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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Shirley
+
+Author: Charlotte Brontë
+
+Release Date: November 16, 2009 [eBook #30486]
+[Most recently updated: January 28, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Brenda Lewis, Fox in the Stars and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHIRLEY ***
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Moore placed his hand on his cousin's shoulder, stooped,
+and left a kiss on her forehead.]
+
+
+
+
+SHIRLEY
+
+BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË
+
+T. Nelson & Sons
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+         I. LEVITICAL                                                  3
+
+        II. THE WAGONS                                                16
+
+       III. MR. YORKE                                                 31
+
+        IV. MR. YORKE (CONTINUED)                                     40
+
+         V. HOLLOW'S COTTAGE                                          51
+
+        VI. CORIOLANUS                                                66
+
+       VII. THE CURATES AT TEA                                        85
+
+      VIII. NOAH AND MOSES                                           110
+
+        IX. BRIARMAINS                                               125
+
+         X. OLD MAIDS                                                147
+
+        XI. FIELDHEAD                                                164
+
+       XII. SHIRLEY AND CAROLINE                                     181
+
+      XIII. FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS ON BUSINESS                       201
+
+       XIV. SHIRLEY SEEKS TO BE SAVED BY WORKS                       226
+
+        XV. MR. DONNE'S EXODUS                                       239
+
+       XVI. WHITSUNTIDE                                              253
+
+      XVII. THE SCHOOL FEAST                                         264
+
+     XVIII. WHICH THE GENTEEL READER IS RECOMMENDED TO SKIP, LOW
+            PERSONS BEING HERE INTRODUCED                            279
+
+       XIX. A SUMMER NIGHT                                           290
+
+        XX. TO-MORROW                                                306
+
+       XXI. MRS. PRYOR                                               319
+
+      XXII. TWO LIVES                                                336
+
+     XXIII. AN EVENING OUT                                           346
+
+      XXIV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH                        365
+
+       XXV. THE WEST WIND BLOWS                                      384
+
+      XXVI. OLD COPY-BOOKS                                           392
+
+     XXVII. THE FIRST BLUESTOCKING                                   410
+
+    XXVIII. PHÅ’BE                                                   433
+
+      XXIX. LOUIS MOORE                                              453
+
+       XXX. RUSHEDGE--A CONFESSIONAL                                 461
+
+      XXXI. UNCLE AND NIECE                                          475
+
+     XXXII. THE SCHOOLBOY AND THE WOOD-NYMPH                         491
+
+    XXXIII. MARTIN'S TACTICS                                         502
+
+     XXXIV. CASE OF DOMESTIC PERSECUTION--REMARKABLE INSTANCE
+            OF PIOUS PERSEVERANCE IN THE DISCHARGE OF RELIGIOUS
+            DUTIES                                                   513
+
+      XXXV. WHEREIN MATTERS MAKE SOME PROGRESS, BUT NOT MUCH         521
+
+     XXXVI. WRITTEN IN THE SCHOOLROOM                                534
+
+    XXXVII. THE WINDING-UP                                           555
+
+
+
+
+SHIRLEY.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+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
+night-gown 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 varying 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 he 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 rolled, 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 II.
+
+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 realized 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 specially 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 nowhere; 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
+love-making, 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 paralyzed 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 feminity 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 face 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 charm, 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 firm; 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 by-past 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-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
+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 organize 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 civilization 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' wagons 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 telled '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 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 Mill."
+
+"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 écho, 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 à 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 IV.
+
+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, unaristocratic 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
+realize 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. An 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, of 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 sympathizer 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 raton'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
+analyze 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
+cafés 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 scandalized 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 Cave 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 Cave, 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 grievances had
+been heaped on 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 their 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 vainglorious 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 worldly 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 blackballed 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 V.
+
+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 dahn, 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 Flamand! Have I a Flemish face--the
+clumsy nose standing out, the mean forehead falling back, the pale blue
+eyes 'à 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 civilized, 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 realized
+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 snow-storms,
+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 dye-house, 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 idée! to destroy them. Quelle action honteuse! On voyait bien
+que les ouvriers de ce pays étaient à la fois betes 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! 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 clearly
+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 sympathize with us? Your uncle sympathizes
+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 am 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 purée 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 be 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 smell 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 Skyes'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 his 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 VI.
+
+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 needle-work.
+Mdlle. 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
+determinative," 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
+Mdlle. 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 purée 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 manœuvre 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 wearifu' process, but considered by
+Hortense Gérard, and by her ancestresses before her for long generations
+back, as one of the first "duties of a 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 every
+day, 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 are 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 time 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 in your 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, than 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 unruly 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 vulgarizes; family union
+elevates. Hortense, pleased with her brother, and grateful to him,
+looked, as she touched her guitar, almost graceful, almost handsome; her
+everyday 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 will 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 lamp-light; 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 sympathize with
+that proud patrician who does not sympathize with his famished
+fellow-men, 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 sympathized; he was not
+scandalized 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 le premiers à peine.
+     Au banquet de la vie à peine commencé,
+     Un instant seulement mes lèvres ont pressé
+       La coupe en mes mains encore pleine.
+
+    "Je ne suis qu'au printemps--je veux voir la moisson;
+     Et 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 it 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 VII.
+
+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, overspread 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 convoyed 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 check 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 soberizing 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
+yokefellow is not a companion; he or she is a fellow-sufferer."
+
+It was by no means naïve 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 earthly--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 raving 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 school-time. 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; bonny 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 martyrized; 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 ingle-nook 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 n'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 is 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 arm-chair, 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 will
+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 but 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
+pin-cushion.
+
+It ought perhaps 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
+pin-cushions, needle-books, card-racks, 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 up 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 off its contents on a shrinking male public. An exciting time it
+is when that turn comes round. Some active-minded woman, 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 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 civilization 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 lovingkindness 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, drawing 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 close 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 clear 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 limbs, 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, coming 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 clearly.
+
+"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 VIII.
+
+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 in state 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 Rev. 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 blackened."
+
+"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 made him at least _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_--Christie 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 season of
+the 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 a 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 amidst 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 undegraded, 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 weel 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 cat like, 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 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
+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 'at 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 IX.
+
+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 paired.
+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 windows 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 of 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, agonized 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 overwhelming, 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 if 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, an 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 recognize 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 will 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
+solemnized 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 was 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. Don't let
+_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 tantalization, 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_ Miss Pearson would like 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 clear 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?"
+
+"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 the 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'll make me use language 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 showed
+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 am 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 maks no
+difference to me. Go home, now. It has stricken ten. Miss Hortense will
+be wondering where ye are."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+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--that
+is, 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 bulldogs, 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 civilized--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 shop-keepers!
+
+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 dispatches 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 he had to care for, his hopes he had to pursue;
+and he would fulfil his destiny.
+
+He fulfilled 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 his mind.
+Having but an indifferent opinion of women, he always suspected them. He
+thought they needed constant watching. It was in a tone dryly
+significant he desired her to cease her daily visits to the Hollow. He
+expected a start, a look of depreciation. 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, he 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 awhile 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 sympathize. Nothing
+that they had ever talked of together was now in his mind: he was wrapt
+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 realize the state of mind 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 rain-drop 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 step-mother 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 wooes 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
+sympathizing words, but with a sympathizing 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
+confidante 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 gray 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 XI.
+
+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 conclusion 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 hillcrests. 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 bearing;
+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 regular architecture, and the gray 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
+be 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 her 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, where 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?"
+
+Sympathizing 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 coming 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
+beeswaxed 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 silvan 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, sympathized 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 felt 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 be 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
+freethinker, 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 bulldog, 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 gray (no
+green lights in them--transparent, pure, neutral gray), 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 patronizing 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 tantalized, 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 a 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 gentlemanlike. 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 XII.
+
+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 fraternized 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; ere long 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 gray-haired. My two
+venerable favourites, Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, it is true, are fine
+old beaus, 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 silvan 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 bonny 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 mementos 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 gray, 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 goodwife, 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
+fireside; 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, unsympathizing--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."
+
+"Mrs. 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 every one. 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 mantelpiece, 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 inestimable
+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
+reveille 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, muttering 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 roared,
+     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 realized by her;
+and more vividly was realized 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, snatched from all effectual aid,
+       We perished--each alone!
+     But I beneath a rougher sea,
+     And whelmed 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 sympathize 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 XIII.
+
+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
+fullness 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-style 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 scrutinized 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 silvered 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 rusty 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 lade 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 inquiries 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
+reappearing 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 back-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
+seaweed; 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. Temptress-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 naturalized 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 manœuvre 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 tenderhearted 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 was 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 fullness 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 good-night, 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 housemaid; "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 be, 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
+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 that 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 that 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 dare
+say, 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 gray 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 gray, confronted with the red of
+sunrise. It wasted. She was left solitary at last. She crept to her
+couch, chill and dejected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+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 a 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 manœuvres. He keeps intruding between you and me.
+Without him we should be good friends; but that six feet of puppyhood
+makes a perpetually-recurring eclipse of our friendship. Again and again
+he crosses and obscures the disc 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
+every-day 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 preoccupied,
+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 scandalized 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 banknotes, 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 persuasion 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 dare say, 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, free-handed 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 around 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 unauthorized 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 fellow-men; 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 to Caroline's care Mr. Hall consigned himself.
+
+He generally sought Caroline in every party where she and he happened to
+be. He was not in general a lady's man, though all ladies liked him;
+something of a book-worm he was, near-sighted, spectacled, now and then
+abstracted. To old ladies he was kind as a son. To men of every
+occupation and grade he was acceptable. The truth, simplicity, frankness
+of his manners, the nobleness of his integrity, the reality and
+elevation of his piety, won him friends in every grade. His poor clerk
+and sexton delighted in him; the noble patron of his living esteemed him
+highly. It was only with young, handsome, fashionable, and stylish
+ladies he felt a little shy. Being himself a plain man--plain in aspect,
+plain in manners, plain in speech--he seemed to fear their dash,
+elegance, and airs. But Miss Helstone had neither dash nor airs, and her
+native elegance was of a very quiet order--quiet as the beauty of a
+ground-loving hedge-flower. He was a fluent, cheerful, agreeable talker.
+Caroline could talk too in a _tête-à-tête_. She liked Mr. Hall to come
+and take the seat next her in a party, and thus secure her from Peter
+Augustus Malone, Joseph Donne, or John Sykes; and Mr. Hall never failed
+to avail himself of this privilege when he possibly could. Such
+preference shown by a single gentleman to a single lady would certainly,
+in ordinary cases, have set in motion the tongues of the gossips; but
+Cyril Hall was forty-five years old, slightly bald, and slightly gray,
+and nobody ever said or thought he was likely to be married to Miss
+Helstone. Nor did he think so himself. He was wedded already to his
+books and his parish. His kind sister Margaret, spectacled and learned
+like himself, made him happy in his single state; he considered it too
+late to change. Besides, he had known Caroline as a pretty little girl.
+She had sat on his knee many a time; he had bought her toys and given
+her books; he felt that her friendship for him was mixed with a sort of
+filial respect; he could not have brought himself to attempt to give
+another colour to her sentiments, and his serene mind could glass a fair
+image without feeling its depths troubled by the reflection.
+
+When Miss Ainley arrived, she was made kindly welcome by every one. Mrs.
+Pryor and Margaret Hall made room for her on the sofa between them; and
+when the three were seated, they formed a trio which the gay and
+thoughtless would have scorned, indeed, as quite worthless and
+unattractive--a middle-aged widow and two plain, spectacled old
+maids--yet which had its own quiet value, as many a suffering and
+friendless human being knew.
+
+Shirley opened the business and showed the plan.
+
+"I know the hand which drew up that," said Mr. Hall, glancing at Miss
+Ainley, and smiling benignantly. His approbation was won at once.
+Boultby heard and deliberated with bent brow and protruded under lip.
+His consent he considered too weighty to be given in a hurry. Helstone
+glanced sharply round with an alert, suspicious expression, as if he
+apprehended that female craft was at work, and that something in
+petticoats was somehow trying underhand to acquire too much influence,
+and make itself of too much importance. Shirley caught and comprehended
+the expression. "This scheme is nothing," said she carelessly. "It is
+only an outline--a mere suggestion. You, gentlemen, are requested to
+draw up rules of your own."
+
+And she directly fetched her writing-case, smiling queerly to herself as
+she bent over the table where it stood. She produced a sheet of paper, a
+new pen, drew an arm-chair to the table, and presenting her hand to old
+Helstone, begged permission to install him in it. For a minute he was a
+little stiff, and stood wrinkling his copper-coloured forehead
+strangely. At last he muttered, "Well, you are neither my wife nor my
+daughter, so I'll be led for once; but mind--I know I _am_ led. Your
+little female manœuvres don't blind me."
+
+"Oh!" said Shirley, dipping the pen in the ink, and putting it into his
+hand, "you must regard me as Captain Keeldar to-day. This is quite a
+gentleman's affair--yours and mine entirely, doctor" (so she had dubbed
+the rector). "The ladies there are only to be our aides-de-camp, and at
+their peril they speak, till we have settled the whole business."
+
+He smiled a little grimly, and began to write. He soon interrupted
+himself to ask questions, and consult his brethren, disdainfully lifting
+his glance over the curly heads of the two girls and the demure caps of
+the elder ladies, to meet the winking glasses and gray pates of the
+priests. In the discussion which ensued, all three gentlemen, to their
+infinite credit, showed a thorough acquaintance with the poor of their
+parishes--an even minute knowledge of their separate wants. Each rector
+knew where clothing was needed, where food would be most acceptable,
+where money could be bestowed with a probability of it being judiciously
+laid out. Wherever their memories fell short, Miss Ainley or Miss Hall,
+if applied to, could help them out; but both ladies took care not to
+speak unless spoken to. Neither of them wanted to be foremost, but each
+sincerely desired to be useful; and useful the clergy consented to make
+them--with which boon they were content.
+
+Shirley stood behind the rectors, leaning over their shoulders now and
+then to glance at the rules drawn up and the list of cases making out,
+listening to all they said, and still at intervals smiling her queer
+smile--a smile not ill-natured, but significant--too significant to be
+generally thought amiable. Men rarely like such of their fellows as read
+their inward nature too clearly and truly. It is good for women,
+especially, to be endowed with a soft blindness; to have mild, dim eyes,
+that never penetrate below the surface of things--that take all for what
+it seems. Thousands, knowing this, keep their eyelids drooped on system;
+but the most downcast glance has its loophole, through which it can, on
+occasion, take its sentinel-survey of life. I remember once seeing a
+pair of blue eyes, that were usually thought sleepy, secretly on the
+alert, and I knew by their expression--an expression which chilled my
+blood, it was in that quarter so wondrously unexpected--that for years
+they had been accustomed to silent soul-reading. The world called the
+owner of these blue eyes _bonne petite femme_ (she was not an
+Englishwoman). I learned her nature afterwards--got it off by
+heart--studied it in its farthest, most hidden recesses. She was the
+finest, deepest, subtlest schemer in Europe.
+
+When all was at length settled to Miss Keeldar's mind, and the clergy
+had entered so fully into the spirit of her plans as to head the
+subscription-list with their signatures for £50 each, she ordered supper
+to be served, having previously directed Mrs. Gill to exercise her
+utmost skill in the preparation of this repast. Mr. Hall was no _bon
+vivant_--he was naturally an abstemious man, indifferent to luxury; but
+Boultby and Helstone both liked good cookery. The _recherché_ supper
+consequently put them into excellent humour. They did justice to it,
+though in a gentlemanly way--not in the mode Mr. Donne would have done
+had he been present. A glass of fine wine was likewise tasted, with
+discerning though most decorous relish. Captain Keeldar was complimented
+on his taste; the compliment charmed him. It had been his aim to gratify
+and satisfy his priestly guests. He had succeeded, and was radiant with
+glee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MR. DONNE'S EXODUS.
+
+
+The next day Shirley expressed to Caroline how delighted she felt that
+the little party had gone off so well.
+
+"I rather like to entertain a circle of gentlemen," said she. "It is
+amusing to observe how they enjoy a judiciously concocted repast. For
+ourselves, you see, these choice wines and these scientific dishes are
+of no importance to us; but gentlemen seem to retain something of the
+_naïveté_ of children about food, and one likes to please them--that is,
+when they show the becoming, decent self-government of our admirable
+rectors. I watch Moore sometimes, to try and discover how he can be
+pleased; but he has not that child's simplicity about him. Did you ever
+find out his accessible point, Caroline? you have seen more of him than
+I."
+
+"It is not, at any rate, that of my uncle and Dr. Boultby," returned
+Caroline, smiling. She always felt a sort of shy pleasure in following
+Miss Keeldar's lead respecting the discussion of her cousin's character.
+Left to herself, she would never have touched on the subject; but when
+invited, the temptation of talking about him of whom she was ever
+thinking was irresistible. "But," she added, "I really don't know what
+it is, for I never watched Robert in my life but my scrutiny was
+presently baffled by finding he was watching me."
+
+"There it is!" exclaimed Shirley. "You can't fix your eyes on him but
+his presently flash on you. He is never off his guard. He won't give you
+an advantage. Even when he does not look at you, his thoughts seem to be
+busy amongst your own thoughts, tracing your words and actions to their
+source, contemplating your motives at his ease. Oh! I know that sort of
+character, or something in the same style. It is one that piques me
+singularly. How does it affect you?"
+
+This question was a specimen of one of Shirley's sharp, sudden turns.
+Caroline used to be fluttered by them at first, but she had now got into
+the way of parrying these home-thrusts like a little Quakeress.
+
+"Pique you? In what way does it pique you?" she said.
+
+"Here he comes!" suddenly exclaimed Shirley, breaking off, starting up
+and running to the window. "Here comes a diversion. I never told you of
+a superb conquest I have made lately--made at those parties to which I
+can never persuade you to accompany me; and the thing has been done
+without effort or intention on my part--that I aver. There is the
+bell--and, by all that's delicious! there are two of them. Do they never
+hunt, then, except in couples? You may have one, Lina, and you may take
+your choice. I hope I am generous enough. Listen to Tartar!"
+
+The black-muzzled, tawny dog, a glimpse of which was seen in the chapter
+which first introduced its mistress to the reader, here gave tongue in
+the hall, amidst whose hollow space the deep bark resounded formidably.
+A growl more terrible than the bark, menacing as muttered thunder,
+succeeded.
+
+"Listen!" again cried Shirley, laughing. "You would think that the
+prelude to a bloody onslaught. They will be frightened. They don't know
+old Tartar as I do. They are not aware his uproars are all sound and
+fury, signifying nothing!"
+
+Some bustle was heard. "Down, sir, down!" exclaimed a high-toned,
+imperious voice, and then came a crack of a cane or whip. Immediately
+there was a yell--a scutter--a run--a positive tumult.
+
+"O Malone, Malone!"
+
+"Down! down! down!" cried the high voice.
+
+"He really is worrying them!" exclaimed Shirley. "They have struck him.
+A blow is what he is not used to, and will not take."
+
+Out she ran. A gentleman was fleeing up the oak staircase, making for
+refuge in the gallery or chambers in hot haste; another was backing fast
+to the stairfoot, wildly flourishing a knotty stick, at the same time
+reiterating, "Down! down! down!" while the tawny dog bayed, bellowed,
+howled at him, and a group of servants came bundling from the kitchen.
+The dog made a spring; the second gentleman turned tail and rushed after
+his comrade. The first was already safe in a bedroom; he held the door
+against his fellow--nothing so merciless as terror. But the other
+fugitive struggled hard; the door was about to yield to his strength.
+
+"Gentlemen," was uttered in Miss Keeldar's silvery but vibrating tones,
+"spare my locks, if you please. Calm yourselves! Come down! Look at
+Tartar; he won't harm a cat."
+
+She was caressing the said Tartar. He lay crouched at her feet, his fore
+paws stretched out, his tail still in threatening agitation, his
+nostrils snorting, his bulldog eyes conscious of a dull fire. He was an
+honest, phlegmatic, stupid, but stubborn canine character. He loved his
+mistress and John--the man who fed him--but was mostly indifferent to
+the rest of the world. Quiet enough he was, unless struck or threatened
+with a stick, and that put a demon into him at once.
+
+"Mr. Malone, how do you do?" continued Shirley, lifting up her mirth-lit
+face to the gallery. "That is not the way to the oak parlour; that is
+Mrs. Pryor's apartment. Request your friend Mr. Donne to evacuate. I
+shall have the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room."
+
+"Ha! ha!" cried Malone, in hollow laughter, quitting the door, and
+leaning over the massive balustrade. "Really that animal alarmed Donne.
+He is a little timid," he proceeded, stiffening himself, and walking
+trimly to the stairhead. "I thought it better to follow, in order to
+reassure him."
+
+"It appears you did. Well, come down, if you please.--John" (turning to
+her manservant), "go upstairs and liberate Mr. Donne.--Take care, Mr.
+Malone; the stairs are slippery."
+
+In truth they were, being of polished oak. The caution came a little
+late for Malone. He had slipped already in his stately descent, and was
+only saved from falling by a clutch at the banisters, which made the
+whole structure creak again.
+
+Tartar seemed to think the visitor's descent effected with unwarranted
+_éclat_, and accordingly he growled once more. Malone, however, was no
+coward. The spring of the dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed
+him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have
+strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness
+in his sullen rage, Malone pushed into the parlour before Miss Keeldar.
+He glanced at Miss Helstone; he could scarcely bring himself to bend to
+her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them
+been his wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment. In
+each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and gripe
+her to death.
+
+However, Shirley took pity. She ceased to laugh; and Caroline was too
+true a lady to smile even at any one under mortification. Tartar was
+dismissed; Peter Augustus was soothed--for Shirley had looks and tones
+that might soothe a very bull. He had sense to feel that, since he could
+not challenge the owner of the dog, he had better be civil. And civil he
+tried to be; and his attempts being well received, he grew presently
+_very_ civil and quite himself again. He had come, indeed, for the
+express purpose of making himself charming and fascinating. Rough
+portents had met him on his first admission to Fieldhead; but that
+passage got over, charming and fascinating he resolved to be. Like
+March, having come in like a lion, he purposed to go out like a lamb.
+
+For the sake of air, as it appeared, or perhaps for that of ready exit
+in case of some new emergency arising, he took his seat,--not on the
+sofa, where Miss Keeldar offered him enthronization, nor yet near the
+fireside, to which Caroline, by a friendly sign, gently invited him, but
+on a chair close to the door. Being no longer sullen or furious, he
+grew, after his fashion, constrained and embarrassed. He talked to the
+ladies by fits and starts, choosing for topics whatever was most
+intensely commonplace. He sighed deeply, significantly, at the close of
+every sentence; he sighed in each pause; he sighed ere he opened his
+mouth. At last, finding it desirable to add ease to his other charms, he
+drew forth to aid him an ample silk pocket-handkerchief. This was to be
+the graceful toy with which his unoccupied hands were to trifle. He went
+to work with a certain energy. He folded the red-and-yellow square
+cornerwise; he whipped it open with a waft; again he folded it in
+narrower compass; he made of it a handsome band. To what purpose would
+he proceed to apply the ligature? Would he wrap it about his throat--his
+head? Should it be a comforter or a turban? Neither. Peter Augustus had
+an inventive, an original genius. He was about to show the ladies graces
+of action possessing at least the charm of novelty. He sat on the chair
+with his athletic Irish legs crossed, and these legs, in that attitude,
+he circled with the bandana and bound firmly together. It was evident
+he felt this device to be worth an encore; he repeated it more than
+once. The second performance sent Shirley to the window, to laugh her
+silent but irrepressible laugh unseen; it turned Caroline's head aside,
+that her long curls might screen the smile mantling on her features.
+Miss Helstone, indeed, was amused by more than one point in Peter's
+demeanour. She was edified at the complete though abrupt diversion of
+his homage from herself to the heiress. The £5,000 he supposed her
+likely one day to inherit were not to be weighed in the balance against
+Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no pains to conceal his
+calculations and tactics. He pretended to no gradual change of views; he
+wheeled about at once. The pursuit of the lesser fortune was openly
+relinquished for that of the greater. On what grounds he expected to
+succeed in his chase himself best knew; certainly not by skilful
+management.
+
+From the length of time that elapsed, it appeared that John had some
+difficulty in persuading Mr. Donne to descend. At length, however, that
+gentleman appeared; nor, as he presented himself at the oak-parlour
+door, did he seem in the slightest degree ashamed or confused--not a
+whit. Donne, indeed, was of that coldly phlegmatic, immovably
+complacent, densely self-satisfied nature which is insensible to shame.
+He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him; his
+nerves were not capable of sensation enough to stir his life and make
+colour mount to his cheek; he had no fire in his blood and no modesty in
+his soul; he was a frontless, arrogant, decorous slip of the
+commonplace--conceited, inane, insipid; and this gentleman had a notion
+of wooing Miss Keeldar! He knew no more, however, how to set about the
+business than if he had been an image carved in wood. He had no idea of
+a taste to be pleased, a heart to be reached in courtship. His notion
+was, when he should have formally visited her a few times, to write a
+letter proposing marriage. Then he calculated she would accept him for
+love of his office; then they would be married; then he should be master
+of Fieldhead; and he should live very comfortably, have servants at his
+command, eat and drink of the best, and be a great man. You would not
+have suspected his intentions when he addressed his intended bride in an
+impertinent, injured tone--"A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I
+wonder you should keep such an animal."
+
+"Do you, Mr. Donne? Perhaps you will wonder more when I tell you I am
+very fond of him."
+
+"I should say you are not serious in the assertion. Can't fancy a lady
+fond of that brute--'tis so ugly--a mere carter's dog. Pray hang him."
+
+"Hang what I am fond of!"
+
+"And purchase in his stead some sweetly pooty pug or poodle--something
+appropriate to the fair sex. Ladies generally like lap-dogs."
+
+"Perhaps I am an exception."
+
+"Oh, you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in those matters. That
+is universally allowed."
+
+"Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr. Donne. I hope you won't take any
+harm."
+
+"That I shall, no doubt. He gave me a turn I shall not soon forget. When
+I _sor_ him" (such was Mr. Donne's pronunciation) "about to spring, I
+thought I should have fainted."
+
+"Perhaps you did faint in the bedroom; you were a long time there."
+
+"No; I bore up that I might hold the door fast. I was determined not to
+let any one enter. I thought I would keep a barrier between me and the
+enemy."
+
+"But what if your friend Mr. Malone had been worried?"
+
+"Malone must take care of himself. Your man persuaded me to come out at
+last by saying the dog was chained up in his kennel. If I had not been
+assured of this, I would have remained all day in the chamber. But what
+is that? I declare the man has told a falsehood! The dog is there!"
+
+And indeed Tartar walked past the glass door opening to the garden,
+stiff, tawny, and black-muzzled as ever. He still seemed in bad humour.
+He was growling again, and whistling a half-strangled whistle, being an
+inheritance from the bulldog side of his ancestry.
+
+"There are other visitors coming," observed Shirley, with that provoking
+coolness which the owners of formidable-looking dogs are apt to show
+while their animals are all bristle and bay. Tartar sprang down the
+pavement towards the gate, bellowing _avec explosion_. His mistress
+quietly opened the glass door, and stepped out chirruping to him. His
+bellow was already silenced, and he was lifting up his huge, blunt,
+stupid head to the new callers to be patted.
+
+"What! Tartar, Tartar!" said a cheery, rather boyish voice, "don't you
+know us? Good-morning, old boy!"
+
+And little Mr. Sweeting, whose conscious good nature made him
+comparatively fearless of man, woman, child, or brute, came through the
+gate, caressing the guardian. His vicar, Mr. Hall, followed. He had no
+fear of Tartar either, and Tartar had no ill-will to him. He snuffed
+both the gentlemen round, and then, as if concluding that they were
+harmless, and might be allowed to pass, he withdrew to the sunny front
+of the hall, leaving the archway free. Mr. Sweeting followed, and would
+have played with him; but Tartar took no notice of his caresses. It was
+only his mistress's hand whose touch gave him pleasure; to all others he
+showed himself obstinately insensible.
+
+Shirley advanced to meet Messrs. Hall and Sweeting, shaking hands with
+them cordially. They were come to tell her of certain successes they had
+achieved that morning in applications for subscriptions to the fund. Mr.
+Hall's eyes beamed benignantly through his spectacles, his plain face
+looked positively handsome with goodness; and when Caroline, seeing who
+was come, ran out to meet him, and put both her hands into his, he gazed
+down on her with a gentle, serene, affectionate expression that gave him
+the aspect of a smiling Melanchthon.
+
+Instead of re-entering the house, they strayed through the garden, the
+ladies walking one on each side of Mr. Hall. It was a breezy sunny day;
+the air freshened the girls' cheeks and gracefully dishevelled their
+ringlets. Both of them looked pretty--one gay. Mr. Hall spoke oftenest
+to his brilliant companion, looked most frequently at the quiet one.
+Miss Keeldar gathered handfuls of the profusely blooming flowers whose
+perfume filled the enclosure. She gave some to Caroline, telling her to
+choose a nosegay for Mr. Hall; and with her lap filled with delicate and
+splendid blossoms, Caroline sat down on the steps of a summer-house. The
+vicar stood near her, leaning on his cane.
+
+Shirley, who could not be inhospitable, now called out the neglected
+pair in the oak parlour. She convoyed Donne past his dread enemy Tartar,
+who, with his nose on his fore paws, lay snoring under the meridian sun.
+Donne was not grateful--he never _was_ grateful for kindness and
+attention--but he was glad of the safeguard. Miss Keeldar, desirous of
+being impartial, offered the curates flowers. They accepted them with
+native awkwardness. Malone seemed specially at a loss, when a bouquet
+filled one hand, while his shillelah occupied the other. Donne's "Thank
+you!" was rich to hear. It was the most fatuous and arrogant of sounds,
+implying that he considered this offering a homage to his merits, and an
+attempt on the part of the heiress to ingratiate herself into his
+priceless affections. Sweeting alone received the posy like a smart,
+sensible little man, as he was, putting it gallantly and nattily into
+his buttonhole.
+
+As a reward for his good manners, Miss Keeldar, beckoning him apart,
+gave him some commission, which made his eyes sparkle with glee. Away he
+flew, round by the courtyard to the kitchen. No need to give him
+directions; he was always at home everywhere. Ere long he reappeared,
+carrying a round table, which he placed under the cedar; then he
+collected six garden-chairs from various nooks and bowers in the
+grounds, and placed them in a circle. The parlour-maid--Miss Keeldar
+kept no footman--came out, bearing a napkin-covered tray. Sweeting's
+nimble fingers aided in disposing glasses, plates, knives, and forks; he
+assisted her too in setting forth a neat luncheon, consisting of cold
+chicken, ham, and tarts.
+
+This sort of impromptu regale it was Shirley's delight to offer any
+chance guests; and nothing pleased her better than to have an alert,
+obliging little friend, like Sweeting, to run about her hand, cheerily
+receive and briskly execute her hospitable hints. David and she were on
+the best terms in the world; and his devotion to the heiress was quite
+disinterested, since it prejudiced in nothing his faithful allegiance to
+the magnificent Dora Sykes.
+
+The repast turned out a very merry one. Donne and Malone, indeed,
+contributed but little to its vivacity, the chief part they played in it
+being what concerned the knife, fork, and wine-glass; but where four
+such natures as Mr. Hall, David Sweeting, Shirley, and Caroline were
+assembled in health and amity, on a green lawn, under a sunny sky,
+amidst a wilderness of flowers, there could not be ungenial dullness.
+
+In the course of conversation Mr. Hall reminded the ladies that
+Whitsuntide was approaching, when the grand united Sunday-school
+tea-drinking and procession of the three parishes of Briarfield,
+Whinbury, and Nunnely were to take place. Caroline, he knew, would be at
+her post as teacher, he said, and he hoped Miss Keeldar would not be
+wanting. He hoped she would make her first public appearance amongst
+them at that time. Shirley was not the person to miss an occasion of
+this sort. She liked festive excitement, a gathering of happiness, a
+concentration and combination of pleasant details, a throng of glad
+faces, a muster of elated hearts. She told Mr. Hall they might count on
+her with security. She did not know what she would have to do, but they
+might dispose of her as they pleased.
+
+"And," said Caroline, "you will promise to come to my table, and to sit
+near me, Mr. Hall?"
+
+"I shall not fail, _Deo volente_," said he.--"I have occupied the place
+on her right hand at these monster tea-drinkings for the last six
+years," he proceeded, turning to Miss Keeldar. "They made her a
+Sunday-school teacher when she was a little girl of twelve. She is not
+particularly self-confident by nature, as you may have observed; and the
+first time she had to 'take a tray,' as the phrase is, and make tea in
+public, there was some piteous trembling and flushing. I observed the
+speechless panic, the cups shaking in the little hand, and the
+overflowing teapot filled too full from the urn. I came to her aid, took
+a seat near her, managed the urn and the slop-basin, and in fact made
+the tea for her like any old woman."
+
+"I was very grateful to you," interposed Caroline.
+
+"You were. You told me so with an earnest sincerity that repaid me well,
+inasmuch as it was not like the majority of little ladies of twelve,
+whom you may help and caress for ever without their evincing any quicker
+sense of the kindness done and meant than if they were made of wax and
+wood instead of flesh and nerves.--She kept close to me, Miss Keeldar,
+the rest of the evening, walking with me over the grounds where the
+children were playing; she followed me into the vestry when all were
+summoned into church; she would, I believe, have mounted with me to the
+pulpit, had I not taken the previous precaution of conducting her to the
+rectory pew."
+
+"And he has been my friend ever since," said Caroline.
+
+"And always sat at her table, near her tray, and handed the cups--that
+is the extent of my services. The next thing I do for her will be to
+marry her some day to some curate or mill-owner.--But mind, Caroline, I
+shall inquire about the bridegroom's character; and if he is not a
+gentleman likely to render happy the little girl who walked with me
+hand in hand over Nunnely Common, I will not officiate. So take care."
+
+"The caution is useless. I am not going to be married. I shall live
+single, like your sister Margaret, Mr. Hall."
+
+"Very well. You might do worse. Margaret is not unhappy. She has her
+books for a pleasure, and her brother for a care, and is content. If
+ever you want a home, if the day should come when Briarfield rectory is
+yours no longer, come to Nunnely vicarage. Should the old maid and
+bachelor be still living, they will make you tenderly welcome."
+
+"There are your flowers. Now," said Caroline, who had kept the nosegay
+she had selected for him till this moment, "_you_ don't care for a
+bouquet, but you must give it to Margaret; only--to be sentimental for
+once--keep that little forget-me-not, which is a wild flower I gathered
+from the grass; and--to be still more sentimental--let me take two or
+three of the blue blossoms and put them in my souvenir."
+
+And she took out a small book with enamelled cover and silver clasp,
+wherein, having opened it, she inserted the flowers, writing round them
+in pencil, "To be kept for the sake of the Rev. Cyril Hall, my friend.
+May --, 18--."
+
+The Rev. Cyril Hall, on his part, also placed a sprig in safety between
+the leaves of a pocket Testament. He only wrote on the margin,
+"Caroline."
+
+"Now," said he, smiling, "I trust we are romantic enough. Miss Keeldar,"
+he continued (the curates, by-the-bye, during this conversation, were
+too much occupied with their own jokes to notice what passed at the
+other end of the table), "I hope you are laughing at this trait of
+'_exaltation_' in the old gray-headed vicar; but the fact is, I am so
+used to comply with the requests of this young friend of yours, I don't
+know how to refuse her when she tells me to do anything. You would say
+it is not much in my way to traffic with flowers and forget-me-nots;
+but, you see, when requested to be sentimental, I am obedient."
+
+"He is naturally rather sentimental," remarked Caroline. "Margaret told
+me so, and I know what pleases him."
+
+"That you should be good and happy? Yes; that is one of my greatest
+pleasures. May God long preserve to you the blessings of peace and
+innocence! By which phrase I mean _comparative_ innocence; for in His
+sight, I am well aware, _none_ are pure. What to our human perceptions
+looks spotless as we fancy angels, is to Him but frailty, needing the
+blood of His Son to cleanse, and the strength of His Spirit to sustain.
+Let us each and all cherish humility--I, as you, my young friends; and
+we may well do it when we look into our own hearts, and see there
+temptations, inconsistencies, propensities, even we blush to recognize.
+And it is not youth, nor good looks, nor grace, nor any gentle outside
+charm which makes either beauty or goodness in God's eyes.--Young
+ladies, when your mirror or men's tongues flatter you, remember that, in
+the sight of her Maker, Mary Ann Ainley--a woman whom neither glass nor
+lips have ever panegyrized--is fairer and better than either of you. She
+is indeed," he added, after a pause--"she is indeed. You young things,
+wrapt up in yourselves and in earthly hopes, scarcely live as Christ
+lived. Perhaps you cannot do it yet, while existence is so sweet and
+earth so smiling to you; it would be too much to expect. She, with meek
+heart and due reverence, treads close in her Redeemer's steps."
+
+Here the harsh voice of Donne broke in on the mild tones of Mr. Hall.
+"Ahem!" he began, clearing his throat evidently for a speech of some
+importance--"ahem! Miss Keeldar, your attention an instant, if you
+please."
+
+"Well," said Shirley nonchalantly, "what is it? I listen. All of me is
+ear that is not eye."
+
+"I hope part of you is hand also," returned Donne, in his vulgarly
+presumptuous and familiar style, "and part purse. It is to the hand and
+purse I propose to appeal. I came here this morning with a view to beg
+of you----"
+
+"You should have gone to Mrs. Gill; she is my almoner."
+
+"To beg of you a subscription to a school. I and Dr. Boultby intend to
+erect one in the hamlet of Ecclefigg, which is under our vicarage of
+Whinbury. The Baptists have got possession of it. They have a chapel
+there, and we want to dispute the ground."
+
+"But I have nothing to do with Ecclefigg. I possess no property there."
+
+"What does that signify? You're a churchwoman, ain't you?"
+
+"Admirable creature!" muttered Shirley, under her breath. "Exquisite
+address! Fine style! What raptures he excites in me!" Then aloud, "I am
+a churchwoman, certainly."
+
+"Then you can't refuse to contribute in this case. The population of
+Ecclefigg are a parcel of brutes; we want to civilize them."
+
+"Who is to be the missionary?"
+
+"Myself, probably."
+
+"You won't fail through lack of sympathy with your flock."
+
+"I hope not--I expect success; but we must have money. There is the
+paper. Pray give a handsome sum."
+
+When asked for money, Shirley rarely held back. She put down her name
+for £5. After the £300 she had lately given, and the many smaller sums
+she was giving constantly, it was as much as she could at present
+afford. Donne looked at it, declared the subscription "shabby," and
+clamorously demanded more. Miss Keeldar flushed up with some indignation
+and more astonishment.
+
+"At present I shall give no more," said she.
+
+"Not give more! Why, I expected you to head the list with a cool
+hundred. With your property, you should never put down a signature for
+less."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"In the south," went on Donne, "a lady with a thousand a year would be
+ashamed to give five pounds for a public object."
+
+Shirley, so rarely haughty, looked so now. Her slight frame became
+nerved; her distinguished face quickened with scorn.
+
+"Strange remarks?" said she--"most inconsiderate! Reproach in return for
+bounty is misplaced."
+
+"Bounty! Do you call five pounds bounty?"
+
+"I do; and bounty which, had I not given it to Dr. Boultby's intended
+school, of the erection of which I approve, and in no sort to his
+curate, who seems ill-advised in his manner of applying for, or rather
+extorting, subscriptions--bounty, I repeat, which, but for this
+consideration, I should instantly reclaim."
+
+Donne was thick-skinned. He did not feel all or half that the tone, air,
+glance of the speaker expressed. He knew not on what ground he stood.
+
+"Wretched place this Yorkshire," he went on. "I could never have formed
+an idea_r_ of the country had I not seen it. And the people--rich and
+poor--what a set! How _corse_ and uncultivated! They would be scouted in
+the south."
+
+Shirley leaned forwards on the table, her nostrils dilating a little,
+her taper fingers interlaced and compressing each other hard.
+
+"The rich," pursued the infatuated and unconscious Donne, "are a parcel
+of misers, never living as persons with their incomes ought to live. You
+scarsley"--(you must excuse Mr. Donne's pronunciation, reader; it was
+very choice; he considered it genteel, and prided himself on his
+southern accent; northern ears received with singular sensations his
+utterance of certain words)--"you scarsley ever see a fam'ly where a
+propa carriage or a reg'la butla is kep; and as to the poor--just look
+at them when they come crowding about the church doors on the occasion
+of a marriage or a funeral, clattering in clogs; the men in their
+shirt-sleeves and wool-combers' aprons, the women in mob-caps and
+bed-gowns. They positively deserve that one should turn a mad cow in
+amongst them to rout their rabble-ranks. He-he! what fun it would be!"
+
+"There! you have reached the climax," said Shirley quietly. "You have
+reached the climax," she repeated, turning her glowing glance towards
+him. "You cannot go beyond it, and," she added with emphasis, "you
+_shall_ not, in my house."
+
+Up she rose--nobody could control her now, for she was
+exasperated--straight she walked to her garden gates, wide she flung
+them open.
+
+"Walk through," she said austerely, "and pretty quickly, and set foot on
+this pavement no more."
+
+Donne was astounded. He had thought all the time he was showing himself
+off to high advantage, as a lofty-souled person of the first "ton;" he
+imagined he was producing a crushing impression. Had he not expressed
+disdain of everything in Yorkshire? What more conclusive proof could be
+given that he was better than anything there? And yet here was he about
+to be turned like a dog out of a Yorkshire garden! Where, under such
+circumstances, was the "concatenation accordingly"?
+
+"Rid me of you instantly--instantly!" reiterated Shirley, as he
+lingered.
+
+"Madam--a clergyman! turn out a clergyman!"
+
+"Off! Were you an archbishop you have proved yourself no gentleman, and
+must go. Quick!"
+
+She was quite resolved. There was no trifling with her. Besides, Tartar
+was again rising; he perceived symptoms of a commotion; he manifested a
+disposition to join in. There was evidently nothing for it but to go,
+and Donne made his exodus, the heiress sweeping him a deep curtsy as she
+closed the gates on him.
+
+"How dare the pompous priest abuse his flock! How dare the lisping
+cockney revile Yorkshire!" was her sole observation on the circumstance,
+as she returned to the table.
+
+Ere long the little party broke up; Miss Keeldar's ruffled and darkened
+brow, curled lip, and incensed eye gave no invitation to further social
+enjoyment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+WHITSUNTIDE.
+
+
+The fund prospered. By dint of Miss Keeldar's example, the three
+rectors' vigorous exertions, and the efficient though quiet aid of their
+spinster and spectacled lieutenants, Mary Ann Ainley and Margaret Hall,
+a handsome sum was raised; and this being judiciously managed, served
+for the present greatly to alleviate the distress of the unemployed
+poor. The neighbourhood seemed to grow calmer. For a fortnight past no
+cloth had been destroyed; no outrage on mill or mansion had been
+committed in the three parishes. Shirley was sanguine that the evil she
+wished to avert was almost escaped, that the threatened storm was
+passing over. With the approach of summer she felt certain that trade
+would improve--it always did; and then this weary war could not last for
+ever; peace must return one day. With peace, what an impulse would be
+given to commerce!
+
+Such was the usual tenor of her observations to her tenant, Gérard
+Moore, whenever she met him where they could converse; and Moore would
+listen very quietly--too quietly to satisfy her. She would then by her
+impatient glance demand something more from him--some explanation, or at
+least some additional remark. Smiling in his way, with that expression
+which gave a remarkable cast of sweetness to his mouth, while his brow
+remained grave, he would answer to the effect that himself too trusted
+in the finite nature of the war; that it was indeed on that ground the
+anchor of his hopes was fixed; thereon his speculations depended. "For
+you are aware," he would continue, "that I now work Hollow's Mill
+entirely on speculation. I sell nothing; there is no market for my
+goods. I manufacture for a future day. I make myself ready to take
+advantage of the first opening that shall occur. Three months ago this
+was impossible to me; I had exhausted both credit and capital. You well
+know who came to my rescue, from what hand I received the loan which
+saved me. It is on the strength of that loan I am enabled to continue
+the bold game which, a while since, I feared I should never play more.
+Total ruin I know will follow loss, and I am aware that gain is
+doubtful; but I am quite cheerful. So long as I can be active, so long
+as I can strive, so long, in short, as my hands are not tied, it is
+impossible for me to be depressed. One year--nay, but six months--of the
+reign of the olive, and I am safe; for, as you say, peace will give an
+impulse to commerce. In this you are right; but as to the restored
+tranquillity of the neighbourhood, as to the permanent good effect of
+your charitable fund, I doubt. Eleemosynary relief never yet
+tranquillized the working-classes--it never made them grateful; it is
+not in human nature that it should. I suppose, were all things ordered
+aright, they ought not to be in a position to need that humiliating
+relief; and this they feel. We should feel it were we so placed.
+Besides, to whom should they be grateful? To you, to the clergy perhaps,
+but not to us mill-owners. They hate us worse than ever. Then the
+disaffected here are in correspondence with the disaffected elsewhere.
+Nottingham is one of their headquarters, Manchester another, Birmingham
+a third. The subalterns receive orders from their chiefs; they are in a
+good state of discipline; no blow is struck without mature deliberation.
+In sultry weather you have seen the sky threaten thunder day by day, and
+yet night after night the clouds have cleared, and the sun has set
+quietly; but the danger was not gone--it was only delayed. The
+long-threatening storm is sure to break at last. There is analogy
+between the moral and physical atmosphere."
+
+"Well, Mr. Moore" (so these conferences always ended), "take care of
+yourself. If you think that I have ever done you any good, reward me by
+promising to take care of yourself."
+
+"I do; I will take close and watchful care. I wish to live, not to die.
+The future opens like Eden before me; and still, when I look deep into
+the shades of my paradise, I see a vision that I like better than seraph
+or cherub glide across remote vistas."
+
+"Do you? Pray, what vision?"
+
+"I see----"
+
+The maid came bustling in with the tea-things.
+
+The early part of that May, as we have seen, was fine; the middle was
+wet; but in the last week, at change of moon, it cleared again. A fresh
+wind swept off the silver-white, deep-piled rain-clouds, bearing them,
+mass on mass, to the eastern horizon, on whose verge they dwindled, and
+behind whose rim they disappeared, leaving the vault behind all pure
+blue space, ready for the reign of the summer sun. That sun rose broad
+on Whitsuntide. The gathering of the schools was signalized by splendid
+weather.
+
+Whit-Tuesday was the great day, in preparation for which the two large
+schoolrooms of Briarfield, built by the present rector, chiefly at his
+own expense, were cleaned out, whitewashed, repainted, and decorated
+with flowers and evergreens--some from the rectory garden, two cartloads
+from Fieldhead, and a wheel-barrowful from the more stingy domain of De
+Walden, the residence of Mr. Wynne. In these schoolrooms twenty tables,
+each calculated to accommodate twenty guests, were laid out, surrounded
+with benches, and covered with white cloths. Above them were suspended
+at least some twenty cages, containing as many canaries, according to a
+fancy of the district, specially cherished by Mr. Helstone's clerk, who
+delighted in the piercing song of these birds, and knew that amidst
+confusion of tongues they always carolled loudest. These tables, be it
+understood, were not spread for the twelve hundred scholars to be
+assembled from the three parishes, but only for the patrons and teachers
+of the schools. The children's feast was to be spread in the open air.
+At one o'clock the troops were to come in; at two they were to be
+marshalled; till four they were to parade the parish; then came the
+feast, and afterwards the meeting, with music and speechifying in the
+church.
+
+Why Briarfield was chosen for the point of rendezvous--the scene of the
+_fête_--should be explained. It was not because it was the largest or
+most populous parish--Whinbury far outdid it in that respect; nor
+because it was the oldest, antique as were the hoary church and
+rectory--Nunnely's low-roofed temple and mossy parsonage, buried both in
+coeval oaks, outstanding sentinels of Nunnwood, were older still. It was
+simply because Mr. Helstone willed it so, and Mr. Helstone's will was
+stronger than that of Boultby or Hall; the former _could_ not, the
+latter _would_ not, dispute a point of precedence with their resolute
+and imperious brother. They let him lead and rule.
+
+This notable anniversary had always hitherto been a trying day to
+Caroline Helstone, because it dragged her perforce into public,
+compelling her to face all that was wealthy, respectable, influential in
+the neighbourhood; in whose presence, but for the kind countenance of
+Mr. Hall, she would have appeared unsupported. Obliged to be
+conspicuous; obliged to walk at the head of her regiment as the rector's
+niece, and first teacher of the first class; obliged to make tea at the
+first table for a mixed multitude of ladies and gentlemen, and to do all
+this without the countenance of mother, aunt, or other chaperon--she,
+meantime, being a nervous person, who mortally feared publicity--it will
+be comprehended that, under these circumstances, she trembled at the
+approach of Whitsuntide.
+
+But this year Shirley was to be with her, and that changed the aspect of
+the trial singularly--it changed it utterly. It was a trial no
+longer--it was almost an enjoyment. Miss Keeldar was better in her
+single self than a host of ordinary friends. Quite self-possessed, and
+always spirited and easy; conscious of her social importance, yet never
+presuming upon it--it would be enough to give one courage only to look
+at her. The only fear was lest the heiress should not be punctual to
+tryst. She often had a careless way of lingering behind time, and
+Caroline knew her uncle would not wait a second for any one. At the
+moment of the church clock tolling two, the bells would clash out and
+the march begin. She must look after Shirley, then, in this matter, or
+her expected companion would fail her.
+
+Whit-Tuesday saw her rise almost with the sun. She, Fanny, and Eliza
+were busy the whole morning arranging the rectory parlours in first-rate
+company order, and setting out a collation of cooling
+refreshments--wine, fruit, cakes--on the dining-room sideboard. Then she
+had to dress in her freshest and fairest attire of white muslin: the
+perfect fineness of the day and the solemnity of the occasion warranted,
+and even exacted, such costume. Her new sash--a birthday present from
+Margaret Hall, which she had reason to believe Cyril himself had bought,
+and in return for which she had indeed given him a set of cambric bands
+in a handsome case--was tied by the dexterous fingers of Fanny, who took
+no little pleasure in arraying her fair young mistress for the occasion.
+Her simple bonnet had been trimmed to correspond with her sash; her
+pretty but inexpensive scarf of white crape suited her dress. When ready
+she formed a picture, not bright enough to dazzle, but fair enough to
+interest; not brilliantly striking, but very delicately pleasing--a
+picture in which sweetness of tint, purity of air, and grace of mien
+atoned for the absence of rich colouring and magnificent contour. What
+her brown eye and clear forehead showed of her mind was in keeping with
+her dress and face--modest, gentle, and, though pensive, harmonious. It
+appeared that neither lamb nor dove need fear her, but would welcome
+rather, in her look of simplicity and softness, a sympathy with their
+own natures, or with the natures we ascribe to them.
+
+After all, she was an imperfect, faulty human being, fair enough of
+form, hue, and array, but, as Cyril Hall said, neither so good nor so
+great as the withered Miss Ainley, now putting on her best black gown
+and Quaker drab shawl and bonnet in her own narrow cottage chamber.
