers. Let them
only pay me a visit and take the consequences. My mill is my castle.'

'One despises such low scoundrels,' observed Malone, in a profound vein
of reflection. 'I almost wish a party would call upon you to-night; but
the road seemed extremely quiet as I came along. I saw nothing astir.'

'You came by the Redhouse?'

'Yes.'

'There would be nothing on that road. It is in the direction of Stilbro'
the risk lies.'

'And you think there is risk?'

'What these fellows have done to others they may do to me. There is only
this difference: most of the manufacturers seem paralysed when they are
attacked. Sykes, for instance, when his dressing-shop was set on fire and
burned to the ground, when the cloth was torn from his tenters and left
in shreds in the field, took no steps to discover or punish the
miscreants: he gave up as tamely as a rabbit under the jaws of a ferret.
Now I, if I know myself, should stand by my trade, my mill, and my
machinery.'

'Helstone says these three are your gods; that the "Orders in Council"
are with you another name for the seven deadly sins; that Castlereagh is
your Antichrist, and the war-party his legions.'

'Yes; I abhor all these things because they ruin me. They stand in my
way. I cannot get on. I cannot execute my plans because of them. I see
myself baffled at every turn by their untoward effects.'

'But you are rich and thriving, Moore?'

'I am very rich in cloth I cannot sell. You should step into my warehouse
yonder, and observe how it is piled to the roof with pieces. Roakes and
Pearson are in the same condition. America used to be their market, but
the Orders in Council have cut that off.'

Malone did not seem prepared to carry on briskly a conversation of this
sort. He began to knock the heels of his boots together, and to yawn.

'And then to think,' continued Mr. Moore, who seemed too much taken up
with the current of his own thoughts to note the symptoms of his guest's
ennui--to think that these ridiculous gossips of Whinbury and Briarfield
will keep pestering one about being married! As if there was nothing to
be done in life but to "pay attention," as they say to some young lady,
and then to go to church with her, and then to start on a bridal tour and
then to run through a round of visits, and then, I suppose, to be "having
a family." Oh, que le diable emporte!' He broke off the aspiration into
which he was launching with a certain energy, and added, more calmly, 'I
believe women talk and think only of these things, and they naturally
fancy men's minds similarly occupied.'

'Of course--of course,' assented Malone; 'but never mind them.' And he
whistled, looked impatiently round, and seemed to feel a great want of
something. This time Moore caught and, it appeared, comprehended his
demonstrations.

'Mr. Malone,' said he, 'you must require refreshment after your wet walk.
I forget hospitality.'

'Not at all,' rejoined Malone; but he looked as if the right nail was at
last hit on the head, nevertheless. Moore rose and opened a cupboard.

'It is my fancy,' said he, 'to have every convenience within myself, and
not to be dependent on the femininity in the cottage yonder for every
mouthful I eat or every drop I drink. I often spend the evening and sup
here alone, and sleep with Joe Scott in the mill. Sometimes I am my own
watchman. I require little sleep, and it pleases me on a fine night to
wander for an hour or two with my musket about the hollow. Mr. Malone,
can you cook a mutton chop?'

'Try me. I've done it hundreds of times at college.'

'There's a dishful, then, and there's the gridiron. Turn them quickly.
You know the secret of keeping the juices in?'

'Never fear me; you shall see. Hand a knife and fork, please.'

The curate turned up his coat-cuffs, and applied himself to the cookery
with vigour. The manufacturer placed on the table plates, a loaf of
bread, a black bottle, and two tumblers. He then produced a small copper
kettle--still from the same well-stored recess, his cupboard--filled it
with water from a large stone jar in a corner, set it on the fire beside
the hissing gridiron, got lemons, sugar, and a small china punch-bowl;
but while he was brewing the punch a tap at the door called him away.

'Is it you, Sarah?'

'Yes, sir. Will you come to supper, please, sir?'

'No; I shall not be in to-night; I shall sleep in the mill. So lock the
doors, and tell your mistress to go to bed.'

He returned.

'You have your household in proper order,' observed Malone approvingly,
as, with his fine face ruddy as the embers over which he bent, he
assiduously turned the mutton chops. 'You are not under petticoat
government, like poor Sweeting, a man--whew! how the fat spits! it has
burnt my hand--destined to be ruled by women. Now you and I,
Moore--there's a fine brown one for you, and full of gravy--you and I
will have no gray mares in our stables when we marry.'

'I don't know; I never think about it. If the gray mare is handsome and
tractable, why not?'

'The chops are done. Is the punch brewed?'

'There is a glassful. Taste it. When Joe Scott and his minions return
they shall have a share of this, provided they bring home the frames
intact.'

Malone waxed very exultant over the supper. He laughed aloud at trifles,
made bad jokes and applauded them himself, and, in short, grew
unmeaningly noisy. His host, on the contrary, remained quiet as before.
It is time, reader, that you should have some idea of the appearance of
this same host I must endeavour to sketch him as he sits at table.

He is what you would probably call, at first view, rather a
strange-looking man; for he is thin, dark, sallow, very foreign of
aspect, with shadowy hair carelessly streaking his forehead. It appears
that he spends but little time at his toilet, or he would arrange it with
more taste. He seems unconscious that his features are fine, that they
have a southern symmetry, clearness, regularity in their chiselling; nor
does a spectator become aware of this advantage till he has examined him
well, for an anxious countenance, and a hollow, somewhat haggard, outline
of lace disturb the idea of beauty with one of care. His eyes are large,
and grave, and gray; their expression is intent and meditative, rather
searching than soft, rather thoughtful than genial, when he parts his
lips in a smile, his physiognomy is agreeable--not that it is frank or
cheerful even then, but you feel the influence of a certain sedate
charms, suggestive, whether truly or delusively, of a considerate,
perhaps a kind nature, of feelings that may wear well at home--patient,
forbearing, possibly faithful feelings. He is still young--not more than
thirty; his stature is tall, his figure slender. His manner of speaking
displeases. He has an outlandish accent, which, notwithstanding a studied
carelessness of pronunciation and diction, grates on a British, and
especially on a Yorkshire, ear.

Mr. Moore, indeed, was but half a Briton, and scarcely that. He came of a
foreign ancestry by the mother's side, and was himself born and partly
reared on a foreign soil. A hybrid in nature, it is probable he had a
hybrid's feeling on many points--patriotism for one; it is likely that he
was unapt to attach himself to parties, to sects, even to climes and
customs; it is not impossible that he had a tendency to isolate his
individual person from any community amidst which his lot might
temporarily happen to be thrown, and that he felt it to be his best
wisdom to push the interests of Robert Gérard Moore, to the exclusion of
philanthropic consideration for general interests, with which he regarded
the said Gérard Moore as in a great measure disconnected. Trade was Mr.
Moore's hereditary calling: the Gérards of Antwerp had been merchants for
two centuries back. Once they had been wealthy merchants; but the
uncertainties, the involvements, of business had come upon them;
disastrous speculations had loosened by degrees the foundations of their
credit. The house had stood on a tottering base for a dozen years; and at
last, in the shock of the French Revolution, it had rushed down a total
ruin. In its fall was involved the English and Yorkshire firm of Moore,
closely connected with the Antwerp house, and of which one of the
partners, resident in Antwerp, Robert Moore, had married Hortense Gérard,
with the prospect of his bride inheriting her father Constantine Gérard's
share in the business. She inherited, as we have seen, but his share in
the liabilities of the film; and these liabilities, though duly set aside
by a composition with creditors, some said her son Robert accepted, in
his turn, as a legacy, and that he aspired one day to discharge them, and
to rebuild the fallen house of Gérard and Moore on a scale at least equal
to its former greatness. It was even supposed that he took bypast
circumstances much to heart; and if a childhood passed at the side of a
saturnine mother, under foreboding of coming evil, and a manhood drenched
and blighted by the pitiless descent of the storm, could painfully
impress the mind, his probably was impressed in no golden characters.

If, however, he had a great end of restoration in view it was not in his
power to employ great means for its attainment He was obliged to be
content with the day of small things. When he came to Yorkshire he--whose
ancestors had owned warehouses in this seaport and factories in that
inland town, had possessed their town-house and their country-seat--saw
no way open to him but to rent a cloth-mill, in an out-of-the-way nook of
an out-of-the-way district; to take a cottage adjoining it for his
residence, and to add to his possessions, as pasture for his horse, and
space for his cloth-tenters, a few acres of the steep, rugged land that
lined the hollow through which his mill-stream brawled. All this he held
at a somewhat high rent (for these war times were hard and everything was
dear) of the trustees of the Fieldhead estate, then the property of a
minor.

At the time this history commences, Robert Moore had lived but two years
in the district, during which period he had at least proved himself
possessed of the quality of activity. The dingy cottage was converted
into a neat; tasteful residence. Of part of the rough land he had made
garden-ground, which he cultivated with singular, even with Flemish,
exactness and care. As to the mill, which was an old structure, and
fitted up with old machinery, now become inefficient and out of date, he
had from the first evinced the strongest contempt for all its
arrangements and appointments: his aim had been to effect a radical
reform, which he had executed as fast as his very limited capital would
allow; and the narrowness of that capital, and consequent check on his
progress, was a restraint which galled his spirit sorely. Moore ever
wanted to push on. 'Forward' was the device stamped upon his soul; but
poverty curbed him. Sometimes (figuratively) he foamed at the mouth when
the reins were drawn very tight.

In this state of feeling, it is not to be expected that he would
deliberate much as to whether his advance was or was not prejudicial to
others. Not being a native, nor for any length of time a resident of the
neighbourhood, he did not sufficiently care when the new inventions threw
the old workpeople out of employ. He never asked himself where those to
whom he no longer paid weekly wages found daily bread; and in this
negligence he only resembled thousands besides, on whom the starving poor
of Yorkshire seemed to have a closer claim.

The period of which I write was an overshadowed one in British history,
and especially in the history of the northern provinces. War was then at
its height. Europe was all involved therein. England, if not weary, was
worn with long resistance--yes, and half her people were weary too, and
cried out for peace on any terms. National honour was become a mere empty
name, of no value in the eyes of many, because their sight was dim with
famine; and for a morsel of meat they would have sold their birthright.

The 'Orders in Council,' provoked by Napoleon's Milan and Berlin decrees,
and forbidding neutral powers to trade with France, had, by offending
America, cut off the principal market of the Yorkshire woollen trade, and
brought it consequently to the verge of ruin. Minor foreign markets were
glutted, and would receive no more. The Brazils, Portugal, Sicily, were
all overstocked by nearly two years' consumption. At this crisis certain
inventions in machinery were introduced into the staple manufactures of
the north, which, greatly reducing the number of hands necessary to be
employed, threw thousands out of work, and left them without legitimate
means of sustaining life. A bad harvest supervened. Distress reached its
climax. Endurance, overgoaded, stretched the hand of fraternity to
sedition. The throes of a sort of moral earthquake were felt heaving
under the hills of the northern counties. But, as is usual in such cases,
nobody took much notice when a food-riot broke out in a manufacturing
town, when a gig-mill was burnt to the ground, or a manufacturer's house
was attacked, the furniture thrown into the streets, and the family
forced to flee for their lives, some local measures were or were not
taken by the local magistracy. A ringleader was detected, or more
frequently suffered to elude detection; newspaper paragraphs were written
on the subject, and there the thing stopped. As to the sufferers, whose
sole inheritance was labour, and who had lost that inheritance--who could
not get work, and consequently could not get wages, and consequently
could not get bread--they were left to suffer on, perhaps inevitably
left. It would not do to stop the progress of invention, to damage
science by discouraging its improvements; the war could not be
terminated; efficient relief could not be raised. There was no help then;
so the unemployed underwent their destiny--ate the bread and drank the
waters of affliction.

Misery generates hate. These sufferers hated the machines which they
believed took their bread from them; they hated the buildings which
contained those machines; they hated the manufacturers who owned those
buildings. In the parish of Briarfield, with which we have at present to
do, Hollow's Mill was the place held most abominable; Gérard Moore, in
his double character of semi-foreigner and thorough going progressist,
the man most abominated. And it perhaps rather agreed with Moore's
temperament than otherwise to be generally hated, especially when he
believed the thing for which he was hated a right and an expedient thing;
and it was with a sense of warlike excitement he, on this night, sat in
his counting-house waiting the arrival of his frame-laden wagons.
Malone's coming and company were, it may be, most unwelcome to him. He
would have preferred sitting alone, for he liked a silent, sombre, unsafe
solitude. His watchman's musket would have been company enough for him;
the full-flowing beck in the den would have delivered continuously the
discourse most genial to his ear.

With the queerest look in the world had the manufacturer for some ten
minutes been watching the Irish curate, as the latter made free with the
punch, when suddenly that steady gray eye changed, as if another vision
came between it and Malone. Moore raised his hand.

'Chut!' he said in his French fashion, as Malone made a noise with his
glass. He listened a moment, then rose, put his hat on, and went out at
the counting-house door.

The night was still, dark, and stagnant: the water yet rushed on full and
fast; its flow almost seemed a flood in the utter silence. Moore's ear,
however, caught another sound very distant but yet dissimilar, broken and
rugged--in short, a sound of heavy wheels crunching a stony road. He
returned to the counting-house and lit a lantern, with which he walked
down the mill-yard, and proceeded to open the gates. The big wagons were
coming on; the dray-horses' huge hoofs were heard splashing in the mud
and water. Moore hailed them.

'Hey, Joe Scott! Is all right?'

Probably Joe Scott was yet at too great a distance to hear the inquiry.
He did not answer it.

'Is all right, I say?' again asked Moore, when the elephant-like leader's
nose almost touched his.

Some one jumped out from the foremost wagon into the road; a voice cried
aloud, 'Ay, ay, divil; all's raight! We've smashed 'em.'

And there was a run. The wagons stood still; they were now deserted.

'Joe Scott!' No Joe Scott answered. 'Murgatroyd! Pighills! Sykes!' No
reply. Mr. Moore lifted his lantern and looked into the vehicles. There
was neither man nor machinery; they were empty and abandoned.

Now Mr. Moore loved his machinery. He had risked the last of his capital
on the purchase of these frames and shears which to-night had been
expected. Speculations most important to his interests depended on the
results to be wrought by them: where were they?

The words 'we've smashed 'em' rang in his ears. How did the catastrophe
affect him? By the light of the lantern he held were his features
visible, relaxing to a singular smile--the smile the man of determined
spirit wears when he reaches a juncture in his life where this determined
spirit is to feel a demand on its strength, when the strain is to be
made, and the faculty must bear or break. Yet he remained silent, and
even motionless; for at the instant he neither knew what to say nor what
to do. He placed the lantern on the ground, and stood with his arms
folded, gazing down and reflecting.

An impatient trampling of one of the horses made him presently look up.
His eye in the moment caught the gleam of something white attached to a
part of the harness. Examined by the light of the lantern this proved to
be a folded paper--a billet. It bore no address without; within was the
superscription:--

'To the Divil of Hollow's-miln.'

We will not copy the rest of the orthography, which was very peculiar,
but translate it into legible English. It ran thus:

'Your hellish machinery is shivered to smash on Stilbro' Moor, and your
men are lying bound hand and foot in a ditch by the roadside. Take this
as a warning from men that are starving, and have starving wives and
children to go home to when they have done this deed. If you get new
machines, or if you otherwise go on as you have done, you shall hear from
us again. Beware!'

'Hear from you again? Yes, I'll hear from you again, and you shall hear
from me. I'll speak to you directly. On Stilbro' Moor you shall hear from
me in a moment.'

Having led the wagons within the gates, he hastened towards the cottage.
Opening the door, he spoke a few words quickly but quietly to two females
who ran to meet him in the passage. He calmed the seeming alarm of one by
a brief palliative account of what had taken place; to the other he said,
'Go into the mill, Sarah--there is the key--and ring the mill-bell as
loud as you can. Afterwards you will get another lantern and help me to
light up the front.'

Returning to his horses, he unharnessed, fed, and stabled them with equal
speed and care, pausing occasionally, while so occupied, as if to listen
for the mill-bell. It clanged out presently, with irregular but loud and
alarming din. The hurried, agitated peal seemed more urgent than if the
summons had been steadily given by a practised hand. On that still night,
at that unusual hour, it was heard a long way round. The guests in the
kitchen of the Redhouse were startled by the clamour, and declaring that
'there must be summat more nor common to do at Hollow's-miln,' they
called for lanterns, and hurried to the spot in a body. And scarcely had
they thronged into the yard with their gleaming lights, when the tramp of
horses was heard, and a little man in a shovel hat, sitting erect on the
back of a shaggy pony, 'rode lightly in,' followed by an aide-de-camp
mounted on a larger steed.

Mr. Moore, meantime, after stabling his dray-horses, had saddled his
hackney, and with the aid of Sarah, the servant, lit up his mill, whose
wide and long front now glared one great illumination, throwing a
sufficient light on the yard to obviate all fear of confusion arising
from obscurity. Already a deep hum of voices became audible. Mr. Malone
had at length issued from the counting-house, previously taking the
precaution to dip his head and face in the stone water-jar; and this
precaution, together with the sudden alarm, had nearly restored to him
the possession of those senses which the punch had partially scattered.
He stood with his hat on the back of his head, and his shillelah grasped
in his dexter fist answering much at random the questions of the
newly-arrived party from the Redhouse. Mr. Moore now appeared, and was
immediately confronted by the shovel hat and the shaggy pony.

'Well, Moore, what is your business with us?' I thought you would want us
to-night--me and the hetman here (patting his pony's neck), and Tom and
his charger. When I heard your mill-bell I could sit still no longer, so
I left Boultby to finish his supper alone. But where is the enemy? I do
not see a mask or a smutted face present; and there is not a pane of
glass broken in your windows. Have you had an attack, or do you expect
one?'

'Oh, not at all! I have neither had one nor expect one,' answered Moore
coolly. 'I only ordered the bell to be rung because I want two or three
neighbours to stay here in the Hollow while I and a couple or so more go
over to Stilbro' Moor.'

'To Stilbro' Moor! What to do? To meet the wagons?'

'The wagons are come home an hour ago.'

'Then all's right. What more would you have?'

'They came home empty; and Joe Scott and company are left on the moor,
and so are the frames. Read that scrawl.'

Mr. Helstone received and perused the document of which the contents have
before, been given.

'Hum! They've only served you as they serve others. But, however, the
poor fellows in the ditch will be expecting help with some impatience.
This is a wet night for such a berth. I and Tom will go with you. Malone
may stay behind and take care of the mill: what is the matter with him?
His eyes seem starting out of his head.'

'He has been eating a mutton chop.'

'Indeed!--Peter Augustus, be on your guard. Eat no more mutton chops
to-night. You are left here in command of these premises--an honourable
post!'

'Is anybody to stay with me?'

'As many of the present assemblage as choose. My lads, how many of you
will remain here, and how many will go a little way with me and Mr. Moore
on the Stilbro' road, to meet some men who have been waylaid and
assaulted by frame-breakers?'

The small number of three volunteered to go; the rest preferred staying
behind. As Mr. Moore mounted his horse the rector asked him in a low
voice whether he had locked up the mutton chops, so that Peter Augustus
could not get at them? The manufacturer nodded an affirmative, and the
rescue-party set out.



Chapter 3 - Mr. Yorke


Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on
the state of things within as on the state of things without and around
us. I make this trite remark, because I happen to know that Messrs
Helstone and Moore trotted forth from the mill-yard gates at the head of
their very small company, in the best possible spirits. When a ray from a
lantern (the three pedestrians of the party carried each one) fell on Mr.
Moore's face, you could see an unusual, because a lively, spark dancing
in his eyes, and a new-found vivacity mantling on his dark physiognomy;
and when the rector's visage was illuminated, his hard features were
revealed all agrin and ashine with glee. Yet a drizzling night, a
somewhat perilous expedition, you would think were not circumstances
calculated to enliven those exposed to the wet and engaged in the
adventure. If any member or members of the crew who had been at work on
Stilbro' Moor had caught a view of this party, they would have had great
pleasure in shooting either of the leaders from behind a wall: and the
leaders knew this; and the fact is, being both men of steely nerves and
steady beating hearts, were elate with the knowledge.

I am aware, reader, and you need not remind me, that it is a dreadful
thing for a parson to be warlike; I am aware that he should be a man of
peace. I have some faint outline of an idea of what a clergyman's mission
is amongst mankind, and I remember distinctly whose servant he is, whose
message he delivers, whose example he should follow; yet, with all this,
if you are a parson-hater, you need not expect me to go along with you
every step of your dismal, downward-tending, unchristian road; you need
not expect me to join in your deep anathemas, at once so narrow and so
sweeping, in your poisonous rancour, so intense and so absurd, against
'the cloth;' to lift up my eyes and hands with a Supplehough, or to
inflate my lungs with a Barraclough, in horror and denunciation of the
diabolical rector of Briarfield.

He was not diabolical at all. The evil simply was--he had missed his
vocation. He should have been a soldier, and circumstances had made him a
priest. For the rest, he was a conscientious, hard-headed, hard-handed,
brave, stern, implacable, faithful little man; a man almost without
sympathy, ungentle, prejudiced, and rigid; but a man true to principle,
honourable, sagacious, and sincere. It seems to me, reader, that you
cannot always cut out men to fit their profession, and that you ought not
to curse them because their profession sometimes hangs on them
ungracefully. Nor will I curse Helstone, clerical Cossack as he was. Yet
he was cursed, and by many of his own parishioners, as by others he was
adored--which is the frequent fate of men who show partiality in
friendship and bitterness in enmity, who are equally attached to
principles and adherent to prejudices.

Helstone and Moore, being both in excellent spirits, and united for the
present in one cause, you would expect that, as they rode side by side,
they would converse amicably. Oh no! These two men, of hard, bilious
natures both, rarely came into contact but they chafed each other's
moods. Their frequent bone of contention was the war. Helstone was a high
Tory (there were Tories in those days), and Moore was a bitter Whig--a
Whig, at least, as far as opposition to the war-party was concerned, that
being the question which affected his own interest; and only on that
question did he profess any British politics at all. He liked to
infuriate Helstone by declaring his belief in the invincibility of
Bonaparte; by taunting England and Europe with the impotence of their
efforts to withstand him and by coolly advancing the opinion that it was
as well to yield to him soon as late, since he must in the end crush
every antagonist, and reign supreme.

Helstone could not bear these sentiments. It was only on the
consideration of Moore being a sort of outcast and alien, and having but
half measure of British blood to temper the foreign gall which corroded
his veins, that he brought himself to listen to them without indulging
the wish he felt to cane the speaker. Another thing, too, somewhat
allayed his disgust; namely, a fellow-feeling for the dogged tone with
which these opinions were asserted, and a respect for the consistency of
Moore's crabbed contumacy.

As the party turned into the Stilbro' road, they met what little wind
there was; the rain dashed in their faces. Moore had been fretting his
companion previously, and now, braced up by the raw breeze, and perhaps
irritated by the sharp drizzle, he began to goad him.

'Does your Peninsular news please you still?' he asked.

'What do you mean?' was the surly demand of the rector.

'I mean, have you still faith in that Baal of a Lord Wellington?'

'And what do you mean now?'

'Do you still believe that this wooden-faced and pebble-hearted idol of
England has power to send fire down from heaven to consume the French
holocaust you want to offer up?'

'I believe Wellington will flog Bonaparte's marshals into the sea the day
it pleases him to lift his arm.'

'But, my dear sir, you can't be serious in what you say. Bonaparte's
marshals are great men, who act under the guidance of an omnipotent
master-spirit. Your Wellington is the most humdrum of commonplace
martinets, whose slow, mechanical movements are further cramped by an
ignorant home government.'

'Wellington is the soul of England. Wellington is the right champion of a
good cause, the fit representative of a powerful, a resolute, a sensible,
and an honest nation.'

'Your good cause, as far as I understand it, is simply the restoration of
that filthy, feeble Ferdinand to a throne which he disgraced. Your fit
representative of an honest people is a dull-witted drover, acting for a
duller-witted farmer; and against these are arrayed victorious supremacy
and invincible genius.'

'Against legitimacy is arrayed usurpation; against modest, single-minded,
righteous, and brave resistance to encroachment is arrayed boastful,
double-tongued, selfish, and treacherous ambition to possess. God defend
the right!'

'God often defends the powerful.'

'What! I suppose the handful of Israelites standing dryshod on the
Asiatic side of the Red Sea was more powerful than the host of the
Egyptians drawn up on the African side? Were they more numerous? Were
they better appointed? Were they more mighty, in a word--eh? Don't speak,
or you'll tell a lie, Moore; you know you will. They were a poor,
overwrought band of bondsmen. Tyrants had oppressed them through four
hundred years; a feeble mixture of women and children diluted their thin
ranks; their masters, who roared to follow them through the divided
flood, were a set of pampered Ethiops, about as strong and brutal as the
lions of Libya. They were armed, horsed, and charioted; the poor Hebrew
wanderers were afoot. Few of them, it is likely, had better weapons than
their shepherds' crooks or their masons' building-tools; their meek and
mighty leader himself had only his rod. But bethink you, Robert Moore,
right was with them; the God of battles was on their side. Crime and the
lost archangel generalled the ranks of Pharaoh, and which triumphed? We
know that well. "The Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the
Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea-shore" yea,
"the depths covered them, they sank to the bottom as a stone." The right
hand of the Lord became glorious in power; the right hand of the Lord
dashed in pieces the enemy!'

'You are all right; only you forget the true parallel. France is Israel,
and Napoleon is Moses. Europe, with her old overgorged empires and rotten
dynasties, is corrupt Egypt; gallant France is the Twelve Tribes, and her
fresh and vigorous Usurper the Shepherd of Horeb.'

'I scorn to answer you.'

Moore accordingly answered himself--at least, he subjoined to what he had
just said an additional observation in a lower voice.

'Oh, in Italy he was as great as any Moses! He was the right thing there,
fit to head and organise measures for the regeneration of nations. It
puzzles me to this day how the conqueror of Lodi should have condescended
to become an emperor, a vulgar, a stupid humbug; and still more how a
people who had once called themselves republicans should have sunk again
to the grade of mere slaves. I despise France! If England had gone as far
on the march of civilisation as France did, she would hardly have
retreated so shamelessly.'

'You don't mean to say that besotted imperial France is any worse than
bloody republican France?' demanded Helstone fiercely.

'I mean to say nothing, but I can think what I please, you know, Mr.
Helstone, both about France and England; and about revolutions, and
regicides, and restorations in general; and about the divine right of
kings, which you often stickle for in your sermons, and the duty of
non-resistance, and the sanity of war, and--'

Mr. Moore's sentence was here cut short by the rapid rolling up of a gig,
and its sudden stoppage in the middle of the road. Both he and the rector
had been too much occupied with their discourse to notice its approach
till it was close upon them.

'Nah, maister; did th' waggons hit home?' demanded a voice from the
vehicle.

'Can that be Joe Scott?'

'Ay, ay!' returned another voice; for the gig contained two persons, as
was seen by the glimmer of its lamp. The men with the lanterns had now
fallen into the rear, or rather, the equestrians of the rescue-party had
outridden the pedestrians. 'Ay, Mr. Moore, it's Joe Scott. I'm bringing
him back to you in a bonny pickle. I fand him on the top of the moor
yonder, him and three others. What will you give me for restoring him to
you?'

'Why, my thanks, I believe; for I could better have afforded to lose a
better man. That is you, I suppose, Mr. Yorke, by your voice?'

'Ay, lad, it's me. I was coming home from Stilbro' market, and just as I
got to the middle of the moor, and was whipping on as swift as the wind
(for these, they say, are not safe times, thanks to a bad government!), I
heard a groan. I pulled up. Some would have whipt on faster; but I've
naught to fear that I know of. I don't believe there's a lad in these
parts would harm me--at least, I'd give them as good as I got if they
offered to do it. I said, "Is there aught wrong anywhere?" "'Deed is
there,' somebody says, speaking out of the ground, like. "What's to do?
Be sharp and tell me," I ordered. "Nobbut four on us ligging in a ditch,"
says Joe, as quiet as could be. I tell'd 'em more shame to 'em, and bid
them get up and move on, or I'd lend them a lick of the gig-whip; for my
notion was they were all fresh. "We'd ha' done that an hour sin', but
we're teed wi' a bit o' band," says Joe. So in a while I got down and
loosed 'em wi' my penknife; and Scott would ride wi' me, to tell me all
how it happened; and t' others are coming on as fast as their feet will
bring them.'

'Well, I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Yorke.'

'Are you, my lad? You know you're not. However, here are the rest
approaching. And here, by the Lord, is another set with lights in their
pitchers, like the army of Gideon; and as we've th' parson wi' us--good
evening, Mr. Helstone, we'se do.'

Mr. Helstone returned the salutation of the individual in the gig very
stiffly indeed. That individual proceeded:

'We're eleven strong men, and there's both horses and chariots amang us.
If we could only fall in wi' some of these starved ragamuffins of
frame-breakers we could win a grand victory. We're could iv'ry one be a
Wellington--that would please ye, Mr. Helstone--and sich paragraphs as we
could contrive for t' papers! Briarfield suld be famous: but we'se hev a
column and a half i' th' Stilbro' Courier ower this job, as it is, I dare
say. I'se expect no less.'

'And I'll promise you no less, Mr. Yorke, for I'll write the article
myself,' returned the rector.

'To be sure--sartainly! And mind ye recommend weel that them 'at brake t'
bits o' frames, and teed Joe Scott's legs wi' band, suld be hung without
benefit o' clergy. It's a hanging matter, or suld be. No doubt o' that'

'If I judged them I'd give them short shrift!' cried Moore. 'But I mean
to let them quite alone this bout, to give them rope enough, certain that
in the end they will hang themselves.'

'Let them alone, will ye, Moore? Do you promise that?'

'Promise! No. All I mean to say is, I shall give myself no particular
trouble to catch them; but if one falls in my way--'

'You'll snap him up, of course. Only you would rather they would do
something worse than merely stop a wagon before you reckon with them.
Well, we'll say no more on the subject at present Here we are at my door,
gentlemen, and I hope you and the men will step in. You will none of you
be the worse of a little refreshment.'

Moore and Helstone opposed this proposition as unnecessary. It was,
however, pressed on them so courteously, and the night, besides, was so
inclement, and the gleam from the muslin-curtained windows of the house
before which they had halted looked so inviting, that at length they
yielded. Mr. Yorke, after having alighted from his gig, which he left in
charge of a man who issued from an outbuilding on his arrival, led the
way in.

It will have been remarked that Mr. Yorke varied a little in his
phraseology. Now he spoke broad Yorkshire, and anon he expressed himself
in very pure English. His manner seemed liable to equal alternations. He
could be polite and affable, and he could be blunt and rough. His station
then you could not easily determine by his speech and demeanour. Perhaps
the appearance of his residence may decide it.

The men he recommended to take the kitchen way, saying that he would 'see
them served wi' summat to taste presently.' The gentlemen were ushered in
at the front entrance. They found themselves in a matted hall, lined
almost to the ceiling with pictures. Through this they were conducted to
a large parlour, with a magnificent fire in the grate; the most cheerful
of rooms it appeared as a whole, and when you came to examine details,
the enlivening effect was not diminished. There was no splendour, but
there was taste everywhere, unusual taste, the taste, you would have
said, of a travelled man, a scholar, and a gentleman. A series of Italian
views decked the walls. Each of these was a specimen of true art. A
connoisseur had selected them; they were genuine and valuable. Even by
candle-light the bright clear skies, the soft distances, with blue air
quivering between the eye and the hills, the fresh tints and well-massed
lights and shadows, charmed the view. The subjects were all pastoral, the
scenes were all sunny. There was a guitar and some music on a sofa; there
were cameos, beautiful miniatures; a set of Grecian-looking vases on the
mantelpiece; there were books well arranged in two elegant bookcases.

Mr. Yorke bade his guests be seated. He then rang for wine. To the
servant who brought it he gave hospitable orders for the refreshment of
the men in the kitchen. The rector remained standing; he seemed not to
like his quarters; he would not touch the wine his host offered him.

'E'en as you will,' remarked Mr. Yorke. 'I reckon you're thinking of
Eastern customs, Mr. Helstone, and you'll not eat nor drink under my
roof, feared we suld be forced to be friends; but I am not so particular
or superstitious. You might sup the contents of that decanter, and you
might give me a bottle of the best in your own cellar, and I'd hold
myself free to oppose you at every turn still, in every vestry-meeting
and justice-meeting where we encountered one another.'

'It is just what I should expect of you, Mr. Yorke.'

'Does it agree wi' ye now, Mr. Helstone, to be riding out after rioters,
of a wet night, at your age?'

'It always agrees with me to be doing my duty; and in this case my duty
is a thorough pleasure. To hunt down vermin is a noble occupation, fit
for an Archbishop.'

'Fit for ye, at ony rate. But where's t' curate? He's happen gone to
visit some poor body in a sick gird, or he's happen hunting down vermin
in another direction.'

'He is doing garrison-duty at Hollow's-miln.'

'You left him a sup o' wine, I hope, Bob' (turning to Mr. Moore), 'to
keep his courage up?'

He did not pause for an answer, but continued, quickly--still addressing
Moore, who had thrown himself into an old-fashioned chair by the
fireside--'Move it, Robert! Get up, my lad! That place is mine. Take the
sofa, or three other chairs, if you will, but not this. It belangs to me,
and nob'dy else.'

'Why are you so particular to that chair, Mr. Yorke?' asked Moore, lazily
vacating the place in obedience to orders.

'My father war afore me, and that's all t' answer I sall gie thee; and
it's as good a reason as Mr. Helstone can give for the main feck o' his
notions.'

'Moore, are you ready to go?' inquired the Rector.

'Nay; Robert's not ready, or rather, I'm not ready to part wi' him. He's
an ill lad, and wants correcting.'

'Why, sir? what have I done?'

'Made thyself enemies on every hand.'

'What do I care for that? What difference does it make to me whether your
Yorkshire louts hate me or like me?'

'Ay, there it is. The lad is a mak' of an alien amang us. His father
would never have talked i' that way.--Go back to Antwerp, where you were
born and bred, mauvaise tête!'

'Mauvaise tête vous-même, je ne fais que mon devoir; quant à vos
lourdauds de paysans, je m'en moque!'

'En ravanche, mon garçon, nos lourdauds de paysans se moqueront de toi;
sois en certain,' replied Yorke, speaking with nearly as pure a French
accent as Gérard Moore.

'C'est bon! c'est bon! Et puisque cela m'est égal, que mes amis ne s'en
inquiètent pas.'

'Tes amis! où sont-ils, tes amis?'

'Je fais êcho, Où sont-ils? et je suis fort aise que l'écho seul y
répond. Au diable les amis! Je me souviens encore du moment où mon père
et mes oncles Gérard appellèrent autour d'eux leurs amis et Dieu sait si
les amis se sont empressés d'accourir a leur secours! Tenez, M. Yorke, ce
mot, ami, m'irrite trop; ne m'en parlez plus.'

'Comme tu voudras.'

And here Mr. Yorke held his peace; and while he sits leaning back in his
three-cornered carved oak chair, I will snatch my opportunity to sketch
the portrait of this French-speaking Yorkshire gentleman.



Chapter 4 - Mr. Yorke (Continued)


A Yorkshire gentleman he was, par excellence, in every point; about
fifty-five years old, but looking at first sight still older, for his
hair was silver white. His forehead was broad, not high; his face fresh
and hale; the harshness of the north was seen in his features, as it was
heard in his voice; every trait was thoroughly English--not a Norman line
anywhere; it was an inelegant, unclassic, unaristoctatic mould of visage.
Fine people would perhaps have called it vulgar; sensible people would
have termed it characteristic; shrewd people would have delighted in it
for the pith, sagacity, intelligence, the rude yet real originality
marked in every lineament, latent in every furrow. But it was an
indocile, a scornful, and a sarcastic face--the face of a man difficult
to lead, and impossible to drive. His stature was rather tall, and he was
well made and wiry, and had a stately integrity of port; there was not a
suspicion of the clown about him anywhere.

I did not find it easy to sketch Mr. Yorke's person, but it is more
difficult to indicate his mind. If you expect to be treated to a
Perfection, reader, or even to a benevolent, philanthropic old gentleman
in him, you are mistaken. He has spoken with some sense and with some
good feeling to Mr. Moore, but you are not thence to conclude that he
always spoke and thought justly and kindly.

Mr. Yorke, in the first place, was without the organ of veneration--a
great want, and which throws a man wrong on every point where veneration
is required. Secondly, he was without the organ of Comparison--a
deficiency which strips a man of sympathy; and thirdly, he had too little
of the organs of Benevolence and Ideality, which took the glory and
softness from his nature, and for him diminished those divine qualities
throughout the universe.

The want of veneration made him intolerant to those above him--kings and
nobles and priests, dynasties and parliaments and establishments, with
all their doings, most of their enactments, their forms, their rights,
their claims, were to him an abomination, all rubbish; he found no use or
pleasure in them, and believed it would be clear gain, and no damage to
the world, if its high places were razed, and their occupants crushed in
the fall. The want of veneration, too, made him dead at heart to the
electric delight of admiring what is admirable; it dried up a thousand
pure sources of enjoyment; it withered a thousand vivid pleasures. He was
not irreligious, though a member of no sect; but his religion could not
be that of one who knows how to venerate. He believed in God and heaven;
but his God and heaven were those of a man in whom awe, imagination, and
tenderness lack.

The weakness of his powers of comparison made him inconsistent; while he
professed some excellent general doctrines of mutual toleration and
forbearance, he cherished towards certain classes a bigoted antipathy. He
spoke of 'parsons' and all who belonged to parsons, of 'lords' and the
appendages of lords, with a harshness, sometimes an insolence, as unjust
as it was insufferable. He could not place himself in the position of
those he vituperated; he could not compare their errors with their
temptations, their defects with their disadvantages; he could not realise
the effect of such and such circumstances on himself similarly situated,
and he would often express the most ferocious and tyrannical wishes
regarding those who had acted, as he thought, ferociously and
tyrannically. To judge by his threats, he would have employed arbitrary,
even cruel, means to advance the cause of freedom and equality. Equality!
yes, Mr. Yorke talked about equality, but at heart he was a proud man:
very friendly to his workpeople, very good to all who were beneath him,
and submitted quietly to be beneath him, but haughty as Beelzebub to
whomsoever the world deemed (for he deemed no man) his superior. Revolt
was in his blood: he could not bear control; his father, his grandfather
before him, could not bear it, and his children after him never could.

The want of general benevolence made him very impatient of imbecility,
and of all faults which grated on his strong, shrewd nature; it left no
check to his cutting sarcasm. As he was not merciful, he would sometimes
wound and wound again, without noticing how much he hurt, or caring how
deep he thrust.

As to the paucity of ideality in his mind, that can scarcely be called a
fault: a fine ear for music, a correct eye for colour and form, left him
the quality of taste; and who cares for imagination? Who does not think
it a rather dangerous, senseless attribute, akin to weakness, perhaps
partaking of frenzy--a disease rather than a gift of the mind?

Probably all think it so but those who possess, or fancy they possess it.
To hear them speak, you would believe that their hearts would be cold if
that elixir did not flow about them, that their eyes would be dim if that
flame did not refine their vision, that they would be lonely if this
strange companion abandoned them. You would suppose that it imparted some
glad hope to spring, some fine charm to summer, some tranquil joy to
autumn, some consolation to winter, which you do not feel. All illusion,
of course; but the fanatics cling to their dream, and would not give it
for gold.

As Mr. Yorke did not possess poetic imagination himself, he considered it
a most superfluous quality in others. Painters and musicians he could
tolerate, and even encourage, because he could relish the results of
their art; he could see the charm of a fine picture, and feel the
pleasure of good music; but a quiet poet--whatever force struggled,
whatever fire glowed in his breast--if he could not have played the man
in the counting-house, or the tradesman in the Piece Hall, might have
lived despised, and died scorned, under the eyes of Hiram Yorke.

And as there are' many Hiram Yorkes in the world, it is well that the
true poet, quiet externally though he may be, has often a truculent
spirit under his placidity, and is full of shrewdness in his meekness,
and can measure the whole stature of those who look down on him, and
correctly ascertain the weight and value of the pursuits they disdain him
for not having followed. It is happy that he can have his own bliss, his
own society with his great friend and goddess Nature, quite independent
of those who find little pleasure in him, and in whom he finds no
pleasure at all. It is just that while the world and circumstances often
turn a dark, cold side to him--and properly, too, because he first turns
a dark, cold, careless side to them--he should be able to maintain a
festal brightness and cherishing glow in his bosom, which makes all
bright and genial for him; while strangers, perhaps, deem his existence a
Polar winter never gladdened by a sun. The true poet is not one whit to
be pitied, and he is apt to laugh in his sleeve when any misguided
sympathiser whines over his wrongs. Even when utilitarians sit in
judgment on him, and pronounce him and his art useless, he hears the
sentence with such a hard derision, such a broad, deep, comprehensive,
and merciless contempt of the unhappy Pharisees who pronounce it, that he
is rather to be chidden than condoled with. These, however, are not Mr.
Yorke's reflections, and it is with Mr. Yorke we have at present to do.

I have told you some of his faults, reader: as to his good points, he was
one of the most honourable and capable men in Yorkshire; even those who
disliked him were forced to respect him. He was much beloved by the poor,
because he was thoroughly kind and very fatherly to them. To his workmen
he was considerate and cordial: when he dismissed them from an
occupation, he would try to set them on to something else, or, if that
was impossible, help them to remove with their families to a district
where work might possibly be had. It must also be remarked that if, as
sometimes chanced, any individual amongst his 'hands' showed signs of
insubordination, Yorke--who, like many who abhor being controlled, knew
how to control with vigour--had the secret of crushing rebellion in the
germ, of eradicating it like a bad weed, so that it never spread or
developed within the sphere of his authority. Such being the happy state
of his own affairs, he felt himself at liberty to speak with the utmost
severity of those who were differently situated, to ascribe whatever was
unpleasant in their position entirely to their own fault, to sever
himself from the masters, and advocate freely the cause of the
operatives.

Mr. Yorke's family was the first and oldest in the district; and he,
though not the wealthiest, was one of the most influential men. His
education had been good. In his youth, before the French Revolution, he
had travelled on the Continent He was an adept in the French and Italian
languages. During a two years' sojourn in Italy he had collected many
good paintings and tasteful rarities, with which his residence was now
adorned. His manners, when he liked, were those of a finished gentleman
of the old school; his conversation, when he was disposed to please, was
singularly interesting and original; and if he usually expressed himself
in the Yorkshire dialect; it was because he chose to do so, preferring
his native Doric to a more refined vocabulary. 'A Yorkshire burr,' he
affirmed, 'was as much better than a cockney's lisp as a bull's bellow
than a ratton's squeak.'

Mr. Yorke knew every one, and was known by every one, for miles round;
yet his intimate acquaintances were very few. Himself thoroughly
original, he had no taste for what was ordinary: a racy, rough character,
high or low, ever found acceptance with him; a refined, insipid
personage, however exalted in station, was his aversion. He would spend
an hour any time in talking freely with a shrewd workman of his own, or
with some queer, sagacious old woman amongst his cottagers, when he would
have grudged a moment to a commonplace fine gentleman or to the most
fashionable and elegant, if frivolous, lady. His preferences on these
points he carried to an extreme, forgetting that there may be amiable and
even admirable characters amongst those who cannot be original. Yet he
made exceptions to his own rule. There was a certain order of mind,
plain, ingenuous, neglecting refinement, almost devoid of
intellectuality, and quite incapable of appreciating what was
intellectual in him, but which, at the same time, never felt disgust at
his rudeness, was not easily wounded by his sarcasm, did not closely
analyse his sayings, doings, or opinions, with which he was peculiarly at
ease, and, consequently, which he peculiarly preferred. He was lord
amongst such characters. They, while submitting implicitly to his
influence, never acknowledged, because they never reflected on, his
superiority; they were quite tractable therefore without running the
smallest danger of being servile; and their unthinking, easy, artless
insensibility was as acceptable, because as convenient, to Mr. Yorke as
that of the chair he sat on, or of the floor he trod.

It will have been observed that he was not quite uncordial with Mr.
Moore. He had two or three reasons for entertaining a faint partiality to
that gentleman. It may sound odd, but the first of these was that Moore
spoke English with a foreign, and French with a perfectly pure, accent
and that his dark, thin face, with its fine though rather wasted lines,
had a most anti-British and anti-Yorkshire look These points seem
frivolous, unlikely to influence a character like Yorke's; but the fact
is they recalled old, perhaps pleasurable associations they brought back
his travelling, his youthful days. He had seen, amidst Italian cities and
scenes, faces like Moore's; he had heard, in Parisian cafes and theatres,
voices like his. He was young then, and when he looked at and listened to
the alien, he seemed young again.

Secondly, he had known Moore's father, and had had dealings with him.
That was a more substantial, though by no means a more agreeable tie; for
as his firm had been connected with Moore's in business, it had also, in
some measure, been implicated in its losses. Thirdly, he had found Robert
himself a sharp man of business. He saw reason to anticipate that he
would, in the end, by one means or another, make money; and he respected
both his resolution and acuteness--perhaps also, his hardness. A fourth
circumstance which drew them together was that of Mr. Yorke being one of
the guardians of the minor on whose estate Hollow's Mill was situated;
consequently Moore, in the course of his alterations and improvements,
had frequent occasion to consult him.

As to the other guest now present in Mr. Yorke's parlour, Mr. Helstone,
between him and his host there existed a double antipathy--the antipathy
of nature and that of circumstances. The free-thinker hated the
formalist, the lover of liberty detested the disciplinarian. Besides, it
was said that in former years they had been rival suitors of the same
lady.

Mr. Yorke, as a general rule, was, when young, noted for his preference
of sprightly and dashing women: a showy shape and air, a lively wit, a
ready tongue, chiefly seemed to attract him. He never, however, proposed
to any of these brilliant belles whose society he sought; and all at once
he seriously fell in love with and eagerly wooed a girl who presented a
complete contrast to those he had hitherto noticed--a girl with the face
of a Madonna; a girl of living marble--stillness personified. No matter
that, when he spoke to her, she only answered him in monosyllables; no
matter that his sighs seemed unheard, that his glances were unreturned,
that she never responded to his opinions, rarely smiled at his jests,
paid him no respect and no attention; no matter that she seemed the
opposite of everything feminine he had ever in his whole life been known
to admire. For him Mary Cave was perfect, because somehow, for some
reason--no doubt he had a reason--he loved her.

Mr. Helstone, at that time curate of Briarfield, loved Mary too or, at
any rate, he fancied her. Several others admired her, for she was
beautiful as a monumental angel; but the clergyman was preferred for his
office's sake--that office probably investing him with some of the
illusion necessary to allure to the commission of matrimony, and which
Miss Cave did not find in any of the young wool-staplers, her other
adorers. Mr. Helstone neither had, nor professed to have, Mr. Yorke's
absorbing passion for her. He had none of the humble reverence which
seemed to subdue most of her suitors; he saw her more as she really was
than the rest did. He was, consequently, more master of her and himself.
She accepted him at the first offer, and they were married.

Nature never intended Mr. Helstone to make a very good husband,
especially to a quiet wife. He thought so long as a woman was silent
nothing ailed her, and she wanted nothing. If she did not complain of
solitude, solitude, however continued, could not be irksome to her. If
she did not talk and put herself forward, express a partiality for this,
an aversion to that, she had no partialities or aversions, and it was
useless to consult her tastes. He made no pretence of comprehending
women, or comparing them with men. They were a different, probably a very
inferior, order of existence. A wife could not be her husband's
companion, much less his confidante, much less his stay. His wife, after
a year or two, was of no great importance to him in any shape; and when
she one day, as he thought, suddenly--for he had scarcely noticed her
decline--but, as others thought, gradually, took her leave of him and of
life, and there was only a still; beautiful-featured mould of clay left,
cold and white, in the conjugal couch, he felt his bereavement--who shall
say how little? Yet, perhaps, more than he seemed to feel it; for he was
not a man from whom grief easily wrung tears.

His dry-eyed and sober mourning scandalised an old housekeeper, and
likewise a female attendant, who had waited upon Mrs. Helstone in her
sickness, and who, perhaps, had had opportunities of learning more of the
deceased lady's nature, of her capacity for feeling and loving, than her
husband knew. They gossiped together over the corpse, related anecdotes,
with embellishments of her lingering decline, and its real or supposed
cause. In short, they worked each other up to some indignation against
the austere little man, who sat examining papers in an adjoining room,
unconscious of what opprobrium he was the object.

Mrs. Helstone was hardly under the sod, when rumours began to be rife in
the neighbourhood that she had died of a broken heart. These magnified
quickly into reports of hard usage, and, finally, details of harsh
treatment on the part of her husband--reports grossly untrue, but not the
less eagerly received on that account. Mr. Yorke heard them, partly
believed them. Already, of course, he had no friendly feeling to his
successful rival. Though himself a married man now, and united to a woman
who seemed a complete contrast to Mary Gave in all respects, he could not
forget the great disappointment of his life; and when he heard that what
would have been so precious to him had been neglected, perhaps abused, by
another, he conceived for that other a rooted and bitter animosity. Of
the nature and strength of this animosity Mr. Helstone was but half
aware. He neither knew how much Yorke had loved Mary Gave, what he had
felt on losing her, nor was he conscious of the calumnies concerning his
treatment of her, familiar to every ear in the neighbourhood but his own.
He believed political and religious differences alone separated him and
Mr. Yorke. Had he known how the case really stood, he would hardly have
been induced by any persuasion to cross his former rival's threshold.

Mr. Yorke did not resume his lecture of Robert Moore. The conversation
ere long recommenced in a more general form, though still in a somewhat
disputative tone. The unquiet state of the country, the various
depredations lately committed on mill-property in the district, supplied
abundant matter for disagreement, especially as each of the three
gentlemen present differed more or less in his views on these subjects.
Mr. Helstone thought the masters aggrieved, the workpeople unreasonable;
he condemned sweepingly the widespread spirit of disaffection against
constituted authorities, the growing indisposition to bear with patience
evils he regarded as inevitable. The cures he prescribed were vigorous
government interference, strict magisterial vigilance; when necessary,
prompt military coercion.

