Shirley
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-jug; 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 III.
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