+
+Away Caroline went, across some very sequestered fields and through some
+quite hidden lanes, to Fieldhead. She glided quickly under the green
+hedges and across the greener leas. There was no dust, no moisture, to
+soil the hem of her stainless garment, or to damp her slender sandal.
+After the late rains all was clean, and under the present glowing sun
+all was dry. She walked fearlessly, then, on daisy and turf, and through
+thick plantations; she reached Fieldhead, and penetrated to Miss
+Keeldar's dressing-room.
+
+It was well she had come, or Shirley would have been too late. Instead
+of making ready with all speed, she lay stretched on a couch, absorbed
+in reading. Mrs. Pryor stood near, vainly urging her to rise and dress.
+Caroline wasted no words. She immediately took the book from her, and
+with her own hands commenced the business of disrobing and rerobing her.
+Shirley, indolent with the heat, and gay with her youth and pleasurable
+nature, wanted to talk, laugh, and linger; but Caroline, intent on being
+in time, persevered in dressing her as fast as fingers could fasten
+strings or insert pins. At length, as she united a final row of hooks
+and eyes, she found leisure to chide her, saying she was very naughty to
+be so unpunctual, that she looked even now the picture of incorrigible
+carelessness; and so Shirley did, but a very lovely picture of that
+tiresome quality.
+
+She presented quite a contrast to Caroline. There was style in every
+fold of her dress and every line of her figure. The rich silk suited her
+better than a simpler costume; the deep embroidered scarf became her.
+She wore it negligently but gracefully. The wreath on her bonnet
+crowned her well. The attention to fashion, the tasteful appliance of
+ornament in each portion of her dress, were quite in place with her. All
+this suited her, like the frank light in her eyes, the rallying smile
+about her lips, like her shaft-straight carriage and lightsome step.
+Caroline took her hand when she was dressed, hurried her downstairs, out
+of doors; and thus they sped through the fields, laughing as they went,
+and looking very much like a snow-white dove and gem-tinted bird of
+paradise joined in social flight.
+
+Thanks to Miss Helstone's promptitude, they arrived in good time. While
+yet trees hid the church, they heard the bell tolling a measured but
+urgent summons for all to assemble. The trooping in of numbers, the
+trampling of many steps and murmuring of many voices, were likewise
+audible. From a rising ground, they presently saw, on the Whinbury road,
+the Whinbury school approaching. It numbered five hundred souls. The
+rector and curate, Boultby and Donne, headed it--the former looming
+large in full canonicals, walking as became a beneficed priest, under
+the canopy of a shovel-hat, with the dignity of an ample corporation,
+the embellishment of the squarest and vastest of black coats, and the
+support of the stoutest of gold-headed canes. As the doctor walked, he
+now and then slightly flourished his cane, and inclined his shovel-hat
+with a dogmatical wag towards his aide-de-camp. That
+aide-de-camp--Donne, to wit--narrow as the line of his shape was,
+compared to the broad bulk of his principal, contrived, notwithstanding,
+to look every inch a curate. All about him was pragmatical and
+self-complacent, from his turned-up nose and elevated chin to his
+clerical black gaiters, his somewhat short, strapless trousers, and his
+square-toed shoes.
+
+Walk on, Mr. Donne! You have undergone scrutiny. You think you look
+well. Whether the white and purple figures watching you from yonder hill
+think so is another question.
+
+These figures come running down when the regiment has marched by. The
+churchyard is full of children and teachers, all in their very best
+holiday attire; and, distressed as is the district, bad as are the
+times, it is wonderful to see how respectably, how handsomely even, they
+have contrived to clothe themselves. That British love of decency will
+work miracles. The poverty which reduces an Irish girl to rags is
+impotent to rob the English girl of the neat wardrobe she knows
+necessary to her self-respect. Besides, the lady of the manor--that
+Shirley, now gazing with pleasure on this well-dressed and happy-looking
+crowd--has really done them good. Her seasonable bounty consoled many a
+poor family against the coming holiday, and supplied many a child with a
+new frock or bonnet for the occasion. She knows it, and is elate with
+the consciousness--glad that her money, example, and influence have
+really, substantially, benefited those around her. She cannot be
+charitable like Miss Ainley: it is not in her nature. It relieves her to
+feel that there is another way of being charitable, practicable for
+other characters, and under other circumstances.
+
+Caroline, too, is pleased, for she also has done good in her small
+way--robbed herself of more than one dress, ribbon, or collar she could
+ill spare, to aid in fitting out the scholars of her class; and as she
+could not give money, she has followed Miss Ainley's example in giving
+her time and her industry to sew for the children.
+
+Not only is the churchyard full, but the rectory garden is also
+thronged. Pairs and parties of ladies and gentlemen are seen walking
+amongst the waving lilacs and laburnums. The house also is occupied: at
+the wide-open parlour windows gay groups are standing. These are the
+patrons and teachers, who are to swell the procession. In the parson's
+croft, behind the rectory, are the musicians of the three parish bands,
+with their instruments. Fanny and Eliza, in the smartest of caps and
+gowns, and the whitest of aprons, move amongst them, serving out quarts
+of ale, whereof a stock was brewed very sound and strong some weeks
+since by the rector's orders, and under his special superintendence.
+Whatever he had a hand in must be managed handsomely. "Shabby doings" of
+any description were not endured under his sanction. From the erection
+of a public building, a church, school, or court-house, to the cooking
+of a dinner, he still advocated the lordly, liberal, and effective. Miss
+Keeldar was like him in this respect, and they mutually approved each
+other's arrangements.
+
+Caroline and Shirley were soon in the midst of the company. The former
+met them very easily for her. Instead of sitting down in a retired
+corner, or stealing away to her own room till the procession should be
+marshalled, according to her wont, she moved through the three
+parlours, conversed and smiled, absolutely spoke once or twice ere she
+was spoken to, and, in short, seemed a new creature. It was Shirley's
+presence which thus transformed her; the view of Miss Keeldar's air and
+manner did her a world of good. Shirley had no fear of her kind, no
+tendency to shrink from, to avoid it. All human beings--men, women, or
+children--whom low breeding or coarse presumption did not render
+positively offensive, were welcome enough to her--some much more so than
+others, of course; but, generally speaking, till a man had indisputably
+proved himself bad and a nuisance, Shirley was willing to think him good
+and an acquisition, and to treat him accordingly. This disposition made
+her a general favourite, for it robbed her very raillery of its sting,
+and gave her serious or smiling conversation a happy charm; nor did it
+diminish the value of her intimate friendship, which was a distinct
+thing from this social benevolence--depending, indeed, on quite a
+different part of her character. Miss Helstone was the choice of her
+affection and intellect; the Misses Pearson, Sykes, Wynne, etc., etc.,
+only the profiteers by her good-nature and vivacity.
+
+Donne happened to come into the drawing-room while Shirley, sitting on
+the sofa, formed the centre of a tolerably wide circle. She had already
+forgotten her exasperation against him, and she bowed and smiled
+good-humouredly. The disposition of the man was then seen. He knew
+neither how to decline the advance with dignity, as one whose just pride
+has been wounded, nor how to meet it with frankness, as one who is glad
+to forget and forgive. His punishment had impressed him with no sense of
+shame, and he did not experience that feeling on encountering his
+chastiser. He was not vigorous enough in evil to be actively
+malignant--he merely passed by sheepishly with a rated, scowling look.
+Nothing could ever again reconcile him to his enemy; while no passion of
+resentment, for even sharper and more ignominious inflictions, could his
+lymphatic nature know.
+
+"He was not worth a scene!" said Shirley to Caroline. "What a fool I
+was! To revenge on poor Donne his silly spite at Yorkshire is something
+like crushing a gnat for attacking the hide of a rhinoceros. Had I been
+a gentleman, I believe I should have helped him off the premises by dint
+of physical force. I am glad now I only employed the moral weapon. But
+he must come near me no more. I don't like him. He irritates me. There
+is not even amusement to be had out of him. Malone is better sport."
+
+It seemed as if Malone wished to justify the preference, for the words
+were scarcely out of the speaker's mouth when Peter Augustus came up,
+all in _grande tenue_, gloved and scented, with his hair oiled and
+brushed to perfection, and bearing in one hand a huge bunch of
+cabbage-roses, five or six in full blow. These he presented to the
+heiress with a grace to which the most cunning pencil could do but
+defective justice. And who, after this, could dare to say that Peter was
+not a lady's man? He had gathered and he had given flowers; he had
+offered a sentimental, a poetic tribute at the shrine of Love or Mammon.
+Hercules holding the distaff was but a faint type of Peter bearing the
+roses. He must have thought this himself, for he seemed amazed at what
+he had done. He backed without a word; he was going away with a husky
+chuckle of self-satisfaction; then he bethought himself to stop and
+turn, to ascertain by ocular testimony that he really had presented a
+bouquet. Yes, there were the six red cabbages on the purple satin lap, a
+very white hand, with some gold rings on the fingers, slightly holding
+them together, and streaming ringlets, half hiding a laughing face,
+drooped over them. Only _half_ hiding! Peter saw the laugh; it was
+unmistakable. He was made a joke of; his gallantry, his chivalry, were
+the subject of a jest for a petticoat--for two petticoats: Miss Helstone
+too was smiling. Moreover, he felt he was seen through, and Peter grew
+black as a thunder-cloud. When Shirley looked up, a fell eye was
+fastened on her. Malone, at least, had energy enough in hate. She saw it
+in his glance.
+
+"Peter _is_ worth a scene, and shall have it, if he likes, one day," she
+whispered to her friend.
+
+And now--solemn and sombre as to their colour, though bland enough as to
+their faces--appeared at the dining-room door the three rectors. They
+had hitherto been busy in the church, and were now coming to take some
+little refreshment for the body, ere the march commenced. The large
+morocco-covered easy-chair had been left vacant for Dr. Boultby. He was
+put into it, and Caroline, obeying the instigations of Shirley, who told
+her now was the time to play the hostess, hastened to hand to her
+uncle's vast, revered, and, on the whole, worthy friend, a glass of
+wine and a plate of macaroons. Boultby's churchwardens, patrons of the
+Sunday school both, as he insisted on their being, were already beside
+him; Mrs. Sykes and the other ladies of his congregation were on his
+right hand and on his left, expressing their hopes that he was not
+fatigued, their fears that the day would be too warm for him. Mrs.
+Boultby, who held an opinion that when her lord dropped asleep after a
+good dinner his face became as the face of an angel, was bending over
+him, tenderly wiping some perspiration, real or imaginary, from his
+brow. Boultby, in short, was in his glory, and in a round, sound _voix
+de poitrine_ he rumbled out thanks for attentions and assurances of his
+tolerable health. Of Caroline he took no manner of notice as she came
+near, save to accept what she offered. He did not see her--he never did
+see her; he hardly knew that such a person existed. He saw the
+macaroons, however, and being fond of sweets, possessed himself of a
+small handful thereof. The wine Mrs. Boultby insisted on mingling with
+hot water, and qualifying with sugar and nutmeg.
+
+Mr. Hall stood near an open window, breathing the fresh air and scent of
+flowers, and talking like a brother to Miss Ainley. To him Caroline
+turned her attention with pleasure. "What should she bring him? He must
+not help himself--he must be served by her." And she provided herself
+with a little salver, that she might offer him variety. Margaret Hall
+joined them; so did Miss Keeldar. The four ladies stood round their
+favourite pastor. They also had an idea that they looked on the face of
+an earthly angel. Cyril Hall was their pope, infallible to them as Dr.
+Thomas Boultby to his admirers. A throng, too, enclosed the rector of
+Briarfield--twenty or more pressed round him; and no parson was ever
+more potent in a circle than old Helstone. The curates, herding together
+after their manner, made a constellation of three lesser planets. Divers
+young ladies watched them afar off, but ventured not nigh.
+
+Mr. Helstone produced his watch. "Ten minutes to two," he announced
+aloud. "Time for all to fall into line. Come." He seized his shovel-hat
+and marched away. All rose and followed _en masse_.
+
+The twelve hundred children were drawn up in three bodies of four
+hundred souls each; in the rear of each regiment was stationed a band;
+between every twenty there was an interval, wherein Helstone posted the
+teachers in pairs. To the van of the armies he summoned,--
+
+"Grace Boultby and Mary Sykes lead out Whinbury.
+
+"Margaret Hall and Mary Ann Ainley conduct Nunnely.
+
+"Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar head Briarfield."
+
+Then again he gave command,--
+
+"Mr. Donne to Whinbury; Mr. Sweeting to Nunnely; Mr. Malone to
+Briarfield."
+
+And these gentlemen stepped up before the lady-generals.
+
+The rectors passed to the full front; the parish clerks fell to the
+extreme rear. Helstone lifted his shovel-hat. In an instant out clashed
+the eight bells in the tower, loud swelled the sounding bands, flute
+spoke and clarion answered, deep rolled the drums, and away they
+marched.
+
+The broad white road unrolled before the long procession, the sun and
+sky surveyed it cloudless, the wind tossed the tree boughs above it, and
+the twelve hundred children and one hundred and forty adults of which it
+was composed trod on in time and tune, with gay faces and glad hearts.
+It was a joyous scene, and a scene to do good. It was a day of happiness
+for rich and poor--the work, first of God, and then of the clergy. Let
+England's priests have their due. They are a faulty set in some
+respects, being only of common flesh and blood like us all; but the land
+would be badly off without them. Britain would miss her church, if that
+church fell. God save it! God also reform it!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE SCHOOL FEAST.
+
+
+Not on combat bent, nor of foemen in search, was this priest-led and
+woman-officered company; yet their music played martial tunes, and, to
+judge by the eyes and carriage of some--Miss Keeldar, for
+instance--these sounds awoke, if not a martial, yet a longing spirit.
+Old Helstone, turning by chance, looked into her face; and he laughed,
+and she laughed at him.
+
+"There is no battle in prospect," he said; "our country does not want us
+to fight for it. No foe or tyrant is questioning or threatening our
+liberty. There is nothing to be done. We are only taking a walk. Keep
+your hand on the reins, captain, and slack the fire of that spirit. It
+is not wanted, the more's the pity."
+
+"Take your own advice, doctor," was Shirley's response. To Caroline she
+murmured, "I'll borrow of imagination what reality will not give me. We
+are not soldiers--bloodshed is not my desire--or if we are, we are
+soldiers of the Cross. Time has rolled back some hundreds of years, and
+we are bound on a pilgrimage to Palestine. But no; that is too
+visionary. I need a sterner dream. We are Lowlanders of Scotland,
+following a Covenanting captain up into the hills to hold a meeting out
+of the reach of persecuting troopers. We know that battle may follow
+prayer; and as we believe that in the worst issue of battle heaven must
+be our reward, we are ready and willing to redden the peat-moss with our
+blood. That music stirs my soul; it wakens all my life; it makes my
+heart beat--not with its temperate daily pulse, but with a new,
+thrilling vigour. I almost long for danger--for a faith, a land, or at
+least a lover to defend."
+
+"Look, Shirley!" interrupted Caroline. "What is that red speck above
+Stilbro' Brow? You have keener sight than I. Just turn your eagle eye to
+it."
+
+Miss Keeldar looked. "I see," she said; then added presently, "there is
+a line of red. They are soldiers--cavalry soldiers," she subjoined
+quickly. "They ride fast. There are six of them. They will pass us. No;
+they have turned off to the right. They saw our procession, and avoid it
+by making a circuit. Where are they going?"
+
+"Perhaps they are only exercising their horses."
+
+"Perhaps so. We see them no more now."
+
+Mr. Helstone here spoke.
+
+"We shall pass through Royd Lane, to reach Nunnely Common by a short
+cut," said he.
+
+And into the straits of Royd Lane they accordingly defiled. It was very
+narrow--so narrow that only two could walk abreast without falling into
+the ditch which ran along each side. They had gained the middle of it,
+when excitement became obvious in the clerical commanders. Boultby's
+spectacles and Helstone's Rehoboam were agitated; the curates nudged
+each other; Mr. Hall turned to the ladies and smiled.
+
+"What is the matter?" was the demand.
+
+He pointed with his staff to the end of the lane before them. Lo and
+behold! another, an opposition, procession was there entering, headed
+also by men in black, and followed also, as they could now hear, by
+music.
+
+"Is it our double?" asked Shirley, "our manifold wraith? Here is a card
+turned up."
+
+"If you wanted a battle, you are likely to get one--at least of looks,"
+whispered Caroline, laughing.
+
+"They shall not pass us!" cried the curates unanimously; "we'll not give
+way!"
+
+"Give way!" retorted Helstone sternly, turning round; "who talks of
+giving way? You, boys, mind what you are about. The ladies, I know, will
+be firm. I can trust them. There is not a churchwoman here but will
+stand her ground against these folks, for the honour of the
+Establishment.--What does Miss Keeldar say?"
+
+"She asks what is it."
+
+"The Dissenting and Methodist schools, the Baptists, Independents, and
+Wesleyans, joined in unholy alliance, and turning purposely into this
+lane with the intention of obstructing our march and driving us back."
+
+"Bad manners!" said Shirley, "and I hate bad manners. Of course, they
+must have a lesson."
+
+"A lesson in politeness," suggested Mr. Hall, who was ever for peace;
+"not an example of rudeness."
+
+Old Helstone moved on. Quickening his step, he marched some yards in
+advance of his company. He had nearly reached the other sable leaders,
+when he who appeared to act as the hostile commander-in-chief--a large,
+greasy man, with black hair combed flat on his forehead--called a halt.
+The procession paused. He drew forth a hymn book, gave out a verse, set
+a tune, and they all struck up the most dolorous of canticles.
+
+Helstone signed to his bands. They clashed out with all the power of
+brass. He desired them to play "Rule, Britannia!" and ordered the
+children to join in vocally, which they did with enthusiastic spirit.
+The enemy was sung and stormed down, his psalm quelled. As far as noise
+went, he was conquered.
+
+"Now, follow me!" exclaimed Helstone; "not at a run, but at a firm,
+smart pace. Be steady, every child and woman of you. Keep together. Hold
+on by each other's skirts, if necessary."
+
+And he strode on with such a determined and deliberate gait, and was,
+besides, so well seconded by his scholars and teachers, who did exactly
+as he told them, neither running nor faltering, but marching with cool,
+solid impetus--the curates, too, being compelled to do the same, as they
+were between two fires, Helstone and Miss Keeldar, both of whom watched
+any deviation with lynx-eyed vigilance, and were ready, the one with his
+cane, the other with her parasol, to rebuke the slightest breach of
+orders, the least independent or irregular demonstration--that the body
+of Dissenters were first amazed, then alarmed, then borne down and
+pressed back, and at last forced to turn tail and leave the outlet from
+Royd Lane free. Boultby suffered in the onslaught, but Helstone and
+Malone, between them, held him up, and brought him through the business,
+whole in limb, though sorely tried in wind.
+
+The fat Dissenter who had given out the hymn was left sitting in the
+ditch. He was a spirit merchant by trade, a leader of the
+Nonconformists, and, it was said, drank more water in that one afternoon
+than he had swallowed for a twelvemonth before. Mr. Hall had taken care
+of Caroline, and Caroline of him. He and Miss Ainley made their own
+quiet comments to each other afterwards on the incident. Miss Keeldar
+and Mr. Helstone shook hands heartily when they had fairly got the whole
+party through the lane. The curates began to exult, but Mr. Helstone
+presently put the curb on their innocent spirits. He remarked that they
+never had sense to know what to say, and had better hold their tongues;
+and he reminded them that the business was none of their managing.
+
+About half-past three the procession turned back, and at four once more
+regained the starting-place. Long lines of benches were arranged in the
+close-shorn fields round the school. There the children were seated, and
+huge baskets, covered up with white cloths, and great smoking tin
+vessels were brought out. Ere the distribution of good things commenced,
+a brief grace was pronounced by Mr. Hall and sung by the children. Their
+young voices sounded melodious, even touching, in the open air. Large
+currant buns and hot, well-sweetened tea were then administered in the
+proper spirit of liberality. No stinting was permitted on this day, at
+least; the rule for each child's allowance being that it was to have
+about twice as much as it could possibly eat, thus leaving a reserve to
+be carried home for such as age, sickness, or other impediment prevented
+from coming to the feast. Buns and beer circulated, meantime, amongst
+the musicians and church-singers; afterwards the benches were removed,
+and they were left to unbend their spirits in licensed play.
+
+A bell summoned the teachers, patrons, and patronesses to the
+schoolroom. Miss Keeldar, Miss Helstone, and many other ladies were
+already there, glancing over the arrangement of their separate trays and
+tables. Most of the female servants of the neighbourhood, together with
+the clerks', the singers', and the musicians' wives, had been pressed
+into the service of the day as waiters. Each vied with the other in
+smartness and daintiness of dress, and many handsome forms were seen
+amongst the younger ones. About half a score were cutting bread and
+butter, another half-score supplying hot water, brought from the coppers
+of the rector's kitchen. The profusion of flowers and evergreens
+decorating the white walls, the show of silver teapots and bright
+porcelain on the tables, the active figures, blithe faces, gay dresses
+flitting about everywhere, formed altogether a refreshing and lively
+spectacle. Everybody talked, not very loudly, but merrily, and the
+canary birds sang shrill in their high-hung cages.
+
+Caroline, as the rector's niece, took her place at one of the three
+first tables; Mrs. Boultby and Margaret Hall officiated at the others.
+At these tables the _élite_ of the company were to be entertained,
+strict rules of equality not being more in fashion at Briarfield than
+elsewhere. Miss Helstone removed her bonnet and scarf, that she might be
+less oppressed with the heat. Her long curls, falling on her neck,
+served almost in place of a veil; and for the rest, her muslin dress was
+fashioned modestly as a nun's robe, enabling her thus to dispense with
+the encumbrance of a shawl.
+
+The room was filling. Mr. Hall had taken his post beside Caroline, who
+now, as she rearranged the cups and spoons before her, whispered to him
+in a low voice remarks on the events of the day. He looked a little
+grave about what had taken place in Royd Lane, and she tried to smile
+him out of his seriousness. Miss Keeldar sat near--for a wonder, neither
+laughing nor talking; on the contrary, very still, and gazing round her
+vigilantly. She seemed afraid lest some intruder should take a seat she
+apparently wished to reserve next her own. Ever and anon she spread her
+satin dress over an undue portion of the bench, or laid her gloves or
+her embroidered handkerchief upon it. Caroline noticed this _manège_ at
+last, and asked her what friend she expected. Shirley bent towards her,
+almost touched her ear with her rosy lips, and whispered with a musical
+softness that often characterized her tones when what she said tended
+even remotely to stir some sweet secret source of feeling in her heart,
+"I expect Mr. Moore. I saw him last night, and I made him promise to
+come with his sister, and to sit at our table. He won't fail me, I feel
+certain; but I apprehend his coming too late, and being separated from
+us. Here is a fresh batch arriving; every place will be taken.
+Provoking!"
+
+In fact, Mr. Wynne the magistrate, his wife, his son, and his two
+daughters now entered in high state. They were Briarfield gentry. Of
+course their place was at the first table, and being conducted thither,
+they filled up the whole remaining space. For Miss Keeldar's comfort,
+Mr. Sam Wynne inducted himself into the very vacancy she had kept for
+Moore, planting himself solidly on her gown, her gloves, and her
+handkerchief. Mr. Sam was one of the objects of her aversion, and the
+more so because he showed serious symptoms of an aim at her hand. The
+old gentleman, too, had publicly declared that the Fieldhead estate and
+the De Walden estate were delightfully _contagious_--a malapropism which
+rumour had not failed to repeat to Shirley.
+
+Caroline's ears yet rung with that thrilling whisper, "I expect Mr.
+Moore," her heart yet beat and her cheek yet glowed with it, when a note
+from the organ pealed above the confused hum of the place. Dr. Boultby,
+Mr. Helstone, and Mr. Hall rose, so did all present, and grace was sung
+to the accompaniment of the music; and then tea began. She was kept too
+busy with her office for a while to have leisure for looking round, but
+the last cup being filled, she threw a restless glance over the room.
+There were some ladies and several gentlemen standing about yet
+unaccommodated with seats. Amidst a group she recognized her spinster
+friend, Miss Mann, whom the fine weather had tempted, or some urgent
+friend had persuaded, to leave her drear solitude for one hour of social
+enjoyment. Miss Mann looked tired of standing; a lady in a yellow bonnet
+brought her a chair. Caroline knew well that _chapeau en satin jaune_;
+she knew the black hair, and the kindly though rather opinionated and
+froward-looking face under it; she knew that _robe de soie noire_, she
+knew even that _schall gris de lin_; she knew, in short, Hortense Moore,
+and she wanted to jump up and run to her and kiss her--to give her one
+embrace for her own sake and two for her brother's. She half rose,
+indeed, with a smothered exclamation, and perhaps--for the impulse was
+very strong--she would have run across the room and actually saluted
+her; but a hand replaced her in her seat, and a voice behind her
+whispered, "Wait till after tea, Lina, and then I'll bring her to you."
+
+And when she _could_ look up she did, and there was Robert himself close
+behind, smiling at her eagerness, looking better than she had ever seen
+him look--looking, indeed, to her partial eyes, so very handsome that
+she dared not trust herself to hazard a second glance; for his image
+struck on her vision with painful brightness, and pictured itself on her
+memory as vividly as if there daguerreotyped by a pencil of keen
+lightning.
+
+He moved on, and spoke to Miss Keeldar. Shirley, irritated by some
+unwelcome attentions from Sam Wynne, and by the fact of that gentleman
+being still seated on her gloves and handkerchief--and probably, also,
+by Moore's want of punctuality--was by no means in good humour. She
+first shrugged her shoulders at him, and then she said a bitter word or
+two about his "insupportable tardiness." Moore neither apologized nor
+retorted. He stood near her quietly, as if waiting to see whether she
+would recover her temper; which she did in little more than three
+minutes, indicating the change by offering him her hand. Moore took it
+with a smile, half-corrective, half-grateful. The slightest possible
+shake of the head delicately marked the former quality; it is probable a
+gentle pressure indicated the latter.
+
+"You may sit where you can now, Mr. Moore," said Shirley, also smiling.
+"You see there is not an inch of room for you here; but I discern plenty
+of space at Mrs. Boultby's table, between Miss Armitage and Miss
+Birtwhistle. Go! John Sykes will be your _vis-à-vis_, and you will sit
+with your back towards us."
+
+Moore, however, preferred lingering about where he was. He now and then
+took a turn down the long room, pausing in his walk to interchange
+greetings with other gentlemen in his own placeless predicament; but
+still he came back to the magnet, Shirley, bringing with him, each time
+he returned, observations it was necessary to whisper in her ear.
+
+Meantime poor Sam Wynne looked far from comfortable. His fair neighbour,
+judging from her movements, appeared in a mood the most unquiet and
+unaccommodating. She would not sit still two seconds. She was hot; she
+fanned herself; complained of want of air and space. She remarked that,
+in her opinion, when people had finished their tea they ought to leave
+the tables, and announced distinctly that she expected to faint if the
+present state of things continued. Mr. Sam offered to accompany her into
+the open air; just the way to give her her death of cold, she alleged.
+In short, his post became untenable; and having swallowed his quantum of
+tea, he judged it expedient to evacuate.
+
+Moore should have been at hand, whereas he was quite at the other
+extremity of the room, deep in conference with Christopher Sykes. A
+large corn-factor, Timothy Ramsden, Esq., happened to be nearer; and
+feeling himself tired of standing, he advanced to fill the vacant seat.
+Shirley's expedients did not fail her. A sweep of her scarf upset her
+teacup: its contents were shared between the bench and her own satin
+dress. Of course, it became necessary to call a waiter to remedy the
+mischief. Mr. Ramsden, a stout, puffy gentleman, as large in person as
+he was in property, held aloof from the consequent commotion. Shirley,
+usually almost culpably indifferent to slight accidents affecting dress,
+etc., now made a commotion that might have become the most delicate and
+nervous of her sex. Mr. Ramsden opened his mouth, withdrew slowly, and,
+as Miss Keeldar again intimated her intention to "give way" and swoon on
+the spot, he turned on his heel, and beat a heavy retreat.
+
+Moore at last returned. Calmly surveying the bustle, and somewhat
+quizzically scanning Shirley's enigmatical-looking countenance, he
+remarked that in truth this was the hottest end of the room, that he
+found a climate there calculated to agree with none but cool
+temperaments like his own; and putting the waiters, the napkins, the
+satin robe--the whole turmoil, in short--to one side, he installed
+himself where destiny evidently decreed he should sit. Shirley subsided;
+her features altered their lines; the raised knit brow and inexplicable
+curve of the mouth became straight again; wilfulness and roguery gave
+place to other expressions; and all the angular movements with which she
+had vexed the soul of Sam Wynne were conjured to rest as by a charm.
+Still no gracious glance was cast on Moore. On the contrary, he was
+accused of giving her a world of trouble, and roundly charged with being
+the cause of depriving her of the esteem of Mr. Ramsden and the
+invaluable friendship of Mr. Samuel Wynne.
+
+"Wouldn't have offended either gentleman for the world," she averred. "I
+have always been accustomed to treat both with the most respectful
+consideration, and there, owing to you, how they have been used! I shall
+not be happy till I have made it up. I never am happy till I am friends
+with my neighbours. So to-morrow I must make a pilgrimage to Royd
+corn-mill, soothe the miller, and praise the grain; and next day I must
+call at De Walden--where I hate to go--and carry in my reticule half an
+oatcake to give to Mr. Sam's favourite pointers."
+
+"You know the surest path to the heart of each swain, I doubt not," said
+Moore quietly. He looked very content to have at last secured his
+present place; but he made no fine speech expressive of gratification,
+and offered no apology for the trouble he had given. His phlegm became
+him wonderfully. It made him look handsomer, he was so composed; it made
+his vicinage pleasant, it was so peace-restoring. You would not have
+thought, to look at him, that he was a poor, struggling man seated
+beside a rich woman; the calm of equality stilled his aspect; perhaps
+that calm, too, reigned in his soul. Now and then, from the way in which
+he looked down on Miss Keeldar as he addressed her, you would have
+fancied his station towered above hers as much as his stature did.
+Almost stern lights sometimes crossed his brow and gleamed in his eyes.
+Their conversation had become animated, though it was confined to a low
+key; she was urging him with questions--evidently he refused to her
+curiosity all the gratification it demanded. She sought his eye once
+with hers. You read, in its soft yet eager expression, that it solicited
+clearer replies. Moore smiled pleasantly, but his lips continued sealed.
+Then she was piqued, and turned away; but he recalled her attention in
+two minutes. He seemed making promises, which he soothed her into
+accepting in lieu of information.
+
+It appeared that the heat of the room did not suit Miss Helstone. She
+grew paler and paler as the process of tea-making was protracted. The
+moment thanks were returned she quitted the table, and hastened to
+follow her cousin Hortense, who, with Miss Mann, had already sought the
+open air. Robert Moore had risen when she did--perhaps he meant to speak
+to her; but there was yet a parting word to exchange with Miss Keeldar,
+and while it was being uttered Caroline had vanished.
+
+Hortense received her former pupil with a demeanour of more dignity than
+warmth. She had been seriously offended by Mr. Helstone's proceedings,
+and had all along considered Caroline to blame in obeying her uncle too
+literally.
+
+"You are a very great stranger," she said austerely, as her pupil held
+and pressed her hand. The pupil knew her too well to remonstrate or
+complain of coldness. She let the punctilious whim pass, sure that her
+natural _bonté_ (I use this French word because it expresses just what I
+mean--neither goodness nor good-nature, but something between the two)
+would presently get the upper hand. It did. Hortense had no sooner
+examined her face well, and observed the change its somewhat wasted
+features betrayed, than her mien softened. Kissing her on both cheeks,
+she asked anxiously after her health. Caroline answered gaily. It would,
+however, have been her lot to undergo a long cross-examination, followed
+by an endless lecture on this head, had not Miss Mann called off the
+attention of the questioner by requesting to be conducted home. The poor
+invalid was already fatigued. Her weariness made her cross--too cross
+almost to speak to Caroline; and besides, that young person's white
+dress and lively look were displeasing in the eyes of Miss Mann. The
+everyday garb of brown stuff or gray gingham, and the everyday air of
+melancholy, suited the solitary spinster better; she would hardly know
+her young friend to-night, and quitted her with a cool nod. Hortense
+having promised to accompany her home, they departed together.
+
+Caroline now looked round for Shirley. She saw the rainbow scarf and
+purple dress in the centre of a throng of ladies, all well known to
+herself, but all of the order whom she systematically avoided whenever
+avoidance was possible. Shyer at some moments than at others, she felt
+just now no courage at all to join this company. She could not, however,
+stand alone where all others went in pairs or parties; so she approached
+a group of her own scholars, great girls, or rather young women, who
+were standing watching some hundreds of the younger children playing at
+blind-man's buff.
+
+Miss Helstone knew these girls liked her, yet she was shy even with them
+out of school. They were not more in awe of her than she of them. She
+drew near them now, rather to find protection in their company than to
+patronize them with her presence. By some instinct they knew her
+weakness, and with natural politeness they respected it. Her knowledge
+commanded their esteem when she taught them; her gentleness attracted
+their regard; and because she was what they considered wise and good
+when _on_ duty, they kindly overlooked her evident timidity when off.
+They did not take advantage of it. Peasant girls as they were, they had
+too much of our own English sensibility to be guilty of the coarse
+error. They stood round her still, civil, friendly, receiving her slight
+smiles and rather hurried efforts to converse with a good feeling and
+good breeding--the last quality being the result of the first--which
+soon set her at her ease.
+
+Mr. Sam Wynne coming up with great haste, to insist on the elder girls
+joining in the game as well as the younger ones, Caroline was again left
+alone. She was meditating a quiet retreat to the house, when Shirley,
+perceiving from afar her isolation, hastened to her side.
+
+"Let us go to the top of the fields," she said. "I know you don't like
+crowds, Caroline."
+
+"But it will be depriving you of a pleasure, Shirley, to take you from
+all these fine people, who court your society so assiduously, and to
+whom you can, without art or effort, make yourself so pleasant."
+
+"Not quite without effort; I am already tired of the exertion. It is but
+insipid, barren work, talking and laughing with the good gentlefolks of
+Briarfield. I have been looking out for your white dress for the last
+ten minutes. I like to watch those I love in a crowd, and to compare
+them with others. I have thus compared you. You resemble none of the
+rest, Lina. There are some prettier faces than yours here. You are not a
+model beauty like Harriet Sykes, for instance--beside her your person
+appears almost insignificant--but you look agreeable, you look
+reflective, you look what I call interesting."
+
+"Hush, Shirley! you flatter me."
+
+"I don't wonder that your scholars like you."
+
+"Nonsense, Shirley! Talk of something else."
+
+"We will talk of Moore, then, and we will watch him. I see him even
+now."
+
+"Where?" And as Caroline asked the question she looked not over the
+fields, but into Miss Keeldar's eyes, as was her wont whenever Shirley
+mentioned any object she descried afar. Her friend had quicker vision
+than herself, and Caroline seemed to think that the secret of her eagle
+acuteness might be read in her dark gray irides, or rather, perhaps, she
+only sought guidance by the direction of those discriminating and
+brilliant spheres.
+
+"There is Moore," said Shirley, pointing right across the wide field
+where a thousand children were playing, and now nearly a thousand adult
+spectators walking about. "There--can you miss the tall stature and
+straight port? He looks amidst the set that surround him like Eliab
+amongst humbler shepherds--like Saul in a war-council; and a war-council
+it is, if I am not mistaken."
+
+"Why so, Shirley?" asked Caroline, whose eye had at last caught the
+object it sought. "Robert is just now speaking to my uncle, and they are
+shaking hands. They are then reconciled."
+
+"Reconciled not without good reason, depend on it--making common cause
+against some common foe. And why, think you, are Messrs. Wynne and
+Sykes, and Armitage and Ramsden, gathered in such a close circle round
+them? And why is Malone beckoned to join them? Where _he_ is summoned,
+be sure a strong arm is needed."
+
+Shirley, as she watched, grew restless; her eyes flashed.
+
+"They won't trust me," she said. "That is always the way when it comes
+to the point."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"Cannot you feel? There is some mystery afloat; some event is expected;
+some preparation is to be made, I am certain. I saw it all in Mr.
+Moore's manner this evening. He was excited, yet hard."
+
+"Hard to _you_, Shirley?"
+
+"Yes, to _me_. He often is hard to me. We seldom converse _tête-à-tête_
+but I am made to feel that the basis of his character is not of eider
+down."
+
+"Yet he seemed to talk to you softly."
+
+"Did he not? Very gentle tones and quiet manner. Yet the man is
+peremptory and secret: his secrecy vexes me."
+
+"Yes, Robert is secret."
+
+"Which he has scarcely a right to be with me, especially as he commenced
+by giving me his confidence. Having done nothing to forfeit that
+confidence, it ought not to be withdrawn; but I suppose I am not
+considered iron-souled enough to be trusted in a crisis."
+
+"He fears, probably, to occasion you uneasiness."
+
+"An unnecessary precaution. I am of elastic materials, not soon crushed.
+He ought to know that. But the man is proud. He has his faults, say what
+you will, Lina. Observe how engaged that group appear. They do not know
+we are watching them."
+
+"If we keep on the alert, Shirley, we shall perhaps find the clue to
+their secret."
+
+"There will be some unusual movements ere long--perhaps to-morrow,
+possibly to-night. But my eyes and ears are wide open. Mr. Moore, you
+shall be under surveillance. Be you vigilant also, Lina."
+
+"I will. Robert is going; I saw him turn. I believe he noticed us. They
+are shaking hands."
+
+"Shaking hands, with emphasis," added Shirley, "as if they were
+ratifying some solemn league and covenant."
+
+They saw Robert quit the group, pass through a gate, and disappear.
+
+"And he has not bid us good-bye," murmured Caroline.
+
+Scarcely had the words escaped her lips when she tried by a smile to
+deny the confession of disappointment they seemed to imply. An unbidden
+suffusion for one moment both softened and brightened her eyes.
+
+"Oh, that is soon remedied!" exclaimed Shirley: "we'll _make_ him bid us
+good-bye."
+
+"_Make_ him! That is not the same thing," was the answer.
+
+"It _shall_ be the same thing."
+
+"But he is gone; you can't overtake him."
+
+"I know a shorter way than that he has taken. We will intercept him."
+
+"But, Shirley, I would rather not go."
+
+Caroline said this as Miss Keeldar seized her arm and hurried her down
+the fields. It was vain to contend. Nothing was so wilful as Shirley
+when she took a whim into her head. Caroline found herself out of sight
+of the crowd almost before she was aware, and ushered into a narrow
+shady spot, embowered above with hawthorns, and enamelled under foot
+with daisies. She took no notice of the evening sun chequering the turf,
+nor was she sensible of the pure incense exhaling at this hour from tree
+and plant; she only heard the wicket opening at one end, and knew Robert
+was approaching. The long sprays of the hawthorns, shooting out before
+them, served as a screen. They saw him before he observed them. At a
+glance Caroline perceived that his social hilarity was gone; he had left
+it behind him in the joy-echoing fields round the school. What remained
+now was his dark, quiet, business countenance. As Shirley had said, a
+certain hardness characterized his air, while his eye was excited, but
+austere. So much the worse timed was the present freak of Shirley's. If
+he had looked disposed for holiday mirth, it would not have mattered
+much; but now----
+
+"I told you not to come," said Caroline, somewhat bitterly, to her
+friend. She seemed truly perturbed. To be intruded on Robert thus,
+against her will and his expectation, and when he evidently would rather
+not be delayed, keenly annoyed her. It did not annoy Miss Keeldar in the
+least. She stepped forward and faced her tenant, barring his way. "You
+omitted to bid us good-bye," she said.
+
+"Omitted to bid you good-bye! Where did you come from? Are you fairies?
+I left two like you, one in purple and one in white, standing at the top
+of a bank, four fields off, but a minute ago."
+
+"You left us there and find us here. We have been watching you, and
+shall watch you still. You must be questioned one day, but not now. At
+present all you have to do is to say good-night, and then pass."
+
+Moore glanced from one to the other without unbending his aspect. "Days
+of fête have their privileges, and so have days of hazard," observed he
+gravely.
+
+"Come, don't moralize. Say good-night, and pass," urged Shirley.
+
+"Must I say good-night to you, Miss Keeldar?"
+
+"Yes, and to Caroline likewise. It is nothing new, I hope. You have bid
+us both good-night before."
+
+He took her hand, held it in one of his, and covered it with the other.
+He looked down at her gravely, kindly, yet commandingly. The heiress
+could not make this man her subject. In his gaze on her bright face
+there was no servility, hardly homage; but there were interest and
+affection, heightened by another feeling. Something in his tone when he
+spoke, as well as in his words, marked that last sentiment to be
+gratitude.
+
+"Your debtor bids you good-night! May you rest safely and serenely till
+morning."
+
+"And you, Mr. Moore--what are you going to do? What have you been saying
+to Mr. Helstone, with whom I saw you shake hands? Why did all those
+gentlemen gather round you? Put away reserve for once. Be frank with
+me."
+
+"Who can resist you? I will be frank. To-morrow, if there is anything to
+relate, you shall hear it."
+
+"Just now," pleaded Shirley; "don't procrastinate."
+
+"But I could only tell half a tale. And my time is limited; I have not a
+moment to spare. Hereafter I will make amends for delay by candour."
+
+"But are you going home?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Not to leave it any more to-night?"
+
+"Certainly not. At present, farewell to both of you."
+
+He would have taken Caroline's hand and joined it in the same clasp in
+which he held Shirley's, but somehow it was not ready for him. She had
+withdrawn a few steps apart. Her answer to Moore's adieu was only a
+slight bend of the head and a gentle, serious smile. He sought no more
+cordial token. Again he said "Farewell," and quitted them both.
+
+"There! it is over," said Shirley when he was gone. "We have made him
+bid us good-night, and yet not lost ground in his esteem, I think,
+Cary."
+
+"I hope not," was the brief reply.
+
+"I consider you very timid and undemonstrative," remarked Miss Keeldar.
+"Why did you not give Moore your hand when he offered you his? He is
+your cousin; you like him. Are you ashamed to let him perceive your
+affection?"
+
+"He perceives all of it that interests him. No need to make a display of
+feeling."
+
+"You are laconic; you would be stoical if you could. Is love, in your
+eyes, a crime, Caroline?"
+
+"Love a crime! No, Shirley; love is a divine virtue. But why drag that
+word into the conversation? It is singularly irrelevant."
+
+"Good!" pronounced Shirley.
+
+The two girls paced the green lane in silence. Caroline first resumed.
+
+"Obtrusiveness is a crime, forwardness is a crime, and both disgust; but
+love! no purest angel need blush to love. And when I see or hear either
+man or woman couple shame with love, I know their minds are coarse,
+their associations debased. Many who think themselves refined ladies and
+gentlemen, and on whose lips the word 'vulgarity' is for ever hovering,
+cannot mention 'love' without betraying their own innate and imbecile
+degradation. It is a low feeling in their estimation, connected only
+with low ideas for them."
+
+"You describe three-fourths of the world, Caroline."
+
+"They are cold--they are cowardly--they are stupid on the subject,
+Shirley! They never loved--they never were loved!"
+
+"Thou art right, Lina. And in their dense ignorance they blaspheme
+living fire, seraph-brought from a divine altar."
+
+"They confound it with sparks mounting from Tophet."
+
+The sudden and joyous clash of bells here stopped the dialogue by
+summoning all to the church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+WHICH THE GENTEEL READER IS RECOMMENDED TO SKIP, LOW PERSONS BEING HERE
+INTRODUCED.
+
+
+The evening was still and warm; close and sultry it even promised to
+become. Round the descending sun the clouds glowed purple; summer tints,
+rather Indian than English, suffused the horizon, and cast rosy
+reflections on hillside, house-front, tree-bole, on winding road and
+undulating pasture-ground. The two girls came down from the fields
+slowly. By the time they reached the churchyard the bells were hushed;
+the multitudes were gathered into the church. The whole scene was
+solitary.
+
+"How pleasant and calm it is!" said Caroline.
+
+"And how hot it will be in the church!" responded Shirley. "And what a
+dreary long speech Dr. Boultby will make! And how the curates will
+hammer over their prepared orations! For my part, I would rather not
+enter."
+
+"But my uncle will be angry if he observes our absence."
+
+"I will bear the brunt of his wrath; he will not devour me. I shall be
+sorry to miss his pungent speech. I know it will be all sense for the
+church, and all causticity for schism. He'll not forget the battle of
+Royd Lane. I shall be sorry also to deprive you of Mr. Hall's sincere
+friendly homily, with all its racy Yorkshireisms; but here I must stay.
+The gray church and grayer tombs look divine with this crimson gleam on
+them. Nature is now at her evening prayers; she is kneeling before those
+red hills. I see her prostrate on the great steps of her altar, praying
+for a fair night for mariners at sea, for travellers in deserts, for
+lambs on moors, and unfledged birds in woods. Caroline, I see her, and I
+will tell you what she is like. She is like what Eve was when she and
+Adam stood alone on earth."
+
+"And that is not Milton's Eve, Shirley."
+
+"Milton's Eve! Milton's Eve! I repeat. No, by the pure Mother of God,
+she is not! Cary, we are alone; we may speak what we think. Milton was
+great; but was he good? His brain was right; how was his heart? He saw
+heaven; he looked down on hell. He saw Satan, and Sin his daughter, and
+Death their horrible offspring. Angels serried before him their
+battalions; the long lines of adamantine shields flashed back on his
+blind eyeballs the unutterable splendour of heaven. Devils gathered
+their legions in his sight; their dim, discrowned, and tarnished armies
+passed rank and file before him. Milton tried to see the first woman;
+but, Cary, he saw her not."
+
+"You are bold to say so, Shirley."
+
+"Not more bold than faithful. It was his cook that he saw; or it was
+Mrs. Gill, as I have seen her, making custards, in the heat of summer,
+in the cool dairy, with rose-trees and nasturtiums about the latticed
+window, preparing a cold collation for the rectors--preserves and
+'dulcet creams;' puzzled 'what choice to choose for delicacy best; what
+order so contrived as not to mix tastes, not well-joined, inelegant, but
+bring taste after taste, upheld with kindliest change.'"
+
+"All very well too, Shirley."
+
+"I would beg to remind him that the first men of the earth were Titans,
+and that Eve was their mother; from her sprang Saturn, Hyperion,
+Oceanus; she bore Prometheus----"
+
+"Pagan that you are! what does that signify?"
+
+"I say, there were giants on the earth in those days--giants that strove
+to scale heaven. The first woman's breast that heaved with life on this
+world yielded the daring which could contend with Omnipotence, the
+strength which could bear a thousand years of bondage, the vitality
+which could feed that vulture death through uncounted ages, the
+unexhausted life and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality,
+which, after millenniums of crimes, struggles, and woes, could conceive
+and bring forth a Messiah. The first woman was heaven-born. Vast was the
+heart whence gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations, and grand
+the undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of creation."
+
+"She coveted an apple, and was cheated by a snake; but you have got such
+a hash of Scripture and mythology into your head that there is no making
+any sense of you. You have not yet told me what you saw kneeling on
+those hills."
+
+"I saw--I now see--a woman-Titan. Her robe of blue air spreads to the
+outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil white as
+an avalanche sweeps from her head to her feet, and arabesques of
+lightning flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple
+like that horizon; through its blush shines the star of evening. Her
+steady eyes I cannot picture. They are clear, they are deep as lakes,
+they are lifted and full of worship, they tremble with the softness of
+love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud,
+and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers. She
+reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty hands are
+joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. That
+Eve is Jehovah's daughter, as Adam was His son."
+
+"She is very vague and visionary. Come, Shirley, we ought to go into
+church."
+
+"Caroline, I will not; I will stay out here with my mother Eve, in these
+days called Nature. I love her--undying, mighty being! Heaven may have
+faded from her brow when she fell in paradise, but all that is glorious
+on earth shines there still. She is taking me to her bosom, and showing
+me her heart. Hush, Caroline! You will see her and feel as I do, if we
+are both silent."
+
+"I will humour your whim; but you will begin talking again ere ten
+minutes are over."
+
+Miss Keeldar, on whom the soft excitement of the warm summer evening
+seemed working with unwonted power, leaned against an upright headstone;
+she fixed her eyes on the deep-burning west, and sank into a pleasurable
+trance. Caroline, going a little apart, paced to and fro beneath the
+rectory garden wall, dreaming too in her way. Shirley had mentioned the
+word "mother." That word suggested to Caroline's imagination not the
+mighty and mystical parent of Shirley's visions, but a gentle human
+form--the form she ascribed to her own mother, unknown, unloved, but not
+unlonged for.
+
+"Oh that the day would come when she would remember her child! Oh that I
+might know her, and knowing, love her!"
+
+Such was her aspiration.
+
+The longing of her childhood filled her soul again. The desire which
+many a night had kept her awake in her crib, and which fear of its
+fallacy had of late years almost extinguished, relit suddenly, and
+glowed warm in her heart, that her mother might come some happy day,
+and send for her to her presence, look upon her fondly with loving eyes,
+and say to her tenderly, in a sweet voice, "Caroline, my child, I have a
+home for you; you shall live with me. All the love you have needed, and
+not tasted, from infancy, I have saved for you carefully. Come; it shall
+cherish you now."
+
+A noise on the road roused Caroline from her filial hopes, and Shirley
+from her Titan visions. They listened, and heard the tramp of horses.
+They looked, and saw a glitter through the trees. They caught through
+the foliage glimpses of martial scarlet; helm shone, plume waved. Silent
+and orderly, six soldiers rode softly by.
+
+"The same we saw this afternoon," whispered Shirley. "They have been
+halting somewhere till now. They wish to be as little noticed as
+possible, and are seeking their rendezvous at this quiet hour, while the
+people are at church. Did I not say we should see unusual things ere
+long?"
+
+Scarcely were sight and sound of the soldiers lost, when another and
+somewhat different disturbance broke the night-hush--a child's impatient
+scream. They looked. A man issued from the church, carrying in his arms
+an infant--a robust, ruddy little boy of some two years old--roaring
+with all the power of his lungs. He had probably just awaked from a
+church-sleep. Two little girls, of nine and ten, followed. The influence
+of the fresh air, and the attraction of some flowers gathered from a
+grave, soon quieted the child. The man sat down with him, dandling him
+on his knee as tenderly as any woman; the two little girls took their
+places one on each side.
+
+"Good-evening, William," said Shirley, after due scrutiny of the man. He
+had seen her before, and apparently was waiting to be recognized. He now
+took off his hat, and grinned a smile of pleasure. He was a
+rough-headed, hard-featured personage, not old, but very weather-beaten.
+His attire was decent and clean; that of his children singularly neat.
+It was our old friend Farren. The young ladies approached him.