Mr. Yorke wished to know whether this interference, vigilance, and
coercion would feed those who were hungry, give work to those who wanted
work, and whom no man would hire. He scouted the idea of inevitable
evils. He said public patience was a camel, on whose back the last atom
that could be borne had already been laid, and that resistance was now a
duty; the widespread spirit of disaffection against constituted
authorities he regarded as the most promising sign of the times; the
masters, he allowed, were truly aggrieved, but their main grievance had
been heaped upon them by a 'corrupt, base and bloody' government (these
were Mr. Yorke's epithets). Madmen like Pitt, demons like Castlereagh,
mischievous idiots like Perceval, were the tyrants, the curses of the
country, the destroyers of her trade. It was their infatuated
perseverance in an unjustifiable, a hopeless, a ruinous war, which had
brought the nation to its present pass. It was their monstrously
oppressive taxation, it was the infamous 'Orders in Council'--the
originators of which deserved impeachment and the scaffold, if ever
public men did--that hung a millstone about England's neck.

'But where was the use of talking?' he demanded 'what chance was there
of reason being heard in a land that was king-ridden, priest-ridden,
peer-ridden; where a lunatic was the nominal monarch, an unprincipled
debauchee the real ruler; where such an insult to common sense as
hereditary legislators was tolerated; where such a humbug as a bench of
bishops, such an arrogant abuse as a pampered, persecuting established
church was endured and venerated; where a standing army was maintained,
and a host of lazy parsons, and the pauper families were kept on the fat
of the land?'

Mr. Helstone, rising up and putting on his shovel-hat, observed in reply,
'that in the course of his life he had met with two or three instances
where sentiments of this sort had been very bravely maintained so long as
health, strength, and worldly prosperity had been the allies of him who
professed them; but there came a time,' he said, 'to all men, "when the
keepers of the house should tremble; when they should be afraid of that
which is high, and fear should be in the way," and that time was the test
of the advocate of anarchy and rebellion, the enemy of religion and
order. Ere now,' he affirmed, 'he had been called upon to read those
prayers our church has provided for the sick by the miserable dying-bed
of one of her most rancorous foes; he had seen such a one stricken with
remorse, solicitous to discover a place for repentance, and unable to
find any, though he sought it carefully with tears. He must forewarn Mr.
Yorke that blasphemy against God and the king was a deadly sin, and that
there was such a thing as "judgment to come."'

Mr. Yorke 'believed fully that there was such a thing as judgment to
come. If it were otherwise, it would be difficult to imagine how all the
scoundrels who seemed triumphant in this world, who broke innocent hearts
with impunity, abused unmerited privileges, were a scandal to honourable
callings, took the bread out of the mouths of the poor, browbeat the
humble, and truckled meanly to the rich and proud, were to be properly
paid off, in such coin as they had earned. But,' he added, 'whenever he
got low-spirited about such-like goings-on, and their seeming success in
this mucky lump of a planet, he just reached down t' owd book' (pointing
to a great Bible in the bookcase), 'opened it like at a chance, and he
was sure to light of a verse blazing wi' a blue brimstone low that set
all straight. He knew,' he said, 'where some folk war bound for, just as
weel as if an angel wi' great white wings had come in ower t' door-stone
and told him.'

'Sir,' said Mr. Helstone, collecting all his dignity--'sir, the great
knowledge of man is to know himself, and the bourne whither his own steps
tend.'

'Ay, ay. You'll recollect, Mr. Helstone, that Ignorance was carried away
from the very gates of heaven, borne through the air, and thrust in at a
door in the side of the hill which led down to hell.'

'Nor have I forgotten, Mr. Yorke, that Vain-Confidence, not seeing the
way before him, fell into a deep pit, which was on purpose there made by
the prince of the grounds, to catch vain-glorious fools withal, and was
dashed to pieces with his fall.'

'Now,' interposed Mr. Moore, who had hitherto sat a silent but amused
spectator of this wordy combat, and whose indifference to the party
politics of the day, as well as to the gossip of the neighbourhood, made
him an impartial, if apathetic, judge of the merits of such an encounter,
'you have both sufficiently black-balled each other, and proved how
cordially you detest each other, and how wicked you think each other. For
my part my hate is still running in such a strong current against the
fellows who have broken my frames that I have none to spare for my
private acquaintance, and still less for such a vague thing as a sect or
a government. But really, gentlemen, you both seem very bad by your own
showing--worse than ever I suspected you to be--I dare not stay all night
with a rebel and blasphemer like you, Yorke; and I hardly dare ride home
with a cruel and tyrannical ecclesiastic like Mr. Helstone.'

'I am going, however, Mr. Moore,' said the rector sternly. 'Come with me
or not, as you please.'

'Nay, he shall not have the choice, he shall go with you,' responded
Yorke. 'It's midnight, and past; and I'll have nob'dy staying up i' my
house any longer. Ye mun all go.'

He rang the bell.

'Deb,' said he to the servant who answered it, 'clear them folk out o' t'
kitchen, and lock t' doors, and be off to bed. Here is your way,
gentlemen,' he continued to his guests; and, lighting them through the
passage, he fairly put them out at his front-door.

They met their party hurrying out pell-mell by the back way. Their horses
stood at the gate; they mounted and rode off, Moore laughing at their
abrupt dismissal, Helstone deeply indignant thereat.



Chapter 5 - Hollow's Cottage


Moore's good spirits were still with him when he rose next morning. He
and Joe Scott had both spent the night in the mill, availing themselves
of certain sleeping accommodations producible from recesses in the front
and back counting-houses. The master, always an early riser, was up
somewhat sooner even than usual. He awoke his man by singing a French
song as he made his toilet.

'Ye're not custen dahm, then, maister?' cried Joe.

'Not a stiver, mon garçon--which means, my lad: get up, and we'll take a
turn through the mill before the hands come in, and I'll explain my
future plans. We'll have the machinery yet, Joseph. You never heard of
Bruce, perhaps?'

'And th' arrand (spider)? Yes, but I hev. I've read th' history o'
Scotland, and happen knaw as mich on't as ye; and I understand ye to mean
to say ye'll persevere.'

'I do.'

'Is there mony o' your mak' i' your country?' inquired Joe, as he folded
up his temporary bed, and put it away.

'In my country! Which is my country?'

'Why, France isn't it?'

'Not it, indeed! The circumstance of the French having seized Antwerp,
where I was born, does not make me a Frenchman.'

'Holland, then?'

'I am not a Dutchman. Now you are confounding Antwerp with Amsterdam.'

'Flanders?'

'I scorn the insinuation Joe! I a Flemish! Have I a Flemish face! Have I
a Flemish face--the clumsy nose standing out, the mean forehead falling
back, the pale blue eyes "è fleur de tête"? Am I all body and no legs,
like a Flamand? But you don't know what they are like, those
Netherlanders. Joe, I'm an Anversois. My mother was an Anversoise, though
she came of French lineage, which is the reason I speak French.'

'But your father war Yorkshire, which maks ye a bit Yorkshire too; and
onybody may see ye're akin to us, ye're so keen o' making brass, and
getting forrards.'

'Joe, you're an impudent dog; but I've always been accustomed to a
boorish sort of insolence from my youth up. The "classe ouvrière"; that
is, the working people in Belgium bear themselves brutally towards their
employers; and by brutally, Joe, I mean brutalement--which, perhaps, when
properly translated, should be roughly.'

'We allus speak our minds i' this country; and them young parsons and
grand folk fro' London is shocked at wer "incivility;" and we like weel
enough to gi'e 'em summat to be shocked at, 'cause it's sport to us to
watch 'em turn up the whites o' their een, and spreed out their bits o'
hands, like as they're flayed wi' bogards, and then to hear 'em say,
nipping off their words short like, "Dear! dear! Whet seveges! How very
corse!"'

'You are savages, Joe. You don't suppose you're civilised, do you?'

'Middling, middling, maister. I reckon 'at us manufacturing lads i' th'
north is a deal more intelligent, and knaws a deal more nor th' farming
folk i' th' south. Trade sharpens wer wits; and them that's mechanics
like me is forced to think. Ye know, what wi' looking after machinery and
sich like, I've getten into that way that when I see an effect, I look
straight out for a cause, and I oft lig hold on't to purpose; and then I
like reading, and I'm curious to knaw what them that reckons to govern us
aims to do for us and wi' us. And there's many 'cuter nor me; there's
many a one amang them greasy chaps 'at smells o' oil, and amang them
dyers wi' blue and black skins that has a long head, and that can tell
what a fooil of a law is, as well as ye or old Yorke and a deal better
nor soft uns like Christopher Sykes o' Whinbury, and greet hectoring
nowts like yond' Irish Peter, Helstone's curate.'

'You think yourself a clever fellow, I know, Scott.'

'Ay! I'm fairish. I can tell cheese fro' chalk, and I'm varry weel aware
that I've improved sich opportunities as I have had, a deal better nor
some 'at reckons to be aboon me; but there's thousands i' Yorkshire
that's as good as me, and a two-three that's better.'

'You're a great man--you're a sublime fellow; but you're a prig, a
conceited noodle with it all, Joe! You need not to think that because
you've picked up a little knowledge of practical mathematics, and because
you have found some scantling of the elements of chemistry at the bottom
of a dyeing vat, that therefore you're a neglected man of science; and
you need not to suppose that because the course of trade does not always
run smooth, and you, and such as you, are sometimes short of work and of
bread, that therefore your class are martyrs, and that the whole form of
government under which you live is wrong. And, moreover, you need not for
a moment to insinuate that the virtues have taken refuge in cottages and
wholly abandoned slated houses. Let me tell you, I particularly abominate
that sort of trash, because I know so well that human nature is human
nature everywhere, whether under tile or thatch, and that in every
specimen of human nature that breathes, vice and virtue are ever found
blended, in smaller or greater proportions, and that the proportion is
not determined by station. I have seen villains who were rich, and I have
seen villains who were poor, and I have seen villains who were neither
rich nor poor, but who had realised Agar's wish, and lived in fair and
modest competency. The clock is going to strike six. Away with you, Joe,
and ring the mill bell.'

It was now the middle of the month of February; by six o'clock therefore
dawn was just beginning to steal on night, to penetrate with a pale ray
its brown obscurity, and give a demi-translucence to its opaque shadows.
Pale enough that ray was on this particular morning: no colour tinged the
east, no flush warmed it. To see what a heavy lid day slowly lifted, what
a wan glance she flung along the hills, you would have thought the sun's
fire quenched in last night's floods. The breath of this morning was
chill as its aspect; a raw wind stirred the mass of night-cloud, and
showed, as it slowly rose, leaving a colourless, silver-gleaming ring all
round the horizon, not blue sky, but a stratum of paler vapour beyond. It
had ceased to rain, but the earth was sodden, and the pools and rivulets
were full.

The mill-windows were alight, the bell still rung loud, and now the
little children came running in, in too great a hurry, let us hope, to
feel very much nipped by the inclement air; and indeed, by contrast,
perhaps the morning appeared rather favourable to them than otherwise,
for they had often come to their work that winter through snowstorms,
through heavy rain, through hard frost.

Mr. Moore stood at the entrance to watch them pass. He counted them as
they went by. To those who came rather late he said a word of reprimand,
which was a little more sharply repeated by Joe Scott when the lingerers
reached the work-rooms. Neither master nor overlooker spoke savagely.
They were not savage men either of them, though it appeared both were
rigid, for they fined a delinquent who came considerably too late. Mr.
Moore made him pay his penny down ere he entered, and informed him that
the next repetition of the fault would cost him twopence.

Rules, no doubt, are necessary in such cases, and coarse and cruel
masters will make coarse and cruel rules, which, at the time we treat of
at least, they used sometimes to enforce tyrannically; but though I
describe imperfect characters (every character in this book will be found
to be more or less imperfect, my pen refusing to draw anything in the
model line), I have not undertaken to handle degraded or utterly infamous
ones. Child-torturers, slave masters and drivers, I consign to the hands
of jailers. The novelist may be excused from sullying his page with the
record of their deeds.

Instead, then, of harrowing up my reader's soul and delighting his organ
of wonder with effective descriptions of stripes and scourgings, I am
happy to be able to inform him that neither Mr. Moore nor his overlooker
ever struck a child in their mill. Joe had, indeed, once very severely
flogged a son of his own for telling a lie and persisting in it; but,
like his employer, he was too phlegmatic, too calm, as well as too
reasonable a man, to make corporal chastisement other than the exception
to his treatment of the young.

Mr. Moore haunted his mill, his mill-yard, his dyehouse, and his
warehouse till the sickly dawn strengthened into day. The sun even rose,
at least a white disc, clear, tintless, and almost chill-looking as ice,
peeped over the dark crest of a hill, changed to silver the livid edge of
the cloud above it, and looked solemnly down the whole length of the den,
or narrow dale, to whose strait bounds we are at present limited. It was
eight o'clock; the mill lights were all extinguished; the signal was
given for breakfast; the children, released for half an hour from toil,
betook themselves to the little tin cans which held their coffee, and to
the small baskets which contained their allowance of bread. Let us hope
they have enough to eat; it would be a pity were it otherwise.

And now at last Mr. Moore quitted the mill-yard, and bent his steps to
his dwelling-house. It was only a short distance from the factory, but
the hedge and high bank on each side of the lane which conducted to it
seemed to give it something of the appearance and feeling of seclusion.
It was a small, whitewashed place, with a green porch over the door;
scanty brown stalks showed in the garden soil near this porch, and
likewise beneath the windows--stalks budless and flowerless now, but
giving dim prediction of trained and blooming creepers for summer days. A
grass plat and borders fronted the cottage. The borders presented only
black mould yet, except where, in sheltered nooks, the first shoots of
snowdrop or crocus peeped, green as emerald, from the earth. The spring
was late; it had been a severe and prolonged winter; the last deep snow
had but just disappeared before yesterday's rains; on the hills, indeed,
white remnants of it yet gleamed, flecking the hollows and crowning the
peaks; the lawn was not verdant, but bleached, as was the grass on the
bank, and under the hedge in the lane. Three trees, gracefully grouped,
rose beside the cottage. They were not lofty, but having no rivals near,
they looked well and imposing where they grew. Such was Mr. Moore's
home--a snug nest for content and contemplation, but one within which the
wings of action and ambition could not long lie folded.

Its air of modest comfort seemed to possess no particular attraction for
its owner. Instead of entering the house at once, he fetched a spade from
a little shed and began to work in the garden. For about a quarter of an
hour he dug on uninterrupted. At length, however, a window opened, and a
female voice called to him,--

'Eh, bien! Tu ne déjeûnes pas ce matin?'

The answer, and the rest of the conversation, was in French; but as this
is an English book, I shall translate it into English.

'Is breakfast ready, Hortense?'

'Certainly; it has been ready half an hour.'

'Then I am ready too. I have a canine hunger.'

He threw down his spade, and entered the house. The narrow passage
conducted him to a small parlour, where a breakfast of coffee and bread
and butter, with the somewhat un-English accompaniment of stewed pears,
was spread on the table. Over these viands presided the lady who had
spoken from the window. I must describe her before I go any farther.

She seemed a little older than Mr. Moore--perhaps she was thirty-five,
tall, and proportionately stout; she had very black hair, for the present
twisted up in curl-papers, a high colour in her cheeks, a small nose, a
pair of little black eyes. The lower part of her face was large in
proportion to the upper; her forehead was small and rather corrugated;
she had a fretful though not an ill-natured expression of countenance;
there was something in her whole appearance one felt inclined to be half
provoked with and half amused at. The strangest point was her dress--a
stuff petticoat and a striped cotton camisole. The petticoat was short,
displaying well a pair of feet and ankles which left much to be desired
in the article of symmetry.

You will think I have depicted a remarkable slattern, reader; not at all.
Hortense Moore (she was Mr. Moore's sister) was a very orderly,
economical person. The petticoat, camisole, and curl-papers were her
morning costume, in which, of forenoons, she had always been accustomed
to 'go her household ways' in her own country. She did not choose to
adopt English fashions because she was obliged to live in England; she
adhered to her old Belgian modes, quite satisfied that there was a merit
in so doing.

Mademoiselle had an excellent opinion of herself--an opinion not wholly
undeserved, for she possessed some good and sterling qualities; but she
rather over-estimated the kind and degree of these qualities; and quite
left out of the account sundry little defects which accompanied them. You
could never have persuaded her that she was a prejudiced and
narrow-minded person; that she was too susceptible on the subject of her
own dignity and importance, and too apt to take offence about trifles;
yet all this was true. However, where her claims to distinction were not
opposed, and where her prejudices were not offended, she could be kind
and friendly enough. To her two brothers (for there was another Gérard
Moore besides Robert) she was very much attached. As the sole remaining
representatives of their decayed family, the persons of both were almost
sacred in her eyes. Of Louis, however, she knew less than of Robert. He
had been sent to England when a mere boy, and had received his education
at an English school. His education not being such as to adapt him for
trade, perhaps, too, his natural bent not inclining him to mercantile
pursuits, he had, when the blight of hereditary prospects rendered it
necessary for him to push his own fortune, adopted the very arduous and
very modest career of a teacher. He had been usher in a school, and was
said now to be tutor in a private family. Hortense, when she mentioned
Louis, described him as having what she called 'des moyens,' but as being
too backward and quiet. Her praise of Robert was in a different strain,
less qualified: she was very proud of him; she regarded him as the
greatest man in Europe; all he said and did was remarkable in her eyes,
and she expected others to behold him from the same point of view;
nothing could be more irrational, monstrous and infamous than opposition
from any quarter to Robert, unless it were opposition to herself.

Accordingly, as soon as the said Robert was seated at the
breakfast-table, and she had helped him to a portion of stewed pears, and
cut him a good-sized Belgian tartine, she began to pour out a flood of
amazement and horror at the transaction of last night, the destruction of
the frames.

'Quelle ideé! to destroy them. Quelle action honteuse! On voyait bien que
les ouvriers de ce pays étaient à la fois bêtes et méchants. C'était
absolument comme les domestiques anglais, les servantes surtout: rien
d'insupportable comme cette Sara, par exemple!'

'She looks clean and industrious,' Mr. Moore remarked.

'Looks! I don't know how she looks, and I do not say that she is
altogether dirty or idle, mais elle est d'une insolence! She disputed
with me a quarter of an hour yesterday about the cooking of the beef; she
said I boiled it to rags, that English people would never be able to eat
such a dish as our bouilli, that the bouillon was no better than greasy
warm water, and as to the choucroute, she affirms she cannot touch it!
That barrel we have in the cellar--delightfully prepared by my own
hands--she termed a tub of hog-wash, which means food for pigs. I am
harassed with the girl, and yet I cannot part with her lest I should get
a worse. You are in the same position with your workmen, pauvre cher
frère!'

'I am afraid you are not very happy in England, Hortense.'

'It is my duty to be happy where you are, brother; but otherwise there
are certainly a thousand things which make me regret our native town. All
the world here appears to me ill-bred (mal-élevé). I find my habits
considered ridiculous. If a girl out of your mill chances to come into
the kitchen and find me in my jupon and camisole preparing dinner (for
you know I cannot trust Sarah to cook a single dish), she sneers. If I
accept an invitation out to tea, which I have done once or twice, I
perceive I am put quite into the background; I have not that attention
paid me which decidedly is my due. Of what an excellent family are the
Gérards, as we know, and the Moores also! They have a right to claim a
certain respect, and to feel wounded when it is withheld from them. In
Antwerp I was always treated with distinction; here, one would think that
when I open my lips in company I speak English with a ridiculous accent,
whereas I am quite assured that I pronounce it perfectly.'

'Hortense, in Antwerp we were known rich; in England we were never known
but poor.'

'Precisely, and thus mercenary are mankind. Again, dear brother, last
Sunday, if you recollect, was very wet; accordingly I went to church in
my neat black sabots, objects one would not indeed wear in a fashionable
city but which in the country I have ever been accustomed to use for
walking in dirty roads. Believe me, as I paced up the aisle, composed and
tranquil, as I am always, four ladies, and as many gentlemen, laughed and
hid their faces behind their prayer-books.'

'Well, well I don't put on the sabots again. I told you before I thought
they were not quite the thing for this country.'

'But, brother, they are not common sabots, such as the peasantry wear. I
tell you, they are sabots noirs, très propres, très convenables. At Mons
and Leuze--cities not very far removed from the elegant capital of
Brussels--it is very seldom that the respectable people wear anything
else for walking in winter. Let any one try to wade the mud of the
Flemish chaussées in a pair of Paris brodequins, on m'en dirait des
nouvelles!'

'Never mind Mons and Leuze and the Flemish chaussées; do at Rome as the
Romans do. And as to the camisole and jupon, I am not quite sure about
them either. I never see an English lady dressed in such garments. Ask
Caroline Helstone.'

'Caroline! I ask Caroline? I consult her about my dress? It is she who on
all points should consult me. She is a child.'

'She is eighteen, or at least seventeen--old enough to know all about
gowns, petticoats, and chaussures.'

'Do not spoil Caroline, I entreat you, brother. Do not make her of more
consequence than she ought to be. At present she is modest and
unassuming: let us keep her so.'

'With all my heart. Is she coming this morning?'

'She will come at ten, as usual, to take her French lesson.'

'You don't find that she sneers at you, do you?'

'She does not. She appreciates me better than any one else here; but then
she has more intimate opportunities of knowing me. She sees that I have
education, intelligence, manner, principles--all, in short, which belongs
to a person well born and well bred.'

'Are you at all fond of her?'

'For fond I cannot say. I am not one who is prone to take violent
fancies, and, consequently, my friendship is the more to be depended on.
I have a regard for her as my relative; her position also inspires
interest, and her conduct as my pupil has hitherto been such as rather to
enhance than diminish the attachment that springs from other causes.'

'She behaves pretty well at lessons?'

'To me she behaves very well; but you are conscious, brother, that I have
a manner calculated to repel over-familiarity, to win esteem, and to
command respect. Yet, possessed of penetration, I perceive dearly that
Caroline is not perfect, that there is much to be desired in her.'

'Give me a last cup of coffee, and while I am drinking it amuse me with
an account of her faults.'

'Dear brother, I am happy to see you eat your breakfast with relish,
after the fatiguing night you have passed. Caroline, then, is defective;
but with my forming hand and almost motherly care she may improve. There
is about her an occasional something--a reserve, I think--which I do not
quite like, because it is not sufficiently girlish and submissive; and
there are glimpses of an unsettled hurry in her nature, which put me out.
Yet she is usually most tranquil, too dejected and thoughtful indeed
sometimes. In time, I doubt not, I shall make her uniformly sedate and
decorous, without being unaccountably pensive. I ever disapprove what is
not intelligible.'

'I don't understand your account in the least. What do you mean by
"unsettled hurries," for instance?'

'An example will, perhaps, be the most satisfactory explanation. I
sometimes, you are aware, make her read French poetry by way of practice
in pronunciation. She has in the course of her lessons gone through much
of Corneille and Racine, in a very steady, sober spirit, such as I
approve. Occasionally she showed, indeed, a degree of languor in the
perusal of those esteemed authors, partaking rather of apathy than
sobriety; and apathy is what I cannot tolerate in those who have the
benefit of my instructions; besides, one should not be apathetic in
studying standard works. The other day I put into her hands a volume of
short fugitive pieces. I sent her to the window to learn one by heart,
and when I looked up I saw her turning the leaves over impatiently, and
curling her lip, absolutely with scorn, as she surveyed the little poems
cursorily. I chid her. "Ma cousine," said she, "tout cela m'ennuie à la
mort." I told her this was improper language. "Dieu!" she exclaimed, "Il
n'y a donc pas deux lignes de poësie dans toute la littérature
française?" I inquired what she meant. She begged my pardon with proper
submission. Ere long she was still. I saw her smiling to herself over the
book. She began to learn assiduously. In half an hour she came and stood
before me, presented the volume, folded her hands, as I always require
her to do, and commenced the repetition of that short thing by Chénier,
"La Jeune Captive." If you had heard the manner in which she went through
this, and in which she uttered a few incoherent comments when she had
done, you would have known what I meant by the phrase "unsettled hurry."
One would have thought Chénier was more moving than all Racine and all
Corneille. You, brother, who have so much sagacity, will discern that
this disproportionate preference argues an ill-regulated mind; but she is
fortunate in her preceptress. I will give her a system, a method of
thought, a set of opinions; I will give her the perfect control and
guidance of her feelings.'

'Be sure you do, Hortense. Here she comes. That was her shadow passed the
window, I believe.'

'Ah! truly. She is too early--half an hour before her time.--My child,
what brings you here before I have breakfasted?'

This question was addressed to an individual who now entered the room, a
young girl, wrapped in a winter mantle, the folds of which were gathered
with some grace round an apparently slender figure.

'I came in haste to see how you were, Hortense, and how Robert was too. I
was sure you would be both grieved by what happened last night. I did not
hear till this morning: my uncle told me at breakfast'

'Ah! it is unspeakable. You sympathise with us? Your uncle sympathises
with us?'

'My uncle is very angry; but he was with Robert, I believe, was he
not?--Did he not go with you to Stilbro' Moor?'

'Yes, we set out in very martial style, Caroline; but the prisoners we
went to rescue met us half-way.'

'Of course nobody was hurt?'

'Why, no; only Joe Scott's wrists were a little galled with being
pinioned too tightly behind his back.'

'You were not there? You were not with the wagons when they were
attacked?'

'No. One seldom has the fortune to be present at occurrences at which one
would particularly wish to assist.'

'Where are you going this morning? I saw Murgatroyd saddling your horse
in the yard.'

'To Whinbury. It is market day.'

'Mr. Yorke is going too. I met him in his gig. Come home with him.'

'Why?'

'Two are better than one, and nobody dislikes Mr. Yorke; at least, poor
people do not dislike him.'

'Therefore he would be a protection to me, who am hated?'

'Who are misunderstood. That, probably, is the word. Shall you be
late?--Will he be late, Cousin Hortense?'

'It is too probable: he has often much business to transact at Whinbury.
Have you brought your exercise-book, child?'

'Yes. What time will you return, Robert?'

'I generally return at seven. Do you wish me to be at home earlier?'

'Try rather to be back by six. It is not absolutely dark at six now, but
by seven daylight is quite gone.'

'And what danger is to be apprehended, Caroline, when daylight is gone?
What peril do you conceive comes as the companion of darkness for me?'

'I am not sure that I can define my fears, but we all have a certain
anxiety at present about our friends. My uncle calls these times
dangerous. He says, too, that mill-owners are unpopular.'

'And I one of the most unpopular? Is not that the fact? You are reluctant
to speak out plainly, but at heart you think me liable to Pearson's fate,
who was shot at--not, indeed, from behind a hedge, but in his own house,
through his staircase window, as he was going to bed.'

'Anne Pearson showed me the bullet in the chamber-door,' remarked
Caroline gravely, as she folded her mantle and arranged it and her muff
on a side-table. 'You know,' she continued, 'there is a hedge all the way
along the road from here to Whinbury, and there are the Fieldhead
plantations to pass; but you will be back by six--or before?'

'Certainly he will,' affirmed Hortense. 'And now, my child, prepare your
lessons for repetition, while I put the peas to soak for the puree at
dinner.'

With this direction she left the room.

'You suspect I have many enemies, then, Caroline,' said Mr. Moore, 'and
doubtless you know me to be destitute of friends?'

'Not destitute, Robert. There is your sister, your brother Louis, whom I
have never seen; there is Mr. Yorke, and there is my uncle besides, of
course, many more.'

Robert smiled. 'You would he puzzled to name your "many more,"' said he.
'But show me your exercise-book. What extreme pains you take with the
writing! My sister, I suppose, exacts this care. She wants to form you in
all things after the model of a Flemish school-girl. What life are you
destined for, Caroline? What will you do with your French, drawing, and
other accomplishments, when they are acquired?'

'You may well say, when they are acquired; for, as you are aware, till
Hortense began to teach me, I knew precious little. As to the life I am
destined for, I cannot tell. I suppose to keep my uncle's house till--'
she hesitated.

'Till what? Till he dies?'

'No. How harsh to say that! I never think of his dying. He is only
fifty-five. But till--in short, till events offer other occupations for me.'

'A remarkably vague prospect! Are you content with it?'

'I used to be, formerly. Children, you know, have little reflection, or
rather their reflections run on ideal themes. There are moments now when
I am not quite satisfied.'

'Why?'

'I am making no money--earning nothing.'

'You come to the point, Lina: you too, then, wish to make money?'

'I do. I should like an occupation; and if I were a boy, it would not be
so difficult to find one. I see such an easy, pleasant way of learning a
business, and making my way in life.'

'Go on. Let us hear what way.'

'I could be apprenticed to your trade--the cloth trade. I could learn it
of you, as we are distant relations. I would do the counting-house work,
keep the books, and write the letters, while you went to market. I know
you greatly desire to be rich, in order to pay your father's debts;
perhaps I could help you to get rich.'

'Help me? You should think of yourself.'

'I do think of myself; but must one for ever think only of oneself?'

'Of whom else do I think? Of whom else dare I think? The poor ought to
have no large sympathies; it is their duty to be narrow.'

'No, Robert'

'Yes, Caroline. Poverty is necessarily selfish, contracted, grovelling,
anxious. Now and then a poor man's heart, when certain beams and dews
visit it, may swell like the budding vegetation in yonder garden on this
spring day, may feel ripe to evolve in foliage, perhaps blossom; but he
must not encourage the pleasant impulse; he must invoke Prudence to check
it, with that frosty breath of hers, which is as nipping as any north
wind.'

'No cottage would be happy then.'

'When I speak of poverty, I do not so much mean the natural, habitual
poverty of the working-man, as the embarrassed penury of the man in debt;
my grub-worm is always a straitened, struggling, care-worn tradesman.'

'Cherish hope, not anxiety. Certain ideas have become too fixed in your
mind. It may be presumptuous to say it, but I have the impression that
there is something wrong in your notions of the best means of attaining
happiness, as there is in--' Second hesitation.

'I am all ear, Caroline.'

'In (courage--let me speak the truth)--in your manner--mind, I say only
manner--to these Yorkshire workpeople.'

'You have often wanted to tell me that, have you not?'

'Yes; often--very often.'

'The faults of my manner are, I think, only negative. I am not proud.
What has a man in my position to be proud of? I am only taciturn,
phlegmatic, and joyless.'

'As if your living cloth-dressers were all machines like your frames and
shears. In your own house you seem different.'

'To those of my own house I am no alien, which I am to these English
clowns. I might act the benevolent with them, but acting is not my forte.
I find them irrational, perverse; they hinder me when I long to hurry
forward. In treating them justly I fulfil my whole duty towards them.'

'You don't expect them to love you, of course?'

'Nor wish it'

'Ah!' said the monitress, shaking her head and heaving a deep sigh. With
this ejaculation, indicative that she perceived a screw to be loose
somewhere, but that it was out of her reach to set it right, she bent
over her grammar, and sought the rule and exercise for the day.

'I suppose I am not an affectionate man, Caroline; the attachment of a
very few suffices me.'

'If you please, Robert, will you mend me a pen or two before you go?'

'First let me rule your book, for you always contrive to draw the lines
aslant. There now. And now for the pens. You like a fine one, I think?'

'Such as you generally make for me and Hortense; not your own broad
points.'

'If I were of Louis's calling I might stay at home and dedicate this
morning to you and your studies, whereas I must spend it in Sykes's
wool-warehouse.'

'You will be making money.'

'More likely losing it.'

As he finished mending the pens, a horse, saddled and bridled, was
brought up to the garden-gate.

'There, Fred is ready for me; I must go. I'll take one look to see what
the spring has done in the south border, too, first.'

He quitted the room, and went out into the garden ground behind the mill.
A sweet fringe of young verdure and opening flowers--snowdrop, crocus,
even primrose--bloomed in the sunshine under the hot wall of the factory.
Moore plucked here and there a blossom and leaf, till he had collected a
little bouquet. He returned to the parlour, pilfered a thread of silk
from his sister's work-basket, tied the flowers, and laid them on
Caroline's desk.

'Now, good-morning.'

'Thank you, Robert. It is pretty; it looks, as it lies there, like
sparkles of sunshine and blue sky. Good-morning.'

He went to the door, stopped, opened his lips as if to speak, said
nothing, and moved on. He passed through the wicket, and mounted his
horse. In a second he had flung himself from the saddle again,
transferred the reins to Murgatroyd, and re-entered the cottage.

'I forgot my gloves,' he said, appearing to take something from the side-table
then, as an impromptu thought, he remarked, 'You have no binding engagement
at home perhaps, Caroline?'

'I never have. Some children's socks, which Mrs. Ramsden has ordered, to
knit for the Jew's basket; but they will keep.'

'Jew's basket be--sold! Never was utensil better named. Anything more
Jewish than it--its contents and their prices--cannot be conceived. But I
see something, a very tiny curl, at the corners of your lip, which tells
me that you know its merits as well as I do. Forget the Jew's basket,
then, and spend the day here as a change. Your uncle won't break his
heart at your absence?'

She smiled. 'No.'

'The old Cossack! I dare say not,' muttered Moore. Then stay and dine
with Hortense; she will be glad of your company. I shall return in good
time. We will have a little reading in the evening. The moon rises at
half-past eight, and I will walk up to the rectory with you at nine. Do
you agree?'

She nodded her head, and her eyes lit up.

Moore lingered yet two minutes. He bent over Caroline's desk and glanced
at her grammar, he fingered her pen, he lifted her bouquet and played
with it; his horse stamped impatient; Fred Murgatroyd hemmed and coughed
at the gate, as if he wondered what in the world his master was doing.
'Good-morning,' again said Moore, and finally vanished.

Hortense, coming in ten minutes after, found, to her surprise, that
Caroline had not yet commenced her exercise.



Chapter 6 - Coriolanus


Mademoiselle Moore had that morning a somewhat absent minded pupil.
Caroline forgot, again and again, the explanations which were given to
her. However, she still bore with unclouded mood the chidings her
inattention brought upon her. Sitting in the sunshine near the window,
she seemed to receive with its warmth a kind influence, which made her
both happy and good. Thus disposed, she looked her best, and her best was
a pleasing vision.

To her had not been denied the gift of beauty. It was not absolutely
necessary to know her in order to like her; she was fair enough to
please, even at the first view. Her shape suited her age: it was girlish,
light, and pliant; every curve was neat, every limb proportionate; her
face was expressive and gentle; her eyes were handsome, and gifted at
times with a winning beam that stole into the heart, with a language that
spoke softly to the affections. Her mouth was very pretty; she had a
delicate skin, and a fine flow of brown hair, which she knew how to
arrange with taste; curls became her, and she possessed them in
picturesque profusion. Her style of dress announced taste in the
wearer--very unobtrusive in fashion, far from costly in material, but
suitable in colour to the fair complexion with which it contrasted, and
in make to the slight form which it draped. Her present winter garb was
of merino--the same soft shade of brown as her hair; the little collar
round her neck lay over a pink ribbon, and was fastened with a pink knot
She wore no other decoration.

So much for Caroline Helstone's appearance. As to her character or
intellect, if she had any, they must speak for themselves in due time.

Her connections are soon explained. She was the child of parents
separated soon after her birth, in consequence of disagreement of
disposition. Her mother was the half-sister of Mr. Moore's father; thus,
though there was no mixture of blood, she was, in a distant sense, the
cousin of Robert, Louis, and Hortense. Her father was the brother of Mr.
Helstone--a man of the character friends desire not to recall, after
death has once settled all earthly accounts. He had rendered his wife
unhappy. The reports which were known to be true concerning him had given
an air of probability to those which were falsely circulated respecting
his better principled brother. Caroline had never known her mother, as
she was taken from her in infancy, and had not since seen her; her father
died comparatively young, and her uncle, the rector, had for some years
been her sole guardian. He was not, as we are aware, much adapted, either
by nature or habits, to have the charge of a young girl He had taken
little trouble about her education; probably he would have taken none if
she, finding herself neglected, had not grown anxious on her own account,
and asked, every now and then, for a little attention, and for the means
of acquiring such amount of knowledge as could not be dispensed with.
Still, she had a depressing feeling that she was inferior, that her
attainments were fewer than were usually possessed by girls of her age
and station; and very glad was she to avail herself of the kind offer
made by her cousin Hortense, soon after the arrival of the latter at
Hollow's Mill, to teach her French and fine needlework. Mlle. Moore, for
her part, delighted in the task, because it gave her importance; she
liked to lord it a little over a docile yet quick pupil. She took
Caroline precisely at her own estimate, as an irregularly-taught, even
ignorant girl; and when she found that she made rapid and eager progress,
it was to no talent, no application, in the scholar she ascribed the
improvement, but entirely to her own superior method of teaching. When
she found that Caroline, unskilled in routine, had a knowledge of her
own, desultory but varied, the discovery caused her no surprise, for she
still imagined that from her conversation had the girl unawares gleaned
these treasures. She thought it even when forced to feel that her pupil
knew much on subjects whereof she knew little; the idea was not logical,
but Hortense had perfect faith in it.

Mademoiselle, who prided herself on possessing 'un esprit positif,' and
on entertaining a decided preference for dry studies, kept her young
cousin to the same as closely as she could. She worked her unrelentingly
at the grammar of the French language, assigning her, as the most
improving exercise she could devise, interminable 'analyses logiques.'
These 'analyses' were by no means a source of particular pleasure to
Caroline; she thought she could have learned French just as well without
them, and grudged excessively the time spent in pondering over
'propositions, principales, et incidents;' in deciding the 'incidente
déterminative,' and the 'incidente applicative;' in examining whether the
proposition was 'pleine' 'elliptique,' or 'implicite.' Sometimes she lost
herself in the maze, and when so lost she would, now and then (while
Hortense was rummaging her drawers upstairs--an unaccountable occupation
in which she spent a large portion of each day, arranging, disarranging,
rearranging, and counter-arranging), carry her book to Robert in the
counting-house and get the rough place made smooth by his aid. Mr. Moore
possessed a clear, tranquil brain of his own. Almost as soon as he looked
at Caroline's little difficulties they seemed to dissolve beneath his
eye. In two minutes he would explain all, in two words give the key to
the puzzle. She thought if Hortense could only teach like him, how much
faster she might learn. Repaying him by an admiring and grateful smile,
rather shed at his feet than lifted to his face; she would leave the mill
reluctantly to go back to the cottage, and then, while she completed the
exercise, or worked out the sum (for Mlle. Moore taught her arithmetic
too) she would wish nature had made her a boy instead of a girl, that she
might ask Robert to let her be his clerk, and sit with him in the
counting-house, instead of sitting with Hortense in the parlour.

Occasionally--but this happened very rarely--she spent the evening at
Hollow's Cottage. Sometimes during these visits Moore was away attending
a market; sometimes he was gone to Mr. Yorke's; often he was engaged with
a male visitor in another room; but sometimes, too, he was at home;
disengaged, free to talk with Caroline. When this was the case, the
evening hours passed on wings of light; they were gone before they were
counted. There was no room in England so pleasant as that small parlour
when the three cousins occupied it. Hortense, when she was not teaching,
or scolding, or cooking, was far from ill-humoured; it was her custom to
relax towards evening, and to be kind to her young English kinswoman.
There was a means, too, of rendering her delightful, by inducing her to
take her guitar and sing and play. She then became quite good-natured.
And as she played with skill, and had a well-toned voice, it was not
disagreeable to listen to her. It would have been absolutely agreeable,
except that her formal and self-important character modulated her
strains, as it impressed her manners and moulded her countenance.

Mr. Moore, released from the business yoke, was, if not lively himself, a
willing spectator of Caroline's liveliness, a complacent listener to her
talk, a ready respondent to her questions. He was something agreeable to
sit near, to hover round, to address and look at. Sometimes he was better
than this--almost animated, quite gentle and friendly.

The drawback was that by the next morning he was sure to be frozen up
again; and however much he seemed, in his quiet way, to enjoy these
social evenings, he rarely contrived their recurrence. This circumstance
puzzled the inexperienced head of his cousin. 'If I had a means of
happiness at my command,' she thought, 'I would employ that means often.
I would keep it bright with use, and not let it lie for weeks aside; till
it gets rusty.'

Yet she was careful not to put in practice her own theory. Much as she
liked an evening visit to the cottage, she never paid one unasked. Often,
indeed, when pressed by Hortense to come, she would refuse, because
Robert did not second, or but slightly seconded the request. This morning
was the first time he had ever, of his own unprompted will, given her an
invitation; and then he had spoken so kindly that in hearing him she had
received a sense of happiness sufficient to keep her glad for the whole
day.

The morning passed as usual. Mademoiselle, ever breathlessly busy, spent
it in bustling from kitchen to parlour, now scolding Sarah, now looking
over Caroline's exercise or hearing her repetition-lesson. However
faultlessly these tasks were achieved, she never commended: it was a
maxim with her that praise is inconsistent with a teacher's dignity, and
that blame, in more or less unqualified measure, is indispensable to it.
She thought incessant reprimand, severe or slight, quite necessary to the
maintenance of her authority; and if no possible error was to be found in
the lesson, it was the pupil's carriage, or air, or dress, or mien, which
required correction.

The usual affray took place about the dinner, which meal, when Sarah at
last brought it into the room, she almost flung upon the table, with a
look that expressed quite plainly, 'I never dished such stuff i' my life
afore; it's not fit for dogs.' Notwithstanding Sarah's scorn, it was a
savoury repast enough. The soup was a sort of puree of dried peas, which
mademoiselle had prepared amidst bitter lamentations that in this
desolate country of England no haricot beans were to be had. Then
came a dish of meat--nature unknown, but supposed to be
miscellaneous--singularly chopped up with crumbs of bread, seasoned
uniquely though not unpleasantly, and baked in a mould--a queer but by no
means unpalatable dish. Greens, oddly bruised, formed the accompanying
vegetable; and a pâté of fruit, conserved after a recipe devised by
Madame Gérard Moore's 'grand'mère,' and from the taste of which it
appeared probable that 'mélasse' had been substituted for sugar,
completed the dinner.

Caroline had no objection to this Belgian cookery--indeed she rather
liked it for a change; and it was well she did so, for had she evinced
any disrelish thereof, such manifestation would have injured her in
mademoiselle's good graces for ever; a positive crime might have been
more easily pardoned than a symptom of distaste for the foreign
comestibles.

Soon after dinner Caroline coaxed her governess-cousin upstairs to dress.
This manoeuvre required management. To have hinted that the jupon,
camisole, and curl-papers were odious objects, or indeed other than quite
meritorious points, would have been a felony. Any premature attempt to
urge their disappearance was therefore unwise, and would be likely to
issue in the persevering wear of them during the whole day. Carefully
avoiding rocks and quicksands, however, the pupil, on pretence of
requiring a change of scene, contrived to get the teacher aloft; and,
once in the bedroom, she persuaded her that it was not worth while
returning thither, and that she might as well make her toilet now; and
while Mademoiselle delivered a solemn homily on her own surpassing merit
in disregarding all frivolities of fashion, Caroline denuded her of the
camisole, invested her with a decent gown, arranged her collar, hair,
etc., and made her quite presentable. But Hortense would put the
finishing touches herself, and these finishing touches consisted in a
thick handkerchief tied round the throat, and a large, servant-like black
apron, which spoiled everything. On no account would mademoiselle have
appeared in her own house without the thick handkerchief and the
voluminous apron. The first was a positive matter of morality--it was
quite improper not to wear a fichu; the second was the ensign of a good
housewife--she appeared to think that by means of it she somehow effected
a large saving in her brother's income. She had, with her own hands, made
and presented to Caroline similar equipments; and the only serious
quarrel they had ever had, and which still left a soreness in the elder
cousin's soul, had arisen from the refusal of the younger one to accept
of and profit by these elegant presents.

'I wear a high dress and a collar,' said Caroline, 'and I should feel
suffocated with a handkerchief in addition; and my short aprons do quite
as well as that very long one. I would rather make no change.'

Yet Hortense, by dint of perseverance, would probably have compelled her
to make a change, had not Mr. Moore chanced to overhear a dispute on the
subject, and decided that Caroline's little aprons would suffice, and
that, in his opinion, as she was still but a child, she might for the
present dispense with the fichu, especially as her curls were long, and
almost touched her shoulders.

There was no appeal against Robert's opinion, therefore his sister was
compelled to yield; but she disapproved entirely of the piquant neatness
of Caroline's costume, and the ladylike grace of her appearance.
Something more solid and homely she would have considered 'beaucoup plus
convenable.'

The afternoon was devoted to sewing. Mademoiselle, like most Belgian
ladies, was specially skilful with her needle. She by no means thought it
waste of time to devote unnumbered hours to fine embroidery,
sight-destroying lace-work, marvellous netting and knitting, and, above
all, to most elaborate stocking-mending. She would give a day to the
mending of two holes in a stocking any time, and think her 'mission'
nobly fulfilled when she had accomplished it. It was another of
Caroline's troubles to be condemned to learn this foreign style of
darning, which was done stitch by stitch, so as exactly to imitate the
fabric of the stocking itself--a weariful process, but considered by
Hortense Gérard, and by her ancestresses before her for long generations
back, as one of the first 'duties of woman.' She herself had had a
needle, cotton, and a fearfully torn stocking put into her hand while she
yet wore a child's coif on her little black head; her 'hauts faits' in
the darning line had been exhibited to company ere she was six years old;
and when she first discovered that Caroline was profoundly ignorant of
this most essential of attainments, she could have wept with pity over
her miserably neglected youth.

No time did she lose in seeking up a hopeless pair of hose, of which the
heels were entirely gone, and in setting the ignorant English girl to
repair the deficiency. This task had been commenced two years ago, and
Caroline had the stockings in her work-bag yet. She did a few rows
everyday, by way of penance for the expiation of her sins. They were a
grievous burden to her; she would much have liked to put them in the
fire; and once Mr. Moore, who had observed her sitting and sighing over
them, had proposed a private incremation in the counting-house; but to
this proposal Caroline knew it would have been impolitic to accede--the
result could only be a fresh pair of hose, probably in worse condition.
She adhered, therefore, to the ills she knew.

All the afternoon the two ladies sat and sewed, till the eyes and
fingers, and even the spirits of one of them, were weary. The sky since
dinner had darkened; it had begun to rain again, to pour fast secret
fears began to steal on Caroline that Robert would be persuaded by Mr.
Sykes or Mr. Yorke to remain at Whinbury till it cleared, and of that
there appeared no present chance. Five o'clock struck, and time stole on;
still the clouds streamed. A sighing wind whispered in the roof-trees of
the cottage; day seemed already closing; the parlour fire shed on the
clear hearth a glow ruddy as at twilight.

'It will not be fair till the moon rises,' pronounced Mademoiselle Moore,
'consequently I feel assured that my brother will not return till then.
Indeed I should be sorry if he did. We will have coffee. It would be vain
to wait for him.'

'I am tired. May I leave my work now, cousin?'

'You may, since it grows too dark to see to do it well. Fold it up; put
it carefully in your bag; then step into the kitchen and desire Sarah to
bring in the goûter, or tea, as you call it.'

'But it has not yet struck six. He may still come.'

'He will not, I tell you. I can calculate his movements. I understand my
brother.'

Suspense is irksome, disappointment bitter. All the world has, some time
or other, felt that Caroline, obedient to orders, passed into the
kitchen. Sarah was making a dress for herself at the table.

'You are to bring in coffee,' said the young lady in a spiritless tone;
and then she leaned her arm and head against the kitchen mantelpiece, and
hung listlessly over the fire.

'How low you seem, miss! But it's all because your cousin keeps you so
close to work. It's a shame!'

'Nothing of the kind, Sarah,' was the brief reply.

'Oh! but I know it is. You're fit to cry just this minute, for nothing
else but because you've sat still the whole day. It would make a kitten
dull to be mewed up so.'

'Sarah, does your master often come home early from market when it is
wet?'

'Never, hardly; but just to-day, for some reason, he has made a
difference.'

'What do you mean?'

'He is come. I am certain I saw Murgatroyd lead his horse into the yard
by the back-way, when I went to get some water at the pump five minutes
since. He was in the counting-house with Joe Scott, I believe.'

'You are mistaken.'

'What should I be mistaken for? I know his horse surely?'

'But you did not see himself?'

'I heard him speak, though. He was saying something to Joe Scott about
having settled all concerning ways and means, and that there would be a
new set of frames in the mill before another week passed, and that this
time he would get four soldiers from Stilbro' barracks to guard the
wagon.'

'Sarah, are you making a gown?'

'Yes. Is it a handsome one?'

'Beautiful! Get the coffee ready. I'll finish cutting out that sleeve for
you, and I'll give you some trimming for it I have some narrow satin
ribbon of a colour that will just match it'

'You're very kind, miss.'

'Be quick; there's a good girl. But first put your master's shoes on the
hearth: he will take his boots off when he comes in. I hear him; he is
coming.'

'Miss, you're cutting the stuff wrong.'

'So I am; but it is only a snip: there is no harm done.'

The kitchen door opened; Mr. Moore entered, very wet and cold. Caroline
half turned from her dressmaking occupation, but renewed it for a moment,
as if to gain a minute's tune for some purpose. Bent over the dress, her
face was hidden; there was an attempt to settle her features and veil
their expression, which failed. When she at last met Mr. Moore, her
countenance beamed.

'We had ceased to expect you. They asserted you would not come,' she
said.

'But I promised to return soon: you expected me, I suppose?'

'No, Robert; I dared not when it rained so fast. And you are wet and
chilled. Change everything. If you took cold, I should--we should blame
ourselves in some measure.'

'I am not wet through: my riding-coat is waterproof. Dry shoes are all I
require. There--the fire is pleasant after facing the cold wind and rain
for a few miles.'

He stood on the kitchen hearth; Caroline stood beside him. Mr. Moore,
while enjoying the genial glow, kept his eyes directed towards the
glittering brasses on the shelf above. Chancing for an instant to look
down, his glance rested on an uplifted face flushed, smiling, happy,
shaded with silky curls, lit with fine eyes. Sarah was gone into the
parlour with the tray; a lecture from her mistress detained her there.
Moore placed his hand a moment on his young cousin's shoulder, stooped,
and left a kiss on her forehead.

'Oh!' said she, as if the action had unsealed her lips, 'I was miserable
when I thought you would not come. I am almost too happy now. Are you
happy, Robert? Do you like to come home?'

