Shirley
head, that she was satisfied, and disappeared within the clear obscure
of the interior.
"How did she know I was hurt?" asked Moore.
"By rumour, no doubt. But it is too good in her to trouble herself about
you. For my part, it was of your victims I was thinking when I inquired
after the wounded. What damage have your opponents sustained?"
"One of the rioters, or victims as you call them, was killed, and six
were hurt."
"What have you done with them?"
"What you will perfectly approve. Medical aid was procured immediately;
and as soon as we can get a couple of covered wagons and some clean
straw, they will be removed to Stilbro'."
"Straw! You must have beds and bedding. I will send my wagon directly,
properly furnished; and Mr. Yorke, I am sure, will send his."
"You guess correctly; he has volunteered already. And Mrs. Yorke--who,
like you, seems disposed to regard the rioters as martyrs, and me, and
especially Mr. Helstone, as murderers--is at this moment, I believe,
most assiduously engaged in fitting it up with feather-beds, pillows,
bolsters, blankets, etc. The _victims_ lack no attentions, I promise
you. Mr. Hall, your favourite parson, has been with them ever since six
o'clock, exhorting them, praying with them, and even waiting on them
like any nurse; and Caroline's good friend, Miss Ainley, that _very_
plain old maid, sent in a stock of lint and linen, something in the
proportion of another lady's allowance of beef and wine."
"That will do. Where is your sister?"
"Well cared for. I had her securely domiciled with Miss Mann. This very
morning the two set out for Wormwood Wells [a noted watering-place],
and will stay there some weeks."
"So Mr. Helstone domiciled me at the rectory! Mighty clever you
gentlemen think you are! I make you heartily welcome to the idea, and
hope its savour, as you chew the cud of reflection upon it, gives you
pleasure. Acute and astute, why are you not also omniscient? How is it
that events transpire, under your very noses, of which you have no
suspicion? It should be so, otherwise the exquisite gratification of
outmanoeuvring you would be unknown. Ah, friend, you may search my
countenance, but you cannot read it."
Moore, indeed, looked as if he could not.
"You think me a dangerous specimen of my sex. Don't you now?"
"A peculiar one, at least."
"But Caroline--is she peculiar?"
"In her way--yes."
"Her way! What is her way?"
"You know her as well as I do."
"And knowing her, I assert that she is neither eccentric nor difficult
of control. Is she?"
"That depends----"
"However, there is nothing masculine about _her_?"
"Why lay such emphasis on _her_? Do you consider her a contrast, in that
respect, to yourself?"
"You do, no doubt; but that does not signify. Caroline is neither
masculine, nor of what they call the spirited order of women."
"I have seen her flash out."
"So have I, but not with manly fire. It was a short, vivid, trembling
glow, that shot up, shone, vanished----"
"And left her scared at her own daring. You describe others besides
Caroline."
"The point I wish to establish is, that Miss Helstone, though gentle,
tractable, and candid enough, is still perfectly capable of defying even
Mr. Moore's penetration."
"What have you and she been doing?" asked Moore suddenly.
"Have you had any breakfast?"
"What is your mutual mystery?"
"If you are hungry, Mrs. Gill will give you something to eat here. Step
into the oak parlour, and ring the bell. You will be served as if at an
inn; or, if you like better, go back to the Hollow."
"The alternative is not open to me; I _must_ go back. Good-morning. The
first leisure I have I will see you again."
CHAPTER XXI.
MRS. PRYOR.
While Shirley was talking with Moore, Caroline rejoined Mrs. Pryor
upstairs. She found that lady deeply depressed. She would not say that
Miss Keeldar's hastiness had hurt her feelings, but it was evident an
inward wound galled her. To any but a congenial nature she would have
seemed insensible to the quiet, tender attentions by which Miss Helstone
sought to impart solace; but Caroline knew that, unmoved or slightly
moved as she looked, she felt, valued, and was healed by them.
"I am deficient in self-confidence and decision," she said at last. "I
always have been deficient in those qualities. Yet I think Miss Keeldar
should have known my character well enough by this time to be aware that
I always feel an even painful solicitude to do right, to act for the
best. The unusual nature of the demand on my judgment puzzled me,
especially following the alarms of the night. I could not venture to act
promptly for another; but I trust no serious harm will result from my
lapse of firmness."
A gentle knock was here heard at the door. It was half opened.
"Caroline, come here," said a low voice.
Miss Helstone went out. There stood Shirley in the gallery, looking
contrite, ashamed, sorry as any repentant child.
"How is Mrs. Pryor?" she asked.
"Rather out of spirits," said Caroline.
"I have behaved very shamefully, very ungenerously, very ungratefully to
her," said Shirley. "How insolent in me to turn on her thus for what,
after all, was no fault--only an excess of conscientiousness on her
part. But I regret my error most sincerely. Tell her so, and ask if she
will forgive me."
Caroline discharged the errand with heartfelt pleasure. Mrs. Pryor rose,
came to the door. She did not like scenes; she dreaded them as all
timid people do. She said falteringly, "Come in, my dear."
Shirley did come in with some impetuosity. She threw her arms round her
governess, and while she kissed her heartily she said, "You know you
_must_ forgive me, Mrs. Pryor. I could not get on at all if there was a
misunderstanding between you and me."