+
+"You are not going into the church?" he inquired, gazing at them
+complacently, yet with a mixture of bashfulness in his look--a sentiment
+not by any means the result of awe of their station, but only of
+appreciation of their elegance and youth. Before gentlemen--such as
+Moore or Helstone, for instance--William was often a little dogged;
+with proud or insolent ladies, too, he was quite unmanageable, sometimes
+very resentful; but he was most sensible of, most tractable to,
+good-humour and civility. His nature--a stubborn one--was repelled by
+inflexibility in other natures; for which reason he had never been able
+to like his former master, Moore; and unconscious of that gentleman's
+good opinion of himself, and of the service he had secretly rendered him
+in recommending him as gardener to Mr. Yorke, and by this means to other
+families in the neighbourhood, he continued to harbour a grudge against
+his austerity. Latterly he had often worked at Fieldhead. Miss Keeldar's
+frank, hospitable manners were perfectly charming to him. Caroline he
+had known from her childhood; unconsciously she was his ideal of a lady.
+Her gentle mien, step, gestures, her grace of person and attire, moved
+some artist-fibres about his peasant heart. He had a pleasure in looking
+at her, as he had in examining rare flowers or in seeing pleasant
+landscapes. Both the ladies liked William; it was their delight to lend
+him books, to give him plants; and they preferred his conversation far
+before that of many coarse, hard, pretentious people immeasurably higher
+in station.
+
+"Who was speaking, William, when you came out?" asked Shirley.
+
+"A gentleman ye set a deal of store on, Miss Shirley--Mr. Donne."
+
+"You look knowing, William. How did you find out my regard for Mr.
+Donne?"
+
+"Ay, Miss Shirley, there's a gleg light i' your een sometimes which
+betrays you. You look raight down scornful sometimes when Mr. Donne is
+by."
+
+"Do you like him yourself, William?"
+
+"Me? I'm stalled o' t' curates, and so is t' wife. They've no manners.
+They talk to poor folk fair as if they thought they were beneath them.
+They're allus magnifying their office. It is a pity but their office
+could magnify them; but it does nought o' t' soart. I fair hate pride."
+
+"But you are proud in your own way yourself," interposed Caroline. "You
+are what you call house-proud: you like to have everything handsome
+about you. Sometimes you look as if you were almost too proud to take
+your wages. When you were out of work, you were too proud to get
+anything on credit. But for your children, I believe you would rather
+have starved than gone to the shops without money; and when I wanted to
+give you something, what a difficulty I had in making you take it!"
+
+"It is partly true, Miss Caroline. Ony day I'd rather give than take,
+especially from sich as ye. Look at t' difference between us. Ye're a
+little, young, slender lass, and I'm a great strong man; I'm rather more
+nor twice your age. It is not _my_ part, then, I think, to tak fro'
+_ye_--to be under obligations (as they say) to _ye_. And that day ye
+came to our house, and called me to t' door, and offered me five
+shillings, which I doubt ye could ill spare--for ye've no fortin', I
+know--that day I war fair a rebel, a radical, an insurrectionist; and
+_ye_ made me so. I thought it shameful that, willing and able as I was
+to work, I suld be i' such a condition that a young cratur about the age
+o' my own eldest lass suld think it needful to come and offer me her bit
+o' brass."
+
+"I suppose you were angry with me, William?"
+
+"I almost was, in a way. But I forgave ye varry soon. Ye meant well. Ay,
+_I am_ proud, and so are _ye_; but your pride and mine is t' raight
+mak--what we call i' Yorkshire clean pride--such as Mr. Malone and Mr.
+Donne knows nought about. Theirs is mucky pride. Now, I shall teach my
+lasses to be as proud as Miss Shirley there, and my lads to be as proud
+as myseln; but I dare ony o' 'em to be like t' curates. I'd lick little
+Michael if I seed him show any signs o' that feeling."
+
+"What is the difference, William?"
+
+"Ye know t' difference weel enow, but ye want me to get a gate o'
+talking. Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne is almost too proud to do aught for
+theirseln; _we_ are almost too proud to let anybody do aught for us. T'
+curates can hardly bide to speak a civil word to them they think beneath
+them; _we_ can hardly bide to tak an uncivil word fro' them that thinks
+themseln aboon us."
+
+"Now, William, be humble enough to tell me truly how you are getting on
+in the world. Are you well off?"
+
+"Miss Shirley, I am varry well off. Since I got into t' gardening line,
+wi' Mr. Yorke's help, and since Mr. Hall (another o' t' raight sort)
+helped my wife to set up a bit of a shop, I've nought to complain of. My
+family has plenty to eat and plenty to wear. My pride makes me find
+means to have an odd pound now and then against rainy days; for I think
+I'd die afore I'd come to t' parish; and me and mine is content. But t'
+neighbours is poor yet. I see a great deal of distress."
+
+"And, consequently, there is still discontent, I suppose?" inquired Miss
+Keeldar.
+
+"_Consequently_--ye say right--_consequently_. In course, starving folk
+cannot be satisfied or settled folk. The country's not in a safe
+condition--I'll say so mich!"
+
+"But what can be done? What more can I do, for instance?"
+
+"Do? Ye can do not mich, poor young lass! Ye've gi'en your brass; ye've
+done well. If ye could transport your tenant, Mr. Moore, to Botany Bay,
+ye'd happen do better. Folks hate him."
+
+"William, for shame!" exclaimed Caroline warmly. "If folks _do_ hate
+him, it is to their disgrace, not his. Mr. Moore himself hates nobody.
+He only wants to do his duty, and maintain his rights. You are wrong to
+talk so."
+
+"I talk as I think. He has a cold, unfeeling heart, yond' Moore."
+
+"But," interposed Shirley, "supposing Moore was driven from the country,
+and his mill razed to the ground, would people have more work?"
+
+"They'd have less. I know that, and they know that; and there is many an
+honest lad driven desperate by the certainty that whichever way he turns
+he cannot better himself; and there is dishonest men plenty to guide
+them to the devil, scoundrels that reckons to be the 'people's friends,'
+and that knows nought about the people, and is as insincere as Lucifer.
+I've lived aboon forty year in the world, and I believe that 'the
+people' will never have any true friends but theirseln and them two or
+three good folk i' different stations that is friends to all the world.
+Human natur', taking it i' th' lump, is nought but selfishness. It is
+but excessive few, it is but just an exception here and there, now and
+then, sich as ye two young uns and me, that, being in a different
+sphere, can understand t' one t' other, and be friends wi'out
+slavishness o' one hand or pride o' t' other. Them that reckons to be
+friends to a lower class than their own fro' political motives is never
+to be trusted; they always try to make their inferiors tools. For my own
+part, I will neither be patronized nor misled for no man's pleasure.
+I've had overtures made to me lately that I saw were treacherous, and I
+flung 'em back i' the faces o' them that offered 'em."
+
+"You won't tell us what overtures?"
+
+"I will not. It would do no good. It would mak no difference. Them they
+concerned can look after theirseln."
+
+"Ay, we'se look after werseln," said another voice. Joe Scott had
+sauntered forth from the church to get a breath of fresh air, and there
+he stood.
+
+"I'll warrant _ye_, Joe," observed William, smiling.
+
+"And I'll warrant my maister," was the answer.--"Young ladies,"
+continued Joe, assuming a lordly air, "ye'd better go into th' house."
+
+"I wonder what for?" inquired Shirley, to whom the overlooker's somewhat
+pragmatical manners were familiar, and who was often at war with him;
+for Joe, holding supercilious theories about women in general, resented
+greatly, in his secret soul, the fact of his master and his master's
+mill being, in a manner, under petticoat government, and had felt as
+wormwood and gall certain business visits of the heiress to the Hollow's
+counting-house.
+
+"Because there is nought agate that fits women to be consarned in."
+
+"Indeed! There is prayer and preaching agate in that church. Are we not
+concerned in that?"
+
+"Ye have been present neither at the prayer nor preaching, ma'am, if I
+have observed aright. What I alluded to was politics. William Farren
+here was touching on that subject, if I'm not mista'en."
+
+"Well, what then? Politics are our habitual study, Joe. Do you know I
+see a newspaper every day, and two of a Sunday?"
+
+"I should think you'll read the marriages, probably, miss, and the
+murders, and the accidents, and sich like?"
+
+"I read the leading articles, Joe, and the foreign intelligence, and I
+look over the market prices. In short, I read just what gentlemen read."
+
+Joe looked as if he thought this talk was like the chattering of a pie.
+He replied to it by a disdainful silence.
+
+"Joe," continued Miss Keeldar, "I never yet could ascertain properly
+whether you are a Whig or a Tory. Pray, which party has the honour of
+your alliance?"
+
+"It is rayther difficult to explain where you are sure not to be
+understood," was Joe's haughty response; "but as to being a Tory, I'd as
+soon be an old woman, or a young one, which is a more flimsier article
+still. It is the Tories that carries on the war and ruins trade; and if
+I be of any party--though political parties is all nonsense--I'm of
+that which is most favourable to peace, and, by consequence, to the
+mercantile interests of this here land."
+
+"So am I, Joe," replied Shirley, who had rather a pleasure in teasing
+the overlooker, by persisting in talking on subjects with which he
+opined she, as a woman, had no right to meddle--"partly, at least. I
+have rather a leaning to the agricultural interest, too; as good reason
+is, seeing that I don't desire England to be under the feet of France,
+and that if a share of my income comes from Hollow's Mill, a larger
+share comes from the landed estate around it. It would not do to take
+any measures injurious to the farmers, Joe, I think?"
+
+"The dews at this hour is unwholesome for females," observed Joe.
+
+"If you make that remark out of interest in me, I have merely to assure
+you that I am impervious to cold. I should not mind taking my turn to
+watch the mill one of these summer nights, armed with your musket, Joe."
+
+Joe Scott's chin was always rather prominent. He poked it out, at this
+speech, some inches farther than usual.
+
+"But--to go back to my sheep," she proceeded--"clothier and mill-owner
+as I am, besides farmer, I cannot get out of my head a certain idea that
+we manufacturers and persons of business are sometimes a little--a _very
+little_--selfish and short-sighted in our views, and rather _too_
+regardless of human suffering, rather heartless in our pursuit of gain.
+Don't you agree with me, Joe?"
+
+"I cannot argue where I cannot be comprehended," was again the answer.
+
+"Man of mystery! Your master will argue with me sometimes, Joe. He is
+not so stiff as you are."
+
+"Maybe not. We've all our own ways."
+
+"Joe, do you seriously think all the wisdom in the world is lodged in
+male skulls?"
+
+"I think that women are a kittle and a froward generation; and I've a
+great respect for the doctrines delivered in the second chapter of St.
+Paul's first Epistle to Timothy."
+
+"What doctrines, Joe?"
+
+"'Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. I suffer not a
+woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in
+silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.'"
+
+"What has that to do with the business?" interjected Shirley. "That
+smacks of rights of primogeniture. I'll bring it up to Mr. Yorke the
+first time he inveighs against those rights."
+
+"And," continued Joe Scott, "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being
+deceived was in the transgression."
+
+"More shame to Adam to sin with his eyes open!" cried Miss Keeldar. "To
+confess the honest truth, Joe, I never was easy in my mind concerning
+that chapter. It puzzles me."
+
+"It is very plain, miss. He that runs may read."
+
+"He may read it in his own fashion," remarked Caroline, now joining in
+the dialogue for the first time. "You allow the right of private
+judgment, I suppose, Joe?"
+
+"My certy, that I do! I allow and claim it for every line of the holy
+Book."
+
+"Women may exercise it as well as men?"
+
+"Nay. Women is to take their husbands' opinion, both in politics and
+religion. It's wholesomest for them."
+
+"Oh! oh!" exclaimed both Shirley and Caroline.
+
+"To be sure; no doubt on't," persisted the stubborn overlooker.
+
+"Consider yourself groaned down, and cried shame over, for such a stupid
+observation," said Miss Keeldar. "You might as well say men are to take
+the opinions of their priests without examination. Of what value would a
+religion so adopted be? It would be mere blind, besotted superstition."
+
+"And what is _your_ reading, Miss Helstone, o' these words o' St.
+Paul's?"
+
+"Hem! I--I account for them in this way. He wrote that chapter for a
+particular congregation of Christians, under peculiar circumstances; and
+besides, I dare say, if I could read the original Greek, I should find
+that many of the words have been wrongly translated, perhaps
+misapprehended altogether. It would be possible, I doubt not, with a
+little ingenuity, to give the passage quite a contrary turn--to make it
+say, 'Let the woman speak out whenever she sees fit to make an
+objection.' 'It is permitted to a woman to teach and to exercise
+authority as much as may be. Man, meantime, cannot do better than hold
+his peace;' and so on."
+
+"That willn't wash, miss."
+
+"I dare say it will. My notions are dyed in faster colours than yours,
+Joe. Mr. Scott, you are a thoroughly dogmatical person, and always
+were. I like William better than you."
+
+"Joe is well enough in his own house," said Shirley. "I have seen him as
+quiet as a lamb at home. There is not a better nor a kinder husband in
+Briarfield. He does not dogmatize to his wife."
+
+"My wife is a hard-working, plain woman; time and trouble has ta'en all
+the conceit out of her. But that is not the case with you, young misses.
+And then you reckon to have so much knowledge; and i' my thoughts it's
+only superficial sort o' vanities you're acquainted with. I can
+tell--happen a year sin'--one day Miss Caroline coming into our
+counting-house when I war packing up summat behind t' great desk, and
+she didn't see me, and she brought a slate wi' a sum on it to t'
+maister. It war only a bit of a sum in practice, that our Harry would
+have settled i' two minutes. She couldn't do it. Mr. Moore had to show
+her how. And when he did show her, she couldn't understand him."
+
+"Nonsense, Joe!"
+
+"Nay, it's no nonsense. And Miss Shirley there reckons to hearken to t'
+maister when he's talking ower trade, so attentive like, as if she
+followed him word for word, and all war as clear as a lady's
+looking-glass to her een; and all t' while she's peeping and peeping out
+o' t' window to see if t' mare stands quiet; and then looking at a bit
+of a splash on her riding-skirt; and then glancing glegly round at wer
+counting-house cobwebs and dust, and thinking what mucky folk we are,
+and what a grand ride she'll have just i' now ower Nunnely Common. She
+hears no more o' Mr. Moore's talk nor if he spake Hebrew."
+
+"Joe, you are a real slanderer. I would give you your answer, only the
+people are coming out of church. We must leave you. Man of prejudice,
+good-bye.--William, good-bye.--Children, come up to Fieldhead to-morrow,
+and you shall choose what you like best out of Mrs. Gill's store-room."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+A SUMMER NIGHT.
+
+
+The hour was now that of dusk. A clear air favoured the kindling of the
+stars.
+
+"There will be just light enough to show me the way home," said Miss
+Keeldar, as she prepared to take leave of Caroline at the rectory garden
+door.
+
+"You must not go alone, Shirley; Fanny shall accompany you."
+
+"That she shall not. Of what need I be afraid in my own parish? I would
+walk from Fieldhead to the church any fine midsummer night, three hours
+later than this, for the mere pleasure of seeing the stars and the
+chance of meeting a fairy."
+
+"But just wait till the crowd is cleared away."
+
+"Agreed. There are the five Misses Armitage streaming by. Here comes
+Mrs. Sykes's phaeton, Mr. Wynne's close carriage, Mrs. Birtwhistle's
+car. I don't wish to go through the ceremony of bidding them all
+good-bye, so we will step into the garden and take shelter amongst the
+laburnums for an instant."
+
+The rectors, their curates, and their churchwardens now issued from the
+church porch. There was a great confabulation, shaking of hands,
+congratulation on speeches, recommendation to be careful of the night
+air, etc. By degrees the throng dispersed, the carriages drove off. Miss
+Keeldar was just emerging from her flowery refuge when Mr. Helstone
+entered the garden and met her.
+
+"Oh, I want you!" he said. "I was afraid you were already
+gone.--Caroline, come here."
+
+Caroline came, expecting, as Shirley did, a lecture on not having been
+visible at church. Other subjects, however, occupied the rector's mind.
+
+"I shall not sleep at home to-night," he continued. "I have just met
+with an old friend, and promised to accompany him. I shall return
+probably about noon to-morrow. Thomas, the clerk, is engaged, and I
+cannot get him to sleep in the house, as I usually do when I am absent
+for a night. Now----"
+
+"Now," interrupted Shirley, "you want me as a gentleman--the first
+gentleman in Briarfield, in short--to supply your place, be master of
+the rectory and guardian of your niece and maids while you are away?"
+
+"Exactly, captain. I thought the post would suit you. Will you favour
+Caroline so far as to be her guest for one night? Will you stay here
+instead of going back to Fieldhead?"
+
+"And what will Mrs. Pryor do? she expects me home."
+
+"I will send her word. Come, make up your mind to stay. It grows late;
+the dew falls heavily. You and Caroline will enjoy each other's society,
+I doubt not."
+
+"I promise you, then, to stay with Caroline," replied Shirley. "As you
+say, we shall enjoy each other's society. We will not be separated
+to-night. Now, rejoin your old friend, and fear nothing for us."
+
+"If there should chance to be any disturbance in the night, captain; if
+you should hear the picking of a lock, the cutting out of a pane of
+glass, a stealthy tread of steps about the house (and I need not fear to
+tell _you_, who bear a well-tempered, mettlesome heart under your girl's
+ribbon sash, that such little incidents are very possible in the present
+time), what would you do?"
+
+"Don't know; faint, perhaps--fall down, and have to be picked up again.
+But, doctor, if you assign me the post of honour, you must give me arms.
+What weapons are there in your stronghold?"
+
+"You could not wield a sword?"
+
+"No; I could manage the carving-knife better."
+
+"You will find a good one in the dining-room sideboard--a lady's knife,
+light to handle, and as sharp-pointed as a poniard."
+
+"It will suit Caroline. But you must give me a brace of pistols. I know
+you have pistols."
+
+"I have two pairs. One pair I can place at your disposal. You will find
+them suspended over the mantelpiece of my study in cloth cases."
+
+"Loaded?"
+
+"Yes, but not on the cock. Cock them before you go to bed. It is paying
+you a great compliment, captain, to lend you these. Were you one of the
+awkward squad you should not have them."
+
+"I will take care. You need delay no longer, Mr. Helstone. You may go
+now.--He is gracious to me to lend me his pistols," she remarked, as the
+rector passed out at the garden gate. "But come, Lina," she continued,
+"let us go in and have some supper. I was too much vexed at tea with the
+vicinage of Mr. Sam Wynne to be able to eat, and now I am really
+hungry."
+
+Entering the house, they repaired to the darkened dining-room, through
+the open windows of which apartment stole the evening air, bearing the
+perfume of flowers from the garden, the very distant sound of
+far-retreating steps from the road, and a soft, vague murmur whose
+origin Caroline explained by the remark, uttered as she stood listening
+at the casement, "Shirley, I hear the beck in the Hollow."
+
+Then she rang the bell, asked for a candle and some bread and milk--Miss
+Keeldar's usual supper and her own. Fanny, when she brought in the tray,
+would have closed the windows and the shutters, but was requested to
+desist for the present. The twilight was too calm, its breath too balmy
+to be yet excluded. They took their meal in silence. Caroline rose once
+to remove to the window-sill a glass of flowers which stood on the
+sideboard, the exhalation from the blossoms being somewhat too powerful
+for the sultry room. In returning she half opened a drawer, and took
+from it something that glittered clear and keen in her hand.
+
+"You assigned this to me, then, Shirley, did you? It is bright,
+keen-edged, finely tapered; it is dangerous-looking. I never yet felt
+the impulse which could move me to direct this against a
+fellow-creature. It is difficult to fancy that circumstances could nerve
+my arm to strike home with this long knife."
+
+"I should hate to do it," replied Shirley, "but I think I could do it,
+if goaded by certain exigencies which I can imagine." And Miss Keeldar
+quietly sipped her glass of new milk, looking somewhat thoughtful and a
+little pale; though, indeed, when did she not look pale? She was never
+florid.
+
+The milk sipped and the bread eaten, Fanny was again summoned. She and
+Eliza were recommended to go to bed, which they were quite willing to
+do, being weary of the day's exertions, of much cutting of currant-buns,
+and filling of urns and teapots, and running backwards and forwards
+with trays. Ere long the maids' chamber door was heard to close.
+Caroline took a candle and went quietly all over the house, seeing that
+every window was fast and every door barred. She did not even evade the
+haunted back kitchen nor the vault-like cellars. These visited, she
+returned.
+
+"There is neither spirit nor flesh in the house at present," she said,
+"which should not be there. It is now near eleven o'clock, fully
+bedtime; yet I would rather sit up a little longer, if you do not
+object, Shirley. Here," she continued, "I have brought the brace of
+pistols from my uncle's study. You may examine them at your leisure."
+
+She placed them on the table before her friend.
+
+"Why would you rather sit up longer?" asked Miss Keeldar, taking up the
+firearms, examining them, and again laying them down.
+
+"Because I have a strange, excited feeling in my heart."
+
+"So have I."
+
+"Is this state of sleeplessness and restlessness caused by something
+electrical in the air, I wonder?"
+
+"No; the sky is clear, the stars numberless. It is a fine night."
+
+"But very still. I hear the water fret over its stony bed in Hollow's
+Copse as distinctly as if it ran below the churchyard wall."
+
+"I am glad it is so still a night. A moaning wind or rushing rain would
+vex me to fever just now."
+
+"Why, Shirley?"
+
+"Because it would baffle my efforts to listen."
+
+"Do you listen towards the Hollow?"
+
+"Yes; it is the only quarter whence we can hear a sound just now."
+
+"The only one, Shirley."
+
+They both sat near the window, and both leaned their arms on the sill,
+and both inclined their heads towards the open lattice. They saw each
+other's young faces by the starlight and that dim June twilight which
+does not wholly fade from the west till dawn begins to break in the
+east.
+
+"Mr. Helstone thinks we have no idea which way he is gone," murmured
+Miss Keeldar, "nor on what errand, nor with what expectations, nor how
+prepared. But I guess much; do not you?"
+
+"I guess something."
+
+"All those gentlemen--your cousin Moore included--think that you and I
+are now asleep in our beds, unconscious."
+
+"Caring nothing about them--hoping and fearing nothing for them," added
+Caroline.
+
+Both kept silent for full half an hour. The night was silent too; only
+the church clock measured its course by quarters. Some words were
+interchanged about the chill of the air. They wrapped their scarves
+closer round them, resumed their bonnets, which they had removed, and
+again watched.
+
+Towards midnight the teasing, monotonous bark of the house-dog disturbed
+the quietude of their vigil. Caroline rose, and made her way noiselessly
+through the dark passages to the kitchen, intending to appease him with
+a piece of bread. She succeeded. On returning to the dining-room she
+found it all dark, Miss Keeldar having extinguished the candle. The
+outline of her shape was visible near the still open window, leaning
+out. Miss Helstone asked no questions; she stole to her side. The dog
+recommenced barking furiously. Suddenly he stopped, and seemed to
+listen. The occupants of the dining-room listened too, and not merely
+now to the flow of the mill-stream. There was a nearer, though a
+muffled, sound on the road below the churchyard--a measured, beating,
+approaching sound--a dull tramp of marching feet.
+
+It drew near. Those who listened by degrees comprehended its extent. It
+was not the tread of two, nor of a dozen, nor of a score of men; it was
+the tread of hundreds. They could see nothing; the high shrubs of the
+garden formed a leafy screen between them and the road. To hear,
+however, was not enough, and this they felt as the troop trod forwards,
+and seemed actually passing the rectory. They felt it more when a human
+voice--though that voice spoke but one word--broke the hush of the
+night.
+
+"Halt!"
+
+A halt followed. The march was arrested. Then came a low conference, of
+which no word was distinguishable from the dining-room.
+
+"We _must_ hear this," said Shirley.
+
+She turned, took her pistols from the table, silently passed out through
+the middle window of the dining-room, which was, in fact, a glass door,
+stole down the walk to the garden wall, and stood listening under the
+lilacs. Caroline would not have quitted the house had she been alone,
+but where Shirley went she would go. She glanced at the weapon on the
+sideboard, but left it behind her, and presently stood at her friend's
+side. They dared not look over the wall, for fear of being seen; they
+were obliged to crouch behind it. They heard these words,--
+
+"It looks a rambling old building. Who lives in it besides the damned
+parson?"
+
+"Only three women--his niece and two servants."
+
+"Do you know where they sleep?"
+
+"The lasses behind; the niece in a front room."
+
+"And Helstone?"
+
+"Yonder is his chamber. He was burning a light, but I see none now."
+
+"Where would you get in?"
+
+"If I were ordered to do his job--and he desarves it--I'd try yond' long
+window; it opens to the dining-room. I could grope my way upstairs, and
+I know his chamber."
+
+"How would you manage about the women folk?"
+
+"Let 'em alone except they shrieked, and then I'd soon quieten 'em. I
+could wish to find the old chap asleep. If he waked, he'd be dangerous."
+
+"Has he arms?"
+
+"Firearms, allus--and allus loadened."
+
+"Then you're a fool to stop us here. A shot would give the alarm. Moore
+would be on us before we could turn round. We should miss our main
+object."
+
+"You might go on, I tell you. I'd engage Helstone alone."
+
+A pause. One of the party dropped some weapon, which rang on the stone
+causeway. At this sound the rectory dog barked again
+furiously--fiercely.
+
+"That spoils all!" said the voice. "He'll awake. A noise like that might
+rouse the dead. You did not say there was a dog. Damn you! Forward!"
+
+Forward they went--tramp, tramp--with mustering, manifold, slow-filing
+tread. They were gone.
+
+Shirley stood erect, looked over the wall, along the road.
+
+"Not a soul remains," she said.
+
+She stood and mused. "Thank God!" was the next observation.
+
+Caroline repeated the ejaculation--not in so steady a tone. She was
+trembling much. Her heart was beating fast and thick; her face was cold,
+her forehead damp.
+
+"Thank God for us!" she reiterated. "But what will happen elsewhere?
+They have passed us by that they may make sure of others."
+
+"They have done well," returned Shirley, with composure. "The others
+will defend themselves. They can do it. They are prepared for them. With
+us it is otherwise. My finger was on the trigger of this pistol. I was
+quite ready to give that man, if he had entered, such a greeting as he
+little calculated on; but behind him followed three hundred. I had
+neither three hundred hands nor three hundred weapons. I could not have
+effectually protected either you, myself, or the two poor women asleep
+under that roof. Therefore I again earnestly thank God for insult and
+peril escaped."
+
+After a second pause she continued: "What is it my duty and wisdom to do
+next? Not to stay here inactive, I am glad to say, but, of course, to
+walk over to the Hollow."
+
+"To the Hollow, Shirley?"
+
+"To the Hollow. Will you go with me?"
+
+"Where those men are gone?"
+
+"They have taken the highway; we should not encounter them. The road
+over the fields is as safe, silent, and solitary as a path through the
+air would be. Will you go?"
+
+"Yes," was the answer, given mechanically, not because the speaker
+wished or was prepared to go, or, indeed, was otherwise than scared at
+the prospect of going, but because she felt she could not abandon
+Shirley.
+
+"Then we must fasten up these windows, and leave all as secure as we can
+behind us. Do you know what we are going for, Cary?"
+
+"Yes--no--because you wish it."
+
+"Is that all? And are you so obedient to a mere caprice of mine? What a
+docile wife you would make to a stern husband! The moon's face is not
+whiter than yours at this moment, and the aspen at the gate does not
+tremble more than your busy fingers; and so, tractable and
+terror-struck, and dismayed and devoted, you would follow me into the
+thick of real danger! Cary, let me give your fidelity a motive. We are
+going for Moore's sake--to see if we can be of use to him, to make an
+effort to warn him of what is coming."
+
+"To be sure! I am a blind, weak fool, and you are acute and sensible,
+Shirley. I will go with you; I will gladly go with you!"
+
+"I do not doubt it. You would die blindly and meekly for me, but you
+would intelligently and gladly die for Moore. But, in truth, there is no
+question of death to-night; we run no risk at all."
+
+Caroline rapidly closed shutter and lattice. "Do not fear that I shall
+not have breath to run as fast as you can possibly run, Shirley. Take my
+hand. Let us go straight across the fields."
+
+"But you cannot climb walls?"
+
+"To-night I can."
+
+"You are afraid of hedges, and the beck which we shall be forced to
+cross?"
+
+"I can cross it."
+
+They started; they ran. Many a wall checked but did not baffle them.
+Shirley was surefooted and agile; she could spring like a deer when she
+chose. Caroline, more timid and less dexterous, fell once or twice, and
+bruised herself; but she rose again directly, saying she was not hurt. A
+quickset hedge bounded the last field; they lost time in seeking a gap
+in it. The aperture, when found, was narrow, but they worked their way
+through. The long hair, the tender skin, the silks and the muslins
+suffered; but what was chiefly regretted was the impediment this
+difficulty had caused to speed. On the other side they met the beck,
+flowing deep in a rough bed. At this point a narrow plank formed the
+only bridge across it. Shirley had trodden the plank successfully and
+fearlessly many a time before; Caroline had never yet dared to risk the
+transit.
+
+"I will carry you across," said Miss Keeldar. "You are light, and I am
+not weak. Let me try."
+
+"If I fall in, you may fish me out," was the answer, as a grateful
+squeeze compressed her hand. Caroline, without pausing, trod forward on
+the trembling plank as if it were a continuation of the firm turf.
+Shirley, who followed, did not cross it more resolutely or safely. In
+their present humour, on their present errand, a strong and foaming
+channel would have been a barrier to neither. At the moment they were
+above the control either of fire or water. All Stilbro' Moor, alight and
+aglow with bonfires, would not have stopped them, nor would Calder or
+Aire thundering in flood. Yet one sound made them pause. Scarce had
+they set foot on the solid opposite bank when a shot split the air from
+the north. One second elapsed. Further off burst a like note in the
+south. Within the space of three minutes similar signals boomed in the
+east and west.
+
+"I thought we were dead at the first explosion," observed Shirley,
+drawing a long breath. "I felt myself hit in the temples, and I
+concluded your heart was pierced; but the reiterated voice was an
+explanation. Those are signals--it is their way--the attack must be
+near. We should have had wings. Our feet have not borne us swiftly
+enough."
+
+A portion of the copse was now to clear. When they emerged from it the
+mill lay just below them. They could look down upon the buildings, the
+yard; they could see the road beyond. And the first glance in that
+direction told Shirley she was right in her conjecture. They were
+already too late to give warning. It had taken more time than they
+calculated on to overcome the various obstacles which embarrassed the
+short cut across the fields.
+
+The road, which should have been white, was dark with a moving mass. The
+rioters were assembled in front of the closed yard gates, and a single
+figure stood within, apparently addressing them. The mill itself was
+perfectly black and still. There was neither life, light, nor motion
+around it.
+
+"Surely he is prepared. Surely that is not Moore meeting them alone?"
+whispered Shirley.
+
+"It is. We must go to him. I _will_ go to him."
+
+"_That_ you will not."
+
+"Why did I come, then? I came only for him. I shall join him."
+
+"Fortunately it is out of your power. There is no entrance to the yard."
+
+"There _is_ a small entrance at the back, besides the gates in front. It
+opens by a secret method which I know. I will try it."
+
+"Not with my leave."
+
+Miss Keeldar clasped her round the waist with both arms and held her
+back. "Not one step shall you stir," she went on authoritatively. "At
+this moment Moore would be both shocked and embarrassed if he saw either
+you or me. Men never want women near them in time of real danger."
+
+"I would not trouble--I would help him," was the reply.
+
+"How?--by inspiring him with heroism? Pooh! these are not the days of
+chivalry. It is not a tilt at a tournament we are going to behold, but a
+struggle about money, and food, and life."
+
+"It is natural that I should be at his side."
+
+"As queen of his heart? His mill is his lady-love, Cary! Backed by his
+factory and his frames, he has all the encouragement he wants or can
+know. It is not for love or beauty, but for ledger and broadcloth, he is
+going to break a spear. Don't be sentimental; Robert is not so."
+
+"I _could_ help him; I _will_ seek him."
+
+"Off then--I let you go--seek Moore. You'll not find him."
+
+She loosened her hold. Caroline sped like levelled shaft from bent bow;
+after her rang a jesting, gibing laugh. "Look well there is no mistake!"
+was the warning given.
+
+But there _was_ a mistake. Miss Helstone paused, hesitated, gazed. The
+figure had suddenly retreated from the gate, and was running back
+hastily to the mill.
+
+"Make haste, Lina!" cried Shirley; "meet him before he enters."
+
+Caroline slowly returned. "It is not Robert," she said. "It has neither
+his height, form, nor bearing."
+
+"I saw it was not Robert when I let you go. How could you imagine it? It
+is a shabby little figure of a private soldier; they had posted him as
+sentinel. He is safe in the mill now. I saw the door open and admit him.
+My mind grows easier. Robert is prepared. Our warning would have been
+superfluous; and now I am thankful we came too late to give it. It has
+saved us the trouble of a scene. How fine to have entered the
+counting-house _toute éperdue_, and to have found oneself in presence of
+Messrs. Armitage and Ramsden smoking, Malone swaggering, your uncle
+sneering, Mr. Sykes sipping a cordial, and Moore himself in his cold
+man-of-business vein! I am glad we missed it all."
+
+"I wonder if there are many in the mill, Shirley!"
+
+"Plenty to defend it. The soldiers we have twice seen to-day were going
+there, no doubt, and the group we noticed surrounding your cousin in the
+fields will be with him."
+
+"What are they doing now, Shirley? What is that noise?"
+
+"Hatchets and crowbars against the yard gates. They are forcing them.
+Are you afraid?"
+
+"No; but my heart throbs fast. I have a difficulty in standing. I will
+sit down. Do you feel unmoved?"
+
+"Hardly that; but I am glad I came. We shall see what transpires with
+our own eyes. We are here on the spot, and none know it. Instead of
+amazing the curate, the clothier, and the corn-dealer with a romantic
+rush on the stage, we stand alone with the friendly night, its mute
+stars, and these whispering trees, whose report our friends will not
+come to gather."
+
+"Shirley, Shirley, the gates are down! That crash was like the felling
+of great trees. Now they are pouring through. They will break down the
+mill doors as they have broken the gate. What can Robert do against so
+many? Would to God I were a little nearer him--could hear him
+speak--could speak to him! With my will--my longing to serve him--I
+could not be a useless burden in his way; I could be turned to some
+account."
+
+"They come on!" cried Shirley. "How steadily they march in! There is
+discipline in their ranks. I will not say there is courage--hundreds
+against tens are no proof of that quality--but" (she dropped her voice)
+"there is suffering and desperation enough amongst them. These goads
+will urge them forwards."
+
+"Forwards against Robert; and they hate him. Shirley, is there much
+danger they will win the day?"
+
+"We shall see. Moore and Helstone are of 'earth's first blood'--no
+bunglers--no cravens----"
+
+A crash--smash--shiver--stopped their whispers. A simultaneously hurled
+volley of stones had saluted the broad front of the mill, with all its
+windows; and now every pane of every lattice lay in shattered and
+pounded fragments. A yell followed this demonstration--a rioters'
+yell--a north-of-England, a Yorkshire, a West-Riding, a
+West-Riding-clothing-district-of-Yorkshire rioters' yell.
+
+You never heard that sound, perhaps, reader? So much the better for your
+ears--perhaps for your heart, since, if it rends the air in hate to
+yourself, or to the men or principles you approve, the interests to
+which you wish well, wrath wakens to the cry of hate; the lion shakes
+his mane, and rises to the howl of the hyena; caste stands up, ireful
+against caste; and the indignant, wronged spirit of the middle rank
+bears down in zeal and scorn on the famished and furious mass of the
+operative class. It is difficult to be tolerant, difficult to be just,
+in such moments.
+
+Caroline rose; Shirley put her arm round her: they stood together as
+still as the straight stems of two trees. That yell was a long one, and
+when it ceased the night was yet full of the swaying and murmuring of a
+crowd.
+
+"What next?" was the question of the listeners. Nothing came yet. The
+mill remained mute as a mausoleum.
+
+"He _cannot_ be alone!" whispered Caroline.
+
+"I would stake all I have that he is as little alone as he is alarmed,"
+responded Shirley.
+
+Shots were discharged by the rioters. Had the defenders waited for this
+signal? It seemed so. The hitherto inert and passive mill woke; fire
+flashed from its empty window-frames; a volley of musketry pealed sharp
+through the Hollow.
+
+"Moore speaks at last!" said Shirley, "and he seems to have the gift of
+tongues. That was not a single voice."
+
+"He has been forbearing. No one can accuse him of rashness," alleged
+Caroline. "Their discharge preceded his. They broke his gates and his
+windows. They fired at his garrison before he repelled them."
+
+What was going on now? It seemed difficult, in the darkness, to
+distinguish; but something terrible, a still-renewing tumult, was
+obvious--fierce attacks, desperate repulses. The mill-yard, the mill
+itself, was full of battle movement. There was scarcely any cessation
+now of the discharge of firearms; and there was struggling, rushing,
+trampling, and shouting between. The aim of the assailants seemed to be
+to enter the mill, that of the defenders to beat them off. They heard
+the rebel leader cry, "To the back, lads!" They heard a voice retort,
+"Come round; we will meet you."
+
+"To the counting-house!" was the order again.
+
+"Welcome! we shall have you there!" was the response. And accordingly
+the fiercest blaze that had yet glowed, the loudest rattle that had yet
+been heard, burst from the counting-house front when the mass of rioters
+rushed up to it.
+
+The voice that had spoken was Moore's own voice. They could tell by its
+tones that his soul was now warm with the conflict; they could guess
+that the fighting animal was roused in every one of those men there
+struggling together, and was for the time quite paramount above the
+rational human being.
+
+Both the girls felt their faces glow and their pulses throb; both knew
+they would do no good by rushing down into the _mêlée_. They desired
+neither to deal nor to receive blows; but they could not have run
+away--Caroline no more than Shirley; they could not have fainted; they
+could not have taken their eyes from the dim, terrible scene--from the
+mass of cloud, of smoke, the musket-lightning--for the world.
+
+"How and when would it end?" was the demand throbbing in their throbbing
+pulses. "Would a juncture arise in which they could be useful?" was what
+they waited to see; for though Shirley put off their too-late arrival
+with a jest, and was ever ready to satirize her own or any other
+person's enthusiasm, she would have given a farm of her best land for a
+chance of rendering good service.
+
+The chance was not vouchsafed her; the looked-for juncture never came.
+It was not likely. Moore had expected this attack for days, perhaps
+weeks; he was prepared for it at every point. He had fortified and
+garrisoned his mill, which in itself was a strong building. He was a
+cool, brave man; he stood to the defence with unflinching firmness.
+Those who were with him caught his spirit, and copied his demeanour. The
+rioters had never been so met before. At other mills they had attacked
+they had found no resistance; an organized, resolute defence was what
+they never dreamed of encountering. When their leaders saw the steady
+fire kept up from the mill, witnessed the composure and determination of
+its owner, heard themselves coolly defied and invited on to death, and
+beheld their men falling wounded round them, they felt that nothing was
+to be done here. In haste they mustered their forces, drew them away
+from the building. A roll was called over, in which the men answered to
+figures instead of names. They dispersed wide over the fields, leaving
+silence and ruin behind them. The attack, from its commencement to its
+termination, had not occupied an hour.
+
+Day was by this time approaching; the west was dim, the east beginning
+to gleam. It would have seemed that the girls who had watched this
+conflict would now wish to hasten to the victors, on whose side all
+their interest had been enlisted; but they only very cautiously
+approached the now battered mill, and when suddenly a number of soldiers
+and gentlemen appeared at the great door opening into the yard, they
+quickly stepped aside into a shed, the deposit of old iron and timber,
+whence they could see without being seen.
+
+It was no cheering spectacle. These premises were now a mere blot of
+desolation on the fresh front of the summer dawn. All the copse up the
+Hollow was shady and dewy, the hill at its head was green; but just
+here, in the centre of the sweet glen, Discord, broken loose in the
+night from control, had beaten the ground with his stamping hoofs, and
+left it waste and pulverized. The mill yawned all ruinous with unglazed
+frames; the yard was thickly bestrewn with stones and brickbats; and
+close under the mill, with the glittering fragments of the shattered
+windows, muskets and other weapons lay here and there. More than one
+deep crimson stain was visible on the gravel, a human body lay quiet on
+its face near the gates, and five or six wounded men writhed and moaned
+in the bloody dust.
+
+Miss Keeldar's countenance changed at this view. It was the after-taste
+of the battle, death and pain replacing excitement and exertion. It was
+the blackness the bright fire leaves when its blaze is sunk, its warmth
+failed, and its glow faded.
+
+"This is what I wished to prevent," she said, in a voice whose cadence
+betrayed the altered impulse of her heart.
+
+"But you could not prevent it; you did your best--it was in vain," said
+Caroline comfortingly. "Don't grieve, Shirley."
+
+"I am sorry for those poor fellows," was the answer, while the spark in
+her glance dissolved to dew. "Are any within the mill hurt, I wonder? Is
+that your uncle?"
+
+"It is, and there is Mr. Malone; and, O Shirley, there is Robert!"
+
+"Well" (resuming her former tone), "don't squeeze your fingers quite
+into my hand. I see. There is nothing wonderful in that. We knew he, at
+least, was here, whoever might be absent."
+
+"He is coming here towards us, Shirley!"
+
+"Towards the pump, that is to say, for the purpose of washing his hands
+and his forehead, which has got a scratch, I perceive."
+
+"He bleeds, Shirley. Don't hold me. I must go."
+
+"Not a step."
+
+"He is hurt, Shirley!"
+
+"Fiddlestick!"
+
+"But I _must_ go to him. I wish to go so much. I cannot bear to be
+restrained."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To speak to him, to ask how he is, and what I can do for him."
+
+"To tease and annoy him; to make a spectacle of yourself and him before
+those soldiers, Mr. Malone, your uncle, et cetera. Would he like it,
+think you? Would you like to remember it a week hence?"
+
+"Am I always to be curbed and kept down?" demanded Caroline, a little
+passionately.
+
+"For his sake, yes; and still more for your own. I tell you, if you
+showed yourself now you would repent it an hour hence, and so would
+Robert."
+
+"You think he would not like it, Shirley?"
+
+"Far less than he would like our stopping him to say good-night, which
+you were so sore about."
+
+"But that was all play; there was no danger."
+
+"And this is serious work; he must be unmolested."
+
+"I only wish to go to him because he is my cousin--you understand?"
+
+"I quite understand. But now, watch him. He has bathed his forehead, and
+the blood has ceased trickling. His hurt is really a mere graze; I can
+see it from hence. He is going to look after the wounded men."
+
+Accordingly Mr. Moore and Mr. Helstone went round the yard, examining
+each prostrate form. They then gave directions to have the wounded taken
+up and carried into the mill. This duty being performed, Joe Scott was
+ordered to saddle his master's horse and Mr. Helstone's pony, and the
+two gentlemen rode away full gallop, to seek surgical aid in different
+directions.
+
+Caroline was not yet pacified.
+
+"Shirley, Shirley, I should have liked to speak one word to him before
+he went," she murmured, while the tears gathered glittering in her eyes.
+
+"Why do you cry, Lina?" asked Miss Keeldar a little sternly. "You ought
+to be glad instead of sorry. Robert has escaped any serious harm; he is
+victorious; he has been cool and brave in combat; he is now considerate
+in triumph. Is this a time--are these causes for weeping?"
+
+"You do not know what I have in my heart," pleaded the other--"what
+pain, what distraction--nor whence it arises. I can understand that you
+should exult in Robert's greatness and goodness; so do I, in one sense,
+but in another I feel _so_ miserable. I am too far removed from him. I
+used to be nearer. Let me alone, Shirley. Do let me cry a few minutes;
+it relieves me."
+
+Miss Keeldar, feeling her tremble in every limb, ceased to expostulate
+with her. She went out of the shed, and left her to weep in peace. It
+was the best plan. In a few minutes Caroline rejoined her, much calmer.
+She said, with her natural, docile, gentle manner, "Come, Shirley, we
+will go home now. I promise not to try to see Robert again till he asks
+for me. I never will try to push myself on him. I thank you for
+restraining me just now."
+
+"I did it with a good intention," returned Miss Keeldar.
+
+"Now, dear Lina," she continued, "let us turn our faces to the cool
+morning breeze, and walk very quietly back to the rectory. We will steal
+in as we stole out. None shall know where we have been or what we have
+seen to-night; neither taunt nor misconstruction can consequently molest
+us. To-morrow we will see Robert, and be of good cheer; but I will say
+no more, lest I should begin to cry too. I seem hard towards you, but I
+am not so."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+TO-MORROW.
+
+
+The two girls met no living soul on their way back to the rectory. They
+let themselves in noiselessly; they stole upstairs unheard--the breaking
+morning gave them what light they needed. Shirley sought her couch
+immediately; and though the room was strange--for she had never slept at
+the rectory before--and though the recent scene was one unparalleled for
+excitement and terror by any it had hitherto been her lot to witness,
+yet scarce was her head laid on the pillow ere a deep, refreshing sleep
+closed her eyes and calmed her senses.
+
+Perfect health was Shirley's enviable portion. Though warm-hearted and
+sympathetic, she was not nervous; powerful emotions could rouse and sway
+without exhausting her spirit. The tempest troubled and shook her while
+it lasted, but it left her elasticity unbent, and her freshness quite
+unblighted. As every day brought her stimulating emotion, so every night
+yielded her recreating rest. Caroline now watched her sleeping, and read
+the serenity of her mind in the beauty of her happy countenance.
+
+For herself, being of a different temperament, she could not sleep. The
+commonplace excitement of the tea-drinking and school-gathering would
+alone have sufficed to make her restless all night; the effect of the
+terrible drama which had just been enacted before her eyes was not
+likely to quit her for days. It was vain even to try to retain a
+recumbent posture; she sat up by Shirley's side, counting the slow
+minutes, and watching the June sun mount the heavens.
+
+Life wastes fast in such vigils as Caroline had of late but too often
+kept--vigils during which the mind, having no pleasant food to nourish
+it, no manna of hope, no hived-honey of joyous memories, tries to live
+on the meagre diet of wishes, and failing to derive thence either
+delight or support, and feeling itself ready to perish with craving
+want, turns to philosophy, to resolution, to resignation; calls on all
+these gods for aid, calls vainly--is unheard, unhelped, and languishes.
+
+Caroline was a Christian; therefore in trouble she framed many a prayer
+after the Christian creed, preferred it with deep earnestness, begged
+for patience, strength, relief. This world, however, we all know, is the
+scene of trial and probation; and, for any favourable result her
+petitions had yet wrought, it seemed to her that they were unheard and
+unaccepted. She believed, sometimes, that God had turned His face from
+her. At moments she was a Calvinist, and, sinking into the gulf of
+religious despair, she saw darkening over her the doom of reprobation.
+
+Most people have had a period or periods in their lives when they have
+felt thus forsaken--when, having long hoped against hope, and still seen
+the day of fruition deferred, their hearts have truly sickened within
+them. This is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which
+precedes the rise of day--that turn of the year when the icy January
+wind carries over the waste at once the dirge of departing winter and
+the prophecy of coming spring. The perishing birds, however, cannot thus
+understand the blast before which they shiver; and as little can the
+suffering soul recognize, in the climax of its affliction, the dawn of
+its deliverance. Yet, let whoever grieves still cling fast to love and
+faith in God. God will never deceive, never finally desert him. "Whom He
+loveth, He chasteneth." These words are true, and should not be
+forgotten.
+
+The household was astir at last; the servants were up; the shutters were
+opened below. Caroline, as she quitted the couch, which had been but a
+thorny one to her, felt that revival of spirits which the return of day,
+of action, gives to all but the wholly despairing or actually dying. She
+dressed herself, as usual, carefully, trying so to arrange her hair and
+attire that nothing of the forlornness she felt at heart should be
+visible externally. She looked as fresh as Shirley when both were
+dressed, only that Miss Keeldar's eyes were lively, and Miss Helstone's
+languid.
+
+"To-day I shall have much to say to Moore," were Shirley's first words;
+and you could see in her face that life was full of interest,
+expectation, and occupation for her. "He will have to undergo
+cross-examination," she added. "I dare say he thinks he has outwitted me
+cleverly. And this is the way men deal with women--still concealing
+danger from them--thinking, I suppose, to spare them pain. They
+imagined we little knew where they were to-night. We _know_ they little
+conjectured where we were. Men, I believe, fancy women's minds something
+like those of children. Now, that is a mistake."
+
+This was said as she stood at the glass, training her naturally waved
+hair into curls, by twining it round her fingers. She took up the theme
+again five minutes after, as Caroline fastened her dress and clasped her
+girdle.
+
+"If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed;
+but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about
+women. They do not read them in a true light; they misapprehend them,
+both for good and evil. Their good woman is a queer thing, half doll,
+half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend. Then to hear them
+fall into ecstasies with each other's creations--worshipping the heroine
+of such a poem, novel, drama--thinking it fine, divine! Fine and divine
+it may be, but often quite artificial--false as the rose in my best
+bonnet there. If I spoke all I think on this point, if I gave my real
+opinion of some first-rate female characters in first-rate works, where
+should I be? Dead under a cairn of avenging stones in half an hour."
+
+"Shirley, you chatter so, I can't fasten you. Be still. And, after all,
+authors' heroines are almost as good as authoresses' heroes."
+
+"Not at all. Women read men more truly than men read women. I'll prove
+that in a magazine paper some day when I've time; only it will never be
+inserted. It will be 'declined with thanks,' and left for me at the
+publisher's."
+
+"To be sure. You could not write cleverly enough. You don't know enough.
+You are not learned, Shirley."
+
+"God knows I can't contradict you, Cary; I'm as ignorant as a stone.
+There's one comfort, however: you are not much better."
+
+They descended to breakfast.
+
+"I wonder how Mrs. Pryor and Hortense Moore have passed the night," said
+Caroline, as she made the coffee. "Selfish being that I am, I never
+thought of either of them till just now. They will have heard all the
+tumult, Fieldhead and the cottage are so near; and Hortense is timid in
+such matters--so, no doubt, is Mrs. Pryor."
+
+"Take my word for it, Lina, Moore will have contrived to get his sister
+out of the way. She went home with Miss Mann. He will have quartered
+her there for the night. As to Mrs. Pryor, I own I am uneasy about her;
+but in another half-hour we will be with her."
+
+By this time the news of what had happened at the Hollow was spread all
+over the neighbourhood. Fanny, who had been to Fieldhead to fetch the
+milk, returned in panting haste with tidings that there had been a
+battle in the night at Mr. Moore's mill, and that some said twenty men
+were killed. Eliza, during Fanny's absence, had been apprised by the
+butcher's boy that the mill was burnt to the ground. Both women rushed
+into the parlour to announce these terrible facts to the ladies,
+terminating their clear and accurate narrative by the assertion that
+they were sure master must have been in it all. He and Thomas, the
+clerk, they were confident, must have gone last night to join Mr. Moore
+and the soldiers. Mr. Malone, too, had not been heard of at his lodgings
+since yesterday afternoon; and Joe Scott's wife and family were in the
+greatest distress, wondering what had become of their head.
+
+Scarcely was this information imparted when a knock at the kitchen door
+announced the Fieldhead errand-boy, arrived in hot haste, bearing a
+billet from Mrs. Pryor. It was hurriedly written, and urged Miss Keeldar
+to return directly, as the neighbourhood and the house seemed likely to
+be all in confusion, and orders would have to be given which the
+mistress of the hall alone could regulate. In a postscript it was
+entreated that Miss Helstone might not be left alone at the rectory. She
+had better, it was suggested, accompany Miss Keeldar.