'I think I do--to-night, at least'

'Are you certain you are not fretting about your frames, and your
business, and the war?'

'Not just now.'

'Are you positive you don't feel Hollow's Cottage too small for you, and
narrow, and dismal?'

'At this moment, no.'

'Can you affirm that you are not bitter at heart because rich and great
people forget you?'

'No more questions. You are mistaken if you think I am anxious to curry
favour with rich and great people. I only want means--a position--a
career.'

'Which your own talent and goodness shall win you. You were made to be
great; you shall be great.'

'I wonder now, if you spoke honestly out of your heart, what recipe you
would give me for acquiring this same greatness; but I know it--better
than you know it yourself. Would it be efficacious? Would it work?
Yes--poverty, misery, bankruptcy. Oh, life is not what you think it,
Lina!'

'But you are what I think you.'

'I am not'

'You are better, then?'

'Far worse.'

'No; far better. I know you are good.'

'How do you know it?'

'You look so, and I feel you are so.'

'Where do you feel it?'

'In my heart'

'Ah! you judge me with your heart, Lina; you should judge me with your
head.'

'I do; and then I am quite proud of you. Robert, you cannot tell all my
thoughts about you.'

Mr. Moore's dark face mustered colour; his lips smiled, and yet were
compressed; his eyes laughed, and yet he resolutely knit his brow.

'Think meanly of me, Lina,' said he. 'Men, in general, are a sort of
scum, very different to anything of which you have an idea. I make no
pretension to be better than my fellows.'

'If you did, I should not esteem you so much. It is because you are
modest that I have such confidence merit'

'Are you flattering me?' he demanded, turning sharply upon her, and
searching her face with an eye of acute penetration.

'No,' she said softly, laughing at his sudden quickness. She seemed to
think it unnecessary to proffer any eager disavowal of the charge.

'You don't care whether I think you flatter me or not?'

'No.'

'You are so secure of your own intentions?'

'I suppose so.'

'What are they, Caroline?'

'Only to ease my mind by expressing for once part of what I think, and
then to make you better satisfied with yourself.'

'By assuring me that my kinswoman is my sincere friend?'

'Just so. I am your sincere friend, Robert'

'And I am--what chance and change shall make me, Lina.'

'Not my enemy, however?'

The answer was cut short by Sarah and her mistress entering the kitchen
together in some commotion. They had been improving the time which Mr.
Moore and Miss Helstone had spent in dialogue by a short dispute on the
subject of 'café au lait,' which Sarah said was the queerest mess she
ever saw, and a waste of God's good gifts, as it was 'the nature of
coffee to be boiled in water,' and which mademoiselle affirmed to be 'un
breuvage royal,' a thousand times too good for the mean person who
objected to it.

The former occupants of the kitchen now withdrew into the parlour. Before
Hortense followed them thither, Caroline had only time again to question,
'Not my enemy, Robert?' And Moore, Quaker-like, had replied with another
query, 'Could I be?' and then, seating himself at the table, had settled
Caroline at his side.

Caroline scarcely heard Mademoiselle's explosion of wrath when she
rejoined them; the long declamation about the 'conduite indigne de cette
méchante créature' sounded in her ear as confusedly as the agitated
rattling of the china. Robert laughed a little at it, in very subdued
sort, and then, politely and calmly entreating his sister to be tranquil,
assured her that if it would yield her any satisfaction, she should have
her choice of an attendant amongst all the girls in his mill. Only he
feared they would scarcely suit her, as they were most of them, he was
informed, completely ignorant of household work; and pert and self-willed
as Sarah was, she was, perhaps, no worse than the majority of the women
of her class.

Mademoiselle admitted the truth of this conjecture: according to her,
'ces paysannes anglaises étaient tout insupportables.' What would she not
give for some 'bonne cuisinière anversoise,' with the high cap, short
petticoat, and decent sabots proper to her class--something better,
indeed, 'thin an insolent coquette in a flounced gown, and absolutely
without cap! (For Sarah, it appears, did not partake the opinion of St.
Paul that 'it is a shame for a woman to go with her head uncovered;' but,
holding rather a contrary doctrine, resolutely refused to imprison in
linen or muslin the plentiful tresses of her yellow hair, which it was
her wont to fasten up smartly with a comb behind, and on Sundays to wear
curled in front.)

'Shall I try and get you an Antwerp girl?' asked Mr. Moore, who, stern in
public, was on the whole very kind in private.

'Merci du cadeau!' was the answer. 'An Antwerp girl would not stay here
ten days, sneered at as she would be by all the young coquines in your
factory;' then softening, You are very good, dear brother--excuse my
petulance--but truly my domestic trials are severe, yet they are probably
my destiny; for I recollect that our revered mother experienced similar
sufferings, though she had the choice of all the best servants in
Antwerp. Domestics are in all countries a spoiled and untruly set.'

Mr. Moore had also certain reminiscences about the trials of his revered
mother. A good mother she had been to him, and he honoured her memory;
but he recollected that she kept a hot kitchen of it in Antwerp, just as
his faithful sister did here in England. Thus, therefore, he let the
subject drop, and when the coffee-service was removed, proceeded to
console Hortense by fetching her music-book and guitar; and having
arranged the ribbon of the instrument round her neck with a quiet
fraternal kindness he knew to be all-powerful in soothing her most
ruffled moods, he asked her to give him some of their mother's favourite
songs.

Nothing refines like affection. Family jarring vulgarises; family union
elevates. Hortense, pleased with her brother, and grateful to him,
looked, as she touched her guitar, almost graceful, almost handsome; her
every-day fretful look was gone for a moment, and was replaced by a
'sourire plein de bonté.' She sang the songs he asked for, with feeling;
they reminded her of a parent to whom she had been truly attached; they
reminded her of her young days. She observed, too, that Caroline listened
with naïve interest; this augmented her good-humour; and the exclamation
at the close of the song, 'I wish I could sing and play like Hortense!'
achieved the business, and rendered her charming for the evening.

It is true a little lecture to Caroline followed, on the vanity of
wishing and the duty of trying. 'As Rome,' it was suggested, 'had not
been built in a day, so neither had Mademoiselle Gérard Moore's education
been completed in a week, or by merely wishing to be clever. It was
effort that had accomplished that great work. She was ever remarkable for
her perseverance, for her industry. Her masters had remarked that it was
as delightful as it was uncommon to find so much talent united with so
much solidity,' and so on. Once on the theme of her own merits,
mademoiselle was fluent.

Cradled at last in blissful self-complacency, she took her knitting, and
sat down tranquil. Drawn curtains, a clear fire, a softly-shining lamp,
gave now to the little parlour its best, its evening charm. It is
probable that the three there present felt this charm. They all looked
happy.

'What shall we do now, Caroline?' asked Mr. Moore, returning to his seat
beside his cousin.

'What shall we do, Robert?' repeated she playfully, 'You decide.'

'Not play at chess?'

'No.'

'Nor draughts, nor backgammon?'

'No, no; we both hate silent games that only keep one's hands employed,
don't we?'

'I believe we do. Then shall we talk scandal?'

'About whom? Are we sufficiently interested in anybody to take a pleasure
in pulling their character to pieces?'

'A question that comes to the point. For my part, unamiable as it sounds,
I must say no.'

'And I too. But it is strange, though we want no third--fourth, I mean
(she hastily and with contrition glanced at Hortense), living person
among us--so selfish we are in our happiness--though we don't want to
think of the present existing world, it would be pleasant to go back to
the past, to hear people that have slept for generations in graves that
are perhaps no longer graves now, but gardens and fields, speak to us and
tell us their thoughts, and impart their ideas.'

'Who shall be the speaker? What language shall he utter? French?'

'Your French forefathers don't speak so sweetly, nor so solemnly nor so
impressively as your English ancestors, Robert. To-night you shall be
entirely English. You shall read an English book.'

'An old English book?'

'Yes, an old English book--one that you like; and I'll choose a part of
it that is toned quite in harmony with something in you. It shall waken
your nature, fill your mind with music, it shall pass like a skilful hand
over your heart, and make its strings sound. Your heart is a lyre,
Robert; but the lot of your life has not been a minstrel to sweep it, and
it is often silent. Let glorious William come near and touch it. You will
see how he will draw the English power and melody out of its chords.'

'I must read Shakespeare?'

'You must have his spirit before you; you must hear his voice with your
mind's ear; you must take some of his soul into yours.'

'With a view to making me better? Is it to operate like a sermon?'

'It is to stir you, to give you new sensations. It is to make you feel
your life strongly--not only your virtues, but your vicious, perverse
points.'

'Dieu! que dit-elle?' cried Hortense, who hitherto had been counting
stitches in her knitting, and had not much attended to what was said, but
whose ear these two strong words caught with a tweak.

'Never mind her, sister; let her talk. Now just let her say anything she
pleases to-night. She likes to come down hard upon your brother
sometimes. It amuses me, so let her alone.'

Caroline, who, mounted on a chair, had been rummaging the bookcase,
returned with a book.

'Here's Shakespeare,' she said, 'and there's "Coriolanus." Now, read, and
discover by the feelings the reading will give you at once how low and
how high you are.'

'Come then, sit near me, and correct when I mispronounce.'

'I am to be the teacher then, and you my pupil?'

'Ainsi, soit-il!'

'And Shakespeare is our science, since we are going to study?'

'It appears so.'

'And you are not going to be French, and sceptical, and sneering? You are
not going to think it a sign of wisdom to refuse to admire?'

'I don't know.'

'If you do, Robert, I'll take Shakespeare away; and I'll shrivel up
within myself, and put on my bonnet and go home.'

'Sit down. Here I begin.'

'One minute if you please, brother,' interrupted Mademoiselle. 'When the
gentleman of a family reads, the ladies should always sew.--Caroline,
dear child; take your embroidery. You may get three sprigs done
to-night.'

Caroline looked dismayed. 'I can't see by lamplight; my eyes are tired,
and I can't do two things well at once. If I sew, I cannot listen; if I
listen, I cannot sew.'

'Fi, donc! Quel enfantillage!' began Hortense. Mr. Moore, as usual,
suavely interposed.

'Permit her to neglect the embroidery for this evening. I wish her whole
attention to be fixed on my accent, and to ensure this, she must follow
the reading with her eyes--she must look at the book.'

He placed it between them, reposed his arm on the back of Caroline's
chair, and thus began to read.

The very first scene in 'Coriolanus' came with smart relish to his
intellectual palate, and still as he read he warmed. He delivered the
haughty speech of Caius Marcius to the starving citizens with unction; he
did not say he thought his irrational pride right, but he seemed to feel
it so. Caroline looked up at him with a singular smile.

'There's a vicious point hit already,' she said. 'You sympathise with
that proud patrician who does not sympathise with his famished fellowmen,
and insults them. There, go on.' He proceeded. The warlike portions did
not rouse him much; he said all that was out of date, or should be; the
spirit displayed was barbarous; yet the encounter single-handed between
Marcius and Tullus Aufidius he delighted in. As he advanced, he forgot to
criticise; it was evident he appreciated the power, the truth of each
portion; and, stepping out of the narrow line of private prejudices,
began to revel in the large picture of human nature, to feel the reality
stamped upon the characters who were speaking from that page before him.

He did not read the comic scenes well; and Caroline, taking the book out
of his hand, read these parts for him. From her he seemed to enjoy them,
and indeed she gave them with a spirit no one could have expected of her,
with a pithy expression with which she seemed gifted on the spot, and for
that brief moment only. It may be remarked, in passing, that the general
character of her conversation that evening, whether serious or sprightly,
grave or gay, was as of something untaught, unstudied, intuitive,
fitful--when once gone, no more to be reproduced as it had been than the
glancing ray of the meteor, than the tints of the dew-gem, than the
colour or form of the sunset cloud, than the fleeting and glittering
ripple varying the flow of a rivulet.

Coriolanus in glory, Coriolanus in disaster, Coriolanus banished,
followed like giant shades one after the other. Before the vision of the
banished man Moore's spirit seemed to pause. He stood on the hearth of
Aufidius's hall, facing the image of greatness fallen, but greater than
ever in that low estate. He saw 'the grim appearance,' the dark face
'bearing command in it,' 'the noble vessel with its tackle torn.' With
the revenge of Caius Marcius, Moore perfectly sympathised; he was not
scandalised by it; and again Caroline whispered, 'There I see another
glimpse of brotherhood in error.'

The march on Rome, the mother's supplication, the long resistance, the
final yielding of bad passions to good, which ever must be the case in a
nature worthy the epithet of noble, the rage of Aufidius at what he
considered his ally's weakness, the death of Coriolanus, the final sorrow
of his great enemy--all scenes made of condensed truth and strength--came
on in succession and carried with them in their deep, fast flow the heart
and mind of reader and listener.

'Now, have you felt Shakespeare?' asked Caroline, some ten minutes after
her cousin had closed the book.

'I think so.'

'And have you felt anything in Coriolanus like you?'

'Perhaps I have.'

'Was he not faulty as well as great?'

Moore nodded.

'And what was his fault? What made him hated by the citizens? What caused
him to be banished by his countrymen?'

'What do you think it was?'

'I ask again--

"Whether was it pride, Which out of daily fortune ever taints The happy
man? whether defect of judgment, To fail in the disposing of those
chances Which he was lord of? or whether nature, Not to be other than one
thing, not moving From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace
Even with the same austerity and garb As he controlled the war?"'

'Well, answer yourself, Sphinx.'

'It was a spice of all; and you must not be proud to your workpeople; you
must not neglect chances of soothing them; and you must not be of an
inflexible nature, uttering a request as austerely as if it were a
command.'

'That is the moral you tack to the play. What puts such notions into your
head?'

'A wish for your good, a care for your safety, dear Robert, and a fear,
caused by many things which I have heard lately, that you will come to
harm.'

'Who tells you these things?'

'I hear my uncle talk about you. He praises your hard spirit, your
determined cast of mind, your scorn of low enemies, your resolution not
"to truckle to the mob," as he says.'

'And would you have me truckle to them?'

'No, not for the world. I never wish you to lower yourself; but somehow I
cannot help thinking it unjust to include all poor working-people under
the general and insulting name of "the mob," and continually to think of
them and treat them haughtily.'

'You are a little democrat, Caroline. If your uncle knew, what would he
say?'

'I rarely talk to my uncle, as you know, and never about such things. He
thinks everything but sewing and cooking above women's comprehension, and
out of their line.'

'And do you fancy you comprehend the subjects on which you advise me?'

'As far as they concern you, I comprehend them. I know it would be better
for you to be loved by your workpeople than to be hated by them, and I am
sure that kindness is more likely to win their regard than pride. If you
were proud and cold to me and Hortense, should we love you? When you are
cold to me, as you are sometimes, can I venture to be affectionate in
return?'

'Now, Lina, I've had my lesson both in languages and ethics, with a touch
on politics; it is your turn. Hortense tells me you were much taken by a
little piece of poetry you learned the other day, a piece by poor André
Chénier--"La Jeune Captive." Do you remember it still?'

'I think so.'

'Repeat it, then. Take your time and mind your accent; especially let us
have no English u's.'

Caroline, beginning in a low, rather tremulous voice, but gaining courage
as she proceeded, repeated the sweet verses of Chénier. The last three
stanzas she rehearsed well.

'Mon beau voyage encore est si loin de sa fin!
Je pars, et des ormeaux qui bordent le chemin
J'ai passé les premiers à peine.
Au banquet de la vie é peine commencé
Un instant seulement mes lèvres ont pressé'
La coupe en mes mams encore pleine.

'Je ne suis qu'au printemps--je veux voir la moisson;
Comme le soleil, de saison en saison,
Je veux achever mon année.
Brillante sur ma tige, et l'honneur du jardin
Je n'ai vu luire encore que les feux du matin,
Je veux achever ma journée!'

Moore listened at first with his eyes cast down, but soon he furtively
raised them. Leaning back in his chair he could watch Caroline without
her perceiving where his gaze was fixed. Her cheek had a colour, her eyes
a light, her countenance an expression this evening which would have made
even plain features striking; but there was not the grievous defect of
plainness to pardon in her case. The sunshine was not shed on rough
barrenness; it fell on soft bloom. Each lineament was turned with grace;
the whole aspect was pleasing. At the present moment--animated,
interested, touched--she might be called beautiful. Such a face was
calculated to awaken not only the calm sentiment of esteem, the distant
one of admiration, but some feeling more tender, genial,
intimate--friendship, perhaps, affection, interest. When she had
finished, she turned to Moore, and met his eye.

'Is that pretty well repeated?' she inquired, smiling like any happy,
docile child.

'I really don't know.'

'Why don't you know? Have you not listened?'

'Yes--and looked. You are fond of poetry, Lina?'

'When I meet with real poetry, I cannot rest till I have learned it by
heart, and so made partly mine.'

Mr. Moore now sat silent for several minutes. It struck nine o'clock.
Sarah entered, and said that Mr. Helstone's servant was come for Miss
Caroline.

'Then the evening is gone already,' she observed, 'and it will be long, I
suppose, before I pass another here.'

Hortense had been for some time nodding over her knitting; fallen into a
doze now, she made no response to the remark.

'You would have no objection to come here oftener of an evening?'
inquired Robert, as he took her folded mantle from the side-table, where
it still lay, and carefully wrapped it round her.

'I like to come here, but I have no desire to be intrusive. I am not
hinting to be asked; you must understand that.'

'Oh! I understand thee, child. You sometimes lecture me for wishing to be
rich, Lina; but if I were rich, you should live here always--at any rate,
you should live with me wherever my habitation might be.'

'That would be pleasant; and if you were poor--ever so poor--it would
still be pleasant. Good-night, Robert.'

'I promised to walk with you up to the rectory.'

'I know you did, but I thought you had forgotten, and I hardly knew how
to remind you, though I wished to do it. But would you like to go? It is
a cold night, and as Fanny is come, there is no necessity--'

'Here is your muff; don't wake Hortense--come.'

The half-mile to the rectory was soon traversed. They parted in the
garden without kiss, scarcely with a pressure of hands; yet Robert sent
his cousin in excited and joyously troubled. He had been singularly kind
to her that day--not in phrase, compliment, profession, but in manner, in
look, and in soft and friendly tones.

For himself, he came home grave, almost morose. As he stood leaning on
his own yard-gate, musing in the watery moonlight all alone, the hushed,
dark mill before him, the hill-environed hollow round, he exclaimed,
abruptly,--

'This won't do! There's weakness--there's downright ruin in all this.
However,' he added, dropping his voice, 'the frenzy is quite temporary. I
know it very well; I have had it before. It will be gone to-morrow.



Chapter 7 - The Curates at Tea


Caroline Helstone was just eighteen years old, and at eighteen the true
narrative of life is yet to be commenced. Before that time we sit
listening to a tale, a marvellous fiction, delightful sometimes and sad
sometimes, almost always unreal. Before that time our world is heroic,
its inhabitants half-divine or semi-demon; its scenes are dream-scenes;
darker woods and stranger hills, brighter skies, more dangerous waters,
sweeter flowers, more tempting fruits, wider plains, drearier deserts,
sunnier fields than are found in nature, over-spread our enchanted
globe. What a moon we gaze on before that time! How the trembling of our
hearts at her aspect bears witness to its unutterable beauty! As to our
sun, it is a burning heaven--the world of gods.

At that time, at eighteen, drawing near the confines of illusive, void
dreams, Elf-land lies behind us, the shores of Reality rise in front.
These shores are yet distant; they look so blue, soft, gentle, we long to
reach them. In sunshine we see a greenness beneath the azure, as of
spring meadows; we catch glimpses of silver lines, and imagine the roll
of living waters. Could we but reach this land, we think to hunger and
thirst no more; whereas many a wilderness, and often the flood of death,
or some stream of sorrow as cold and almost as black as death, is to be
crossed ere true bliss can be tasted. Every joy that life gives must be
earned ere it is secured; and how hardly earned, those only know who have
wrestled for great prizes. The heart's blood must gem with red beads the
brow of the combatant, before the wreath of victory rustles over it.

At eighteen we are not aware of this. Hope, when she smiles on us, and
promises happiness to-morrow, is implicitly believed; Love, when he comes
wandering like a lost angel to our door, is at once admitted, welcomed,
embraced. His quiver is not seen; if his arrows penetrate, their wound is
like a thrill of new life. There are no fears of poison, none of the barb
which no leech's hand can extract That perilous passion--an agony ever in
some of its phases; with many, an agony throughout--is believed to be an
unqualified good. In short, at eighteen the school of experience is to be
entered, and her humbling, crushing, grinding, but yet purifying and
invigorating lessons are yet to be learned.

Alas, Experience! No other mentor has so wasted and frozen a face as
yours, none wears a robe so black, none bears a rod so heavy, none with
hand so inexorable draws the novice so sternly to his task, and forces
him with authority so resistless to its acquirement. It is by your
instructions alone that man or woman can ever find a safe track through
life's wilds; without it, how they stumble, how they stray! On what
forbidden grounds do they intrude, down what dread declivities are they
hurled!

Caroline, having been conveyed home by Robert, had no wish to pass what
remained of the evening with her uncle. The room in which he sat was very
sacred ground to her; she seldom intruded on it; and to-night she kept
aloof till the bell rang for prayers. Part of the evening church service
was the form of worship observed in Mr. Helstone's household. He read it
in his usual nasal voice, clear, loud, and monotonous. The rite over, his
niece, according to her wont, stepped up to him.

'Good-night, uncle.'

'Hey! You've been gadding abroad all day--visiting, dining out, and what
not'

'Only at the cottage.'

'And have you learned your lessons?'

'Yes.'

'And made a shirt?'

'Only part of one.'

'Well, that will do. Stick to the needle, learn shirt-making and
gown-making and piecrust-making, and you'll be a clever woman some day.
Go to bed now. I'm busy with a pamphlet here.'

Presently the niece was enclosed in her small bedroom, the door bolted,
her white dressing-gown assumed, her long hair loosened and falling
thick, soft, and wavy to her waist; and as, resting from the task of
combing it out, she leaned her cheek on her hand and fixed her eyes on
the carpet, before her rose, and close around her drew, the visions we
see at eighteen years.

Her thoughts were speaking with her, speaking pleasantly, as it seemed,
for she smiled as she listened. She looked pretty meditating thus; but a
brighter thing than she was in that apartment--the spirit of youthful
Hope. According to this flattering prophet, she was to know
disappointment, to feel chill no more; she had entered on the dawn of a
summer day--no false dawn, but the true spring of morning--and her sun
would quickly rise. Impossible for her now to suspect that she was the
sport of delusion; her expectations seemed warranted, the foundation on
which they rested appeared solid.

'When people love, the next step is they marry,' was her argument. 'Now,
I love Robert, and I feel sure that Robert loves me. I have thought so
many a time before; to-day I felt it. When I looked up at him after
repeating Chénier's poem, his eyes (what handsome eyes he has!) sent the
truth through my heart. Sometimes I am afraid to speak to him, lest I
should be too frank, lest I should seem forward--for I have more than
once regretted bitterly overflowing, superfluous words, and feared I had
said more than he expected me to say, and that he would disapprove what
he might deem my indiscretion; now, to-night I could have ventured to
express any thought, he was so indulgent. How kind he was as we walked up
the lane! He does not flatter or say foolish things; his love-making
(friendship, I mean; of course I don't yet account him my lover, but I
hope he will be so some day) is not like what we read of in books,--it is
far better--original, quiet, manly, sincere. I do like him, I would be an
excellent wife to him if he did marry me; I would tell him of his faults
(for he has a few faults), but I would study his comfort, and cherish
him, and do my best to make him happy. Now, I am sure he will not be cold
to-morrow. I feel almost certain that to-morrow evening he will either
come here, or ask me to go there.'

She recommenced combing her hair, long as a mermaid's. Turning her head
as she arranged it she saw her own face and form in the glass. Such
reflections are soberising to plain people: their own eyes are not
enchanted with the image; they are confident then that the eyes of others
can see in it no fascination. But the fair must naturally draw other
conclusions: the picture is charming, and must charm. Caroline saw a
shape, a head, that, daguerreotyped in that attitude and with that
expression, would have been lovely. She could not choose but derive from
the spectacle confirmation to her hopes. It was then in undiminished
gladness she sought her couch.

And in undiminished gladness she rose the next day. As she entered her
uncle's breakfast-room, and with soft cheerfulness wished him
good-morning, even that little man of bronze himself thought, for an
instant, his niece was growing 'a fine girl.' Generally she was quiet and
timid with him--very docile, but not communicative; this morning,
however, she found many things to say. Slight topics alone might be
discussed between them; for with a woman--a girl--Mr. Helstone would
touch on no other. She had taken an early walk in the garden, and she
told him what flowers were beginning to spring there; she inquired when
the gardener was to come and trim the borders; she informed him that
certain starlings were beginning to build their nests in the church-tower
(Briarfield church was close to Briarfield rectory); she wondered the
tolling of the bells in the belfry did not scare them.

Mr. Helstone opined that 'they were like other fools who had just
paired--insensible to inconvenience just for the moment.' Caroline, made
perhaps a little too courageous by her temporary good spirits, here
hazarded a remark of a kind she had never before ventured to make on
observations dropped by her revered relative.

'Uncle,' said she, 'whenever you speak of marriage, you speak of it
scornfully. Do you think people shouldn't marry?'

'It is decidedly the wisest plan to remain single, especially for women.'

'Are all marriages unhappy?'

'Millions of marriages are unhappy. If everybody confessed the truth,
perhaps all are more or less so.'

'You are always vexed when you are asked to come and marry a couple.
Why?'

'Because one does not like to act as accessory to the commission of a
piece of pure folly.'

Mr. Helstone spoke so readily, he seemed rather glad of the opportunity
to give his niece a piece of his mind on this point. Emboldened by the
impunity which had hitherto attended her questions, she went a little
further.

'But why,' said she, 'should it be pure folly? If two people like each
other, why shouldn't they consent to live together?'

'They tire of each other--they tire of each other in a month. A
yoke-fellow is not a companion; he or she is a fellow-sufferer.'

It was by no means naive simplicity which inspired Caroline's next
remark; it was a sense of antipathy to such opinions, and of displeasure
at him who held them.

'One would think you had never been married, uncle. One would think you
were an old bachelor.'

'Practically, I am so.'

'But you have been married. Why were you so inconsistent as to marry?'

'Every man is mad once or twice in his life.'

'So you tired of my aunt, and my aunt of you, and you were miserable
together?'

'Mr. Helstone pushed out his cynical lip, wrinkled his brown forehead,
and gave an inarticulate grunt.

'Did she not suit you? Was she not good-tempered? Did you not get used to
her? Were you not sorry when she died?'

'Caroline,' said Mr. Helstone, bringing his hand slowly down to within an
inch or two of the table, and then smiting it suddenly on the mahogany,
'understand this: it is vulgar and puerile to confound generals with
particulars. In every case there is the rule and there are the
exceptions. Your questions are stupid and babyish. Ring the bell, if you
have done breakfast.'.

The breakfast was taken away, and that meal over, it was the general
custom of uncle and niece to separate, and not to meet again till dinner;
but to-day the niece, instead of quitting the room, went to the
window-seat and sat down there. Mr. Helstone looked round uneasily once
or twice, as if he wished her away; but she was gazing from the window,
and did not seem to mind him: so he continued the perusal of his morning
paper--a particularly interesting one it chanced to be, as new movements
had just taken place in the Peninsula, and certain columns of the journal
were rich in long dispatches from General Lord Wellington. He little
knew, meantime, what thoughts were busy in his niece's mind--thoughts the
conversation of the past half-hour had revived but not generated;
tumultuous were they now, as disturbed bees in a hive, but it was years
since they had first made their cells in her brain.

She was reviewing his character, his disposition, repeating his
sentiments on marriage. Many a time had she reviewed them before, and
sounded the gulf between her own mind and his; and then, on the other
side of the wide and deep chasm, she had seen, and she now saw another
figure standing beside her uncle's--a strange shape, dim, sinister,
scarcely early--the half-remembered image of her own father, James
Helstone, Matthewson Helstone's brother.

Rumours had reached her ear of what that father's character was; old
servants had dropped hints; she knew, too, that he was not a good man,
and that he was never kind to her. She recollected--a dark recollection
it was--some weeks that she had spent with him in a great town somewhere,
when she had had no maid to dress her or take care of her; when she had
been shut up, day and night, in a high garret-room, without a carpet,
with a bare uncurtained bed, and scarcely any other furniture; when he
went out early every morning, and often forgot to return and give her her
dinner during the day, and at night, when he came back, was like a
madman, furious, terrible, or--still more painful--like an idiot,
imbecile, senseless. She knew she had fallen ill in this place, and that
one night when she was very sick he had come roving into the room, and
said he would kill her, for she was a burden to him. Her screams had
brought aid; and from the moment she was then rescued from him she had
never seen him, except as a dead man in his coffin.

That was her father. Also she had a mother, though Mr. Helstone never
spoke to her of that mother, though she could not remember having seen
her; but that she was alive she knew. This mother was then the drunkard's
wife. What had their marriage been? Caroline, turning from the lattice,
whence she had been watching the starlings (though without seeing them),
in a low voice, and with a sad, bitter tone, thus broke the silence of
the room,--

'You term marriage miserable, I suppose, from what you saw of my father
and mother's. If my mother suffered what I suffered when I was with papa,
she must have had a dreadful life'

Mr. Helstone, thus addressed, wheeled about in his chair, and looked over
his spectacles at his niece. He was taken aback.

Her father and mother! What had put it into her head to mention her
father and mother, of whom he had never, during the twelve years she had
lived with him, spoken to her? That the thoughts were self-matured, that
she had any recollections or speculations about her parents, he could not
fancy.

'Your father and mother? Who has been talking to you about them?'

'Nobody; but I remember something of what papa was, and I pity mamma.
Where is she?'

This 'Where is she?' had been on Caroline's lips hundreds of times
before, but till now she had never uttered it.

'I hardly know,' returned Mr. Helstone; 'I was little acquainted with
her. I have not heard from her for years: but wherever she is, she thinks
nothing of you; she never inquires about you. I have reason to believe
she does not wish to see you. Come, it is schooltime. You go to your
cousin at ten, don't you? The clock has struck.'

Perhaps Caroline would have said more; but Fanny, coming in, informed her
master that the churchwardens wanted to speak to him in the vestry. He
hastened to join them, and his niece presently set out for the cottage.

The road from the rectory to Hollow's Mill inclined downwards; she ran,
therefore, almost all the way. Exercise, the fresh air, the thought of
seeing Robert, at least of being on his premises, in his vicinage,
revived her somewhat depressed spirits quickly. Arriving in sight of the
white house, and within hearing of the thundering mill and its rushing
watercourse, the first thing she saw was Moore at his garden gate. There
he stood, in his belted Holland blouse, a light cap covering his head,
which undress costume suited him. He was looking down the lane, not in
the direction of his cousin's approach. She stopped, withdrawing a little
behind a willow, and studied his appearance.

'He has not his peer,' she thought. 'He is as handsome as he is
intelligent. What a keen eye he has! What clearly-cut, spirited
features--thin and serious, but graceful! I do like his face, I do like
his aspect, I do like him so much--better than any of those shuffling
curates, for instance--better than anybody; bonnie Robert!'

She sought 'bonny Robert's' presence speedily. For his part, when she
challenged his sight, I believe he would have passed from before her eyes
like a phantom, if he could; but being a tall fact, and no fiction, he
was obliged to stand the greeting. He made it brief. It was cousin-like,
brother-like, friend-like, anything but lover-like. The nameless charm
of last night had left his manner: he was no longer the same man; or, at
any rate, the same heart did not beat in his breast. Rude disappointment,
sharp cross! At first the eager girl would not believe in the change,
though she saw and felt it. It was difficult to withdraw her hand from
his, till he had bestowed at least something like a kind pressure; it was
difficult to turn her eyes from his eyes, till his looks had expressed
something more and fonder than that cool welcome.

A lover masculine so disappointed can speak and urge explanation, a lover
feminine can say nothing; if she did, the result would be shame and
anguish, inward remorse for self-treachery. Nature would brand such
demonstration as a rebellion against her instincts, and would
vindictively repay it afterwards by the thunderbolt of self-contempt
smiting suddenly in secret. Take the matter as you find it ask no
questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected
bread and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don't shriek
because the nerves are martyrised; do not doubt that your mental
stomach--if you have such a thing--is strong as an ostrich's; the stone
will digest. You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a
scorpion. Show no consternation; close your fingers firmly upon the gift;
let it sting through your palm. Never mind; in time, after your hand and
arm have swelled and quivered long with torture, the squeezed scorpion
will die, and you will have learned the great lesson how to endure
without a sob. For the whole remnant of your life, if you survive the
test--some, it is said, die under it--you will be stronger, wiser, less
sensitive. This you are not aware of, perhaps, at the time, and so cannot
borrow courage of that hope. Nature, however, as has been intimated, is
an excellent friend in such cases, sealing the lips, interdicting
utterance, commanding a placid dissimulation--a dissimulation often
wearing an easy and gay mien at first, settling down to sorrow and
paleness in time, then passing away, and leaving a convenient stoicism,
not the less fortifying because it is half-bitter.

Half-bitter! Is that wrong? No; it should be bitter: bitterness is
strength--it is a tonic. Sweet, mild force following acute suffering you
find nowhere; to talk of it is delusion. There may be apathetic
exhaustion after the rack. If energy remains, it will be rather a
dangerous energy--deadly when confronted with injustice.

Who has read the ballad of 'Puir Mary Lee'--that old Scotch ballad,
written I know not in what generation nor by what hand? Mary had been
ill-used--probably in being made to believe that truth which was
falsehood. She is not complaining, but she is sitting alone in the
snowstorm, and you hear her thoughts. They are not the thoughts of a
model heroine under her circumstances, but they are those of a
deeply-feeling, strongly-resentful peasant-girl. Anguish has driven her
from the inglenook of home to the white-shrouded and icy hills. Crouched
under the 'cauld drift,' she recalls every image of horror--'the
yellow-wymed ask,' 'the hairy adder,' 'the auld moon-bowing tyke,' 'the
ghaist at e'en,' 'the sour bullister,' 'the milk on the taed's back.' She
hates these, but 'waur she hates Robin-a-Ree.'

Oh! ance I lived happily by yon bonny burn--
The warld was in love wi' me;
But now I maun sit 'neath the cauld drift and mourn,
And curse black Robin-a-Ree!

Then whudder awa', thou bitter biting blast,
And sough through the scrunty tree,
And smoor me up in the snaw fu' fast,
And ne'er let the sun me see!

Oh, never melt awa', thou wreath o' snaw,
That's sae kind in graving me;
But hide me frae the scorn and guffaw
O' villains like Robin-a-Ree!

But what has been said in the last page or two not germane to Caroline
Helstone's feelings, or to the state of things between her and Robert
Moore. Robert had done her no wrong; he had told her no lie; it was she
that was to blame, if any one was. What bitterness her mind distilled
should and would be poured on her own head. She had loved without being
asked to love--a natural, sometimes an inevitable chance, but big with
misery.

Robert, indeed, had sometimes seemed to be fond of her; but why? Because
she had made herself so pleasing to him, he could not, in spite of all
his efforts, help testifying a state of feeling his judgment did not
approve nor his will sanction. He was about to withdraw decidedly from
intimate communication with her, because he did not choose to have his
affections inextricably entangled, nor to be drawn, despite his reason,
into a marriage he believed imprudent. Now, what was she to do? To give
way to her feelings, or to vanquish them? To pursue him, or to turn upon
herself? If she is weak, she will try the first expedient--will lose his
esteem and win his aversion; if she has sense, she will be her own
governor, and resolve to subdue and bring under guidance the disturbed
realm of her emotions. She will determine to look on life steadily, as it
is; to begin to learn its severe truths seriously, and to study its
knotty problems closely, conscientiously.

It appeared she had a little sense, for she quitted Robert quietly,
without complaint or question, without the alteration of a muscle or the
shedding of a tear, betook herself to her studies under Hortense as
usual, and at dinner-time went home without lingering.

When she had dined, and found herself in the rectory drawing-room alone,
having left her uncle over his temperate glass of port wine, the
difficulty that occurred to and embarrassed her was, 'How am I to get
through this day?'

Last night she had hoped it would be spent as yesterday was, that the
evening would be again passed with happiness and Robert. She had learned
her mistake this morning; and yet she could not settle down, convinced
that no chance would occur to recall her to Hollow's Cottage, or to bring
Moore again into her society.

He had walked up after tea more than once to pass an hour with her uncle.
The door-bell had rung, his voice had been heard in the passage just at
twilight, when she little expected such a pleasure; and this had happened
twice after he had treated her with peculiar reserve; and though he
rarely talked to her in her uncle's presence, he had looked at her
relentingly as he sat opposite her work-table during his stay. The few
words he had spoken to her were comforting; his manner on bidding her
good-night was genial. Now, he might come this evening, said False Hope.
She almost knew it was False Hope which breathed the whisper, and yet she
listened.

She tried to read--her thoughts wandered; she tried to sew--every stitch
she put in was an ennui, the occupation was insufferably tedious; she
opened her desk and attempted to write a French composition--she wrote
nothing but mistakes.

Suddenly the door-bell sharply rang; her heart leaped; she sprang to the
drawing-room door, opened it softly, peeped through the aperture. Fanny
was admitting a visitor--a gentleman--a tall man--just the height of
Robert. For one second she thought it was Robert for one second she
exulted; but the voice asking for Mr. Helstone undeceived her. That voice
was an Irish voice, consequently not Moore's, but the curate's--Malone's,
He was ushered into the dining-room, where, doubtless he speedily helped
his rector to empty the decanters.

It was a fact to be noted, that at whatever house in Briarfield,
Whinbury, or Nunnely one curate dropped in to a meal--dinner or tea, as
the case might be--another presently followed, often two more. Not that
they gave each other the rendezvous, but they were usually all on the run
at the same time, and when Donne, for instance, sought Malone at his
lodgings and found him not, he inquired whither he had posted, and having
learned of the landlady his destination, hastened with all speed after
him. The same causes operated in the same way with Sweeting. Thus it
chanced on that afternoon that Caroline's ears were three times tortured
with the ringing of the bell and the advent of undesired guests; for
Donne followed Malone, and Sweeting followed Donne; and more wine was
ordered up from the cellar into the dining-room (for though old Helstone
chid the inferior priesthood when he found them 'carousing,' as he called
it, in their own tents, yet at his hierarchical table he ever liked to
treat them to a glass of his best), and through the closed doors Caroline
heard their boyish laughter, and the vacant cackle of their voices. Her
fear was lest they should stay to tea, for she had no pleasure in making
tea for that particular trio. What distinctions people draw! These three
were men--young men--educated men, like Moore; yet, for her, how great
the difference! Their society was a bore--his a delight.

Not only was she destined to be favoured with their clerical company, but
Fortune was at this moment bringing her four other guests--lady guests,
all packed in a pony-phaeton now rolling somewhat heavily along the road
from Whinbury: an elderly lady and three of her buxom daughters were
coming to see her 'in a friendly way,' as the custom of that
neighbourhood was. Yes, a fourth time the bell clanged. Fanny brought the
present announcement to the drawing-room,--

'Mrs. Sykes and the three Misses Sykes.'

When Caroline was going to receive company, her habit was to wring her
hands very nervously, to flush a little, and come forward hurriedly yet
hesitatingly, wishing herself meantime at Jericho. She was, at such
crises sadly deficient in finished manner, though she had once been at
school a year. Accordingly, on this occasion her small white hands sadly
maltreated each other while she stood up, waiting the entrance of Mrs.
Sykes.

In stalked that lady, a tall, bilious gentlewoman, who made an ample and
not altogether insincere profession of piety, and was greatly given to
hospitality towards the clergy. In sailed her three daughters, a showy
trio, being all three well-grown, and more or less handsome.

In English country ladies there is this point to be remarked. Whether
young or old, pretty or plain, dull or sprightly, they all (or almost
all) have a certain expression stamped on their features, which seems to
say, 'I know--I do not boast of it, but I know that I am the standard of
what is proper; let every one therefore whom I approach, or who
approaches me, keep a sharp lookout, for wherein they differ from me--be
the same in dress, manner, opinion, principle, or practice--therein they
are wrong.'

Mrs. and Misses Sykes, far from being exceptions to this observation were
pointed illustrations of its truth; Miss Mary--a well-looked, well-meant,
and, on the whole, well-dispositioned girl--wore her complacency with
some state, though without harshness. Miss Harriet--a beauty--carried it
more overbearingly; she looked high and cold. Miss Hannah, who was
conceited, dashing, pushing, flourished hers consciously and openly. The
mother evinced it with the gravity proper to her age and religious fame.

The reception was got through somehow. Caroline 'was glad to see them'
(an unmitigated fib), hoped they were well, hoped Mrs. Sykes's cough was
better (Mrs. Sykes had had a cough for the last twenty years), hoped the
Misses Sykes had left their sisters at home well; to which inquiry the
Misses Sykes, sitting on three chairs opposite the music-stool, whereon
Caroline had undesignedly come to anchor, after wavering for some seconds
between it and a large armchair, into which she at length recollected she
ought to induct Mrs. Sykes--and indeed that lady saved her the trouble by
depositing herself therein--the Misses Sykes replied to Caroline by one
simultaneous bow, very majestic and mighty awful. A pause followed. This
bow was of a character to ensure silence for the next five minutes, and
it did. Mrs. Sykes then inquired after Mr. Helstone, and whether he had
had any return of rheumatism, and whether preaching twice on a Sunday
fatigued him, and if he was capable of taking a full service now; and on
being assured he was, she and all her daughters, combining in chorus,
expressed their opinion that he was 'a wonderful man of his years.'

Pause second.

Miss Mary, getting up the steam in her turn, asked whether Caroline had
attended the Bible Society meeting which had been held at Nunnely last
Thursday night. The negative answer which truth compelled Caroline to
utter--for last Thursday evening she had been sitting at home, reading a
novel which Robert had lent her--elicited a simultaneous expression of
surprise from the lips of the four ladies.

'We were all there,' said Miss Mary--'mamma and all of us. We even
persuaded papa to go. Hannah would insist upon it. But he fell asleep
while Mr. Langweilig, the German Moravian minister, was speaking. I felt
quite ashamed, he nodded so.'

'And there was Dr. Broadbent,' cried Hannah--'such a beautiful speaker.
You couldn't expect it of him, for he is almost a vulgar-looking man.'

'But such a dear man,' interrupted Mary.

'And such a good man, such a useful man,' added her mother.

'Only like a butcher in appearance,' interposed the fair, proud Harriet.
'I couldn't bear to look at him. I listened with my eyes shut.'

Miss Helstone felt her ignorance and incompetency. Not having seen Dr.
Broadbent, she could not give her opinion. Pause third came on. During
its continuance, Caroline was feeling at her heart's core what a dreaming
fool she was, what an unpractical life she led, how little fitness there
was in her for ordinary intercourse with the ordinary world. She was
feeling how exclusively she had attached herself to the white cottage in
the Hollow, how in the existence of one inmate of that cottage she had
pent all her universe. She was sensible that this would not do, and that
some day she would be forced to make an alteration. It could not be said
that she exactly wished to resemble the ladies before her, but she wished
to become superior to her present self, so as to feel less scared by
their dignity.

The sole means she found of reviving the flagging discourse was by asking
them if they would all stay to tea; and a cruel struggle it cost her to
perform this piece of civility. Mrs. Sykes had begun, 'We are much
obliged to you, but---' when in came Fanny once more.

'The gentlemen will stay the evening, ma'am,' was the message she brought
from Mr. Helstone.

'What gentlemen have you?' now inquired Mrs. Sykes. Their names were
specified; she and her daughters interchanged glances. The curates were
not to them what they were to Caroline. Mr. Sweeting was quite a
favourite with them; even Mr. Malone rather so, because he was a
clergyman, 'Really, since you have company already, I think we shall
stay,' remarked Mrs. Sykes. 'We shall be quite a pleasant little party. I
always like to meet the clergy.'

And now Caroline had to usher them upstairs, to help them to unshawl,
smooth their hair, and make themselves smart; to reconduct them to the
drawing-room, to distribute amongst them books of engravings, or odd
things purchased from the Jew-basket. She was obliged to be a purchaser,
though she was a slack contributor; and if she had possessed plenty of
money, she would rather, when it was brought to the rectory--an awful
incubus!--have purchased the whole stock than contributed a single
pincushion.

It ought to be explained in passing, for the benefit of those who are not
au fait to the mysteries of the 'Jew-basket' and 'missionary basket,'
that these meubles are willow repositories, of the capacity of a
good-sized family clothes basket, dedicated to the purpose of conveying
from house to house a monster collection of pincushions, needlebooks,
cardracks, workbags, articles of infant wear, etc., etc., etc., made by
the willing or reluctant hands of the Christian ladies of a parish, and
sold perforce to the heathenish gentlemen thereof, at prices unblushingly
exorbitant. The proceeds of such compulsory sales are applied to the
conversion of the Jews, the seeking out of the ten missing tribes, or to
the regeneration of the interesting coloured population of the globe.
Each lady contributor takes it in her turn to keep the basket a month, to
sew for it, and to foist its contents on a shrinking male public. An
exciting time it is when that turn comes round. Some active-minded women,
with a good trading spirit, like it, and enjoy exceedingly the fun of
making hard-handed worsted-spinners cash up, to the tune of four or five
hundred per cent above the cost price, for articles quite useless to
them; other feebler souls object to it, and would rather see the prince
of darkness himself at their door any morning than that phantom basket,
brought with 'Mrs. Rouse's compliments; and please, ma'am, she says it's
your turn now.'

Miss Helstone's duties of hostess performed, more anxiously than
cheerily, she betook herself to the kitchen, to hold a brief
privy-council with Fanny and Eliza about the tea.

'What a lot on 'em!' cried Eliza, who was cook. 'And I put off the baking
to-day because I thought there would be bread plenty to fit while
morning. We shall never have enow.'

'Are there any tea-cakes?' asked the young mistress.

'Only three and a loaf. I wish these fine folk would stay at home till
they're asked; and I want to finish trimming my hat' (bonnet she meant).

'Then,' suggested Caroline, to whom the importance of the emergency gave
a certain energy, 'Fanny must run down to Briarfield and buy some muffins
and crumpets and some biscuits. And don't be cross, Eliza; we can't help
it now.'

'And which tea-things are we to have?'

'Oh, the best, I suppose. I'll get out the silver service.' And she ran
upstairs to the plate-closet, and presently brought down teapot,
cream-ewer, and sugar-basin.

'And mun we have th' urn?'

'Yes; and now get it ready as quickly as you can, for the sooner we have
tea over the sooner they will go--at least, I hope so. Heigh-ho! I wish
they were gone,' she sighed, as she returned to the drawing-room.
'Still,' she thought, as she paused at the door ere opening it, 'if
Robert would but come even now, how bright all would be! How
comparatively easy the task of amusing these people if he were present!
There would be an interest in hearing him talk (though he never says much
in company), and in talking in his presence. There can be no interest in
hearing any of them, or in speaking to them. How they will gabble when
the curates come in, and how weary I shall grow with listening to them!
But I suppose I am a selfish fool. These are very respectable
gentlefolks. I ought, no doubt, to be proud of their countenance. I don't
say they are not as good as I am--far from it--but they are different
from me.

She went in.

Yorkshire people in those days took their tea round the table, sitting
well into it, with their knees duly introduced under the mahogany. It was
essential to have a multitude of plates of bread and butter, varied in
sorts and plentiful in quantity. It was thought proper, too, that on the
centre plate should stand a glass dish of marmalade. Among the viands was
expected to be found a small assortment of cheesecakes and tarts. If
there was also a plate of thin slices of pink ham garnished with green
parsley, so much the better.

Eliza, the rector's cook, fortunately knew her business as provider. She
had been put out of humour a little at first, when the invaders came so
unexpectedly in such strength; but it appeared that she regained her
cheerfulness with action, for in due time the tea was spread forth in
handsome style, and neither ham, tarts, nor marmalade were wanting among
its accompaniments.

The curates, summoned to this bounteous repast, entered joyous; but at
once, on seeing the ladies, of whose presence they had not been
forewarned, they came to a stand in the doorway. Malone headed the party;
he stopped short and fell back, almost capsizing Donne, who was behind
him. Donne, staggering three paces in retreat, sent little Sweeting into
the arms of old Helstone, who brought up the rear. There was some
expostulation, some tittering. Malone was desired to mind what he was
about, and urged to push forward, which at last he did, though colouring
to the top of his peaked forehead a bluish purple. Helstone, advancing,
set the shy curates aside, welcomed all his fair guests, shook hands and
passed a jest with each, and seated himself snugly between the lovely
Harriet and the dashing Hannah. Miss Mary he requested to move to the
seat opposite to him, that he might see her if he couldn't be near her.
Perfectly easy and gallant, in his way, were his manners always to young
ladies, and most popular was he amongst them; yet at heart he neither
respected nor liked the sex, and such of them as circumstances had
brought into intimate relation with him had ever feared rather than loved
him.

The curates were left to shift for themselves. Sweeting, who was the
least embarrassed of the three, took refuge beside Mrs. Sykes, who, he
knew, was almost as fond of him as if he had been her son. Donne, after
making his general bow with a grace all his own, and saying in a high
pragmatical voice, 'How d'ye do, Miss Helstone?' dropped into a seat at
Caroline's elbow, to her unmitigated annoyance, for she had a peculiar
antipathy to Donne, on account of his stultified and immovable
self-conceit and his incurable narrowness of mind. Malone, grinning most
unmeaningly, inducted himself into the corresponding seat on the other
side. She was thus blessed in a pair of supporters, neither of whom, she
knew, would be of any mortal use, whether for keeping up the
conversation, handing cups, circulating the muffins, or even lifting the
plate from the slop basin. Little Sweeting, small and boyish as he was,
would have been worth twenty of them. Malone, though a ceaseless talker
when there were only men present, was usually tongue-tied in the presence
of ladies. Three phrases, however, he had ready cut and dried, which he
never failed to produce:--

1stly. 'Have you had a walk to-day, Miss Helstone?'

2ndly. 'Have you seen your cousin Moore lately?'