"I have nothing to forgive," was the reply. "We will pass it over now,
if you please. The final result of the incident is that it proves more
plainly than ever how unequal I am to certain crises."
And that was the painful feeling which _would_ remain on Mrs. Pryor's
mind. No effort of Shirley's or Caroline's could efface it thence. She
could forgive her offending pupil, not her innocent self.
Miss Keeldar, doomed to be in constant request during the morning, was
presently summoned downstairs again. The rector called first. A lively
welcome and livelier reprimand were at his service. He expected both,
and, being in high spirits, took them in equally good part.
In the course of his brief visit he quite forgot to ask after his niece;
the riot, the rioters, the mill, the magistrates, the heiress, absorbed
all his thoughts to the exclusion of family ties. He alluded to the part
himself and curate had taken in the defence of the Hollow.
"The vials of pharisaical wrath will be emptied on our heads for our
share in this business," he said; "but I defy every calumniator. I was
there only to support the law, to play my part as a man and a Briton;
which characters I deem quite compatible with those of the priest and
Levite, in their highest sense. Your tenant Moore," he went on, "has won
my approbation. A cooler commander I would not wish to see, nor a more
determined. Besides, the man has shown sound judgment and good
sense--first, in being thoroughly prepared for the event which has taken
place; and subsequently, when his well-concerted plans had secured him
success, in knowing how to use without abusing his victory. Some of the
magistrates are now well frightened, and, like all cowards, show a
tendency to be cruel. Moore restrains them with admirable prudence. He
has hitherto been very unpopular in the neighbourhood; but, mark my
words, the tide of opinion will now take a turn in his favour. People
will find out that they have not appreciated him, and will hasten to
remedy their error; and he, when he perceives the public disposed to
acknowledge his merits, will show a more gracious mien than that with
which he has hitherto favoured us."
Mr. Helstone was about to add to this speech some half-jesting,
half-serious warnings to Miss Keeldar on the subject of her rumoured
partiality for her talented tenant, when a ring at the door, announcing
another caller, checked his raillery; and as that other caller appeared
in the form of a white-haired elderly gentleman, with a rather truculent
countenance and disdainful eye--in short, our old acquaintance, and the
rector's old enemy, Mr. Yorke--the priest and Levite seized his hat, and
with the briefest of adieus to Miss Keeldar and the sternest of nods to
her guest took an abrupt leave.
Mr. Yorke was in no mild mood, and in no measured terms did he express
his opinion on the transaction of the night. Moore, the magistrates, the
soldiers, the mob leaders, each and all came in for a share of his
invectives; but he reserved his strongest epithets--and real racy
Yorkshire Doric adjectives they were--for the benefit of the fighting
parsons, the "sanguinary, demoniac" rector and curate. According to him,
the cup of ecclesiastical guilt was now full indeed.
"The church," he said, "was in a bonny pickle now. It was time it came
down when parsons took to swaggering amang soldiers, blazing away wi'
bullet and gunpowder, taking the lives of far honester men than
themselves."
"What would Moore have done if nobody had helped him?" asked Shirley.
"Drunk as he'd brewed, eaten as he'd baked."
"Which means you would have left him by himself to face that mob. Good!
He has plenty of courage, but the greatest amount of gallantry that ever
garrisoned one human breast could scarce avail against two hundred."
"He had the soldiers, those poor slaves who hire out their own blood and
spill other folk's for money."
"You abuse soldiers almost as much as you abuse clergymen. All who wear
red coats are national refuse in your eyes, and all who wear black are
national swindlers. Mr. Moore, according to you, did wrong to get
military aid, and he did still worse to accept of any other aid. Your
way of talking amounts to this: he should have abandoned his mill and
his life to the rage of a set of misguided madmen, and Mr. Helstone and
every other gentleman in the parish should have looked on, and seen the
building razed and its owner slaughtered, and never stirred a finger to
save either."
"If Moore had behaved to his men from the beginning as a master ought to
behave, they never would have entertained their present feelings towards
him."
"Easy for you to talk," exclaimed Miss Keeldar, who was beginning to wax
warm in her tenant's cause--"you, whose family have lived at Briarmains
for six generations, to whose person the people have been accustomed for
fifty years, who know all their ways, prejudices, and preferences--easy,
indeed, for _you_ to act so as to avoid offending them. But Mr. Moore
came a stranger into the district; he came here poor and friendless,
with nothing but his own energies to back him, nothing but his honour,
his talent, and his industry to make his way for him. A monstrous crime
indeed that, under such circumstances, he could not popularize his
naturally grave, quiet manners all at once; could not be jocular, and
free, and cordial with a strange peasantry, as you are with your
fellow-townsmen! An unpardonable transgression that when he introduced
improvements he did not go about the business in quite the most politic
way, did not graduate his changes as delicately as a rich capitalist
might have done! For errors of this sort is he to be the victim of mob
outrage? Is he to be denied even the privilege of defending himself? Are
those who have the hearts of men in their breasts (and Mr. Helstone, say
what you will of him, has such a heart) to be reviled like malefactors
because they stand by him, because they venture to espouse the cause of