+
+"There are not two opinions on that head," said Shirley, as she tied on
+her own bonnet, and then ran to fetch Caroline's.
+
+"But what will Fanny and Eliza do? And if my uncle returns?"
+
+"Your uncle will not return yet; he has other fish to fry. He will be
+galloping backwards and forwards from Briarfield to Stilbro' all day,
+rousing the magistrates in the court-house and the officers at the
+barracks; and Fanny and Eliza can have in Joe Scott's and the clerk's
+wives to bear them company. Besides, of course, there is no real danger
+to be apprehended now. Weeks will elapse before the rioters can again
+rally, or plan any other attempt; and I am much mistaken if Moore and
+Mr. Helstone will not take advantage of last night's outbreak to quell
+them altogether. They will frighten the authorities of Stilbro' into
+energetic measures. I only hope they will not be too severe--not pursue
+the discomfited too relentlessly."
+
+"Robert will not be cruel. We saw that last night," said Caroline.
+
+"But he will be hard," retorted Shirley; "and so will your uncle."
+
+As they hurried along the meadow and plantation path to Fieldhead, they
+saw the distant highway already alive with an unwonted flow of
+equestrians and pedestrians, tending in the direction of the usually
+solitary Hollow. On reaching the hall, they found the backyard gates
+open, and the court and kitchen seemed crowded with excited
+milk-fetchers--men, women, and children--whom Mrs. Gill, the
+housekeeper, appeared vainly persuading to take their milk-cans and
+depart. (It _is_, or _was_, by-the-bye, the custom in the north of
+England for the cottagers on a country squire's estate to receive their
+supplies of milk and butter from the dairy of the manor house, on whose
+pastures a herd of milch kine was usually fed for the convenience of the
+neighbourhood. Miss Keeldar owned such a herd--all deep-dewlapped,
+Craven cows, reared on the sweet herbage and clear waters of bonny
+Airedale; and very proud she was of their sleek aspect and high
+condition.) Seeing now the state of matters, and that it was desirable
+to effect a clearance of the premises, Shirley stepped in amongst the
+gossiping groups. She bade them good-morning with a certain frank,
+tranquil ease--the natural characteristic of her manner when she
+addressed numbers, especially if those numbers belonged to the
+working-class; she was cooler amongst her equals, and rather proud to
+those above her. She then asked them if they had all got their milk
+measured out; and understanding that they had, she further observed that
+she "wondered what they were waiting for, then."
+
+"We're just talking a bit over this battle there has been at your mill,
+mistress," replied a man.
+
+"Talking a bit! Just like you!" said Shirley. "It is a queer thing all
+the world is so fond of _talking_ over events. You _talk_ if anybody
+dies suddenly; you _talk_ if a fire breaks out; you _talk_ if a
+mill-owner fails; you _talk_ if he's murdered. What good does your
+talking do?"
+
+There is nothing the lower orders like better than a little downright
+good-humoured rating. Flattery they scorn very much; honest abuse they
+enjoy. They call it speaking plainly, and take a sincere delight in
+being the objects thereof. The homely harshness of Miss Keeldar's
+salutation won her the ear of the whole throng in a second.
+
+"We're no war nor some 'at is aboon us, are we?" asked a man, smiling.
+
+"Nor a whit better. You that should be models of industry are just as
+gossip-loving as the idle. Fine, rich people that have nothing to do may
+be partly excused for trifling their time away; you who have to earn
+your bread with the sweat of your brow are quite inexcusable."
+
+"That's queer, mistress. Suld we never have a holiday because we work
+hard?"
+
+"_Never_," was the prompt answer; "unless," added the "mistress," with a
+smile that half belied the severity of her speech--"unless you knew how
+to make a better use of it than to get together over rum and tea if you
+are women, or over beer and pipes if you are men, and _talk_ scandal at
+your neighbours' expense. Come, friends," she added, changing at once
+from bluntness to courtesy, "oblige me by taking your cans and going
+home. I expect several persons to call to-day, and it will be
+inconvenient to have the avenues to the house crowded."
+
+Yorkshire people are as yielding to persuasion as they are stubborn
+against compulsion. The yard was clear in five minutes.
+
+"Thank you, and good-bye to you, friends," said Shirley, as she closed
+the gates on a quiet court.
+
+Now, let me hear the most refined of cockneys presume to find fault with
+Yorkshire manners. Taken as they ought to be, the majority of the lads
+and lasses of the West Riding are gentlemen and ladies, every inch of
+them. It is only against the weak affectation and futile pomposity of a
+would-be aristocrat they turn mutinous.
+
+Entering by the back way, the young ladies passed through the kitchen
+(or _house_, as the inner kitchen is called) to the hall. Mrs. Pryor
+came running down the oak staircase to meet them. She was all unnerved;
+her naturally sanguine complexion was pale; her usually placid, though
+timid, blue eye was wandering, unsettled, alarmed. She did not, however,
+break out into any exclamations, or hurried narrative of what had
+happened. Her predominant feeling had been in the course of the night,
+and was now this morning, a sense of dissatisfaction with herself that
+she could not feel firmer, cooler, more equal to the demands of the
+occasion.
+
+"You are aware," she began with a trembling voice, and yet the most
+conscientious anxiety to avoid exaggeration in what she was about to
+say, "that a body of rioters has attacked Mr. Moore's mill to-night. We
+heard the firing and confusion very plainly here; we none of us slept.
+It was a sad night. The house has been in great bustle all the morning
+with people coming and going. The servants have applied to me for orders
+and directions, which I really did not feel warranted in giving. Mr.
+Moore has, I believe, sent up for refreshments for the soldiers and
+others engaged in the defence, for some conveniences also for the
+wounded. I could not undertake the responsibility of giving orders or
+taking measures. I fear delay may have been injurious in some instances;
+but this is not my house. You were absent, my dear Miss Keeldar. What
+could I do?"
+
+"Were no refreshments sent?" asked Shirley, while her countenance,
+hitherto so clear, propitious, and quiet, even while she was rating the
+milk-fetchers, suddenly turned dark and warm.
+
+"I think not, my dear."
+
+"And nothing for the wounded--no linen, no wine, no bedding?"
+
+"I think not. I cannot tell what Mrs. Gill did; but it seemed impossible
+to me, at the moment, to venture to dispose of your property by sending
+supplies to soldiers. Provisions for a company of soldiers sounds
+formidable. How many there are I did not ask; but I could not think of
+allowing them to pillage the house, as it were. I intended to do what
+was right, yet I did not see the case quite clearly, I own."
+
+"It lies in a nutshell, notwithstanding. These soldiers have risked
+their lives in defence of my property: I suppose they have a right to my
+gratitude. The wounded are our fellow-creatures: I suppose we should aid
+them.--Mrs. Gill!"
+
+She turned, and called in a voice more clear than soft. It rang through
+the thick oak of the hall and kitchen doors more effectually than a
+bell's summons. Mrs. Gill, who was deep in bread-making, came with hands
+and apron in culinary case, not having dared to stop to rub the dough
+from the one or to shake the flour from the other. Her mistress had
+never called a servant in that voice save once before, and that was when
+she had seen from the window Tartar in full tug with two carriers' dogs,
+each of them a match for him in size, if not in courage, and their
+masters standing by, encouraging their animals, while hers was
+unbefriended. Then indeed she had summoned John as if the Day of
+Judgment were at hand. Nor had she waited for the said John's coming,
+but had walked out into the lane bonnetless, and after informing the
+carriers that she held them far less of men than the three brutes
+whirling and worrying in the dust before them, had put her hands round
+the thick neck of the largest of the curs, and given her whole strength
+to the essay of choking it from Tartar's torn and bleeding eye, just
+above and below which organ the vengeful fangs were inserted. Five or
+six men were presently on the spot to help her, but she never thanked
+one of them. "They might have come before if their will had been good,"
+she said. She had not a word for anybody during the rest of the day, but
+sat near the hall fire till evening watching and tending Tartar, who lay
+all gory, stiff, and swelled on a mat at her feet. She wept furtively
+over him sometimes, and murmured the softest words of pity and
+endearment, in tones whose music the old, scarred, canine warrior
+acknowledged by licking her hand or her sandal alternately with his own
+red wounds. As to John, his lady turned a cold shoulder on him for a
+week afterwards.
+
+Mrs. Gill, remembering this little episode, came "all of a tremble," as
+she said herself. In a firm, brief voice Miss Keeldar proceeded to put
+questions and give orders. That at such a time Fieldhead should have
+evinced the inhospitality of a miser's hovel stung her haughty spirit to
+the quick; and the revolt of its pride was seen in the heaving of her
+heart, stirred stormily under the lace and silk which veiled it.
+
+"How long is it since that message came from the mill?"
+
+"Not an hour yet, ma'am," answered the housekeeper soothingly.
+
+"Not an hour! You might almost as well have said not a day. They will
+have applied elsewhere by this time. Send a man instantly down to tell
+them that everything this house contains is at Mr. Moore's, Mr.
+Helstone's, and the soldiers' service. Do that first."
+
+While the order was being executed, Shirley moved away from her friends,
+and stood at the hall-window, silent, unapproachable. When Mrs. Gill
+came back, she turned. The purple flush which painful excitement kindles
+on a pale cheek glowed on hers; the spark which displeasure lights in a
+dark eye fired her glance.
+
+"Let the contents of the larder and the wine-cellar be brought up, put
+into the hay-carts, and driven down to the Hollow. If there does not
+happen to be much bread or much meat in the house, go to the butcher and
+baker, and desire them to send what they have. But I will see for
+myself."
+
+She moved off.
+
+"All will be right soon; she will get over it in an hour," whispered
+Caroline to Mrs. Pryor. "Go upstairs, dear madam," she added
+affectionately, "and try to be as calm and easy as you can. The truth
+is, Shirley will blame herself more than you before the day is over."
+
+By dint of a few more gentle assurances and persuasions, Miss Helstone
+contrived to soothe the agitated lady. Having accompanied her to her
+apartment, and promised to rejoin her there when things were settled,
+Caroline left her to see, as she said, "if she could be useful." She
+presently found that she could be very useful; for the retinue of
+servants at Fieldhead was by no means numerous, and just now their
+mistress found plenty of occupation for all the hands at her command,
+and for her own also. The delicate good-nature and dexterous activity
+which Caroline brought to the aid of the housekeeper and maids--all
+somewhat scared by their lady's unwonted mood--did a world of good at
+once; it helped the assistants and appeased the directress. A chance
+glance and smile from Caroline moved Shirley to an answering smile
+directly. The former was carrying a heavy basket up the cellar stairs.
+
+"This is a shame!" cried Shirley, running to her. "It will strain your
+arm."
+
+She took it from her, and herself bore it out into the yard. The cloud
+of temper was dispelled when she came back; the flash in her eye was
+melted; the shade on her forehead vanished. She resumed her usual
+cheerful and cordial manner to those about her, tempering her revived
+spirits with a little of the softness of shame at her previous unjust
+anger.
+
+She was still superintending the lading of the cart, when a gentleman
+entered the yard and approached her ere she was aware of his presence.
+
+"I hope I see Miss Keeldar well this morning?" he said, examining with
+rather significant scrutiny her still flushed face.
+
+She gave him a look, and then again bent to her employment without
+reply. A pleasant enough smile played on her lips, but she hid it. The
+gentleman repeated his salutation, stooping, that it might reach her ear
+with more facility.
+
+"Well enough, if she be good enough," was the answer; "and so is Mr.
+Moore too, I dare say. To speak truth, I am not anxious about him; some
+slight mischance would be only his just due. His conduct has been--we
+will say _strange_ just now, till we have time to characterize it by a
+more exact epithet. Meantime, may I ask what brings him here?"
+
+"Mr. Helstone and I have just received your message that everything at
+Fieldhead was at our service. We judged, by the unlimited wording of the
+gracious intimation, that you would be giving yourself too much trouble.
+I perceive our conjecture was correct. We are not a regiment,
+remember--only about half a dozen soldiers and as many civilians. Allow
+me to retrench something from these too abundant supplies."
+
+Miss Keeldar blushed, while she laughed at her own over-eager generosity
+and most disproportionate calculations. Moore laughed too, very quietly
+though; and as quietly he ordered basket after basket to be taken from
+the cart, and remanded vessel after vessel to the cellar.
+
+"The rector must hear of this," he said; "he will make a good story of
+it. What an excellent army contractor Miss Keeldar would have been!"
+Again he laughed, adding, "It is precisely as I conjectured."
+
+"You ought to be thankful," said Shirley, "and not mock me. What could I
+do? How could I gauge your appetites or number your band? For aught I
+knew, there might have been fifty of you at least to victual. You told
+me nothing; and then an application to provision soldiers naturally
+suggests large ideas."
+
+"It appears so," remarked Moore, levelling another of his keen, quiet
+glances at the discomfited Shirley.--"Now," he continued, addressing the
+carter, "I think you may take what remains to the Hollow. Your load will
+be somewhat lighter than the one Miss Keeldar destined you to carry."
+
+As the vehicle rumbled out of the yard, Shirley, rallying her spirits,
+demanded what had become of the wounded.
+
+"There was not a single man hurt on our side," was the answer.
+
+"You were hurt yourself, on the temples," interposed a quick, low
+voice--that of Caroline, who, having withdrawn within the shade of the
+door, and behind the large person of Mrs. Gill, had till now escaped
+Moore's notice. When she spoke, his eye searched the obscurity of her
+retreat.
+
+"Are you much hurt?" she inquired.
+
+"As you might scratch your finger with a needle in sewing."
+
+"Lift your hair and let us see."
+
+He took his hat off, and did as he was bid, disclosing only a narrow
+slip of court-plaster. Caroline indicated, by a slight movement of the
+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
+one against two hundred?"
+
+"Come, come now, be cool," said Mr. Yorke, smiling at the earnestness
+with which Shirley multiplied her rapid questions.
+
+"Cool! Must I listen coolly to downright nonsense--to dangerous
+nonsense? No. I like you very well, Mr. Yorke, as you know, but I
+thoroughly dislike some of your principles. All that cant--excuse me,
+but I repeat the word--all that _cant_ about soldiers and parsons is
+most offensive in my ears. All ridiculous, irrational crying up of one
+class, whether the same be aristocrat or democrat--all howling down of
+another class, whether clerical or military--all exacting injustice to
+individuals, whether monarch or mendicant--is really sickening to me;
+all arraying of ranks against ranks, all party hatreds, all tyrannies
+disguised as liberties, I reject and wash my hands of. _You_ think you
+are a philanthropist; _you_ think you are an advocate of liberty; but I
+will tell you this--Mr. Hall, the parson of Nunnely, is a better friend
+both of man and freedom than Hiram Yorke, the reformer of Briarfield."
+
+From a man Mr. Yorke would not have borne this language very patiently,
+nor would he have endured it from some women; but he accounted Shirley
+both honest and pretty, and her plain-spoken ire amused him. Besides, he
+took a secret pleasure in hearing her defend her tenant, for we have
+already intimated he had Robert Moore's interest very much at heart.
+Moreover, if he wished to avenge himself for her severity, he knew the
+means lay in his power: a word, he believed, would suffice to tame and
+silence her, to cover her frank forehead with the rosy shadow of shame,
+and veil the glow of her eye under down-drooped lid and lash.
+
+"What more hast thou to say?" he inquired, as she paused, rather, it
+appeared, to take breath than because her subject or her zeal was
+exhausted.
+
+"Say, Mr. Yorke!" was the answer, the speaker meantime walking fast from
+wall to wall of the oak parlour--"say? I have a great deal to say, if I
+could get it out in lucid order, which I never _can_ do. I have to say
+that your views, and those of most extreme politicians, are such as none
+but men in an irresponsible position _can_ advocate; that they are
+purely opposition views, meant only to be talked about, and never
+intended to be acted on. Make you Prime Minister of England to-morrow,
+and you would have to abandon them. You abuse Moore for defending his
+mill. Had you been in Moore's place you could not with honour or sense
+have acted otherwise than he acted. You abuse Mr. Helstone for
+everything he does. Mr. Helstone has his faults; he sometimes does
+wrong, but oftener right. Were you ordained vicar of Briarfield, you
+would find it no easy task to sustain all the active schemes for the
+benefit of the parish planned and persevered in by your predecessor. I
+wonder people cannot judge more fairly of each other and themselves.
+When I hear Messrs. Malone and Donne chatter about the authority of the
+church, the dignity and claims of the priesthood, the deference due to
+them as clergymen; when I hear the outbreaks of their small spite
+against Dissenters; when I witness their silly, narrow jealousies and
+assumptions; when their palaver about forms, and traditions, and
+superstitions is sounding in my ear; when I behold their insolent
+carriage to the poor, their often base servility to the rich--I think
+the Establishment is indeed in a poor way, and both she and her sons
+appear in the utmost need of reformation. Turning away distressed from
+minster tower and village spire--ay, as distressed as a churchwarden who
+feels the exigence of white-wash and has not wherewithal to purchase
+lime--I recall your senseless sarcasms on the 'fat bishops,' the
+'pampered parsons,' 'old mother church,' etc. I remember your strictures
+on all who differ from you, your sweeping condemnation of classes and
+individuals, without the slightest allowance made for circumstances or
+temptations; and then, Mr. Yorke, doubt clutches my inmost heart as to
+whether men exist clement, reasonable, and just enough to be entrusted
+with the task of reform. I don't believe _you_ are of the number."
+
+"You have an ill opinion of me, Miss Shirley. You never told me so much
+of your mind before."
+
+"I never had an opening. But I have sat on Jessy's stool by your chair
+in the back-parlour at Briarmains, for evenings together, listening
+excitedly to your talk, half admiring what you said, and half rebelling
+against it. I think you a fine old Yorkshireman, sir. I am proud to have
+been born in the same county and parish as yourself. Truthful, upright,
+independent you are, as a rock based below seas; but also you are harsh,
+rude, narrow, and merciless."
+
+"Not to the poor, lass, nor to the meek of the earth; only to the proud
+and high-minded."
+
+"And what right have you, sir, to make such distinctions? A prouder, a
+higher-minded man than yourself does not exist. You find it easy to
+speak comfortably to your inferiors; you are too haughty, too ambitious,
+too jealous to be civil to those above you. But you are all alike.
+Helstone also is proud and prejudiced. Moore, though juster and more
+considerate than either you or the rector, is still haughty, stern, and,
+in a public sense, selfish. It is well there are such men as Mr. Hall to
+be found occasionally--men of large and kind hearts, who can love their
+whole race, who can forgive others for being richer, more prosperous, or
+more powerful than they are. Such men may have less originality, less
+force of character than you, but they are better friends to mankind."
+
+"And when is it to be?" said Mr. Yorke, now rising.
+
+"When is what to be?"
+
+"The wedding."
+
+"Whose wedding?"
+
+"Only that of Robert Gérard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's Cottage, with Miss
+Keeldar, daughter and heiress of the late Charles Cave Keeldar of
+Fieldhead Hall."
+
+Shirley gazed at the questioner with rising colour. But the light in her
+eye was not faltering; it shone steadily--yes, it burned deeply.
+
+"That is your revenge," she said slowly; then added, "Would it be a bad
+match, unworthy of the late Charles Cave Keeldar's representative?"
+
+"My lass, Moore is a gentleman; his blood is pure and ancient as mine or
+thine."
+
+"And we two set store by ancient blood? We have family pride, though one
+of us at least is a republican?"
+
+Yorke bowed as he stood before her. His lips were mute, but his eye
+confessed the impeachment. Yes, he had family pride; you saw it in his
+whole bearing.
+
+"Moore _is_ a gentleman," echoed Shirley, lifting her head with glad
+grace. She checked herself. Words seemed crowding to her tongue. She
+would not give them utterance; but her look spoke much at the moment.
+What, Yorke tried to read, but could not. The language was there,
+visible, but untranslatable--a poem, a fervid lyric, in an unknown
+tongue. It was not a plain story, however, no simple gush of feeling, no
+ordinary love-confession--that was obvious. It was something other,
+deeper, more intricate than he guessed at. He felt his revenge had not
+struck home. He felt that Shirley triumphed. She held him at fault,
+baffled, puzzled. _She_ enjoyed the moment, not _he_.
+
+"And if Moore _is_ a gentleman, you _can_ be only a lady; therefore----"
+
+"Therefore there would be no inequality in our union."
+
+"None."
+
+"Thank you for your approbation. Will you give me away when I relinquish
+the name of Keeldar for that of Moore?"
+
+Mr. Yorke, instead of replying, gazed at her much puzzled. He could not
+divine what her look signified--whether she spoke in earnest or in jest.
+There were purpose and feeling, banter and scoff, playing, mingled, on
+her mobile lineaments.
+
+"I don't understand thee," he said, turning away.
+
+She laughed. "Take courage, sir; you are not singular in your ignorance.
+But I suppose if Moore understands me that will do, will it not?"
+
+"Moore may settle his own matters henceforward for me; I'll neither
+meddle nor make with them further."
+
+A new thought crossed her. Her countenance changed magically. With a
+sudden darkening of the eye and austere fixing of the features she
+demanded, "Have you been asked to interfere? Are you questioning me as
+another's proxy?"
+
+"The Lord save us! Whoever weds thee must look about him! Keep all your
+questions for Robert; I'll answer no more on 'em. Good-day, lassie!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day being fine, or at least fair--for soft clouds curtained the sun,
+and a dim but not chill or waterish haze slept blue on the
+hills--Caroline, while Shirley was engaged with her callers, had
+persuaded Mrs. Pryor to assume her bonnet and summer shawl, and to take
+a walk with her up towards the narrow end of the Hollow.
+
+Here the opposing sides of the glen, approaching each other and becoming
+clothed with brushwood and stunted oaks, formed a wooded ravine, at the
+bottom of which ran the mill-stream, in broken, unquiet course,
+struggling with many stones, chafing against rugged banks, fretting with
+gnarled tree-roots, foaming, gurgling, battling as it went. Here, when
+you had wandered half a mile from the mill, you found a sense of deep
+solitude--found it in the shade of unmolested trees, received it in the
+singing of many birds, for which that shade made a home. This was no
+trodden way. The freshness of the wood flowers attested that foot of man
+seldom pressed them; the abounding wild roses looked as if they budded,
+bloomed, and faded under the watch of solitude, as if in a sultan's
+harem. Here you saw the sweet azure of blue-bells, and recognized in
+pearl-white blossoms, spangling the grass, a humble type of some starlit
+spot in space.
+
+Mrs. Pryor liked a quiet walk. She ever shunned high-roads, and sought
+byways and lonely lanes. One companion she preferred to total solitude,
+for in solitude she was nervous; a vague fear of annoying encounters
+broke the enjoyment of quite lonely rambles. But she feared nothing with
+Caroline. When once she got away from human habitations, and entered
+the still demesne of nature accompanied by this one youthful friend, a
+propitious change seemed to steal over her mind and beam in her
+countenance. When with Caroline--and Caroline only--her heart, you would
+have said, shook off a burden, her brow put aside a veil, her spirits
+too escaped from a restraint. With her she was cheerful; with her, at
+times, she was tender; to her she would impart her knowledge, reveal
+glimpses of her experience, give her opportunities for guessing what
+life she had lived, what cultivation her mind had received, of what
+calibre was her intelligence, how and where her feelings were
+vulnerable.
+
+To-day, for instance, as they walked along, Mrs. Pryor talked to her
+companion about the various birds singing in the trees, discriminated
+their species, and said something about their habits and peculiarities.
+English natural history seemed familiar to her. All the wild flowers
+round their path were recognized by her; tiny plants springing near
+stones and peeping out of chinks in old walls--plants such as Caroline
+had scarcely noticed before--received a name and an intimation of their
+properties. It appeared that she had minutely studied the botany of
+English fields and woods. Having reached the head of the ravine, they
+sat down together on a ledge of gray and mossy rock jutting from the
+base of a steep green hill which towered above them. She looked round
+her, and spoke of the neighbourhood as she had once before seen it long
+ago. She alluded to its changes, and compared its aspect with that of
+other parts of England, revealing in quiet, unconscious touches of
+description a sense of the picturesque, an appreciation of the beautiful
+or commonplace, a power of comparing the wild with the cultured, the
+grand with the tame, that gave to her discourse a graphic charm as
+pleasant as it was unpretending.
+
+The sort of reverent pleasure with which Caroline listened--so sincere,
+so quiet, yet so evident--stirred the elder lady's faculties to gentle
+animation. Rarely, probably, had she, with her chill, repellent outside,
+her diffident mien, and incommunicative habits, known what it was to
+excite in one whom she herself could love feelings of earnest affection
+and admiring esteem. Delightful, doubtless, was the consciousness that a
+young girl towards whom it seemed, judging by the moved expression of
+her eyes and features, her heart turned with almost a fond impulse,
+looked up to her as an instructor, and clung to her as a friend. With a
+somewhat more marked accent of interest than she often permitted herself
+to use, she said, as she bent towards her youthful companion, and put
+aside from her forehead a pale brown curl which had strayed from the
+confining comb, "I do hope this sweet air blowing from the hill will do
+you good, my dear Caroline. I wish I could see something more of colour
+in these cheeks; but perhaps you were never florid?"
+
+"I had red cheeks once," returned Miss Helstone, smiling. "I remember a
+year--two years ago--when I used to look in the glass, I saw a different
+face there to what I see now--rounder and rosier. But when we are
+young," added the girl of eighteen, "our minds are careless and our
+lives easy."
+
+"Do you," continued Mrs. Pryor, mastering by an effort that tyrant
+timidity which made it difficult for her, even under present
+circumstances, to attempt the scrutiny of another's heart--"do you, at
+your age, fret yourself with cares for the future? Believe me, you had
+better not. Let the morrow take thought for the things of itself."
+
+"True, dear madam. It is not over the future I pine. The evil of the day
+is sometimes oppressive--too oppressive--and I long to escape it."
+
+"That is--the evil of the day--that is--your uncle perhaps is not--you
+find it difficult to understand--he does not appreciate----"
+
+Mrs. Pryor could not complete her broken sentences; she could not manage
+to put the question whether Mr. Helstone was too harsh with his niece.
+But Caroline comprehended.
+
+"Oh, that is nothing," she replied. "My uncle and I get on very well. We
+never quarrel--I don't call him harsh--he never scolds me. Sometimes I
+wish somebody in the world loved me, but I cannot say that I
+particularly wish him to have more affection for me than he has. As a
+child, I should perhaps have felt the want of attention, only the
+servants were very kind to me; but when people are long indifferent to
+us, we grow indifferent to their indifference. It is my uncle's way not
+to care for women and girls, unless they be ladies that he meets in
+company. He could not alter, and I have no wish that he should alter, as
+far as I am concerned. I believe it would merely annoy and frighten me
+were he to be affectionate towards me now. But you know, Mrs. Pryor, it
+is scarcely _living_ to measure time as I do at the rectory. The hours
+pass, and I get them over somehow, but I do not _live_. I endure
+existence, but I rarely enjoy it. Since Miss Keeldar and you came I have
+been--I was going to say happier, but that would be untrue." She paused.
+
+"How untrue? You are fond of Miss Keeldar, are you not, my dear?"
+
+"Very fond of Shirley. I both like and admire her. But I am painfully
+circumstanced. For a reason I cannot explain I want to go away from this
+place, and to forget it."
+
+"You told me before you wished to be a governess; but, my dear, if you
+remember, I did not encourage the idea. I have been a governess myself
+great part of my life. In Miss Keeldar's acquaintance I esteem myself
+most fortunate. Her talents and her really sweet disposition have
+rendered my office easy to me; but when I was young, before I married,
+my trials were severe, poignant. I should not like a---- I should not
+like you to endure similar ones. It was my lot to enter a family of
+considerable pretensions to good birth and mental superiority, and the
+members of which also believed that 'on them was perceptible' an unusual
+endowment of the 'Christian graces;' that all their hearts were
+regenerate, and their spirits in a peculiar state of discipline. I was
+early given to understand that 'as I was not their equal,' so I could
+not expect 'to have their sympathy.' It was in no sort concealed from me
+that I was held a 'burden and a restraint in society.' The gentlemen, I
+found, regarded me as a 'tabooed woman,' to whom 'they were interdicted
+from granting the usual privileges of the sex,' and yet 'who annoyed
+them by frequently crossing their path.' The ladies too made it plain
+that they thought me 'a bore.' The servants, it was signified, 'detested
+me;' _why_, I could never clearly comprehend. My pupils, I was told,
+'however much they might love me, and how deep soever the interest I
+might take in them, could not be my friends.' It was intimated that I
+must 'live alone, and never transgress the invisible but rigid line
+which established the difference between me and my employers.' My life
+in this house was sedentary, solitary, constrained, joyless, toilsome.
+The dreadful crushing of the animal spirits, the ever-prevailing sense
+of friendlessness and homelessness consequent on this state of things
+began ere long to produce mortal effects on my constitution. I sickened.
+The lady of the house told me coolly I was the victim of 'wounded
+vanity.' She hinted that if I did not make an effort to quell my
+'ungodly discontent,' to cease 'murmuring against God's appointment,'
+and to cultivate the profound humility befitting my station, my mind
+would very likely 'go to pieces' on the rock that wrecked most of my
+sisterhood--morbid self-esteem--and that I should die an inmate of a
+lunatic asylum.
+
+"I said nothing to Mrs. Hardman--it would have been useless; but to her
+eldest daughter I one day dropped a few observations, which were
+answered thus. There were hardships, she allowed, in the position of a
+governess. 'Doubtless they had their trials; but,' she averred, with a
+manner it makes me smile now to recall--'but it must be so. _She_' (Miss
+H.) 'had neither view, hope, nor _wish_ to see these things remedied;
+for in the inherent constitution of English habits, feelings, and
+prejudices there was no possibility that they should be. Governesses,'
+she observed, 'must ever be kept in a sort of isolation. It is the only
+means of maintaining that distance which the reserve of English manners
+and the decorum of English families exact.'
+
+"I remember I sighed as Miss Hardman quitted my bedside. She caught the
+sound, and turning, said severely, 'I fear, Miss Grey, you have
+inherited in fullest measure the worst sin of our fallen nature--the sin
+of pride. You are proud, and therefore you are ungrateful too. Mamma
+pays you a handsome salary, and if you had average sense you would
+thankfully put up with much that is fatiguing to do and irksome to bear,
+since it is so well made worth your while.'
+
+"Miss Hardman, my love, was a very strong-minded young lady, of most
+distinguished talents. The aristocracy are decidedly a very superior
+class, you know, both physically, and morally, and mentally; as a high
+Tory I acknowledge that. I could not describe the dignity of her voice
+and mien as she addressed me thus; still, I fear she was selfish, my
+dear. I would never wish to speak ill of my superiors in rank, but I
+think she was a little selfish."
+
+"I remember," continued Mrs. Pryor, after a pause, "another of Miss H.'s
+observations, which she would utter with quite a grand air. 'WE,' she
+would say--'WE need the imprudences, extravagances, mistakes, and crimes
+of a certain number of fathers to sow the seed from which WE reap the
+harvest of governesses. The daughters of trades-people, however well
+educated, must necessarily be underbred, and as such unfit to be
+inmates of OUR dwellings, or guardians of OUR children's minds and
+persons. WE shall ever prefer to place those about OUR offspring who
+have been born and bred with somewhat of the same refinement as
+OURSELVES.'"
+
+"Miss Hardman must have thought herself something better than her
+fellow-creatures, ma'am, since she held that their calamities, and even
+crimes, were necessary to minister to her convenience. You say she was
+religious. Her religion must have been that of the Pharisee who thanked
+God that he was not as other men are, nor even as that publican."
+
+"My dear, we will not discuss the point. I should be the last person to
+wish to instil into your mind any feeling of dissatisfaction with your
+lot in life, or any sentiment of envy or insubordination towards your
+superiors. Implicit submission to authorities, scrupulous deference to
+our betters (under which term I, of course, include the higher classes
+of society), are, in my opinion, indispensable to the well-being of
+every community. All I mean to say, my dear, is that you had better not
+attempt to be a governess, as the duties of the position would be too
+severe for your constitution. Not one word of disrespect would I breathe
+towards either Mrs. or Miss Hardman; only, recalling my own experience,
+I cannot but feel that, were you to fall under auspices such as theirs,
+you would contend a while courageously with your doom, then you would
+pine and grow too weak for your work; you would come home--if you still
+had a home--broken down. Those languishing years would follow of which
+none but the invalid and her immediate friends feel the heart-sickness
+and know the burden. Consumption or decline would close the chapter.
+Such is the history of many a life. I would not have it yours. My dear,
+we will now walk about a little, if you please."
+
+They both rose, and slowly paced a green natural terrace bordering the
+chasm.
+
+"My dear," ere long again began Mrs. Pryor, a sort of timid, embarrassed
+abruptness marking her manner as she spoke, "the young, especially those
+to whom nature has been favourable, often--frequently--anticipate--look
+forward to--to marriage as the end, the goal of their hopes."
+
+And she stopped. Caroline came to her relief with promptitude, showing a
+great deal more self-possession and courage than herself on the
+formidable topic now broached.
+
+"They do, and naturally," she replied, with a calm emphasis that
+startled Mrs. Pryor. "They look forward to marriage with some one they
+love as the brightest, the only bright destiny that can await them. Are
+they wrong?"
+
+"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Pryor, clasping her hands; and again she
+paused. Caroline turned a searching, an eager eye on the face of her
+friend: that face was much agitated. "My dear," she murmured, "life is
+an illusion."
+
+"But not love! Love is real--the most real, the most lasting, the
+sweetest and yet the bitterest thing we know."
+
+"My dear, it is very bitter. It is said to be strong--strong as death!
+Most of the cheats of existence are strong. As to their sweetness,
+nothing is so transitory; its date is a moment, the twinkling of an eye.
+The sting remains for ever. It may perish with the dawn of eternity, but
+it tortures through time into its deepest night."
+
+"Yes, it tortures through time," agreed Caroline, "except when it is
+mutual love."
+
+"Mutual love! My dear, romances are pernicious. You do not read them, I
+hope?"
+
+"Sometimes--whenever I can get them, indeed. But romance-writers might
+know nothing of love, judging by the way in which they treat of it."
+
+"Nothing whatever, my dear," assented Mrs. Pryor eagerly, "nor of
+marriage; and the false pictures they give of those subjects cannot be
+too strongly condemned. They are not like reality. They show you only
+the green, tempting surface of the marsh, and give not one faithful or
+truthful hint of the slough underneath."
+
+"But it is not always slough," objected Caroline. "There are happy
+marriages. Where affection is reciprocal and sincere, and minds are
+harmonious, marriage _must_ be happy."
+
+"It is never wholly happy. Two people can never literally be as one.
+There is, perhaps, a possibility of content under peculiar
+circumstances, such as are seldom combined; but it is as well not to run
+the risk--you may make fatal mistakes. Be satisfied, my dear. Let all
+the single be satisfied with their freedom."
+
+"You echo my uncle's words!" exclaimed Caroline, in a tone of dismay.
+"You speak like Mrs. Yorke in her most gloomy moments, like Miss Mann
+when she is most sourly and hypochondriacally disposed. This is
+terrible!"
+
+"No, it is only true. O child, you have only lived the pleasant morning
+time of life; the hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night,
+are yet to come for you. Mr. Helstone, you say, talks as I talk; and I
+wonder how Mrs. Matthewson Helstone would have talked had she been
+living. She died! she died!"
+
+"And, alas! my own mother and father----" exclaimed Caroline, struck by
+a sombre recollection.
+
+"What of them?"
+
+"Did I never tell you that they were separated?"
+
+"I have heard it."
+
+"They must, then, have been very miserable."
+
+"You see all _facts_ go to prove what I say."
+
+"In this case there ought to be no such thing as marriage."
+
+"There ought, my dear, were it only to prove that this life is a mere
+state of probation, wherein neither rest nor recompense is to be
+vouchsafed."
+
+"But your own marriage, Mrs. Pryor?"
+
+Mrs. Pryor shrank and shuddered as if a rude finger had pressed a naked
+nerve. Caroline felt she had touched what would not bear the slightest
+contact.
+
+"My marriage was unhappy," said the lady, summoning courage at last;
+"but yet----" She hesitated.
+
+"But yet," suggested Caroline, "not immitigably wretched?"
+
+"Not in its results, at least. No," she added, in a softer tone; "God
+mingles something of the balm of mercy even in vials of the most
+corrosive woe. He can so turn events that from the very same blind, rash
+act whence sprang the curse of half our life may flow the blessing of
+the remainder. Then I am of a peculiar disposition--I own that--far from
+facile, without address, in some points eccentric. I ought never to have
+married. Mine is not the nature easily to find a duplicate or likely to
+assimilate with a contrast. I was quite aware of my own ineligibility;
+and if I had not been so miserable as a governess, I never should have
+married; and then----"
+
+Caroline's eyes asked her to proceed. They entreated her to break the
+thick cloud of despair which her previous words had seemed to spread
+over life.
+
+"And then, my dear, Mr.--that is, the gentleman I married--was, perhaps,
+rather an exceptional than an average character. I hope, at least, the
+experience of few has been such as mine was, or that few have felt their
+sufferings as I felt mine. They nearly shook my mind; relief was so
+hopeless, redress so unattainable. But, my dear, I do not wish to
+dishearten; I only wish to warn you, and to prove that the single should
+not be too anxious to change their state, as they may change for the
+worse."
+
+"Thank you, my dear madam. I quite understand your kind intentions, but
+there is no fear of my falling into the error to which you allude. I, at
+least, have no thoughts of marriage, and for that reason I want to make
+myself a position by some other means."
+
+"My dear, listen to me. On what I am going to say I have carefully
+deliberated, having, indeed, revolved the subject in my thoughts ever
+since you first mentioned your wish to obtain a situation. You know I at
+present reside with Miss Keeldar in the capacity of companion. Should
+she marry (and that she _will_ marry ere long many circumstances induce
+me to conclude), I shall cease to be necessary to her in that capacity.
+I must tell you that I possess a small independency, arising partly from
+my own savings, and partly from a legacy left me some years since.
+Whenever I leave Fieldhead I shall take a house of my own. I could not
+endure to live in solitude. I have no relations whom I care to invite to
+close intimacy; for, as you must have observed, and as I have already
+avowed, my habits and tastes have their peculiarities. To you, my dear,
+I need not say I am attached; with you I am happier than I have ever
+been with any living thing" (this was said with marked emphasis). "Your
+society I should esteem a very dear privilege--an inestimable privilege,
+a comfort, a blessing. You shall come to me, then. Caroline, do you
+refuse me? I hope you can love me?"
+
+And with these two abrupt questions she stopped.
+
+"Indeed, I _do_ love you," was the reply. "I should like to live with
+you. But you are too kind."
+
+"All I have," went on Mrs. Pryor, "I would leave to you. You should be
+provided for. But never again say I am _too kind_. You pierce my heart,
+child!"
+
+"But, my dear madam--this generosity--I have no claim----"
+
+"Hush! you must not talk about it. There are some things we cannot bear
+to hear. Oh! it is late to begin, but I may yet live a few years. I can
+never wipe out the past, but perhaps a brief space in the future may
+yet be mine."
+
+Mrs. Pryor seemed deeply agitated. Large tears trembled in her eyes and
+rolled down her cheeks. Caroline kissed her, in her gentle, caressing
+way, saying softly, "I love you dearly. Don't cry."
+
+But the lady's whole frame seemed shaken. She sat down, bent her head to
+her knee, and wept aloud. Nothing could console her till the inward
+storm had had its way. At last the agony subsided of itself.
+
+"Poor thing!" she murmured, returning Caroline's kiss, "poor lonely
+lamb! But come," she added abruptly--"come; we must go home."
+
+For a short distance Mrs. Pryor walked very fast. By degrees, however,
+she calmed down to her wonted manner, fell into her usual characteristic
+pace--a peculiar one, like all her movements--and by the time they
+reached Fieldhead she had re-entered into herself. The outside was, as
+usual, still and shy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+TWO LIVES.
+
+
+Only half of Moore's activity and resolution had been seen in his
+defence of the mill; he showed the other half (and a terrible half it
+was) in the indefatigable, the relentless assiduity with which he
+pursued the leaders of the riot. The mob, the mere followers, he let
+alone. Perhaps an innate sense of justice told him that men misled by
+false counsel and goaded by privations are not fit objects of vengeance,
+and that he who would visit an even violent act on the bent head of
+suffering is a tyrant, not a judge. At all events, though he knew many
+of the number, having recognized them during the latter part of the
+attack when day began to dawn, he let them daily pass him on street and
+road without notice or threat.
+
+The leaders he did not know. They were strangers--emissaries from the
+large towns. Most of these were not members of the operative class. They
+were chiefly "down-draughts," bankrupts, men always in debt and often in
+drink, men who had nothing to lose, and much, in the way of character,
+cash, and cleanliness, to gain. These persons Moore hunted like any
+sleuth-hound, and well he liked the occupation. Its excitement was of a
+kind pleasant to his nature. He liked it better than making cloth.
+
+His horse must have hated these times, for it was ridden both hard and
+often. He almost lived on the road, and the fresh air was as welcome to
+his lungs as the policeman's quest to his mood; he preferred it to the
+steam of dye-houses. The magistrates of the district must have dreaded
+him. They were slow, timid men; he liked both to frighten and to rouse
+them. He liked to force them to betray a certain fear, which made them
+alike falter in resolve and recoil in action--the fear, simply, of
+assassination. This, indeed, was the dread which had hitherto hampered
+every manufacturer and almost every public man in the district. Helstone
+alone had ever repelled it. The old Cossack knew well he might be shot.
+He knew there was risk; but such death had for his nerves no terrors. It
+would have been his chosen, might he have had a choice.
+
+Moore likewise knew his danger. The result was an unquenchable scorn of
+the quarter whence such danger was to be apprehended. The consciousness
+that he hunted assassins was the spur in his high-mettled temper's
+flank. As for fear, he was too proud, too hard-natured (if you will),
+too phlegmatic a man to fear. Many a time he rode belated over the
+moors, moonlit or moonless as the case might be, with feelings far more
+elate, faculties far better refreshed, than when safety and stagnation
+environed him in the counting-house. Four was the number of the leaders
+to be accounted for. Two, in the course of a fortnight, were brought to
+bay near Stilbro'; the remaining two it was necessary to seek farther
+off. Their haunts were supposed to lie near Birmingham.
+
+Meantime the clothier did not neglect his battered mill. Its reparation
+was esteemed a light task, carpenters' and glaziers' work alone being
+needed. The rioters not having succeeded in effecting an entrance, his
+grim metal darlings--the machines--had escaped damage.
+
+Whether during this busy life--whether while stern justice and exacting
+business claimed his energies and harassed his thoughts--he now and then
+gave one moment, dedicated one effort, to keep alive gentler fires than
+those which smoulder in the fane of Nemesis, it was not easy to
+discover. He seldom went near Fieldhead; if he did, his visits were
+brief. If he called at the rectory, it was only to hold conferences with
+the rector in his study. He maintained his rigid course very steadily.
+Meantime the history of the year continued troubled. There was no lull
+in the tempest of war; her long hurricane still swept the Continent.
+There was not the faintest sign of serene weather, no opening amid "the
+clouds of battle-dust and smoke," no fall of pure dews genial to the
+olive, no cessation of the red rain which nourishes the baleful and
+glorious laurel. Meantime, Ruin had her sappers and miners at work under
+Moore's feet, and whether he rode or walked, whether he only crossed his
+counting-house hearth or galloped over sullen Rushedge, he was aware of
+a hollow echo, and felt the ground shake to his tread.
+
+While the summer thus passed with Moore, how did it lapse with Shirley
+and Caroline? Let us first visit the heiress. How does she look? Like a
+love-lorn maiden, pale and pining for a neglectful swain? Does she sit
+the day long bent over some sedentary task? Has she for ever a book in
+her hand, or sewing on her knee, and eyes only for that, and words for
+nothing, and thoughts unspoken?
+
+By no means. Shirley is all right. If her wistful cast of physiognomy is
+not gone, no more is her careless smile. She keeps her dark old
+manor-house light and bright with her cheery presence. The gallery and
+the low-ceiled chambers that open into it have learned lively echoes
+from her voice; the dim entrance-hall, with its one window, has grown
+pleasantly accustomed to the frequent rustle of a silk dress, as its
+wearer sweeps across from room to room, now carrying flowers to the
+barbarous peach-bloom salon, now entering the dining-room to open its
+casements and let in the scent of mignonette and sweet-briar, anon
+bringing plants from the staircase window to place in the sun at the
+open porch door.
+
+She takes her sewing occasionally; but, by some fatality, she is doomed
+never to sit steadily at it for above five minutes at a time. Her
+thimble is scarcely fitted on, her needle scarce threaded, when a sudden
+thought calls her upstairs. Perhaps she goes to seek some
+just-then-remembered old ivory-backed needle-book or older china-topped
+work-box, quite unneeded, but which seems at the moment indispensable;
+perhaps to arrange her hair, or a drawer which she recollects to have
+seen that morning in a state of curious confusion; perhaps only to take
+a peep from a particular window at a particular view, whence Briarfield
+church and rectory are visible, pleasantly bowered in trees. She has
+scarcely returned, and again taken up the slip of cambric or square of
+half-wrought canvas, when Tartar's bold scrape and strangled whistle are
+heard at the porch door, and she must run to open it for him. It is a
+hot day; he comes in panting; she must convoy him to the kitchen, and
+see with her own eyes that his water-bowl is replenished. Through the
+open kitchen door the court is visible, all sunny and gay, and peopled
+with turkeys and their poults, peahens and their chicks, pearl-flecked
+Guinea-fowls, and a bright variety of pure white, and purple-necked, and
+blue and cinnamon plumed pigeons. Irresistible spectacle to Shirley! She
+runs to the pantry for a roll, and she stands on the door step
+scattering crumbs. Around her throng her eager, plump, happy feathered
+vassals. John is about the stables, and John must be talked to, and her
+mare looked at. She is still petting and patting it when the cows come
+in to be milked. This is important; Shirley must stay and take a review
+of them all. There are perhaps some little calves, some little
+new-yeaned lambs--it may be twins, whose mothers have rejected them.
+Miss Keeldar must be introduced to them by John, must permit herself the
+treat of feeding them with her own hand, under the direction of her
+careful foreman. Meantime John moots doubtful questions about the
+farming of certain "crofts," and "ings," and "holmes," and his mistress
+is necessitated to fetch her garden-hat--a gipsy straw--and accompany
+him, over stile and along hedgerow, to hear the conclusion of the whole
+agricultural matter on the spot, and with the said "crofts," "ings," and
+"holms" under her eye. Bright afternoon thus wears into soft evening,
+and she comes home to a late tea, and after tea she never sews.
+
+After tea Shirley reads, and she is just about as tenacious of her book
+as she is lax of her needle. Her study is the rug, her seat a footstool,
+or perhaps only the carpet at Mrs. Pryor's feet: there she always
+learned her lessons when a child, and old habits have a strong power
+over her. The tawny and lionlike bulk of Tartar is ever stretched beside
+her, his negro muzzle laid on his fore paws--straight, strong, and
+shapely as the limbs of an Alpine wolf. One hand of the mistress
+generally reposes on the loving serf's rude head, because if she takes
+it away he groans and is discontented. Shirley's mind is given to her
+book. She lifts not her eyes; she neither stirs nor speaks--unless,
+indeed, it be to return a brief respectful answer to Mrs. Pryor, who
+addresses deprecatory phrases to her now and then.
+
+"My dear, you had better not have that great dog so near you; he is
+crushing the border of your dress."
+
+"Oh, it is only muslin. I can put a clean one on to-morrow."
+
+"My dear, I wish you could acquire the habit of sitting to a table when
+you read."
+
+"I will try, ma'am, some time; but it is so comfortable to do as one has
+always been accustomed to do."
+
+"My dear, let me beg of you to put that book down. You are trying your
+eyes by the doubtful firelight."
+
+"No, ma'am, not at all; my eyes are never tired."
+
+At last, however, a pale light falls on the page from the window. She
+looks; the moon is up. She closes the volume, rises, and walks through
+the room. Her book has perhaps been a good one; it has refreshed,
+refilled, rewarmed her heart; it has set her brain astir, furnished her
+mind with pictures. The still parlour, the clean hearth, the window
+opening on the twilight sky, and showing its "sweet regent," new throned
+and glorious, suffice to make earth an Eden, life a poem, for Shirley. A
+still, deep, inborn delight glows in her young veins, unmingled,
+untroubled, not to be reached or ravished by human agency, because by no
+human agency bestowed--the pure gift of God to His creature, the free
+dower of Nature to her child. This joy gives her experience of a
+genii-life. Buoyant, by green steps, by glad hills, all verdure and
+light, she reaches a station scarcely lower than that whence angels
+looked down on the dreamer of Bethel, and her eye seeks, and her soul
+possesses, the vision of life as she wishes it. No, not as she wishes
+it; she has not time to wish. The swift glory spreads out, sweeping and
+kindling, and multiplies its splendours faster than Thought can effect
+his combinations, faster than Aspiration can utter her longings. Shirley
+says nothing while the trance is upon her--she is quite mute; but if
+Mrs. Pryor speaks to her now, she goes out quietly, and continues her
+walk upstairs in the dim gallery.
+
+If Shirley were not an indolent, a reckless, an ignorant being, she
+would take a pen at such moments, or at least while the recollection of
+such moments was yet fresh on her spirit. She would seize, she would fix
+the apparition, tell the vision revealed. Had she a little more of the
+organ of acquisitiveness in her head, a little more of the love of
+property in her nature, she would take a good-sized sheet of paper and
+write plainly out, in her own queer but clear and legible hand, the
+story that has been narrated, the song that has been sung to her, and
+thus possess what she was enabled to create. But indolent she is,
+reckless she is, and most ignorant; for she does not know her dreams are
+rare, her feelings peculiar. She does not know, has never known, and
+will die without knowing, the full value of that spring whose bright
+fresh bubbling in her heart keeps it green.
+
+Shirley takes life easily. Is not that fact written in her eye? In her
+good-tempered moments is it not as full of lazy softness as in her brief
+fits of anger it is fulgent with quick-flashing fire? Her nature is in
+her eye. So long as she is calm, indolence, indulgence, humour, and
+tenderness possess that large gray sphere; incense her, a red ray
+pierces the dew, it quickens instantly to flame.
+
+Ere the month of July was past, Miss Keeldar would probably have started
+with Caroline on that northern tour they had planned; but just at that
+epoch an invasion befell Fieldhead. A genteel foraging party besieged
+Shirley in her castle, and compelled her to surrender at discretion. An
+uncle, an aunt, and two cousins from the south--a Mr., Mrs., and two
+Misses Sympson, of Sympson Grove, ----shire--came down upon her in
+state. The laws of hospitality obliged her to give in, which she did
+with a facility which somewhat surprised Caroline, who knew her to be
+prompt in action and fertile in expedient where a victory was to be
+gained for her will. Miss Helstone even asked her how it was she
+submitted so readily. She answered, old feelings had their power; she
+had passed two years of her early youth at Sympson Grove.
+
+"How did she like her relatives?"