3rdly. 'Does your class at the Sunday school keep up its number?'

These three questions being put and responded to, between Caroline and
Malone reigned silence.

With Donne it was otherwise; he was troublesome, exasperating. He had a
stock of small-talk on hand, at once the most trite and perverse that can
well be imagined--abuse of the people of Briarfield; of the natives of
Yorkshire generally; complaints of the want of high society; of the
backward state of civilisation in these districts; murmurings against the
disrespectful conduct of the lower orders in the north toward their
betters; silly ridicule of the manner of living in these parts--the want
of style, the absence of elegance, as if he, Donne, had been accustomed
to very great doings indeed, an insinuation which his somewhat underbred
manner and aspect failed to bear out. These strictures, he seemed to
think, must raise him in the estimation of Miss Helstone or of any other
lady who heard him; whereas with her, at least, they brought him to a
level below contempt, though sometimes, indeed, they incensed her; for, a
Yorkshire girl herself, she hated to hear Yorkshire abused by such a
pitiful prater; and when wrought up to a certain pitch, she would turn
and say something of which neither the matter nor the manner recommended
her to Mr. Donne's good-will. She would tell him it was no proof of
refinement to be ever scolding others for vulgarity, and no sign of a
good pastor to be eternally censuring his flock. She would ask him what
he had entered the church for, since he complained there were only
cottages to visit, and poor people to preach to--whether he had been
ordained to the ministry merely to wear soft clothing and sit in king's
houses. These questions were considered by all the curates as, to the
last degree, audacious and impious.

Tea was a long time in progress; all the guests gabbled as their hostess
had expected they would. Mr. Helstone, being in excellent spirits--when,
indeed, was he ever otherwise in society, attractive female society? it
being only with the one lady of his own family that he maintained a grim
taciturnity--kept up a brilliant flow of easy prattle with his right-hand
and left-hand neighbours, and even with his vis-à-vis, Miss Mary; though,
as Mary was the most sensible, the least coquettish, of the three, to her
the elderly widower was the least attentive. At heart he could not abide
sense in women. He liked to see them as silly, as light-headed, as vain,
as open to ridicule as possible, because they were then in reality what
he held them to be, and wished them to be--inferior, toys to play with,
to amuse a vacant hour, and to be thrown away.

Hannah was his favourite. Harriet, though beautiful, egotistical, and
self-satisfied, was not quite weak enough for him. She had some genuine
self-respect amidst much false pride, and if she did not talk like an
oracle, neither would she babble like one crazy; she would not permit
herself to be treated quite as a doll, a child, a plaything; she expected
to be bent to like a queen.

Hannah, on the contrary, demanded no respect, only flattery. If her
admirers only told her that she was an angel, she would let them treat
her like an idiot. So very credulous and frivolous was she, so very silly
did she become when besieged with attention, flattered and admired to the
proper degree, that there were moments when Helstone actually felt
tempted to commit matrimony a second time, and to try the experiment of
taking her for his second helpmeet; but fortunately the salutary
recollection of the ennuis of his first marriage, the impression still
left on him of the weight of the millstone he had once worn round his
neck, the fixity of his feelings respecting the insufferable evils of
conjugal existence, operated as a check to his tenderness, suppressed the
sigh heaving his old iron lungs, and restrained him from whispering to
Hannah proposals it would have been high fun and great satisfaction to
her to hear.

It is probable she would have married him if he had asked her; her
parents would have quite approved the match. To them his fifty-five
years, his bend-leather heart, could have presented no obstacles; and as
he was a rector, held an excellent living, occupied a good house, and was
supposed even to have private property (though in that the world was
mistaken; every penny of the £5,000 inherited by him from his father had
been devoted to the building and endowing of a new church at his native
village in Lancashire--for he could show a lordly munificence when he
pleased, and if the end was to his liking, never hesitated about making a
grand sacrifice to attain it)--her parents, I say, would have delivered
Hannah over to his loving kindness and his tender mercies without one
scruple; and the second Mrs. Helstone, inverting the natural order of
insect existence, would have fluttered through the honeymoon a bright,
admired butterfly, and crawled the rest of her days a sordid, trampled
worm.

Little Mr. Sweeting, seated between Mrs. Sykes and Miss Mary, both of
whom were very kind to him, and having a dish of tarts before him, and
marmalade and crumpet upon his plate, looked and felt more content than
any monarch. He was fond of all the Misses Sykes; they were all fond of
him. He thought them magnificent girls, quite proper to mate with one of
his inches. If he had a cause of regret at this blissful moment, it was
that Miss Dora happened to be absent--Dora being the one whom he secretly
hoped one day to call Mrs. David Sweeting, with whom he dreamt of taking
stately walks, leading her like an empress through the village of
Nunnely; and an empress she would have been, if size could make an
empress. She was vast, ponderous. Seen from behind, she had the air of a
very stout lady of forty, but withal she possessed a good face, and no
unkindly character.

The meal at last drew to a close. It would have been over long ago if Mr.
Donne had not persisted in sitting with his cup half full of cold tea
before him, long after the rest had finished and after he himself had
discussed such allowance of viands as he felt competent to swallow--long,
indeed, after signs of impatience had been manifested all round the
board, till chairs were pushed back, till the talk flagged, till silence
fell. Vainly did Caroline inquire repeatedly if he would have another
cup, if he would take a little hot tea, as that must be cold, etc.; he
would neither drink it nor leave it. He seemed to think that this
isolated position of his gave him somehow a certain importance, that it
was dignified and stately to be the last, that it was grand to keep all
the others waiting. So long did he linger, that the very urn died; it
ceased to hiss. At length, however, the old rector himself, who had
hitherto been too pleasantly engaged with Hannah to care for the delay,
got impatient.

'For whom are we waiting?' he asked.

'For me, I believe,' returned Donne complacently, appearing to think it
much to his credit that a party should thus be kept dependent on his
movements.

'Tut!' cried Helstone. Then standing up, 'Let us return thanks,' said he;
which he did forthwith, and all quitted the table. Donne, nothing
abashed, still sat ten minutes quite alone, whereupon Mr. Helstone rang
the bell for the things to be removed. The curate at length saw himself
forced to empty his cup, and to relinquish the rôle which, he thought,
had given him such a felicitous distinction, drawn upon him such
flattering general notice.

And now, in the natural course of events (Caroline, knowing how it would
be, had opened the piano, and produced music-books in readiness), music
was asked for. This was Mr. Sweeting's chance for showing off. He was
eager to commence. He undertook, therefore, the arduous task of
persuading the young ladies to favour the company with an air--a song.
Con amore he went through the whole business of begging, praying,
resisting excuses, explaining away difficulties, and at last succeeded in
persuading Miss Harriet to allow herself to be led to the instrument.
Then out came the pieces of his flute (he always carried them in his
pocket, as unfailingly as he carried his handkerchief). They were screwed
and arranged; Malone and Donne meanwhile herding together and sneering at
him, which the little man, glancing over his shoulder, saw, but did not
heed at all. He was persuaded their sarcasm all arose from envy. They
could not accompany the ladies as he could; he was about to enjoy a
triumph over them.

The triumph began. Malone, much chagrined at hearing him pipe up in most
superior style, determined to earn distinction too, if possible, and all
at once assuming the character of a swain (which character he had
endeavoured to enact once or twice before, but in which he had not
hitherto met with the success he doubtless opined his merits deserved),
approached a sofa on which Miss Helstone was seated, and depositing his
great Irish frame near her, tried his hand (or rather tongue) at a fine
speech or two, accompanied by grins the most extraordinary and
incomprehensible. In the course of his efforts to render himself
agreeable, he contrived to possess himself of the two long sofa cushions
and a square one; with which, after rolling them about for some time with
strange gestures, he managed to erect a sort of barrier between himself
and the object of his attentions. Caroline, quite willing that they
should be sundered, soon devised an excuse for stepping over to the
opposite side of the room, and taking up a position beside Mrs. Sykes, of
which good lady she entreated some instruction in a new stitch in
ornamental knitting, a favour readily granted; and thus Peter Augustus
was thrown out.

Very sullenly did his countenance lower when he saw himself
abandoned--left entirely to his own resources on a large sofa, with the
charge of three small cushions on his hands. The fact was, he felt
disposed seriously to cultivate acquaintance with Miss Helstone, because
he thought, in common with others, that her uncle possessed money, and
concluded that, since he had no children, he would probably leave it to
his niece. Gérard Moore was better instructed on this point: he had seen
the neat church that owed its origin to the rector's zeal and cash, and
more than once, in his inmost soul, had cursed an expensive caprice which
crossed his wishes.

The evening seemed long to one person in that room. Caroline at intervals
dropped her knitting on her lap, and gave herself up to a sort of
brain-lethargy--closing her eyes and depressing her head--caused by what
seemed to her the unmeaning hum around her,--the inharmonious tasteless
rattle of the piano keys, the squeaking and gasping notes of the flute,
the laughter and mirth of her uncle, and Hannah, and Mary, she could not
tell whence originating for she heard nothing comic or gleeful in their
discourse; and more than all, by the interminable gossip of Mrs. Sykes
murmured dose at her ear, gossip which rang the changes on four
subjects--her own health and that of the various members of her family;
the missionary and Jew baskets and their contents; the late meeting at
Nunnely, and one which was expected to come off next week at Whinbury.

Tired at length to exhaustion, she embraced the opportunity of Mr.
Sweeting coming up to speak to Mrs. Sykes to slip quietly out of the
apartment, and seek a moment's respite in solitude. She repaired to the
dining-room where the dear but now low remnant of a fire still burned in
the grate. The place was empty and quiet, glasses and decanters were
cleared from the table, the chairs were put back in their places, all was
orderly. Caroline sank into her uncle's large easy-chair, half shut her
eyes, and rested herself--rested at least her limits, her senses, her
hearing, her vision--weary with listening to nothing, and gazing on
vacancy. As to her mind, that flew directly to the Hollow. It stood on
the threshold of the parlour there, then it passed to the counting-house,
and wondered which spot was blessed by the presence of Robert. It so
happened that neither locality had that honour; for Robert was half a
mile away from both and much nearer to Caroline than her deadened spirit
suspected. He was at this moment crossing the churchyard, approaching the
rectory garden-gate--not, however, corning to see his cousin, but intent
solely on communicating a brief piece of intelligence to the rector.

Yes, Caroline; you hear the wire of the bell vibrate; it rings again for
the fifth time this afternoon. You start, and you are certain now that
this must be he of whom you dream. Why you are so certain you cannot
explain to yourself, but you know it. You lean forward, listening eagerly
as Fanny opens the door. Right! That is the voice--low, with the slight
foreign accent, but so sweet, as you fancy. You half rise. 'Fanny will
tell him Mr. Helstone is with company, and then he will go away.' Oh! she
cannot let him go. In spite of herself, in spite of her reason, she walks
half across the room; she stands ready to dart out in case the step
should retreat; but he enters the passage. 'Since your master is
engaged,' he says, 'just show me into the dining-room. Bring me pen and
ink. I will write a short note and leave it for him.'

Now, having caught these words, and hearing him advance, Caroline, if
there was a door within the dining-room, would glide through it and
disappear. She feels caught, hemmed in; she dreads her unexpected
presence may annoy him. A second since she would have flown to him; that
second past, she would flee from him. She cannot. There is no way of
escape. The dining-room has but one door, through which now enters her
cousin. The look of troubled surprise she expected to see in his face has
appeared there, has shocked her, and is gone. She has stammered a sort of
apology:

'I only left the drawing-room a minute for a little quiet.'

There was something so diffident and downcast in the air and tone with
which she said this, any one might perceive that some saddening change
had lately passed over her prospects, and that the faculty of cheerful
self-possession had left her. Mr. Moore, probably, remembered how she had
formerly been accustomed to meet him with gentle ardour and hopeful
confidence. He must have seen how the check of this morning had operated.
Here was an opportunity for carrying out his new system with effect, if
he chose to improve it. Perhaps he found it easier to practise that
system in broad daylight, in his mill-yard, amidst busy occupations, than
in a quiet parlour, disengaged, at the hour of eventide. Fanny lit the
candles, which before had stood unlit on the table, brought writing
materials, and left the room. Caroline was about to follow her. Moore; to
act consistently, should have let her go; whereas he stood in the
doorway, and, holding out his hand, gently kept her back. He did not ask
her to stay, but he would not let her go.

'Shall I tell my uncle you are here?' asked she, still in the same
subdued voice.

'No; I can say to you all I had to say to him. You will be my messenger?'

'Yes, Robert.'

'Then you may just inform him that I have got a clue to the identity of
one, at least, of the men who broke my frames; that he belongs to the
same gang who attacked Sykes and Pearson's dressing-shop, and that I hope
to have him in custody to-morrow. You can remember that?'

'Oh yes!' These two monosyllables were uttered in a sadder tone than
ever; and as she said them she shook her head slightly and sighed. 'Will
you prosecute him?'

'Doubtless.'

'No, Robert.'

'And why no, Caroline?'

'Because it will set all the neighbourhood against you more than ever.'

'That is no reason why I should not do my duty, and defend my property.
This fellow is a great scoundrel, and ought to be incapacitated from
perpetrating further mischief'

'But his accomplices will take revenge on you. You do not know how the
people of this country bear malice. It is the boast of some of them that
they can keep a stone in their pocket seven years, turn it at the end of
that time, keep it seven years longer, and hurl it and hit their mark "at
last."'

Moore laughed.

'A most pithy vaunt,' said he--'one that redounds vastly to the credit of
your dear Yorkshire friends. But don't fear for me, Lina. I am on my
guard against these lamb-like compatriots of yours. Don't make yourself
uneasy about me.'

'How can I help it? You are my cousin. If anything happened--' She
stopped.

'Nothing will happen, Lina. To speak in your own language, there is a
Providence above all--is there not?'

'Yes, dear Robert. May He guard you!'

'And if prayers have efficacy, yours will benefit me. You pray for me
sometimes?'

'Not sometimes, Robert. You, and Louis, and Hortense are always
remembered.'

'So I have often imagined. It has occurred to me when, weary and vexed, I
have myself gone to bed like a heathen, that another had asked
forgiveness for my day, and safety for my night I don't suppose such
vicarial piety will avail much, but the petitions come out of a sincere
breast from innocent lips. They should be acceptable as Abel's offering;
and doubtless would be, if the object deserved them.'

'Annihilate that doubt. It is groundless.'

'When a man has been brought up only to make money, and lives to make it,
and for nothing else, and scarcely breathes any other air than that of
mills and markets, it seems odd to utter his name in a prayer, or to mix
his idea with anything divine; and very strange it seems that a good,
pure heart should take him in and harbour him, as if he had any claim to
that sort of nest. If I could guide that benignant heart, I believe I
should counsel it to exclude one who does not profess to have any higher
aim in life than that of patching up his broken fortune, and wiping clean
from his bourgeois scutcheon the foul stain of bankruptcy.'

The hint, though conveyed thus tenderly and modestly (as Caroline
thought), was felt keenly and comprehended dearly.

'Indeed, I only think--or I will only think--of you as my cousin,' was
the quick answer. 'I am beginning to understand things better than I did,
Robert, when you first came to England--better than I did a week, a day
ago. I know it is your duty to try to get on, and that it won't do for
you to be romantic; but in future you must not misunderstand me if I seem
friendly. You misunderstood me this morning, did you not?'

'What made you think so?'

'Your look--your manner.'

'But look at me now.'

'Oh! you are' different now. At present I dare speak to you.'

'Yet I am the same, except that I have left the tradesman behind me in
the Hollow. Your kinsman alone stands before you.'

'My cousin Robert--not Mr. Moore.'

'Not a bit of Mr. Moore. Caroline--'

Here the company was heard rising in the other room. The door was opened;
the pony-carriage was ordered; shawls and bonnets were demanded; Mr.
Helstone called for his niece.

'I must go, Robert.'

'Yes, you must go, or they will come in and find us here; and I, rather
than meet all that host in the passage, will take my departure through
the window. Luckily it opens like a door. One minute only--put down the
candle an instant--good-night. I kiss you because we are cousins, and,
being cousins, one--two--three kisses are allowable. Caroline,
good-night!'



Chapter 8 - Noah and Moses


The next day Moore had risen before the sun, and had taken a ride to
Whinbury and back ere his sister had made the café au lait or cut the
tartines for his breakfast What business he transacted there he kept to
himself. Hortense asked no questions: it was not her wont to comment on
his movements, nor his to render an account of them. The secrets of
business--complicated and often dismal mysteries--were buried in his
breast and never came out of their sepulchre save now and then to scare
Joe Scott, or give a start to some foreign correspondent. Indeed, a
general habit of reserve on whatever was important seemed bred in his
mercantile blood.

Breakfast over, he went to his counting-house. Henry, Joe Scott's boy,
brought in the letters and the daily papers; Moore seated himself at his
desk, broke the seals of the documents, and glanced them over. They were
all short, but not it seemed, sweet--probably rather sour, on the
contrary, for as Moore laid down the last, his nostrils emitted a
derisive and defiant snuff, and though he burst into no soliloquy, there
was a glance in his eye which seemed to invoke the devil, and lay charges
on him to sweep the whole concern to Gehenna. However, having chosen a
pen and stripped away the feathered top in a brief spasm of finger-fury
(only finger-fury--his face was placid), he dashed off a batch of
answers, sealed them, and then went out and walked through the mill. On
coming back he sat down to read his newspaper.

The contents seemed not absorbingly interesting; he more than once laid
it across his knee, folded his arms and gazed into the fire; he
occasionally turned his head towards the window; he looked at intervals
at his watch; in short, his mind appeared preoccupied. Perhaps he was
thinking of the beauty of the weather--for it was a fine and mild morning
for the season--and wishing to be out in the fields enjoying it. The door
of his counting-house stood wide open. The breeze and sunshine entered
freely; but the first visitant brought no spring perfume on its wings,
only an occasional sulphur-puff from the soot-thick column of smoke
rushing sable from the gaunt mill-chimney.

A dark-blue apparition (that of Joe Scott, fresh from a dyeing vat)
appeared momentarily at the open door, uttered the words 'He's comed,
sir,' and vanished.

Mr. Moore raised not his eyes from the paper. A large man,
broad-shouldered and massive-limbed, clad in fustian garments and gray
worsted stockings, entered, who was received with a nod, and desired to
take a seat, which he did, making the remark, as he removed his hat (a
very bad one), stowed it away under his chair, and wiped his forehead
with a spotted cotton handkerchief extracted from the hat-crown, that it
was 'raight dahn warm for Febewerry.' Mr. Moore assented--at least he
uttered some slight sound, which, though inarticulate, might pass for an
assent. The visitor now carefully deposited in the corner beside him an
official-looking staff which he bore in his hand; this done, he whistled,
probably by way of appearing at his ease.

'You have what is necessary, I suppose?' said Mr. Moore.

'Ay, ay! all's right.'

He renewed his whistling, Mr. Moore his reading. The paper apparently had
become more interesting. Presently, however, he turned to his cupboard,
which was within reach of his long arm, opened it without rising, took
out a black bottle--the same he had produced for Malone's benefit--a
tumbler, and a jug, placed them on the table, and said to his guest,--

'Help yourself; there's water in that jar in the corner.'

'I dunnut knaw that there's mich need, for all a body is dry' (thirsty)
'in a morning,' said the fustian gentleman, rising and doing as
requested.

'Will you tak naught yourseln, Mr. Moore?' he inquired, as with skilled
hand he mixed a portion, and having tested it by a deep draught, sank
back satisfied and bland in his seat. Moore, chary of words, replied by a
negative movement and murmur.

'Yah'd as good,' continued his visitor; 'it 'uld set ye up wald a sup o'
this stuff. Uncommon good Hollands. Ye get it fro' furrin parts, I'se
think?'

'Ay!'

'Tak my advice and try a glass on't. Them lads 'at's coming'll keep ye
talking, nob'dy knows how long. Ye'll need propping.'

'Have you seen Mr. Sykes this morning?' inquired Moore.

'I seed him a hauf an hour--nay, happen a quarter of an hour sin', just
afore I set off. He said he aimed to come here, and I sudn't wonder but
ye'll have old Helstone too. I seed 'em saddling his little nag as I
passed at back o' t' rectory.'

The speaker was a true prophet, for the trot of a little nag's hoofs was,
five minutes after, heard in the yard; it stopped, and a well-known nasal
voice cried aloud, 'Boy' (probably addressing Harry Scott, who usually
hung about the premises from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.), 'take my horse and lead
him into the stable.'

Helstone came in marching nimbly and erect, looking browner, keener, and
livelier than usual.

'Beautiful morning, Moore. How do, my boy? Ha! whom have we here?'
(turning to the personage with the staff). 'Sugden! What! You're going to
work directly? On my word, you lose no time. But I come to ask
explanations. Your message was delivered to me. Are you sure you are on
the right scent? How do you mean to set about the business? Have you got
a warrant?'

'Sugden has.'

'Then you are going to seek him now? I'll accompany you.'

'You will be spared that trouble, sir; he is coming to seek me. I'm just
now sitting instate waiting his arrival.'

'And who is it? One of my parishioners?'

Joe Scott had entered unobserved. He now stood, a most sinister phantom,
half his person being dyed of the deepest tint of indigo, leaning on the
desk. His master's answer to the rector's question was a smile. Joe took
the word. Putting on a quiet but pawky look, he said,--

'It's a friend of yours, Mr. Helstone, a gentleman you often speak of.'

'Indeed! His name, Joe? You look well this morning.'

'Only the Revd. Moses Barraclough; t' tub orator you call him sometimes,
I think.'

'Ah!' said the rector, taking out his snuff-box, and administering to
himself a very long pinch--'Ah! couldn't have supposed it. Why, the pious
man never was a workman of yours, Moore. He's a tailor by trade.'

'And so much the worse grudge I owe him, for interfering and setting my
discarded men against me.'

'And Moses was actually present at the battle of Stilbro' Moor? He went
there, wooden leg and all?'

'Ay, sir,' said Joe, 'he went there on horseback, that his leg mightn't
be noticed. He was the captain, and wore a mask. The rest only had their
faces blacked.'

'And how was he found out?'

'I'll tell you, sir,' said Joe 't' maister's not so fond of talking. I've
no objections. He courted Sarah, Mr. Moore's sarvant lass, and so it
seems she would have nothing to say to him; she either didn't like his
wooden leg or she'd some notion about his being a hypocrite. Happen (for
women is queer hands; we may say that amang werseln when there's none of
'em nigh) she'd have encouraged him, in spite of his leg and his deceit,
just to pass time like. I've known some on 'em do as mich, and some o' t'
bonniest and mimmest-looking, too--ay, I've seen clean, trim young
things, that looked as denty and pure as daisies, and wi' time a body
fun' 'em out to be nowt but stinging, venomed nettles.'

'Joe's a sensible fellow,' interjected Helstone.

'Howsiver, Sarah had another string to her bow. Fred Murgatroyd, one of
our lads, is for her, and as women judge men by their faces--and Fred has
a middling face, while Moses is none so handsome, as we all knaw--the
lass took on wi' Fred. A two-three months sin', Murgatroyd and Moses
chanced to meet one Sunday night; they'd both come lurking about these
premises wi' the notion of counselling Sarah to tak a bit of a walk wi'
them. They fell out, had a tussle, and Fred was worsted, for he's young
and small, and Barraclough for all he has only one leg, is almost as
strong as Sugden there--indeed, anybody that hears him roaring at a
revival or a love-feast may be sure he's no weakling.'

'Joe, you're insupportable,' here broke in Mr. Moore. 'You spin out your
explanation as Moses spins out his sermons. The long and short of it is,
Murgatroyd was jealous of Barraclough; and last night, as he and a friend
took shelter in a barn from a shower, they heard and saw Moses conferring
with some associates within. From their discourse it was plain he had
been the leader not only at Stilbro' Moor, but in the attack on Sykes's
property. Moreover they planned a deputation to wait on me this morning,
which the tailor is to head, and which, in the most religious and
peaceful spirit, is to entreat me to put the accursed thing out of my
tent. I rode over to Whinbury this morning, got a constable and a
warrant, and I am now waiting to give my friend the reception he
deserves. Here, meantime, comes Sykes. Mr. Helstone, you must spirit him
up. He feels timid at the thoughts of prosecuting.'

A gig was heard to roll into the yard. Mr. Sykes entered--a tall stout
man of about fifty, comely of feature, but feeble of physiognomy. He
looked anxious.

'Have they been? Are they gone? Have you got him? Is it over?' he asked.

'Not yet,' returned Moore with phlegm. 'We are waiting for them.'

'They'll not come; it's near noon. Better give it up. It will excite bad
feeling--make a stir--cause perhaps fatal consequences.'

'You need not appear,' said Moore. 'I shall meet them in the yard when
they come; you can stay here.'

'But my name must be seen in the law proceedings. A wife and family, Mr.
Moore--a wife and family make a man cautious.'

Moore looked disgusted. 'Give way, if you please,' said he, 'leave me to
myself. I have no objection to act alone; only be assured you will not
find safety in submission. Your partner Pearson gave way, and conceded,
and forbore. Well, that did not prevent them from attempting to shoot him
in his own house.'

'My dear sir; take a little wine and water,' recommended Mr. Helstone.
The wine and water was Hollands and water, as Mr. Sykes discovered when
he had compounded and swallowed a brimming tumbler thereof. It
transfigured him in two minutes, brought the colour back to his face, and
madeto-day word-valiant. He now announced that he hoped he was above
being trampled on by the common people; he was determined to endure the
insolence of the working classes no longer; he had considered of it, and
made up his mind to go all lengths; if money and spirit could put down
these rioters, they should be put down; Mr. Moore might do as he liked,
but he--Christopher Sykes--would spend his last penny in law before he
would be beaten; he'd settle them, or he'd see.

'Take another glass,' urged Moore.

Mr. Sykes didn't mind if he did. This was a cold morning (Sugden had
found it a warm one); it was necessary to be careful at this time of
year--it was proper to take something to keep the damp out; he had a
little cough already (here he coughed in attestation of the fact);
something of this sort (lifting the black bottle) was excellent, taken
medicinally (he poured the physic into his tumbler); he didn't make a
practice of drinking spirits in the morning, but occasionally it really
was prudent to take precautions.

'Quite prudent, and take them by all means,' urged the host.

Mr. Sykes now addressed Mr. Helstone, who stood on the hearth, his
shovel-hat on his head,. watching him significantly with his little, keen
eyes.

'You, sir, as a clergyman,' said he, 'may feel it disagreeable to be
present amid scenes of hurry and flurry, and, I may say, peril. I dare
say your nerves won't stand it. You're a man of peace, sir; but we
manufacturers, living in the world, and always in turmoil, get quite
belligerent. Really, there's an ardour excited by the thoughts of danger
that makes my heart pant. When Mrs. Sykes is afraid of the house being
attacked and broke open--as she is every night--I get quite excited. I
couldn't describe to you, sir, my feelings. Really, if anybody was to
come--thieves or anything--I believe I should enjoy it, such is my
spirit.'

The hardest of laughs, though brief and low, and by no means insulting,
was the response of the rector. Moore would have pressed upon the heroic
mill-owner a third tumbler; but the clergyman, who never transgressed,
nor would suffer others in his presence to transgress, the bounds of
decorum, checked him.

'Enough is as good as a feast, is it not, Mr. Sykes?' he said; and Mr.
Sykes assented, and then sat and watched Joe Scott remove the bottle at a
sign from Helstone, with a self-satisfied simper on his lips and a
regretful glisten in his eye. Moore looked as if he should have liked to
fool him to the top of his bent. What would a certain young kinswoman of
his have said could she have seen her dear, good, great Robert--her
Coriolanus--just now? Would she have acknowledged in that mischievous,
sardonic visage the same face to which she had looked up with such love,
which had bent over her with such gentleness last night? Was that the man
who had spent so quiet an evening with his sister and his cousin so suave
to one, so tender to the other reading Shakespeare and listening to
Chénier?

Yes, it was the same man, only seen on a different side--a side Caroline
had not yet fairly beheld, though perhaps she had enough sagacity faintly
to suspect its existence. Well, Caroline had, doubtless, her defective
side too. She was human. She must, then, have been very imperfect, and
had she seen Moore on his very worst side she would probably have said
this to herself and excused him. Love can excuse anything except
Meanness; but Meanness kills Love, cripples even Natural Affection;
without Esteem True Love cannot exist. Moore, with all his faults, might
be esteemed; for he had no moral scrofula in his mind, no hopeless
polluting taint--such, for instance, as that of falsehood; neither was he
the slave of his appetites. The active life to which he had been born and
bred had given him something else to do than to join the futile chase of
the pleasure-hunter. He was a man integrated, the disciple of reason,
not the votary of sense. The same might be said of old Helstone: neither
of these two would look, think, or speak a lie; for neither of them had
the wretched black bottle, which had just been put away, any charms; both
might boast a valid claim to the proud title of 'lord of the creation,'
for no animal vice was lord of them; they looked and were superior beings
to poor Sykes.

A sort of gathering and trampling sound was heard in the yard, and then a
pause. Moore walked to the window; Helstone followed. Both stood on one
side, the tall junior behind the under-sized senior, looking forth
carefully, so that they might not be visible from without. Their sole
comment on what they saw was a cynical smile flashed into each other's
stern eyes.

A flourishing oratorical cough was now heard, followed by the
interjection 'Whisht!' designed, as it seemed, to still the hum of
several voices. Moore opened his casement an inch or two to admit sound
more freely.

'Joseph Scott,' began a snuffling voice--Scott was standing sentinel at
the counting-house door--'might we inquire if your master be within, and
is to be spoken to?'

'He's within, ay,' said Joe nonchalantly.

'Would you then, if you please' (emphasis on 'you'), 'have the goodness
to tell him that twelve gentlemen wants to see him.'

'He'd happen ax what for,' suggested Joe. 'I mught as wed tell him that
at t' same time.'

'For a purpose,' was the answer. Joe entered.

'Please, sir, there's twelve gentlemen wants to see ye, "for a purpose."'

'Good, Joe; I'm their man.--Sugden, come when I whistle.'

Moore went out, chuckling dryly. He advanced into the yard, one hand in
his pocket, the other in his waistcoat, his cap brim over his eyes,
shading in some measure their deep dancing ray of scorn. Twelve men
waited in the yard, some in their shirt-sleeves, some in blue aprons. Two
figured conspicuously in the van of the party. One, a little dapper
strutting man with a turned-up nose; the other a broad-shouldered fellow,
distinguished no less by his demure face and catlike, trustless eyes than
by a wooden leg and stout crutch. There was a kind of leer about his
lips; he seemed laughing in his sleeve at some person or thing; his whole
air was anything but that of a true man.

'Good-morning, Mr. Barraclough,' said Moore debonairly, for him.

'Peace be unto you!' was the answer, Mr. Barraclough entirely closing his
naturally half-shut eyes as he delivered it.

'I'm obliged to you. Peace is an excellent thing; there's nothing I more
wish for myself. But that is not all you have to say to me, I suppose? I
imagine peace is not your purpose?'

'As to our purpose,' began Barraclough, 'it's one that may sound strange
and perhaps foolish to ears like yours, for the childer of this world is
wiser in their generation than the childer of light.'

'To the point, if you please, and let me hear what it is.'

'Ye'se hear, sir. If I cannot get it off, there's eleven behint can help
me. It is a grand purpose; and' (changing his voice from a half-sneer to
a whine) 'it's the Looard's own purpose, and that's better.'

'Do you want a subscription to a new Ranter's chapel, Mr. Barraclough?
Unless your errand be something of that sort, I cannot see what you have
to do with it.'

'I hadn't that duty on my mind, sir; but as Providence has led ye to
mention the subject, I'll make it i' my way to tak ony trifle ye may have
to spare, the smallest contribution will be acceptable.'

With that he doffed his hat, and held it out as a begging-box, a brazen
grin at the same time crossing his countenance.

'If I gave you sixpence you would drink it.'

Barraclough uplifted the palms of his hands and the whites of his eyes,
evincing in the gesture a mere burlesque of hypocrisy.

'You seem a fine fellow,' said Moore, quite coolly and dryly; 'you don't
care for showing me that you are a double-dyed hypocrite, that your trade
is fraud. You expect indeed to make me laugh at the cleverness with which
you play your coarsely farcical part, while at the same time you think
you are deceiving the men behind you.'

Moses' countenance lowered. He saw he had gone too far. He was going to
answer, when the second leader, impatient of being hitherto kept in the
background, stepped forward. This man did not look like a traitor, though
he had an exceedingly self-confident and conceited air.

'Mr. Moore,' commenced he, speaking also in his throat and nose, and
enunciating each word very slowly, as if with a view to giving his
audience time to appreciate fully the uncommon elegance of the
phraseology, 'it might, perhaps, justly be said that reason rather than
peace is our purpose. We come, in the first place, to request you to hear
reason, and should you refuse, it is my duty to warn you, in very decided
terms, that measures will be had resort to' (he meant recourse) which
will probably terminate in--in bringing you to a sense of the unwisdom,
of the--the foolishness which seems to guide and guard your proceedings
as a tradesman in this manufacturing part of the country. Hem! Sir, I
would beg to allude that as a furriner, coming from a distant coast,
another quarter and hemisphere of this globe, thrown, as I may say, a
perfect outcast on these shores--the cliffs of Albion--you have not that
understanding of huz and wer ways which might conduce to the benefit of
the working-classes. If, to come at once to partic'lars, you'd consider
to give up this here mill, and go without further protractions straight
home to where you belong, it 'ud happen be as well. I can see naught
ageean such a plan.--What hev ye to say tull't, lads?' turning round to
the other members of the deputation, who responded unanimously, 'Hear,
hear!'

'Brayvo, Noah o' Tim's!' murmured Joe Scott, who stood behind Mr. Moore;
'Moses'll niver beat that. Cliffs o' Albion, and t' other hemisphere! My
certy! Did ye come fro' th' Antarctic Zone, maister? Moses is dished.'

Moses, however, refused to be dished. He thought he would try again.
Casting a somewhat ireful glance at 'Noah o' Tim's,' he launched out in
his turn; and now he spoke in a serious tone, relinquishing the sarcasm
which he found had not answered.

'Or iver you set up the pole o' your tent amang us, Mr. Moore, we lived
i' peace and quietness--yea, I may say, in all loving-kindness. I am not
myself an aged person as yet, but I can remember as far back as maybe
some twenty year, when hand-labour were encouraged and respected, and no
mischief-maker had ventured to introduce these here machines which is so
pernicious. Now, I'm not a cloth-dresser myself, but by trade a tailor.
Howsiver, my heart is of a softish nature. I'm a very feeling man, and
when I see my brethren oppressed, like my great namesake of old, I stand
up for 'em; for which intent I this day speak with you face to face, and
advises you to part wi' your infernal machinery, and tak on more hands.'

'What if I don't follow your advice, Mr. Barraclough?'

'The Looard pardon you! The Looard soften your heart, sir!'

'Are you in connection with the Wesleyans now, Mr. Barraclough?'

'Praise God! Bless His name! I'm a joined Methody!'

'Which in no respect prevents you from being at the same time a drunkard
and a swindler. I saw you one night a week ago laid dead-drunk by the
roadside, as I returned from Stilbro' market; and while you preach peace,
you make it the business of your life to stir up dissension. You no more
sympathise with the poor who are in distress than you sympathise with me.
You incite them to outrage for bad purposes of your own; so does the
individual called Noah of Tim's. You two are restless, meddling, impudent
scoundrels, whose chief motive-principle is a selfish ambition, as
dangerous as it is puerile. The persons behind you are some of them
honest though misguided men; but you two I count altogether bad.'

Barraclough was going to speak.

'Silence! You have had your say, and now I will have mine. As to being
dictated to by you, or any Jack, Jem, or Jonathan on earth, I shall not
suffer it for a moment. You desire me to quit the country; you request me
to part with my machinery. In case I refuse, you threaten me. I do
refuse--point-blank! Here I stay, and by this mill I stand, and into it
will I convey the best machinery inventors can furnish. What will you do?
The utmost you can do--and this you will never dare to do--is to burn
down my mill, destroy its contents, and shoot me. What then? Suppose that
building was a ruin and I was a corpse--what then, you lads behind these
two scamps? Would that stop invention or exhaust science? Not for the
fraction of a second of time! Another and better gig-mill would rise on
the ruins of this, and perhaps a more enterprising owner come in my
place. Hear me! I'll make my cloth as I please, and according to the best
lights I have. In its manufacture I will employ what means I choose.
Whoever after hearing this, shall dare to interfere with me may just take
the consequences. An example shall prove I'm in earnest.'

He whistled shrill and loud. Sugden, his staff and warrant, came on the
scene.

Moore turned sharply to Barraclough. 'You were at Stilbro',' said he; 'I
have proof of that. You were on the moor, you wore a mask, you knocked
down one of my men with your own hand--you! a preacher of the
gospel!--Sugden, arrest him!'

Moses was captured. There was a cry and a rush to rescue, but the right
hand which all this while had lain hidden in Moore's breast, reappearing,
held out a pistol.

'Both barrels are loaded,' said he. 'I'm quite determined! Keep off.'

Stepping backwards facing the foe as he went, he guarded his prey to the
counting-house. He ordered Joe Scott to pass in with Sugden and the
prisoner, and to bolt the door inside. For himself, he walked backwards
and forwards along the front of the mill, looking meditatively on the
ground, his hand hanging carelessly by his side, but still holding the
pistol. The eleven remaining deputies watched him some time, talking
under their breath to each other. At length one of them approached. This
man looked very different from either of the two who had previously
spoken; he was hard-favoured, but modest and manly-looking.

'I've not much faith i' Moses Barraclough,' said he, 'and I would speak a
word to you myseln, Mr. Moore. It's out o' no ill-will that I'm here, for
my part; it's just to mak a effort to get things straightened, for
they're sorely a-crooked. Ye see we're ill off--varry ill off; wer
families is poor and pined. We're thrown out o' work wi' these frames; we
can get nought to do; we can earn nought. What is to be done? Mun we say,
wisht! and lig us down and dee? Nay; I've no grand words at my tongue's
end, Mr. Moore, but I feel that it wad be a low principle for a
reasonable man to starve to death like a dumb cratur. I willn't do't. I'm
not for shedding blood: I'd neither kill a man nor hurt a man; and I'm
not for pulling down mills and breaking machines--for, as ye say, that
way o' going on'll niver stop invention; but I'll talk--I'll mak as big a
din as ever I can. Invention may be all right, but I know it isn't right
for poor folks to starve. Them that governs mun find a way to help us,
they mun make fresh orderations. Ye'll say that's hard to do. So mich
louder mun we shout out then, for so much slacker will t' Parliament men
be to set on to a tough job.'

'Worry the Parliament-men as much as you please,' said Moore; 'but to
worry the mill-owners is absurd, and I for one won't stand it.'

'Ye're a raight hard un!' returned the workman; 'Willn't ye gie us a bit
o' time? Willn't ye consent to mak your changes rather more slowly?'

'Am I the whole body of clothiers in Yorkshire? Answer me that.'

'Ye're yourseln.'

'And only myself. And if I stopped by the way an instant, while others
are rushing on, I should be trodden down. If I did as you wish me to do,
I should be bankrupt in a month; and would my bankruptcy put bread into
your hungry children's mouths? William Farren, neither to your dictation
nor to that of any other will I submit. Talk to me no more about
machinery. I will have my own way. I shall get new frames in to-morrow.
If you broke these, I would still get more. I'll never give in.'

Here the mill-bell rang twelve o'clock. It was the dinner-hour. Moore
abruptly turned from the deputation and re-entered his counting-house.

His last words had left a bad, harsh impression; he at least, had 'failed
in the disposing of a chance he was lord of.' By speaking kindly to
William Farren--who was a very honest man, without envy or hatred of
those more happily circumstanced than himself, thinking it no hardship
and no injustice to be forced to live by labour, disposed to be
honourably content if he could but get work to do--Moore might have made
a friend. It seemed wonderful how he could turn from such a man without a
conciliatory or a sympathising expression. The poor fellow's face looked
haggard with want; he had the aspect of a man who had not known what it
was to live in comfort and plenty for weeks, perhaps months, past, and
yet there was no ferocity, no malignity in his countenance; it was worn,
dejected, austere, but still patient. How could Moore leave him thus,
with the words, 'I'll never give in,' and not a whisper of good-will, or
hope, or aid?

Farren, as he went home to his cottage--once, in better times, a decent,
clean, pleasant place, but now, though still clean, very dreary, because
so poor--asked himself this question. He concluded that the foreign
mill-owner was a selfish, an unfeeling, and, he thought, too, a foolish
man. It appeared to him that emigration, had he only the means to
emigrate, would be preferable to service under such a master. He felt
much cast down--almost hopeless.

On his entrance his wife served out, in orderly sort, such dinner as she
had to give him and the bairns. It was only porridge, and too little of
that. Some of the younger children asked for more when they had done
their portion--an application which disturbed William much. While his
wife quieted them as well as she could, he left his seat and went to the
door. He whistled a cheery stave, which did not, however, prevent a broad
drop or two (much more like the 'first of a thundershower' than those
which oozed from the wound of the gladiator) from gathering on the lids
of his gray eyes, and plashing thence to the threshold. He cleared his
vision with his sleeve, and the melting mood over, a very stern one
followed.

He still stood brooding in silence, when a gentleman in black came up--a
clergyman, it might be seen at once, but neither Helstone, nor Malone,
nor Donne, nor Sweeting. He might be forty years old; he was
plain-looking, dark-complexioned, and already rather gray-haired. He
stooped a little in walking. His countenance, as he came on, wore an
abstracted and somewhat doleful air; but in approaching Farren he looked
up, and then a hearty expression illuminated the preoccupied, serious
face.

'Is it you, William? How are you?' he asked.

'Middling, Mr. Hall. How are ye? Will ye step in and rest ye?'

Mr. Hall; whose name the reader has seen mentioned before (and who,
indeed, was vicar of Nunnely, of which parish Farren was a native, and
from whence he had removed but three years ago to reside in Briarfield,
for the convenience of being near Hollow's Mill, where he had obtained
work), entered the cottage, and having greeted the good-wife and the
children, sat down. He proceeded to talk very cheerfully about the length
of time that had elapsed since the family quitted his parish, the changes
which had occurred since; he answered questions touching his sister
Margaret, who was inquired after with much interest; he asked questions
in his turn, and at last, glancing hastily and anxiously round through
his spectacles (he wore spectacles, for he was short-sighted) at the bare
room, and at the meagre and wan faces of the circle about him--for the
children had come round his knee, and the father and mother stood before
him--he said abruptly,--'And how are you all? How do you get on?'

Mr. Hall, be it remarked, though an accomplished scholar, not only spoke
with a strong northern accent, but, on occasion, used freely
north-country expressions.

'We get on poorly,' said William; 'we're all out of work. I've selled
most o' t' household stuff, as ye may see; and what we're to do next, God
knows.'

'Has Mr. Moore turned you off?'

'He has turned us off, and I've sich an opinion of him now that I think
if he'd tak me on again to-morrow I wouldn't work for him.'

'It is not like you to say so, William.'

'I know it isn't; but I'm getting different to mysel'; I feel I am
changing. I wadn't heed if t' bairns and t' wife had enough to live on;
but they're pinched--they're pined.'

'Well, my lad, and so are you; I see you are. These are grievous times; I
see suffering wherever I turn. William, sit down. Grace, sit down. Let us
talk it over.'

And in order the better to talk it over, Mr. Hall lifted the least of the
children on to his knee, and placed his hand on the head of the next
least; but when the small things began to chatter to him he bade them
'Whisht!' and fixing his eyes on the grate, he regarded the handful of
embers which burned there very gravely.

'Sad times,' he said, 'and they last long. It is the will of God. His
will be done. But He tries us to the utmost.' Again he reflected. 'You've
no money, William, and you've nothing you could sell to raise a small
sum?'

'No. I've selled t' chest o' drawers, and t' clock, and t' bit of a
mahogany stand, and t' wife's bonny tea-tray and set o' cheeney that she
brought for a portion when we were wed.'

'And if somebody lent you a pound or two, could you make any good use of
it? Could you get into a new way of doing something?' Farren did not
answer, but his wife said quickly, 'Ay, I'm sure he could, sir. He's a
very contriving chap is our William. If he'd two or three pounds he could
begin selling stuff'

'Could you, William?'

'Please God,' returned William deliberately, 'I could buy groceries, and
bits o' tapes, and thread, and what I thought would sell, and I could
begin hawking at first.'

'And you know, sir,' interposed Grace, 'you're sure William would neither
drink, nor idle, nor waste, in any way. He's my husband, and I shouldn't
praise him; but I will say there's not a soberer, honester man i' England
nor he is.'

'Well, I'll speak to one or two friends, and I think I can promise to let
him have £5 in a day or two--as a loan, ye mind, not a gift. He must pay
it back.'

'I understand, sir. I'm quite agreeable to that.'

'Meantime, there's a few shillings for you, Grace, just to keep the pot
boiling till custom comes.--Now, bairns, stand up in a row and say your
catechism, while your mother goes and buys some dinner; for you've not
had much to-day, I'll be bound.--You begin, Ben. What is your name?'

Mr. Hall stayed till Grace came back; then he hastily took his leave,
shaking hands with both Farren and his wife. Just at the door he said to
them a few brief but very earnest words of religious consolation and
exhortation. With a mutual 'God bless you, sir!' 'God bless you, my
friends!' they separated.



Chapter 9 - Briarmains


Messrs Helstone and Sykes began to be extremely jocose and congratulatory
with Mr. Moore when he returned to them after dismissing the deputation.
He was so quiet, however, under their compliments upon his firmness etc.,
and wore a countenance so like a still, dark day, equally beamless and
breezeless, that the rector, after glancing shrewdly into his eyes,
buttoned up his felicitations with his coat, and said to Sykes, whose
senses were not acute enough to enable him to discover unassisted where
his presence and conversation were a nuisance, 'Come, sir; your road and
mine lie partly together. Had we not better bear each other company?
We'll bid Moore "good-morning" and leave him to the happy fancies he
seems disposed to indulge.'

'And where is Sugden?' demanded Moore, looking up. 'Ah, ha!' cried
Helstone. 'I've not been quite idle while you were busy. I've been
helping you a little; I flatter myself not injudiciously. I thought it
better not to lose time; so, while you were parleying with that
down-looking gentleman--Farren I think his name is--I opened this back
window, shouted to Murgatroyd, who was in the stable, to bring Mr.
Sykes's gig round; then I smuggled Sugden and brother Moses--wooden leg
and all--through the aperture, and saw them mount the gig (always with
our good friend Sykes's permission, of course). Sugden took the reins he
drives like Jehu--and in another quarter of an hour Barraclough will be
safe in Stilbro' jail.'

'Very good; thank you,' said Moore; 'and good-morning, gentlemen,' he
added, and so politely conducted them to the door, and saw them clear of
his premises.

He was a taciturn, serious man the rest of the day. He did not even bandy
a repartee with Joe Scott, who, for his part, said to his master only
just what was absolutely necessary to the progress of business, but
looked at him a good deal out of the corners of his eyes, frequently came
to poke the counting-house fire for him, and once, as he was locking up
for the day (the mill was then working short time, owing to the slackness
of trade), observed that it was a grand evening, and he 'could wish Mr.
Moore to take a bit of a walk up th' Hollow. It would do him good.'

At this recommendation Mr. Moore burst into a short laugh, and after
demanding of Joe what all this solicitude meant, and whether he took him
for a woman or a child, seized the keys from his hand, and shoved him by
the shoulders out of his presence. He called him back, however, ere he
had reached the yard-gate.

'Joe, do you know those Farrens? They are not well off, I suppose?'

'They cannot be well off, sir, when they've not had work as a three
month. Ye'd see yoursel' 'at William's sorely changed--fair pared.
They've selled most o' t' stuff out o' th' house.'

'He was not a bad workman?'

'Ye never had a better, sir, sin' ye began trade.'

'And decent people--the whole family?'

'Niver dacenter. Th' wife's a raight cant body, and as clean--ye mught
eat your porridge off th' house floor. They're sorely comed down. I wish
William could get a job as gardener or summat i' that way; he understands
gardening weel. He once lived wi' a Scotchman that tached him the
mysteries o' that craft, as they say.'

'Now, then, you can go, Joe. You need not stand there staring at me.'

'Ye've no orders to give, sir?'

'None, but for you to take yourself off.' Which Joe did accordingly.

Spring evenings are often cold and raw, and though this had been a fine
day, warm even in the morning and meridian sunshine, the air chilled at
sunset, the ground crisped, and ere dusk a hoar frost was insidiously
stealing over growing grass and unfolding bud. It whitened the pavement
in front of Briarmains (Mr. Yorke's residence), and made silent havoc
among the tender plants in his garden, and on the mossy level of his
lawn. As to that great tree, strong-trunked and broad-armed, which
guarded the gable nearest the road, it seemed to defy a spring-night
frost to harm its still bare boughs; and so did the leafless grove of
walnut-trees rising tall behind the house.

In the dusk of the moonless if starry night, lights from window's shone
vividly. This was no dark or lonely scene, nor even a silent one.
Briarmains stood near the highway. It was rather an old place, and had
been built ere that highway was cut, and when a lane winding up through
fields was the only path conducting to it. Briarfield lay scarce a mile
off; its hum was heard, its glare distinctly seen. Briar Chapel, a large,
new, raw Wesleyan place of worship, rose but a hundred yards distant; and
as there was even now a prayer-meeting being held within its walls, the
illumination of its windows cast a bright reflection on the road, while a
hymn of a most extraordinary description, such as a very Quaker might
feel himself moved by the Spirit to dance to, roused cheerily all the
echoes of the vicinage. The words were distinctly audible by snatches.
Here is a quotation or two from different strains; for the singers passed
jauntily from hymn to hymn and from tune to tune, with an ease and
buoyancy all their own:

'Oh! who can explain
This struggle for life,
This travail and pain,
This trembling, and strife?

'Plague, earthquake, and famine,
And tumult and war,
The wonderful coming
Of Jesus declare!

'For every fight
Is dreadful and loud:
The warrior's delight
Is slaughter and blood,

'His foes overturning,
Till all shall expire,
And this is with burning,
And fuel, and fire!'

