Shirley
"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 miln, 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 sympathize with the poor who are in distress than you sympathize
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 sympathizing 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 thunder-shower" 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