+
+She had nothing in common with them, she replied. Little Harry Sympson,
+indeed, the sole son of the family, was very unlike his sisters, and of
+him she had formerly been fond; but he was not coming to Yorkshire--at
+least not yet.
+
+The next Sunday the Fieldhead pew in Briarfield Church appeared peopled
+with a prim, trim, fidgety, elderly gentleman, who shifted his
+spectacles, and changed his position every three minutes; a patient,
+placid-looking elderly lady in brown satin; and two pattern young
+ladies, in pattern attire, with pattern deportment. Shirley had the air
+of a black swan or a white crow in the midst of this party, and very
+forlorn was her aspect. Having brought her into respectable society, we
+will leave her there a while, and look after Miss Helstone.
+
+Separated from Miss Keeldar for the present, as she could not seek her
+in the midst of her fine relatives, scared away from Fieldhead by the
+visiting commotion which the new arrivals occasioned in the
+neighbourhood, Caroline was limited once more to the gray rectory, the
+solitary morning walk in remote by-paths, the long, lonely afternoon
+sitting in a quiet parlour which the sun forsook at noon, or in the
+garden alcove where it shone bright, yet sad, on the ripening red
+currants trained over the trellis, and on the fair monthly roses
+entwined between, and through them fell chequered on Caroline sitting in
+her white summer dress, still as a garden statue. There she read old
+books, taken from her uncle's library. The Greek and Latin were of no
+use to her, and its collection of light literature was chiefly contained
+on a shelf which had belonged to her aunt Mary--some venerable Lady's
+Magazines, that had once performed a sea-voyage with their owner, and
+undergone a storm, and whose pages were stained with salt water; some
+mad Methodist Magazines, full of miracles and apparitions, of
+preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticism; the
+equally mad letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the Living;
+a few old English classics. From these faded flowers Caroline had in her
+childhood extracted the honey; they were tasteless to her now. By way of
+change, and also of doing good, she would sew--make garments for the
+poor, according to good Miss Ainley's direction. Sometimes, as she felt
+and saw her tears fall slowly on her work, she would wonder how the
+excellent woman who had cut it out and arranged it for her managed to be
+so equably serene in _her_ solitude.
+
+"I never find Miss Ainley oppressed with despondency or lost in grief,"
+she thought; "yet her cottage is a still, dim little place, and she is
+without a bright hope or near friend in the world. I remember, though,
+she told me once she had tutored her thoughts to tend upwards to heaven.
+She allowed there was, and ever had been, little enjoyment in this world
+for her, and she looks, I suppose, to the bliss of the world to come. So
+do nuns, with their close cell, their iron lamp, their robe strait as a
+shroud, their bed narrow as a coffin. She says often she has no fear of
+death--no dread of the grave; no more, doubtless, had St. Simeon
+Stylites, lifted up terrible on his wild column in the wilderness; no
+more has the Hindu votary stretched on his couch of iron spikes. Both
+these having violated nature, their natural likings and antipathies are
+reversed; they grow altogether morbid. I do fear death as yet, but I
+believe it is because I am young. Poor Miss Ainley would cling closer to
+life if life had more charms for her. God surely did not create us and
+cause us to live with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe
+in my heart we were intended to prize life and enjoy it so long as we
+retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless,
+blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is
+becoming to me among the rest.
+
+"Nobody," she went on--"nobody in particular is to blame, that I can
+see, for the state in which things are; and I cannot tell, however much
+I puzzle over it, how they are to be altered for the better; but I feel
+there is something wrong somewhere. I believe single women should have
+more to do--better chances of interesting and profitable occupation than
+they possess now. And when I speak thus I have no impression that I
+displease God by my words; that I am either impious or impatient,
+irreligious or sacrilegious. My consolation is, indeed, that God hears
+many a groan, and compassionates much grief which man stops his ears
+against, or frowns on with impotent contempt. I say _impotent_, for I
+observe that to such grievances as society cannot readily cure it
+usually forbids utterance, on pain of its scorn, this scorn being only a
+sort of tinselled cloak to its deformed weakness. People hate to be
+reminded of ills they are unable or unwilling to remedy. Such reminder,
+in forcing on them a sense of their own incapacity, or a more painful
+sense of an obligation to make some unpleasant effort, troubles their
+ease and shakes their self-complacency. Old maids, like the houseless
+and unemployed poor, should not ask for a place and an occupation in the
+world; the demand disturbs the happy and rich--it disturbs parents. Look
+at the numerous families of girls in this neighbourhood--the Armitages,
+the Birtwhistles, the Sykeses. The brothers of these girls are every one
+in business or in professions; they have something to do. Their sisters
+have no earthly employment but household work and sewing, no earthly
+pleasure but an unprofitable visiting, and no hope, in all their life to
+come, of anything better. This stagnant state of things makes them
+decline in health. They are never well, and their minds and views shrink
+to wondrous narrowness. The great wish, the sole aim of every one of
+them is to be married, but the majority will never marry; they will die
+as they now live. They scheme, they plot, they dress to ensnare
+husbands. The gentlemen turn them into ridicule; they don't want them;
+they hold them very cheap. They say--I have heard them say it with
+sneering laughs many a time--the matrimonial market is overstocked.
+Fathers say so likewise, and are angry with their daughters when they
+observe their manœuvres--they order them to stay at home. What do they
+expect them to do at home? If you ask, they would answer, sew and cook.
+They expect them to do this, and this only, contentedly, regularly,
+uncomplainingly, all their lives long, as if they had no germs of
+faculties for anything else--a doctrine as reasonable to hold as it
+would be that the fathers have no faculties but for eating what their
+daughters cook or for wearing what they sew. Could men live so
+themselves? Would they not be very weary? And when there came no relief
+to their weariness, but only reproaches at its slightest manifestation,
+would not their weariness ferment in time to frenzy? Lucretia, spinning
+at midnight in the midst of her maidens, and Solomon's virtuous woman
+are often quoted as patterns of what 'the sex,' as they say, ought to
+be. I don't know. Lucretia, I dare say, was a most worthy sort of
+person, much like my cousin Hortense Moore; but she kept her servants up
+very late. I should not have liked to be amongst the number of the
+maidens. Hortense would just work me and Sarah in that fashion, if she
+could, and neither of us would bear it. The 'virtuous woman,' again, had
+her household up in the very middle of the night; she 'got breakfast
+over,' as Mrs. Sykes says, before one o'clock a.m.; but _she_ had
+something more to do than spin and give out portions. She was a
+manufacturer--she made fine linen and sold it; she was an
+agriculturist--she bought estates and planted vineyards. _That_ woman
+was a manager. She was what the matrons hereabouts call 'a clever
+woman.' On the whole, I like her a good deal better than Lucretia; but I
+don't believe either Mr. Armitage or Mr. Sykes could have got the
+advantage of her in a bargain. Yet I like her. 'Strength and honour were
+her clothing; the heart of her husband safely trusted in her. She opened
+her mouth with wisdom; in her tongue was the law of kindness; her
+children rose up and called her blessed; her husband also praised her.'
+King of Israel! your model of a woman is a worthy model! But are we, in
+these days, brought up to be like her? Men of Yorkshire! do your
+daughters reach this royal standard? Can they reach it? Can you help
+them to reach it? Can you give them a field in which their faculties may
+be exercised and grow? Men of England! look at your poor girls, many of
+them fading around you, dropping off in consumption or decline; or, what
+is worse, degenerating to sour old maids--envious, back-biting,
+wretched, because life is a desert to them; or, what is worst of all,
+reduced to strive, by scarce modest coquetry and debasing artifice, to
+gain that position and consideration by marriage which to celibacy is
+denied. Fathers! cannot you alter these things? Perhaps not all at once;
+but consider the matter well when it is brought before you, receive it
+as a theme worthy of thought; do not dismiss it with an idle jest or an
+unmanly insult. You would wish to be proud of your daughters, and not to
+blush for them; then seek for them an interest and an occupation which
+shall raise them above the flirt, the manœuvrer, the mischief-making
+tale-bearer. Keep your girls' minds narrow and fettered; they will still
+be a plague and a care, sometimes a disgrace to you. Cultivate
+them--give them scope and work; they will be your gayest companions in
+health, your tenderest nurses in sickness, your most faithful prop in
+age."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+AN EVENING OUT.
+
+
+One fine summer day that Caroline had spent entirely alone (her uncle
+being at Whinbury), and whose long, bright, noiseless, breezeless,
+cloudless hours (how many they seemed since sunrise!) had been to her as
+desolate as if they had gone over her head in the shadowless and
+trackless wastes of Sahara, instead of in the blooming garden of an
+English home, she was sitting in the alcove--her task of work on her
+knee, her fingers assiduously plying the needle, her eyes following and
+regulating their movements, her brain working restlessly--when Fanny
+came to the door, looked round over the lawn and borders, and not seeing
+her whom she sought, called out, "Miss Caroline!"
+
+A low voice answered "Fanny!" It issued from the alcove, and thither
+Fanny hastened, a note in her hand, which she delivered to fingers that
+hardly seemed to have nerve to hold it. Miss Helstone did not ask whence
+it came, and she did not look at it; she let it drop amongst the folds
+of her work.
+
+"Joe Scott's son, Harry, brought it," said Fanny.
+
+The girl was no enchantress, and knew no magic spell; yet what she said
+took almost magical effect on her young mistress. She lifted her head
+with the quick motion of revived sensation; she shot, not a languid, but
+a lifelike, questioning glance at Fanny.
+
+"Harry Scott! who sent him?"
+
+"He came from the Hollow."
+
+The dropped note was snatched up eagerly, the seal was broken--it was
+read in two seconds. An affectionate billet from Hortense, informing her
+young cousin that she was returned from Wormwood Wells; that she was
+alone to-day, as Robert was gone to Whinbury market; that nothing would
+give her greater pleasure than to have Caroline's company to tea, and
+the good lady added, she was quite sure such a change would be most
+acceptable and beneficial to Caroline, who must be sadly at a loss both
+for safe guidance and improving society since the misunderstanding
+between Robert and Mr. Helstone had occasioned a separation from her
+"meilleure amie, Hortense Gérard Moore." In a postscript she was urged
+to put on her bonnet and run down directly.
+
+Caroline did not need the injunction. Glad was she to lay by the brown
+holland child's slip she was trimming with braid for the Jew's basket,
+to hasten upstairs, cover her curls with her straw bonnet, and throw
+round her shoulders the black silk scarf, whose simple drapery suited as
+well her shape as its dark hue set off the purity of her dress and the
+fairness of her face; glad was she to escape for a few hours the
+solitude, the sadness, the nightmare of her life; glad to run down the
+green lane sloping to the Hollow, to scent the fragrance of hedge
+flowers sweeter than the perfume of moss-rose or lily. True, she knew
+Robert was not at the cottage; but it was delight to go where he had
+lately been. So long, so totally separated from him, merely to see his
+home, to enter the room where he had that morning sat, felt like a
+reunion. As such it revived her; and then Illusion was again following
+her in Peri mask. The soft agitation of wings caressed her cheek, and
+the air, breathing from the blue summer sky, bore a voice which
+whispered, "Robert may come home while you are in his house, and then,
+at least, you may look in his face--at least you may give him your hand;
+perhaps, for a minute, you may sit beside him."
+
+"Silence!" was her austere response; but she loved the comforter and the
+consolation.
+
+Miss Moore probably caught from the window the gleam and flutter of
+Caroline's white attire through the branchy garden shrubs, for she
+advanced from the cottage porch to meet her. Straight, unbending,
+phlegmatic as usual, she came on. No haste or ecstasy was ever permitted
+to disorder the dignity of _her_ movements; but she smiled, well pleased
+to mark the delight of her pupil, to feel her kiss and the gentle,
+genial strain of her embrace. She led her tenderly in, half deceived and
+wholly flattered. Half deceived! had it not been so she would in all
+probability have put her to the wicket, and shut her out. Had she known
+clearly to whose account the chief share of this childlike joy was to be
+placed, Hortense would most likely have felt both shocked and incensed.
+Sisters do not like young ladies to fall in love with their brothers.
+It seems, if not presumptuous, silly, weak, a delusion, an absurd
+mistake. _They_ do not love these gentlemen--whatever sisterly affection
+they may cherish towards them--and that others should, repels them with
+a sense of crude romance. The first movement, in short, excited by such
+discovery (as with many parents on finding their children to be in love)
+is one of mixed impatience and contempt. Reason--if they be rational
+people--corrects the false feeling in time; but if they be irrational,
+it is never corrected, and the daughter or sister-in-law is disliked to
+the end.
+
+"You would expect to find me alone, from what I said in my note,"
+observed Miss Moore, as she conducted Caroline towards the parlour; "but
+it was written this morning: since dinner, company has come in."
+
+And opening the door she made visible an ample spread of crimson skirts
+overflowing the elbow-chair at the fireside, and above them, presiding
+with dignity, a cap more awful than a crown. That cap had never come to
+the cottage under a bonnet; no, it had been brought in a vast bag, or
+rather a middle-sized balloon of black silk, held wide with whalebone.
+The screed, or frill of the cap, stood a quarter of a yard broad round
+the face of the wearer. The ribbon, flourishing in puffs and bows about
+the head, was of the sort called love-ribbon. There was a good deal of
+it, I may say, a very great deal. Mrs. Yorke wore the cap--it became
+her; she wore the gown also--it suited her no less.
+
+That great lady was come in a friendly way to take tea with Miss Moore.
+It was almost as great and as rare a favour as if the queen were to go
+uninvited to share pot-luck with one of her subjects. A higher mark of
+distinction she could not show--she who in general scorned visiting and
+tea-drinking, and held cheap and stigmatized as "gossips" every maid and
+matron of the vicinage.
+
+There was no mistake, however; Miss Moore _was_ a favourite with her.
+She had evinced the fact more than once--evinced it by stopping to speak
+to her in the churchyard on Sundays; by inviting her, almost hospitably,
+to come to Briarmains; evinced it to-day by the grand condescension of a
+personal visit. Her reasons for the preference, as assigned by herself,
+were that Miss Moore was a woman of steady deportment, without the least
+levity of conversation or carriage; also that, being a foreigner, she
+must feel the want of a friend to countenance her. She might have added
+that her plain aspect, homely, precise dress, and phlegmatic,
+unattractive manner were to her so many additional recommendations. It
+is certain, at least, that ladies remarkable for the opposite qualities
+of beauty, lively bearing, and elegant taste in attire were not often
+favoured with her approbation. Whatever gentlemen are apt to admire in
+women, Mrs. Yorke condemned; and what they overlook or despise, she
+patronized.
+
+Caroline advanced to the mighty matron with some sense of diffidence.
+She knew little of Mrs. Yorke, and, as a parson's niece, was doubtful
+what sort of a reception she might get. She got a very cool one, and was
+glad to hide her discomfiture by turning away to take off her bonnet.
+Nor, upon sitting down, was she displeased to be immediately accosted by
+a little personage in a blue frock and sash, who started up like some
+fairy from the side of the great dame's chair, where she had been
+sitting on a footstool, screened from view by the folds of the wide red
+gown, and running to Miss Helstone, unceremoniously threw her arms round
+her neck and demanded a kiss.
+
+"My mother is not civil to you," said the petitioner, as she received
+and repaid a smiling salute, "and Rose there takes no notice of you; it
+is their way. If, instead of you, a white angel, with a crown of stars,
+had come into the room, mother would nod stiffly, and Rose never lift
+her head at all; but I will be your friend--I have always liked you."
+
+"Jessie, curb that tongue of yours, and repress your forwardness!" said
+Mrs. Yorke.
+
+"But, mother, you are so frozen!" expostulated Jessie. "Miss Helstone
+has never done you any harm; why can't you be kind to her? You sit so
+stiff, and look so cold, and speak so dry--what for? That's just the
+fashion in which you treat Miss Shirley Keeldar and every other young
+lady who comes to our house. And Rose there is such an aut--aut--I have
+forgotten the word, but it means a machine in the shape of a human
+being. However, between you, you will drive every soul away from
+Briarmains; Martin often says so."
+
+"I am an automaton? Good! Let me alone, then," said Rose, speaking from
+a corner where she was sitting on the carpet at the foot of a bookcase,
+with a volume spread open on her knee.--"Miss Helstone, how do you do?"
+she added, directing a brief glance to the person addressed, and then
+again casting down her gray, remarkable eyes on the book and returning
+to the study of its pages.
+
+Caroline stole a quiet gaze towards her, dwelling on her young, absorbed
+countenance, and observing a certain unconscious movement of the mouth
+as she read--a movement full of character. Caroline had tact, and she
+had fine instinct. She felt that Rose Yorke was a peculiar child--one of
+the unique; she knew how to treat her. Approaching quietly, she knelt on
+the carpet at her side, and looked over her little shoulder at her book.
+It was a romance of Mrs. Radcliffe's--"The Italian."
+
+Caroline read on with her, making no remark. Presently Rose showed her
+the attention of asking, ere she turned the leaf, "Are you ready?"
+
+Caroline only nodded.
+
+"Do you like it?" inquired Rose ere long.
+
+"Long since, when I read it as a child, I was wonderfully taken with
+it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It seemed to open with such promise--such foreboding of a most strange
+tale to be unfolded."
+
+"And in reading it you feel as if you were far away from England--really
+in Italy--under another sort of sky--that blue sky of the south which
+travellers describe."
+
+"You are sensible of that, Rose?"
+
+"It makes me long to travel, Miss Helstone."
+
+"When you are a woman, perhaps, you may be able to gratify your wish."
+
+"I mean to make a way to do so, if one is not made for me. I cannot live
+always in Briarfield. The whole world is not very large compared with
+creation. I must see the outside of our own round planet, at least."
+
+"How much of its outside?"
+
+"First this hemisphere where we live; then the other. I am resolved that
+my life shall be a life. Not a black trance like the toad's, buried in
+marble; nor a long, slow death like yours in Briarfield rectory."
+
+"Like mine! what can you mean, child?"
+
+"Might you not as well be tediously dying as for ever shut up in that
+glebe-house--a place that, when I pass it, always reminds me of a
+windowed grave? I never see any movement about the door. I never hear a
+sound from the wall. I believe smoke never issues from the chimneys.
+What do you do there?"
+
+"I sew, I read, I learn lessons."
+
+"Are you happy?"
+
+"Should I be happy wandering alone in strange countries as you wish to
+do?"
+
+"Much happier, even if you did nothing but wander. Remember, however,
+that I shall have an object in view; but if you only went on and on,
+like some enchanted lady in a fairy tale, you might be happier than now.
+In a day's wandering you would pass many a hill, wood, and watercourse,
+each perpetually altering in aspect as the sun shone out or was
+overcast; as the weather was wet or fair, dark or bright. Nothing
+changes in Briarfield rectory. The plaster of the parlour ceilings, the
+paper on the walls, the curtains, carpets, chairs, are still the same."
+
+"Is change necessary to happiness?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is it synonymous with it?"
+
+"I don't know; but I feel monotony and death to be almost the same."
+
+Here Jessie spoke.
+
+"Isn't she mad?" she asked.
+
+"But, Rose," pursued Caroline, "I fear a wanderer's life, for me at
+least, would end like that tale you are reading--in disappointment,
+vanity, and vexation of spirit."
+
+"Does 'The Italian' so end?"
+
+"I thought so when I read it."
+
+"Better to try all things and find all empty than to try nothing and
+leave your life a blank. To do this is to commit the sin of him who
+buried his talent in a napkin--despicable sluggard!"
+
+"Rose," observed Mrs. Yorke, "solid satisfaction is only to be realized
+by doing one's duty."
+
+"Right, mother! And if my Master has given me ten talents, my duty is to
+trade with them, and make them ten talents more. Not in the dust of
+household drawers shall the coin be interred. I will _not_ deposit it in
+a broken-spouted teapot, and shut it up in a china closet among
+tea-things. I will _not_ commit it to your work-table to be smothered in
+piles of woollen hose. I will _not_ prison it in the linen press to find
+shrouds among the sheets. And least of all, mother" (she got up from the
+floor)--"least of all will I hide it in a tureen of cold potatoes, to be
+ranged with bread, butter, pastry, and ham on the shelves of the
+larder."
+
+She stopped, then went on, "Mother, the Lord who gave each of us our
+talents will come home some day, and will demand from all an account.
+The teapot, the old stocking-foot, the linen rag, the willow-pattern
+tureen will yield up their barren deposit in many a house. Suffer your
+daughters, at least, to put their money to the exchangers, that they may
+be enabled at the Master's coming to pay Him His own with usury."
+
+"Rose, did you bring your sampler with you, as I told you?"
+
+"Yes, mother."
+
+"Sit down, and do a line of marking."
+
+Rose sat down promptly, and wrought according to orders. After a busy
+pause of ten minutes, her mother asked, "Do you think yourself oppressed
+now--a victim?"
+
+"No, mother."
+
+"Yet, as far as I understood your tirade, it was a protest against all
+womanly and domestic employment."
+
+"You misunderstood it, mother. I should be sorry not to learn to sew.
+You do right to teach me, and to make me work."
+
+"Even to the mending of your brothers' stockings and the making of
+sheets?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is the use of ranting and spouting about it, then?"
+
+"Am I to do nothing but that? I will do that, and then I will do more.
+Now, mother, I have said my say. I am twelve years old at present, and
+not till I am sixteen will I speak again about talents. For four years I
+bind myself an industrious apprentice to all you can teach me."
+
+"You see what my daughters are, Miss Helstone," observed Mrs. Yorke;
+"how precociously wise in their own conceits! 'I would rather this, I
+prefer that'--such is Jessie's cuckoo song; while Rose utters the bolder
+cry, 'I _will_, and I will _not_!'"
+
+"I render a reason, mother; besides, if my cry is bold, it is only heard
+once in a twelvemonth. About each birthday the spirit moves me to
+deliver one oracle respecting my own instruction and management. I utter
+it and leave it; it is for you, mother, to listen or not."
+
+"I would advise all young ladies," pursued Mrs. Yorke, "to study the
+characters of such children as they chance to meet with before they
+marry and have any of their own to consider well how they would like
+the responsibility of guiding the careless, the labour of persuading the
+stubborn, the constant burden and task of training the best."
+
+"But with love it need not be so very difficult," interposed Caroline.
+"Mothers love their children most dearly--almost better than they love
+themselves."
+
+"Fine talk! very sentimental! There is the rough, practical part of life
+yet to come for you, young miss."
+
+"But, Mrs. Yorke, if I take a little baby into my arms--any poor woman's
+infant, for instance--I feel that I love that helpless thing quite
+peculiarly, though I am not its mother. I could do almost anything for
+it willingly, if it were delivered over entirely to my care--if it were
+quite dependent on me."
+
+"You _feel_! Yes, yes! I dare say, now. You are led a great deal by your
+_feelings_, and you think yourself a very sensitive personage, no doubt.
+Are you aware that, with all these romantic ideas, you have managed to
+train your features into an habitually lackadaisical expression, better
+suited to a novel-heroine than to a woman who is to make her way in the
+real world by dint of common sense?"
+
+"No; I am not at all aware of that, Mrs. Yorke."
+
+"Look in the glass just behind you. Compare the face you see there with
+that of any early-rising, hard-working milkmaid."
+
+"My face is a pale one, but it is _not_ sentimental; and most milkmaids,
+however red and robust they may be, are more stupid and less practically
+fitted to make their way in the world than I am. I think more, and more
+correctly, than milkmaids in general do; consequently, where they would
+often, for want of reflection, act weakly, I, by dint of reflection,
+should act judiciously."
+
+"Oh no! you would be influenced by your feelings; you would be guided by
+impulse."
+
+"Of course I should often be influenced by my feelings. They were given
+me to that end. Whom my feelings teach me to love I _must_ and _shall_
+love; and I hope, if ever I have a husband and children, my feelings
+will induce me to love them. I hope, in that case, all my impulses will
+be strong in compelling me to love."
+
+Caroline had a pleasure in saying this with emphasis; she had a pleasure
+in daring to say it in Mrs. Yorke's presence. She did not care what
+unjust sarcasm might be hurled at her in reply. She flushed, not with
+anger but excitement, when the ungenial matron answered coolly, "Don't
+waste your dramatic effects. That was well said--it was quite fine; but
+it is lost on two women--an old wife and an old maid. There should have
+been a disengaged gentleman present.--Is Mr. Robert nowhere hid behind
+the curtains, do you think, Miss Moore?"
+
+Hortense, who during the chief part of the conversation had been in the
+kitchen superintending the preparations for tea, did not yet quite
+comprehend the drift of the discourse. She answered, with a puzzled air,
+that Robert was at Whinbury. Mrs. Yorke laughed her own peculiar short
+laugh.
+
+"Straightforward Miss Moore!" said she patronizingly. "It is like you to
+understand my question so literally and answer it so simply. _Your_ mind
+comprehends nothing of intrigue. Strange things might go on around you
+without your being the wiser; you are not of the class the world calls
+sharp-witted."
+
+These equivocal compliments did not seem to please Hortense. She drew
+herself up, puckered her black eyebrows, but still looked puzzled.
+
+"I have ever been noted for sagacity and discernment from childhood,"
+she returned; for, indeed, on the possession of these qualities she
+peculiarly piqued herself.
+
+"You never plotted to win a husband, I'll be bound," pursued Mrs. Yorke;
+"and you have not the benefit of previous experience to aid you in
+discovering when others plot."
+
+Caroline felt this kind language where the benevolent speaker intended
+she should feel it--in her very heart. She could not even parry the
+shafts; she was defenceless for the present. To answer would have been
+to avow that the cap fitted. Mrs. Yorke, looking at her as she sat with
+troubled, downcast eyes, and cheek burning painfully, and figure
+expressing in its bent attitude and unconscious tremor all the
+humiliation and chagrin she experienced, felt the sufferer was fair
+game. The strange woman had a natural antipathy to a shrinking,
+sensitive character--a nervous temperament; nor was a pretty, delicate,
+and youthful face a passport to her affections. It was seldom she met
+with all these obnoxious qualities combined in one individual; still
+more seldom she found that individual at her mercy, under circumstances
+in which she could crush her well. She happened this afternoon to be
+specially bilious and morose--as much disposed to gore as any vicious
+"mother of the herd." Lowering her large head she made a new charge.
+
+"Your cousin Hortense is an excellent sister, Miss Helstone. Such ladies
+as come to try their life's luck here at Hollow's Cottage may, by a very
+little clever female artifice, cajole the mistress of the house, and
+have the game all in their own hands. You are fond of your cousin's
+society, I dare say, miss?"
+
+"Of which cousin's?"
+
+"Oh, of the lady's, _of course_."
+
+"Hortense is, and always has been, most kind to me."
+
+"Every sister with an eligible single brother is considered most kind by
+her spinster friends."
+
+"Mrs. Yorke," said Caroline, lifting her eyes slowly, their blue orbs at
+the same time clearing from trouble, and shining steady and full, while
+the glow of shame left her cheek, and its hue turned pale and
+settled--"Mrs. Yorke, may I ask what you mean?"
+
+"To give you a lesson on the cultivation of rectitude, to disgust you
+with craft and false sentiment."
+
+"Do I need this lesson?"
+
+"Most young ladies of the present day need it. You are quite a modern
+young lady--morbid, delicate, professing to like retirement; which
+implies, I suppose, that you find little worthy of your sympathies in
+the ordinary world. The ordinary world--every-day honest folks--are
+better than you think them, much better than any bookish, romancing chit
+of a girl can be who hardly ever puts her nose over her uncle the
+parson's garden wall."
+
+"Consequently of whom you know nothing. Excuse me--indeed, it does not
+matter whether you excuse me or not--you have attacked me without
+provocation; I shall defend myself without apology. Of my relations with
+my two cousins you are ignorant. In a fit of ill-humour you have
+attempted to poison them by gratuitous insinuations, which are far more
+crafty and false than anything with which you can justly charge me. That
+I happen to be pale, and sometimes to look diffident, is no business of
+yours; that I am fond of books, and indisposed for common gossip, is
+still less your business; that I am a 'romancing chit of a girl' is a
+mere conjecture on your part. I never romanced to you nor to anybody you
+know. That I am the parson's niece is not a crime, though you may be
+narrow-minded enough to think it so. You dislike me. You have no just
+reason for disliking me; therefore keep the expression of your aversion
+to yourself. If at any time in future you evince it annoyingly, I shall
+answer even less scrupulously than I have done now."
+
+She ceased, and sat in white and still excitement. She had spoken in the
+clearest of tones, neither fast nor loud; but her silver accents
+thrilled the ear. The speed of the current in her veins was just then as
+swift as it was viewless.
+
+Mrs. Yorke was not irritated at the reproof, worded with a severity so
+simple, dictated by a pride so quiet. Turning coolly to Miss Moore, she
+said, nodding her cap approvingly, "She has spirit in her, after
+all.--Always speak as honestly as you have done just now," she
+continued, "and you'll do."
+
+"I repel a recommendation so offensive," was the answer, delivered in
+the same pure key, with the same clear look. "I reject counsel poisoned
+by insinuation. It is my right to speak as I think proper; nothing binds
+me to converse as you dictate. So far from always speaking as I have
+done just now, I shall never address any one in a tone so stern or in
+language so harsh, unless in answer to unprovoked insult."
+
+"Mother, you have found your match," pronounced little Jessie, whom the
+scene appeared greatly to edify. Rose had heard the whole with an
+unmoved face. She now said, "No; Miss Helstone is not my mother's match,
+for she allows herself to be vexed. My mother would wear her out in a
+few weeks. Shirley Keeldar manages better.--Mother, you have never hurt
+Miss Keeldar's feelings yet. She wears armour under her silk dress that
+you cannot penetrate."
+
+Mrs. Yorke often complained that her children were mutinous. It was
+strange that with all her strictness, with all her "strong-mindedness,"
+she could gain no command over them. A look from their father had more
+influence with them than a lecture from her.
+
+Miss Moore--to whom the position of witness to an altercation in which
+she took no part was highly displeasing, as being an unimportant
+secondary post--now rallying her dignity, prepared to utter a discourse
+which was to prove both parties in the wrong, and to make it clear to
+each disputant that she had reason to be ashamed of herself, and ought
+to submit humbly to the superior sense of the individual then addressing
+her. Fortunately for her audience, she had not harangued above ten
+minutes when Sarah's entrance with the tea-tray called her attention,
+first to the fact of that damsel having a gilt comb in her hair and a
+red necklace round her throat, and secondly, and subsequently to a
+pointed remonstrance, to the duty of making tea. After the meal Rose
+restored her to good-humour by bringing her guitar and asking for a
+song, and afterwards engaging her in an intelligent and sharp
+cross-examination about guitar-playing and music in general.
+
+Jessie, meantime, directed her assiduities to Caroline. Sitting on a
+stool at her feet, she talked to her, first about religion and then
+about politics. Jessie was accustomed at home to drink in a great deal
+of what her father said on these subjects, and afterwards in company to
+retail, with more wit and fluency than consistency or discretion, his
+opinions, antipathies, and preferences. She rated Caroline soundly for
+being a member of the Established Church, and for having an uncle a
+clergyman. She informed her that she lived on the country, and ought to
+work for her living honestly, instead of passing a useless life, and
+eating the bread of idleness in the shape of tithes. Thence Jessie
+passed to a review of the ministry at that time in office, and a
+consideration of its deserts. She made familiar mention of the names of
+Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Perceval. Each of these personages she adorned
+with a character that might have separately suited Moloch and Belial.
+She denounced the war as wholesale murder, and Lord Wellington as a
+"hired butcher."
+
+Her auditress listened with exceeding edification. Jessie had something
+of the genius of humour in her nature. It was inexpressibly comic to
+hear her repeating her sire's denunciations in his nervous northern
+Doric; as hearty a little Jacobin as ever pent a free mutinous spirit in
+a muslin frock and sash. Not malignant by nature, her language was not
+so bitter as it was racy, and the expressive little face gave a piquancy
+to every phrase which held a beholder's interest captive.
+
+Caroline chid her when she abused Lord Wellington; but she listened
+delighted to a subsequent tirade against the Prince Regent. Jessie
+quickly read, in the sparkle of her hearer's eye and the laughter
+hovering round her lips, that at last she had hit on a topic that
+pleased. Many a time had she heard the fat "Adonis of fifty" discussed
+at her father's breakfast-table, and she now gave Mr. Yorke's comments
+on the theme--genuine as uttered by his Yorkshire lips.
+
+But, Jessie, I will write about you no more. This is an autumn evening,
+wet and wild. There is only one cloud in the sky, but it curtains it
+from pole to pole. The wind cannot rest; it hurries sobbing over hills
+of sullen outline, colourless with twilight and mist. Rain has beat all
+day on that church tower. It rises dark from the stony enclosure of its
+graveyard. The nettles, the long grass, and the tombs all drip with wet.
+This evening reminds me too forcibly of another evening some years
+ago--a howling, rainy autumn evening too--when certain who had that day
+performed a pilgrimage to a grave new-made in a heretic cemetery sat
+near a wood fire on the hearth of a foreign dwelling. They were merry
+and social, but they each knew that a gap, never to be filled, had been
+made in their circle. They knew they had lost something whose absence
+could never be quite atoned for so long as they lived; and they knew
+that heavy falling rain was soaking into the wet earth which covered
+their lost darling, and that the sad, sighing gale was mourning above
+her buried head. The fire warmed them; life and friendship yet blessed
+them; but Jessie lay cold, coffined, solitary--only the sod screening
+her from the storm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Yorke folded up her knitting, cut short the music lesson and the
+lecture on politics, and concluded her visit to the cottage, at an hour
+early enough to ensure her return to Briarmains before the blush of
+sunset should quite have faded in heaven, or the path up the fields have
+become thoroughly moist with evening dew.
+
+The lady and her daughters being gone, Caroline felt that she also ought
+to resume her scarf, kiss her cousin's cheek, and trip away homeward. If
+she lingered much later dusk would draw on, and Fanny would be put to
+the trouble of coming to fetch her. It was both baking and ironing day
+at the rectory, she remembered--Fanny would be busy. Still, she could
+not quit her seat at the little parlour window. From no point of view
+could the west look so lovely as from that lattice with the garland of
+jessamine round it, whose white stars and green leaves seemed now but
+gray pencil outlines--graceful in form, but colourless in tint--against
+the gold incarnadined of a summer evening--against the fire-tinged blue
+of an August sky at eight o'clock p.m.
+
+Caroline looked at the wicket-gate, beside which holly-oaks spired up
+tall. She looked at the close hedge of privet and laurel fencing in the
+garden; her eyes longed to see something more than the shrubs before
+they turned from that limited prospect. They longed to see a human
+figure, of a certain mould and height, pass the hedge and enter the
+gate. A human figure she at last saw--nay, two. Frederick Murgatroyd
+went by, carrying a pail of water; Joe Scott followed, dangling on his
+forefinger the keys of the mill. They were going to lock up mill and
+stables for the night, and then betake themselves home.
+
+"So must I," thought Caroline, as she half rose and sighed.
+
+"This is all folly--heart-breaking folly," she added. "In the first
+place, though I should stay till dark there will be no arrival; because
+I feel in my heart, Fate has written it down in to-day's page of her
+eternal book, that I am not to have the pleasure I long for. In the
+second place, if he stepped in this moment, my presence here would be a
+chagrin to him, and the consciousness that it must be so would turn half
+my blood to ice. His hand would, perhaps, be loose and chill if I put
+mine into it; his eye would be clouded if I sought its beam. I should
+look up for that kindling, something I have seen in past days, when my
+face, or my language, or my disposition had at some happy moment pleased
+him; I should discover only darkness. I had better go home."
+
+She took her bonnet from the table where it lay, and was just fastening
+the ribbon, when Hortense, directing her attention to a splendid bouquet
+of flowers in a glass on the same table, mentioned that Miss Keeldar had
+sent them that morning from Fieldhead; and went on to comment on the
+guests that lady was at present entertaining, on the bustling life she
+had lately been leading; adding divers conjectures that she did not very
+well like it, and much wonderment that a person who was so fond of her
+own way as the heiress did not find some means of sooner getting rid of
+this _cortége_ of relatives.
+
+"But they say she actually will not let Mr. Sympson and his family go,"
+she added. "They wanted much to return to the south last week, to be
+ready for the reception of the only son, who is expected home from a
+tour. She insists that her cousin Henry shall come and join his friends
+here in Yorkshire. I dare say she partly does it to oblige Robert and
+myself."
+
+"How to oblige Robert and you?" inquired Caroline.
+
+"Why, my child, you are dull. Don't you know--you must often have
+heard----"
+
+"Please, ma'am," said Sarah, opening the door, "the preserves that you
+told me to boil in treacle--the congfiters, as you call them--is all
+burnt to the pan."
+
+"Les confitures! Elles sont brûlées? Ah, quelle négligence coupable!
+Coquine de cuisinière, fille insupportable!"
+
+And mademoiselle, hastily taking from a drawer a large linen apron, and
+tying it over her black apron, rushed _éperdue_ into the kitchen,
+whence, to speak truth, exhaled an odour of calcined sweets rather
+strong than savoury.
+
+The mistress and maid had been in full feud the whole day, on the
+subject of preserving certain black cherries, hard as marbles, sour as
+sloes. Sarah held that sugar was the only orthodox condiment to be used
+in that process; mademoiselle maintained--and proved it by the practice
+and experience of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother--that
+treacle, "mélasse," was infinitely preferable. She had committed an
+imprudence in leaving Sarah in charge of the preserving-pan, for her
+want of sympathy in the nature of its contents had induced a degree of
+carelessness in watching their confection, whereof the result was--dark
+and cindery ruin. Hubbub followed; high upbraiding, and sobs rather loud
+than deep or real.
+
+Caroline, once more turning to the little mirror, was shading her
+ringlets from her cheek to smooth them under her cottage bonnet, certain
+that it would not only be useless but unpleasant to stay longer, when,
+on the sudden opening of the back-door, there fell an abrupt calm in the
+kitchen. The tongues were checked, pulled up as with bit and bridle.
+"Was it--was it--Robert?" He often--almost always--entered by the
+kitchen way on his return from market. No; it was only Joe Scott, who,
+having hemmed significantly thrice--every hem being meant as a lofty
+rebuke to the squabbling womankind--said, "Now, I thowt I heerd a
+crack?"
+
+None answered.
+
+"And," he continued pragmatically, "as t' maister's comed, and as he'll
+enter through this hoyle, I _con_sidered it desirable to step in and let
+ye know. A household o' women is nivver fit to be comed on wi'out
+warning. Here he is.--Walk forrard, sir. They war playing up queerly,
+but I think I've quietened 'em."
+
+Another person, it was now audible, entered. Joe Scott proceeded with
+his rebukes.
+
+"What d'ye mean by being all i' darkness? Sarah, thou quean, canst t'
+not light a candle? It war sundown an hour syne. He'll brak his shins
+agean some o' yer pots, and tables, and stuff.--Tak tent o' this
+baking-bowl, sir; they've set it i' yer way, fair as if they did it i'
+malice."
+
+To Joe's observations succeeded a confused sort of pause, which
+Caroline, though she was listening with both her ears, could not
+understand. It was very brief. A cry broke it--a sound of surprise,
+followed by the sound of a kiss; ejaculations, but half articulate,
+succeeded.
+
+"Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Est-ce que je m'y attendais?" were the words
+chiefly to be distinguished.
+
+"Et tu te portes toujours bien, bonne sœur?" inquired another
+voice--Robert's, certainly.
+
+Caroline was puzzled. Obeying an impulse the wisdom of which she had not
+time to question, she escaped from the little parlour, by way of leaving
+the coast clear, and running upstairs took up a position at the head of
+the banisters, whence she could make further observations ere presenting
+herself. It was considerably past sunset now; dusk filled the passage,
+yet not such deep dusk but that she could presently see Robert and
+Hortense traverse it.
+
+"Caroline! Caroline!" called Hortense, a moment afterwards, "venez voir
+mon frère!"
+
+"Strange," commented Miss Helstone, "passing strange! What does this
+unwonted excitement about such an every-day occurrence as a return from
+market portend? She has not lost her senses, has she? Surely the burnt
+treacle has not crazed her?"
+
+She descended in a subdued flutter. Yet more was she fluttered when
+Hortense seized her hand at the parlour door, and leading her to Robert,
+who stood in bodily presence, tall and dark against the one window,
+presented her with a mixture of agitation and formality, as though they
+had been utter strangers, and this was their first mutual introduction.
+
+Increasing puzzle! He bowed rather awkwardly, and turning from her with
+a stranger's embarrassment, he met the doubtful light from the window.
+It fell on his face, and the enigma of the dream (a dream it seemed)
+was at its height. She saw a visage like and unlike--Robert, and no
+Robert.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Caroline. "Is my sight wrong? Is it my
+cousin?"
+
+"Certainly it is your cousin," asserted Hortense.
+
+Then who was this now coming through the passage--now entering the room?
+Caroline, looking round, met a new Robert--the real Robert, as she felt
+at once.
+
+"Well," said he, smiling at her questioning, astonished face, "which is
+which?"
+
+"Ah, this is _you_!" was the answer.
+
+He laughed. "I believe it is _me_. And do you know who _he_ is? You
+never saw him before, but you have heard of him."
+
+She had gathered her senses now.
+
+"It _can_ be only one person--your brother, since it is so like you; my
+other cousin, Louis."
+
+"Clever little Å’dipus! you would have baffled the Sphinx! But now, see
+us together.--Change places; change again, to confuse her, Louis.--Which
+is the old love now, Lina?"
+
+"As if it were possible to make a mistake when you speak! You should
+have told Hortense to ask. But you are not so much alike. It is only
+your height, your figure, and complexion that are so similar."
+
+"And I am Robert, am I not?" asked the newcomer, making a first effort
+to overcome what seemed his natural shyness.
+
+Caroline shook her head gently. A soft, expressive ray from her eye
+beamed on the real Robert. It said much.
+
+She was not permitted to quit her cousins soon. Robert himself was
+peremptory in obliging her to remain. Glad, simple, and affable in her
+demeanour (glad for this night, at least), in light, bright spirits for
+the time, she was too pleasant an addition to the cottage circle to be
+willingly parted with by any of them. Louis seemed naturally rather a
+grave, still, retiring man; but the Caroline of this evening, which was
+not (as you know, reader) the Caroline of every day, thawed his reserve,
+and cheered his gravity soon. He sat near her and talked to her. She
+already knew his vocation was that of tuition. She learned now he had
+for some years been the tutor of Mr. Sympson's son; that he had been
+travelling with him, and had accompanied him to the north. She inquired
+if he liked his post, but got a look in reply which did not invite or
+license further question. The look woke Caroline's ready sympathy. She
+thought it a very sad expression to pass over so sensible a face as
+Louis's; for he _had_ a sensible face, though not handsome, she
+considered, when seen near Robert's. She turned to make the comparison.
+Robert was leaning against the wall, a little behind her, turning over
+the leaves of a book of engravings, and probably listening, at the same
+time, to the dialogue between her and Louis.
+
+"How could I think them alike?" she asked herself. "I see now it is
+Hortense Louis resembles, not Robert."
+
+And this was in part true. He had the shorter nose and longer upper lip
+of his sister rather than the fine traits of his brother. He had her
+mould of mouth and chin--all less decisive, accurate, and clear than
+those of the young mill-owner. His air, though deliberate and
+reflective, could scarcely be called prompt and acute. You felt, in
+sitting near and looking up at him, that a slower and probably a more
+benignant nature than that of the elder Moore shed calm on your
+impressions.
+
+Robert--perhaps aware that Caroline's glance had wandered towards and
+dwelt upon him, though he had neither met nor answered it--put down the
+book of engravings, and approaching, took a seat at her side. She
+resumed her conversation with Louis, but while she talked to him her
+thoughts were elsewhere. Her heart beat on the side from which her face
+was half averted. She acknowledged a steady, manly, kindly air in Louis;
+but she bent before the secret power of Robert. To be so near
+him--though he was silent, though he did not touch so much as her
+scarf-fringe or the white hem of her dress--affected her like a spell.
+Had she been obliged to speak to him _only_, it would have quelled, but,
+at liberty to address another, it excited her. Her discourse flowed
+freely; it was gay, playful, eloquent. The indulgent look and placid
+manner of her auditor encouraged her to ease; the sober pleasure
+expressed by his smile drew out all that was brilliant in her nature.
+She felt that this evening she appeared to advantage, and as Robert was
+a spectator, the consciousness contented her. Had he been called away,
+collapse would at once have succeeded stimulus.
+
+But her enjoyment was not long to shine full-orbed; a cloud soon crossed
+it.
+
+Hortense, who for some time had been on the move ordering supper, and
+was now clearing the little table of some books, etc., to make room for
+the tray, called Robert's attention to the glass of flowers, the carmine
+and snow and gold of whose petals looked radiant indeed by candlelight.
+
+"They came from Fieldhead," she said, "intended as a gift to you, no
+doubt. We know who is the favourite there; not I, I'm sure."
+
+It was a wonder to hear Hortense jest--a sign that her spirits were at
+high-water mark indeed.
+
+"We are to understand, then, that Robert is the favourite?" observed
+Louis.
+
+"Mon cher," replied Hortense, "Robert--c'est tout ce qu'il y a de plus
+précieux au monde; à côté de lui le reste du genre humain n'est que du
+rebut.--N'ai-je pas raison, mon enfant?" she added, appealing to
+Caroline.
+
+Caroline was obliged to reply, "Yes," and her beacon was quenched. Her
+star withdrew as she spoke.
+
+"Et toi, Robert?" inquired Louis.
+
+"When you shall have an opportunity, ask herself," was the quiet answer.
+Whether he reddened or paled Caroline did not examine. She discovered
+that it was late, and she must go home. Home she would go; not even
+Robert could detain her now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
+
+
+The future sometimes seems to sob a low warning of the events it is
+bringing us, like some gathering though yet remote storm, which, in
+tones of the wind, in flushings of the firmament, in clouds strangely
+torn, announces a blast strong to strew the sea with wrecks; or
+commissioned to bring in fog the yellow taint of pestilence covering
+white Western isles with the poisoned exhalations of the East, dimming
+the lattices of English homes with the breath of Indian plague. At other
+times this future bursts suddenly, as if a rock had rent, and in it a
+grave had opened, whence issues the body of one that slept. Ere you are
+aware you stand face to face with a shrouded and unthought-of
+calamity--a new Lazarus.
+
+Caroline Helstone went home from Hollow's Cottage in good health, as she
+imagined. On waking the next morning she felt oppressed with unwonted
+languor. At breakfast, at each meal of the following day, she missed all
+sense of appetite. Palatable food was as ashes and sawdust to her.
+
+"Am I ill?" she asked, and looked at herself in the glass. Her eyes were
+bright, their pupils dilated, her cheeks seemed rosier, and fuller than
+usual. "I look well; why can I not eat?"
+
+She felt a pulse beat fast in her temples; she felt, too, her brain in
+strange activity. Her spirits were raised; hundreds of busy and broken
+but brilliant thoughts engaged her mind. A glow rested on them, such as
+tinged her complexion.
+
+Now followed a hot, parched, thirsty, restless night. Towards morning
+one terrible dream seized her like a tiger; when she woke, she felt and
+knew she was ill.
+
+How she had caught the fever (fever it was) she could not tell. Probably
+in her late walk home, some sweet, poisoned breeze, redolent of
+honey-dew and miasma, had passed into her lungs and veins, and finding
+there already a fever of mental excitement, and a languor of long
+conflict and habitual sadness, had fanned the spark to flame, and left a
+well-lit fire behind it.
+
+It seemed, however, but a gentle fire. After two hot days and worried
+nights, there was no violence in the symptoms, and neither her uncle,
+nor Fanny, nor the doctor, nor Miss Keeldar, when she called, had any
+fear for her. A few days would restore her, every one believed.
+
+The few days passed, and--though it was still thought it could not long
+delay--the revival had not begun. Mrs. Pryor, who had visited her
+daily--being present in her chamber one morning when she had been ill a
+fortnight--watched her very narrowly for some minutes. She took her hand
+and placed her finger on her wrist; then, quietly leaving the chamber,
+she went to Mr. Helstone's study. With him she remained closeted a long
+time--half the morning. On returning to her sick young friend, she laid
+aside shawl and bonnet. She stood awhile at the bedside, one hand placed
+in the other, gently rocking herself to and fro, in an attitude and with
+a movement habitual to her. At last she said, "I have sent Fanny to
+Fieldhead to fetch a few things for me, such as I shall want during a
+short stay here. It is my wish to remain with you till you are better.
+Your uncle kindly permits my attendance. Will it to yourself be
+acceptable, Caroline?"
+
+"I am sorry you should take such needless trouble. I do not feel very
+ill, but I cannot refuse resolutely. It will be such comfort to know you
+are in the house, to see you sometimes in the room; but don't confine
+yourself on my account, dear Mrs. Pryor. Fanny nurses me very well."
+
+Mrs. Pryor, bending over the pale little sufferer, was now smoothing the
+hair under her cap, and gently raising her pillow. As she performed
+these offices, Caroline, smiling, lifted her face to kiss her.
+
+"Are you free from pain? Are you tolerably at ease?" was inquired in a
+low, earnest voice, as the self-elected nurse yielded to the caress.
+
+"I think I am almost happy."
+
+"You wish to drink? Your lips are parched."
+
+She held a glass filled with some cooling beverage to her mouth.
+
+"Have you eaten anything to-day, Caroline?"
+
+"I cannot eat."
+
+"But soon your appetite will return; it _must_ return--that is, I pray
+God it may."
+
+In laying her again on the couch, she encircled her in her arms; and
+while so doing, by a movement which seemed scarcely voluntary, she drew
+her to her heart, and held her close gathered an instant.
+
+"I shall hardly wish to get well, that I may keep you always," said
+Caroline.
+
+Mrs. Pryor did not smile at this speech. Over her features ran a tremor,
+which for some minutes she was absorbed in repressing.
+
+"You are more used to Fanny than to me," she remarked ere long. "I
+should think my attendance must seem strange, officious?"
+
+"No; quite natural, and very soothing. You must have been accustomed to
+wait on sick people, ma'am. You move about the room so softly, and you
+speak so quietly, and touch me so gently."
+
+"I am dexterous in nothing, my dear. You will often find me awkward, but
+never negligent."
+
+Negligent, indeed, she was not. From that hour Fanny and Eliza became
+ciphers in the sick-room. Mrs. Pryor made it her domain; she performed
+all its duties; she lived in it day and night. The patient
+remonstrated--faintly, however, from the first, and not at all ere long.
+Loneliness and gloom were now banished from her bedside; protection and
+solace sat there instead. She and her nurse coalesced in wondrous union.
+Caroline was usually pained to require or receive much attendance. Mrs.
+Pryor, under ordinary circumstances, had neither the habit nor the art
+of performing little offices of service; but all now passed with such
+ease, so naturally, that the patient was as willing to be cherished as
+the nurse was bent on cherishing; no sign of weariness in the latter
+ever reminded the former that she ought to be anxious. There was, in
+fact, no very hard duty to perform; but a hireling might have found it
+hard.