Here followed an interval of clamorous prayer, accompanied by fearful
groans. A shout of 'I've found liberty!' 'Doad o' Bill's has fun'
liberty!' rang from the chapel, and out all the assembly broke again.

'What a mercy is this!
What a heaven of bliss!
How unspeakably happy am I!
Gathered into the fold,
With Thy people enrolled
With Thy people to live and to die!

'Oh, the goodness of God
In employing a clod
His tribute of glory to raise;
His standard to bear,
And with Triumph declare
His unspeakable riches of grace!

'Oh, the fathomless love
That has deigned to approve
And prosper the work in my hands.
With my pastoral crook
I went over the brook,
And behold I am spread into bands!

'Who, I ask in amaze,
Hath begotten me these?
And inquire from what quarter they came.
My full heart it replies,
They are born from the skies,
And gives glory to God and the Lamb!'

The stanza which followed this, after another and longer interregnum of
shouts, yells, ejaculations, frantic cries, agonised groans, seemed to
cap the climax of noise and zeal.

'Sleeping on the brink of sin,
Tophet gaped to take us in;
Mercy to our rescue flew,
Broke the snare, and brought us through.

'Here, as in a lion's den,
Undevoured we still remain,
Pass secure the watery flood,
Hanging on the arm of God.

Here--'

(Terrible, most distracting to the ear, was the strained shout in which
the last stanza was given.)

'Here we raise our voices higher,
Shout in the refiner's fire
Clap our hands amidst the flame,
Glory give to Jesus' name!'

The roof of the chapel did not fly off, which speaks volumes in praise of
its solid slating.

But if Briar Chapel seemed alive, so also did Briarmains, though
certainly the mansion appeared to enjoy a quieter phase of existence than
the temple. Some of its windows too were aglow; the lower casements
opened upon the lawn; curtains concealed the interior, and partly
obscured the ray of the candles which lit it, but they did not entirely
muffle the sound of voice and laughter. We are privileged to enter that
front door, and to penetrate to the domestic sanctum.

It is not the presence of company which makes Mr. Yorke's habitation
lively, for there is none within it save his own family, and they are
assembled in that farthest room to the right, the back parlour.

This is the usual sitting-room of an evening. Those windows would be seen
by daylight to be of brilliantly-stained glass, purple and amber the
predominant hues, glittering round a gravely-tinted medallion in the
centre of each, representing the suave head of William Shakespeare, and
the serene one of John Milton. Some Canadian views hung on the
walls--green forest and blue water scenery--and in the midst of them
blazes a night eruption of Vesuvius; very ardently it glows, contrasted
with the cool foam and azure of cataracts, and the dusky depths of woods.

The fire illuminating this room, reader, is such as, if you be a
southern, you do not often see burning on the hearth of a private
apartment It is a clear, hot coal fire, heaped high in the ample chimney.
Mr. Yorke will have such fires even in warm summer weather. He sits
beside it with a book in his hand, a little round stand at his elbow
supporting a candle; but he is not reading--he is watching his children.
Opposite to him sits his lady--a personage whom I might describe
minutely, but I feel no vocation to the task. I see her, though, very
plainly before me--a large woman of the gravest aspect, care on her front
and on her shoulders, but not over-whelming, inevitable care, rather the
sort of voluntary, exemplary cloud and burden people ever carry who deem
it their duty to be gloomy. Ah, well-a-day! Mrs. Yorke had that notion,
and grave as Saturn she was, morning, noon, and night; and hard things
she thought of any unhappy wight--especially of the female sex--who dared
in her presence to show the light of a gay heart on a sunny countenance.
In her estimation, to be mirthful was to be profane, to be cheerful was
to be frivolous. She drew no distinctions. Yet she was a very good wife,
a very careful mother, looked after her children unceasingly, was
sincerely attached to her husband; only the worst of it was, if she could
have had her will, she would not have permitted him to have any friend in
the world beside herself. All his relations were insupportable to her,
and she kept them at arm's length.

Mr. Yorke and she agreed perfectly well, yet he was naturally a social,
hospitable man, in advocate for family unity, and in his youth, as has
been said, he liked none but lively, cheerful women. Why he chose her,
how they contrived to suit each other, is a problem puzzling enough, but
which might soon be solved if one had time to go into the analysis of the
case. Suffice it here to say that Yorke had a shadowy side as well as a
sunny side to his character, and that his shadowy side found sympathy and
affinity in the whole of his wife's uniformly overcast nature. For the
rest, she was a strong-minded woman; never said a weak or a trite thing;
took stern, democratic views of society, and rather cynical ones of human
nature; considered herself perfect and safe, and the rest of the world
all wrong. Her main fault was a brooding, eternal, immitigable suspicion
of all men, things, creeds, and parties; this suspicion was a mist before
her eyes, a false guide in her path, wherever she looked, wherever she
turned.

It may be supposed that the children of such a pair were not likely to
turn out quite ordinary, commonplace beings; and they were not. You see
six of them, reader. The youngest is a baby on the mother's knee. It is
all her own yet, and that one she has not yet begun to doubt, suspect,
condemn; it derives its sustenance from her, it hangs on her, it clings
to her, it loves her above everything else in the world. She is sure of
that, because, as it lives by her, it cannot be otherwise, therefore she
loves it.

The two next are girls, Rose and Jessy; they are both now at their
father's knee; they seldom go near their mother, except when obliged to
do so. Rose, the elder, is twelve years old--she is like her father--the
most like him of the whole group--but it is a granite head copied in
ivory; all is softened in colour and line. Yorke himself has a harsh face
his daughter's is not harsh, neither is it quite pretty; it is simple,
childlike in feature; the round cheeks bloom: as to the gray eyes, they
are otherwise than childlike--a serious soul lights them--a young soul
yet, but it will mature, if the body lives; and neither father nor mother
have a spirit to compare with it. Partaking of the essence of each, it
will one day be better than either--stronger, much purer, more aspiring.
Rose is a still, sometimes a stubborn, girl now. Her mother wants to make
of her such a woman as she is herself--a woman of dark and dreary duties;
and Rose has a mind full-set, thick-sown with the germs of ideas her
mother never knew. It is agony to her often to have these ideas trampled
on and repressed. She has never rebelled yet, but if hard driven she will
rebel one day, and then it will be once for all. Rose loves her father:
her father does not rule her with a rod of iron; he is good to her. He
sometimes fears she will not live, so bright are the sparks of
intelligence which, at moments, flash from her glance and gleam in her
language. This idea makes him often sadly tender to her.

He has no idea that little Jessy will die young, she is so gay and
chattering, arch, original even now; passionate when provoked, but most
affectionate if caressed; by turns gentle and rattling; exacting, yet
generous; fearless of her mother, for instance, whose irrationally hard
and strict rule she has often defied--yet reliant on any who will help
her. Jessy, with her little piquant face, engaging prattle, and winning
ways, is made to be a pet, and her father's pet she accordingly is. It is
odd that the doll should resemble her mother feature by feature, as Rose
resembles her father, and yet the physiognomy--how different!

Mr. Yorke, if a magic mirror were now held before you, and if therein
were shown you your two daughters as they will be twenty years from this
night, what would you think? The magic mirror is here: you shall learn
their destinies--and first that of your little life, Jessy.

Do you know this place? No, you never saw it; but you recognise the
nature of these trees, this foliage--the cypress, the willow, the yew.
Stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you, nor are these dim
garlands of everlasting flowers. Here is the place--green sod and a gray
marble headstone. Jessy sleeps below. She lived through an April day;
much loved was she, much loving. She often, in her brief life, shed
tears, she had frequent sorrows; she smiled between, gladdening whatever
saw her. Her death was tranquil and happy in Rose's guardian arms, for
Rose had been her stay and defence through many trials. The dying and the
watching English girls were at that hour alone in a foreign country, and
the soil of that country gave Jessy a grave.

Now, behold Rose two years later. The crosses and garlands looked
strange, but the hills and woods of this landscape look still stranger.
This, indeed, is far from England: remote must be the shores which wear
that wild, luxuriant aspect. This is some virgin solitude. Unknown birds
flutter round the skirts of that forest; no European river this, on whose
banks Rose sits thinking. The little quiet Yorkshire girl is a lonely
emigrant in some region of the southern hemisphere. Will she ever come
back? The three eldest of the family are all boys--Matthew, Mark, and
Martin. They are seated together in that corner, engaged in some game.
Observe their three heads: much alike at a first glance, at a second,
different; at a third, contrasted. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, red-cheeked
are the whole trio; small, English features they all possess; all own a
blended resemblance to sire and mother; and yet a distinctive
physiognomy, mark of a separate character, belongs to each.

I shall not say much about Matthew, the first-born of the house, though
it is impossible to avoid gazing at him long, and conjecturing what
qualities that visage hides or indicates. He is no plain-looking boy:
that jet-black hair, white brow, high-coloured cheek, those quick, dark
eyes, are good points in their way. How is it that, look as long as you
will, there is but one object in the room, and that the most sinister, to
which Matthew's face seems to bear an affinity, and of which, ever and
anon, it reminds you strangely--the eruption of Vesuvius? Flame and
shadow seem the component parts of that lad's soul--no daylight in it,
and no sunshine, and no pure, cool moonbeam ever shone there. He has an
English frame, but, apparently, not an English mind--you would say, an
Italian stiletto in a sheath of British workmanship. He is crossed in the
game--look at his scowl. Mr. Yorke sees it, and what does he say? In a
low voice he pleads, 'Mark and Martin, don't anger your brother.' And
this is ever the tone adopted by both parents. Theoretically, they decry
partiality--no rights of primogeniture are to be allowed in that house;
but Matthew is never to be vexed, never to be opposed; they avert
provocation from him as assiduously as they would avert fire from a
barrel of gunpowder. 'Concede, conciliate,' is their motto wherever he is
concerned. The republicans are fast making a tyrant of their own flesh
and blood. This the younger scions know and feel, and at heart they all
rebel against the injustice. They cannot read their parents' motives;
they only see the difference of treatment. The dragon's teeth are already
sown amongst Mr. Yorke's young olive-branches; discord will one day be
the harvest.

Mark is a bonny-looking boy, the most regular-featured of the family. He
is exceedingly calm; his smile is shrewd; he can say the driest, most
cutting things in the quietest of tones. Despite his tranquillity, a
somewhat heavy brow speaks temper, and reminds you that the smoothest
waters are not always the safest. Besides, he is too still, unmoved,
phlegmatic, to be happy. Life will never have much joy in it for Mark: by
the time he is five-and-twenty he will wonder why people ever laugh, and
think all fools who seem merry. Poetry will not exist for Mark, either in
literature or in life; its best effusions will sound to him mere rant and
jargon. Enthusiasm will be his aversion and contempt. Mark will have no
youth; while he looks juvenile and blooming, he will be already
middle-aged in mind. His body is now fourteen years of age, but his soul
is already thirty.

Martin, the youngest of the three, owns another nature. Life may, or may
not; be brief for him, but it will certainly be brilliant. He will pass
through all its illusions, half believe in them, wholly enjoy them, then
outlive them. That boy is not handsome--not so handsome as either of his
brothers. He is plain; there is a husk upon him, a dry shell, and he will
wear it till he is near twenty, then he will put it off. About that
period he'll make himself handsome. He will wear uncouth manners till
that age, perhaps homely garments; but the chrysalis will retain the
power of transfiguring itself into the butterfly, and such
transfiguration will, in due season, take place. For a space he will be
vain, probably a downright puppy, eager for pleasure and desirous of
admiration, athirst, too, for knowledge. He will want all that the world
can give him, both of enjoyment and lore--he will perhaps, take deep
draughts at each fount. That thirst satisfied, what next? I know not.
Martin might be a remarkable man. Whether he will or not, the seer is
powerless to predict: on that subject there has been no open vision.

Take Mr. Yorke's family in the aggregate: there is as much mental power
in those six young heads, as much originality as much activity and vigour
of brain, as--divided amongst half a dozen commonplace broods--would give
to each rather more than an average amount of sense and capacity. Mr.
Yorke knows this, and is proud of his race. Yorkshire has such families
here and there amongst her hills and wolds--peculiar, racy, vigorous; of
good blood and strong brain; turbulent somewhat in the pride of their
strength and intractable in the force of their native powers; wanting
polish, wanting consideration, wanting docility, but sound, spirited, and
true-bred as the eagle on the cliff or the steed in the steppe.

A low tap is heard at the parlour door; the boys have been making such a
noise over their game, and little Jessy, besides, has been singing so
sweet a Scotch song to her father--who delights in Scotch and Italian
songs, and has taught his musical little daughter some of the best--that
the ring at the outer door was not observed.

'Come in,' says Mrs. Yorke, in that conscientiously constrained and
solemnised voice of hers, which ever modulates itself to a funereal
dreariness of tone, though the subject it is exercised upon be but to
give orders for the making of a pudding in the kitchen, to bid the boys
hang up their caps in the hall, or to call the girls to their
sewing--'come in!' And in came Robert Moore.

Moore's habitual gravity, as well as his abstemiousness (for the case of
spirit decanters is never ordered up when he pays an evening visit), has
so far recommended him to Mrs. Yorke that she has not yet made him the
subject of private animadversions with her husband; she has not yet found
out that he is hampered by a secret intrigue which prevents him from
marrying, or that he is a wolf in sheep's clothing--discoveries which she
made at an early date after marriage concerning most of her husband's
bachelor friends, and excluded them from her board accordingly; which
part of her conduct, indeed, might be said to have its just and sensible
as well as its harsh side.

'Well, is it you?' she says to Mr. Moore, as he comes up to her and gives
his hand. 'What are you roving about at this time of night for? You
should be at home.'

'Can a single man be said to have a home, madam?' he asks.

'Pooh!' says Mrs. Yorke, who despises conventional smoothness quite as
much as her husband does, and practises it as little, and whose plain
speaking on all occasions is carried to a point calculated, sometimes, to
awaken admiration, but oftener alarm--'pooh! you need not talk nonsense
to me; a single man can have a home if he likes. Pray, does not your
sister make a home for you?'

'Not she,' joined in Mr. Yorke. 'Hortense is an honest lass. But when I
was Robert's age I had five or six sisters, all as decent and proper as
she is; but you see, Hesther, for all that it did not hinder me from
looking out for a wife.'

'And sorely he has repented marrying me,' added Mrs. Yorke, who liked
occasionally to crack a dry jest against matrimony, even though it should
be at her own expense. 'He has repented it in sackcloth and ashes, Robert
Moore, as you may well believe when you see his punishment' (here she
pointed to her children). 'Who would burden themselves with such a set of
great, rough lads as those, if they could help it? It is not only
bringing them into the world, though that is bad enough, but they are all
to feed, to clothe, to rear, to settle in life. Young sir, when you feel
tempted to marry, think of our four sons and two daughters, and look
twice before you leap.'

'I am not tempted now, at any rate. I think these are not times for
marrying or giving in marriage.'

A lugubrious sentiment of this sort was sure to obtain Mrs. Yorke's
approbation. She nodded and groaned acquiescence; but in a minute she
said, 'I make little account of the wisdom of a Solomon of your age; it
will be upset by the first fancy that crosses you. Meantime, Sit down,
sir. You can talk, I suppose, as well sitting as standing?'

This was her way of inviting her guest to take a chair. He had no sooner
obeyed her than little Jessy jumped from her father's knee and ran into
Mr. Moore's arms, which were very promptly held out to receive her.

'You talk of marrying him,' said she to her mother, quite indignantly, as
she was lifted lightly to his knee, 'and he is married now, or as good.
He promised that I should be his wife last summer, the first time he saw
me in my new white frock and blue sash. Didn't he, father?' (These
children were not accustomed to say papa and mamma; their mother would
allow no such 'namby-pamby.')

'Ay, my little lassie, he promised; I'll bear witness. But make him say
it over again now, Jessy. Such as he are only false loons.'

'He is not false. He is too bonny to be false,' said Jessy, looking up to
her tall sweetheart with the fullest confidence in his faith.

'Bonny!' cried Mr. Yorke. 'That's the reason that he should be, and proof
that he is, a scoundrel'

'But he looks too sorrowful to be false,' here interposed a quiet voice
from behind the father's chair. 'If he were always laughing, I should
think he forgot promises soon; but Mr. Moore never laughs.'

'Your sentimental buck is the greatest cheat of all, Rose,' remarked Mr.
Yorke.

'He's not sentimental,' said Rose.

Mr. Moore turned to her with a little surprise, smiling at the same time.

'How do you know I am not sentimental, Rose?'

'Because I heard a lady say you were not'

'Voilà, qui devient intéressant!' exclaimed Mr. Yorke, hitching his chair
nearer the fire. 'A lady! That has quite a romantic twang. We must guess
who it is...Rosy, whisper the name low to your father after him
hear.'

'Rose, don't be too forward to talk,' here interrupted Mrs. Yorke, in her
usual kill-joy fashion, 'nor Jessy either. It becomes all children,
especially girls, to be silent in the presence of their elders.'

'Why have we tongues, then?' asked Jessy pertly; while Rose only looked
at her mother with an expression that seemed to say she should take that
maxim in and think it over at her leisure. After two minutes' grave
deliberation, she asked, 'And why especially girls, mother?'

'Firstly, because I say so; and secondly, because discretion and reserve
are a girl's best wisdom.'

'My dear madam,' observed Moore, 'what you say is excellent--it reminds
me, indeed, of my dear sister's observations; but really it is not
applicable to these little ones. Let Rose and Jessy talk to me freely, or
my chief pleasure in coming here is gone. I like their prattle; it does
me good.'

'Does it not?' asked Jessy. 'More good than if the rough lads came round
you.--You call them rough, mother, yourself.'

'Yes, mignonne, a thousand times more good. I have rough lads enough
about me all day long, poulet.'

'There are plenty of people,' continued she, 'who take notice of the
boys. All my uncles and aunts seem to think their nephews better than
their nieces, and when gentlemen come here to dine, it is always Matthew,
and Mark, and Martin that are talked to, and never Rose and me. Mr. Moore
is our friend, and we'll keep him: but mind, Rose, he's not so much your
friend as he is mine. He is my particular acquaintance, remember that!'
And she held up her small hand with an admonitory gesture.

Rose was quite accustomed to be admonished by that small hand. Her will
daily bent itself to that of the impetuous little Jessy. She was guided,
overruled by Jessy in a thousand things. On all occasions of show and
pleasure Jessy took the lead, and Rose fell quietly into the background,
whereas, when the disagreeables of life its work and privations--were in
question, Rose instinctively took upon her, in addition to her own share,
what she could of her sister's. Jessy had already settled it in her mind
that she, when she was old enough, was to be married, Rose, she decided,
must be an old maid, to live with her, look after her children, keep her
house. This state of things is not uncommon between two sisters, where
one is plain and the other pretty; but in this case, if there was a
difference in external appearance, Rose had the advantage: her face was
more regular featured than that of the piquant little Jessy. Jessy,
however, was destined to possess, along with sprightly intelligence and
vivacious feeling, the gift of fascination, the power to charm when,
where, and whom she would. Rose was to have a fine, generous soul, a
noble intellect profoundly cultivated, a heart as true as steel, but the
manner to attract was not to be hers.

'Now, Rose, tell me the name of this lady who denied that I was
sentimental,' urged Mr. Moore.

Rose had no idea of tantalisation, or she would have held him a while in
doubt. She answered briefly, 'I can't. I don't know her name.'

'Describe her to me. What was she like? Where did you see her?'

'When Jessy and I went to spend the day at Whinbury with Kate and Susan
Pearson, who were just come home from school, there was a party at Mrs.
Pearson's, and some grown-up ladies were sitting in a corner of the
drawing-room talking about you.'

'Did you know none of them?'

'Hannah, and Harriet, and Dora, and Mary Sykes.'

'Good. Were they abusing me, Rosy?'

'Some of them were. They called you a misanthrope. I remember the word. I
looked for it in the dictionary when I came home. It means a man-hater.'

'What besides?'

'Hannah Sykes said you were a solemn puppy.'

'Better!' cried Mr. Yorke, laughing. 'Oh, excellent! Hannah! that's the
one with the red hair--a fine girl, but half-witted.'

'She has wit enough for me, it appears,' said Moore: 'A solemn puppy,
indeed! Well, Rose, go on.'

'Miss Pearson said she believed there was a good deal of affectation
about you, and that with your dark hair and pale face you looked to her
like some sort of a sentimental noodle.'

Again Mr. Yorke laughed. Mrs. Yorke even joined in this time. 'You see in
what esteem you are held behind your back,' said she; 'yet I believe that
after to catch you. She set her cap at you when you first came into the
country, old as she is.'

'And who contradicted her, Rosy?' inquired Moore.

'A lady whom I don't know, because she never visits here, though I see
her every Sunday at church. She sits in the pew near the pulpit. I
generally look at her instead of looking at my prayer-book, for she is
like a picture in our dining-room, that woman with the dove in her
hand--at least she has eyes like it, and a nose too, a straight nose,
that makes all her face look, somehow, what I call clear.'

'And you don't know her!' exclaimed Jessy, in a tone of exceeding
surprise. 'That's so like Rose. Mr. Moore, I often wonder in what sort of
a world my sister lives. I am sure she does not live all her time in
this. One is continually finding out that she is quite ignorant of some
little matter which everybody else knows. To think of her going solemnly
to church every Sunday, and looking all service-time at one particular
person, and never so much as asking that person's name. She means
Caroline Helstone, the rector's niece. I remember all about it Miss
Helstone was quite angry with Anne Pearson. She said, "Robert Moore is
neither affected nor sentimental; you mistake his character utterly, or
rather not one of you here knows anything about it." Now, shall I tell
you what she is like? I can tell what people are like, and how they are
dressed, better than Rose can.'

'Let us hear.'

'She is nice; she is fair; she has a pretty white slender throat; she has
long curls, not stiff ones--they hang loose and soft, their colour is
brown but not dark; she speaks quietly, with a dear tone; she never makes
a bustle in moving; she often wears a gray silk dress she is neat all
over--her gowns, and her shoes, and her gloves always fit her. She is
what I call a lady, and when I am as tall as she is, I mean to be like
her. Shall I suit you if I am? Will you really marry me?'

Moore stroked Jessy's hair. For a minute he seemed as if he would draw
her nearer to him, but instead he put her a little farther off.

'Oh! you won't have me? You push me away.'

'Why, Jessy, you care nothing about me. You never come to see me now at
the Hollow.'

'Because you don't ask me.'

Hereupon Mr. Moore gave both the little girls an invitation to pay him a
visit next day, promising that, as he was going to Stilbro' in the
morning, he would buy them each a present, of what nature he would not
then declare, but they must come and see. Jessy was about to reply, when
one of the boys unexpectedly broke in,--

'I know that Miss Helstone you have all been palavering about. She's an
ugly girl. I hate her. I hate all womenites. I wonder what they were made
for.'

'Martin!' said his father, for Martin it was. The lad only answered by
turning his cynical young face, half-arch, half-truculent towards the
paternal chair. 'Martin, my lad, thou'rt a swaggering whelp now; thou
wilt some day be an outrageous puppy. But stick to those sentiments of
thine. See, I'll write down the words now i' my pocket-book.' (The senior
took out a morocco-covered book, and deliberately wrote therein.) 'Ten
years hence, Martin, if thou and I be both alive at that day, I'll remind
thee of that speech.'

'I'll say the same then. I mean always to hate women. They're such dolls;
they do nothing but dress themselves finely, and go swimming about to be
admired. I'll never marry. I'll be a bachelor.'

'Stick to it! stick to it!--Hesther' (addressing his wife), 'I was like
him when I was his age--a regular misogamist; and, behold! by the time I
was three-and twenty--being then a tourist in France and Italy, and the
Lord knows where--I curled my hair every night before I went to bed, and
wore a ring i' my ear, and would have worn one i' my nose if it had been
the fashion, and all that I might make myself pleasing and charming to
the ladies. Martin will do the like.'

'Will I? Never! I've more sense. What a guy you were father! As to
dressing, I make this vow: I'll never dress more finely than as you see
me at present.--Mr. Moore, I'm clad in blue cloth from top to toe, and
they laugh at me, and call me sailor at the grammar-school. I laugh
louder at them, and say they are all magpies and parrots, with their
coats one colour, and their waistcoats another, and their trousers a
third. I'll always wear blue cloth, and nothing but blue cloth. It is
beneath a human being's dignity to dress himself in parti-coloured
garments.

'Ten years hence, Martin, no tailor's shop will have choice of colours
varied enough for thy exacting taste; no perfumer's, stores essences
exquisite enough for thy fastidious senses.'

Martin looked disdain, but vouchsafed no further reply. Meantime Mark,
who for some minutes had been rummaging amongst a pile of books on a
side-table took the word. He spoke in a peculiarly slow, quiet voice, and
with an expression of still irony in his face not easy to describe.

'Mr. Moore,' said he, 'you think perhaps it was a compliment on Miss
Caroline Helstone's part to say you were not sentimental. I thought you
appeared confused when my sisters told you the words, as if you felt
flattered. You turned red, just like a certain vain little lad at our
school, who always thinks proper to blush when he gets a rise in the
class. For your benefit, Mr. Moore, I've been looking up the word
"sentimental" in the dictionary, and I find it to mean "tinctured with
sentiment." On examining further, "sentiment" is explained to be thought,
idea, notion. A sentimental man, then, is one who has thoughts, ideas,
notions; an unsentimental man is one destitute of thought, idea, or
notion.'

And Mark stopped. He did not smile, he did not look round for admiration.
He had said his say, and was silent.

'Ma foi! mon ami,' observed Mr. Moore to Yorke, 'ce sont vraiment des
enfants terribles, que les vôtres!'

Rose, who had been listening attentively to Mark's speech, replied to
him, 'There are different kinds of thoughts, ideas, and notions,' said
she, 'good and bad: sentimental must refer to the bad, or Miss Helstone
must have taken it in that sense, for she was not blaming Mr. Moore; she
was defending him.'

'That's my kind little advocate!' said Moore, taking Rose's hand.

'She was defending him,' repeated Rose, 'as I should have done had I been
in her place, for the other ladies seemed to speak spitefully.'

'Ladies always do speak spitefully,' observed Martin. 'It is the nature
of womenites to be spiteful.'

Matthew now, for the first time, opened his lips. 'What a fool Martin is,
to be always gabbling about what he does not understand!'

'It is my privilege, as a freeman, to gabble on whatever subject I like,'
responded Martin.

'You use it, or rather abuse it, to such an extent,' rejoined the elder
brother, 'that you prove you ought to have been a slave.'

'A slave! a slave! That to a Yorke, and from a Yorke! This fellow,' he
added, standing up at the table, and pointing across it to Matthew--'this
fellow forgets, what every cottier in Briarfield knows, that all born of
our house have that arched instep under which water can flow--proof that
there has not been a slave of the blood for three-hundred years.'

'Mountebank!' said Matthew.

'Lads, be silent!' exclaimed Mr. Yorke.--'Martin, you are a
mischief-maker. There would have been no disturbance but for you.'

'Indeed! Is that correct? Did I begin, or did Matthew? Had I spoken to
him when he accused me of gabbling like a fool?'

'A presumptuous fool!' repeated Matthew.

Here Mrs. Yorke commenced rocking herself--rather a portentous movement
with her, as it was occasionally followed, especially when Matthew was
worsted in a conflict, by a fit of hysterics.

'I don't see why I should bear insolence from Matthew Yorke, or what
right he has to use bad language to me,' observed Martin.

'He has no right, my lad; but forgive your brother until
seventy-and-seven times,' said Mr. Yorke soothingly.

'Always alike, and theory and practice always adverse!' murmured Martin
as he turned to leave the room.

'Where art thou going, my son?' asked the father. 'Somewhere where I
shall be safe from insult, if in this house I can find any such place.'

Matthew laughed very insolently. Martin threw a strange look at him, and
trembled through all his slight lad's frame; but he restrained himself.

'I suppose there is no objection to my withdrawing?' he inquired.

'No. Go, my lad; but remember not to bear malice.'

Martin went, and Matthew sent another insolent laugh after him. Rose,
lifting her fair head from Moore's shoulder against which, for a moment,
it had been resting, said, as she directed a steady gaze to Matthew,
'Martin is grieved, and you are glad; but I would rather be Martin than
you. I dislike your nature.'

Here Mr. Moore, by way of averting, or at least escaping, a scene--which
a sob from Mrs. Yorke warned him was likely to come on--rose, and putting
Jessy off his knee, he kissed her and Rose, reminding them, at the same
time, to be sure and come to the Hollow in good time to-morrow afternoon;
then, having taken leave of his hostess, he said to Mr. Yorke, 'May I
speak a word with you?' and was followed by him from the room. Their
brief conference took place in the hall.

'Have you employment for a good workman?' asked Moore.

'A nonsense question in these times, when you know that every master has
many good workmen to whom he cannot give full employment.'

'You must oblige me by taking on this man, if possible.'

'My lad, I can take on no more hands to oblige all England.'

'It does not signify; I must find him a place somewhere.'

'Who is he?'

'Mr. William Farren.'

'I know William. A right-down honest man is William.'

'He has been out of work three months. He has a large family. We are sure
they cannot live without wages. He was one of a deputation of
cloth-dressers who came to me this morning to complain and threaten.
William did not threaten. He only asked me to give them rather more
time--to make my changes more slowly. You know I cannot do that:
straitened on all sides as I am, I have nothing for it but to push on. I
thought it would be idle to palaver long with them. I sent them away,
after arresting a rascal amongst them, whom I hope to transport--a fellow
who preaches at the chapel yonder sometimes.'

'Not Moses Barraclough?'

'Yes.'

'Ah! you've arrested him? Good! Then out of a scoundrel you're going to
make a martyr. You've done a wise thing.'

'I've done a right thing. Well, the short and the long of it is, I'm
determined to get Farren a place, and I reckon on you to give him one.'

'This is cool, however!' exclaimed Mr. Yorke. 'What right have you to
reckon on me to provide for your dismissed workmen? What do I know about
your Farrens and your Williams? I've heard he's an honest man, but am I
to support all the honest men in Yorkshire? You may say that would be no
great charge to undertake; but great or little, I'll none of it'

'Come, Mr. Yorke, what can you find for him to do?'

'I find! You afterguage I'm not accustomed to use. I wish you would go
home. Here is the door; set off.'

Moore sat down on one of the hall chairs.

'You can't give him work in your mill--good; but you have land. Find him
some occupation on your land, Mr. Yorke.'

'Bob, I thought you cared nothing about our lourdauds de paysans. I don't
understand this change.'

'I do. The fellow spoke to me nothing but truth and sense. I answered him
just as roughly as I did the rest, who jabbered mere gibberish. I
couldn't make distinctions there and then. His appearance told what he
had gone through lately clearer than his words; but where is the use of
explaining? Let him have work.'

'Let him have it yourself If you are so very much in earnest, strain a
point.'

'If there was a point left in my affairs to strain, I would strain it
till it cracked again; but I received letters this morning which show me
pretty clearly where I stand, and it is not far off the end of the plank.
My foreign market, at any rate, is gorged. If there is no change--if
there dawns no prospect of peace--if the Orders in Council are not, at
least, suspended, so as to open our way in the West--I do not know where
I an' to turn. I see no more light than if I were sealed in a rock, so
that for me to pretend to offer a man a livelihood would be to do a
dishonest thing.'

'Come, let us take a turn on the front. It is a starlight night,' said
Mr. Yorke.

They passed out, closing the front door after them, and side by side
paced the frost-white pavement to and fro.

'Settle about Farren at once,' urged Mr. Moore. 'You have large
fruit-gardens at Yorke Mills. He is a good gardener. Give him work
there.'

'Well, so be it. I'll send for him to-morrow, and we'll see. And now, my
lad, you're concerned about the condition of your affairs?'

'Yes, a second failure--which I may delay, but which, at this moment, I
see no way finally to avert--would blight the name of Moore completely;
and you are aware I had fine intentions of paying off every debt and
re-establishing the old firm on its former basis.'

'You want capital--that's all you want.'

'Yes; but you might as well say that breath is all a dead man wants to
live.'

'I know--I know capital is not to be had for the asking; and if you were
a married man, and had a family, like me, I should think your case pretty
nigh desperate; but the young and unencumbered have chances peculiar to
themselves. I hear gossip now and then about your being on the eve of
marriage with this miss and that; but I suppose it is none of it true?'

'You may well suppose that. I think I am not in a position to be dreaming
of marriage. Marriage! I cannot bear the word: it sounds so silly and
utopian. I have settled it decidedly that marriage and love are
superfluities, intended only for the rich, who live at ease, and have no
need to take thought for the morrow; or desperations--the last and
reckless joy of the deeply wretched, who never hope to rise out of the
slough of their utter poverty.'

'I should not think so if I were circumstanced as you are. I should think
I could very likely get a wife with a few thousands, who would suit both
me and my affairs.'

'I wonder where?'

'Would you try if you had a chance?'

'I don't know. It depends on--in short, it depends on many things.'

'Would you take an old woman?'

'I'd rather break stones on the road.'

'So would I. Would you take an ugly one?'

'Bah! I hate ugliness and delight in beauty. My eyes and heart, Yorke,
take pleasure in a sweet, young, fair face, as they are repelled by a
grim, rugged, meagre one. Soft delicate lines and hues please, harsh ones
prejudice me. I won't have an ugly wife.'

'Not if she were rich?'

'Not if she were dressed in gems. I could not love--I could not fancy--I
could not endure her. My taste must have satisfaction, or disgust would
break; out in despotism, or worse--freeze to utter iciness.'

'What! Bob, if you married an honest good-natured, and wealthy lass,
though a little hard-favoured, couldn't you put up with the high
cheek-bones, the rather wide mouth, and reddish hair?'

'I'll never try, I tell you. Grace at least I will have, and youth and
symmetry--yes, and what I call beauty.'

'And poverty, and a nursery full of bairns you can neither clothe nor
feed, and very soon an anxious, faded mother and then bankruptcy,
discredit--a life-long struggle.'

'Let me alone, Yorke.'

'If you are romantic, Robert, and especially if you are already in love,
it is of no use talking.'

'I am not romantic. I am stripped of romance as bare as the white tenters
in that field are of cloth.'

'Always use such figures of speech, lad; I can understand them. And there
is no love affair to disturb your judgment.'

'I thought I had said enough on that subject before. Love for me? Stuff!'

'Well, then, if you are sound both in heart and head, there is no reason
why you should not profit by a good chance if it offers; therefore, wait
and see.'

'You are quite oracular, Yorke.'

'I think I am a bit i' that line. I promise ye naught and I advise ye
naught; but I bid ye keep your heart up, and be guided by circumstances.'

'My namesake the physician's almanac could not speak more guardedly.'

'In the meantime, I care naught about ye, Robert Moore: ye are nothing
akin to me or mine, and whether ye lose or find a fortune it makes no
difference to me. Go home, now. It has stricken ten. Miss Hortense will
be wondering where ye are.'



Chapter 10 - Old Maids


Time wore on, and spring matured. The surface of England began to look
pleasant: her fields grew green, her hills fresh, her gardens blooming;
but at heart she was no better. Still her poor were wretched, still their
employers were harassed. Commerce, in some of its branches, seemed
threatened with paralysis, for the war continued; England's blood was
shed and her wealth lavished: all, it seemed, to attain most inadequate
ends. Some tidings there were indeed occasionally of successes in the
Peninsula, but these came in slowly; long intervals occurred between, in
which no note was heard but the insolent self-felicitations of Bonaparte
on his continued triumphs. Those who suffered from the results of the war
felt this tedious, and--as they thought--hopeless, struggle against what
their fears or their interests taught them to regard as an invincible
power, most insufferable: they demanded peace on any terms: men like
Yorke and Moore--and there were thousands whom the war placed where it
placed them, shuddering on the verge of bankruptcy--insisted on peace
with the energy of desperation.

They held meetings; they made speeches; they got up petitions to extort
this boon: on what terms it was made they cared not.

All men, taken singly, are more or less selfish; and taken in bodies they
are intensely so. The British merchant is no exception to this rule: the
mercantile classes illustrate it strikingly. These classes certainly
think too exclusively of making money: they are too oblivious of every
national consideration but that of extending England's (i.e., their own)
commerce. Chivalrous feeling, disinterestedness, pride in honour, is too
dead in their hearts. A land ruled by them alone would too often make
ignominious submission--not at all from the motives Christ teaches, but
rather from those Mammon instils. During the late war, the tradesmen of
England would have endured buffets from the French on the right cheek and
on the left; their cloak they would have given to Napoleon, and then have
politely offered him their coat also, nor would they have withheld their
waistcoat if urged: they would have prayed permission only to retain
their one other garment, for the sake of the purse in its pocket. Not one
spark of spirit, not one symptom of resistance would they have shown till
the hand of the Corsican bandit had grasped that beloved purse: then,
perhaps, transfigured at once into British bull-dogs, they would have
sprung at the robber's throat, and there they would have fastened, and
there hung--inveterate, insatiable, till the treasure had been restored.
Tradesmen, when they speak against war, always profess to hate it because
it is a bloody and barbarous proceeding: you would think, to hear them
talk, that they are peculiarly civilised--especially gentle and kindly of
disposition to their fellow-men. This is not the case. Many of them are
extremely narrow and cold-hearted, have no good feeling for any class but
their own, are distant--even hostile to all others; call them useless;
seem to question their right to exist; seem to grudge them the very air
they breathe, and to think the circumstance of their eating, drinking,
and living in decent houses, quite unjustifiable. They do not know what
others do in the way of helping, pleasing, or teaching their race; they
will not trouble themselves to inquire; whoever is not in trade is
accused of eating the bread of idleness, of passing a useless existence.
Long may it be ere England really becomes a nation of shopkeepers!

We have already said that Moore was no self-sacrificing patriot, and we
have also explained what circumstances rendered him specially prone to
confine his attention and efforts to the furtherance of his individual
interest; accordingly, when he felt himself urged a second time to the
brink of ruin, none struggled harder than he against the influences which
would have thrust him over. What he could do towards stirring agitation
in the North against the war, he did, and he instigated others whose
money and connections gave them more power than he possessed. Sometimes,
by flashes, he felt there was little reason in the demands his party made
on Government: when he heard of all Europe threatened by Bonaparte, and
of all Europe arming to resist him; when he saw Russia menaced, and
beheld Russia rising, incensed and stern, to defend her frozen soil, her
wild provinces of serfs, her dark native despotism, from the tread, the
yoke, the tyranny of a foreign victor, he knew that England, a free
realm, could not then depute her sons to make concessions and propose
terms to the unjust, grasping French leader. When news came from time to
time of the movements of that man then representing England in the
Peninsula; of his advance from success to success--that advance so
deliberate but so unswerving, so circumspect but so certain, so
'unhasting' but so 'unresting'; when he read Lord Wellington's own
despatches in the columns of the newspapers, documents written by Modesty
to the dictation of Truth--Moore confessed at heart that a power was with
the troops of Britain, of that vigilant, enduring, genuine,
unostentatious sort, which must win victory to the side it led, in the
end. In the end! but that end, he thought, was yet far off; and meantime
he, Moore, as an individual, would be crushed, his hopes ground to dust:
it was himself be had to care for, his hopes he had to pursue, and he
would fulfil his destiny.

He fulfiled it so vigorously, that ere long he came to a decisive rupture
with his old Tory friend the Rector. They quarrelled at a public meeting,
and afterwards exchanged some pungent letters in the newspapers. Mr.
Helstone denounced Moore as a Jacobin, ceased to see him, would not even
speak to him when they met: he intimated also to his niece, very
distinctly, that her communications with Hollow's Cottage must for the
present cease; she must give up taking French lessons. The language, he
observed, was a bad and frivolous one at the best, and most of the works
it boasted were bad and frivolous, highly injurious in their tendency to
weak female minds. He wondered (he remarked parenthetically) what noodle
first made it the fashion to teach women French: nothing was more
improper for them; it was like feeding a rickety child on chalk and
water-gruel; Caroline must give it up, and give up her cousins too: they
were dangerous people.

Mr. Helstone quite expected opposition to this order; he expected tears.
Seldom did he trouble himself about Caroline's movements, but a vague
idea possessed him that she was fond of going to Hollow's Cottage: also
he suspected that she liked Robert Moore's occasional presence at the
Rectory. The Cossack had perceived that whereas if Malone stepped in of
an evening to make himself sociable and charming, by pinching the ears of
an aged black cat, which usually shared with Miss Helstone's feet the
accommodation of her footstool, or by borrowing a fowling-piece, and
banging away at a tool-shed door in the garden while enough of daylight
remained to show that conspicuous mark--keeping the passage and
sitting-room doors meantime uncomfortably open for the convenience of
running in and out to announce his failures and successes with noisy
brusquerie--he had observed that under such entertaining circumstances
Caroline had a trick of disappearing, tripping noiselessly upstairs, and
remaining invisible till called down to supper. On the other hand, when
Robert Moore was the guest, though he elicited no vivacities from the
cat, did nothing to it, indeed, beyond occasionally coaxing it from the
stool to his knee, and there letting it purr, climb to his shoulder, and
rub its head against his cheek; though there was no ear-splitting
cracking off of firearms, no diffusion of sulphurous gunpowder perfume,
no noise, no boasting during his stay, that still Caroline sat in the
room, and seemed to find wondrous content in the stitching of Jew-basket
pin-cushions, and the knitting of Missionary-basket socks.

She was very quiet, and Robert paid her little attention, scarcely ever
addressing his discourse to her; but Mr. Helstone, not being one of those
elderly gentlemen who are easily blinded, on the contrary, finding
himself on all occasions extremely wide-awake, had watched them when they
bade each other good-night: he had just seen their eyes meet once--only
once. Some natures would have taken pleasure in the glance then
surprised, because there was no harm and some delight in it. It was by no
means a glance of mutual intelligence, for mutual love-secrets existed
not between them: there was nothing then of craft and concealment to
offend; only Mr. Moore's eyes, looking into Caroline's, felt they were
clear and gentle, and Caroline's eyes encountering Mr. Moore's confessed
they were manly and searching: each acknowledged the charm in his or her
own way. Moore smiled slightly, and Caroline coloured as slightly. Mr.
Helstone could, on the spot, have rated them both: they annoyed him;
why?--impossible to say. If you had asked him what Moore merited at that
moment, he would have said 'a horsewhip'; if you had inquired into
Caroline's deserts, he would have adjudged her a box on the ear; if you
had further demanded the reason of such chastisements, he would have
stormed against flirtation and love-making, and vowed he would have no
such folly going on under his roof.

These private considerations, combined with political reasons, fixed his
resolution of separating the cousins. He announced his will to Caroline
one evening, as she was sitting at work near the drawing-room window: her
face was turned towards him, and the light fell full upon it. It had
struck him a few minutes before that she was looking paler and quieter
than she used to look; it had not escaped him either that Robert Moore's
name had never, for some three weeks past, dropped from her lips; nor
during the same space of time had that personage made his appearance at
the Rectory. Some suspicion of clandestine meetings haunted him; having
but an indifferent opinion of women, he always suspected them: he thought
they needed constant watching. It was in a tone drily significant he
desired her to cease her daily visits to the Hollow; he expected a start,
a look of deprecation: the start he saw but it was a very slight one; no
look whatever was directed to him.

'Do you hear me?' he asked.

'Yes, uncle.'

'Of course you mean to attend to what I say?'

'Yes, certainly.'

'And there must be no letter-scribbling to your cousin Hortense: no
intercourse whatever. I do not approve of the principles of the family:
they are Jacobinical.'

'Very well,' said Caroline quietly. She acquiesced then: there was no
vexed flushing of the face, no gathering tears: the shadowy
thoughtfulness which had covered her features ere Mr. Helstone spoke
remained undisturbed: she was obedient.

Yes, perfectly; because the mandate coincided with her own previous
judgment; because it was now become pain to her to go to Hollow's
Cottage; nothing met her there but disappointment: hope and love had
quitted that little tenement, for Robert seemed to have deserted its
precincts. Whenever she asked after him--which she very seldom did, since
the mere utterance of his name made her face grow hot--the answer was, be
was from home, or he was quite taken up with business: Hortense feared he
was killing himself by application: he scarcely ever took a meal in the
house; he lived in the counting house.

At church only Caroline had the chance of seeing him, and there she
rarely looked at him: it was both too much pain and too much pleasure to
look: it excited too much emotion; and that it was all wasted emotion,
she had learned well to comprehend.

Once, on a dark, wet Sunday, when there were few people at church, and
when especially certain ladies were absent, of whose observant faculties
and tomahawk tongues Caroline stood in awe, she had allowed her eye to
seek Robert's pew, and to rest a while on its occupant. He was there
alone: Hortense had been kept at home by prudent considerations relative
to the rain and a new spring 'chapeau.' During the sermon, he sat with
folded arms and eyes cast down, looking very sad and abstracted. When
depressed, the very hue of his face seemed more dusk than when he smiled,
and to-day cheek and forehead wore their most tintless and sober olive.
By instinct Caroline knew, as she examined that clouded countenance, that
his thoughts were running in no familiar or kindly channel; that they
were far away, not merely from her, but from all which she could
comprehend, or in which she could sympathise. Nothing that they had ever
talked of together was now in his mind: he was wrapped from her by
interests and responsibilities in which it was deemed such as she could
have no part.

Caroline meditated in her own way on the subject; speculated on his
feelings, on his life, on his fears, on his fate; mused over the mystery
of 'business,' tried to comprehend more about it than had ever been told
her--to understand its perplexities, liabilities, duties, exactions;
endeavoured to realise the state of mind of man of a 'man of business,'
to enter into it, feel what he would feel, aspire to what he would
aspire. Her earnest wish was to see things as they were, and not to be
romantic. By dint of effort she contrived to get a glimpse of the light
of truth here and there, and hoped that scant ray might suffice to guide
her.

'Different, indeed,' she concluded, 'is Robert's mental condition to
mine: I think only of him; he has no room, no leisure to think of me. The
feeling called love is and has been for two years the predominant emotion
of my heart: always there, always awake, always astir: quite other
feelings absorb his reflections, and govern his faculties. He is rising
now, going to leave the church, for service is over. Will he turn his
head towards this pew?--no--not once--he has not one look for me: that is
hard: a kind glance would have made me happy till to-morrow. I have not
got it; he would not give it; he is gone. Strange that grief should now
almost choke me, because another human being's eye has failed to greet
mine.'

That Sunday evening, Mr. Malone coming, as usual, to pass it with his
Rector, Caroline withdrew after tea to her chamber. Fanny, knowing her
habits, had lit her a cheerful little fire, as the weather was so gusty
and chill. Closeted there, silent and solitary, what could she do but
think? She noiselessly paced to and fro the carpeted floor, her head
drooped, her hands folded: it was irksome to sit: the current of
reflection ran rapidly through her mind: to-night she was mutely excited.

Mute was the room,--mute the house. The double door of the study muffled
the voices of the gentlemen: the servants were quiet in the kitchen,
engaged with books their young mistress had lent them; books which she
had told them were 'fit for Sunday reading.' And she herself had another
of the same sort open on the table, but she could not read it: its
theology was incomprehensible to her, and her own mind was too busy,
teeming, wandering, to listen to the language of another mind.

Then, too, her imagination was full of pictures; images of Moore; scenes
where he and she had been together; winter fireside sketches; a glowing
landscape of a hot summer afternoon passed with him in the bosom of
Nunnely Wood: divine vignettes of mild spring or mellow autumn moments,
when she had sat at his side in Hollow's Copse, listening to the call of
the May cuckoo, or sharing the September treasure of nuts and ripe
blackberries--a wild dessert which it was her morning's pleasure to
collect in a little basket, and cover with green leaves and fresh
blossoms, and her afternoon's delight to administer to Moore, berry by
berry, and nut by nut, like a bird feeding its fledgling.

Robert's features and form were with her; the sound of his voice was
quite distinct in her ear; his few caresses seemed renewed. But these
joys being hollow, were, ere long, crushed in: the pictures faded, the
voice failed, the visionary clasp melted chill from her hand, and where
the warm seal of lips had made impress on her forehead, it felt now as if
a sleety raindrop had fallen. She returned from an enchanted region to
the real world for Nunnely Wood in June, she saw her narrow chamber; for
the songs of birds in alleys, she heard the rain on her casement; for the
sigh of the south wind, came the sob of the mournful east; and for
Moore's manly companionship, she had the thin illusion of her own dim
shadow on the wall. Turning from the pale phantom which reflected herself
in its outline, and her reverie in the drooped attitude of its dim head
and colourless tresses, she sat down--inaction would suit the frame of
mind into which she was now declining--she said to herself--'I have to
live, perhaps, till seventy years. As far as I know, I have good health:
half a century of existence may lie before me. How am I to occupy it?
What am I to do to fill the interval of time which spreads between me and
the grave?'

She reflected.

'I shall not be married, it appears,' she continued. 'I suppose, as
Robert does not care for me, I shall never have a husband to love, nor
little children to take care of. Till lately I had reckoned securely on
the duties and affections of wife and mother to occupy my existence. I
considered, somehow, as a matter of course, that I was growing up to the
ordinary destiny, and never troubled myself to seek any other; but now, I
perceive plainly, I may have been mistaken. Probably I shall be an old
maid. I shall live to see Robert married to some one else, some rich
lady: I shall never marry. What was I created for, I wonder? Where is my
place in the world?'

She mused again.

'Ah! I see,' she pursued presently: 'that is the question which most old
maids are puzzled to solve; other people solve it for them by saying,
'Your place is to do good to others, to be helpful whenever help is
wanted.' That is right in some measure, and a very convenient doctrine
for the people who hold it; but I perceive that certain sets of human
beings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up their
lives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise:
they call them devoted and virtuous. Is this enough? Is it to live? Is
there not a terrible hollowness, mockery, want, craving, in that
existence which is given away to others, for want of something of your
own to bestow it on? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in abnegation of
self? I do not believe it. Undue humility makes tyranny; weak concession
creates selfishness. The Romish religion especially teaches renunciation
of self, submission to others, and nowhere are found so many grasping
tyrants as in the ranks of the Romish priesthood. Each human being has
his share of rights. I suspect it would conduce to the happiness and
welfare of all, if each knew his allotment, and held to it as tenaciously
as the martyr to his creed. Queer thoughts these, that surge in my mind:
are they right thoughts? I am not certain.