+
+With all this care it seemed strange the sick girl did not get well; yet
+such was the case. She wasted like any snow-wreath in thaw; she faded
+like any flower in drought. Miss Keeldar, on whose thoughts danger or
+death seldom intruded, had at first entertained no fears at all for her
+friend; but seeing her change and sink from time to time when she paid
+her visits, alarm clutched her heart. She went to Mr. Helstone and
+expressed herself with so much energy that that gentleman was at last
+obliged, however unwillingly, to admit the idea that his niece was ill
+of something more than a migraine; and when Mrs. Pryor came and quietly
+demanded a physician, he said she might send for two if she liked. One
+came, but that one was an oracle. He delivered a dark saying of which
+the future was to solve the mystery, wrote some prescriptions, gave some
+directions--the whole with an air of crushing authority--pocketed his
+fee, and went. Probably he knew well enough he could do no good, but
+didn't like to say so.
+
+Still, no rumour of serious illness got wind in the neighbourhood. At
+Hollow's Cottage it was thought that Caroline had only a severe cold,
+she having written a note to Hortense to that effect; and mademoiselle
+contented herself with sending two pots of currant jam, a recipe for a
+tisane, and a note of advice.
+
+Mrs. Yorke being told that a physician had been summoned, sneered at the
+hypochondriac fancies of the rich and idle, who, she said, having
+nothing but themselves to think about, must needs send for a doctor if
+only so much as their little finger ached.
+
+The "rich and idle," represented in the person of Caroline, were
+meantime falling fast into a condition of prostration, whose quickly
+consummated debility puzzled all who witnessed it except one; for that
+one alone reflected how liable is the undermined structure to sink in
+sudden ruin.
+
+Sick people often have fancies inscrutable to ordinary attendants, and
+Caroline had one which even her tender nurse could not at first explain.
+On a certain day in the week, at a certain hour, she would--whether
+worse or better--entreat to be taken up and dressed, and suffered to sit
+in her chair near the window. This station she would retain till noon
+was past. Whatever degree of exhaustion or debility her wan aspect
+betrayed, she still softly put off all persuasion to seek repose until
+the church clock had duly tolled midday. The twelve strokes sounded, she
+grew docile, and would meekly lie down. Returned to the couch, she
+usually buried her face deep in the pillow, and drew the coverlets close
+round her, as if to shut out the world and sun, of which she was tired.
+More than once, as she thus lay, a slight convulsion shook the sick-bed,
+and a faint sob broke the silence round it. These things were not
+unnoted by Mrs. Pryor.
+
+One Tuesday morning, as usual, she had asked leave to rise, and now she
+sat wrapped in her white dressing-gown, leaning forward in the
+easy-chair, gazing steadily and patiently from the lattice. Mrs. Pryor
+was seated a little behind, knitting as it seemed, but, in truth,
+watching her. A change crossed her pale, mournful brow, animating its
+languor; a light shot into her faded eyes, reviving their lustre; she
+half rose and looked earnestly out. Mrs. Pryor, drawing softly near,
+glanced over her shoulder. From this window was visible the churchyard,
+beyond it the road; and there, riding sharply by, appeared a horseman.
+The figure was not yet too remote for recognition. Mrs. Pryor had long
+sight; she knew Mr. Moore. Just as an intercepting rising ground
+concealed him from view, the clock struck twelve.
+
+"May I lie down again?" asked Caroline.
+
+Her nurse assisted her to bed. Having laid her down and drawn the
+curtain, she stood listening near. The little couch trembled, the
+suppressed sob stirred the air. A contraction as of anguish altered Mrs.
+Pryor's features; she wrung her hands; half a groan escaped her lips.
+She now remembered that Tuesday was Whinbury market day. Mr. Moore must
+always pass the rectory on his way thither, just ere noon of that day.
+
+Caroline wore continually round her neck a slender braid of silk,
+attached to which was some trinket. Mrs. Pryor had seen the bit of gold
+glisten, but had not yet obtained a fair view of it. Her patient never
+parted with it. When dressed it was hidden in her bosom; as she lay in
+bed she always held it in her hand. That Tuesday afternoon the transient
+doze--more like lethargy than sleep--which sometimes abridged the long
+days, had stolen over her. The weather was hot. While turning in febrile
+restlessness, she had pushed the coverlets a little aside. Mrs. Pryor
+bent to replace them. The small, wasted hand, lying nerveless on the
+sick girl's breast, clasped as usual her jealously-guarded treasure.
+Those fingers whose attenuation it gave pain to see were now relaxed in
+sleep. Mrs. Pryor gently disengaged the braid, drawing out a tiny
+locket--a slight thing it was, such as it suited her small purse to
+purchase. Under its crystal face appeared a curl of black hair, too
+short and crisp to have been severed from a female head.
+
+Some agitated movement occasioned a twitch of the silken chain. The
+sleeper started and woke. Her thoughts were usually now somewhat
+scattered on waking, her look generally wandering. Half rising, as if
+in terror, she exclaimed, "Don't take it from me, Robert! Don't! It is
+my last comfort; let me keep it. I never tell any one whose hair it is;
+I never show it."
+
+Mrs. Pryor had already disappeared behind the curtain. Reclining far
+back in a deep arm-chair by the bedside, she was withdrawn from view.
+Caroline looked abroad into the chamber; she thought it empty. As her
+stray ideas returned slowly, each folding its weak wings on the mind's
+sad shore, like birds exhausted, beholding void, and perceiving silence
+round her, she believed herself alone. Collected she was not yet;
+perhaps healthy self-possession and self-control were to be hers no
+more; perhaps that world the strong and prosperous live in had already
+rolled from beneath her feet for ever. So, at least, it often seemed to
+herself. In health she had never been accustomed to think aloud, but now
+words escaped her lips unawares.
+
+"Oh, I _should_ see him once more before all is over! Heaven _might_
+favour me thus far!" she cried. "God grant me a little comfort before I
+die!" was her humble petition.
+
+"But he will not know I am ill till I am gone, and he will come when
+they have laid me out, and I am senseless, cold, and stiff.
+
+"What can my departed soul feel then? Can it see or know what happens to
+the clay? Can spirits, through any medium, communicate with living
+flesh? Can the dead at all revisit those they leave? Can they come in
+the elements? Will wind, water, fire, lend me a path to Moore?
+
+"Is it for nothing the wind sounds almost articulately sometimes--sings
+as I have lately heard it sing at night--or passes the casement sobbing,
+as if for sorrow to come? Does nothing, then, haunt it, nothing inspire
+it?
+
+"Why, it suggested to me words one night; it poured a strain which I
+could have written down, only I was appalled, and dared not rise to seek
+pencil and paper by the dim watch-light.
+
+"What is that electricity they speak of, whose changes make us well or
+ill, whose lack or excess blasts, whose even balance revives? What are
+all those influences that are about us in the atmosphere, that keep
+playing over our nerves like fingers on stringed instruments, and call
+forth now a sweet note, and now a wail--now an exultant swell, and anon
+the saddest cadence?
+
+"_Where is_ the other world? In _what_ will another life consist? Why do
+I ask? Have I not cause to think that the hour is hasting but too fast
+when the veil must be rent for me? Do I not know the Grand Mystery is
+likely to burst prematurely on me? Great Spirit, in whose goodness I
+confide, whom, as my Father, I have petitioned night and morning from
+early infancy, help the weak creation of Thy hands! Sustain me through
+the ordeal I dread and must undergo! Give me strength! Give me patience!
+Give me--oh, _give me_ FAITH!"
+
+She fell back on her pillow. Mrs. Pryor found means to steal quietly
+from the room. She re-entered it soon after, apparently as composed as
+if she had really not overheard this strange soliloquy.
+
+The next day several callers came. It had become known that Miss
+Helstone was worse. Mr. Hall and his sister Margaret arrived. Both,
+after they had been in the sickroom, quitted it in tears; they had found
+the patient more altered than they expected. Hortense Moore came.
+Caroline seemed stimulated by her presence. She assured her, smiling,
+she was not dangerously ill; she talked to her in a low voice, but
+cheerfully. During her stay, excitement kept up the flush of her
+complexion; she looked better.
+
+"How is Mr. Robert?" asked Mrs. Pryor, as Hortense was preparing to take
+leave.
+
+"He was very well when he left."
+
+"Left! Is he gone from home?"
+
+It was then explained that some police intelligence about the rioters of
+whom he was in pursuit had, that morning, called him away to Birmingham,
+and probably a fortnight might elapse ere he returned.
+
+"He is not aware that Miss Helstone is very ill?"
+
+"Oh no! He thought, like me, that she had only a bad cold."
+
+After this visit, Mrs. Pryor took care not to approach Caroline's couch
+for above an hour. She heard her weep, and dared not look on her tears.
+
+As evening closed in, she brought her some tea. Caroline, opening her
+eyes from a moment's slumber, viewed her nurse with an unrecognizing
+glance.
+
+"I smelt the honeysuckles in the glen this summer morning," she said,
+"as I stood at the counting-house window."
+
+Strange words like these from pallid lips pierce a loving listener's
+heart more poignantly than steel. They sound romantic, perhaps, in
+books; in real life they are harrowing.
+
+"My darling, do you know me?" said Mrs. Pryor.
+
+"I went in to call Robert to breakfast. I have been with him in the
+garden. He asked me to go. A heavy dew has refreshed the flowers. The
+peaches are ripening."
+
+"My darling! my darling!" again and again repeated the nurse.
+
+"I thought it was daylight--long after sunrise. It looks dark. Is the
+moon now set?"
+
+That moon, lately risen, was gazing full and mild upon her. Floating in
+deep blue space, it watched her unclouded.
+
+"Then it is not morning? I am not at the cottage? Who is this? I see a
+shape at my bedside."
+
+"It is myself--it is your friend--your nurse--your---- Lean your head on
+my shoulder. Collect yourself." In a lower tone--"O God, take pity! Give
+_her_ life, and _me_ strength! Send me courage! Teach me words!"
+
+Some minutes passed in silence. The patient lay mute and passive in the
+trembling arms, on the throbbing bosom of the nurse.
+
+"I am better now," whispered Caroline at last, "much better. I feel
+where I am. This is Mrs. Pryor near me. I was dreaming. I talk when I
+wake up from dreams; people often do in illness. How fast your heart
+beats, ma'am! Do not be afraid."
+
+"It is not fear, child--only a little anxiety, which will pass. I have
+brought you some tea, Cary. Your uncle made it himself. You know he says
+he can make a better cup of tea than any housewife can. Taste it. He is
+concerned to hear that you eat so little; he would be glad if you had a
+better appetite."
+
+"I am thirsty. Let me drink."
+
+She drank eagerly.
+
+"What o'clock is it, ma'am?" she asked.
+
+"Past nine."
+
+"Not later? Oh! I have yet a long night before me. But the tea has made
+me strong. I will sit up."
+
+Mrs. Pryor raised her, and arranged her pillows.
+
+"Thank Heaven! I am not always equally miserable, and ill, and hopeless.
+The afternoon has been bad since Hortense went; perhaps the evening may
+be better. It is a fine night, I think? The moon shines clear."
+
+"Very fine--a perfect summer night. The old church-tower gleams white
+almost as silver."
+
+"And does the churchyard look peaceful?"
+
+"Yes, and the garden also. Dew glistens on the foliage."
+
+"Can you see many long weeds and nettles amongst the graves? or do they
+look turfy and flowery?"
+
+"I see closed daisy-heads gleaming like pearls on some mounds. Thomas
+has mown down the dock-leaves and rank grass, and cleared all away."
+
+"I always like that to be done; it soothes one's mind to see the place
+in order. And, I dare say, within the church just now that moonlight
+shines as softly as in my room. It will fall through the east window
+full on the Helstone monument. When I close my eyes I seem to see poor
+papa's epitaph in black letters on the white marble. There is plenty of
+room for other inscriptions underneath."
+
+"William Farren came to look after your flowers this morning. He was
+afraid, now you cannot tend them yourself, they would be neglected. He
+has taken two of your favourite plants home to nurse for you."
+
+"If I were to make a will, I would leave William all my plants; Shirley
+my trinkets--except one, which must not be taken off my neck; and you,
+ma'am, my books." After a pause--"Mrs. Pryor, I feel a longing wish for
+something."
+
+"For what, Caroline?"
+
+"You know I always delight to hear you sing. Sing me a hymn just now.
+Sing that hymn which begins,--
+
+    'Our God, our help in ages past,
+       Our hope for years to come,
+     Our shelter from the stormy blast,
+       Our refuge, haven, home!'"
+
+Mrs. Pryor at once complied.
+
+No wonder Caroline liked to hear her sing. Her voice, even in speaking,
+was sweet and silver clear; in song it was almost divine. Neither flute
+nor dulcimer has tones so pure. But the tone was secondary, compared to
+the expression which trembled through--a tender vibration from a feeling
+heart.
+
+The servants in the kitchen, hearing the strain, stole to the stair-foot
+to listen. Even old Helstone, as he walked in the garden, pondering over
+the unaccountable and feeble nature of women, stood still amongst his
+borders to catch the mournful melody more distinctly. Why it reminded
+him of his forgotten dead wife, he could not tell; nor why it made him
+more concerned than he had hitherto been for Caroline's fading girlhood.
+He was glad to recollect that he had promised to pay Wynne, the
+magistrate, a visit that evening. Low spirits and gloomy thoughts were
+very much his aversion. When they attacked him he usually found means to
+make them march in double-quick time. The hymn followed him faintly as
+he crossed the fields. He hastened his customary sharp pace, that he
+might get beyond its reach.
+
+    "Thy word commands our flesh to dust,--
+       'Return, ye sons of men;'
+     All nations rose from earth at first,
+       And turn to earth again.
+
+    "A thousand ages in Thy sight
+       Are like an evening gone--
+     Short as the watch that ends the night
+       Before the rising sun.
+
+    "Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
+       Bears all its sons away;
+     They fly, forgotten, as a dream
+       Dies at the opening day.
+
+    "Like flowery fields, the nations stand,
+       Fresh in the morning light;
+     The flowers beneath the mower's hand
+       Lie withering ere 'tis night.
+
+    "Our God, our help in ages past,
+       Our hope for years to come,
+     Be Thou our guard while troubles last--
+       O Father, be our home!"
+
+"Now sing a song--a Scottish song," suggested Caroline, when the hymn
+was over--"'Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon.'"
+
+Again Mrs. Pryor obeyed, or essayed to obey. At the close of the first
+stanza she stopped. She could get no further. Her full heart flowed
+over.
+
+"You are weeping at the pathos of the air. Come here, and I will comfort
+you," said Caroline, in a pitying accent. Mrs. Pryor came. She sat down
+on the edge of her patient's bed, and allowed the wasted arms to
+encircle her.
+
+"You often soothe me; let me soothe you," murmured the young girl,
+kissing her cheek. "I hope," she added, "it is not for me you weep?"
+
+No answer followed.
+
+"Do you think I shall not get better? I do not feel _very_ ill--only
+weak."
+
+"But your mind, Caroline--your mind is crushed. Your heart is almost
+broken; you have been so neglected, so repulsed, left so desolate."
+
+"I believe grief is, and always has been, my worst ailment. I sometimes
+think if an abundant gush of happiness came on me I could revive yet."
+
+"Do you wish to live?"
+
+"I have no object in life."
+
+"You love me, Caroline?"
+
+"Very much--very truly--inexpressibly sometimes. Just now I feel as if I
+could almost grow to your heart."
+
+"I will return directly, dear," remarked Mrs. Pryor, as she laid
+Caroline down.
+
+Quitting her, she glided to the door, softly turned the key in the lock,
+ascertained that it was fast, and came back. She bent over her. She
+threw back the curtain to admit the moonlight more freely. She gazed
+intently on her face.
+
+"Then, if you love me," said she, speaking quickly, with an altered
+voice; "if you feel as if, to use your own words, you could 'grow to my
+heart,' it will be neither shock nor pain for you to know that _that_
+heart is the source whence yours was filled; that from _my_ veins issued
+the tide which flows in _yours_; that you are _mine_--my daughter--my
+own child."
+
+"Mrs. Pryor----"
+
+"My own child!"
+
+"That is--that means--you have adopted me?"
+
+"It means that, if I have given you nothing else, I at least gave you
+life; that I bore you, nursed you; that I am your true mother. No other
+woman can claim the title; it is _mine_."
+
+"But Mrs. James Helstone--but my father's wife, whom I do not remember
+ever to have seen, she is my mother?"
+
+"She _is_ your mother. James Helstone was _my_ husband. I say you are
+_mine_. I have proved it. I thought perhaps you were all his, which
+would have been a cruel dispensation for me. I find it is _not_ so. God
+permitted me to be the parent of my child's mind. It belongs to me; it
+is my property--my _right_. These features are James's own. He had a
+fine face when he was young, and not altered by error. Papa, my darling,
+gave you your blue eyes and soft brown hair; he gave you the oval of
+your face and the regularity of your lineaments--the outside _he_
+conferred; but the heart and the brain are _mine_. The germs are from
+_me_, and they are improved, they are developed to excellence. I esteem
+and approve my child as highly as I do most fondly love her."
+
+"Is what I hear true? Is it no dream?"
+
+"I wish it were as true that the substance and colour of health were
+restored to your cheek."
+
+"My own mother! is she one I can be so fond of as I can of you? People
+generally did not like her--so I have been given to understand."
+
+"They told you that? Well, your mother now tells you that, not having
+the gift to please people generally, for their approbation she does not
+care. Her thoughts are centred in her child. Does that child welcome or
+reject her?"
+
+"But if you _are_ my mother, the world is all changed to me. Surely I
+can live. I should like to recover----"
+
+"You _must_ recover. You drew life and strength from my breast when you
+were a tiny, fair infant, over whose blue eyes I used to weep, fearing I
+beheld in your very beauty the sign of qualities that had entered my
+heart like iron, and pierced through my soul like a sword. Daughter! we
+have been long parted; I return now to cherish you again."
+
+She held her to her bosom; she cradled her in her arms; she rocked her
+softly, as if lulling a young child to sleep.
+
+"My mother--my own mother!"
+
+The offspring nestled to the parent; that parent, feeling the endearment
+and hearing the appeal, gathered her closer still. She covered her with
+noiseless kisses; she murmured love over her, like a cushat fostering
+its young.
+
+There was silence in the room for a long while.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Does my uncle know?"
+
+"Your uncle knows. I told him when I first came to stay with you here."
+
+"Did you recognize me when we first met at Fieldhead?"
+
+"How could it be otherwise? Mr. and Miss Helstone being announced, I was
+prepared to see my child."
+
+"It was that, then, which moved you. I saw you disturbed."
+
+"You saw nothing, Caroline; I can cover my feelings. You can never tell
+what an age of strange sensation I lived, during the two minutes that
+elapsed between the report of your name and your entrance. You can never
+tell how your look, mien, carriage, shook me."
+
+"Why? Were you disappointed?"
+
+"What will she be like? I had asked myself; and when I saw what you were
+like, I could have dropped."
+
+"Mamma, why?"
+
+"I trembled in your presence. I said, I will never own her; she shall
+never know me."
+
+"But I said and did nothing remarkable. I felt a little diffident at the
+thought of an introduction to strangers--that was all."
+
+"I soon saw you were diffident. That was the first thing which reassured
+me. Had you been rustic, clownish, awkward, I should have been content."
+
+"You puzzle me."
+
+"I had reason to dread a fair outside, to mistrust a popular bearing, to
+shudder before distinction, grace, and courtesy. Beauty and affability
+had come in my way when I was recluse, desolate, young, and ignorant--a
+toil-worn governess perishing of uncheered labour, breaking down before
+her time. These, Caroline, when they smiled on me, I mistook for angels.
+I followed them home; and when into their hands I had given without
+reserve my whole chance of future happiness, it was my lot to witness a
+transfiguration on the domestic hearth--to see the white mask lifted,
+the bright disguise put away, and opposite me sat down---- O God, I
+_have_ suffered!"
+
+She sank on the pillow.
+
+"I _have_ suffered! None saw--none knew. There was no sympathy, no
+redemption, no redress!"
+
+"Take comfort, mother. It is over now."
+
+"It is over, and not fruitlessly. I tried to keep the word of His
+patience. He kept me in the days of my anguish. I was afraid with
+terror--I was troubled. Through great tribulation He brought me through
+to a salvation revealed in this last time. My fear had torment; He has
+cast it out. He has given me in its stead perfect love. But,
+Caroline----"
+
+Thus she invoked her daughter after a pause.
+
+"Mother!"
+
+"I charge you, when you next look on your father's monument, to respect
+the name chiselled there. To you he did only good. On you he conferred
+his whole treasure of beauties, nor added to them one dark defect. All
+_you_ derived from him is excellent. You owe him gratitude. Leave,
+between him and me, the settlement of our mutual account. Meddle not.
+God is the arbiter. This world's laws never came near us--never! They
+were powerless as a rotten bulrush to protect me--impotent as idiot
+babblings to restrain him! As you said, it is all over now; the grave
+lies between us. There he sleeps, in that church. To his dust I say this
+night, what I have never said before, 'James, slumber peacefully! See!
+your terrible debt is cancelled! Look! I wipe out the long, black
+account with my own hand! James, your child atones. This living likeness
+of you--this thing with your perfect features--this one good gift you
+gave me has nestled affectionately to my heart, and tenderly called me
+"mother." Husband, rest forgiven!'"
+
+"Dearest mother, that is right! Can papa's spirit hear us? Is he
+comforted to know that we still love him?"
+
+"I said nothing of love. I spoke of forgiveness. Mind the truth, child;
+I said nothing of love! On the threshold of eternity, should he be there
+to see me enter, will I maintain that."
+
+"O mother, you must have suffered!"
+
+"O child, the human heart _can_ suffer! It can hold more tears than the
+ocean holds waters. We never know how deep, how wide it is, till misery
+begins to unbind her clouds, and fill it with rushing blackness."
+
+"Mother, forget."
+
+"Forget!" she said, with the strangest spectre of a laugh. "The north
+pole will rush to the south, and the headlands of Europe be locked into
+the bays of Australia ere I forget."
+
+"Hush, mother! Rest! Be at peace!"
+
+And the child lulled the parent, as the parent had erst lulled the
+child. At last Mrs. Pryor wept. She then grew calmer. She resumed those
+tender cares agitation had for a moment suspended. Replacing her
+daughter on the couch, she smoothed the pillow and spread the sheet. The
+soft hair whose locks were loosened she rearranged, the damp brow she
+refreshed with a cool, fragrant essence.
+
+"Mamma, let them bring a candle, that I may see you; and tell my uncle
+to come into this room by-and-by. I want to hear him say that I am your
+daughter. And, mamma, take your supper here. Don't leave me for one
+minute to-night."
+
+"O Caroline, it is well you are gentle! You will say to me, Go, and I
+shall go; Come, and I shall come; Do this, and I shall do it. You
+inherit a certain manner as well as certain features. It will always be
+'mamma' prefacing a mandate--softly spoken, though, from you, thank God!
+Well," she added, under her breath, "he spoke softly too, once, like a
+flute breathing tenderness; and then, when the world was not by to
+listen, discords that split the nerves and curdled the blood--sounds to
+inspire insanity."
+
+"It seems so natural, mamma, to ask you for this and that. I shall want
+nobody but you to be near me, or to do anything for me. But do not let
+me be troublesome. Check me if I encroach."
+
+"You must not depend on me to check you; you must keep guard over
+yourself. I have little moral courage; the want of it is my bane. It is
+that which has made me an unnatural parent--which has kept me apart from
+my child during the ten years which have elapsed since my husband's
+death left me at liberty to claim her. It was that which first unnerved
+my arms and permitted the infant I might have retained a while longer to
+be snatched prematurely from their embrace."
+
+"How, mamma?"
+
+"I let you go as a babe, because you were pretty, and I feared your
+loveliness, deeming it the stamp of perversity. They sent me your
+portrait, taken at eight years old; that portrait confirmed my fears.
+Had it shown me a sunburnt little rustic--a heavy, blunt-featured,
+commonplace child--I should have hastened to claim you; but there, under
+the silver paper, I saw blooming the delicacy of an aristocratic
+flower--'little lady' was written on every trait. I had too recently
+crawled from under the yoke of the fine gentleman--escaped galled,
+crushed, paralyzed, dying--to dare to encounter his still finer and most
+fairy-like representative. My sweet little lady overwhelmed me with
+dismay; her air of native elegance froze my very marrow. In my
+experience I had not met with truth, modesty, good principle as the
+concomitants of beauty. A form so straight and fine, I argued, must
+conceal a mind warped and cruel. I had little faith in the power of
+education to rectify such a mind; or rather, I entirely misdoubted my
+own ability to influence it. Caroline, I dared not undertake to rear
+you. I resolved to leave you in your uncle's hands. Matthewson Helstone
+I knew, if an austere, was an upright man. He and all the world thought
+hardly of me for my strange, unmotherly resolve, and I deserved to be
+misjudged."
+
+"Mamma, why did you call yourself Mrs. Pryor?"
+
+"It was a name in my mother's family. I adopted it that I might live
+unmolested. My married name recalled too vividly my married life; I
+could not bear it. Besides, threats were uttered of forcing me to return
+to bondage. It could not be. Rather a bier for a bed, the grave for a
+home. My new name sheltered me. I resumed under its screen my old
+occupation of teaching. At first it scarcely procured me the means of
+sustaining life; but how savoury was hunger when I fasted in peace! How
+safe seemed the darkness and chill of an unkindled hearth when no lurid
+reflection from terror crimsoned its desolation! How serene was
+solitude, when I feared not the irruption of violence and vice!"
+
+"But, mamma, you have been in this neighbourhood before. How did it
+happen that when you reappeared here with Miss Keeldar you were not
+recognized?"
+
+"I only paid a short visit, as a bride, twenty years ago, and then I was
+very different to what I am now--slender, almost as slender as my
+daughter is at this day. My complexion, my very features are changed; my
+hair, my style of dress--everything is altered. You cannot fancy me a
+slim young person, attired in scanty drapery of white muslin, with bare
+arms, bracelets and necklace of beads, and hair disposed in round
+Grecian curls above my forehead?"
+
+"You must, indeed, have been different. Mamma, I heard the front door
+open. If it is my uncle coming in, just ask him to step upstairs, and
+let me hear his assurance that I am truly awake and collected, and not
+dreaming or delirious."
+
+The rector, of his own accord, was mounting the stairs, and Mrs. Pryor
+summoned him to his niece's apartment.
+
+"She's not worse, I hope?" he inquired hastily.
+
+"I think her better. She is disposed to converse; she seems stronger."
+
+"Good!" said he, brushing quickly into the room.--"Ha, Cary! how do? Did
+you drink my cup of tea? I made it for you just as I like it myself."
+
+"I drank it every drop, uncle. It did me good; it has made me quite
+alive. I have a wish for company, so I begged Mrs. Pryor to call you
+in."
+
+The respected ecclesiastic looked pleased, and yet embarrassed. He was
+willing enough to bestow his company on his sick niece for ten minutes,
+since it was her whim to wish it; but what means to employ for her
+entertainment he knew not. He hemmed--he fidgeted.
+
+"You'll be up in a trice," he observed, by way of saying something. "The
+little weakness will soon pass off; and then you must drink port wine--a
+pipe, if you can--and eat game and oysters. I'll get them for you, if
+they are to be had anywhere. Bless me! we'll make you as strong as
+Samson before we're done with you."
+
+"Who is that lady, uncle, standing beside you at the bed-foot?"
+
+"Good God!" he ejaculated. "She's not wandering, is she, ma'am?"
+
+Mrs. Pryor smiled.
+
+"I am wandering in a pleasant world," said Caroline, in a soft, happy
+voice, "and I want you to tell me whether it is real or visionary. What
+lady is that? Give her a name, uncle."
+
+"We must have Dr. Rile again, ma'am; or better still, MacTurk. He's less
+of a humbug. Thomas must saddle the pony and go for him."
+
+"No; I don't want a doctor. Mamma shall be my only physician. Now, do
+you understand, uncle?"
+
+Mr. Helstone pushed up his spectacles from his nose to his forehead,
+handled his snuff-box, and administered to himself a portion of the
+contents. Thus fortified, he answered briefly, "I see daylight. You've
+told her then, ma'am?"
+
+"And is it _true_?" demanded Caroline, rising on her pillow. "Is she
+_really_ my mother?"
+
+"You won't cry, or make any scene, or turn hysterical, if I answer Yes?"
+
+"Cry! I'd cry if you said _No_. It would be terrible to be disappointed
+now. But give her a name. How do you call her?"
+
+"I call this stout lady in a quaint black dress, who looks young enough
+to wear much smarter raiment, if she would--I call her Agnes Helstone.
+She married my brother James, and is his widow."
+
+"And my mother?"
+
+"What a little sceptic it is! Look at her small face, Mrs. Pryor,
+scarcely larger than the palm of my hand, alive with acuteness and
+eagerness." To Caroline--"She had the trouble of bringing you into the
+world at any rate. Mind you show your duty to her by quickly getting
+well, and repairing the waste of these cheeks.--Heigh-ho! she used to be
+plump. What she has done with it all I can't, for the life of me,
+divine."
+
+"If _wishing_ to get well will help me, I shall not be long sick. This
+morning I had no reason and no strength to wish it."
+
+Fanny here tapped at the door, and said that supper was ready.
+
+"Uncle, if you please, you may send me a little bit of supper--anything
+you like, from your own plate. That is wiser than going into hysterics,
+is it not?"
+
+"It is spoken like a sage, Cary. See if I don't cater for you
+judiciously. When women are sensible, and, above all, intelligible, I
+can get on with them. It is only the vague, superfine sensations, and
+extremely wire-drawn notions, that put me about. Let a woman ask me to
+give her an edible or a wearable--be the same a roc's egg or the
+breastplate of Aaron, a share of St. John's locusts and honey or the
+leathern girdle about his loins--I can, at least, understand the demand;
+but when they pine for they know not what--sympathy, sentiment, some of
+these indefinite abstractions--I can't do it; I don't know it; I haven't
+got it.--Madam, accept my arm."
+
+Mrs. Pryor signified that she should stay with her daughter that
+evening. Helstone, accordingly, left them together. He soon returned,
+bringing a plate in his own consecrated hand.
+
+"This is chicken," he said, "but we'll have partridge to-morrow.--Lift
+her up, and put a shawl over her. On my word, I understand
+nursing.--Now, here is the very same little silver fork you used when
+you first came to the rectory. That strikes me as being what you may
+call a happy thought--a delicate attention. Take it, Cary, and munch
+away cleverly."
+
+Caroline did her best. Her uncle frowned to see that her powers were so
+limited. He prophesied, however, great things for the future; and as she
+praised the morsel he had brought, and smiled gratefully in his face, he
+stooped over her pillow, kissed her, and said, with a broken, rugged
+accent, "Good-night, bairnie! God bless thee!"
+
+Caroline enjoyed such peaceful rest that night, circled by her mother's
+arms, and pillowed on her breast, that she forgot to wish for any other
+stay; and though more than one feverish dream came to her in slumber,
+yet, when she woke up panting, so happy and contented a feeling returned
+with returning consciousness that her agitation was soothed almost as
+soon as felt.
+
+As to the mother, she spent the night like Jacob at Peniel. Till break
+of day she wrestled with God in earnest prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE WEST WIND BLOWS.
+
+
+Not always do those who dare such divine conflict prevail. Night after
+night the sweat of agony may burst dark on the forehead; the supplicant
+may cry for mercy with that soundless voice the soul utters when its
+appeal is to the Invisible. "Spare my beloved," it may implore. "Heal my
+life's life. Rend not from me what long affection entwines with my whole
+nature. God of heaven, bend, hear, be clement!" And after this cry and
+strife the sun may rise and see him worsted. That opening morn, which
+used to salute him with the whisper of zephyrs, the carol of skylarks,
+may breathe, as its first accents, from the dear lips which colour and
+heat have quitted, "Oh! I have had a suffering night. This morning I am
+worse. I have tried to rise. I cannot. Dreams I am unused to have
+troubled me."
+
+Then the watcher approaches the patient's pillow, and sees a new and
+strange moulding of the familiar features, feels at once that the
+insufferable moment draws nigh, knows that it is God's will his idol
+shall be broken, and bends his head, and subdues his soul to the
+sentence he cannot avert and scarce can bear.
+
+Happy Mrs. Pryor! She was still praying, unconscious that the summer sun
+hung above the hills, when her child softly woke in her arms. No
+piteous, unconscious moaning--sound which so wastes our strength that,
+even if we have sworn to be firm, a rush of unconquerable tears sweeps
+away the oath--preceded her waking. No space of deaf apathy followed.
+The first words spoken were not those of one becoming estranged from
+this world, and already permitted to stray at times into realms foreign
+to the living. Caroline evidently remembered with clearness what had
+happened.
+
+"Mamma, I have slept _so_ well. I only dreamed and woke twice."
+
+Mrs. Pryor rose with a start, that her daughter might not see the joyful
+tears called into her eyes by that affectionate word "mamma," and the
+welcome assurance that followed it.
+
+For many days the mother dared rejoice only with trembling. That first
+revival seemed like the flicker of a dying lamp. If the flame streamed
+up bright one moment, the next it sank dim in the socket. Exhaustion
+followed close on excitement.
+
+There was always a touching endeavour to _appear_ better, but too often
+ability refused to second will; too often the attempt to bear up failed.
+The effort to eat, to talk, to look cheerful, was unsuccessful. Many an
+hour passed during which Mrs. Pryor feared that the chords of life could
+never more be strengthened, though the time of their breaking might be
+deferred.
+
+During this space the mother and daughter seemed left almost alone in
+the neighbourhood. It was the close of August; the weather was
+fine--that is to say, it was very dry and very dusty, for an arid wind
+had been blowing from the east this month past; very cloudless, too,
+though a pale haze, stationary in the atmosphere, seemed to rob of all
+depth of tone the blue of heaven, of all freshness the verdure of earth,
+and of all glow the light of day. Almost every family in Briarfield was
+absent on an excursion. Miss Keeldar and her friends were at the
+seaside; so were Mrs. Yorke's household. Mr. Hall and Louis Moore,
+between whom a spontaneous intimacy seemed to have arisen--the result,
+probably, of harmony of views and temperament--were gone "up north" on a
+pedestrian excursion to the Lakes. Even Hortense, who would fain have
+stayed at home and aided Mrs. Pryor in nursing Caroline, had been so
+earnestly entreated by Miss Mann to accompany her once more to Wormwood
+Wells, in the hope of alleviating sufferings greatly aggravated by the
+insalubrious weather, that she felt obliged to comply; indeed, it was
+not in her nature to refuse a request that at once appealed to her
+goodness of heart, and, by a confession of dependency, flattered her
+_amour propre_. As for Robert, from Birmingham he had gone on to London,
+where he still sojourned.
+
+So long as the breath of Asiatic deserts parched Caroline's lips and
+fevered her veins, her physical convalescence could not keep pace with
+her returning mental tranquillity; but there came a day when the wind
+ceased to sob at the eastern gable of the rectory, and at the oriel
+window of the church. A little cloud like a man's hand arose in the
+west; gusts from the same quarter drove it on and spread it wide; wet
+and tempest prevailed a while. When that was over the sun broke out
+genially, heaven regained its azure, and earth its green; the livid
+cholera-tint had vanished from the face of nature; the hills rose clear
+round the horizon, absolved from that pale malaria-haze.
+
+Caroline's youth could now be of some avail to her, and so could her
+mother's nurture. Both, crowned by God's blessing, sent in the pure west
+wind blowing soft as fresh through the ever-open chamber lattice,
+rekindled her long-languishing energies. At last Mrs. Pryor saw that it
+was permitted to hope: a genuine, material convalescence had commenced.
+It was not merely Caroline's smile which was brighter, or her spirits
+which were cheered, but a certain look had passed from her face and
+eye--a look dread and indescribable, but which will easily be recalled
+by those who have watched the couch of dangerous disease. Long before
+the emaciated outlines of her aspect began to fill, or its departed
+colour to return, a more subtle change took place; all grew softer and
+warmer. Instead of a marble mask and glassy eye, Mrs. Pryor saw laid on
+the pillow a face pale and wasted enough, perhaps more haggard than the
+other appearance, but less awful; for it was a sick, living girl, not a
+mere white mould or rigid piece of statuary.
+
+Now, too, she was not always petitioning to drink. The words, "I am _so_
+thirsty," ceased to be her plaint. Sometimes, when she had swallowed a
+morsel, she would say it had revived her. All descriptions of food were
+no longer equally distasteful; she could be induced, sometimes, to
+indicate a preference. With what trembling pleasure and anxious care did
+not her nurse prepare what was selected! How she watched her as she
+partook of it!
+
+Nourishment brought strength. She could sit up. Then she longed to
+breathe the fresh air, to revisit her flowers, to see how the fruit had
+ripened. Her uncle, always liberal, had bought a garden-chair for her
+express use. He carried her down in his own arms, and placed her in it
+himself, and William Farren was there to wheel her round the walks, to
+show her what he had done amongst her plants, to take her directions for
+further work.
+
+William and she found plenty to talk about. They had a dozen topics in
+common--interesting to them, unimportant to the rest of the world. They
+took a similar interest in animals, birds, insects, and plants; they
+held similar doctrines about humanity to the lower creation, and had a
+similar turn for minute observation on points of natural history. The
+nest and proceedings of some ground-bees, which had burrowed in the turf
+under an old cherry-tree, was one subject of interest; the haunts of
+certain hedge-sparrows, and the welfare of certain pearly eggs and
+callow fledglings, another.
+
+Had _Chambers's Journal_ existed in those days, it would certainly have
+formed Miss Helstone's and Farren's favourite periodical. She would have
+subscribed for it, and to him each number would duly have been lent;
+both would have put implicit faith and found great savour in its
+marvellous anecdotes of animal sagacity.
+
+This is a digression, but it suffices to explain why Caroline would have
+no other hand than William's to guide her chair, and why his society and
+conversation sufficed to give interest to her garden-airings.
+
+Mrs. Pryor, walking near, wondered how her daughter could be so much at
+ease with a "man of the people." _She_ found it impossible to speak to
+him otherwise than stiffly. She felt as if a great gulf lay between her
+caste and his, and that to cross it or meet him half-way would be to
+degrade herself. She gently asked Caroline, "Are you not afraid, my
+dear, to converse with that person so unreservedly? He may presume, and
+become troublesomely garrulous."
+
+"William presume, mamma? You don't know him. He never presumes. He is
+altogether too proud and sensitive to do so. William has very fine
+feelings."
+
+And Mrs. Pryor smiled sceptically at the naïve notion of that
+rough-handed, rough-headed, fustian-clad clown having "fine feelings."
+
+Farren, for his part, showed Mrs. Pryor only a very sulky brow. He knew
+when he was misjudged, and was apt to turn unmanageable with such as
+failed to give him his due.
+
+The evening restored Caroline entirely to her mother, and Mrs. Pryor
+liked the evening; for then, alone with her daughter, no human shadow
+came between her and what she loved. During the day she would have her
+stiff demeanour and cool moments, as was her wont. Between her and Mr.
+Helstone a very respectful but most rigidly ceremonious intercourse was
+kept up. Anything like familiarity would have bred contempt at once in
+one or both these personages; but by dint of strict civility and
+well-maintained distance they got on very smoothly.
+
+Towards the servants Mrs. Pryor's bearing was not uncourteous, but shy,
+freezing, ungenial. Perhaps it was diffidence rather than pride which
+made her appear so haughty; but, as was to be expected, Fanny and Eliza
+failed to make the distinction, and she was unpopular with them
+accordingly. She felt the effect produced; it rendered her at times
+dissatisfied with herself for faults she could not help, and with all
+else dejected, chill, and taciturn.
+
+This mood changed to Caroline's influence, and to that influence alone.
+The dependent fondness of her nursling, the natural affection of her
+child, came over her suavely. Her frost fell away, her rigidity unbent;
+she grew smiling and pliant. Not that Caroline made any wordy profession
+of love--that would ill have suited Mrs. Pryor; she would have read
+therein the proof of insincerity--but she hung on her with easy
+dependence; she confided in her with fearless reliance. These things
+contented the mother's heart.
+
+She liked to hear her daughter say, "Mamma, do this;" "Please, mamma,
+fetch me that;" "Mamma, read to me;" "Sing a little, mamma."
+
+Nobody else--not one living thing--had ever so claimed her services, so
+looked for help at her hand. Other people were always more or less
+reserved and stiff with her, as she was reserved and stiff with them;
+other people betrayed consciousness of and annoyance at her weak points.
+Caroline no more showed such wounding sagacity or reproachful
+sensitiveness now than she had done when a suckling of three months old.
+
+Yet Caroline could find fault. Blind to the constitutional defects that
+were incurable, she had her eyes wide open to the acquired habits that
+were susceptible of remedy. On certain points she would quite artlessly
+lecture her parent; and that parent, instead of being hurt, felt a
+sensation of pleasure in discovering that the girl _dared_ lecture her,
+that she was so much at home with her.
+
+"Mamma, I am determined you shall not wear that old gown any more. Its
+fashion is not becoming; it is too strait in the skirt. You shall put on
+your black silk every afternoon. In that you look nice; it suits you.
+And you shall have a black satin dress for Sundays--a real satin, not a
+satinet or any of the shams. And, mamma, when you get the new one, mind
+you must wear it."
+
+"My dear, I thought of the black silk serving me as a best dress for
+many years yet, and I wished to buy you several things."
+
+"Nonsense, mamma. My uncle gives me cash to get what I want. You know he
+is generous enough; and I have set my heart on seeing you in a black
+satin. Get it soon, and let it be made by a dressmaker of my
+recommending. Let me choose the pattern. You always want to disguise
+yourself like a grandmother. You would persuade one that you are old and
+ugly. Not at all! On the contrary, when well dressed and cheerful you
+are very comely indeed; your smile is so pleasant, your teeth are so
+white, your hair is still such a pretty light colour. And then you speak
+like a young lady, with such a clear, fine tone, and you sing better
+than any young lady I ever heard. Why do you wear such dresses and
+bonnets, mamma, such as nobody else ever wears?"
+
+"Does it annoy you, Caroline?"
+
+"Very much; it vexes me even. People say you are miserly; and yet you
+are not, for you give liberally to the poor and to religious
+societies--though your gifts are conveyed so secretly and quietly that
+they are known to few except the receivers. But I will be your
+lady's-maid myself. When I get a little stronger I will set to work, and
+you must be good, mamma, and do as I bid you."
+
+And Caroline, sitting near her mother, rearranged her muslin
+handkerchief and resmoothed her hair.
+
+"My own mamma," then she went on, as if pleasing herself with the
+thought of their relationship, "who belongs to me, and to whom I belong!
+I am a rich girl now. I have something I can love well, and not be
+afraid of loving. Mamma, who gave you this little brooch? Let me unpin
+it and look at it."
+
+Mrs. Pryor, who usually shrank from meddling fingers and near approach,
+allowed the license complacently.
+
+"Did papa give you this, mamma?"
+
+"My sister gave it me--my only sister, Cary. Would that your Aunt
+Caroline had lived to see her niece!"
+
+"Have you nothing of papa's--no trinket, no gift of his?"
+
+"I have one thing."
+
+"That you prize?"
+
+"That I prize."
+
+"Valuable and pretty?"
+
+"Invaluable and sweet to me."
+
+"Show it, mamma. Is it here or at Fieldhead?"
+
+"It is talking to me now, leaning on me. Its arms are round me."
+
+"Ah, mamma, you mean your teasing daughter, who will never let you
+alone; who, when you go into your room, cannot help running to seek for
+you; who follows you upstairs and down, like a dog."
+
+"Whose features still give me such a strange thrill sometimes. I half
+fear your fair looks yet, child."
+
+"You don't; you can't. Mamma, I am sorry papa was not good. I do so wish
+he had been. Wickedness spoils and poisons all pleasant things. It kills
+love. If you and I thought each other wicked, we could not love each
+other, could we?"
+
+"And if we could not trust each other, Cary?"
+
+"How miserable we should be! Mother, before I knew you I had an
+apprehension that you were not good--that I could not esteem you. That
+dread damped my wish to see you. And now my heart is elate because I
+find you perfect--almost; kind, clever, nice. Your sole fault is that
+you are old-fashioned, and of that I shall cure you. Mamma, put your
+work down; read to me. I like your southern accent; it is so pure, so
+soft. It has no rugged burr, no nasal twang, such as almost every one's
+voice here in the north has. My uncle and Mr. Hall say that you are a
+fine reader, mamma. Mr. Hall said he never heard any lady read with such
+propriety of expression or purity of accent."
+
+"I wish I could reciprocate the compliment, Cary; but, really, the first
+time I heard your truly excellent friend read and preach I could not
+understand his broad northern tongue."
+
+"Could you understand me, mamma? Did I seem to speak roughly?"
+
+"No. I almost wished you had, as I wished you had looked unpolished.
+Your father, Caroline, naturally spoke well, quite otherwise than your
+worthy uncle--correctly, gently, smoothly. You inherit the gift."
+
+"Poor papa! When he was so agreeable, why was he not good?"
+
+"Why he was _as_ he was--and happily of that you, child, can form no
+conception--I cannot tell. It is a deep mystery. The key is in the hands
+of his Maker. There I leave it."
+
+"Mamma, you will keep stitching, stitching away. Put down the sewing; I
+am an enemy to it. It cumbers your lap, and I want it for my head; it
+engages your eyes, and I want them for a book. Here is your
+favourite--Cowper."
+
+These importunities were the mother's pleasure. If ever she delayed
+compliance, it was only to hear them repeated, and to enjoy her child's
+soft, half-playful, half-petulant urgency. And then, when she yielded,
+Caroline would say archly, "You will spoil me, mamma. I always thought I
+should like to be spoiled, and I find it very sweet." So did Mrs.
+Pryor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+OLD COPY-BOOKS.
+
+
+By the time the Fieldhead party returned to Briarfield Caroline was
+nearly well. Miss Keeldar, who had received news by post of her friend's
+convalescence, hardly suffered an hour to elapse between her arrival at
+home and her first call at the rectory.
+
+A shower of rain was falling gently, yet fast, on the late flowers and
+russet autumn shrubs, when the garden wicket was heard to swing open,
+and Shirley's well-known form passed the window. On her entrance her
+feelings were evinced in her own peculiar fashion. When deeply moved by
+serious fears or joys she was not garrulous. The strong emotion was
+rarely suffered to influence her tongue, and even her eye refused it
+more than a furtive and fitful conquest. She took Caroline in her arms,
+gave her one look, one kiss, then said, "You are better."
+
+And a minute after, "I see you are safe now; but take care. God grant
+your health may be called on to sustain no more shocks!"
+
+She proceeded to talk fluently about the journey. In the midst of
+vivacious discourse her eye still wandered to Caroline. There spoke in
+its light a deep solicitude, some trouble, and some amaze.
+
+"She may be better," it said, "but how weak she still is! What peril she
+has come through!"
+
+Suddenly her glance reverted to Mrs. Pryor. It pierced her through.
+
+"When will my governess return to me?" she asked.
+
+"May I tell her all?" demanded Caroline of her mother. Leave being
+signified by a gesture, Shirley was presently enlightened on what had
+happened in her absence.
+
+"Very good," was the cool comment--"very good! But it is no news to me."
+
+"What! did you know?"
+
+"I guessed long since the whole business. I have heard somewhat of Mrs.
+Pryor's history--not from herself, but from others. With every detail of
+Mr. James Helstone's career and character I was acquainted. An
+afternoon's sitting and conversation with Miss Mann had rendered me
+familiar therewith; also he is one of Mrs. Yorke's warning examples--one
+of the blood-red lights she hangs out to scare young ladies from
+matrimony. I believe I should have been sceptical about the truth of the
+portrait traced by such fingers--both these ladies take a dark pleasure
+in offering to view the dark side of life--but I questioned Mr. Yorke on
+the subject, and he said, 'Shirley, my woman, if you want to know aught
+about yond' James Helstone, I can only say he was a man-tiger. He was
+handsome, dissolute, soft, treacherous, courteous, cruel----' Don't cry,
+Cary; we'll say no more about it."
+
+"I am not crying, Shirley; or if I am, it is nothing. Go on; you are no
+friend if you withhold from me the truth. I hate that false plan of
+disguising, mutilating the truth."
+
+"Fortunately I have said pretty nearly all that I have to say, except
+that your uncle himself confirmed Mr. Yorke's words; for he too scorns a
+lie, and deals in none of those conventional subterfuges that are
+shabbier than lies."
+
+"But papa is dead; they should let him alone now."
+
+"They should; and we _will_ let him alone. Cry away, Cary; it will do
+you good. It is wrong to check natural tears. Besides, I choose to
+please myself by sharing an idea that at this moment beams in your
+mother's eye while she looks at you. Every drop blots out a sin. Weep!
+your tears have the virtue which the rivers of Damascus lacked. Like
+Jordan, they can cleanse a leprous memory."
+
+"Madam," she continued, addressing Mrs. Pryor, "did you think I could be
+daily in the habit of seeing you and your daughter together--marking
+your marvellous similarity in many points, observing (pardon me) your
+irrepressible emotions in the presence and still more in the absence of
+your child--and not form my own conjectures? I formed them, and they are
+literally correct. I shall begin to think myself shrewd."
+
+"And you said nothing?" observed Caroline, who soon regained the quiet
+control of her feelings.
+
+"Nothing. I had no warrant to breathe a word on the subject. _My_
+business it was not; I abstained from making it such."
+
+"You guessed so deep a secret, and did not hint that you guessed it?"
+
+"Is that so difficult?"
+
+"It is not like you."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"You are not reserved; you are frankly communicative."
+
+"I may be communicative, yet know where to stop. In showing my treasure
+I may withhold a gem or two--a curious, unbought graven stone--an amulet
+of whose mystic glitter I rarely permit even myself a glimpse.
+Good-day."
+
+Caroline thus seemed to get a view of Shirley's character under a novel
+aspect. Ere long the prospect was renewed; it opened upon her.
+
+No sooner had she regained sufficient strength to bear a change of
+scene--the excitement of a little society--than Miss Keeldar sued daily
+for her presence at Fieldhead. Whether Shirley had become wearied of her
+honoured relatives is not known. She did not say she was; but she
+claimed and retained Caroline with an eagerness which proved that an
+addition to that worshipful company was not unwelcome.
+
+The Sympsons were church people. Of course the rector's niece was
+received by them with courtesy. Mr. Sympson proved to be a man of
+spotless respectability, worrying temper, pious principles, and worldly
+views; his lady was a very good woman--patient, kind, well-bred. She had
+been brought up on a narrow system of views, starved on a few
+prejudices--a mere handful of bitter herbs; a few preferences, soaked
+till their natural flavour was extracted, and with no seasoning added in
+the cooking; some excellent principles, made up in a stiff raised crust
+of bigotry difficult to digest. Far too submissive was she to complain
+of this diet or to ask for a crumb beyond it.
+
+The daughters were an example to their sex. They were tall, with a Roman
+nose apiece. They had been educated faultlessly. All they did was well
+done. History and the most solid books had cultivated their minds.