'Well, life is short at the best: seventy years, they say, pass like a
vapour, like a dream when one awaketh; and every path trod by human feet
terminates in one bourne--the grave: the little chink in the surface of
this great globe--the furrow where the mighty husbandman with the scythe
deposits the seed he has shaken from the ripe stem; and there it falls,
decays, and thence it springs again, when the world has rolled round a
few times more. So much for the body: the soul meantime wings its long
flight upward, folds its wings on the brink of the sea of fire and glass,
and gazing down through the burning clearness, finds there mirrored the
vision of the Christian's triple Godhead: the Sovereign Father; the
mediating Son; the Creator Spirit. Such words, at least, have been chosen
to express what is inexpressible, to describe what baffles description.
The soul's real hereafter, who shall guess?'

Her fire was decayed to its last cinder; Malone had departed; and now the
study bell rang for prayers.

The next day Caroline had to spend altogether alone, her uncle being gone
to dine with his friend Dr. Boultby, vicar of Whinbury. The whole time
she was talking inwardly in the same strain; looking forwards, asking
what she was to do with life. Fanny, as she passed in and out of the room
occasionally, intent on housemaid errands, perceived that her young
mistress sat very still. She was always in the same place, always bent
industriously over a piece of work: she did not lift her head to speak to
Fanny, as her custom was; and when the latter remarked that the day was
fine, and she ought to take a walk, she only said--'It is cold.'

You are very diligent at that sewing, Miss Caroline,' continued the girl,
approaching her little table.

'I am tired of it, Fanny.'

'Then why do you go on with it? Put it down: read, or do something to
amuse you.'

'It is solitary in this house, Fanny: don't you think so?'

'I don't find it so, miss. Me and Eliza are company for one another; but
you are quite too still--you should visit more. Now, be persuaded; go
upstairs and dress yourself smart, and go and take tea, in a friendly
way, with Miss Mann or Miss Ainley: I am certain either of those ladies
would be delighted to see you.'

'But their houses are dismal: they are both old maids. I am certain old
maids are a very unhappy race.'

'Not they, miss: they can't be unhappy; they take such care of
themselves. They are all selfish.'

'Miss Ainley is not selfish, Fanny: she is always doing good. How
devotedly kind she was to her stepmother, as long as the old lady lived;
and now when she is quite alone in the world, without brother or sister,
or any one to care for her, how charitable she is to the poor, as far as
her means permit! Still nobody thinks much of her, or has pleasure in
going to see her: and how gentlemen always sneer at her!'

'They shouldn't, miss; I believe she is a good woman: but gentlemen think
only of ladies' looks.'

'I'll go and see her,' exclaimed Caroline, starting up: 'and if she asks
me to stay to tea, I'll stay. How wrong it is to neglect people because
they are not pretty, and young, and merry! And I will certainly call to
see Miss Mann, too: she may not be amiable; but what has made her
unamiable? What has life been to her?'

Fanny helped Miss Helstone to put away her work, and afterwards assisted
her to dress.

'You'll not be an old maid, Miss Caroline,' she said, as she tied the
sash of her brown-silk frock, having previously smoothed her soft, full,
and shining curls; 'there are no signs of an old maid about you.'

Caroline looked at the little mirror before her, and she thought there
were some signs. She could see that she was altered within the last
month; that the hues of her complexion were paler, her eyes changed--a
wan shade seemed to circle them, her countenance was dejected: she was
not, in short, so pretty or so fresh as she used to be. She distantly
hinted this to Fanny, from whom she got no direct answer, only a remark
that people did vary in their looks; but that at her age a little falling
away signified nothing,--she would soon come round again, and be plumper
and rosier than ever. Having given this assurance, Fanny showed singular
zeal in wrapping her up in warm shawls and handkerchiefs, till Caroline,
nearly smothered with the weight, was fain to resist further additions.

She paid her visits: first to Miss Mann, for this was the most difficult
point: Miss Mann was certainly not quite a lovable person. Till now,
Caroline had always unhesitatingly declared she disliked her, and more
than once she had joined her cousin Robert in laughing at some of her
peculiarities. Moore was not habitually given to sarcasm, especially on
anything humbler or weaker than himself; but he had once or twice
happened to be in the room when Miss Mann had made a call on his sister,
and after listening to her conversation and viewing her features for a
time, he had gone out into the garden where his little cousin was tending
some of his favourite flowers, and while standing near and watching her,
he had amused himself with comparing fair youth--delicate and
attractive--with shrivelled eld, livid and loveless, and in jestingly
repeating to a smiling girl the vinegar discourse of a cankered old maid.
Once on such an occasion, Caroline had said to him, looking up from the
luxuriant creeper she was binding to its frame, 'Ah! Robert, you do not
like old maids. I, too, should come under the lash of your sarcasm, if I
were an old maid.'

'You an old maid!' he had replied. 'A piquant notion suggested by lips of
that tint and form. I can fancy you, though, at forty, quietly dressed,
pale and sunk, but still with that straight nose, white forehead, and
those soft eyes. I suppose, too, you will keep your voice, which has
another 'timbre' than that hard, deep organ of Miss Mann's. Courage,
Cary!--even at fifty you will not be repulsive.'

'Miss Mann did not make herself, or tune her voice, Robert.'

'Nature made her in the mood in which she makes her briars and thorns;
whereas for the creation of some women, she reserves the May morning
hours, when with light and dew she woos the primrose from the turf, and
the lily from the wood-moss.'

* * * * *

Ushered into Miss Mann's little parlour, Caroline found her, as she
always found her, surrounded by perfect neatness, cleanliness, and
comfort (after all, is it not a virtue in old maids that solitude rarely
makes them negligent or disorderly?); no dust on her polished furniture,
none on her carpet, fresh flowers in the vase on her table, a bright fire
in the grate. She herself sat primly and somewhat grimly-tidy in a
cushioned rocking-chair, her hands busied with some knitting: this was
her favourite work, as it required the least exertion. She scarcely rose
as Caroline entered; to avoid excitement was one of Miss Mann's aims in
life: she had been composing herself ever since she came down in the
morning, and had just attained a certain lethargic state of tranquillity
when the visitor's knock at the door startled her, and undid her day's
work. She was scarcely pleased, therefore, to see Miss Helstone: she
received her with reserve, bade her be seated with austerity, and when
she got her placed opposite, she fixed her with her eye.

This was no ordinary doom--to be fixed with Miss Mann's eye. Robert Moore
had undergone it once, and had never forgotten the circumstance.

He considered it quite equal to anything Medusa could do: he professed to
doubt whether, since that infliction, his flesh had been quite what it
was before--whether there was not something stony in its texture. The
gaze had had such an effect on him as to drive him promptly from the
apartment and house; it had even sent him straightway up to the Rectory,
where he had appeared in Caroline's presence with a very queer face, and
amazed her by demanding a cousinly salute on the spot, to rectify a
damage that had been done him.

Certainly Miss Mann had a formidable eye for one of the softer sex: it
was prominent, and showed a great deal of the white, and looked as
steadily, as unwinkingly, at you as if it were a steel ball soldered in
her head; and when, while looking, she began to talk in an indescribably
dry monotonous tone--a tone without vibration or inflection--you felt as
if a graven image of some bad spirit were addressing you. But it was all
a figment of fancy, a matter of surface. Miss Mann's goblin-grimness
scarcely went deeper than the angel-sweetness of hundreds of beauties.
She was a perfectly honest, conscientious woman, who had performed duties
in her day from whose severe anguish many a human Peri, gazelle-eyed,
silken-tressed, and silver-tongued, would have shrunk appalled: she had
passed alone through protracted scenes of suffering, exercised rigid
self-denial, made large sacrifices of time, money, health, for those who
had repaid her only by ingratitude, and now her main--almost her
sole--fault was, that she was censorious.

Censorious she certainly was. Caroline had not sat five minutes ere her
hostess, still keeping her under the spell of that dread and Gorgon gaze,
began flaying alive certain of the families in the neighbourhood. She
went to work at this business in a singularly cool, deliberate manner,
like some surgeon practising with his scalpel on a lifeless subject: she
made few distinctions; she allowed scarcely any one to be good; she
dissected impartially almost all her acquaintance. If her auditress
ventured now and then to put in a palliative word, she set it aside with
a certain disdain. Still, though thus pitiless in moral anatomy, she was
no scandal-monger: she never disseminated really malignant or dangerous
reports: it was not her heart so much as her temper that was wrong.

Caroline made this discovery for the first time to-day; and moved thereby
to regret divers unjust judgments she had more than once passed on the
crabbed old maid, she began to talk to her softly, not in sympathising
words, but with a sympathising voice. The loneliness of her condition
struck her visitor in a new light; as did also the character of her
ugliness--a bloodless pallor of complexion, and deeply worn lines of
feature. The girl pitied the solitary and afflicted woman; her looks told
what she felt: a sweet countenance is never so sweet as when the moved
heart animates it with compassionate tenderness. Miss Mann, seeing such a
countenance raised to her, was touched in her turn: she acknowledged her
sense of the interest thus unexpectedly shown in her, who usually met
with only coldness and ridicule, by replying to her candidly.
Communicative on her own affairs she usually was not, because no one
cared to listen to her; but to-day she became so, and her confidant shed
tears as she heard her speak: for she told of cruel, slow-wasting,
obstinate sufferings. Well might she be corpse-like; well might she look
grim, and never smile; well might she wish to avoid excitement, to gain
and retain composure! Caroline, when she knew all, acknowledged that Miss
Mann was rather to be admired for fortitude than blamed for moroseness.
Reader! when you behold an aspect for whose constant gloom and frown you
cannot account, whose unvarying cloud exasperates you by its apparent
causelessness, be sure that there is a canker somewhere, and a canker not
the less deeply corroding because concealed.

Miss Mann felt that she was understood partly, and wished to be
understood further; for however old, plain, humble, desolate, afflicted
we may be, so long as our hearts preserve the feeblest spark of life,
they preserve also, shivering near that pale ember, a starved, ghostly
longing for appreciation and affection. To this extenuated spectre,
perhaps, a crumb is not thrown once a year; but when ahungered and
athirst to famine--when all humanity has forgotten the dying tenant of a
decaying house--Divine Mercy remembers the mourner, and a shower of manna
falls for lips that earthly nutriment is to pass no more. Biblical
promises, heard first in health, but then unheeded, come whispering to
the couch of sickness: it is felt that a pitying God watches what all
mankind have forsaken; the tender compassion of Jesus is recalled and
relied on: the faded eye, gazing beyond Time, sees a Home, a Friend, a
Refuge in Eternity.

Miss Mann, drawn on by the still attention of her listener, proceeded to
allude to circumstances in her past life. She spoke like one who tells
the truth--simply, and with a certain reserve: she did not boast, nor did
she exaggerate. Caroline found that the old maid had been a most devoted
daughter and sister, an unwearied watcher by lingering deathbeds; that to
prolonged and unrelaxing attendance on the sick, the malady that now
poisoned her own life owed its origin; that to one wretched relative she
had been a support and succour in the depths of self-earned degradation,
and that it was still her hand which kept him from utter destitution.
Miss Helstone stayed the whole evening, omitting to pay her other
intended visit; and when she left Miss Mann, it was with the
determination to try in future to excuse her faults, never again to make
light of her peculiarities or to laugh at her plainness; and, above all
things, not to neglect her, but to come once a week, and to offer her
from one human heart at least, the homage of affection and respect: she
felt she could now sincerely give her a small tribute of each feeling.

Caroline, on her return, told Fanny she was very glad she had gone out,
as she felt much better for the visit. The next day she failed not to
seek Miss Ainley. This lady was in narrower circumstances than Miss Mann,
and her dwelling was more humble: it was, however, if possible, yet more
exquisitely clean; though the decayed gentlewoman could not afford to
keep a servant, but waited on herself, and had only the occasional
assistance of a little girl who lived in a cottage near.

Not only was Miss Ainley poorer, but she was even plainer than the other
old maid. In her first youth she must have been ugly; now, at the age of
fifty, she was very ugly. At first sight, all but peculiarly
well-disciplined minds were apt to turn from her with annoyance: to
conceive against her a prejudice, simply on the ground of her
unattractive look. Then she was prim in dress and manner: she looked,
spoke, and moved the complete old maid.

Her welcome to Caroline was formal, even in its kindness--for it was
kind; but Miss Helstone excused this. She knew something of the
benevolence of the heart which beat under that starched kerchief; all the
neighbourhood--at least all the female neighbourhood--knew something of
it: no one spoke against Miss Ainley except lively young gentlemen, and
inconsiderate old ones, who declared her hideous.

Caroline was soon at home in that tiny parlour; a kind hand took from her
her shawl and bonnet, and installed her in the most comfortable seat near
the fire. The young and the antiquated woman were presently deep in
kindly conversation, and soon Caroline became aware of the power a most
serene, unselfish, and benignant mind could exercise over those to whom
it was developed. She talked never of herself--always of others. Their
faults she passed over; her theme was their wants, which she sought to
supply; their sufferings, which she longed to alleviate. She was
religious--a professor of religion--what some would call 'a saint,' and
she referred to religion often in sanctioned phrase--in phrase which
those who possess a perception of the ridiculous, without owning the
power of exactly testing and truly judging character, would certainly
have esteemed a proper subject for satire--a matter for mimicry and
laughter. They would have been hugely mistaken for their pains. Sincerity
is never ludicrous; it is always respectable. Whether truth--be it
religious or moral truth--speak eloquently and in well-chosen language or
not, its voice should be heard with reverence. Let those who cannot
nicely, and with certainty, discern the difference between the tones of
hypocrisy and those of sincerity, never presume to laugh at all, lest
they should have the miserable misfortune to laugh in the wrong place,
and commit impiety when they think they are achieving wit.

Not from Miss Ainley's own lips did Caroline hear of her good works; but
she knew much of them nevertheless; her beneficence was the familiar
topic of the poor in Briarfield. They were not works of almsgiving: the
old maid was too poor to give much, though she straitened herself to
privation that she might contribute her mite when needful: they were the
works of a Sister of Charity, far more difficult to perform than those of
a Lady Bountiful. She would watch by any sick-bed: she seemed to fear no
disease; she would nurse the poorest whom none else would nurse: she was
serene, humble, kind, and equable through everything.

For this goodness she got but little reward in this life. Many of the
poor became so accustomed to her services that they hardly thanked her
for them: the rich heard them mentioned with wonder, but were silent,
from a sense of shame at the difference between her sacrifices and their
own. Many ladies, however, respected her deeply: they could not help it;
one gentleman--one only--gave her his friendship and perfect confidence:
this was Mr. Hall, the vicar of Nunnely. He said, and said truly, that
her life came nearer the life of Christ than that of any other human
being he had ever met with. You must not think, reader, that in sketching
Miss Ainley's character, I depict a figment of imagination--no--we seek
the originals of such portraits in real life only.

Miss Helstone studied well the mind and heart now revealed to her. She
found no high intellect to admire: the old maid was merely sensible, but
she discovered so much goodness, so much usefulness, so much mildness,
patience, truth, that she bent her own mind before Miss Ainley's in
reverence. What was her love of nature, what was her sense of beauty,
what were her more varied and fervent emotions, what was her deeper power
of thought, what her wider capacity to comprehend, compared to the
practical excellence of this good woman? Momently, they seemed only
beautiful forms of selfish delight; mentally, she trod them under foot.

It is true, she still felt with pain that the life which made Miss Ainley
happy could not make her happy: pure and active as it was, in her heart
she deemed it deeply dreary because it was so loveless--to her ideas, so
forlorn. Yet, doubtless, she reflected, it needed only habit to make it
practicable and agreeable to any one: it was despicable, she felt, to
pine sentimentally, to cherish secret griefs, vain memories; to be inert,
to waste youth in aching languor, to grow old doing nothing.

'I will bestir myself,' was her resolution, 'and try to be wise if I
cannot be good.'

She proceeded to make inquiry of Miss Ainley if she could help her in
anything. Miss Ainley, glad of an assistant, told her that she could, and
indicated some poor families in Briarfield that it was desirable she
should visit; giving her likewise, at her further request, some work to
do for certain poor women who had many children, and who were unskilled
in using the needle for themselves.

Caroline went home, laid her plans, and took a resolve not to swerve from
them. She allotted a certain portion of her time for her various studies,
and a certain portion for doing anything Miss Ainley might direct her to
do; the remainder was to be spent in exercise; not a moment was to be
left for the indulgence of such fevered thoughts as had poisoned last
Sunday evening.

To do her justice, she executed her plans conscientiously, perseveringly.
It was very hard work at first--it was even hard work to the end, but it
helped her to stem and keep down anguish: it forced her to be employed;
it forbade her to brood; and gleams of satisfaction chequered her grey
life here and there when she found she had done good, imparted pleasure,
or allayed suffering.

Yet I must speak truth; these efforts brought her neither health of body
nor continued peace of mind: with them all, she wasted, grew more joyless
and more wan; with them all, her memory kept harping on the name of
Robert Moore; an elegy over the past still rung constantly in her ear; a
funereal inward cry haunted and harassed her: the heaviness of a broken
spirit, and of pining and palsying faculties, settled slow on her buoyant
youth. Winter seemed conquering her spring: the mind's soil and its
treasures were freezing gradually to barren stagnation.



Chapter 11 - Fieldhead


Yet Caroline refused tamely to succumb: she had native strength in her
girl's heart, and she used it. Men and women never struggle so hard as
when they struggle alone, without witness, counsellor, or confidant;
unencouraged, unadvised, and unpitied.

Miss Helstone was in this position. Her sufferings were her only spur;
and being very real and sharp, they roused her spirit keenly. Bent on
victory over a mortal pain, she did her best to quell it. Never had she
been seen so busy, so studious, and, above all, so active. She took walks
in all weathers--long walks in solitary directions. Day by day she came
back in the evening, pale and wearied-looking, yet seemingly not
fatigued; for still, as soon as she had thrown off her bonnet and shawl,
she would, instead of resting, begin to pace her apartment: sometimes she
would not sit down till she was literally faint. She said she did this to
tire herself well, that she might sleep soundly at night. But if that was
her aim it was unattained, for at night, when others slumbered, she was
tossing on her pillow, or sitting at the foot of her couch in the
darkness, forgetful, apparently, of the necessity of seeking repose.
Often, unhappy girl! she was crying--crying in a sort of intolerable
despair; which, when it rushed over her, smote down her strength, and
reduced her to childlike helplessness.

When thus prostrate, temptations besieged her: weak suggestions whispered
in her weary heart to write to Robert, and say that she was unhappy
because she was forbidden to see him and Hortense, and that she feared he
would withdraw his friendship (not love) from her, and forget her
entirely, and begging him to remember her, and sometimes to write to her.
One or two such letters she actually indited, but she never sent them:
shame and good sense forbade.

At last the life she led reached the point when it seemed she could bear
it no longer; that she must seek and find a change somehow, or her heart
and head would fail under the pressure which strained them. She longed to
leave Briarfield, to go to some very distant place. She longed for
something else: the deep, secret, anxious yearning to discover and know
her mother strengthened daily; but with the desire was coupled a doubt, a
dread--if she knew her, could she love her? There was cause for
hesitation, for apprehension on this point: never in her life had she
heard that mother praised: whoever mentioned her, mentioned her coolly.
Her uncle seemed to regard his sister-in-law with a sort of tacit
antipathy; an old servant, who had lived with Mrs. James Helstone for a
short time after her marriage, whenever she referred to her former
mistress, spoke with chilling reserve: sometimes she called her 'queer,'
sometimes she said she did not understand her. These expressions were ice
to the daughter's heart; they suggested the conclusions that it was
perhaps better never to know her parent, than to know her and not like
her.

But one project could she frame whose execution seemed likely to bring
her a hope of relief; it was to take a situation, to be a governess--she
could do nothing else. A little incident brought her to the point when
she found courage to break her design to her uncle.

Her long and late walks lay always, as has been said, on lonely roads;
but in whatever direction she had rambled, whether along the drear skirts
of Stilbro' Moor, or over the sunny stretch of Nunnely Common, her
homeward path was still so contrived as to lead her near the Hollow. She
rarely descended the den, but she visited its brink at twilight almost as
regularly as the stars rose over the hill-crests. Her resting-place was
at a certain stile under a certain old thorn: thence she could look down
on the cottage, the mill, the dewy garden-ground, the still, deep dam;
thence was visible the well-known counting-house window, from whose panes
at a fixed hour shot, suddenly bright, the ray of the well-known lamp.
Her errand was to watch for this ray: her reward to catch it, sometimes
sparkling bright in clear air, sometimes shimmering dim through mist, and
anon flashing broken between slant lines of rain--for she came in all
weathers.

There were nights when it failed to appear: she knew then that Robert was
from home, and went away doubly sad; whereas its kindling rendered her
elate, as though she saw in it the promise of some indefinite hope. If,
while she gazed, a shadow bent between the light and lattice, her heart
leaped--that eclipse was Robert: she had seen him. She would return home
comforted, carrying in her mind a clearer vision of his aspect, a
distincter recollection of his voice, his smile, his hearing; and, blent
with these impressions, was often a sweet persuasion that, if she could
get near him, his heart might welcome her presence yet: that at this
moment he might be willing to extend his hand and draw her to him, and
shelter her at his side as he used to do. That night, though she might
weep as usual, she would fancy her tears less scalding; the pillow they
watered seemed a little softer; the temples pressed to that pillow ached
less.

The shortest path from the Hollow to the Rectory wound near a certain
mansion, the same under whose lone walls Malone passed on that
night-journey mentioned in an early chapter of this work--the old and
tenantless dwelling yclept Fieldhead. Tenantless by the proprietor it had
been for ten years, but it was no ruin: Mr. Yorke had seen it kept in
good repair, and an old gardener and his wife had lived in it, cultivated
the grounds, and maintained the house in habitable condition.

If Fieldhead had few other merits as a building, it might at least be
termed picturesque: its irregular architecture, and the grey and mossy
colouring communicated by time, gave it a just claim to this epithet. The
old latticed windows, the stone porch, the walls, the roof, the
chimney-stacks, were rich in crayon touches and sepia lights and shades.
The trees behind were fine, bold, and spreading; the cedar on the lawn in
front was grand, and the granite urns on the garden wall, the fretted
arch of the gateway, were, for an artist, as the very desire of the eye.

One mild May evening, Caroline passing near about moonrise, and feeling,
though weary, unwilling yet to go home, where there was only the bed of
thorns and the night of grief to anticipate, sat down on the mossy ground
near the gate, and gazed through towards cedar and mansion. It was a
still night--calm, dewy, cloudless: the gables, turned to the west,
reflected the clear amber of the horizon they faced; the oaks behind were
black; the cedar was blacker; under its dense, raven boughs a glimpse of
sky opened gravely blue: it was full of the moon, which looked solemnly
and mildly down on Caroline from beneath that sombre canopy.

She felt this night and prospect mournfully lovely. She wished she could
he happy: she wished she could know inward peace: she wondered Providence
had no pity on her, and would not help or console her. Recollections of
happy trysts of lovers commemorated in old ballads returned on his mind:
she thought such tryst in such scene would be blissful. Where now was
Robert? she asked: not at the Hollow: she had watched for his lamp long,
and had not seen it. She questioned within herself whether she and Moore
were ever destined to meet and speak again. Suddenly the door within the
stone porch of the hall opened, and two men came out: one elderly and
white-headed, the other young, dark-haired, and tall. They passed across
the lawn, out through a portal in the garden wall: Caroline saw them
cross the road, pass the stile, descend the fields; she saw them
disappear. Robert Moore had passed before her with his friend Mr. Yorke:
neither had seen her.

The apparition had been transient--scarce seen ere gone; but its electric
passage left her veins kindled, her soul insurgent. It found her
despairing: it left her desperate--two different states.

'Oh! had he but been alone! Had he but seen me!' was her cry, 'he would
have said something; he would have given me his hand. He does, he must
love me a little: he would have shown some token of affection: in his
eye, on his lips, I should have read comfort: but the chance is lost. The
wind--the cloud's shadow does not pass more silently, more emptily than
he. I have been mocked, and Heaven is cruel!'

Thus, in the utter sickness of longing and disappointment, she went home.

The next morning at breakfast, when she appeared white-cheeked and
miserable-looking as one who had seen a ghost, she inquired of Mr.
Helstone--'Have you any objection, uncle, to my inquiring for a situation
in a family?'

Her uncle, ignorant as the table supporting his coffee-cup of all his
niece had undergone and was undergoing, scarcely believed his ears.

'What whim now?' he asked. 'Are you bewitched? What can you mean?'

'I am not well, and need a change,' she said.

He examined her. He discovered she had experienced a change, at any rate.
Without his being aware of it, the rose had dwindled and faded to a mere
snowdrop: bloom had vanished, flesh wasted; she sat before him drooping,
colourless, and thin. But for the soft expression of her brown eyes, the
delicate lines of her features, and the flowing abundance of her hair,
she would no longer have possessed a claim to the epithet--pretty.

'What on earth is the matter with you?' he asked. 'What is wrong? How are
you ailing?'

No answer, only the brown eyes filled, the faintly-tinted lips trembled.

'Look out for a situation, indeed! For what situation are you fit? What
have you been doing with yourself? You are not well.'

'I should be well if I went from home.'

'These women are incomprehensible. They have the strangest knack of
startling you with unpleasant surprises. To-day you see them bouncing,
buxom, red as cherries, and round as apples; to-morrow they exhibit
themselves effete as dead weeds, blanched and broken down. And the reason
of it all? that's the puzzle. She has her meals, her liberty, a good
house to live in, and good clothes to wear, as usual: a while since that
sufficed to keep her handsome and cheery, and there she sits now, a poor
little, pale, puling chit enough. Provoking! Then comes the question,
what is to be done? I suppose I must send for advice. Will you have a
doctor, child?'

'No, uncle: I don't want one: a doctor could do me no good. I merely want
change of air and scene.'

'Well, if that be the caprice, it shall be gratified. You shall go to a
watering-place I don't mind the expense: Fanny shall accompany you.'

'But, uncle, some day I must do something for myself; I have no fortune.
I had better begin now.'

'While I live, you shall not turn out as a governess, Caroline. I will
not have it said that my niece is a governess.'

'But the later in life one makes a change of that sort, uncle, the more
difficult and painful it is. I should wish to get accustomed to the yoke
before any habits of ease and independence are formed.'

'I beg you will not harass me, Caroline. I mean to provide for you. I
have always meant to provide for you: I will purchase an annuity. Bless
me; I am but fifty-five; my health and constitution are excellent: there
is plenty of time to save and take measures. Don't make yourself anxious
respecting the future: is that what frets you?'

'No, uncle; but I long for a change.'

He laughed. 'There speaks the woman!' cried he, 'the very woman! A
change! a change! Always fantastical and whimsical? Well, it's in her
sex.'

'But it is not fantasy and whim, uncle,'

'What is it, then?'

'Necessity, I think. I feel weaker than formerly; I believe I should have
more to do.'

'Admirable! She feels weak, and therefore she should be set to hard
labour--"clair comme le jour"--as Moore--confound Moore! You shall go to
Cliff Bridge; and there are two guineas to buy a new frock. Come, Cary,
never fear: we'll find balm in Gilead.'

'Uncle, I wish you were less generous, and more'----

'More what?'

Sympathising was the word on Caroline's lips, but it was not uttered: she
checked herself in time: her uncle would indeed have laughed if that
namby-pamby word had escaped her. Finding her silent, he said--'The fact
is, you don't know precisely what you want.'

'Only to be a governess.'

'Pooh! mere nonsense! I'll not hear of governessing. Don't mention it
again. It is rather too feminine a fancy. I have finished breakfast, ring
the bell: put all crotchets out of your head, and run away and amuse
yourself.'

'What with? My doll?' asked Caroline to herself as she quitted the room.

A week or two passed; her bodily and mental health neither grew worse nor
better. She was now precisely in that state, when, if her constitution
had contained the seeds of consumption, decline, or slow fever, those
diseases would have been rapidly developed, and would soon have carried
her quietly from the world. People never die of love or grief alone;
though some die of inherent maladies, which the tortures of those
passions prematurely force into destructive action. The sound by nature
undergo these tortures, and are racked, shaken, shattered: their beauty
and bloom perish, but life remains untouched. They are brought to a
certain point of dilapidation; they are reduced to pallor, debility, and
emaciation. People think, as they see them gliding languidly about, that
they will soon withdraw to sick-beds, perish there, and cease from among
the healthy and happy. This does not happen: they live on; and though
they cannot regain youth and gaiety, they may regain strength and
serenity. The blossom which the March wind nips, but fails to sweep away,
may survive to hang a withered apple on the tree late into autumn: having
braved the last frosts of spring, it may also brave the first of winter.

Every one noticed the change in Miss Helstone's appearance, and most
people said she was going to die. She never thought so herself: she felt
in no dying case; she had neither pain nor sickness. Her appetite was
diminished; she knew the reason: it was because she wept so much at
night. Her strength was lessened; she could account for it; sleep was coy
and hard to be won; dreams were distressing and baleful. In the far
future she still seemed to anticipate a time when this passage of misery
should be got over, and when she should once more be calm, though perhaps
never again happy.

Meanwhile her uncle urged her to visit; to comply with the frequent
invitations of their acquaintance: this she evaded doing; she could not
be cheerful in company: she felt she was observed there with more
curiosity than sympathy. Old ladies were always offering her their
advice, recommending this or that nostrum; young ladies looked at her in
a way she understood, and from which she shrank. Their eyes said they
knew she had been 'disappointed,' as custom phrases it: by whom, they
were not certain.

Commonplace young ladies can be quite as hard as commonplace young
gentlemen--quite as worldly and selfish. Those who suffer should always
avoid them; grief and calamity they despise: they seem to regard them as
the judgments of God on the lowly. With them, to 'love' is merely to
contrive a scheme for achieving a good match: to be 'disappointed' is to
have their scheme seen through and frustrated. They think the feelings
and projects of others on the subject of love similar to their own, and
judge them accordingly.

All this Caroline knew, partly by instinct, partly by observation: she
regulated her conduct by her knowledge, keeping her pale face and wasted
figure as much out of sight as she could. Living thus in complete
seclusion, she ceased to receive intelligence of the little transactions
of the neighbourhood.

One morning her uncle came into the parlour, where she sat endeavouring
to find some pleasure in painting a little group of wild flowers,
gathered under a hedge at the top of the Hollow fields, and said to her
in his abrupt manner--'Come, child, you are always stooping over palette,
or book, or sampler: leave that tinting work. By-the-bye, do you put your
pencil to your lips when you paint?'

'Sometimes, uncle, when I forget.'

'Then it is that which is poisoning you. The paints are deleterious,
child: there is white lead and red lead, and verdigris, and gamboge, and
twenty other poisons in those colour cakes. Lock them up! lock them up!
Get your bonnet on. I want you to make a call with me.'

'With you, uncle?

This question was asked in a tone of surprise. She was not accustomed to
make calls with her uncle: she never rode or walked out with him on any
occasion.

'Quick! quick! I am always busy, you know: I have no time to lose.'

She hurriedly gathered up her materials, asking, meantime, where they
were going.

'To Fieldhead.'

'Fieldhead! What, to see old James Booth, the gardener? Is he ill?'

'We are going to see Miss Shirley Keeldar.'

'Miss Keeldar! Is she come to Yorkshire? Is she at Fieldhead?'

'She is. She has been there a week. I met her at a party last
night;--that party to which you would not go. I was pleased with her: I
choose that you shall make her acquaintance: it will do you good.'

'She is now come of age, I suppose?'

'She is come of age, and will reside for a time on her property. I
lectured her on the subject: I showed her her duty: she is not
intractable; she is rather a fine girl; she will teach you what it is to
have a sprightly spirit: nothing lackadaisical about her.'

'I don't think she will want to see me, or to have me introduced to her.
What good can I do her? How can I amuse her?'

'Pshaw! Put your bonnet on,'

'Is she proud, uncle?'

'Don't know. You hardly imagine she would show her pride to me, I
suppose? A chit like that would scarcely presume to give herself airs
with the Rector of her parish, however rich she might be.'

'No--but how did she behave to other people?'

'Didn't observe. She holds her head high, and probably can be saucy
enough where she dare--she wouldn't be a woman otherwise. There,--away
now for your bonnet at once!'

Not naturally very confident, a failure of physical strength and a
depression of spirits had not tended to increase Caroline's presence of
mind and ease of manner, or to give her additional courage to face
strangers, and she quailed, in spite of self-remonstrance, as she and her
uncle walked up the broad, paved approach leading from the gateway of
Fieldhead to its porch. She followed Mr. Helstone reluctantly through
that porch into the sombre old vestibule beyond.

Very sombre it was; long, vast, and dark: one latticed window lit it but
dimly; the wide old chimney contained now no fire, for the present warm
weather needed it not; it was filled instead with willow-boughs. The
gallery on high, opposite the entrance, was seen but in outline, so
shadowy became this hall towards its ceiling; carved stags' heads, with
real antlers, looked down grotesquely from the walls, This was neither a
grand nor a comfortable house: within as without it was antique,
rambling, and incommodious. A property of a thousand a year belonged to
it; which property had descended, for lack of male heirs, on a female.
There were mercantile families in the district boasting twice the income,
but the Keeldars, by virtue of their antiquity, and their distinction of
lords of the manor, took the precedence of all.

Mr. and Miss Helstone were ushered into a parlour: of course, as was to
be expected in such a Gothic old barrack, this parlour was lined with
oak: fine dark, glossy panels compassed the walls gloomily and grandly.
Very handsome, reader, these shining brown panels are: very mellow in
colouring and tasteful in effect, but--if you know what a 'Spring-clean'
is--very execrable and inhuman. Whoever, having the bowels of humanity,
has seen servants scrubbing at these polished wooden walls with
bees-waxed cloths on a warm May day, must allow that they are
'intolerable and not to be endured'; and I cannot but secretly applaud
the benevolent barbarian who had painted another and larger apartment of
Fieldhead--the drawing-room to wit, formerly also an oak-room--of a
delicate pinky white; thereby earning for himself the character of a Hun,
but mightily enhancing the cheerfulness of that portion of his abode, and
saving future housemaids a world of toil.

The brown-panelled parlour was furnished all in old style, and with real
old furniture. On each side of the high mantelpiece stood two antique
chairs of oak, solid as sylvan thrones, and in one of these sat a lady.
But if this were Miss Keeldar, she must have come of age at least some
twenty years ago: she was of matronly form, and though she wore no cap,
and possessed hair of quite an undimmed auburn, shading small and
naturally young-looking features, she had no youthful aspect, nor
apparently the wish to assume it. You could have wished her attire of a
newer fashion: in a well-cut, well-made gown, hers would have been no
uncomely presence. It puzzled you to guess why a garment of handsome
materials should be arranged in such scanty folds, and devised after such
an obsolete mode: you felt disposed to set down the wearer as somewhat
eccentric at once.

This lady received the visitors with a mixture of ceremony and diffidence
quite English: no middle-aged matron who was not an Englishwoman could
evince precisely the same manner; a manner so uncertain of herself, of
her own merits, of her power to please; and yet so anxious to be proper,
and if possible, rather agreeable than otherwise. In the present
instance, however, more embarrassment was shown than is usual even with
diffident Englishwomen: Miss Helstone felt this, sympathised with the
stranger, and knowing by experience what was good for the timid, took a
seat quietly near her, and began to talk to her with a gentle ease,
communicated for the moment by the presence of one less self-possessed
than herself.

She and this lady would, if alone, have at once got on extremely well
together. The lady had the clearest voice imaginable: infinitely softer
and more tuneful than could have been reasonably expected from forty
years, and a form decidedly inclined to embonpoint. This voice Caroline
liked: it atoned for the formal, if correct, accent and language: the
lady would soon have discovered she liked it and her, and in ten minutes
they would have been friends. But Mr. Helstone stood on the rug looking
at them both; looking especially at the strange lady with his sarcastic,
keen eye, that clearly expressed impatience of her chilly ceremony, and
annoyance at her want of aplomb. His hard gaze and rasping voice
discomfited the lady more and more; she tried, however, to get up little
speeches about the weather, the aspect of the country, etc., but the
impracticable Mr. Helstone presently found himself somewhat deaf:
whatever she said, he affected not to hear distinctly, and she was
obliged to go over each elaborately constructed nothing twice. The effort
soon became too much for her; she was just rising in a perplexed flutter,
nervously murmuring that she knew not what detained Miss Keeldar--that
she would go and look for her, when Miss Keeldar saved her the trouble by
appearing: it was to be presumed at least that she who now came in
through a glass-door from the garden owned that name.

There is real grace in ease of manner, and so old Helstone her left when
an erect, slight girl walked up to him, retaining with her left hand her
little silk apron full of flowers, and giving him her right hand said
pleasantly: 'I knew you would come to see me, though you do think Mr.
Yorke has made me a Jacobin. Good-morning.'

'But we'll not have you a Jacobin,' returned he. 'No, Miss Shirley, they
shall not steal the flower of my parish from me: now that you are amongst
us, you shall be my pupil in politics and religion: I'll teach you sound
doctrine on both points.'

'Mrs. Pryor has anticipated you,' she replied, turning to the elder lady.
'Mrs. Pryor, you know, was my governess, and is still my friend; and of
all the high and rigid Tories, she is queen; of all the stanch
churchwomen, she is chief. I have been well drilled both in theology and
history, I assure you, Mr. Helstone.'

The Rector immediately bowed very low to Mrs. Pryor, and expressed
himself obliged to her.

The ex-governess disclaimed skill either in political or religious
controversy, explained that she thought such matters little adapted for
female minds, but avowed herself in general terms the advocate of order
and loyalty, and, of course, truly attached to the Establishment. She
added, she was ever averse to change under any circumstances; and
something scarcely audible about the extreme danger of being too ready to
take up new ideas, closed her sentence.

'Miss Keeldar thinks as you think, I hope, madam.'

'Difference of age and difference of temperament occasion difference of
sentiment,' was the reply. 'It can scarcely he expected that the eager
and young should hold the opinions of the cool and middle-aged.'

'Oh! oh! we are independent: we think for ourselves!' cried Mr. Helstone.
'We are a little Jacobin, for anything I know: a little free-thinker, in
good earnest. Let us have a confession of faith on the spot.'

And he took the heiress's two hands--causing her to let fall her whole
cargo of flowers--and seated her by him on the sofa.

'Say your creed,' he ordered.

'The Apostles' creed?'

'Yes.'

She said it like a child.

'Now for St. Athanasius's: that's the test!'

'Let me gather up my flowers: here is Tartar coming, he will tread upon
them.'

Tartar was a rather large, strong, and fierce-looking dog, very ugly,
being of a breed between mastiff and bull-dog, who at this moment entered
through the glass-door, and posting directly to the rug, snuffed the
fresh flowers scattered there. He seemed to scorn them as food; but
probably thinking their velvety petals might be convenient as litter, he
was turning round preparatory to depositing his tawny bulk upon them,
when Miss Helstone and Miss Keeldar simultaneously stooped to the rescue.

'Thank you,' said the heiress, as she again held out her little apron for
Caroline to heap the blossoms into it, 'Is this your daughter, Mr.
Helstone?' she asked.

'My niece, Caroline.'

Miss Keeldar shook hands with her, and then looked at her. Caroline also
looked at her hostess.

Shirley Keeldar (she had no Christian name but Shirley: her parents, who
had wished to have a son, finding that, after eight years of marriage,
Providence had granted them only a daughter, bestowed on her the same
masculine family cognomen they would have bestowed on a boy, if with a
boy they had been blessed)--Shirley Keeldar was no ugly heiress: she was
agreeable to the eye. Her height and shape were not unlike Miss
Helstone's: perhaps in stature she might have the advantage by an inch or
two; she was gracefully made, and her face, too, possessed a charm as
well described by the word grace as any other. It was pale naturally, but
intelligent, and of varied expression. She was not a blonde, like
Caroline: clear and dark were the characteristics of her aspect as to
colour: her face and brow were clear, her eyes of the darkest grey: no
green lights in them,--transparent, pure, neutral grey: and her hair of
the darkest brown. Her features were distinguished: by which I do not
mean that they were high, bony, and Roman, being indeed rather small and
slightly marked than otherwise; but only that they were, to use a few
French words, 'fins, gracieux, spirituels': mobile they were and
speaking; but their changes were not to be understood, nor their language
interpreted all at once. She examined Caroline seriously, inclining her
head a little to one side, with a thoughtful air.

'You see she is only a feeble chick,' observed Mr. Helstone.

'She looks young--younger than I. How old are you?' she inquired, in a
manner that would have been patronising if it had not been extremely
solemn and simple.

'Eighteen years and six months.'

'And I am twenty-one.'

She said no more; she had now placed her flowers on the table, and was
busied in arranging them.

'And St. Athanasius's creed?' urged the Rector; 'you believe it
all--don't you?'

'I can't remember it quite all. I will give you a nosegay, Mr. Helstone,
when I have given your niece one.'

She had selected a little bouquet of one brilliant and two or three
delicate flowers, relieved by a spray of dark verdure: she tied it with
silk from her work-box, and placed it on Caroline's lap; and then she put
her hands behind her, and stood bending slightly towards her guest, still
regarding her, in the attitude and with something of the aspect of a
grave but gallant little cavalier. This temporary expression of face was
aided by the style in which she wore her hair, parted on one temple, and
brushed in a glossy sweep above the forehead, whence it fell in curls
that looked natural, so free were their wavy undulations.

'Are you tired with your walk?' she inquired.

'No--not in the least; it is but a short distance--but a mile.'

'You look pale. Is she always so pale?' she asked, turning to the Rector.

'She used to be as rosy as the reddest of your flowers.

'Why is she altered? What has made her pale? Has she been ill?'

'She tells me she wants a change.'

'She ought to have one: you ought to give her one: you should send her to
the sea-coast.'

'I will, ere summer is over. Meantime, I intend her to make acquaintance
with you, if you have no objection.'

'I am sure Miss Keeldar will have no objection,' here observed Mrs.
Pryor. 'I think I may take it upon me to say that Miss Helstone's
frequent presence at Fieldhead will be esteemed a favour.'

'You speak my sentiments precisely, ma'am,' said Shirley, 'and I thank
you for anticipating me. Let me tell you,' she continued, turning again
to Caroline, 'that you also ought to thank my governess; it is not every
one she would welcome as she has welcomed you: you are distinguished more
than you think. This morning, as soon as you are gone, I shall ask Mrs.
Pryor's opinion of you. I am apt to rely on her judgment of character,
for hitherto I have found it wondrous accurate. Already I foresee a
favourable answer to my inquiries: do I not guess rightly, Mrs. Pryor?'

'My dear--you said but now you would ask my opinion when Miss Helstone
was gone; I am scarcely likely to give it in her presence.'

'No--and perhaps it will be long enough before I obtain it. I am
sometimes sadly tantalised, Mr. Helstone, by Mrs. Pryor's extreme
caution: her judgments ought to be correct when they come, for they are
often as tardy of delivery as a Lord Chancellor's: on some people's
characters I cannot get her to pronounce sentence, entreat as I may.'

Mrs. Pryor here smiled.

'Yes,' said her pupil, 'I know what that smile means: you are thinking of
my gentleman-tenant. Do you know Mr. Moore of the Hollow?' she asked Mr.
Helstone.

'Ay! ay! your tenant--so he is: you have seen a good deal of him, no
doubt, since you came?'

'I have been obliged to see him: there was business to transact.
Business! Really the word makes me conscious I am indeed no longer a
girl, but quite a woman and something more. I am an esquire! Shirley
Keeldar, Esquire, ought to be my style and title. They gave me a man's
name; I hold a man's position: it is enough to inspire me with a touch of
manhood, and when I see such people as that stately Anglo-Belgian--that
Gérard Moore before me, gravely talking to me of business, really I feel
quite gentleman-like. You must choose me for your churchwarden, Mr.
Helstone, the next time you elect new ones: they ought to make me a
magistrate and a captain of yeomanry Tony Lumpkin's mother was a colonel,
and his aunt a justice of the peace--why shouldn't I be?'

'With all my heart. If you choose to get up a requisition on the subject,
I promise to head the list of signatures with my name. But you were
speaking of Moore?'

'Ah! yes. I find it a little difficult to understand Mr. Moore--to know
what to think of him: whether to like him or not. He seems a tenant of
whom any proprietor might be proud--and proud of him I am, in that
sense--but as a neighbour, what is he? Again and again I have entreated
Mrs. Pryor to say what she thinks of him, but she still evades returning
a direct answer. I hope you will be less oracular, Mr. Helstone, and
pronounce at once: do you like him?'

'Not at all, just now: his name is entirely blotted from my good books.'

'What is the matter? What has he done?'

'My uncle and he disagree on politics,' interposed the low voice of
Caroline. She had better not have spoken just then: having scarcely
joined in the conversation before, it was not apropos to do it now: she
felt this with nervous acuteness as soon as she had spoken, and coloured
to the eyes.

'What are Moore's politics?' inquired Shirley.

'Those of a tradesman,' returned the Rector; 'narrow, selfish, and
unpatriotic. The man is eternally writing and speaking against the
continuance of the war: I have no patience with him.'

'The war hurts his trade. I remember he remarked that only yesterday. But
what other objection have you to him?'

'That is enough.'

'He looks the gentleman, in my sense of the term,' pursued Shirley, 'and
it pleases me to think he is such.'

Caroline rent the Tyrian petals of the one brilliant flower in her
bouquet, and answered in distinct tones--'Decidedly he is.' Shirley,
hearing this courageous affirmation, flashed an arch, searching glance at
the speaker from her deep, expressive eyes.

'You are his friend, at any rate,' she said; 'you defend him in his
absence.'

'I am both his friend and his relative,' was the prompt reply. 'Robert
Moore is my cousin.'

'Oh, then, you can tell me all about him. Just give me a sketch of his
character.'

Insuperable embarrassment seized Caroline when this demand was made: she
could not, and did not attempt to comply with it. Her silence was
immediately covered by Mrs. Pryor, who proceeded to address sundry
questions to Mr. Helstone regarding a family or two in the neighbourhood,
with whose connections in the south she said she was acquainted. Shirley
soon withdrew her gaze from Miss Helstone's face. She did not renew her
interrogations, but returning to her flowers, proceeded to choose a
nosegay for the Rector. She presented it to him as he took leave, and
received the homage of a salute on the hand in return.

'Be sure you wear it for my sake,' said she.

'Next my heart, of course,' responded Helstone. 'Mrs. Pryor, take care of
this future magistrate, this churchwarden in perspective, this captain of
yeomanry, this young squire of Briarfield, in a word: don't let him exert
himself too much: don't let him break his neck in hunting: especially,
let him mind how he rides down that dangerous hill near the Hollow.'

'I like a descent,' said Shirley--'I like to clear it rapidly; and
especially I like that romantic Hollow, with all my heart.'

'Romantic--with a mill in it?'

'Romantic with a mill in it. The old mill and the white cottage are each
admirable in its way.'

'And the counting-house, Mr. Keeldar?'

'The counting-house is better than my bloom-coloured drawing-room: I
adore the counting-house.'

'And the trade? The cloth--the greasy wool--the polluting dyeing-vats?'

'The trade is to be thoroughly respected.'

'And the tradesman is a hero? Good!'

'I am glad to hear you say so: I thought the tradesman looked heroic.'

Mischief, spirit, and glee sparkled all over her face as she thus bandied
words with the old Cossack, who almost equally enjoyed the tilt.

'Captain Keeldar, you have no mercantile blood in your veins: why are you
so fond of trade?'

'Because I am a mill-owner, of course. Half my income comes from the
works in that Hollow.'

'Don't enter into partnership, that's all.'

'You've put it into my head! you've put it into my head!' she exclaimed,
with a joyous laugh. 'It will never get out: thank you.' And waving her
hand, white as a lily and fine as a fairy's, she vanished within the
porch, while the Rector and his niece passed out through the arched
gateway.



Chapter 12 - Shirley and Caroline


Shirley showed she had been sincere in saying she should be glad of
Caroline's society, by frequently seeking it: and, indeed, if she had not
sought it, she would not have had it; for Miss Helstone was slow to make
fresh acquaintance. She was always held back by the idea that people
could not want her,--that she could not amuse them; and a brilliant,
happy, youthful creature, like the heiress of Fieldhead, seemed to her
too completely independent of society so uninteresting as hers, ever to
find it really welcome.

Shirley might be brilliant, and probably happy likewise, but no one is
independent of genial society; and though in about a month she had made
the acquaintance of most of the families round, and was on quite free and
easy terms with all the Misses Sykes, and all the Misses Pearson, and the
two superlative Misses Wynne of Walden Hall; yet, it appeared, she found
none amongst them very genial: she fraternised with none of them, to use
her own words. If she had had the bliss to be really Shirley Keeldar,
Esq., Lord of the Manor of Briarfield, there was not a single fair one in
this and the two neighbouring parishes, whom she should have felt
disposed to request to become Mrs. Keeldar, lady of the manor. This
declaration she made to Mrs. Pryor, who received it very quietly, as she
did most of her pupil's off-hand speeches, responding--'My dear, do not
allow that habit of alluding to yourself as a gentleman to be confirmed:
it is a strange one. Those who do not know you, hearing you speak thus,
would think you affected masculine manners.'

Shirley never laughed at her former governess: even the little
formalities and harmless peculiarities of that lady were respectable in
her eyes: had it been otherwise, she would have proved herself a weak
character at once: for it is only the weak who make a butt of quiet
worth; therefore she took her remonstrance in silence. She stood quietly
near the window, looking at the grand cedar on her lawn, watching a bird
on one of its lower boughs. Presently she began to chirrup to the bird:
soon her chirrup grew clearer; erelong she was whistling; the whistle
struck into a tune, and very sweetly and deftly it was executed.

'My dear!' expostulated Mrs. Pryor.

'Was I whistling?' said Shirley; 'I forgot. I beg your pardon, ma'am. I
had resolved to take care not to whistle before you.'

'But, Miss Keeldar, where did you learn to whistle? You must have got the
habit since you came down into Yorkshire. I never knew you guilty of it
before.'

'Oh! I learned to whistle a long while ago.'