+Principles and opinions they possessed which could not be mended. More
+exactly-regulated lives, feelings, manners, habits, it would have been
+difficult to find anywhere. They knew by heart a certain
+young-ladies'-schoolroom code of laws on language, demeanour, etc.;
+themselves never deviated from its curious little pragmatical
+provisions, and they regarded with secret whispered horror all
+deviations in others. The Abomination of Desolation was no mystery to
+them; they had discovered that unutterable Thing in the characteristic
+others call Originality. Quick were they to recognize the signs of this
+evil; and wherever they saw its trace--whether in look, word, or deed;
+whether they read it in the fresh, vigorous style of a book, or listened
+to it in interesting, unhackneyed, pure, expressive language--they
+shuddered, they recoiled. Danger was above their heads, peril about
+their steps. What was this strange thing? Being unintelligible it must
+be bad. Let it be denounced and chained up.
+
+Henry Sympson, the only son and youngest child of the family, was a boy
+of fifteen. He generally kept with his tutor. When he left him, he
+sought his cousin Shirley. This boy differed from his sisters. He was
+little, lame, and pale; his large eyes shone somewhat languidly in a wan
+orbit. They were, indeed, usually rather dim, but they were capable of
+illumination. At times they could not only shine, but blaze. Inward
+emotion could likewise give colour to his cheek and decision to his
+crippled movements. Henry's mother loved him; she thought his
+peculiarities were a mark of election. He was not like other children,
+she allowed. She believed him regenerate--a new Samuel--called of God
+from his birth. He was to be a clergyman. Mr. and the Misses Sympson,
+not understanding the youth, let him much alone. Shirley made him her
+pet, and he made Shirley his playmate.
+
+In the midst of this family circle, or rather outside it, moved the
+tutor--the satellite.
+
+Yes, Louis Moore was a satellite of the house of Sympson--connected, yet
+apart; ever attendant, ever distant. Each member of that correct family
+treated him with proper dignity. The father was austerely civil,
+sometimes irritable; the mother, being a kind woman, was attentive, but
+formal; the daughters saw in him an abstraction, not a man. It seemed,
+by their manner, that their brother's tutor did not live for them. They
+were learned; so was he--but not for them. They were accomplished; he
+had talents too, imperceptible to their senses. The most spirited sketch
+from his fingers was a blank to their eyes; the most original
+observation from his lips fell unheard on their ears. Nothing could
+exceed the propriety of their behaviour.
+
+I should have said nothing could have equalled it; but I remember a fact
+which strangely astonished Caroline Helstone. It was--to discover that
+her cousin had absolutely _no_ sympathizing friend at Fieldhead; that to
+Miss Keeldar he was as much a mere teacher, as little a gentleman, as
+little a man, as to the estimable Misses Sympson.
+
+What had befallen the kind-hearted Shirley that she should be so
+indifferent to the dreary position of a fellow-creature thus isolated
+under her roof? She was not, perhaps, haughty to him, but she never
+noticed him--she let him alone. He came and went, spoke or was silent,
+and she rarely recognized his existence.
+
+As to Louis Moore himself, he had the air of a man used to this life,
+and who had made up his mind to bear it for a time. His faculties seemed
+walled up in him, and were unmurmuring in their captivity. He never
+laughed; he seldom smiled; he was uncomplaining. He fulfilled the round
+of his duties scrupulously. His pupil loved him; he asked nothing more
+than civility from the rest of the world. It even appeared that he would
+accept nothing more--in that abode at least; for when his cousin
+Caroline made gentle overtures of friendship, he did not encourage
+them--he rather avoided than sought her. One living thing alone, besides
+his pale, crippled scholar, he fondled in the house, and that was the
+ruffianly Tartar, who, sullen and impracticable to others, acquired a
+singular partiality for him--a partiality so marked that sometimes, when
+Moore, summoned to a meal, entered the room and sat down unwelcomed,
+Tartar would rise from his lair at Shirley's feet and betake himself to
+the taciturn tutor. Once--but once--she noticed the desertion, and
+holding out her white hand, and speaking softly, tried to coax him back.
+Tartar looked, slavered, and sighed, as his manner was, but yet
+disregarded the invitation, and coolly settled himself on his haunches
+at Louis Moore's side. That gentleman drew the dog's big, black-muzzled
+head on to his knee, patted him, and smiled one little smile to himself.
+
+An acute observer might have remarked, in the course of the same
+evening, that after Tartar had resumed his allegiance to Shirley, and
+was once more couched near her footstool, the audacious tutor by one
+word and gesture fascinated him again. He pricked up his ears at the
+word; he started erect at the gesture, and came, with head lovingly
+depressed, to receive the expected caress. As it was given, the
+significant smile again rippled across Moore's quiet face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Shirley," said Caroline one day, as they two were sitting alone in the
+summer-house, "did you know that my cousin Louis was tutor in your
+uncle's family before the Sympsons came down here?"
+
+Shirley's reply was not so prompt as her responses usually were, but at
+last she answered, "Yes--of course; I knew it well."
+
+"I thought you must have been aware of the circumstance."
+
+"Well! what then?"
+
+"It puzzles me to guess how it chanced that you never mentioned it to
+me."
+
+"Why should it puzzle you?"
+
+"It seems odd. I cannot account for it. You talk a great deal--you talk
+freely. How was that circumstance never touched on?"
+
+"Because it never was," and Shirley laughed.
+
+"You are a singular being!" observed her friend. "I thought I knew you
+quite well; I begin to find myself mistaken. You were silent as the
+grave about Mrs. Pryor, and now again here is another secret. But why
+you made it a secret is the mystery to me."
+
+"I never made it a secret; I had no reason for so doing. If you had
+asked me who Henry's tutor was, I would have told you. Besides, I
+thought you knew."
+
+"I am puzzled about more things than one in this matter. You don't like
+poor Louis. Why? Are you impatient at what you perhaps consider his
+_servile_ position? Do you wish that Robert's brother were more highly
+placed?"
+
+"Robert's brother, indeed!" was the exclamation, uttered in a tone like
+the accents of scorn; and with a movement of proud impatience Shirley
+snatched a rose from a branch peeping through the open lattice.
+
+"Yes," repeated Caroline, with mild firmness, "Robert's brother. He _is_
+thus closely related to Gérard Moore of the Hollow, though nature has
+not given him features so handsome or an air so noble as his kinsman;
+but his blood is as good, and he is as much a gentleman were he free."
+
+"Wise, humble, pious Caroline!" exclaimed Shirley ironically. "Men and
+angels, hear her! We should not despise plain features, nor a laborious
+yet honest occupation, should we? Look at the subject of your panegyric.
+He is there in the garden," she continued, pointing through an aperture
+in the clustering creepers; and by that aperture Louis Moore was
+visible, coming slowly down the walk.
+
+"He is not ugly, Shirley," pleaded Caroline; "he is not ignoble. He is
+sad; silence seals his mind. But I believe him to be intelligent; and be
+certain, if he had not something very commendable in his disposition,
+Mr. Hall would never seek his society as he does."
+
+Shirley laughed; she laughed again, each time with a slightly sarcastic
+sound. "Well, well," was her comment. "On the plea of the man being
+Cyril Hall's friend and Robert Moore's brother, we'll just tolerate his
+existence; won't we, Cary? You believe him to be intelligent, do you?
+Not quite an idiot--eh? Something commendable in his disposition!--_id
+est_, not an absolute ruffian. Good! Your representations have weight
+with me; and to prove that they have, should he come this way I will
+speak to him."
+
+He approached the summer-house. Unconscious that it was tenanted, he sat
+down on the step. Tartar, now his customary companion, had followed him,
+and he couched across his feet.
+
+"Old boy!" said Louis, pulling his tawny ear, or rather the mutilated
+remains of that organ, torn and chewed in a hundred battles, "the autumn
+sun shines as pleasantly on us as on the fairest and richest. This
+garden is none of ours, but we enjoy its greenness and perfume, don't
+we?"
+
+He sat silent, still caressing Tartar, who slobbered with exceeding
+affection. A faint twittering commenced among the trees round. Something
+fluttered down as light as leaves. They were little birds, which,
+lighting on the sward at shy distance, hopped as if expectant.
+
+"The small brown elves actually remember that I fed them the other day,"
+again soliloquized Louis. "They want some more biscuit. To-day I forgot
+to save a fragment. Eager little sprites, I have not a crumb for you."
+
+He put his hand in his pocket and drew it out empty.
+
+"A want easily supplied," whispered the listening Miss Keeldar.
+
+She took from her reticule a morsel of sweet-cake; for that repository
+was never destitute of something available to throw to the chickens,
+young ducks, or sparrows. She crumbled it, and bending over his
+shoulder, put the crumbs into his hand.
+
+"There," said she--"there is a providence for the improvident."
+
+"This September afternoon is pleasant," observed Louis Moore, as, not at
+all discomposed, he calmly cast the crumbs on to the grass.
+
+"Even for you?"
+
+"As pleasant for me as for any monarch."
+
+"You take a sort of harsh, solitary triumph in drawing pleasure out of
+the elements and the inanimate and lower animate creation."
+
+"Solitary, but not harsh. With animals I feel I am Adam's son, the heir
+of him to whom dominion was given over 'every living thing that moveth
+upon the earth.' Your dog likes and follows me. When I go into that
+yard, the pigeons from your dovecot flutter at my feet. Your mare in the
+stable knows me as well as it knows you, and obeys me better."
+
+"And my roses smell sweet to you, and my trees give you shade."
+
+"And," continued Louis, "no caprice can withdraw these pleasures from
+me; they are _mine_."
+
+He walked off. Tartar followed him, as if in duty and affection bound,
+and Shirley remained standing on the summer-house step. Caroline saw her
+face as she looked after the rude tutor. It was pale, as if her pride
+bled inwardly.
+
+"You see," remarked Caroline apologetically, "his feelings are so often
+hurt it makes him morose."
+
+"You see," retorted Shirley, with ire, "he is a topic on which you and I
+shall quarrel if we discuss it often; so drop it henceforward and for
+ever."
+
+"I suppose he has more than once behaved in this way," thought Caroline
+to herself, "and that renders Shirley so distant to him. Yet I wonder
+she cannot make allowance for character and circumstances. I wonder the
+general modesty, manliness, sincerity of his nature do not plead with
+her in his behalf. She is not often so inconsiderate, so irritable."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The verbal testimony of two friends of Caroline's to her cousin's
+character augmented her favourable opinion of him. William Farren, whose
+cottage he had visited in company with Mr. Hall, pronounced him a "real
+gentleman;" there was not such another in Briarfield.
+He--William--"could do aught for that man. And then to see how t' bairns
+liked him, and how t' wife took to him first minute she saw him. He
+never went into a house but t' childer wor about him directly. Them
+little things wor like as if they'd a keener sense nor grown-up folks i'
+finding our folk's natures."
+
+Mr. Hall, in answer to a question of Miss Helstone's as to what he
+thought of Louis Moore, replied promptly that he was the best fellow he
+had met with since he left Cambridge.
+
+"But he is so grave," objected Caroline.
+
+"Grave! the finest company in the world! Full of odd, quiet,
+out-of-the-way humour. Never enjoyed an excursion so much in my life as
+the one I took with him to the Lakes. His understanding and tastes are
+so superior, it does a man good to be within their influence; and as to
+his temper and nature, I call them fine."
+
+"At Fieldhead he looks gloomy, and, I believe, has the character of
+being misanthropical."
+
+"Oh! I fancy he is rather out of place there--in a false position. The
+Sympsons are most estimable people, but not the folks to comprehend him.
+They think a great deal about form and ceremony, which are quite out of
+Louis's way."
+
+"I don't think Miss Keeldar likes him."
+
+"She doesn't know him--she doesn't know him; otherwise she has sense
+enough to do justice to his merits."
+
+"Well, I suppose she doesn't know him," mused Caroline to herself, and
+by this hypothesis she endeavoured to account for what seemed else
+unaccountable. But such simple solution of the difficulty was not left
+her long. She was obliged to refuse Miss Keeldar even this negative
+excuse for her prejudice.
+
+One day she chanced to be in the schoolroom with Henry Sympson, whose
+amiable and affectionate disposition had quickly recommended him to her
+regard. The boy was busied about some mechanical contrivance; his
+lameness made him fond of sedentary occupation. He began to ransack his
+tutor's desk for a piece of wax or twine necessary to his work. Moore
+happened to be absent. Mr. Hall, indeed, had called for him to take a
+long walk. Henry could not immediately find the object of his search. He
+rummaged compartment after compartment; and at last, opening an inner
+drawer, he came upon--not a ball of cord or a lump of beeswax, but a
+little bundle of small marble-coloured cahiers, tied with tape. Henry
+looked at them. "What rubbish Mr. Moore stores up in his desk!" he
+said. "I hope he won't keep my old exercises so carefully."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Old copy-books."
+
+He threw the bundle to Caroline. The packet looked so neat externally
+her curiosity was excited to see its contents.
+
+"If they are only copy-books, I suppose I may open them?"
+
+"Oh yes, quite freely. Mr. Moore's desk is half mine--for he lets me
+keep all sorts of things in it--and I give you leave."
+
+On scrutiny they proved to be French compositions, written in a hand
+peculiar but compact, and exquisitely clean and clear. The writing was
+recognizable. She scarcely needed the further evidence of the name
+signed at the close of each theme to tell her whose they were. Yet that
+name astonished her--"Shirley Keeldar, Sympson Grove, ----shire" (a
+southern county), and a date four years back.
+
+She tied up the packet, and held it in her hand, meditating over it. She
+half felt as if, in opening it, she had violated a confidence.
+
+"They are Shirley's, you see," said Henry carelessly.
+
+"Did _you_ give them to Mr. Moore? She wrote them with Mrs. Pryor, I
+suppose?"
+
+"She wrote them in my schoolroom at Sympson Grove, when she lived with
+us there. Mr. Moore taught her French; it is his native language."
+
+"I know. Was she a good pupil, Henry?"
+
+"She was a wild, laughing thing, but pleasant to have in the room. She
+made lesson-time charming. She learned fast--you could hardly tell when
+or how. French was nothing to her. She spoke it quick, quick--as quick
+as Mr. Moore himself."
+
+"Was she obedient? Did she give trouble?"
+
+"She gave plenty of trouble, in a way. She was giddy, but I liked her.
+I'm desperately fond of Shirley."
+
+"_Desperately_ fond--you small simpleton! You don't know what you say."
+
+"I _am desperately_ fond of her. She is the light of my eyes. I said so
+to Mr. Moore last night."
+
+"He would reprove you for speaking with exaggeration."
+
+"He didn't. He never reproves and reproves, as girls' governesses do. He
+was reading, and he only smiled into his book, and said that if Miss
+Keeldar was no more than that, she was less than he took her to be; for
+I was but a dim-eyed, short-sighted little chap. I'm afraid I am a poor
+unfortunate, Miss Caroline Helstone. I am a cripple, you know."
+
+"Never mind, Henry, you are a very nice little fellow; and if God has
+not given you health and strength, He has given you a good disposition
+and an excellent heart and brain."
+
+"I shall be despised. I sometimes think both Shirley and you despise
+me."
+
+"Listen, Henry. Generally, I don't like schoolboys. I have a great
+horror of them. They seem to me little ruffians, who take an unnatural
+delight in killing and tormenting birds, and insects, and kittens, and
+whatever is weaker than themselves. But you are so different I am quite
+fond of you. You have almost as much sense as a man (far more, God wot,"
+she muttered to herself, "than many men); you are fond of reading, and
+you can talk sensibly about what you read."
+
+"I _am_ fond of reading. I know I have sense, and I know I have
+feeling."
+
+Miss Keeldar here entered.
+
+"Henry," she said, "I have brought your lunch here. I shall prepare it
+for you myself."
+
+She placed on the table a glass of new milk, a plate of something which
+looked not unlike leather, and a utensil which resembled a
+toasting-fork.
+
+"What are you two about," she continued, "ransacking Mr. Moore's desk?"
+
+"Looking at your old copy-books," returned Caroline.
+
+"My old copy-books?"
+
+"French exercise-books. Look here! They must be held precious; they are
+kept carefully."
+
+She showed the bundle. Shirley snatched it up. "Did not know one was in
+existence," she said. "I thought the whole lot had long since lit the
+kitchen fire, or curled the maid's hair at Sympson Grove.--What made you
+keep them, Henry?"
+
+"It is not my doing. I should not have thought of it. It never entered
+my head to suppose copy-books of value. Mr. Moore put them by in the
+inner drawer of his desk. Perhaps he forgot them."
+
+"C'est cela. He forgot them, no doubt," echoed Shirley. "They are
+extremely well written," she observed complacently.
+
+"What a giddy girl you were, Shirley, in those days! I remember you so
+well. A slim, light creature whom, though you were so tall, I could lift
+off the floor. I see you with your long, countless curls on your
+shoulders, and your streaming sash. You used to make Mr. Moore
+lively--that is, at first. I believe you grieved him after a while."
+
+Shirley turned the closely-written pages and said nothing. Presently she
+observed, "That was written one winter afternoon. It was a description
+of a snow scene."
+
+"I remember," said Henry. "Mr. Moore, when he read it, cried, 'Voilà le
+Français gagné!' He said it was well done. Afterwards you made him draw,
+in sepia, the landscape you described."
+
+"You have not forgotten, then, Hal?"
+
+"Not at all. We were all scolded that day for not coming down to tea
+when called. I can remember my tutor sitting at his easel, and you
+standing behind him, holding the candle, and watching him draw the snowy
+cliff, the pine, the deer couched under it, and the half-moon hung
+above."
+
+"Where are his drawings, Harry? Caroline should see them."
+
+"In his portfolio. But it is padlocked; he has the key."
+
+"Ask him for it when he comes in."
+
+"You should ask him, Shirley. You are shy of him now. You are grown a
+proud lady to him; I notice that."
+
+"Shirley, you are a real enigma," whispered Caroline in her ear. "What
+queer discoveries I make day by day now!--I who thought I had your
+confidence. Inexplicable creature! even this boy reproves you."
+
+"I have forgotten 'auld lang syne,' you see, Harry," said Miss Keeldar,
+answering young Sympson, and not heeding Caroline.
+
+"Which you never should have done. You don't deserve to be a man's
+morning star if you have so short a memory."
+
+"A man's morning star, indeed! and by 'a man' is meant your worshipful
+self, I suppose? Come, drink your new milk while it is warm."
+
+The young cripple rose and limped towards the fire; he had left his
+crutch near the mantelpiece.
+
+"My poor lame darling!" murmured Shirley, in her softest voice, aiding
+him.
+
+"Whether do you like me or Mr. Sam Wynne best, Shirley?" inquired the
+boy, as she settled him in an arm-chair.
+
+"O Harry, Sam Wynne is my aversion; you are my pet."
+
+"Me or Mr. Malone?"
+
+"You again, a thousand times."
+
+"Yet they are great whiskered fellows, six feet high each."
+
+"Whereas, as long as you live, Harry, you will never be anything more
+than a little pale lameter."
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"You need not be sorrowful. Have I not often told you who was almost as
+little, as pale, as suffering as you, and yet potent as a giant and
+brave as a lion?"
+
+"Admiral Horatio?"
+
+"Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson, and Duke of Bronte; great at heart as
+a Titan; gallant and heroic as all the world and age of chivalry; leader
+of the might of England; commander of her strength on the deep; hurler
+of her thunder over the flood."
+
+"A great man. But I am not warlike, Shirley; and yet my mind is so
+restless I burn day and night--for what I can hardly tell--to be--to
+do--to suffer, I think."
+
+"Harry, it is your mind, which is stronger and older than your frame,
+that troubles you. It is a captive; it lies in physical bondage. But it
+will work its own redemption yet. Study carefully not only books but the
+world. You love nature; love her without fear. Be patient--wait the
+course of time. You will not be a soldier or a sailor, Henry; but if you
+live you will be--listen to my prophecy--you will be an author, perhaps
+a poet."
+
+"An author! It is a flash--a flash of light to me! I will--I _will_!
+I'll write a book that I may dedicate it to you."
+
+"You will write it that you may give your soul its natural release.
+Bless me! what am I saying? more than I understand, I believe, or can
+make good. Here, Hal--here is your toasted oatcake; eat and live!"
+
+"Willingly!" here cried a voice outside the open window. "I know that
+fragrance of meal bread. Miss Keeldar, may I come in and partake?"
+
+"Mr. Hall"--it was Mr. Hall, and with him was Louis Moore, returned from
+their walk--"there is a proper luncheon laid out in the dining-room and
+there are proper people seated round it. You may join that society and
+share that fare if you please; but if your ill-regulated tastes lead you
+to prefer ill-regulated proceedings, step in here, and do as we do."
+
+"I approve the perfume, and therefore shall suffer myself to be led by
+the nose," returned Mr. Hall, who presently entered, accompanied by
+Louis Moore. That gentleman's eye fell on his desk, pillaged.
+
+"Burglars!" said he.--"Henry, you merit the ferule."
+
+"Give it to Shirley and Caroline; they did it," was alleged, with more
+attention to effect than truth.
+
+"Traitor and false witness!" cried both the girls. "We never laid hands
+on a thing, except in the spirit of laudable inquiry!"
+
+"Exactly so," said Moore, with his rare smile. "And what have you
+ferreted out, in your 'spirit of laudable inquiry'?"
+
+He perceived the inner drawer open.
+
+"This is empty," said he. "Who has taken----"
+
+"Here, here!" Caroline hastened to say, and she restored the little
+packet to its place. He shut it up; he locked it in with a small key
+attached to his watch-guard; he restored the other papers to order,
+closed the repository, and sat down without further remark.
+
+"I thought you would have scolded much more, sir," said Henry. "The
+girls deserve reprimand."
+
+"I leave them to their own consciences."
+
+"It accuses them of crimes intended as well as perpetrated, sir. If I
+had not been here, they would have treated your portfolio as they have
+done your desk; but I told them it was padlocked."
+
+"And will you have lunch with us?" here interposed Shirley, addressing
+Moore, and desirous, as it seemed, to turn the conversation.
+
+"Certainly, if I may."
+
+"You will be restricted to new milk and Yorkshire oatcake."
+
+"Va--pour le lait frais!" said Louis. "But for your oatcake!" and he
+made a grimace.
+
+"He cannot eat it," said Henry. "He thinks it is like bran, raised with
+sour yeast."
+
+"Come, then; by special dispensation we will allow him a few cracknels,
+but nothing less homely."
+
+The hostess rang the bell and gave her frugal orders, which were
+presently executed. She herself measured out the milk, and distributed
+the bread round the cosy circle now enclosing the bright little
+schoolroom fire. She then took the post of toaster-general; and kneeling
+on the rug, fork in hand, fulfilled her office with dexterity. Mr. Hall,
+who relished any homely innovation on ordinary usages, and to whom the
+husky oatcake was from custom suave as manna, seemed in his best
+spirits. He talked and laughed gleefully--now with Caroline, whom he had
+fixed by his side, now with Shirley, and again with Louis Moore. And
+Louis met him in congenial spirit. He did not laugh much, but he uttered
+in the quietest tone the wittiest things. Gravely spoken sentences,
+marked by unexpected turns and a quite fresh flavour and poignancy, fell
+easily from his lips. He proved himself to be--what Mr. Hall had said he
+was--excellent company. Caroline marvelled at his humour, but still more
+at his entire self-possession. Nobody there present seemed to impose on
+him a sensation of unpleasant restraint. Nobody seemed a bore--a
+check--a chill to him; and yet there was the cool and lofty Miss Keeldar
+kneeling before the fire, almost at his feet.
+
+But Shirley was cool and lofty no longer, at least not at this moment.
+She appeared unconscious of the humility of her present position; or if
+conscious, it was only to taste a charm in its lowliness. It did not
+revolt her pride that the group to whom she voluntarily officiated as
+handmaid should include her cousin's tutor. It did not scare her that
+while she handed the bread and milk to the rest, she had to offer it to
+him also; and Moore took his portion from her hand as calmly as if he
+had been her equal.
+
+"You are overheated now," he said, when she had retained the fork for
+some time; "let me relieve you."
+
+And he took it from her with a sort of quiet authority, to which she
+submitted passively, neither resisting him nor thanking him.
+
+"I should like to see your pictures, Louis," said Caroline, when the
+sumptuous luncheon was discussed.--"Would not you, Mr. Hall?"
+
+"To please you, I should; but, for my own part, I have cut him as an
+artist. I had enough of him in that capacity in Cumberland and
+Westmoreland. Many a wetting we got amongst the mountains because he
+would persist in sitting on a camp-stool, catching effects of
+rain-clouds, gathering mists, fitful sunbeams, and what not."
+
+"Here is the portfolio," said Henry, bringing it in one hand and leaning
+on his crutch with the other.
+
+Louis took it, but he still sat as if he wanted another to speak. It
+seemed as if he would not open it unless the proud Shirley deigned to
+show herself interested in the exhibition.
+
+"He makes us wait to whet our curiosity," she said.
+
+"You understand opening it," observed Louis, giving her the key. "You
+spoiled the lock for me once; try now."
+
+He held it. She opened it, and, monopolizing the contents, had the first
+view of every sketch herself. She enjoyed the treat--if treat it
+were--in silence, without a single comment. Moore stood behind her chair
+and looked over her shoulder, and when she had done and the others were
+still gazing, he left his post and paced through the room.
+
+A carriage was heard in the lane--the gate-bell rang. Shirley started.
+
+"There are callers," she said, "and I shall be summoned to the room. A
+pretty figure--as they say--I am to receive company. I and Henry have
+been in the garden gathering fruit half the morning. Oh for rest under
+my own vine and my own fig-tree! Happy is the slave-wife of the Indian
+chief, in that she has no drawing-room duty to perform, but can sit at
+ease weaving mats, and stringing beads, and peacefully flattening her
+pickaninny's head in an unmolested corner of her wigwam. I'll emigrate
+to the western woods."
+
+Louis Moore laughed.
+
+"To marry a White Cloud or a Big Buffalo, and after wedlock to devote
+yourself to the tender task of digging your lord's maize-field while he
+smokes his pipe or drinks fire-water."
+
+Shirley seemed about to reply, but here the schoolroom door unclosed,
+admitting Mr. Sympson. That personage stood aghast when he saw the group
+around the fire.
+
+"I thought you alone, Miss Keeldar," he said. "I find quite a party."
+
+And evidently from his shocked, scandalized air, had he not recognized
+in one of the party a clergyman, he would have delivered an extempore
+philippic on the extraordinary habits of his niece: respect for the
+cloth arrested him.
+
+"I merely wished to announce," he proceeded coldly, "that the family
+from De Walden Hall, Mr., Mrs., the Misses, and Mr. Sam Wynne, are in
+the drawing-room." And he bowed and withdrew.
+
+"The family from De Walden Hall! Couldn't be a worse set," murmured
+Shirley.
+
+She sat still, looking a little contumacious, and very much indisposed
+to stir. She was flushed with the fire. Her dark hair had been more than
+once dishevelled by the morning wind that day. Her attire was a light,
+neatly fitting, but amply flowing dress of muslin; the shawl she had
+worn in the garden was still draped in a careless fold round her.
+Indolent, wilful, picturesque, and singularly pretty was her
+aspect--prettier than usual, as if some soft inward emotion, stirred who
+knows how, had given new bloom and expression to her features.
+
+"Shirley, Shirley, you ought to go," whispered Caroline.
+
+"I wonder why?"
+
+She lifted her eyes, and saw in the glass over the fireplace both Mr.
+Hall and Louis Moore gazing at her gravely.
+
+"If," she said, with a yielding smile--"if a majority of the present
+company maintain that the De Walden Hall people have claims on my
+civility, I will subdue my inclinations to my duty. Let those who think
+I ought to go hold up their hands."
+
+Again consulting the mirror, it reflected an unanimous vote against her.
+
+"You must go," said Mr. Hall, "and behave courteously too. You owe many
+duties to society. It is not permitted you to please only yourself."
+
+Louis Moore assented with a low "Hear, hear!"
+
+Caroline, approaching her, smoothed her wavy curls, gave to her attire a
+less artistic and more domestic grace, and Shirley was put out of the
+room, protesting still, by a pouting lip, against her dismissal.
+
+"There is a curious charm about her," observed Mr. Hall, when she was
+gone. "And now," he added, "I must away; for Sweeting is off to see his
+mother, and there are two funerals."
+
+"Henry, get your books; it is lesson-time," said Moore, sitting down to
+his desk.
+
+"A curious charm!" repeated the pupil, when he and his master were left
+alone. "True. Is she not a kind of white witch?" he asked.
+
+"Of whom are you speaking, sir?"
+
+"Of my cousin Shirley."
+
+"No irrelevant questions; study in silence."
+
+Mr. Moore looked and spoke sternly--sourly. Henry knew this mood. It was
+a rare one with his tutor; but when it came he had an awe of it. He
+obeyed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE FIRST BLUESTOCKING.
+
+
+Miss Keeldar and her uncle had characters that would not harmonize, that
+never had harmonized. He was irritable, and she was spirited. He was
+despotic, and she liked freedom. He was worldly, and she, perhaps,
+romantic.
+
+Not without purpose had he come down to Yorkshire. His mission was
+clear, and he intended to discharge it conscientiously. He anxiously
+desired to have his niece married, to make for her a suitable match,
+give her in charge to a proper husband, and wash his hands of her for
+ever.
+
+The misfortune was, from infancy upwards, Shirley and he had disagreed
+on the meaning of the words "suitable" and "proper." She never yet had
+accepted his definition; and it was doubtful whether, in the most
+important step of her life, she would consent to accept it.
+
+The trial soon came.
+
+Mr. Wynne proposed in form for his son, Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.
+
+"Decidedly suitable! most proper!" pronounced Mr. Sympson. "A fine
+unencumbered estate, real substance, good connections. _It must be
+done!_"
+
+He sent for his niece to the oak parlour; he shut himself up there with
+her alone; he communicated the offer; he gave his opinion; he claimed
+her consent.
+
+It was withheld.
+
+"No; I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne."
+
+"I ask why. I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy
+of you."
+
+She stood on the hearth. She was pale as the white marble slab and
+cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling.
+
+"And _I_ ask in what sense that young man is worthy of _me_?"
+
+"He has twice your money, twice your common sense, equal connections,
+equal respectability."
+
+"Had he my money counted fivescore times I would take no vow to love
+him."
+
+"Please to state your objections."
+
+"He has run a course of despicable, commonplace profligacy. Accept that
+as the first reason why I spurn him."
+
+"Miss Keeldar, you shock me!"
+
+"That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable inferiority. His
+intellect reaches no standard I can esteem: there is a second
+stumbling-block. His views are narrow, his feelings are blunt, his
+tastes are coarse, his manners vulgar."
+
+"The man is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him is presumption on
+your part."
+
+"I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject; I forbid it!"
+
+"Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer celibacy?"
+
+"I deny your right to claim an answer to that question."
+
+"May I ask if you expect some man of title--some peer of the realm--to
+demand your hand?"
+
+"I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it."
+
+"Were there insanity in the family, I should believe you mad. Your
+eccentricity and conceit touch the verge of frenzy."
+
+"Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me over-leap it."
+
+"I anticipate no less. Frantic and impracticable girl! Take warning! I
+dare you to sully our name by a _mésalliance_!"
+
+"_Our_ name! Am _I_ called Sympson?"
+
+"God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard; I will not be
+trifled with!"
+
+"What, in the name of common law and common sense, would you or could
+you do if my pleasure led me to a choice you disapproved?"
+
+"Take care! take care!" warning her with voice and hand that trembled
+alike.
+
+"Why? What shadow of power have _you_ over me? Why should I fear you?"
+
+"Take care, madam!"
+
+"Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry I am resolved
+to esteem--to admire--to _love_."
+
+"Preposterous stuff! indecorous, unwomanly!"
+
+"To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but I
+feel indifferent whether I am comprehended or not."
+
+"And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?"
+
+"On a beggar it will never fall. Mendicancy is not estimable."
+
+"On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or--or----"
+
+"Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?"
+
+"Any literary scrub, or shabby, whining artist."
+
+"For the scrubby, shabby, whining I have no taste; for literature and
+the arts I have. And there I wonder how your Fawthrop Wynne would suit
+me. He cannot write a note without orthographical errors; he reads only
+a sporting paper; he was the booby of Stilbro' grammar school!"
+
+"Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she come?" He lifted hands
+and eyes.
+
+"Never to the altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne."
+
+"To what will she come? Why are not the laws more stringent, that I
+might compel her to hear reason?"
+
+"Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom and you the Czar, you
+could not _compel_ me to this step. _I_ will write to Mr. Wynne. Give
+yourself no further trouble on the subject."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes
+the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the
+same quarter. It appeared that Miss Keeldar--or her fortune--had by this
+time made a sensation in the district, and produced an impression in
+quarters by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed Mr.
+Wynne's, all more or less eligible. All were in succession pressed on
+her by her uncle, and all in succession she refused. Yet amongst them
+was more than one gentleman of unexceptionable character as well as
+ample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom she
+expected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious.
+
+At last the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and
+her uncle was sure of it; and what is more, the discovery showed his
+niece to him in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportment
+to her accordingly.
+
+Fieldhead had of late been fast growing too hot to hold them both. The
+suave aunt could not reconcile them; the daughters froze at the view of
+their quarrels. Gertrude and Isabella whispered by the hour together in
+their dressing-room, and became chilled with decorous dread if they
+chanced to be left alone with their audacious cousin. But, as I have
+said, a change supervened. Mr. Sympson was appeased and his family
+tranquillized.
+
+The village of Nunnely has been alluded to--its old church, its forest,
+its monastic ruins. It had also its hall, called the priory--an older, a
+larger, a more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and
+what is more, it had its man of title--its baronet, which neither
+Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast. This possession--its proudest and
+most prized--had for years been nominal only. The present baronet, a
+young man hitherto resident in a distant province, was unknown on his
+Yorkshire estate.
+
+During Miss Keeldar's stay at the fashionable watering-place of
+Cliffbridge, she and her friends had met with and been introduced to Sir
+Philip Nunnely. They encountered him again and again on the sands, the
+cliffs, in the various walks, sometimes at the public balls of the
+place. He seemed solitary. His manner was very unpretending--too simple
+to be termed affable; rather timid than proud. He did not _condescend_
+to their society; he seemed _glad_ of it.
+
+With any unaffected individual Shirley could easily and quickly cement
+an acquaintance. She walked and talked with Sir Philip; she, her aunt,
+and cousins sometimes took a sail in his yacht. She liked him because
+she found him kind and modest, and was charmed to feel she had the power
+to amuse him.
+
+One slight drawback there was--where is the friendship without it?--Sir
+Philip had a literary turn. He wrote poetry--sonnets, stanzas, ballads.
+Perhaps Miss Keeldar thought him a little too fond of reading and
+reciting these compositions; perhaps she wished the rhyme had possessed
+more accuracy, the measure more music, the tropes more freshness, the
+inspiration more fire. At any rate, she always winced when he recurred
+to the subject of his poems, and usually did her best to divert the
+conversation into another channel.
+
+He would beguile her to take moonlight walks with him on the bridge, for
+the sole purpose, as it seemed, of pouring into her ear the longest of
+his ballads. He would lead her away to sequestered rustic seats, whence
+the rush of the surf to the sands was heard soft and soothing; and when
+he had her all to himself, and the sea lay before them, and the scented
+shade of gardens spread round, and the tall shelter of cliffs rose
+behind them, he would pull out his last batch of sonnets, and read them
+in a voice tremulous with emotion. He did not seem to know that though
+they might be rhyme they were not poetry. It appeared, by Shirley's
+downcast eye and disturbed face, that she knew it, and felt heartily
+mortified by the single foible of this good and amiable gentleman.
+
+Often she tried, as gently as might be, to wean him from this fanatic
+worship of the Muses. It was his monomania; on all ordinary subjects he
+was sensible enough, and fain was she to engage him in ordinary topics.
+He questioned her sometimes about his place at Nunnely; she was but too
+happy to answer his interrogatories at length. She never wearied of
+describing the antique priory, the wild silvan park, the hoary church
+and hamlet; nor did she fail to counsel him to come down and gather his
+tenantry about him in his ancestral halls.
+
+Somewhat to her surprise, Sir Philip followed her advice to the letter,
+and actually, towards the close of September, arrived at the priory.
+
+He soon made a call at Fieldhead, and his first visit was not his last.
+He said--when he had achieved the round of the neighbourhood--that under
+no roof had he found such pleasant shelter as beneath the massive oak
+beams of the gray manor-house of Briarfield; a cramped, modest dwelling
+enough compared with his own, but he liked it.
+
+Presently it did not suffice to sit with Shirley in her panelled
+parlour, where others came and went, and where he could rarely find a
+quiet moment to show her the latest production of his fertile muse; he
+must have her out amongst the pleasant pastures, and lead her by the
+still waters. _Tête-à-tête_ ramblings she shunned, so he made parties
+for her to his own grounds, his glorious forest; to remoter
+scenes--woods severed by the Wharfe, vales watered by the Aire.
+
+Such assiduity covered Miss Keeldar with distinction. Her uncle's
+prophetic soul anticipated a splendid future. He already scented the
+time afar off when, with nonchalant air, and left foot nursed on his
+right knee, he should be able to make dashingly-familiar allusion to his
+"nephew the baronet." Now his niece dawned upon him no longer "a mad
+girl," but a "most sensible woman." He termed her, in confidential
+dialogues with Mrs. Sympson, "a truly superior person; peculiar, but
+very clever." He treated her with exceeding deference; rose reverently
+to open and shut doors for her; reddened his face and gave himself
+headaches with stooping to pick up gloves, handkerchiefs, and other
+loose property, whereof Shirley usually held but insecure tenure. He
+would cut mysterious jokes about the superiority of woman's wit over
+man's wisdom; commence obscure apologies for the blundering mistake he
+had committed respecting the generalship, the tactics, of "a personage
+not a hundred miles from Fieldhead." In short, he seemed elate as any
+"midden-cock on pattens."
+
+His niece viewed his manœuvres and received his innuendoes with phlegm;
+apparently she did not above half comprehend to what aim they tended.
+When plainly charged with being the preferred of the baronet, she said
+she believed he did like her, and for her part she liked him. She had
+never thought a man of rank--the only son of a proud, fond mother, the
+only brother of doting sisters--could have so much goodness, and, on the
+whole, so much sense.
+
+Time proved, indeed, that Sir Philip liked her. Perhaps he had found in
+her that "curious charm" noticed by Mr. Hall. He sought her presence
+more and more, and at last with a frequency that attested it had become
+to him an indispensable stimulus. About this time strange feelings
+hovered round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard anxieties haunted
+some of its rooms. There was an unquiet wandering of some of the inmates
+among the still fields round the mansion; there was a sense of
+expectancy that kept the nerves strained.
+
+One thing seemed clear: Sir Philip was not a man to be despised. He was
+amiable; if not highly intellectual, he was intelligent. Miss Keeldar
+could not affirm of him, what she had so bitterly affirmed of Sam Wynne,
+that his feelings were blunt, his tastes coarse, and his manners vulgar.
+There was sensibility in his nature; there was a very real, if not a
+very discriminating, love of the arts; there was the English gentleman
+in all his deportment. As to his lineage and wealth, both were, of
+course, far beyond her claims.
+
+His appearance had at first elicited some laughing though not
+ill-natured remarks from the merry Shirley. It was boyish. His features
+were plain and slight, his hair sandy, his stature insignificant. But
+she soon checked her sarcasm on this point; she would even fire up if
+any one else made uncomplimentary allusion thereto. He had "a pleasing
+countenance," she affirmed; "and there was that in his heart which was
+better than three Roman noses, than the locks of Absalom or the
+proportions of Saul." A spare and rare shaft she still reserved for his
+unfortunate poetic propensity; but even here she would tolerate no irony
+save her own.
+
+In short, matters had reached a point which seemed fully to warrant an
+observation made about this time by Mr. Yorke to the tutor, Louis.
+
+"Yond' brother Robert of yours seems to me to be either a fool or a
+madman. Two months ago I could have sworn he had the game all in his own
+hands; and there he runs the country, and quarters himself up in London
+for weeks together, and by the time he comes back he'll find himself
+checkmated. Louis, 'there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken
+at the flood, leads on to fortune, but, once let slip, never returns
+again.' I'd write to Robert, if I were you, and remind him of that."
+
+"Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?" inquired Louis, as if the idea was
+new to him.
+
+"Views I suggested to him myself, and views he might have realized, for
+she liked him."
+
+"As a neighbour?"
+
+"As more than that. I have seen her change countenance and colour at the
+mere mention of his name. Write to the lad, I say, and tell him to come
+home. He is a finer gentleman than this bit of a baronet, after all."
+
+"Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a mere penniless adventurer
+to aspire to a rich woman's hand is presumptuous--contemptible?"
+
+"Oh, if you are for high notions and double-refined sentiment, I've
+naught to say. I'm a plain, practical man myself, and if Robert is
+willing to give up that royal prize to a lad-rival--a puling slip of
+aristocracy--I am quite agreeable. At _his_ age, in _his_ place, with
+_his_ inducements, I would have acted differently. Neither baronet, nor
+duke, nor prince should have snatched my sweetheart from me without a
+struggle. But you tutors are such solemn chaps; it is almost like
+speaking to a parson to consult with you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Flattered and fawned upon as Shirley was just now, it appeared she was
+not absolutely spoiled--that her better nature did not quite leave her.
+Universal report had indeed ceased to couple her name with that of
+Moore, and this silence seemed sanctioned by her own apparent oblivion
+of the absentee; but that she had not _quite_ forgotten him--that she
+still regarded him, if not with love, yet with interest--seemed proved
+by the increased attention which at this juncture of affairs a sudden
+attack of illness induced her to show that tutor-brother of Robert's, to
+whom she habitually bore herself with strange alternations of cool
+reserve and docile respect--now sweeping past him in all the dignity of
+the moneyed heiress and prospective Lady Nunnely, and anon accosting him
+as abashed school-girls are wont to accost their stern professors;
+bridling her neck of ivory and curling her lip of carmine, if he
+encountered her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the grave
+rebuke of his eye with as much contrition as if he had the power to
+inflict penalties in case of contumacy.
+
+Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever, which for a few days laid him
+low, in one of the poor cottages of the district, which he, his lame
+pupil, and Mr. Hall were in the habit of visiting together. At any rate
+he sickened, and after opposing to the malady a taciturn resistance for
+a day or two, was obliged to keep his chamber.
+
+He lay tossing on his thorny bed one evening, Henry, who would not quit
+him, watching faithfully beside him, when a tap--too light to be that of
+Mrs. Gill or the housemaid--summoned young Sympson to the door.
+
+"How is Mr. Moore to-night?" asked a low voice from the dark gallery.
+
+"Come in and see him yourself."
+
+"Is he asleep?"
+
+"I wish he could sleep. Come and speak to him, Shirley."
+
+"He would not like it."
+
+But the speaker stepped in, and Henry, seeing her hesitate on the
+threshold, took her hand and drew her to the couch.
+
+The shaded light showed Miss Keeldar's form but imperfectly; yet it
+revealed her in elegant attire. There was a party assembled below,
+including Sir Philip Nunnely; the ladies were now in the drawing-room,
+and their hostess had stolen from them to visit Henry's tutor. Her pure
+white dress, her fair arms and neck, the trembling chainlet of gold
+circling her throat and quivering on her breast, glistened strangely
+amid the obscurity of the sickroom. Her mien was chastened and pensive.
+She spoke gently.
+
+"Mr. Moore, how are you to-night?"
+
+"I have not been very ill, and am now better."
+
+"I heard that you complained of thirst. I have brought you some grapes;
+can you taste one?"
+
+"No; but I thank you for remembering me."
+
+"Just one."
+
+From the rich cluster that filled a small basket held in her hand she
+severed a berry and offered it to his lips. He shook his head, and
+turned aside his flushed face.
+
+"But what, then, can I bring you instead? You have no wish for fruit;
+yet I see that your lips are parched. What beverage do you prefer?"
+
+"Mrs. Gill supplies me with toast-and-water. I like it best."
+
+Silence fell for some minutes.
+
+"Do you suffer?--have you pain?"
+
+"Very little."
+
+"What made you ill?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"I wonder what caused this fever? To what do you attribute it?"
+
+"Miasma, perhaps--malaria. This is autumn, a season fertile in fevers."
+
+"I hear you often visit the sick in Briarfield, and Nunnely too, with
+Mr. Hall. You should be on your guard; temerity is not wise."
+
+"That reminds me, Miss Keeldar, that perhaps you had better not enter
+this chamber or come near this couch. I do not believe my illness is
+infectious. I scarcely fear"--with a sort of smile--"_you_ will take it;
+but why should you run even the shadow of a risk? Leave me."
+
+"Patience, I will go soon; but I should like to do something for you
+before I depart--any little service----"
+
+"They will miss you below."
+
+"No; the gentlemen are still at table."
+
+"They will not linger long. Sir Philip Nunnely is no wine-bibber, and I
+hear him just now pass from the dining-room to the drawing-room."
+
+"It is a servant."
+
+"It is Sir Philip; I know his step."
+
+"Your hearing is acute."
+
+"It is never dull, and the sense seems sharpened at present. Sir Philip
+was here to tea last night. I heard you sing to him some song which he
+had brought you. I heard him, when he took his departure at eleven
+o'clock, call you out on to the pavement, to look at the evening star."
+
+"You must be nervously sensitive."
+
+"I heard him kiss your hand."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"No: my chamber is over the hall, the window just above the front door;
+the sash was a little raised, for I felt feverish. You stood ten minutes
+with him on the steps. I heard your discourse, every word, and I heard
+the salute.--Henry, give me some water."
+
+"Let me give it him."
+
+But he half rose to take the glass from young Sympson, and declined her
+attendance.
+
+"And can I do nothing?"
+
+"Nothing; for you cannot guarantee me a night's peaceful rest, and it is
+all I at present want."
+
+"You do not sleep well?"
+
+"Sleep has left me."
+
+"Yet you said you were not very ill?"
+
+"I am often sleepless when in high health."
+
+"If I had power, I would lap you in the most placid slumber--quite deep
+and hushed, without a dream."
+
+"Blank annihilation! I do not ask that."
+
+"With dreams of all you most desire."
+
+"Monstrous delusions! The sleep would be delirium, the waking death."
+
+"Your wishes are not so chimerical; you are no visionary."
+
+"Miss Keeldar, I suppose you think so; but my character is not, perhaps,
+quite as legible to you as a page of the last new novel might be."
+
+"That is possible. But this sleep--I _should_ like to woo it to your
+pillow, to win for you its favour. If I took a book and sat down and
+read some pages? I can well spare half an hour."
+
+"Thank you, but I will not detain you."
+
+"I would read softly."
+
+"It would not do. I am too feverish and excitable to bear a soft,
+cooing, vibrating voice close at my ear. You had better leave me."
+
+"Well, I will go."
+
+"And no good-night?"
+
+"Yes, sir, yes. Mr. Moore, good-night." (Exit Shirley.)
+
+"Henry, my boy, go to bed now; it is time you had some repose."
+
+"Sir, it would please me to watch at your bedside all night."
+
+"Nothing less called for. I am getting better. There, go."
+
+"Give me your blessing, sir."
+
+"God bless you, my best pupil!"
+
+"You never call me your dearest pupil!"
+
+"No, nor ever shall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Possibly Miss Keeldar resented her former teacher's rejection of her
+courtesy. It is certain she did not repeat the offer of it. Often as her
+light step traversed the gallery in the course of a day, it did not
+again pause at his door; nor did her "cooing, vibrating voice" disturb a
+second time the hush of the sickroom. A sickroom, indeed, it soon ceased
+to be; Mr. Moore's good constitution quickly triumphed over his
+indisposition. In a few days he shook it off, and resumed his duties as
+tutor.
+
+That "auld lang syne" had still its authority both with preceptor and
+scholar was proved by the manner in which he sometimes promptly passed
+the distance she usually maintained between them, and put down her high
+reserve with a firm, quiet hand.
+
+One afternoon the Sympson family were gone out to take a carriage
+airing. Shirley, never sorry to snatch a reprieve from their society,
+had remained behind, detained by business, as she said. The business--a
+little letter-writing--was soon dispatched after the yard gates had
+closed on the carriage; Miss Keeldar betook herself to the garden.
+
+It was a peaceful autumn day. The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed
+the pastures far and wide. The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped,
+but were yet full of leaf. The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not
+withered, tinged the hills. The beck wandered down to the Hollow,
+through a silent district; no wind followed its course or haunted its
+woody borders. Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay. On the
+walks, swept that morning, yellow leaves had fluttered down again. Its
+time of flowers, and even of fruits, was over; but a scantling of
+apples enriched the trees. Only a blossom here and there expanded pale
+and delicate amidst a knot of faded leaves.
+
+These single flowers--the last of their race--Shirley culled as she
+wandered thoughtfully amongst the beds. She was fastening into her
+girdle a hueless and scentless nosegay, when Henry Sympson called to her
+as he came limping from the house.
+
+"Shirley, Mr. Moore would be glad to see you in the schoolroom and to
+hear you read a little French, if you have no more urgent occupation."
+
+The messenger delivered his commission very simply, as if it were a mere
+matter of course.
+
+"Did Mr. Moore tell you to say that?"
+
+"Certainly; why not? And now, do come, and let us once more be as we
+were at Sympson Grove. We used to have pleasant school-hours in those
+days."
+
+Miss Keeldar perhaps thought that circumstances were changed since then;
+however, she made no remark, but after a little reflection quietly
+followed Henry.
+
+Entering the schoolroom, she inclined her head with a decent obeisance,
+as had been her wont in former times. She removed her bonnet, and hung
+it up beside Henry's cap. Louis Moore sat at his desk, turning the
+leaves of a book, open before him, and marking passages with his pencil.
+He just moved, in acknowledgment of her curtsy, but did not rise.
+
+"You proposed to read to me a few nights ago," said he. "I could not
+hear you then. My attention is now at your service. A little renewed
+practice in French may not be unprofitable. Your accent, I have
+observed, begins to rust."
+
+"What book shall I take?"
+
+"Here are the posthumous works of St. Pierre. Read a few pages of the
+'Fragments de l'Amazone.'"
+
+She accepted the chair which he had placed in readiness near his own;
+the volume lay on his desk--there was but one between them; her sweeping
+curls dropped so low as to hide the page from him.
+
+"Put back your hair," he said.
+
+For one moment Shirley looked not quite certain whether she would obey
+the request or disregard it. A flicker of her eye beamed furtive on the
+professor's face. Perhaps if he had been looking at her harshly or
+timidly, or if one undecided line had marked his countenance, she would
+have rebelled, and the lesson had ended there and then; but he was only
+awaiting her compliance--as calm as marble, and as cool. She threw the
+veil of tresses behind her ear. It was well her face owned an agreeable
+outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of
+early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might
+have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society?
+Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor.
+
+She began to read. The language had become strange to her tongue; it
+faltered; the lecture flowed unevenly, impeded by hurried breath, broken
+by Anglicized tones. She stopped.
+
+"I can't do it. Read me a paragraph, if you please, Mr. Moore."
+
+What _he_ read _she_ repeated. She caught his accent in three minutes.
+
+"Très bien," was the approving comment at the close of the piece.
+
+"C'est presque le Français rattrapé, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+"You could not write French as you once could, I dare say?"
+
+"Oh no! I should make strange work of my concords now."