'Who taught you?'

'No one: I took it up by listening, and I had laid it down again; but
lately, yesterday evening, as I was coming up our lane, I heard a
gentleman whistling that very tune in the field on the other side of the
hedge, and that reminded me.'

'What gentleman was it?'

'We have only one gentleman in this region, ma'am, and that is Mr. Moore:
at least he is the only gentleman who is not grey-haired: my two
venerable favourites, Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, it is true, are fine
old beaux; infinitely better than any of the stupid young ones.'

Mrs. Pryor was silent.

'You do not like Mr. Helstone, ma'am?'

'My dear, Mr. Helstone's office secures him from criticism.'

'You generally contrive to leave the room when he is announced.'

'Do you walk out this morning, my dear?'

'Yes, I shall go to the Rectory, and seek and find Caroline Helstone, and
make her take some exercise: she shall have a breezy walk over Nunnely
Common.'

'If you go in that direction, my dear, have the goodness to remind Miss
Helstone to wrap up well, as there is a fresh wind, and she appears to me
to require care.'

'You shall be minutely obeyed, Mrs. Pryor: meantime, will you not
accompany us yourself?'

'No, my love; I should be a restraint upon you: I am stout, and cannot
walk so quickly as you would wish to do.'

Shirley easily persuaded Caroline to go with her: and when they were
fairly out on the quiet road, traversing the extensive and solitary sweep
of Nunnely Common, she as easily drew her into conversation. The first
feelings of diffidence overcome, Caroline soon felt glad to talk with
Miss Keeldar. The very first interchange of slight observations sufficed
to give each an idea of what the other was. Shirley said she liked the
green sweep of the common turf, and, better still, the heath on its
ridges, for the heath reminded her of moors: she had seen moors when she
was travelling on the borders near Scotland. She remembered particularly
a district traversed one long afternoon, on a sultry but sunless day in
summer: they journeyed from noon till sunset, over what seemed a
boundless waste of deep heath, and nothing had they seen but wild sheep;
nothing heard but the cries of wild birds.

'I know how the heath would look on such a day,' said Caroline;
'purple-black: a deeper shade of the sky-tint, and that would be livid.'

'Yes--quite livid, with brassy edges to the clouds, and here and there a
white gleam, more ghastly than the lurid tinge, which, as you looked at
it, you momentarily expected would kindle into blinding lightning.'

'Did it thunder?'

'It muttered distant peals, but the storm did not break till evening,
after we had reached our inn: that inn being an isolated house at the
foot of a range of mountains.'

'Did you watch the clouds come down over the mountains?'

'I did: I stood at the window an hour watching them. The hills seemed
rolled in a sullen mist, and when the rain fell in whitening sheets,
suddenly they were blotted from the prospect: they were washed from the
world.'

'I have seen such storms in hilly districts in Yorkshire; and at their
riotous climax, while the sky was all cataract, the earth all flood, I
have remembered the Deluge.'

'It is singularly reviving after such hurricanes to feel calm return, and
from the opening clouds to receive a consolatory gleam, softly testifying
that the sun is not quenched.'

'Miss Keeldar, just stand still now, and look down at Nunnely dale and
wood.'

They both halted on the green brow of the Common: they looked down on the
deep valley robed in May raiment; on varied meads, some pearled with
daisies, and some golden with king-cups: to-day all this young verdure
smiled clear in sunlight; transparent emerald and amber gleams played
over it. On Nunnwood--the sole remnant of antique British forest in a
region whose lowlands were once all sylvan chase, as its highlands were
breast-deep heather--slept the shadow of a cloud; the distant hills were
dappled, the horizon was shaded and tinted like mother-of-pearl; silvery
blues, soft purples, evanescent greens and rose-shades, all melting into
fleeces of white cloud, pure as azury snow, allured the eye as with a
remote glimpse of heaven's foundations. The air blowing on the brow was
fresh, and sweet, and bracing.

'Our England is a bonnie island,' said Shirley, 'and Yorkshire is one of
her bonniest nooks.'

'You are a Yorkshire girl too?'

'I am--Yorkshire in blood and birth. Five generations of my race sleep
under the aisles of Briarfield Church: I drew my first breath in the old
black hall behind us.'

Hereupon Caroline presented her hand, which was accordingly taken and
shaken. 'We are compatriots,' said she.

'Yes,' agreed Shirley, with a grave nod.

'And that,' asked Miss Keeldar, pointing to the forest--'that is
Nunnwood?'

'It is.'

'Were you ever there?'

'Many a time.'

'In the heart of it?

'Yes.'

'What is it like?'

'It is like an encampment of forest sons of Anak. The trees are huge and
old. When you stand at their roots, the summits seem in another region:
the trunks remain still and firm as pillars, while the boughs sway to
every breeze. In the deepest calm their leaves are never quite hushed,
and in high wind a flood rushes--a sea thunders above you.'

'Was it not one of Robin Hood's haunts?'

'Yes, and there are mementoes of him still existing. To penetrate into
Nunnwood, Miss Keeldar, is to go far back into the dim days of old. Can
you see a break in the forest, about the centre?'

'Yes, distinctly.'

'That break is a dell; a deep, hollow cup, lined with turf as green and
short as the sod of this common: the very oldest of the trees, gnarled
mighty oaks, crowd about the brink of this dell: in the bottom lie the
ruins of a nunnery.'

'We will go--you and I alone, Caroline--to that wood, early some fine
summer morning, and spend a long day there. We can take pencils and
sketch-books, and any interesting reading-book we like; and of course we
shall take something to eat. I have two little baskets, in which Mrs.
Gill, my housekeeper, might pack our provisions, and we could each carry
our own. It would not tire you too much to walk so far?'

'Oh, no; especially if we rested the whole day in the wood, and I know
all the pleasantest spots: I know where we could get nuts in nutting
time; I know where wild strawberries abound: I know certain lonely, quite
untrodden glades, carpeted with strange mosses, some yellow as if gilded,
some a sober grey, some gem-green. I know groups of trees that ravish the
eye with their perfect, picture-like effects: rude oak, delicate birch,
glossy beech, clustered in contrast; and ash trees stately as Saul,
standing isolated, and superannuated wood-giants clad in bright shrouds
of ivy. Miss Keeldar, I could guide you.'

'You would be dull with me alone?'

'I should not. I think we should suit: and what third person is there
whose presence would not spoil our pleasure?'

'Indeed, I know of none about our own ages--no lady at least, and as to
gentlemen'----

'An excursion becomes quite a different thing when there are gentlemen of
the party,' interrupted Caroline.

'I agree with you--quite a different thing to what we were proposing.'

'We were going simply to see the old trees, the old ruins; to pass a day
in old times, surrounded by olden silence, and above all by quietude.'

'You are right; and the presence of gentlemen dispels the last charm, I
think. If they are of the wrong sort, like your Malones, and your young
Sykes, and Wynnes, irritation takes the place of serenity. If they are of
the right sort, there is still a change--I can hardly tell what change,
one easy to feel, difficult to describe.'

'We forget Nature, imprimis.'

'And then Nature forgets us; covers her vast calm brow with a dim veil,
conceals her face, and withdraws the peaceful joy with which, if we had
been content to worship her only, she would have filled our hearts.'

'What does she give us instead?'

'More elation and more anxiety: an excitement that steals the hours away
fast, and a trouble that ruffles their course.'

'Our power of being happy lies a good deal in ourselves, I believe,'
remarked Caroline sagely. 'I have gone to Nunnwood with a large party,
all the curates and some other gentry of these parts, together with
sundry ladies; and I found the affair insufferably tedious and absurd:
and I have gone quite alone, or accompanied but by Fanny, who sat in the
woodman's hut and sewed, or talked to the good wife, while I roamed about
and made sketches, or read; and I have enjoyed much happiness of a quiet
kind all day long. But that was when I was young--two years ago.'

'Did you ever go with your cousin, Robert Moore?'

'Yes; once.'

'What sort of a companion is he on these occasions?'

'A cousin, you know, is different to a stranger.'

'I am aware of that; but cousins, if they are stupid, are still more
insupportable than strangers, because you cannot so easily keep them at a
distance. But your cousin is not stupid?'

'No; but----'

'Well?'

'If the company of fools irritates, as you say, the society of clever men
leaves its own peculiar pain also. Where the goodness or talent of your
friend is beyond and above all doubt, your own worthiness to be his
associate often becomes a matter of question.'

'Oh! there I cannot follow you: that crotchet is not one I should choose
to entertain for an instant. I consider myself not unworthy to be the
associate of the best of them--of gentlemen, I mean: though that is
saying a great deal. Where they are good, they are very good, I believe.
Your uncle, by-the-bye, is not a bad specimen of the elderly gentleman: I
am always glad to see his brown, keen, sensible old face, either in my
own house or any other. Are you fond of him? Is he kind to you? Now speak
the truth.'

He has brought me up from childhood, I doubt not, precisely as he would
have brought up his own daughter, if he had had one; and that is
kindness; but I am not fond of him: I would rather be out of his presence
than in it.'

'Strange! when he has the art of making himself so agreeable.'

'Yes, in company; but he is stern and silent at home. As he puts away his
cane and shovel-hat in the Rectory-hall, so he locks his liveliness in
his book-case and study-desk: the knitted brow and brief word for the
fire-side; the smile, the jest, the witty sally, for society.'

'Is he tyrannical?'

'Not in the least: he is neither tyrannical nor hypocritical: he is
simply a man who is rather liberal than good-natured, rather brilliant
than genial, rather scrupulously equitable than truly just,--if you can
understand such superfine distinctions?'

'Oh! yes: good-nature implies indulgence, which he has not; geniality,
warmth of heart, which he does not own; and genuine justice is the
offspring of sympathy and considerateness, of which, I can well conceive,
my bronzed old friend is quite innocent.'

'I often wonder, Shirley, whether most men resemble my uncle in their
domestic relations; whether it is necessary to be new and unfamiliar to
them, in order to seem agreeable or estimable in their eyes; and whether
it is impossible to their natures to retain a constant interest and
affection for those they see every day.'

'I don't know: I can't clear up your doubts. I ponder over similar ones
myself sometimes. But, to tell you a secret, if I were convinced that
they are necessarily and universally different from us--fickle, soon
petrifying, unsympathising--I would never marry. I should not like to
find out that what I loved did not love me, that it was weary of me, and
that whatever effort I might make to please would hereafter be worse than
useless, since it was inevitably in its nature to change and become
indifferent. That discovery once made, what should I long for? To go
away--to remove from a presence where my society gave no pleasure.'

'But you could not, if you were married.'

'No, I could not,--there it is. I could never be my own mistress more. A
terrible thought!--it suffocates me! Nothing irks me like the idea of
being a burden and a bore,--an inevitable burden,--a ceaseless bore! Now,
when I feel my company superfluous, I can comfortably fold my
independence round me like a mantle, and drop my pride like a veil, and
withdraw to solitude. If married, that could not be.'

'I wonder we don't all make up our minds to remain single,' said
Caroline: 'we should if we listened to the wisdom of experience. My uncle
always speaks of marriage as a burden; and I believe whenever he hears of
a man being married, he invariably regards him as a fool, or at any rate,
as doing a foolish thing.'

'But, Caroline, men are not all like your uncle: surely not--I hope not.'

She paused and mused.

'I suppose we each find an exception in the one we love, till we are
married,' suggested Caroline.

'I suppose so: and this exception we believe to be of sterling materials;
we fancy it like ourselves; we imagine a sense of harmony. We think his
voice gives the softest, truest promise of a heart that will never harden
against us: we read in his eyes that faithful feeling--affection. I don't
think we should trust to what they call passion at all, Caroline. I
believe it is a mere fire of dry sticks, blazing up and vanishing: but we
watch him, and see him kind to animals, to little children, to poor
people. He is kind to us likewise--good--considerate: he does not flatter
women, but he is patient with them, and he seems to be easy in their
presence, and to find their company genial. He likes them not only for
vain and selfish reasons, but as we like him--because we like him. Then
we observe that he is just--that he always speaks the truth--that he is
conscientious. We feel joy and peace when he comes into a room: we feel
sadness and trouble when he leaves it. We know that this man has been a
kind son, that he is a kind brother: will any one dare to tell me that he
will not be a kind husband?'

'My uncle would affirm it unhesitatingly. He will be sick of you in a
month,' he would say.'

'Mrs. Pryor would seriously intimate the same.'

'Miss Yorke and Miss Mann would darkly suggest ditto.'

'If they are true oracles, it is good never to fall in love.'

'Very good, if you can avoid it.'

'I choose to doubt their truth.'

'I am afraid that proves you are already caught.'

'Not I: but if I were, do you know what soothsayers I would consult?'

'Let me hear.'

'Neither man nor woman, elderly nor young :--the little Irish beggar that
comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out of the cranny in the
wainscot; the bird that in frost and snow pecks at my window for a crumb;
the dog that licks my hand and sits beside my knee.'

'Did you ever see any one who was kind to such things?'

'Did you ever see any one whom such things seemed instinctively to
follow, like, rely on?'

'We have a black cat and an old dog at the Rectory. I know somebody to
whose knee that black cat loves to climb; against whose shoulder and
cheek it likes to purr. The old dog always comes out of his kennel and
wags his tail, and whines affectionately when somebody passes.'

'And what does that somebody do?'

'He quietly strokes the cat, and lets her sit while he conveniently can,
and when he must disturb her by rising, he puts her softly down, and
never flings her from him roughly; he always whistles to the dog and
gives him a caress.'

'Does he? It is not Robert?'

'But it is Robert.'

'Handsome fellow!' said Shirley, with enthusiasm: her eyes sparkled.

'Is he not handsome? Has he not fine eyes and well-cut features, and a
clear, princely forehead?'

'He has all that, Caroline. Bless him! he is both graceful and good.'

'I was sure you would see that he was: when I first looked at your face I
knew you would.'

'I was well inclined to him before I saw him. I liked him when I did see
him: I admire him now. There is charm in beauty for itself, Caroline;
when it is blent with goodness, there is a powerful charm.'

'When mind is added, Shirley?'

'Who can resist it?'

'Remember my uncle, Mesdames Pryor, Yorke, and Mann.'

'Remember the croaking of the frogs of Egypt! He is a noble being. I tell
you when they are good, they are the lords of the creation,--they are the
sons of God. Moulded in their Maker's image, the minutest spark of His
spirit lifts them almost above mortality. Indisputably, a great, good,
handsome man is the first of created things.'

'Above us?'

'I would scorn to contend for empire with him,--I would scorn it. Shall
my left hand dispute for precedence with my right?--shall my heart
quarrel with my pulse?--shall my veins be jealous of the blood which
fills them?'

'Men and women, husbands and wives quarrel horribly, Shirley.'

'Poor things!--poor, fallen, degenerate things! God made them for another
lot--for other feelings.'

'But are we men's equals, or are we not?'

'Nothing ever charms me more than when I meet my superior--one who makes
me sincerely feel that he is my superior.'

'Did you ever meet him?'

'I should be glad to see him any day: the higher above me, so much the
better: it degrades to stoop--it is glorious to look up. What frets me
is, that when I try to esteem, I am baffled: when religiously inclined,
there are but false gods to adore. I disdain to be a Pagan.'

'Miss Keeldar, will you come in? We are here at the Rectory gates.'

'Not to-day; but to-morrow I shall fetch you to spend the evening with
me. Caroline Helstone--if you really are what at present to me you
seem--you and I will suit. I have never in my whole life been able to
talk to a young lady as I have talked to you this morning. Kiss me--and
good-bye.'

* * * * *

Mrs. Pryor seemed as well-disposed to cultivate Caroline's acquaintance
as Shirley. She, who went nowhere else, called on an early day at the
Rectory. She came in the afternoon, when the Rector happened to be out.
It was rather a close day; the heat of the weather had flushed her, and
she seemed fluttered, too, by the circumstance of entering a strange
house; for it appeared her habits were most retiring and secluded. When
Miss Helstone went to her in the dining-room she found her seated on the
sofa, trembling, fanning herself with her handkerchief, and seeming to
contend with a nervous discomposure that threatened to become hysterical.

Caroline marvelled somewhat at this unusual want of self-command in a
lady of her years, and also at the lack of real strength in one who
appeared almost robust: for Mrs. Pryor hastened to allege the fatigue of
her walk, the heat of the sun, etc., as reasons for her temporary
indisposition; and still as, with more hurry than coherence, she again
and again enumerated these causes of exhaustion, Caroline gently sought
to relieve her by opening her shawl and removing her bonnet. Attentions
of this sort, Mrs. Pryor would not have accepted from everyone: in
general, she recoiled from touch or close approach, with a mixture of
embarrassment and coldness far from flattering to those who offered her
aid: to Miss Helstone's little light hand, however, she yielded
tractably, and seemed soothed by its contact. In a few minutes she ceased
to tremble, and grew quiet and tranquil.

Her usual manner being resumed, she proceeded to talk of ordinary topics.
In a miscellaneous company, Mrs. Pryor rarely opened her lips; or, if
obliged to speak, she spoke under restraint, and consequently not well;
in dialogue, she was a good converser: her language, always a little
formal, was well chosen; her sentiments were just; her information was
varied and correct. Caroline felt it pleasant to listen to her: more
pleasant than she could have anticipated.

On the wall opposite the sofa where they sat, hung three pictures: the
centre one, above the mantel-piece, that of a lady; the two others, male
portraits.

'That is a beautiful face,' said Mrs. Pryor, interrupting a brief pause
which had followed half-an-hour's animated conversation: 'the features
may be termed perfect; no statuary's chisel could improve them: it is a
portrait from the life, I presume?'

'It is a portrait of Mrs. Helstone.'

'Of Mrs. Matthewson Helstone? Of your uncle's wife?'

'It is, and is said to be a good likeness: before her marriage, she was
accounted the beauty of the district.'

'I should say she merited the distinction: what accuracy in all the
lineaments! It is, however, a passive face: the original could not have
been what is generally termed 'a woman of spirit.''

'I believe she was a remarkably still, silent person.'

'One would scarcely have expected, my dear, that your uncle's choice
should have fallen on a partner of that description. Is he not fond of
being amused by lively chat?'

'In company he is; but he always says he could never do with a talking
wife: he must have quiet at home. You go out to gossip, he affirms; you
come home to read and reflect.'

'Mrs. Matthewson lived but a few years after her marriage, I think I have
heard?'

'About five years.'

'Well, my dear,' pursued Mrs. Pryor, rising to go, 'I trust it is
understood that you will frequently come to Fieldhead: I hope you will.
You must feel lonely here, having no female relative in the house: you
must necessarily pass much of your time in solitude.'

'I am inured to it: I have grown up by myself. May I arrange your shawl
for you?'

Mrs. Pryor submitted to be assisted.

'Should you chance to require help in your studies,' she said, 'you may
command me.'

Caroline expressed her sense of such kindness.

'I hope to have frequent conversations with you. I should wish to be of
use to you.'

Again Miss Helstone returned thanks. She thought what a kind heart was
hidden under her visitor's seeming chilliness. Observing that Mrs. Pryor
again glanced with an air of interest towards the portraits, as she
walked down the room, Caroline casually explained--'The likeness that
hangs near the window, you will see, is my uncle, taken twenty years ago;
the other, to the left of the mantelpiece, is his brother James, my
father.'

'They resemble each other in some measure,' said Mrs. Pryor; 'yet a
difference of character may be traced in the different mould of the brow
and mouth.'

'What difference?' inquired Caroline, accompanying her to the door.
'James Helstone--that is, my father--is generally considered the
best-looking of the two: strangers, I remark, always exclaim, 'What a
handsome man!' Do you think his picture handsome, Mrs. Pryor?'

'It is much softer or finer featured than that of your uncle.'

'But where or what is the difference of character to which you alluded?
Tell me: I wish to see if you guess right.'

'My dear, your uncle is a man of principle: his forehead and his lips are
firm, and his eye is steady.'

'Well, and the other? Do not be afraid of offending me: I always like the
truth.'

'Do you like the truth? It is well for you: adhere to that
preference--never swerve thence. The other, my dear, if he had been
living now, would probably have furnished little support to his daughter.
It is, however, a graceful head--taken in youth, I should think. My dear'
(turning abruptly), 'you acknowledge an inestimate value in principle?'

'I am sure no character can have true worth without it.'

'You feel what you say? You have considered the subject?'

'Often. Circumstances early forced it upon my attention.'

'The lesson was not lost, then, though it came so prematurely. I suppose
the soil is not light nor stony, otherwise seed falling in that season
never would have borne fruit. My dear, do not stand in the air of the
door, you will take cold: good afternoon.'

Miss Helstone's new acquaintance soon became of value to her: their
society was acknowledged a privilege. She found she would have been in
error indeed to have let slip this chance of relief--to have neglected to
avail herself of this happy change: a turn was thereby given to her
thoughts; a new channel was opened for them, which, diverting a few of
them at least from the one direction in which all had hitherto tended,
abated the impetuosity of their rush, and lessened the force of their
pressure on one worn-down point.

Soon she was content to spend whole days at Fieldhead, doing by turns
whatever Shirley or Mrs. Pryor wished her to do: and now one would claim
her, now the other. Nothing could be less demonstrative than the
friendship of the elder lady; but also nothing could be more vigilant,
assiduous, untiring. I have intimated that she was a peculiar personage;
and in nothing was her peculiarity more shown than in the nature of the
interest she evinced for Caroline. She watched all her movements: she
seemed as if she would have guarded all her steps: it gave her pleasure
to be applied to by Miss Helstone for advice and assistance; she yielded
her aid, when asked, with such quiet yet obvious enjoyment, that Caroline
ere long took delight in depending on her.

Shirley Keeldar's complete docility with Mrs. Pryor had at first
surprised Miss Helstone, and not less the fact of the reserved
ex-governess being so much at home and at ease in the residence of her
young pupil, where she filled with such quiet independency a very
dependent post; but she soon found that it needed but to know both ladies
to comprehend fully the enigma. Every one, it seemed to her, must like,
must love, must prize Mrs. Pryor when they knew her. No matter that she
perseveringly wore old-fashioned gowns; that her speech was formal, and
her manner cool; that she had twenty little ways such as nobody else
had--she was still such a stay, such a counsellor, so truthful, so kind
in her way, that, in Caroline's idea, none once accustomed to her
presence could easily afford to dispense with it.

As to dependency or humiliation, Caroline did not feel it in her
intercourse with Shirley, and why should Mrs. Pryor? The heiress was
rich--very rich--compared with her new friend: one possessed a clear
thousand a year--the other not a penny; and yet there was a safe sense of
equality experienced in her society, never known in that of the ordinary
Briarfield and Whinbury gentry.

The reason was, Shirley's head ran on other things than money and
position. She was glad to be independent as to property: by fits she was
even elated at the notion of being lady of the manor, and having tenants
and an estate: she was especially tickled with an agreeable complacency
when reminded of 'all that property' down in the Hollow, 'comprising an
excellent cloth-mill, dyehouse, warehouse, together with the messuage,
gardens, and outbuildings, termed Hollow's Cottage'; but her exultation
being quite undisguised was singularly inoffensive; and, for her serious
thoughts, they tended elsewhere. To admire the great, reverence the good,
and be joyous with the genial, was very much the bent of Shirley's soul:
she mused therefore on the means of following this bent far oftener than
she pondered on her social superiority.

In Caroline, Miss Keeldar had first taken an interest because she was
quiet, retiring, looked delicate, and seemed as if she needed some one to
take care of her. Her predilection increased greatly when she discovered
that her own way of thinking and talking was understood and responded to
by this new acquaintance. She had hardly expected it. Miss Helstone, she
fancied, had too pretty a face, manners and voice too soft, to be
anything out of the common way in mind and attainments; and she very much
wondered to see the gentle features light up archly to the reveillé of a
dry sally or two risked by herself; and more did she wonder to discover
the self-won knowledge treasured, and the untaught speculations working
in that girlish, curl-veiled head. Caroline's instinct of taste, too, was
like her own: such books as Miss Keeldar had read with the most pleasure,
were Miss Helstone's delight also. They held many aversions too in
common, and could have the comfort of laughing together over works of
false sentimentality and pompous pretension.

Few, Shirley conceived, men or women have the right taste in poetry: the
right sense for discriminating between what is real and what is false.
She had again and again heard very clever people pronounce this or that
passage, in this or that versifier, altogether admirable, which, when she
read, her soul refused to acknowledge as anything but cant, flourish, and
tinsel, or at the best, elaborate wordiness; curious, clever, learned
perhaps; haply even tinged with the fascinating hues of fancy, but, God
knows, as different from real poetry as the gorgeous and massy vase of
mosaic is from the little cup of pure metal; or, to give the reader a
choice of similes, as the milliner's artificial wreath is from the
fresh-gathered lily of the field.

Caroline, she found, felt the value of the true ore, and knew the
deception of the flashy dross. The minds of the two girls being toned in
harmony, often chimed very sweetly together.

One evening, they chanced to be alone in the oak-parlour. They had passed
a long wet day together without ennui; it was now on the edge of dark;
candles were not yet brought in; both, as twilight deepened, grew
meditative and silent. A western wind roared high round the hall, driving
wild clouds and stormy rain up from the far-remote ocean: all was tempest
outside the antique lattices, all deep peace within. Shirley sat at the
window, watching the rack in heaven, the mist on earth, listening to
certain notes of the gale that plained like restless spirits--notes
which, had she not been so young, gay, and healthy, would have swept her
trembling nerves like some omen, some anticipatory dirge: in this her
prime of existence and bloom of beauty, they but subdued vivacity to
pensiveness. Snatches of sweet ballads haunted her ear; now and then she
sang a stanza: her accents obeyed the fitful impulse of the wind; they
swelled as its gusts rushed on, and died as they wandered away. Caroline,
withdrawn to the farthest and darkest end of the room, her figure just
discernible by the ruby shine of the flameless fire, was pacing to and
fro, murmuring to herself fragments of well-remembered poetry. She spoke
very low, but Shirley heard her; and while singing softly, she listened.
This was the strain:

Obscurest night involved the sky, The Atlantic billows roar'd, When such
a destined wretch as I, Washed headlong from on board, Of friends, of
hope, of all bereft, His floating home for ever left.

Here the fragment stopped; because Shirley's song, erewhile somewhat full
and thrilling, had become delicately faint.

'Go on,' said she.

'Then you go on, too. I was only repeating The Castaway.'

'I know: if you can remember it all, say it all.'

And as it was nearly dark, and, after all, Miss Keeldar was no formidable
auditor, Caroline went through it. She went through it as she should have
gone through it. The wild sea, the drowning mariner, the reluctant ship
swept on in the storm, you heard were realised by her; and more vividly
was realised the heart of the poet, who did not weep for The Castaway,
but who, in an hour of tearless anguish, traced a semblance to his own
God-abandoned misery in the fate of that man-forsaken sailor, and cried
from the depths where he struggled:

No voice divine the storm allayed,
No light propitious shone,
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd--each alone!
But I--beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.

'I hope William Cowper is safe and calm in heaven now,' said Caroline.

'Do you pity what he suffered on earth?' asked Miss Keeldar.

'Pity him, Shirley? What can I do else? He was nearly broken-hearted when
he wrote that poem, and it almost breaks one's heart to read it. But he
found relief in writing it--I know he did; and that gift of poetry--the
most divine bestowed on man--was, I believe, granted to allay emotions
when their strength threatens harm. It seems to me, Shirley, that nobody
should write poetry to exhibit intellect or attainment. Who cares for
that sort of poetry? Who cares for learning--who cares for fine words in
poetry? And who does not care for feeling--real feeling--however simply,
even rudely expressed?'

'It seems you care for it, at all events: and certainly, in hearing that
poem, one discovers that Cowper was under an impulse strong as that of
the wind which drove the ship--an impulse which, while it would not
suffer him to stop to add ornament to a single stanza, filled him with
force to achieve the whole with consummate perfection. You managed to
recite it with a steady voice, Caroline: I wonder thereat.'

'Cowper's hand did not tremble in writing the lines; why should my voice
falter in repeating them? Depend on it, Shirley, no tear blistered the
manuscript of The Castaway, I hear in it no sob of sorrow, only the cry
of despair; but, that cry uttered, I believe the deadly spasm passed from
his heart; that he wept abundantly, and was comforted.'

Shirley resumed her ballad minstrelsy. Stopping short, she remarked ere
long--'One could have loved Cowper, if it were only for the sake of
having the privilege of comforting him.'

'You never would have loved Cowper,' rejoined Caroline promptly: 'he was
not made to be loved by woman.'

'What do you mean?'

'What I say. I know there is a kind of natures in the world--and very
noble, elevated natures, too--whom love never comes near. You might have
sought Cowper with the intention of loving him; and you would have looked
at him, pitied him, and left him: forced away by a sense of the
impossible, the incongruous, as the crew were borne from their drowning
comrade by "the furious blast."'

'You may be right. Who told you this?'

'And what I say of Cowper, I should say of Rousseau. Was Rousseau ever
loved? He loved passionately; but was his passion ever returned? I am
certain, never. And if there were any female Cowpers and Rousseaus, I
should assert the same of them.'

'Who told you this, I ask? Did Moore?'

'Why should anybody have told me? Have I not an instinct? Can I not
divine by analogy? Moore never talked to me either about Cowper, or
Rousseau, or love. The voice we hear in solitude told me all I know on
these subjects.'

'Do you like characters of the Rousseau order, Caroline?'

'Not at all, as a whole. I sympathise intensely with certain qualities
they possess: certain divine sparks in their nature dazzle my eyes, and
make my soul glow. Then, again, I scorn them. They are made of clay and
gold. The refuse and the ore make a mass of weakness: taken altogether, I
feel them unnatural, unhealthy, repulsive.'

'I dare say I should be more tolerant of a Rousseau than you would, Cary:
submissive and contemplative yourself, you like the stern and the
practical. By the way, you must miss that Cousin Robert of yours very
much, now that you and he never meet.'

'I do.'

'And he must miss you?'

'That he does not.'

'I cannot imagine,' pursued Shirley, who had lately got a habit of
introducing Moore's name into the conversation, even when it seemed to
have no business there,--'I cannot imagine but that he was fond of you,
since he took so much notice of you, talked to you, and taught you so
much.'

'He never was fond of me: he never professed to be fond of me. He took
pains to prove that he only just tolerated me.'

Caroline, determined not to err on the flattering side in estimating her
cousin's regard for her, always now habitually thought of it and
mentioned it in the most scanty measure. She had her own reasons for
being less sanguine than ever in hopeful views of the future: less
indulgent to pleasurable retrospections of the past.

'Of course, then,' observed Miss Keeldar, 'you only just tolerated him,
in return?'

'Shirley, men and women are so different: they are in such a different
position. Women have so few things to think about--men so many: you may
have a friendship for a man, while he is almost indifferent to you. Much
of what cheers your life may be dependent on him, while not a feeling or
interest of moment in his eyes may have reference to you. Robert used to
be in the habit of going to London, sometimes for a week or a fortnight
together; well, while he was away, I found his absence a void: there was
something wanting; Briarfield was duller. Of course, I had my usual
occupations; still I missed him. As I sat by myself in the evenings, I
used to feel a strange certainty of conviction I cannot describe: that if
a magician or a genius had, at that moment, offered me Prince Ali's tube
(you remember it in the Arabian Nights?), and if, with its aid, I had
been enabled to take a view of Robert--to see where he was, how
occupied--I should have learned, in a startling manner, the width of the
chasm which gaped between such as he and such as I. I knew that, however
my thoughts might adhere to him, his were effectually sundered from me.'

'Caroline,' demanded Miss Keeldar abruptly, 'don't you wish you had a
profession--a trade?'

'I wish it fifty times a day. As it is, I often wonder what I came into
the world for. I long to have something absorbing and compulsory to fill
my head and hands, and to occupy my thoughts.'

'Can labour alone make a human being happy?'

'No; but it can give varieties of pain, and prevent us from breaking our
hearts with a single tyrant master-torture. Besides, successful labour
has its recompense; a vacant, weary, lonely, hopeless life has none.'

'But hard labour and learned professions, they say, make women masculine,
coarse, unwomanly.'

'And what does it signify, whether unmarried and never-to-be-married
women are unattractive and inelegant, or not?--provided only they are
decent, decorous, and neat, it is enough. The utmost which ought to be
required of old maids, in the way of appearance, is that they should not
absolutely offend men's eyes as they pass them in the street; for the
rest, they should be allowed, without too much scorn, to be as absorbed,
grave, plain-looking, and plain-dressed as they please.'

'You might be an old maid yourself, Caroline, you speak so earnestly.'

'I shall be one: it is my destiny. I will never marry a Malone or a
Sykes--and no one else will ever marry me.'

Here fell a long pause. Shirley broke it. Again the name by which she
seemed bewitched was almost the first on her lips.

'Lina--did not Moore call you Lina sometimes?'

'Yes: it is sometimes used as the abbreviation of Caroline in his native
country.'

'Well, Lina, do you remember my one day noticing an inequality in your
hair--a curl wanting on that right side--and your telling me that it was
Robert's fault, as he had once cut therefrom a long lock?'

'Yes.'

'If he is, and always was, as indifferent to you as you say, why did he
steal your hair?'

'I don't know--yes, I do: it was my doing, not his. Everything of that
sort always was my doing. He was going from home, to London, as usual;
and the night before he went, I had found in his sister's workbox a lock
of black hair--a short, round curl: Hortense told me it was her brother's
and a keepsake. He was sitting near the table; I looked at his head--he
has plenty of hair; on the temples were many such round curls. I thought
he could spare me one: I knew I should like to have it, and I asked for
it. He said, on condition that he might have his choice of a tress from
my head; so he got one of my long locks of hair, and I got one of his
short ones. I keep his, but, I dare say, he has lost mine. It was my
doing, and one of those silly deeds it distresses the heart and sets the
face on fire to think of: one of those small but sharp recollections that
return, lacerating your self-respect like tiny penknives, and forcing
from your lips, as you sit alone, sudden, insane-sounding interjections.'

'Caroline!'

'I do think myself a fool, Shirley, in some respects: I do despise
myself. But I said I would not make you my confessor; for you cannot
reciprocate foible for foible: you are not weak. How steadily you watch
me now! Turn aside your clear, strong, she-eagle eye: it is an insult to
fix it on me thus.'

'What a study of character you are! Weak, certainly; but not in the sense
you think.--Come in!'

This was said in answer to a tap at the door. Miss Keeldar happened to be
near it at the moment, Caroline at the other end of the room; she saw a
note put into Shirley's hands, and heard the words--'From Mr. Moore,
ma'am.'

'Bring candles,' said Miss Keeldar.

Caroline sat expectant.

'A communication on business,' said the heiress; but when candles were
brought, she neither opened nor read it. The Rector's Fanny was presently
announced, and the Rector's niece went home.



Chapter 13 - Further Communications on Business


In Shirley's nature prevailed at times an easy indolence: there were
periods when she took delight in perfect vacancy of hand and eye--moments
when her thoughts, her simple existence, the fact of the world being
around--and heaven above her, seemed to yield her such fulness of
happiness, that she did not need to lift a finger to increase the joy.
Often, after an active morning, she would spend a sunny afternoon in
lying stirless on the turf, at the foot of some tree of friendly umbrage:
no society did she need but that of Caroline, and it sufficed if she were
within call; no spectacle did she ask but that of the deep blue sky, and
such cloudlets as sailed afar and aloft across its span; no sound but
that of the bee's hum, the leaf's whisper. Her sole book in such hours
was the dim chronicle of memory, or the sibyl page of anticipation: from
her young eyes fell on each volume a glorious light to read by; round her
lips at moments played a smile which revealed glimpses of the tale or
prophecy: it was not sad, not dark. Fate had been benign to the blissful
dreamer, and promised to favour her yet again. In her past were sweet
passages; in her future rosy hopes.

Yet one day when Caroline drew near to rouse her, thinking she had lain
long enough, behold, as she looked down, Shirley's cheek was wet as if
with dew: those fine eyes of hers shone humid and brimming.

'Shirley, why do you cry?' asked Caroline, involuntarily laying stress on
you.

Miss Keeldar smiled, and turned her picturesque head towards the
questioner. 'Because it pleases me mightily to cry,' she said; 'my heart
is both sad and glad: but why, you good, patient child--why do you not
bear me company? I only weep tears, delightful and soon wiped away: you
might weep gall, if you choose.'

'Why should I weep gall?'

'Mateless, solitary bird!' was the only answer.

'And are not you, too, mateless, Shirley?'

'At heart--no.'

'Oh! who nestles there, Shirley?'

But Shirley only laughed gaily at this question, and alertly started up.

I have dreamed,' she said: 'a mere day-dream; certainly bright, probably
baseless!'

* * * * *

Miss Helstone was by this time free enough from illusions: she took a
sufficiently grave view of the future, and fancied she knew pretty well
how her own destiny and that of some others were tending. Yet old
associations retained their influence over her, and it was these, and the
power of habit, which still frequently drew her of an evening to the
field-stile and the old thorn overlooking the Hollow.

One night, the night after the incident of the note, she had been at her
usual post, watching for her beacon--watching vainly; that evening no
lamp was lit. She waited till the rising of certain constellations warned
her of lateness, and signed her away. In passing Fieldhead, on her
return, its moonlight beauty attracted her glance, and stayed her step an
instant. Tree and hall rose peaceful under the night sky and clear full
orb; pearly paleness gilded the building; mellow brown gloom bosomed it
round; shadows of deep green brooded above its oak-wreathed roof. The
broad pavement in front shone pale also; it gleamed as if some spell had
transformed the dark granite to glistering Parian: on the silvery space
slept two sable shadows, thrown sharply defined from two human figures.
These figures when first seen were motionless and mute; presently they
moved in harmonious step, and spoke low in harmonious key. Earnest was
the gaze that scrutinised them as they emerged from behind the trunk of
the cedar.' Is it Mrs. Pryor and Shirley?

Certainly it is Shirley. Who else has a shape so lithe, and proud, and
graceful? And her face, too, is visible: her countenance careless and
pensive, and musing and mirthful, and mocking and tender. Not fearing the
dew, she has not covered her head; her curls are free: they veil her neck
and caress her shoulder with their tendril rings. An ornament of gold
gleams through the half-closed folds of the scarf she has wrapped across
her bust, and a large bright gem glitters on the white hand which
confines it. Yes, that is Shirley.

Her companion then is, of course, Mrs. Pryor?

Yes, if Mrs. Pryor owns six feet of stature, and if she has changed her
decent widow's weeds for masculine disguise. The figure walking at Miss
Keeldar's side is a man--a tall, young, stately man--it is her tenant,
Robert Moore.

The pair speak softly, their words are not distinguishable: to remain a
moment to gaze is not to be an eavesdropper; and as the moon shines so
clearly and their countenances are so distinctly apparent, who can resist
the attraction of such interest; Caroline it seems cannot, for she
lingers.

There was a time when, on summer nights, Moore had been wont to walk with
his cousin, as he was now walking with the heiress. Often had she gone up
the Hollow with him after sunset, to scent the freshness of the earth,
where a growth of fragrant herbage carpeted a certain narrow terrace,
edging a deep ravine, from whose rifted gloom was heard a sound like the
spirit of the lonely watercourse, moaning amongst its wet stones, and
between its weedy banks, and under its dark bower of alders.

'But I used to be closer to him,' thought Caroline: 'he felt no
obligation to treat me with homage; I needed only kindness. He used to
hold my hand: he does not touch hers. And yet Shirley is not proud where
she loves. There is no haughtiness in her aspect now, only a little in
her port; what is natural to and inseparable from her; what she retains
in her most careless as in her most guarded moments. Robert must think as
I think, that he is at this instant looking down on a fine face; and he
must think it with a man's brain, not with mine. She has such generous,
yet soft fire in her eyes. She smiles--what makes her smile so sweet? I
saw that Robert felt its beauty, and he must have felt it with his man's
heart, not with my dim woman's perceptions. They look to me like two
great happy spirits; yonder silver pavement reminds me of that white
shore we believe to be beyond the death-flood: they have reached it, they
walk there united. And what am I--standing here in shadow, shrinking into
concealment, my mind darker than my hiding-place? I am one of this world,
no spirit--a poor, doomed mortal, who asks, in ignorance and
hopelessness, wherefore she was born, to what end she lives; whose mind
for ever runs on the question, how she shall at last encounter, and by
whom be sustained through death?'

'This is the worst passage I have come to yet: still I was quite prepared
for it. I gave Robert up, and gave him up to Shirley, the first day I
heard she was come: the first moment I saw her--rich, youthful, and
lovely. She has him now: he is her lover; she is his darling: she will be
far more his darling yet when they are married: the more Robert knows of
Shirley, the more his soul will cleave to her. They will both be happy,
and I do not grudge them their bliss; but I groan under my own misery:
some of my suffering is very acute. Truly, I ought not to have been born:
they should have smothered me at the first cry.'

Here, Shirley stepping aside to gather a dewy flower, she and her
companion turned into a path that lay nearer the gate: some of their
conversation became audible. Caroline would not stay to listen: she
passed away noiselessly, and the moonlight kissed the wall which her
shadow had dimmed. The reader is privileged to remain, and try what he
can make of the discourse.

'I cannot conceive why Nature did not give you a bulldog's head, for you
have all a bulldog's tenacity,' said Shirley.

'Not a flattering idea: am I so ignoble?'

'And something also you have of the same animal's silent ways of going
about its work: you give no warning; you come noiselessly behind, seize
fast, and hold on.'

'This is guess-work; you have witnessed no such feat on my part: in your
presence I have been no bulldog.'

'Your very silence indicates your race. How little you talk in general,
yet how deeply you scheme! You are far-seeing; you are calculating.'

'I know the ways of these people. I have gathered information of their
intentions. My note last night informed you that Barraclough's trial had
ended in his conviction and sentence to transportation: his associates
will plot vengeance. I shall lay my plans so as to counteract, or, at
least, be prepared for theirs; that is all. Having now given you as clear
an explanation as I can, am I to understand that for what I propose doing
I have your approbation?'

'I shall stand by you so long as you remain on the defensive. Yes.'

'Good! Without any aid--even opposed or disapproved by you--I believe I
should have acted precisely as I now intend to act; but in another
spirit. I now feel satisfied. On the whole, I relish the position.'

'I dare say you do; that is evident: you relish the work which lies
before you still better than you would relish the execution of a
government order for army-cloth.'

'I certainly feel it congenial.'

'So would old Helstone. It is true there is a shade of difference in your
motives: many shades, perhaps. Shall I speak to Mr. Helstone? I will, if
you like.'

'Act as you please: your judgment, Miss Keeldar, will guide you
accurately. I could rely on it myself, in a more difficult crisis; but I
should inform you, Mr. Helstone is somewhat prejudiced against me at
present.'

'I am aware, I have heard all about your differences: depend upon it they
will melt away: he cannot resist the temptation of an alliance under
present circumstances.'

'I should be glad to have him: he is of true metal.'

'I think so also.'

'An old blade, and rusted somewhat; but the edge and temper still
excellent.'

'Well, you shall have him, Mr. Moore; that is, if I can win him.'

'Whom can you not win?'

'Perhaps not the Rector; but I will make the effort.'

'Effort! He will yield for a word--a smile.'

'By no means. It will cost me several cups of tea, some toast and cake,
and an ample measure of remonstrances, expostulations, and persuasions.
It grows rather chill.'

'I perceive you shiver. Am I acting wrongly to detain you here? Yet it is
so calm: I even feel it warm; and society such as yours is a pleasure to
me so rare.--If you were wrapped in a thicker shawl----'

'I might stay longer, and forget how late it is, which would chagrin Mrs.
Pryor. We keep early and regular hours at Fieldhead, Mr. Moore; and so, I
am sure, does your sister at the cottage.'

'Yes; but Hortense and I have an understanding the most convenient in the
world, that we shall each do as we please.'

'How do you please to do?'

'Three nights in the week I sleep in the mill: but I require little rest;
and when it is moonlight and mild, I often haunt the Hollow till
daybreak.'

'When I was a very little girl, Mr. Moore, my nurse used to tell me tales
of fairies being seen in that Hollow. That was before my father built the
mill, when it was a perfectly solitary ravine: you will be falling under
enchantment.'

'I fear it is done,' said Moore, in a low voice.

'But there are worse things than fairies to be guarded against,' pursued
Miss Keeldar.

'Things more perilous,' he subjoined.

'Far more so. For instance, how would you like to meet Michael Hartley,
that mad Calvinist and Jacobin weaver? They say he is addicted to
poaching, and often goes abroad at night with his gun.'

'I have already had the luck to meet him. We held a long argument
together one night. A strange little incident it was: I liked it.'

'Liked it? I admire your taste! Michael is not sane. Where did you meet
him?'

'In the deepest, shadiest spot in the glen, where the water runs low,
under brushwood. We sat down near that plank bridge. It was moonlight,
but clouded, and very windy. We had a talk.'

'On politics?'

'And religion. I think the moon was at the full, and Michael was as near
crazed as possible: he uttered strange blasphemy in his Antinomian
fashion.'

'Excuse me, but I think you must have been nearly as mad as he, to sit
listening to him.'

'There is a wild interest in his ravings. The man would be half a poet,
if he were not wholly a maniac; and perhaps a prophet, if he were not a
profligate. He solemnly informed me that hell was foreordained my
inevitable portion; that he read the mark of the beast on my brow; that I
had been an outcast from the beginning. God's vengeance, he said, was
preparing for me, and affirmed that in a vision of the night he had
beheld the manner and the instrument of my doom. I wanted to know
further, but he left me with these words, 'The end is not yet.'

'Have you ever seen him since?'

'About a month afterwards, in returning from market, I encountered him
and Moses Barraclough both in an advanced stage of inebriation: they were
praying in frantic sort at the roadside. They accosted me as Satan, bid
me avaunt, and clamoured to be delivered from temptation. Again, but a
few days ago, Michael took the trouble of appearing at the counting-house
door, hatless, in his shirt-sleeves,--his coat and castor having been
detained at the public-house in pledge; he delivered himself of the
comfortable message that he could wish Mr. Moore to set his house in
order, as his soul was likely shortly to be required of him.'

'Do you make light of these things?'

'The poor man had been drinking for weeks, and was in a state bordering
on delirium tremens.'

'What then? He is the more likely to attempt the fulfilment of his own
prophecies.'

'It would not do to permit incidents of this sort to affect one's
nerves.'

'Mr. Moore, go home!'

'So soon?'

'Pass straight down the fields, not round by the lane and plantations.'

'It is early yet.'

'It is late: for my part I am going in. Will you promise me not to wander
in the Hollow to-night?'

'If you wish it.'

'I do wish it. May I ask whether you consider life valueless?'

'By no means: on the contrary, of late I regard my life as invaluable.'

'Of late?'

'Existence is neither aimless nor hopeless to me now; and it was both
three months ago. I was then drowning, and rather wished the operation
over. All at once a hand was stretched to me,--such a delicate hand, I
scarcely dared trust it:--its strength, however, has rescued me from
ruin.'

'Are you really rescued?'

'For the time your assistance has given me another chance.'

'Live to make the best of it. Don't offer yourself as a target to Michael
Hartley, and good-night!'

* * * * *

Miss Helstone was under a promise to spend the evening of the next day at
Fieldhead: she kept her promise. Some gloomy hours had she spent in the
interval. Most of the time had been passed shut up in her own apartment;
only issuing from it, indeed, to join her uncle at meals, and
anticipating inquires from Fanny by telling her that she was busy
altering a dress, and preferred sewing upstairs, to avoid interruption.

She did sew: she plied her needle continuously, ceaselessly; but her
brain worked faster than her fingers. Again, and more intensely than
ever, she desired a fixed occupation,--no matter how onerous, how
irksome. Her uncle must be once more entreated, but first she would
consult Mrs. Pryor. Her head laboured to frame projects as diligently as
her hands to plait and stitch the thin texture of the muslin summer dress
spread on the little white couch at the foot of which she sat. Now and
then, while thus doubly occupied, a tear would fill her eyes and fall on
her busy hands; but this sign of emotion was rare and quickly effaced:
the sharp pang passed, the dimness cleared from her vision; she would
re-thread her needle, rearrange tuck and trimming, and work on.

Late in the afternoon she dressed herself: she reached Fieldhead, and
appeared in the oak parlour just as tea was brought in. Shirley asked her
why she came so late.

'Because I have been making my dress,' said she. 'These fine sunny days
began to make me ashamed of my winter merino; so I have furbished up a
lighter garment.'

'In which you look as I like to see you,' said Shirley. 'You are a
lady-like little person, Caroline: is she not, Mrs. Pryor?'

Mrs. Pryor never paid compliments, and seldom indulged in remarks,
favourable or otherwise, on personal appearance. On the present occasion
she only swept Caroline's curls from her cheek as she took a seat near
her, caressed the oval outline, and observed--'You get somewhat thin, my
love, and somewhat pale. Do you sleep well? Your eyes have a languid
look'; and she gazed at her anxiously.

'I sometimes dream melancholy dreams,' answered Caroline; 'and if I lie
awake for an hour or two in the night, I am continually thinking of the
Rectory as a dreary old place. You know it is very near the churchyard:
the back part of the house is extremely ancient, and it is said that the
out-kitchens there were once enclosed in the churchyard, and that there
are graves under them. I rather long to leave the Rectory.'

'My dear! You are surely not superstitious?'

'No, Mrs. Pryor; but I think I grow what is called nervous. I see things
under a darker aspect than I used to do. I have fears I never used to
have--not of ghosts, but of omens and disastrous events; and I have an
inexpressible weight on my mind which I would give the world to shake
off, and I cannot do it.'

'Strange!' cried Shirley. 'I never feel so.' Mrs. Pryor said nothing.

'Fine weather, pleasant days, pleasant scenes are powerless to give me
pleasure,' continued Caroline. 'Calm evenings are not calm to me:
moonlight, which I used to think mild, now only looks mournful. Is this
weakness of mind, Mrs. Pryor, or what is it? I cannot help it: I often
struggle against it: I reason: but reason and effort make no difference.'

'You should take more exercise,' said Mrs. Pryor.

'Exercise! I exercise sufficiently: I exercise till I am ready to drop.'

'My dear, you should go from home.'

'Mrs. Pryor, I should like to go from home, but not on any purposeless
excursion or visit. I wish to be a governess as you have been. It would
oblige me greatly if you would speak to my uncle on the subject.'

'Nonsense!' broke in Shirley. 'What an idea! Be a governess! Better be a
slave at once. Where is the necessity of it? Why should you dream of such
a painful step?'

'My dear,' said Mrs. Pryor, 'you are very young to be a governess, and
not sufficiently robust: the duties a governess undertakes are often
severe.'

'And I believe I want severe duties to occupy me.'

'Occupy you!' cried Shirley. 'When are you idle? I never saw a more
industrious girl than you you are always at work. Come,' she
continued--'come and sit by my side, and take some tea to refresh you.
You don't care much for my friendship, then, that you wish to leave me?'

'Indeed, I do, Shirley; and I don't wish to leave you. I shall never find
another friend so dear.'

At which words Miss Keeldar put her hand into Caroline's with an
impulsively affectionate movement, which was well seconded by the
expression of her face.

'If you think so, you had better make much of me,' she said, 'and not run
away from me. I hate to part with those to whom I am become attached.
Mrs. Pryor there sometimes talks of leaving me, and says I might make a
more advantageous connection than herself. I should as soon think of
exchanging an old-fashioned mother for something modish and stylish. As
for you--why, I began to flatter myself we were thoroughly friends; that
you liked Shirley almost as well as Shirley likes you: and she does not
stint her regard.'

'I do like Shirley: I like her more and more every day; but that does not
make me strong or happy.'

'And would it make you strong or happy to go and live as a dependent
amongst utter strangers? It would not; and the experiment must not be
tried. I tell you it would fail: it is not in your nature to bear the
desolate life governesses generally lead: you would fall ill: I won't
hear of it.'

And Miss Keeldar paused, having uttered this prohibition very decidedly.
Soon she recommenced, still looking somewhat courroucée--'Why, it is my
daily pleasure now to look out for the little cottage bonnet and the silk
scarf glancing through the trees in the lane, and to know that my quiet,
shrewd, thoughtful companion and monitress is coming back to me: that I
shall have her sitting in the room to look at, to talk to, or to let
alone, as she and I please. This may be a selfish sort of language--I
know it is; but it is the language which naturally rises to my lips;
therefore I utter it.'

'I would write to you, Shirley.'

'And what are letters? Only a sort of pis-aller. Drink some tea,
Caroline: eat something--you eat nothing; laugh and be cheerful, and stay
at home.'

Miss Helstone shook her head and sighed. She felt what difficulty she
would have to persuade any one to assist or sanction her in making that
change in her life which she believed desirable. Might she only follow
her own judgment, she thought she should be able to find, perhaps a
harsh, but an effectual cure for her sufferings. But this judgment,
founded on circumstances she could fully explain to none, least of all to
Shirley, seemed, in all eyes but her own, incomprehensible and fantastic,
and was opposed accordingly.

There really was no present pecuniary need for her to leave a comfortable
home and 'take a situation'; and there was every probability that her
uncle might in some way permanently provide for her. So her friends
thought, and, as far as their lights enabled them to see, they reasoned
correctly: but of Caroline's strange sufferings, which she desired so
eagerly to overcome or escape, they had no idea,--of her racked nights
and dismal days, no suspicion. It was at once impossible and hopeless to
explain: to wait and endure was her only plan. Many that want food and
clothing have cheerier lives and brighter prospects than she had; many,
harassed by poverty, are in a strait less afflictive.

'Now, is your mind quieted?' inquired Shirley. 'Will you consent to stay
at home?'

'I shall not leave it against the approbation of my friends,' was the
reply; 'but I think in time they will be obliged to think as I do.'

During this conversation Mrs. Pryor looked far from easy. Her extreme
habitual reserve would rarely permit her to talk freely, or to
interrogate others closely. She could think a multitude of questions she
never ventured to put; give advice in her mind which her tongue never
delivered. Had she been alone with Caroline, she might possibly have said
something to the point: Miss Keeldar's presence, accustomed as she was to
it, sealed her lips. Now, as on a thousand other occasions, inexplicable
nervous scruples kept her back from interfering. She merely showed her
concern for Miss Helstone in an indirect way, by asking her if the fire
made her too warm, placing a screen between her chair and the hearth,
closing a window whence she imagined a draught proceeded, and often and
restlessly glancing at her. Shirley resumed--'Having destroyed your
plan,' she said, 'which I hope I have done, I shall construct a new one
of my own. Every summer I make an excursion. This season I propose
spending two months either at the Scotch lochs or the English lakes: that
is, I shall go there, provided you consent to accompany me: if you
refuse, I shall not stir a foot.'

'You are very good, Shirley.'

'I would be very good if you would let me: I have every disposition to be
good. It is my misfortune and habit, I know, to think of myself paramount
to anybody else: but who is not like me in that respect? However, when
Captain Keeldar is made comfortable, accommodated with all he wants,
including a sensible genial comrade, it gives him a thorough pleasure to
devote his spare efforts to making that comrade happy. And should we not
be happy, Caroline, in the Highlands? We will go to the Highlands. We
will, if you can bear a sea-voyage, go to the Isles,--the Hebrides, the
Shetland, the Orkney Islands. Would you not like that? I see you would:
Mrs. Pryor, I call you to witness; her face is all sunshine at the bare
mention of it.'

'I should like it much,' returned Caroline; to whom, indeed, the notion
of such a tour was not only pleasant, but gloriously reviving. Shirley
rubbed her hands.

'Come, I can bestow a benefit,' she exclaimed. 'I can do a good deed with
my cash. My thousand a year is not merely a matter of dirty bank-notes
and jaundiced guineas (let me speak respectfully of both though, for I
adore them); but, it may be, health to the drooping, strength to the
weak, consolation to the sad. I was determined to make something of it
better than a fine old house to live in, than satin gowns to wear; better
than deference from acquaintance, and homage from the poor. Here is to
begin. This summer--Caroline, Mrs. Pryor, and I go out into the North
Atlantic, beyond the Shetland--perhaps to the Faroe Isles. We will see
seals in Suderoe, and, doubtless, mermaids in Stromoe. Caroline is
laughing, Mrs. Pryor: I made her laugh; I have done her good.'

'I shall like to go, Shirley,' again said Miss Helstone. 'I long to hear
the sound of waves--ocean-waves, and to see them as I have imagined them
in dreams, like tossing banks of green light, strewed with vanishing and
re-appearing wreaths of foam, whiter than lilies. I shall delight to pass
the shores of those lone rock-islets where the sea-birds live and breed
unmolested. We shall be on the track of the old Scandinavians--of the
Norsemen; we shall almost see the shores of Norway. This is a very vague
delight that I feel, communicated by your proposal, but it is a delight.'

'Will you think of Fitful Head now, when you lie awake at night; of gulls
shrieking round it, and waves tumbling in upon it rather than of the
graves under the Rectory hack-kitchen?'

'I will try; and instead of musing about remnants of shrouds, and
fragments of coffins, and human bones and mould, I will fancy seals lying
in the sunshine on solitary shores, where neither fisherman nor hunter
ever come: of rock-crevices full of pearly eggs bedded in sea-weed; of
unscared birds covering white sands in happy flocks.'

'And what will become of that inexpressible weight you said you had on
your mind?'

'I will try to forget it in speculation on the sway of the whole Great
Deep above a herd of whales rushing through the livid and liquid thunder
down from the frozen zone: a hundred of them, perhaps, wallowing,
flashing, rolling in the wake of a patriarch bull, huge enough to have
been spawned before the Flood: such a creature as poor Smart had in his
mind when he said:

Strong against tides, the enormous whale Emerges as he goes.'

'I hope our bark will meet with no such shoal, or herd, as you term it,
Caroline. (I suppose you fancy the sea-mammoths pasturing about the bases
of the 'everlasting hills,' devouring strange provender in the vast
valleys through and above which sea-billows roll.) I should not like to
be capsized by the patriarch bull.'

'I suppose you expect to see mermaids, Shirley?'

'One of them at any rate: I do not bargain for less: and she is to appear
in some such fashion as this. I am to be walking by myself on deck,
rather late of an August evening, watching and being watched by a full
harvest-moon: something is to rise white on the surface of the sea, over
which that moon mounts silent, and hangs glorious: the object glitters
and sinks. It rises again. I think I hear it cry with an articulate
voice: I call you up from the cabin: I show you an image, fair as
alabaster, emerging from the dim wave. We both see the long hair, the
lifted and foam-white arm, the oval mirror brilliant as a star. It glides
nearer: a human face is plainly visible; a face in the style of yours,
whose straight, pure (excuse the word, it is appropriate),--whose
straight, pure lineaments, paleness does not disfigure. It looks at us,
but not with your eyes. I see a preternatural lure in its wily glance: it
beckons. Were we men, we should spring at the sign, the cold billow would
be dared for the sake of the colder enchantress; being women, we stand
safe, though not dreadless. She comprehends our unmoved gaze; she feels
herself powerless; anger crosses her front; she cannot charm, but she
will appal us: she rises high, and glides all revealed, on the dark
wave-ridge. Tempt-ress-terror! monstrous likeness of ourselves! Are you
not glad, Caroline, when at last, and with a wild shriek, she dives?'

'But, Shirley, she is not like us: we are neither temptresses, nor
terrors, nor monsters.'

'Some of our kind, it is said, are all three. There are men who ascribe
to 'woman,' in general, such attributes.'

'My dears,' here interrupted Mrs. Pryor, 'does it not strike you that
your conversation for the last ten minutes has been rather fanciful?'

'But there is no harm in our fancies is there, ma'am?'

'We are aware that mermaids do not exist: why speak of them as if they
did? How can you find interest in speaking of a nonentity?'

'I don't know,' said Shirley.

'My dear, I think there is an arrival. I heard a step in the lane, while
you were talking; and is not that the garden-gate which creaks?'

Shirley stepped to the window.

'Yes, there is some one,' said she, turning quietly away; and, as she
resumed her seat, a sensitive flush animated her face, while a trembling
ray at once kindled and softened her eye. She raised her hand to her
chin, cast her gaze down, and seemed to think as she waited.

The servant announced Mr. Moore, and Shirley turned round when Mr. Moore
appeared at the door. His figure seemed very tall as he entered, and
stood in contrast with the three ladies, none of whom could boast a
stature much beyond the average. He was looking well, better than he had
been known to look for the past twelve months: a sort of renewed youth
glowed in his eye and colour, and an invigorated hope and settled purpose
sustained his bearing: firmness his countenance still indicated, but not
austerity: it looked as cheerful as it was earnest.

'I am just returned from Stilbro',' he said to Miss Keeldar, as he
greeted her; 'and I thought I would call to impart to you the result of
my mission.'

'You did right not to keep me in suspense,' she said; 'and your visit is
well-timed. Sit down: we have not finished tea. Are you English enough to
relish tea; or do you faithfully adhere to coffee?'

Moore accepted tea.

'I am learning to be a naturalised Englishman,' said he; my foreign
habits are leaving me one by one.'

And now he paid his respects to Mrs. Pryor, and paid them well, with a
grave modesty that became his age, compared with hers. Then he looked at
Caroline--not, however, for the first time--his glance had fallen upon
her before: he bent towards her as she sat, gave her his hand, and asked
her how she was. The light from the window did not fall upon Miss
Helstone, her back was turned towards it: a quiet though rather low
reply, a still demeanour, and the friendly protection of early twilight,
kept out of view each traitorous symptom. None could affirm that she had
trembled or blushed, that her heart had quaked, or her nerves thrilled:
none could prove emotion: a greeting showing less effusion was never
interchanged. Moore took the empty chair near her, opposite Miss Keeldar.
He had placed himself well: his neighbour, screened by the very closeness
of his vicinage from his scrutiny, and sheltered further by the dusk
which deepened each moment, soon regained not merely seeming, but real
mastery of the feelings which had started into insurrection at the first
announcement of his name.

He addressed his conversation to Miss Keeldar.

'I went to the barracks,' he said, 'and had an interview with Colonel
Ryde: he approved my plans, and promised the aid I wanted: indeed, he
offered a more numerous force than I require--half-a-dozen will suffice.
I don't intend to be swamped by redcoats: they are needed for appearance
rather than anything else: my main reliance is on my own civilians.'

'And on their Captain,' interposed Shirley.

'What, Captain Keeldar?' inquired Moore, slightly smiling, and not
lifting his eyes: the tone of raillery in which he said this was very
respectful and suppressed.

'No,' returned Shirley, answering the smile; 'Captain Gérard Moore, who
trusts much to the prowess of his own right arm, I believe.'

'Furnished with his counting-house ruler,' added Moore. Resuming his
usual gravity, he went on: 'I received by this evening's post a note from
the Home Secretary in answer to mine: it appears they are uneasy at the
state of matters here in the north; they especially condemn the
supineness and pusillanimity of the mill-owners; they say, as I have
always said, that inaction, under present circumstances, is criminal, and
that cowardice is cruelty, since both can only encourage disorder, and
lead finally to sanguinary outbreaks. There is the note: I brought it for
your perusal; and there is a batch of newspapers, containing further
accounts of proceedings in Nottingham, Manchester, and elsewhere.'

He produced letters and journals, and laid them before Miss Keeldar.
While she perused them, he took his tea quietly; but, though his tongue
was still, his observant faculties seemed by no means off duty. Mrs.
Pryor, sitting in the background, did not come within the range of his
glance, but the two younger ladies had the full benefit thereof.

Miss Keeldar, placed directly opposite, was seen without effort: she was
the object his eyes, when lifted, naturally met first; and, as what
remained of daylight--the gilding of the west--was upon her, her shape
rose in relief from the dark panelling behind. Shirley's clear cheek was
tinted yet with the colour which had risen into it a few minutes since:
the dark lashes of her eyes looking down as she read, the dusk yet
delicate line of her eyebrows, the almost sable gloss of her curls, made
her heightened complexion look fine as the bloom of a red wild-flower by
contrast. There was natural grace in her attitude, and there was artistic
effect in the ample and shining folds of her silk dress--an attire simply
fashioned, but almost splendid from the shifting brightness of its dye,
warp and woof being of tints deep and changing as the hue on a pheasant's
neck. A glancing bracelet on her arm produced the contrast of gold and
ivory: there was something brilliant in the whole picture. It is to be
supposed that Moore thought so, as his eye dwelt long on it, but he
seldom permitted his feelings or his opinions to exhibit themselves in
his face: his temperament boasted a certain amount of phlegm, and he
preferred an undemonstrative, not ungentle, but serious aspect, to any
other.

He could not, by looking straight before him, see Caroline, as she was
close at his side; it was necessary, therefore, to manoeuvre a little to
get her well within the range of his observation: he leaned back in his
chair, and looked down on her. In Miss Helstone, neither he nor any one
else could discover brilliancy. Sitting in the shade, without flowers or
ornaments, her attire the modest muslin dress, colourless but for its
narrow stripe of pale azure, her complexion unflushed, unexcited, the
very brownness of her hair and eyes invisible by this faint light, she
was, compared with the heiress, as a graceful pencil-sketch compared with
a vivid painting. Since Robert had seen her last, a great change had been
wrought in her; whether he perceived it, might not be ascertained: he
said nothing to that effect.

'How is Hortense?' asked Caroline softly.

'Very well; but she complains of being unemployed; she misses you.'

'Tell her that I miss her, and that I write and read a portion of French
every day.'

'She will ask if you sent your love: she is always particular on that
point. You know she likes attention.'

'My best love--my very best; and say to her, that whenever she has time
to write me a little note, I shall be glad to hear from her.'

'What if I forget? I am not the surest messenger of compliments.'

'No, don't forget, Robert: it is no compliment--it is in good earnest.'

'And must therefore be delivered punctually?'

'If you please.'

'Hortense will be ready to shed tears. She is tender-hearted on the
subject of her pupil; yet she reproaches you sometimes for obeying your
uncle's injunctions too literally. Affection, like love, will be unjust
now and then.'

And Caroline made no answer to this observation; for indeed her heart was
troubled, and to her eyes she would have raised her handkerchief, if she
had dared. If she had dared, too, she would have declared how the very
flowers in the garden of Hollow's Cottage were dear to her; how the
little parlour of that house was her earthly paradise; how she longed to
return to it, as much almost as the First Woman, in her exile, must have
longed to revisit Eden. Not daring, however, to say these things, she
held her peace: she sat quiet at Robert's side, waiting for him to say
something more. It was long since this proximity had been hers--long
since his voice had addressed her; could she, with any show of
probability, even of possibility, have imagined that the meeting gave him
pleasure, to her it would have given deep bliss. Yet, even in doubt that
it pleased--in dread that it might annoy him--she received the boon of
the meeting as an imprisoned bird would the admission of sunshine to its
cage: it is of no use arguing--contending against the sense of present
happiness: to be near Robert was to be revived.

Miss Keeldar laid down the papers.

'And are you glad or sad for all these menacing tidings?' she inquired of
her tenant.

'Not precisely either; but I certainly am instructed. I see that our only
plan is to be firm. I see that efficient preparation and a resolute
attitude are the best means of averting bloodshed.'

He then inquired if she had observed some particular paragraph, to which
she replied in the negative, and he rose to show it to her: he continued
the conversation standing before her. From the tenor of what he said, it
appeared evident that they both apprehended disturbances in the
neighbourhood of Briarfield, though in what form they expected them to
break out was not specified. Neither Caroline nor Mrs. Pryor asked
questions: the subject did not appear to be regarded as one ripe for free
discussion; therefore the lady and her tenant were suffered to keep
details to themselves, unimportuned by the curiosity of their listeners.

Miss Keeldar, in speaking to Mr. Moore, took a tone at once animated and
dignified, confidential and self-respecting. When, however, the candles
were brought in, and the fire was stirred up, and the fulness of light
thus produced rendered the expression of her countenance legible, you
could see that she was all interest, life, and earnestness: there was
nothing coquettish in her demeanour: whatever she felt for Moore, she
felt it seriously. And serious, too, were his feelings, and settled were
his views, apparently; for he made no petty effort to attract, dazzle, or
impress. He contrived, notwithstanding, to command a little; because the
deeper voice, however mildly modulated, the somewhat harder mind, now and
then, though involuntarily and unintentionally, bore down by some
peremptory phrase or tone the mellow accents and susceptible, if high,
nature of Shirley. Miss Keeldar looked happy in conversing with him, and
her joy seemed twofold,--a joy of the past and present, of memory and of
hope.

What I have just said are Caroline's ideas of the pair: she felt what has
just been described. In thus feeling, she tried not to suffer; but
suffered sharply, nevertheless. She suffered, indeed, miserably: a few
minutes before, her famished heart had tasted a drop and crumb of
nourishment, that, if freely given, would have brought back abundance of
life where life was failing; but the generous feast was snatched from
her, spread before another, and she remained but a bystander at the
banquet.

The clock struck nine: it was Caroline's time for going home: she
gathered up her work, put the embroidery, the scissors, the thimble into
her bag: she bade Mrs. Pryor a quiet goodnight, receiving from that lady
a warmer pressure of the hand than usual: she stepped up to Miss Keeldar.

'Good-night, Shirley!'

Shirley started up. 'What!--so soon? Are you going already?'

'It is past nine.'

'I never heard the clock. You will come again to-morrow, and you will be
happy to-night, will you not? Remember our plans.'

'Yes,' said Caroline: 'I have not forgotten.'

Her mind misgave her that neither those plans nor any other could
permanently restore her mental tranquillity. She turned to Robert, who
stood close behind her: as he looked up, the light of the candles on the
mantelpiece fell full on her face: all its paleness, all its change, all
its forlorn meaning were clearly revealed. Robert had good eyes, and
might have seen it, if he would: whether he did see it, nothing
indicated.

'Good-night!' she said, shaking like a leaf, offering her thin hand
hastily, anxious to part from him quickly.

'You are going home?' he asked, not touching her hand.

'Yes.'

'Is Fanny come for you?'

'Yes.'

'I may as well accompany you a step of the way: not up to the Rectory,
though, lest my old friend, Helstone, should shoot me from the window.'

He laughed and took his hat. Caroline spoke of unnecessary trouble: he
told her to put on her bonnet and shawl. She was quickly ready, and they
were soon both in the open air. Moore drew her hand under his arm, just
in his old manner,--that manner which she ever felt to be so kind.

'You may run on, Fanny,' he said to the house-maid: 'we shall overtake
you': and when the girl had got a little in advance, he enclosed
Caroline's hand in his, and said he was glad to find she was a familiar
guest at Fieldhead: he hoped her intimacy with Miss Keeldar would
continue; such society would be both pleasant and improving.

Caroline replied that she liked Shirley.

'And there is no doubt the liking is mutual,' said Moore: 'if she
professes friendship, be certain she is sincere: she cannot feign; she
scorns hypocrisy. And, Caroline, are we never to see you at Hollow's
Cottage again?'

'I suppose not, unless my uncle should change his mind.'

'Are you much alone now?'

'Yes; a good deal. I have little pleasure in any society but Miss
Keeldar's.'

'Have you been quite well lately?'

'Quite.'

'You must take care of yourself. Be sure not to neglect exercise. Do you
know I fancied you somewhat altered;--a little fallen away, and pale. Is
your uncle kind to you?'

'Yes; he is just as he always is.'

'Not too tender, that is to say; not too protective and attentive. And
what ails you, then?--tell me, Lina.'

'Nothing, Robert'; but her voice faltered.

'That is to say, nothing that you will tell me: I am not to be taken into
confidence. Separation is then quite to estrange us, is it?'

'I do not know: sometimes I almost fear it is.'

'But it ought not to have that effect. 'Should auld acquaintance be
forgot, and days o' lang syne?''

'Robert, I don't forget.'

'It is two months, I should think, Caroline, since you were at the
cottage.'

'Since I was within it--yes.'

'Have you ever passed that way in your walk?'

'I have come to the top of the fields sometimes of an evening, and looked
down. Once I saw Hortense in the garden watering her flowers, and I know
at what time you light your lamp in the counting-house: I have waited for
it to shine out now and then; and I have seen you bend between it and the
window: I knew it was you--I could almost trace the outline of your
form.'

'I wonder I never encountered you: I occasionally walk to the top of the
Hollow's fields after sunset.'

'I know you do: I had almost spoken to you one night, you passed so near
me.'

'Did I? I passed near you, and did not see you Was I alone?'

'I saw you twice, and neither time were you alone.'

'Who was my companion? Probably nothing but Joe Scott, or my own shadow
by moonlight.'

'No; neither Joe Scott nor your shadow, Robert. The first time you were
with Mr. Yorke; and the second time what you call your shadow was a shape
with a white forehead and dark curls, and a sparkling necklace round its
neck; but I only just got a glimpse of you and that fairy shadow: I did
not wait to hear you converse.'

'It appears you walk invisible. I noticed a ring on your hand this
evening; can it be the ring of Gyges? Henceforth, when sitting in the
counting-house by myself, perhaps at dead of night, I shall permit myself
to imagine that Caroline may be leaning over my shoulder reading with me
from the same book, or sitting at my side engaged in her own particular
task, and now and then raising her unseen eyes to my face to read there
my thoughts.'

'You need fear no such infliction: I do not come near you: I only stand
afar off, watching what may become of you.'

'When I walk out along the hedgerows in the evening after the mill is
shut--or at night, when I take the watchman's place--I shall fancy the
flutter of every little bird over its nest, the rustle of every leaf, a
movement made by you; tree-shadows will take your shape: in the white
sprays of hawthorn, I shall imagine glimpses of you. Lina, you will haunt
me.'

'I will never be where you would not wish me to he, nor see nor hear what
you would wish unseen and unheard.'

'I shall see you in my very mill in broad daylight: indeed, I have seen
you there once. But a week ago, I was standing at the top of one of my
long rooms, girls were working at the other end, and amongst half-a-dozen
of them, moving to and fro, I seemed to see a figure resembling yours. It
was some effect of doubtful light or shade, or of dazzling sunbeam. I
walked up to this group; what I sought had glided away: I found myself
between two buxom lasses in pinafores.'

'I shall not follow you into your mill, Robert, unless you call me
there.'

'Nor is that the only occasion on which imagination has played me a
trick. One night, when I came home late from market, I walked into the
cottage parlour thinking to find Hortense; but instead of her, I thought
I found you. There was no candle in the room: my sister had taken the
light upstairs with her; the window-blind was not drawn, and broad
moonbeams poured through the panes: there you were, Lina, at the
casement, shrinking a little to one side in an attitude not unusual with
you. You were dressed in white, as I have seen you dressed at an evening
party. For half a second, your fresh, living face seemed turned towards
me, looking at me; for half a second, my idea was to go and take your our
hand, to chide you for your long absence, and welcome your present visit.
Two steps forward broke the spell: the drapery of the dress changed
outline; the tints of the complexion dissolved, and were formless:
positively, as I reached the spot, there was nothing left but the sweep
of a white muslin curtain, and a balsam plant in a flower-pot, covered
with a flush of bloom--'sic transit,' et cetera.'

'It was not my wraith, then? I almost thought it was.'

'No; only gauze, crockery, and pink blossom: a sample of earthly
illusions.'

'I wonder you have time for such illusions, occupied as your mind must
be.'

'So do I. But I find in myself, Lina, two natures; one for the world and
business, and one for home and leisure. Gérard Moore is a hard dog,
brought up to mill and market: the person you call your cousin Robert is
sometimes a dreamer, who lives elsewhere than in Cloth-hall and
counting-house.'

'Your two natures agree with you: I think you are looking in good spirits
and health: you have quite lost the harassed air which it often pained
one to see in your face a few months ago.'

'Do you observe that? Certainly, I am disentangled of some difficulties:
I have got clear of some shoals, and have more sea-room.'

'And, with a fair wind, you may now hope to make a prosperous voyage?'

'I may hope it--yes--but hope is deceptive: there is no controlling wind
or wave: gusts and swells perpetually trouble the mariner's course; he
dare not dismiss from his mind the expectation of tempest.'

'But you are ready for a breeze--you are a good seaman--an able
commander: you are a skilful pilot, Robert; you will weather the storm.'

'My kinswoman always thinks the best of me, but I will take her words for
a propitious omen; I will consider that in meeting her to-night, I have
met with one of those birds whose appearance is to the sailor the
harbinger of good-luck.'

'A poor harbinger of good-luck is she who can do nothing--who has no
power. I feel my incapacity: it is of no use saying I have the will to
serve you, when I cannot prove it; yet I have the will. I wish you
success; I wish you high fortune and true happiness.'

'When did you ever wish me anything else? What is Fanny waiting for--I
told her to walk on? Oh! we have reached the churchyard: then, we are to
part here, I suppose: we might have sat a few minutes in the
church-porch, if the girl had not been with us. It is so fine a night, so
summer-mild and still, I have no particular wish to return yet to the
Hollow.'

'But we cannot sit in the porch now, Robert.' Caroline said this because
Moore was turning her round towards it.

'Perhaps not, but tell Fanny to go in; say we are coming, a few minutes
will make no difference.'

The church-clock struck ten.

'My uncle will be coming out to take his usual sentinel round, and he
always surveys the church and churchyard.'

'And if he does? If it were not for Fanny, who knows we are here, I
should find pleasure in dodging and eluding him. We could be under the
east window when he is at the porch; as he came round to the north side
we could wheel off to the south; we might at a pinch hide behind some of
the monuments: that tall erection of the Wynnes would screen us
completely.'

'Robert, what good spirits you have! Go--go!' added Caroline hastily, 'I
hear the front door----'

'I don't want to go; on the contrary, I want to stay.'

'You know my uncle will be terribly angry: he forbade me to see you
because you are a Jacobin.'

'A queer Jacobin!'

'Go, Robert, he is coming; I hear him cough.'

'Diable! It is strange--what a pertinacious wish I feel to stay!'

'You remember what he did to Fanny's----' began Caroline, and stopped
abruptly short. Sweetheart was the word that ought to have followed, but
she could not utter it; it seemed calculated to suggest ideas she had no
intention to suggest; ideas delusive and disturbing. Moore was less
scrupulous; 'Fanny's sweetheart?' he said at once. 'He gave him a
shower-bath under the pump--did he not? He'd do as much for me, I
daresay, with pleasure. I should like to provoke the old Turk--not
however against you: but he would make a distinction between a cousin and
a lover, would he not?'

'Oh! he would not think of you in that way, of course not; his quarrel
with you is entirely political; yet I should not like the breach to be
widened, and he is so testy. Here he is at the garden gate--for your own
sake and mine, Robert, go!'

The beseeching words were aided by a beseeching gesture and a more
beseeching look. Moore covered her clasped hands an instant with his,
answered her upward by a downward gaze, said 'Good-night!' and went.

Caroline was in a moment at the kitchen-door behind Fanny; the shadow of
the shovel-hat at that very instant fell on a moonlit tomb; the Rector
emerged erect as a cane, from his garden, and proceeded in slow march,
his hands behind him, down the cemetery. Moore was almost caught: he had
to 'dodge' after all, to coast round the church, and finally to bend his
tall form behind the Wynnes' ambitious monument. There he was forced to
hide full ten minutes, kneeling with one knee on the turf, his hat off,
his curls bare to the dew, his dark eye shining, and his lips parted with
inward laughter at his position; for the Rector meantime stood coolly
star-gazing, and taking snuff within three feet of him.

It happened, however, that Mr. Helstone had no suspicion whatever on his
mind; for being usually but vaguely informed of his niece's movements,
not thinking it worth while to follow them closely, he was not aware that
she had been out at all that day, and imagined her then occupied with
book or work in her chamber: where, indeed, she was by this time; though
not absorbed in the tranquil employment he ascribed to her, but standing
at her window with fast-throbbing heart, peeping anxiously from behind
the blind, watching for her uncle to re-enter and her cousin to escape;
and at last she was gratified; she heard Mr. Helstone come in; she saw
Robert stride the tombs and vault the wall; she then went down to
prayers. When she returned to her chamber, it was to meet the memory of
Robert. Slumber's visitation was long averted: long she sat at her
lattice, long gazed down on the old garden and older church, on the tombs
laid out all grey and calm, and clear in moonlight. She followed the
steps of the night, on its pathway of stars, far into the 'wee sma' hours
ayont the twal':' she was with Moore, in spirit, the whole time: she was
at his side: she heard his voice: she gave her hand into his hand; it
rested warm in his fingers. When the church-clock struck, when any other
sound stirred, when a little mouse familiar to her chamber, an intruder
for which she would never permit Fanny to lay a trap, came rattling
amongst the links of her locket chain, her one ring, and another trinket
or two on the toilet-table, to nibble a bit of biscuit laid ready for it,
she looked up, recalled momentarily to the real. Then she said half
aloud, as if deprecating the accusation of some unseen and unheard
monitor, 'I am not cherishing love-dreams: I am only thinking because I
cannot sleep; of course, I know he will marry Shirley.'

With returning silence, with the lull of the chime, and the retreat of
her small untamed and unknown protégé, she still resumed the dream,
nestling to the vision's side,--listening to, conversing with it. It
paled at last: as dawn approached, the setting stars and breaking day
dimmed the creation of Fancy: the wakened song of birds hushed her
whispers. The tale full of fire, quick with interest, borne away by the
morning wind, became a vague murmur. The shape that, seen in a moonbeam,
lived, had a pulse, had movement, wore health's glow and youth's
freshness, turned cold and ghostly grey, confronted with the red of
sunrise. It wasted. She was left solitary at last: she crept to her
couch, chill and dejected.



Chapter 14 - Shirley Seeks to Be Saved by Works


'Of course, I know he will marry Shirley,' were her first words when she
rose in the morning. 'And he ought to marry her: she can help him,' she
added firmly. 'But I shall be forgotten when they are married,' was the
cruel succeeding thought. 'Oh! I shall be wholly forgotten! And
what--what shall I do when Robert is taken quite from me? Where shall I
turn? My Robert! I wish I could justly call him mine: but I am poverty
and incapacity; Shirley is wealth and power: and she is beauty too, and
love--I cannot deny it. This is no sordid suit: she loves him--not with
inferior feelings: she loves, or will love, as he must feel proud to be
loved. Not a valid objection can be made. Let them be married then: but
afterwards I shall be nothing to him. As for being his sister, and all
that stuff, I despise it. I will either be all or nothing to a man like
Robert: no feeble shuffling or false cant is endurable. Once let that
pair be united, and I will certainly leave them. As for lingering about,
playing the hypocrite, and pretending to calm sentiments of friendship,
when my soul will be wrung with other feelings, I shall not descend to
such degradation. As little could I fill the place of their mutual friend
as that of their deadly foe: as little could I stand between them as
trample over them. Robert is a first-rate man--in my eyes: I have loved,
do love, and must love him. I would be his wife, if I could; as I cannot,
I must go where I shall never see him. There is but one alternative--to
cleave to him as if I were a part of him, or to be sundered from him wide
as the two poles of a sphere. Sunder me then, Providence. Part us
speedily.'

Some such aspirations as these were again working in her mind late in the
afternoon, when the apparition of one of the personages haunting her
thoughts passed the parlour window. Miss Keeldar sauntered slowly by: her
gait, her countenance wearing that mixture of wistfulness and
carelessness which, when quiescent, was the wonted cast of her look, and
character of her bearing. When animated, the carelessness quite vanished,
the wistfulness became blent with a genial gaiety, seasoning the laugh,
the smile, the glance, with an unique flavour of sentiment, so that mirth
from her never resembled 'the crackling of thorns under a pot.'

'What do you mean by not coming to see me this afternoon, as you
promised?' was her address to Caroline as she entered the room.

'I was not in the humour,' replied Miss Helstone, very truly.

Shirley had already fixed on her a penetrating eye.

'No,' she said; 'I see you are not in the humour for loving me: you are
in one of your sunless, inclement moods, when one feels a
fellow-creature's presence is not welcome to you, You have such moods are
you aware of it?'

'Do you mean to stay long, Shirley?'

'Yes; I am come to have my tea, and must have it before I go. I shall
take the liberty then of removing my bonnet, without being asked.'

And this she did, and then stood on the rug with her hands behind her.

'A pretty expression you have in your countenance,' she went on, still
gazing keenly, though not inimically, rather indeed pityingly at
Caroline. 'Wonderfully self-supported you look, you solitude-seeking,
wounded deer. Are you afraid Shirley will worry you, if she discovers
that you are hurt, and that you bleed?'

'I never do fear Shirley.'

'But sometimes you dislike her: often you avoid her. Shirley can feel
when she is slighted and shunned. If you had not walked home in the
company you did last night, you would have been a different girl to-day.
What time did you reach the Rectory?'

'By ten.'

'Humph! You took three-quarters of an hour to walk a mile. Was it you, or
Moore, who lingered so?'

'Shirley, you talk nonsense.'

'He talked nonsense--that I doubt not; or he looked it, which is a
thousand times worse: I see the reflection of his eyes on your forehead
at this moment. I feel disposed to call him out, if I could only get a
trustworthy second: I feel desperately irritated: I felt so last night,
and have felt it all day.'

'You don't ask me why,' she proceeded, after a pause, 'you little silent,
over-modest thing; and you don't deserve that I should pour out my
secrets into your lap without an invitation. Upon my word, I could have
found it in my heart to have dogged Moore yesterday evening with dire
intent: I have pistols, and can use them.'

'Stuff, Shirley! Which would you have shot--me or Robert?'

'Neither, perhaps--perhaps myself--more likely a bat or a tree-bough. He
is a puppy--your cousin: a quiet, serious, sensible, judicious, ambitious
puppy. I see him standing before me, talking his half-stern, half-gentle
talk, bearing me down (as I am very conscious he does) with his fixity of
purpose, etc.; and then----I have no patience with him!'

Miss Keeldar started off on a rapid walk through the room, repeating
energetically that she had no patience with men in general, and with her
tenant in particular.

'You are mistaken,' urged Caroline, in some anxiety: 'Robert is no puppy
or male flirt; I can vouch for that.'

'You vouch for it! Do you think I'll take your word on the subject? There
is no one's testimony I would not credit sooner than yours. To advance
Moore's fortune, you would cut off your right hand.'

'But not tell lies; and if I speak the truth, I must assure you that he
was just civil to me last night--that was all.'

'I never asked what he was--I can guess: I saw him from the window take
your hand in his long fingers, just as he went out at my gate.'

'That is nothing. I am not a stranger, you know: I am an old
acquaintance, and his cousin.'

'I feel indignant; and that is the long and short of the matter,'
responded Miss Keeldar. 'All my comfort,' she added presently, 'is broken
up by his manoeuvres. He keeps intruding between you and me: without him
we should be good friends; but that six feet of puppy-hood makes a
perpetually-recurring eclipse of our friendship. Again and again he
crosses and obscures the disk I want always to see clear: ever and anon
he renders me to you a mere bore and nuisance.'

'No, Shirley; no.'

'He does. You did not want my society this afternoon, and I feel it hard:
you are naturally somewhat reserved, but I am a social personage, who
cannot live alone. If we were but left unmolested, I have that regard for
you that I could bear you in my presence for ever, and not for the
fraction of a second do I ever wish to be rid of you. You cannot say as
much respecting me.'

'Shirley, I can say anything you wish: Shirley, I like you.'

'You will wish me at Jericho to-morrow, Lina.'

'I shall not. I am every day growing more accustomed to--fonder of you.
You know I am too English to get up a vehement friendship all at once;
but you are so much better than common--you are so different to everyday
young ladies--I esteem you--I value you: you are never a burden to
me--never. Do you believe what I say?'

'Partly,' replied Miss Keeldar, smiling rather incredulously; 'but you
are a peculiar personage: quiet as you look, there is both a force and a
depth somewhere within, not easily reached or appreciated: then you
certainly are not happy.'

'And unhappy people are rarely good--is that what you mean?'

'Not at all: I mean rather that unhappy people are often pre-occupied,
and not in the mood for discoursing with companions of my nature.
Moreover, there is a sort of unhappiness which not only depresses, but
corrodes--and that, I fear, is your portion. Will pity do you any good,
Lina? If it will, take some from Shirley: she offers largely, and
warrants the article genuine.'

'Shirley, I never had a sister--you never had a sister; but it flashes on
me at this moment how sisters feel towards each other. Affection twined
with their life, which no shocks of feeling can uproot, which little
quarrels only trample an instant that it may spring more freshly when the
pressure is removed: affection that no passion can ultimately outrival,
with which even love itself cannot do more than compete in force and
truth. Love hurts us so, Shirley: it is so tormenting, so racking, and it
burns away our strength with its flame; in affection is no pain and no
fire, only sustenance and balm. I am supported and soothed when you--that
is, you only--are near, Shirley, Do you believe me now?'

'I am always easy of belief when the creed pleases me. We really are
friends then, Lina, in spite of the black eclipse?'

'We really are,' returned the other, drawing Shirley towards her, and
making her sit down, 'chance what may.'

'Come, then, we will talk of something else than the Troubler.' But at
this moment the Rector came in, and the 'something else' of which Miss
Keeldar was about to talk was not again alluded to till the moment of her
departure; she then delayed a few minutes in the passage to
say.--'Caroline, I wish to tell you that I have a great weight on my
mind: my conscience is quite uneasy, as if I had committed, or was going
to commit, a crime. It is not my private conscience, you must understand,
but my landed-proprietor and lord-of-the-manor conscience. I have got
into the clutch of an eagle with iron talons. I have fallen under a stern
influence, which I scarcely approve, but cannot resist. Something will be
done ere long, I fear, which it by no means pleases me to think of. To
ease my mind, and to prevent harm as far as I can, I mean to enter on a
series of good works. Don't be surprised, therefore, if you see me all at
once turn outrageously charitable. I have no idea how to begin, but you
must give me some advice: we will talk more on the subject to-morrow; and
just ask that excellent person, Miss Ainley, to step up to Fieldhead: I
have some notion of putting myself under her tuition--won't she have a
precious pupil? Drop a hint to her, Lina, that, though a well-meaning, I
am rather a neglected character, and then she will feel less scandalised
at my ignorance about clothing societies, and such things.'

On the morrow, Caroline found Shirley sitting gravely at her desk, with
an account-book, a bundle of bank-notes, and a well-filled purse before
her. She was looking mighty serious, but a little puzzled. She said she
had been 'casting an eye' over the weekly expenditure in housekeeping at
the Hall, trying to find out where she could retrench; that she had also
just given audience to Mrs. Gill, the cook, and had sent that person away
with a notion that her (Shirley's) brain was certainly crazed. 'I have
lectured her on the duty of being careful,' said she, 'in a way quite new
to her. So eloquent was I on the text of economy, that I surprised
myself; for, you see, it is altogether a fresh idea: I never thought,
much less spoke, on the subject till lately. But it is all theory; for
when I came to the practical part I could retrench nothing. I had not
firmness to take off a single pound of butter, or to prosecute to any
clear result an inquest into the destiny of either dripping, lard, bread,
cold meat, or other kitchen perquisite whatever. I know we never get up
illuminations at Fieldhead, but I could not ask the meaning of sundry
quite unaccountable pounds of candles: we do not wash for the parish, yet
I viewed in silence items of soap and bleaching-powder calculated to
satisfy the solicitude of the most anxious inquirer after our position in
reference to those articles: carnivorous I am not, nor is Mrs. Pryor, nor
is Mrs. Gill herself, yet I only hemmed and opened my eyes a little wide
when I saw butchers' bills whose figures seemed to prove that
fact--falsehood, I mean. Caroline, you may laugh at me, but you can't
change me. I am a poltroon on certain points--I feel it. There is a base
alloy of moral cowardice in my composition. I blushed and hung my head
before Mrs. Gill, when she ought to have been faltering confessions to
me. I found it impossible to get up the spirit even to hint, much less to
prove, to her that she was a cheat. I have no calm dignity--no true
courage about me.'

'Shirley, what fit of self-injustice is this? My uncle, who is not given
to speak well of women, says there are not ten thousand men in England as
genuinely fearless as you.'

'I am fearless, physically: I am never nervous about danger. I was not
startled from self-possession when Mr. Wynne's great red bull rose with a
bellow before my face, as I was crossing the cowslip-lea alone, stooped
his begrimed, sullen head, and made a run at me: but I was afraid of
seeing Mrs. Gill brought to shame and confusion of face. You have
twice--ten times my strength of mind on certain subjects, Caroline: you,
whom no persuasions can induce to pass a bull, however quiet he looks,
would have firmly shown my housekeeper she had done wrong; then you would
have gently and wisely admonished her; and at last, I daresay, provided
she had seemed penitent, you would have very sweetly forgiven her. Of
this conduct I am incapable. However, in spite of exaggerated imposition,
I still find we live within our means: I have money in hand, and I really
must do some good with it. The Briarfield poor are badly off: they must
be helped. What ought I to do, think you, Lina? Had I not better
distribute the cash at once?'

'No, indeed, Shirley: you will not manage properly. I have often noticed
that your only notion of charity is to give shillings and half-crowns in
a careless, freehanded sort of way, which is liable to continual abuse.
You must have a prime minister, or you will get yourself into a series of
scrapes. You suggested Miss Ainley yourself: to Miss Ainley I will apply;
and, meantime, promise to keep quiet, and not begin throwing away your
money. What a great deal you have, Shirley!--you must feel very rich with
all that?'

'Yes; I feel of consequence. It is not an immense sum, but I feel
responsible for its disposal; and really this responsibility weighs on my
mind more heavily than I could have expected. They say that there are
some families almost starving to death in Briarfield: some of my own
cottagers are in wretched circumstances: I must and will help them.'

'Some people say we shouldn't give alms to the poor, Shirley.'

'They are great fools for their pains. For those who are not hungry, it
is easy to palaver about the degradation of charity, and so on; but they
forget the brevity of life, as well as its bitterness. We have none of us
long to live: let us help each other through seasons of want and woe, as
well as we can, without heeding in the least the scruples of vain
philosophy.'

'But you do help others, Shirley: you give a great deal as it is.'

'Not enough: I must give more, or, I tell you, my brother's blood will
some day be crying to Heaven against me. For, after all, if political
incendiaries come here to kindle conflagration in the neighbourhood, and
my property is attacked, I shall defend it like a tigress--I know I
shall. Let me listen to Mercy as long as she is near me: her voice once
drowned by the shout of ruffian defiance, and I shall be full of impulses
to resist and quell. If once the poor gather and rise in the form of the
mob, I shall turn against them as an aristocrat: if they bully me, I must
defy; if they attack, I must resist,--and I will.'

'You talk like Robert.'

'I feel like Robert, only more fierily. Let them meddle with Robert, or
Robert's mill, or Robert's interests, and I shall hate them. At present I
am no patrician, nor do I regard the poor around me as plebeians; but if
once they violently wrong me or mine, and then presume to dictate to us,
I shall quite forget pity for their wretchedness and respect for their
poverty, in scorn of their ignorance and wrath at their insolence.'

'Shirley--how your eyes flash!'

'Because my soul burns. Would you, any more than me, let Robert be borne
down by numbers?'

'If I had your power to aid Robert, I would use it as you mean to use it.
If I could be such a friend to him as you can be, I would stand by him,
as you mean to stand by him--till death.'

'And now, Lina, though your eyes don't flash, they glow. You drop your
lids; but I saw a kindled spark. However, it is not yet come to fighting.
What I want to do is to prevent mischief. I cannot forget, either day or
night, that these embittered feelings of the poor against the rich have
been generated in suffering: they would neither hate nor envy us if they
did not deem us so much happier than themselves. To allay this suffering,
and thereby lessen this hate, let me, out of my abundance, give
abundantly: and that the donation may go farther, let it be made wisely.
To that intent, we must introduce some clear, calm, practical sense into
our councils: so go, and fetch Miss Ainley.'

Without another word, Caroline put on her bonnet and departed. It may,
perhaps, appear strange that neither she nor Shirley thought of
consulting Mrs. Pryor on their scheme; but they were wise in abstaining.
To have consulted her--and this they knew by instinct--would only have
been to involve her in painful embarrassment. She was far better
informed, better read, a deeper thinker than Miss Ainley, but of
administrative energy, of executive activity, she had none. She would
subscribe her own modest mite to a charitable object willingly,--secret
almsgiving suited her; but in public plans, on a large scale, she could
take no part: as to originating them, that was out of the question. This
Shirley knew, and therefore she did not trouble Mrs. Pryor by unavailing
conferences, which could only remind her of her own deficiencies, and do
no good.

It was a bright day for Miss Ainley when she was summoned to Fieldhead to
deliberate on projects so congenial to her; when she was seated with all
honour and deference at a table with paper, pen, ink and--what was best
of all--cash before her, and requested to draw up a regular plan for
administering relief to the destitute poor of Briarfield. She, who knew
them all, had studied their wants, had again and again felt in what way
they might best be succoured, could the means of succour only be found,
was fully competent to the undertaking, and a meek exultation gladdened
her kind heart as she felt herself able to answer clearly and promptly
the eager questions put by the two young girls; as she showed them in her
answers how much and what serviceable knowledge she had acquired of the
condition of her fellow-creatures round her.

Shirley placed at her disposal £300, and at sight of the money Miss
Ainley's eyes filled with joyful tears; for she already saw the hungry
fed, the naked clothed, the sick comforted thereby. She quickly drew up a
simple, sensible plan for its expenditure; and she assured them brighter
times would now come round, for she doubted not the lady of Fieldhead's
example would be followed by others: she should try to get additional
subscriptions, and to form a fund; but first she must consult the clergy:
yes, on that point, she was peremptory: Mr. Helstone, Dr. Boultby, Mr.
Hall, must be consulted--(for not only must Briarfield be relieved, but
Whinbury and Nunnely)--it would, she averred, be presumption in her to
take a single step unauthorised by them.

The clergy were sacred beings in Miss Ainley's eyes: no matter what might
be the insignificance of the individual, his station made him holy. The
very curates--who, in their trivial arrogance, were hardly worthy to tie
her patten-strings, or carry her cotton umbrella, or check
woollen-shawl--she, in her pure, sincere enthusiasm, looked upon as
sucking saints. No matter how clearly their little vices and enormous
absurdities were pointed out to her, she could not see them: she was
blind to ecclesiastical defects: the white surplice covered a multitude
of sins.

Shirley, knowing this harmless infatuation on the part of her recently
chosen prime minister, stipulated expressly that the curates were to have
no voice in the disposal of the money; that their meddling fingers were
not to be inserted into the pie. The rectors, of course, must be
paramount, and they might be trusted: they had some experience, some
sagacity, and Mr. Hall, at least, had sympathy and loving-kindness for
his fellowmen; but as for the youth under them, they must be set aside,
kept down, and taught that subordination and silence best became their
years and capacity.

It was with some horror Miss Ainley heard this language: Caroline,
however, interposing with a mild word or two in praise of Mr. Sweeting,
calmed her again. Sweeting was, indeed, her own favourite: she
endeavoured to respect Messrs. Malone and Donne; but the slices of
sponge-cake, and glasses of cowslip or primrose wine, she had at
different times administered to Sweeting when he came to see her in her
little cottage, were ever offered with sentiments of truly motherly
regard. The same innocuous collation she had once presented to Malone;
but that personage evinced such open scorn of the offering, she had never
ventured to renew it. To Donne she always served the treat, and was happy
to see his approbation of it proved beyond a doubt, by the fact of his
usually eating two pieces of cake, and putting a third in his pocket.

Indefatigable in her exertions where good was to be done, Miss Ainley
would immediately have set out on a walk of ten miles round to the three
rectors, in order to show her plan, and humbly solicit their approval:
but Miss Keeldar interdicted this, and proposed, as an amendment, to
collect the clergy in a small select reunion that evening at Fieldhead.
Miss Ainley was to meet them, and the plan was to be discussed in full
privy council.

Shirley managed to get the senior priesthood together accordingly; and
before the old maid's arrival she had, further, talked all the gentlemen
into the most charming mood imaginable. She herself had taken in hand Dr.
Boultby and Mr. Helstone. The first was a stubborn old Welshman, hot,
opinionated, and obstinate, but withal a man who did a great deal of
good, though not without making some noise about it: the latter we know.
She had rather a friendly feeling for both; especially for old Helstone;
and it cost her no trouble to be quite delightful to them, She took them
round the garden; she gathered them flowers; she was like a kind daughter
to them. Mr. Hall she left to Caroline--or rather, it was t