+
+"You could not compose the _devoir_ of 'La Première Femme Savante'?"
+
+"Do you still remember that rubbish?"
+
+"Every line."
+
+"I doubt you."
+
+"I will engage to repeat it word for word."
+
+"You would stop short at the first line."
+
+"Challenge me to the experiment."
+
+"I challenge you."
+
+He proceeded to recite the following. He gave it in French, but we must
+translate, on pain of being unintelligible to some readers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of
+       the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons
+       of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they
+       took them wives of all which they chose."
+
+This was in the dawn of time, before the morning stars were set, and
+while they yet sang together.
+
+The epoch is so remote, the mists and dewy gray of matin twilight veil
+it with so vague an obscurity, that all distinct feature of custom, all
+clear line of locality, evade perception and baffle research. It must
+suffice to know that the world then existed; that men peopled it; that
+man's nature, with its passions, sympathies, pains, and pleasures,
+informed the planet and gave it soul.
+
+A certain tribe colonized a certain spot on the globe; of what race this
+tribe--unknown; in what region that spot--untold. We usually think of
+the East when we refer to transactions of that date; but who shall
+declare that there was no life in the West, the South, the North? What
+is to disprove that this tribe, instead of camping under palm groves in
+Asia, wandered beneath island oak woods rooted in our own seas of
+Europe?
+
+It is no sandy plain, nor any circumscribed and scant oasis I seem to
+realize. A forest valley, with rocky sides and brown profundity of
+shade, formed by tree crowding on tree, descends deep before me. Here,
+indeed, dwell human beings, but so few, and in alleys so thick branched
+and overarched, they are neither heard nor seen. Are they savage?
+Doubtless. They live by the crook and the bow; half shepherds, half
+hunters, their flocks wander wild as their prey. Are they happy? No, not
+more happy than we are at this day. Are they good? No, not better than
+ourselves. Their nature is our nature--human both. There is one in this
+tribe too often miserable--a child bereaved of both parents. None cares
+for this child. She is fed sometimes, but oftener forgotten. A hut
+rarely receives her; the hollow tree and chill cavern are her home.
+Forsaken, lost, and wandering, she lives more with the wild beast and
+bird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold are her comrades; sadness
+hovers over, and solitude besets her round. Unheeded and unvalued, she
+should die; but she both lives and grows. The green wilderness nurses
+her, and becomes to her a mother; feeds her on juicy berry, on
+saccharine root and nut.
+
+There is something in the air of this clime which fosters life kindly.
+There must be something, too, in its dews which heals with sovereign
+balm. Its gentle seasons exaggerate no passion, no sense; its
+temperature tends to harmony; its breezes, you would say, bring down
+from heaven the germ of pure thought and purer feeling. Not grotesquely
+fantastic are the forms of cliff and foliage, not violently vivid the
+colouring of flower and bird. In all the grandeur of these forests
+there is repose; in all their freshness there is tenderness.
+
+The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, bestowed on deer and
+dove, has not been denied to the human nursling. All solitary, she has
+sprung up straight and graceful. Nature cast her features in a fine
+mould; they have matured in their pure, accurate first lines, unaltered
+by the shocks of disease. No fierce dry blast has dealt rudely with the
+surface of her frame; no burning sun has crisped or withered her
+tresses. Her form gleams ivory-white through the trees; her hair flows
+plenteous, long, and glossy; her eyes, not dazzled by vertical fires,
+beam in the shade large and open, and full and dewy. Above those eyes,
+when the breeze bares her forehead, shines an expanse fair and ample--a
+clear, candid page, whereon knowledge, should knowledge ever come, might
+write a golden record. You see in the desolate young savage nothing
+vicious or vacant. She haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful, though
+of what one so untaught can think it is not easy to divine.
+
+On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood, being utterly
+alone--for she had lost all trace of her tribe, who had wandered leagues
+away, she knew not where--she went up from the vale, to watch Day take
+leave and Night arrive. A crag overspread by a tree was her station. The
+oak roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat; the oak boughs, thick-leaved,
+wove a canopy.
+
+Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple fire, and parting to
+the farewell of a wild, low chorus from the woodlands. Then Night
+entered, quiet as death. The wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Now
+every nest held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully safe
+in their lair.
+
+The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; occupied, however, rather
+in feeling than in thinking, in wishing than hoping, in imagining than
+projecting. She felt the world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty.
+Of all things herself seemed to herself the centre--a small, forgotten
+atom of life, a spark of soul, emitted inadvertent from the great
+creative source, and now burning unmarked to waste in the heart of a
+black hollow. She asked, was she thus to burn out and perish, her living
+light doing no good, never seen, never needed--a star in an else
+starless firmament, which nor shepherd, nor wanderer, nor sage, nor
+priest tracked as a guide or read as a prophecy? Could this be, she
+demanded, when the flame of her intelligence burned so vivid; when her
+life beat so true, and real, and potent; when something within her
+stirred disquieted, and restlessly asserted a God-given strength, for
+which it insisted she should find exercise?
+
+She gazed abroad on Heaven and Evening. Heaven and Evening gazed back on
+her. She bent down, searching bank, hill, river, spread dim below. All
+she questioned responded by oracles. She heard--she was impressed; but
+she could not understand. Above her head she raised her hands joined
+together.
+
+"Guidance--help--comfort--come!" was her cry.
+
+There was no voice, nor any that answered.
+
+She waited, kneeling, steadfastly looking up. Yonder sky was sealed; the
+solemn stars shone alien and remote.
+
+At last one overstretched chord of her agony slacked; she thought
+Something above relented; she felt as if Something far round drew
+nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, no word,
+only a tone.
+
+Again--a fine, full, lofty tone, a deep, soft sound, like a storm
+whispering, made twilight undulate.
+
+Once more, profounder, nearer, clearer, it rolled harmonious.
+
+Yet again--a distinct voice passed between Heaven and Earth.
+
+"Eva!"
+
+If Eva were not this woman's name, she had none. She rose. "Here am I."
+
+"Eva!"
+
+"O Night (it can be but Night that speaks), I am here!"
+
+The voice, descending, reached Earth.
+
+"Eva!"
+
+"Lord," she cried, "behold thine handmaid!"
+
+She had her religion--all tribes held some creed.
+
+"I come--a Comforter!"
+
+"Lord, come quickly!"
+
+The Evening flushed full of hope; the Air panted; the Moon--rising
+before--ascended large, but her light showed no shape.
+
+"Lean towards me, Eva. Enter my arms; repose thus."
+
+"Thus I lean, O Invisible but felt! And what art thou?"
+
+"Eva, I have brought a living draught from heaven. Daughter of Man,
+drink of my cup!"
+
+"I drink: it is as if sweetest dew visited my lips in a full current. My
+arid heart revives; my affliction is lightened; my strait and struggle
+are gone. And the night changes! the wood, the hill, the moon, the wide
+sky--all change!"
+
+"All change, and for ever. I take from thy vision darkness; I loosen
+from thy faculties fetters! I level in thy path obstacles; I with my
+presence fill vacancy. I claim as mine the lost atom of life. I take to
+myself the spark of soul--burning heretofore forgotten!"
+
+"O take me! O claim me! This is a god."
+
+"This is a son of God--one who feels himself in the portion of life that
+stirs you. He is suffered to reclaim his own, and so to foster and aid
+that it shall not perish hopeless."
+
+"A son of God! Am I indeed chosen?"
+
+"Thou only in this land. I saw thee that thou wert fair; I knew thee
+that thou wert mine. To me it is given to rescue, to sustain, to cherish
+mine own. Acknowledge in me that Seraph on earth named Genius."
+
+"My glorious Bridegroom! true Dayspring from on high! All I would have
+at last I possess. I receive a revelation. The dark hint, the obscure
+whisper, which have haunted me from childhood, are interpreted. Thou art
+He I sought. Godborn, take me, thy bride!"
+
+"Unhumbled, I can take what is mine. Did I not give from the altar the
+very flame which lit Eva's being? Come again into the heaven whence thou
+wert sent."
+
+That Presence, invisible but mighty, gathered her in like a lamb to the
+fold; that voice, soft but all-pervading, vibrated through her heart
+like music. Her eye received no image; and yet a sense visited her
+vision and her brain as of the serenity of stainless air, the power of
+sovereign seas, the majesty of marching stars, the energy of colliding
+elements, the rooted endurance of hills wide based, and, above all, as
+of the lustre of heroic beauty rushing victorious on the Night,
+vanquishing its shadows like a diviner sun.
+
+Such was the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse the
+tale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale? Who
+shall tell how He between whom and the Woman God put enmity forged
+deadly plots to break the bond or defile its purity? Who shall record
+the long strife between Serpent and Seraph:--How still the Father of
+Lies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom, grossness into glory,
+pain into bliss, poison into passion? How the "dreadless Angel" defied,
+resisted, and repelled? How again and again he refined the polluted cup,
+exalted the debased emotion, rectified the perverted impulse, detected
+the lurking venom, baffled the frontless temptation--purified,
+justified, watched, and withstood? How, by his patience, by his
+strength, by that unutterable excellence he held from God--his
+Origin--this faithful Seraph fought for Humanity a good fight through
+time; and, when Time's course closed, and Death was encountered at the
+end, barring with fleshless arm the portals of Eternity, how Genius
+still held close his dying bride, sustained her through the agony of the
+passage, bore her triumphant into his own home, Heaven; restored her,
+redeemed, to Jehovah, her Maker; and at last, before Angel and
+Archangel, crowned her with the crown of Immortality?
+
+Who shall of these things write the chronicle?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I never could correct that composition," observed Shirley, as Moore
+concluded. "Your censor-pencil scored it with condemnatory lines, whose
+signification I strove vainly to fathom."
+
+She had taken a crayon from the tutor's desk, and was drawing little
+leaves, fragments of pillars, broken crosses, on the margin of the book.
+
+"French may be half forgotten, but the habits of the French lesson are
+retained, I see," said Louis. "My books would now, as erst, be unsafe
+with you. My newly-bound St. Pierre would soon be like my Racine--Miss
+Keeldar, her mark, traced on every page."
+
+Shirley dropped her crayon as if it burned her fingers.
+
+"Tell me what were the faults of that _devoir_?" she asked. "Were they
+grammatical errors, or did you object to the substance?"
+
+"I never said that the lines I drew were indications of faults at all.
+You would have it that such was the case, and I refrained from
+contradiction."
+
+"What else did they denote?"
+
+"No matter now."
+
+"Mr. Moore," cried Henry, "make Shirley repeat some of the pieces she
+used to say so well by heart."
+
+"If I ask for any, it will be 'Le Cheval Dompté,'" said Moore, trimming
+with his penknife the pencil Miss Keeldar had worn to a stump.
+
+She turned aside her head; the neck, the clear cheek, forsaken by their
+natural veil, were seen to flush warm.
+
+"Ah! she has not forgotten, you see, sir," said Henry, exultant. "She
+knows how naughty she was."
+
+A smile, which Shirley would not permit to expand, made her lip tremble;
+she bent her face, and hid it half with her arms, half in her curls,
+which, as she stooped, fell loose again. "Certainly I was a rebel," she
+answered.
+
+"A rebel!" repeated Henry. "Yes; you and papa had quarrelled terribly,
+and you set both him and mamma, and Mrs. Pryor, and everybody, at
+defiance. You said he had insulted you----"
+
+"He _had_ insulted me," interposed Shirley.
+
+"And you wanted to leave Sympson Grove directly. You packed your things
+up, and papa threw them out of your trunk; mamma cried, Mrs. Pryor
+cried; they both stood wringing their hands begging you to be patient;
+and you knelt on the floor with your things and your up-turned box
+before you, looking, Shirley, looking--why, in one of _your_ passions.
+Your features, in such passions, are not distorted; they are fixed, but
+quite beautiful. You scarcely look angry, only resolute, and in a
+certain haste; yet one feels that at such times an obstacle cast across
+your path would be split as with lightning. Papa lost heart, and called
+Mr. Moore."
+
+"Enough, Henry."
+
+"No, it is not enough. I hardly know how Mr. Moore managed, except that
+I recollect he suggested to papa that agitation would bring on his gout;
+and then he spoke quietly to the ladies, and got them away; and
+afterwards he said to you, Miss Shirley, that it was of no use talking
+or lecturing now, but that the tea-things were just brought into the
+schoolroom, and he was very thirsty, and he would be glad if you would
+leave your packing for the present and come and make a cup of tea for
+him and me. You came; you would not talk at first, but soon you softened
+and grew cheerful. Mr. Moore began to tell us about the Continent, the
+war, and Bonaparte--subjects we were both fond of listening to. After
+tea he said we should neither of us leave him that evening; he would not
+let us stray out of his sight, lest we should again get into mischief.
+We sat one on each side of him. We were so happy. I never passed so
+pleasant an evening. The next day he gave you, missy, a lecture of an
+hour, and wound it up by marking you a piece to learn in Bossuet as a
+punishment-lesson--'Le Cheval Dompté.' You learned it instead of packing
+up, Shirley. We heard no more of your running away. Mr. Moore used to
+tease you on the subject for a year afterwards."
+
+"She never said a lesson with greater spirit," subjoined Moore. "She
+then, for the first time, gave me the treat of hearing my native tongue
+spoken without accent by an English girl."
+
+"She was as sweet as summer cherries for a month afterwards," struck in
+Henry: "a good hearty quarrel always left Shirley's temper better than
+it found it."
+
+"You talk of me as if I were not present," observed Miss Keeldar, who
+had not yet lifted her face.
+
+"Are you sure you _are_ present?" asked Moore. "There have been moments
+since my arrival here when I have been tempted to inquire of the lady of
+Fieldhead if she knew what had become of my former pupil."
+
+"She is here now."
+
+"I see her, and humble enough; but I would neither advise Harry nor
+others to believe too implicitly in the humility which one moment can
+hide its blushing face like a modest little child, and the next lift it
+pale and lofty as a marble Juno."
+
+"One man in times of old, it is said, imparted vitality to the statue he
+had chiselled; others may have the contrary gift of turning life to
+stone."
+
+Moore paused on this observation before he replied to it. His look, at
+once struck and meditative, said, "A strange phrase; what may it mean?"
+He turned it over in his mind, with thought deep and slow, as some
+German pondering metaphysics.
+
+"You mean," he said at last, "that some men inspire repugnance, and so
+chill the kind heart."
+
+"Ingenious!" responded Shirley. "If the interpretation pleases you, you
+are welcome to hold it valid. _I_ don't care."
+
+And with that she raised her head, lofty in look and statue-like in hue,
+as Louis had described it.
+
+"Behold the metamorphosis!" he said; "scarce imagined ere it is
+realized: a lowly nymph develops to an inaccessible goddess. But Henry
+must not be disappointed of his recitation, and Olympia will deign to
+oblige him. Let us begin."
+
+"I have forgotten the very first line."
+
+"Which I have not. _My_ memory, if a slow, is a retentive one. I acquire
+deliberately both knowledge and liking. The acquisition grows into my
+brain, and the sentiment into my breast; and it is not as the
+rapid-springing produce which, having no root in itself, flourishes
+verdurous enough for a time, but too soon falls withered away.
+Attention, Henry! Miss Keeldar consents to favour you. 'Voyez ce cheval
+ardent et impétueux,' so it commences."
+
+Miss Keeldar did consent to make the effort; but she soon stopped.
+
+"Unless I heard the whole repeated I cannot continue it," she said.
+
+"Yet it was quickly learned--'soon gained, soon gone,'" moralized the
+tutor. He recited the passage deliberately, accurately, with slow,
+impressive emphasis.
+
+Shirley, by degrees, inclined her ear as he went on. Her face, before
+turned from him, _re_turned towards him. When he ceased, she took the
+word up as if from his lips; she took his very tone; she seized his very
+accent; she delivered the periods as he had delivered them; she
+reproduced his manner, his pronunciation, his expression.
+
+It was now her turn to petition.
+
+"Recall 'Le Songe d'Athalie,'" she entreated, "and say it."
+
+He said it for her. She took it from him; she found lively excitement in
+the pleasure of making his language her own. She asked for further
+indulgence; all the old school pieces were revived, and with them
+Shirley's old school days.
+
+He had gone through some of the best passages of Racine and Corneille,
+and then had heard the echo of his own deep tones in the girl's voice,
+that modulated itself faithfully on his. "Le chêne et le Roseau," that
+most beautiful of La Fontaine's fables, had been recited, well recited,
+by the tutor, and the pupil had animatedly availed herself of the
+lesson. Perhaps a simultaneous feeling seized them now, that their
+enthusiasm had kindled to a glow, which the slight fuel of French poetry
+no longer sufficed to feed; perhaps they longed for a trunk of English
+oak to be thrown as a Yule log to the devouring flame. Moore observed,
+"And these are our best pieces! And we have nothing more dramatic,
+nervous, natural!"
+
+And then he smiled and was silent. His whole nature seemed serenely
+alight. He stood on the hearth, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece,
+musing not unblissfully.
+
+Twilight was closing on the diminished autumn day. The schoolroom
+windows--darkened with creeping plants, from which no high October winds
+had as yet swept the sere foliage--admitted scarce a gleam of sky; but
+the fire gave light enough to talk by.
+
+And now Louis Moore addressed his pupil in French, and she answered at
+first with laughing hesitation and in broken phrase. Moore encouraged
+while he corrected her. Henry joined in the lesson; the two scholars
+stood opposite the master, their arms round each other's waists. Tartar,
+who long since had craved and obtained admission, sat sagely in the
+centre of the rug, staring at the blaze which burst fitful from morsels
+of coal among the red cinders. The group were happy enough, but--
+
+    "Pleasures are like poppies spread;
+     You seize the flower--its bloom is shed."
+
+The dull, rumbling sound of wheels was heard on the pavement in the
+yard.
+
+"It is the carriage returned," said Shirley; "and dinner must be just
+ready, and I am not dressed."
+
+A servant came in with Mr. Moore's candle and tea; for the tutor and his
+pupil usually dined at luncheon time.
+
+"Mr. Sympson and the ladies are returned," she said, "and Sir Philip
+Nunnely is with them."
+
+"How you did start, and how your hand trembled, Shirley!" said Henry,
+when the maid had closed the shutter and was gone. "But I know
+why--don't you, Mr. Moore? I know what papa intends. He is a little ugly
+man, that Sir Philip. I wish he had not come. I wish sisters and all of
+them had stayed at De Walden Hall to dine.--Shirley should once more
+have made tea for you and me, Mr. Moore, and we would have had a happy
+evening of it."
+
+Moore was locking up his desk and putting away his St. Pierre. "That was
+_your_ plan, was it, my boy?"
+
+"Don't you approve it, sir?"
+
+"I approve nothing utopian. Look Life in its iron face; stare Reality
+out of its brassy countenance. Make the tea, Henry; I shall be back in a
+minute."
+
+He left the room; so did Shirley, by another door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+PHÅ’BE.
+
+
+Shirley probably got on pleasantly with Sir Philip that evening, for the
+next morning she came down in one of her best moods.
+
+"Who will take a walk with me?" she asked, after breakfast. "Isabella
+and Gertrude, will you?"
+
+So rare was such an invitation from Miss Keeldar to her female cousins
+that they hesitated before they accepted it. Their mamma, however,
+signifying acquiescence in the project, they fetched their bonnets, and
+the trio set out.
+
+It did not suit these three young persons to be thrown much together.
+Miss Keeldar liked the society of few ladies; indeed, she had a cordial
+pleasure in that of none except Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone. She
+was civil, kind, attentive even to her cousins; but still she usually
+had little to say to them. In the sunny mood of this particular morning,
+she contrived to entertain even the Misses Sympson. Without deviating
+from her wonted rule of discussing with them only ordinary themes, she
+imparted to these themes an extraordinary interest; the sparkle of her
+spirit glanced along her phrases.
+
+What made her so joyous? All the cause must have been in herself. The
+day was not bright. It was dim--a pale, waning autumn day. The walks
+through the dun woods were damp; the atmosphere was heavy, the sky
+overcast; and yet it seemed that in Shirley's heart lived all the light
+and azure of Italy, as all its fervour laughed in her gray English eye.
+
+Some directions necessary to be given to her foreman, John, delayed her
+behind her cousins as they neared Fieldhead on their return. Perhaps an
+interval of twenty minutes elapsed between her separation from them and
+her re-entrance into the house. In the meantime she had spoken to John,
+and then she had lingered in the lane at the gate. A summons to
+luncheon called her in. She excused herself from the meal, and went
+upstairs.
+
+"Is not Shirley coming to luncheon?" asked Isabella. "She said she was
+hungry."
+
+An hour after, as she did not quit her chamber, one of her cousins went
+to seek her there. She was found sitting at the foot of the bed, her
+head resting on her hand; she looked quite pale, very thoughtful, almost
+sad.
+
+"You are not ill?" was the question put.
+
+"A little sick," replied Miss Keeldar.
+
+Certainly she was not a little changed from what she had been two hours
+before.
+
+This change, accounted for only by those three words, explained no
+otherwise; this change--whencesoever springing, effected in a brief ten
+minutes--passed like no light summer cloud. She talked when she joined
+her friends at dinner, talked as usual. She remained with them during
+the evening. When again questioned respecting her health, she declared
+herself perfectly recovered. It had been a mere passing faintness, a
+momentary sensation, not worth a thought; yet it was felt there was a
+difference in Shirley.
+
+The next day--the day, the week, the fortnight after--this new and
+peculiar shadow lingered on the countenance, in the manner of Miss
+Keeldar. A strange quietude settled over her look, her movements, her
+very voice. The alteration was not so marked as to court or permit
+frequent questioning, yet it _was_ there, and it would not pass away. It
+hung over her like a cloud which no breeze could stir or disperse. Soon
+it became evident that to notice this change was to annoy her. First she
+shrank from remark; and, if persisted in, she, with her own peculiar
+_hauteur_, repelled it. "Was she ill?" The reply came with decision.
+
+"I _am not_."
+
+"Did anything weigh on her mind? Had anything happened to affect her
+spirits?"
+
+She scornfully ridiculed the idea. "What did they mean by spirits? She
+had no spirits, black or white, blue or gray, to affect."
+
+"Something must be the matter--she was so altered."
+
+"She supposed she had a right to alter at her ease. She knew she was
+plainer. If it suited her to grow ugly, why need others fret themselves
+on the subject?"
+
+"There must be a cause for the change. What was it?"
+
+She peremptorily requested to be let alone.
+
+Then she would make every effort to appear quite gay, and she seemed
+indignant at herself that she could not perfectly succeed. Brief
+self-spurning epithets burst from her lips when alone. "Fool! coward!"
+she would term herself. "Poltroon!" she would say, "if you must tremble,
+tremble in secret! Quail where no eye sees you!"
+
+"How dare you," she would ask herself--"how dare you show your weakness
+and betray your imbecile anxieties? Shake them off; rise above them. If
+you cannot do this, hide them."
+
+And to hide them she did her best. She once more became resolutely
+lively in company. When weary of effort and forced to relax, she sought
+solitude--not the solitude of her chamber (she refused to mope, shut up
+between four walls), but that wilder solitude which lies out of doors,
+and which she could chase, mounted on Zoë, her mare. She took long rides
+of half a day. Her uncle disapproved, but he dared not remonstrate. It
+was never pleasant to face Shirley's anger, even when she was healthy
+and gay; but now that her face showed thin, and her large eye looked
+hollow, there was something in the darkening of that face and kindling
+of that eye which touched as well as alarmed.
+
+To all comparative strangers who, unconscious of the alterations in her
+spirits, commented on the alteration in her looks, she had one reply,--
+
+"I am perfectly well; I have not an ailment."
+
+And health, indeed, she must have had, to be able to bear the exposure
+to the weather she now encountered. Wet or fair, calm or storm, she took
+her daily ride over Stilbro' Moor, Tartar keeping up at her side, with
+his wolf-like gallop, long and untiring.
+
+Twice, three times, the eyes of gossips--those eyes which are
+everywhere, in the closet and on the hill-top--noticed that instead of
+turning on Rushedge, the top ridge of Stilbro' Moor, she rode forwards
+all the way to the town. Scouts were not wanting to mark her destination
+there. It was ascertained that she alighted at the door of one Mr.
+Pearson Hall, a solicitor, related to the vicar of Nunnely. This
+gentleman and his ancestors had been the agents of the Keeldar family
+for generations back. Some people affirmed that Miss Keeldar was become
+involved in business speculations connected with Hollow's Mill--that she
+had lost money, and was constrained to mortgage her land. Others
+conjectured that she was going to be married, and that the settlements
+were preparing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Moore and Henry Sympson were together in the schoolroom. The tutor
+was waiting for a lesson which the pupil seemed busy in preparing.
+
+"Henry, make haste. The afternoon is getting on."
+
+"Is it, sir?"
+
+"Certainly. Are you nearly ready with that lesson?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not _nearly_ ready?"
+
+"I have not construed a line."
+
+Mr. Moore looked up. The boy's tone was rather peculiar.
+
+"The task presents no difficulties, Henry; or, if it does, bring them to
+me. We will work together."
+
+"Mr. Moore, I can do no work."
+
+"My boy, you are ill."
+
+"Sir, I am not worse in bodily health than usual, but my heart is full."
+
+"Shut the book. Come hither, Harry. Come to the fireside."
+
+Harry limped forward. His tutor placed him in a chair; his lips were
+quivering, his eyes brimming. He laid his crutch on the floor, bent down
+his head, and wept.
+
+"This distress is not occasioned by physical pain, you say, Harry? You
+have a grief; tell it me."
+
+"Sir, I have such a grief as I never had before. I wish it could be
+relieved in some way; I can hardly bear it."
+
+"Who knows but, if we talk it over, we may relieve it? What is the
+cause? Whom does it concern?"
+
+"The cause, sir, is Shirley; it concerns Shirley."
+
+"Does it? You think her changed?"
+
+"All who know her think her changed--you too, Mr. Moore."
+
+"Not seriously--no. I see no alteration but such as a favourable turn
+might repair in a few weeks; besides, her own word must go for
+something: she says she is well."
+
+"There it is, sir. As long as she maintained she was well, I believed
+her. When I was sad out of her sight, I soon recovered spirits in her
+presence. Now----"
+
+"Well, Harry, now. Has she said anything to you? You and she were
+together in the garden two hours this morning. I saw her talking, and
+you listening. Now, my dear Harry, if Miss Keeldar has said she is ill,
+and enjoined you to keep her secret, do not obey her. For her life's
+sake, avow everything. Speak, my boy."
+
+"_She_ say she is ill! I believe, sir, if she were dying, she would
+smile, and aver, 'Nothing ails me.'"
+
+"What have you learned then? What new circumstance?"
+
+"I have learned that she has just made her will."
+
+"Made her will?"
+
+The tutor and pupil were silent.
+
+"She told you that?" asked Moore, when some minutes had elapsed.
+
+"She told me quite cheerfully, not as an ominous circumstance, which I
+felt it to be. She said I was the only person besides her solicitor,
+Pearson Hall, and Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, who knew anything about
+it; and to me, she intimated, she wished specially to explain its
+provisions."
+
+"Go on, Harry."
+
+"'Because,' she said, looking down on me with her beautiful eyes--oh!
+they _are_ beautiful, Mr. Moore! I love them! I love her! She is my
+star! Heaven must not claim her! She is lovely in this world, and fitted
+for this world. Shirley is not an angel; she is a woman, and she shall
+live with men. Seraphs shall not have her! Mr. Moore, if one of the
+'sons of God,' with wings wide and bright as the sky, blue and sounding
+as the sea, having seen that she was fair, descended to claim her, his
+claim should be withstood--withstood by me--boy and cripple as I am."
+
+"Henry Sympson, go on, when I tell you."
+
+"'Because,' she said, 'if I made no will, and died before you, Harry,
+all my property would go to you; and I do not intend that it should be
+so, though your father would like it. But you,' she said, 'will have his
+whole estate, which is large--larger than Fieldhead. Your sisters will
+have nothing; so I have left them some money, though I do not love them,
+both together, half so much as I love one lock of your fair hair.' She
+said these words, and she called me her 'darling,' and let me kiss her.
+She went on to tell me that she had left Caroline Helstone some money
+too; that this manor house, with its furniture and books, she had
+bequeathed to me, as she did not choose to take the old family place
+from her own blood; and that all the rest of her property, amounting to
+about twelve thousand pounds, exclusive of the legacies to my sisters
+and Miss Helstone, she had willed, not to me, seeing I was already rich,
+but to a good man, who would make the best use of it that any human
+being could do--a man, she said, that was both gentle and brave, strong
+and merciful--a man that might not profess to be pious, but she knew he
+had the secret of religion pure and undefiled before God. The spirit of
+love and peace was with him. He visited the fatherless and widows in
+their affliction, and kept himself unspotted from the world. Then she
+asked, 'Do you approve what I have done, Harry?' I could not answer. My
+tears choked me, as they do now."
+
+Mr. Moore allowed his pupil a moment to contend with and master his
+emotion. He then demanded, "What else did she say?"
+
+"When I had signified my full consent to the conditions of her will, she
+told me I was a generous boy, and she was proud of me. 'And now,' she
+added, 'in case anything should happen, you will know what to say to
+Malice when she comes whispering hard things in your ear, insinuating
+that Shirley has wronged you, that she did not love you. You will know
+that I _did_ love you, Harry; that no sister could have loved you
+better--my own treasure.' Mr. Moore, sir, when I remember her voice, and
+recall her look, my heart beats as if it would break its strings. She
+_may_ go to heaven before me--if God commands it, she _must_; but the
+rest of my life--and my life will not be long, I am glad of that
+now--shall be a straight, quick, thoughtful journey in the path her step
+has pressed. I thought to enter the vault of the Keeldars before her.
+Should it be otherwise, lay my coffin by Shirley's side."
+
+Moore answered him with a weighty calm, that offered a strange contrast
+to the boy's perturbed enthusiasm.
+
+"You are wrong, both of you--you harm each other. If youth once falls
+under the influence of a shadowy terror, it imagines there will never be
+full sunlight again; its first calamity it fancies will last a lifetime.
+What more did she say? Anything more?"
+
+"We settled one or two family points between ourselves."
+
+"I should rather like to know what----"
+
+"But, Mr. Moore, you smile. _I_ could not smile to see Shirley in such a
+mood."
+
+"My boy, I am neither nervous, nor poetic, nor inexperienced. I see
+things as they are; you don't as yet. Tell me these family points."
+
+"Only, sir, she asked me whether I considered myself most of a Keeldar
+or a Sympson; and I answered I was Keeldar to the core of the heart and
+to the marrow of the bones. She said she was glad of it; for, besides
+her, I was the only Keeldar left in England. And then we agreed on some
+matters."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, sir, that if I lived to inherit my father's estate, and her
+house, I was to take the name of Keeldar, and to make Fieldhead my
+residence. Henry Shirley Keeldar I said I would be called; and I will.
+Her name and her manor house are ages old, and Sympson and Sympson Grove
+are of yesterday."
+
+"Come, you are neither of you going to heaven yet. I have the best hopes
+of you both, with your proud distinctions--a pair of half-fledged
+eaglets. Now, what is your inference from all you have told me? Put it
+into words."
+
+"That Shirley thinks she is going to die."
+
+"She referred to her health?"
+
+"Not once; but I assure you she is wasting. Her hands are grown quite
+thin, and so is her cheek."
+
+"Does she ever complain to your mother or sisters?"
+
+"Never. She laughs at them when they question her. Mr. Moore, she is a
+strange being, so fair and girlish--not a man-like woman at all, not an
+Amazon, and yet lifting her head above both help and sympathy."
+
+"Do you know where she is now, Henry? Is she in the house, or riding
+out?"
+
+"Surely not out, sir. It rains fast."
+
+"True; which, however, is no guarantee that she is not at this moment
+cantering over Rushedge. Of late she has never permitted weather to be a
+hindrance to her rides."
+
+"You remember, Mr. Moore, how wet and stormy it was last Wednesday--so
+wild, indeed, that she would not permit Zoë to be saddled? Yet the blast
+she thought too tempestuous for her mare she herself faced on foot; that
+afternoon she walked nearly as far as Nunnely. I asked her, when she
+came in, if she was not afraid of taking cold. 'Not I,' she said. 'It
+would be too much good luck for me. I don't know, Harry, but the best
+thing that could happen to me would be to take a good cold and fever,
+and so pass off like other Christians.' She is reckless, you see, sir."
+
+"Reckless indeed! Go and find out where she is, and if you can get an
+opportunity of speaking to her without attracting attention, request her
+to come here a minute."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+He snatched his crutch, and started up to go.
+
+"Harry!"
+
+He returned.
+
+"Do not deliver the message formally. Word it as, in former days, you
+would have worded an ordinary summons to the schoolroom."
+
+"I see, sir. She will be more likely to obey."
+
+"And, Harry----"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I will call you when I want you. Till then, you are dispensed from
+lessons."
+
+He departed. Mr. Moore, left alone, rose from his desk.
+
+"I can be very cool and very supercilious with Henry," he said. "I can
+seem to make light of his apprehensions, and look down _du haut de ma
+grandeur_ on his youthful ardour. To _him_ I can speak as if, in my
+eyes, they were both children. Let me see if I can keep up the same rôle
+with her. I have known the moment when I seemed about to forget it, when
+Confusion and Submission seemed about to crush me with their soft
+tyranny, when my tongue faltered, and I have almost let the mantle drop,
+and stood in her presence, not master--no--but something else. I trust I
+shall never so play the fool. It is well for a Sir Philip Nunnely to
+redden when he meets her eye. He may permit himself the indulgence of
+submission. He may even, without disgrace, suffer his hand to tremble
+when it touches hers; but if one of her farmers were to show himself
+susceptible and sentimental, he would merely prove his need of a strait
+waistcoat. So far I have always done very well. She has sat near me, and
+I have not shaken--more than my desk. I have encountered her looks and
+smiles like--why, like a tutor, as I am. Her hand I never yet
+touched--never underwent that test. Her farmer or her footman I am
+not--no serf nor servant of hers have I ever been; but I am poor, and it
+behoves me to look to my self-respect--not to compromise an inch of it.
+What did she mean by that allusion to the cold people who petrify flesh
+to marble? It pleased me--I hardly know why; I would not permit myself
+to inquire. I never do indulge in scrutiny either of her language or
+countenance; for if I did, I should sometimes forget common sense and
+believe in romance. A strange, secret ecstasy steals through my veins at
+moments. I'll not encourage--I'll not remember it. I am resolved, as
+long as may be, to retain the right to say with Paul, 'I am not mad, but
+speak forth the words of truth and soberness.'"
+
+He paused, listening.
+
+"Will she come, or will she not come?" he inquired. "How will she take
+the message? Naïvely or disdainfully? Like a child or like a queen? Both
+characters are in her nature.
+
+"If she comes, what shall I say to her? How account, firstly, for the
+freedom of the request? Shall I apologize to her? I could in all
+humility; but would an apology tend to place us in the positions we
+ought relatively to occupy in this matter? I _must_ keep up the
+professor, otherwise---- I hear a door."
+
+He waited. Many minutes passed.
+
+"She will refuse me. Henry is entreating her to come; she declines. My
+petition is presumption in her eyes. Let her _only_ come, I can teach
+her to the contrary. I would rather she were a little perverse; it will
+steel me. I prefer her cuirassed in pride, armed with a taunt. Her scorn
+startles me from my dreams; I stand up myself. A sarcasm from her eyes
+or lips puts strength into every nerve and sinew I have. Some step
+approaches, and not Henry's."
+
+The door unclosed; Miss Keeldar came in. The message, it appeared, had
+found her at her needle; she brought her work in her hand. That day she
+had not been riding out; she had evidently passed it quietly. She wore
+her neat indoor dress and silk apron. This was no Thalestris from the
+fields, but a quiet domestic character from the fireside. Mr. Moore had
+her at advantage. He should have addressed her at once in solemn
+accents, and with rigid mien. Perhaps he would, had she looked saucy;
+but her air never showed less of _crânerie_. A soft kind of youthful
+shyness depressed her eyelid and mantled on her cheek. The tutor stood
+silent.
+
+She made a full stop between the door and his desk.
+
+"Did you want me, sir?" she asked.
+
+"I ventured, Miss Keeldar, to send for you--that is, to ask an interview
+of a few minutes."
+
+She waited; she plied her needle.
+
+"Well, sir" (not lifting her eyes), "what about?"
+
+"Be seated first. The subject I would broach is one of some moment.
+Perhaps I have hardly a right to approach it. It is possible I ought to
+frame an apology; it is possible no apology can excuse me. The liberty I
+have taken arises from a conversation with Henry. The boy is unhappy
+about your health; all your friends are unhappy on that subject. It is
+of your health I would speak."
+
+"I am quite well," she said briefly.
+
+"Yet changed."
+
+"That matters to none but myself. We all change."
+
+"Will you sit down? Formerly, Miss Keeldar, I had some influence with
+you: have I any now? May I feel that what I am saying is not accounted
+positive presumption?"
+
+"Let me read some French, Mr. Moore, or I will even take a spell at the
+Latin grammar, and let us proclaim a truce to all sanitary discussions."
+
+"No, no. It is time there were discussions."
+
+"Discuss away, then, but do not choose me for your text. I am a healthy
+subject."
+
+"Do you not think it wrong to affirm and reaffirm what is substantially
+untrue?"
+
+"I say I am well. I have neither cough, pain, nor fever."
+
+"Is there no equivocation in that assertion? Is it the direct truth?"
+
+"The direct truth."
+
+Louis Moore looked at her earnestly.
+
+"I can myself," he said, "trace no indications of actual disease. But
+why, then, are you altered?"
+
+"_Am_ I altered?"
+
+"We will try. We will seek a proof."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I ask, in the first place, do you sleep as you used to?"
+
+"I do not; but it is not because I am ill."
+
+"Have you the appetite you once had?"
+
+"No; but it is not because I am ill."
+
+"You remember this little ring fastened to my watch-chain? It was my
+mother's, and is too small to pass the joint of my little finger. You
+have many a time sportively purloined it. It fitted your fore-finger.
+Try now."
+
+She permitted the test. The ring dropped from the wasted little hand.
+Louis picked it up, and reattached it to the chain. An uneasy flush
+coloured his brow. Shirley again said, "It is not because I am ill."
+
+"Not only have you lost sleep, appetite, and flesh," proceeded Moore,
+"but your spirits are always at ebb. Besides, there is a nervous alarm
+in your eye, a nervous disquiet in your manner. These peculiarities were
+not formerly yours."
+
+"Mr. Moore, we will pause here. You have exactly hit it. I am nervous.
+Now, talk of something else. What wet weather we have--steady, pouring
+rain!"
+
+"_You_ nervous? Yes; and if Miss Keeldar is nervous, it is not without a
+cause. Let me reach it. Let me look nearer. The ailment is not physical.
+I have suspected that. It came in one moment. I know the day. I noticed
+the change. Your pain is mental."
+
+"Not at all. It is nothing so dignified--merely nervous. Oh! dismiss the
+topic."
+
+"When it is exhausted; not till then. Nervous alarms should always be
+communicated, that they may be dissipated. I wish I had the gift of
+persuasion, and could incline you to speak willingly. I believe
+confession, in your case, would be half equivalent to cure."
+
+"No," said Shirley abruptly. "I wish that were at all probable; but I am
+afraid it is not."
+
+She suspended her work a moment. She was now seated. Resting her elbow
+on the table, she leaned her head on her hand. Mr. Moore looked as if he
+felt he had at last gained some footing in this difficult path. She was
+serious, and in her wish was implied an important admission; after that
+she could no longer affirm that _nothing_ ailed her.
+
+The tutor allowed her some minutes for repose and reflection ere he
+returned to the charge. Once his lips moved to speak, but he thought
+better of it, and prolonged the pause. Shirley lifted her eye to his.
+Had he betrayed injudicious emotion, perhaps obstinate persistence in
+silence would have been the result; but he looked calm, strong,
+trustworthy.
+
+"I had better tell _you_ than my aunt," she said, "or than my cousins,
+or my uncle. They would all make such a bustle, and it is that very
+bustle I dread--the alarm, the flurry, the _éclat_. In short, I never
+liked to be the centre of a small domestic whirlpool. You can bear a
+little shock--eh?"
+
+"A great one, if necessary."
+
+Not a muscle of the man's frame moved, and yet his large heart beat fast
+in his deep chest. What was she going to tell him? Was irremediable
+mischief done?
+
+"Had I thought it right to go to you, I would never have made a secret
+of the matter one moment," she continued. "I would have told you at
+once, and asked advice."
+
+"Why was it not right to come to me?"
+
+"It might be _right_--I do not mean that; but I could not do it. I
+seemed to have no title to trouble you. The mishap concerned me only. I
+wanted to keep it to myself, and people will not let me. I tell you, I
+hate to be an object of worrying attention, or a theme for village
+gossip. Besides, it may pass away without result--God knows!"
+
+Moore, though tortured with suspense, did not demand a quick
+explanation. He suffered neither gesture, glance, nor word to betray
+impatience. His tranquillity tranquillized Shirley; his confidence
+reassured her.
+
+"Great effects may spring from trivial causes," she remarked, as she
+loosened a bracelet from her wrist. Then, unfastening her sleeve, and
+partially turning it up, "Look here, Mr. Moore."
+
+She showed a mark in her white arm--rather a deep though healed-up
+indentation--something between a burn and a cut.
+
+"I would not show that to any one in Briarfield but you, because you can
+take it quietly."
+
+"Certainly there is nothing in the little mark to shock. Its history
+will explain."
+
+"Small as it is, it has taken my sleep away, and made me nervous, thin,
+and foolish; because, on account of that little mark, I am obliged to
+look forward to a possibility that has its terrors."
+
+The sleeve was readjusted, the bracelet replaced.
+
+"Do you know that you try me?" he said, smiling. "I am a patient sort of
+man, but my pulse is quickening."
+
+"Whatever happens, you will befriend me, Mr. Moore? You will give me the
+benefit of your self-possession, and not leave me at the mercy of
+agitated cowards?"
+
+"I make no promise now. Tell me the tale, and then exact what pledge you
+will."
+
+"It is a very short tale. I took a walk with Isabella and Gertrude one
+day, about three weeks ago. They reached home before me; I stayed behind
+to speak to John. After leaving him, I pleased myself with lingering in
+the lane, where all was very still and shady. I was tired of chattering
+to the girls, and in no hurry to rejoin them. As I stood leaning against
+the gate-pillar, thinking some very happy thoughts about my future
+life--for that morning I imagined that events were beginning to turn as
+I had long wished them to turn----"
+
+"Ah! Nunnely had been with her the evening before!" thought Moore
+parenthetically.
+
+"I heard a panting sound; a dog came running up the lane. I know most of
+the dogs in this neighbourhood. It was Phœbe, one of Mr. Sam Wynne's
+pointers. The poor creature ran with her head down, her tongue hanging
+out; she looked as if bruised and beaten all over. I called her. I meant
+to coax her into the house and give her some water and dinner. I felt
+sure she had been ill-used. Mr. Sam often flogs his pointers cruelly.
+She was too flurried to know me; and when I attempted to pat her head,
+she turned and snatched at my arm. She bit it so as to draw blood, then
+ran panting on. Directly after, Mr. Wynne's keeper came up, carrying a
+gun. He asked if I had seen a dog. I told him I had seen Phœbe.
+
+"'You had better chain up Tartar, ma'am,' he said, 'and tell your people
+to keep within the house. I am after Phœbe to shoot her, and the groom
+is gone another way. She is raging mad.'"
+
+Mr. Moore leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.
+Miss Keeldar resumed her square of silk canvas, and continued the
+creation of a wreath of Parmese violets.
+
+"And you told no one, sought no help, no cure? You would not come to
+me?"
+
+"I got as far as the schoolroom door; there my courage failed. I
+preferred to cushion the matter."
+
+"Why? What can I demand better in this world than to be of use to you?"
+
+"I had no claim."
+
+"Monstrous! And you did nothing?"
+
+"Yes. I walked straight into the laundry, where they are ironing most of
+the week, now that I have so many guests in the house. While the maid
+was busy crimping or starching, I took an Italian iron from the fire,
+and applied the light scarlet glowing tip to my arm. I bored it well
+in. It cauterized the little wound. Then I went upstairs."
+
+"I dare say you never once groaned?"
+
+"I am sure I don't know. I was very miserable--not firm or tranquil at
+all, I think. There was no calm in my mind."
+
+"There was calm in your person. I remember listening the whole time we
+sat at luncheon, to hear if you moved in the room above. All was quiet."
+
+"I was sitting at the foot of the bed, wishing Phœbe had not bitten
+me."
+
+"And alone. You like solitude."
+
+"Pardon me."
+
+"You disdain sympathy."
+
+"Do I, Mr. Moore?"
+
+"With your powerful mind you must feel independent of help, of advice,
+of society."
+
+"So be it, since it pleases you."
+
+She smiled. She pursued her embroidery carefully and quickly, but her
+eyelash twinkled, and then it glittered, and then a drop fell.
+
+Mr. Moore leaned forward on his desk, moved his chair, altered his
+attitude.
+
+"If it is not so," he asked, with a peculiar, mellow change in his
+voice, "how is it, then?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You do know, but you won't speak. All must be locked up in yourself."
+
+"Because it is not worth sharing."
+
+"Because nobody can give the high price you require for your confidence.
+Nobody is rich enough to purchase it. Nobody has the honour, the
+intellect, the power you demand in your adviser. There is not a shoulder
+in England on which you would rest your hand for support, far less a
+bosom which you would permit to pillow your head. Of course you must
+live alone."
+
+"I _can_ live alone, if need be. But the question is not how to live,
+but how to die alone. That strikes me in a more grisly light."
+
+"You apprehend the effects of the virus? You anticipate an indefinitely
+threatening, dreadful doom?"
+
+She bowed.
+
+"You are very nervous and womanish."
+
+"You complimented me two minutes since on my powerful mind."
+
+"You are very womanish. If the whole affair were coolly examined and
+discussed, I feel assured it would turn out that there is no danger of
+your dying at all."
+
+"Amen! I am very willing to live, if it please God. I have felt life
+sweet."
+
+"How can it be otherwise than sweet with your endowments and nature? Do
+you truly expect that you will be seized with hydrophobia, and die
+raving mad?"
+
+"I _expect_ it, and have _feared_ it. Just now I fear nothing."
+
+"Nor do I, on your account. I doubt whether the smallest particle of
+virus mingled with your blood; and if it did, let me assure you that,
+young, healthy, faultlessly sound as you are, no harm will ensue. For
+the rest, I shall inquire whether the dog was really mad. I hold she was
+not mad."
+
+"Tell nobody that she bit me."
+
+"Why should I, when I believe the bite innocuous as a cut of this
+penknife? Make yourself easy. _I_ am easy, though I value your life as
+much as I do my own chance of happiness in eternity. Look up."
+
+"Why, Mr. Moore?"
+
+"I wish to see if you are cheered. Put your work down; raise your head."
+
+"There----"
+
+"Look at me. Thank you. And is the cloud broken?"
+
+"I fear nothing."
+
+"Is your mind restored to its own natural sunny clime?"
+
+"I am very content; but I want your promise."
+
+"Dictate."
+
+"You know, in case the worst I _have_ feared should happen, they will
+smother me. You need not smile. They will; they always do. My uncle will
+be full of horror, weakness, precipitation; and that is the only
+expedient which will suggest itself to him. Nobody in the house will be
+self-possessed but you. Now promise to befriend me--to keep Mr. Sympson
+away from me, not to let Henry come near, lest I should hurt him.
+Mind--_mind_ that you take care of yourself too. But I shall not injure
+you; I know I shall not. Lock the chamber door against the surgeons;
+turn them out if they get in. Let neither the young nor the old MacTurk
+lay a finger on me; nor Mr. Greaves, their colleague; and lastly, if I
+give trouble, with your own hand administer to me a strong
+narcotic--such a sure dose of laudanum as shall leave no mistake.
+_Promise to do this._"
+
+Moore left his desk, and permitted himself the recreation of one or two
+turns through the room. Stopping behind Shirley's chair, he bent over
+her, and said, in a low, emphatic voice, "I promise all you ask--without
+comment, without reservation."
+
+"If female help is needed, call in my housekeeper, Mrs. Gill. Let her
+lay me out if I die. She is attached to me. She wronged me again and
+again, and again and again I forgave her. She now loves me, and would
+not defraud me of a pin. Confidence has made her honest; forbearance has
+made her kind-hearted. At this day I can trust both her integrity, her
+courage, and her affection. Call her; but keep my good aunt and my timid
+cousins away. Once more, promise."
+
+"I promise."
+
+"That is good in you," she said, looking up at him as he bent over her,
+and smiling.
+
+"Is it good? Does it comfort?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+"I will be with you--I and Mrs. Gill only--in any, in every extremity
+where calm and fidelity are needed. No rash or coward hand shall
+meddle."
+
+"Yet you think me childish?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Ah! you despise me."
+
+"Do we despise children?"
+
+"In fact, I am neither so strong, nor have I such pride in my strength,
+as people think, Mr. Moore; nor am I so regardless of sympathy. But when
+I have any grief, I fear to impart it to those I love, lest it should
+pain them; and to those whom I view with indifference I cannot
+condescend to complain. After all, you should not taunt me with being
+childish, for if you were as unhappy as I have been for the last three
+weeks, you too would want some friend."
+
+"We all want a friend, do we not?"
+
+"All of us that have anything good in our natures."
+
+"Well, you have Caroline Helstone."
+
+"Yes. And you have Mr. Hall."
+
+"Yes. Mrs. Pryor is a wise, good woman. She can counsel you when you
+need counsel."
+
+"For your part, you have your brother Robert."
+
+"For any right-hand defections, there is the Rev. Matthewson Helstone,
+M.A., to lean upon; for any left-hand fallings-off there is Hiram Yorke,
+Esq. Both elders pay you homage."
+
+"I never saw Mrs. Yorke so motherly to any young man as she is to you. I
+don't know how you have won her heart, but she is more tender to you
+than she is to her own sons. You have, besides, your sister Hortense."
+
+"It appears we are both well provided."
+
+"It appears so."
+
+"How thankful we ought to be!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How contented!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For my part, I am almost contented just now, and very thankful.
+Gratitude is a divine emotion. It fills the heart, but not to bursting;
+it warms it, but not to fever. I like to taste leisurely of bliss.
+Devoured in haste, I do not know its flavour."
+
+Still leaning on the back of Miss Keeldar's chair, Moore watched the
+rapid motion of her fingers, as the green and purple garland grew
+beneath them. After a prolonged pause, he again asked, "Is the shadow
+_quite_ gone?"
+
+"Wholly. As I _was_ two hours since, and as I _am_ now, are two
+different states of existence. I believe, Mr. Moore, griefs and fears
+nursed in silence grow like Titan infants."
+
+"You will cherish such feelings no more in silence?"
+
+"Not if I dare speak."
+
+"In using the word '_dare_,' to whom do you allude?"
+
+"To you."
+
+"How is it applicable to me?"
+
+"On account of your austerity and shyness."
+
+"Why am I austere and shy?"
+
+"Because you are proud."
+
+"Why am I proud?"
+
+"I should like to know. Will you be good enough to tell me?"
+
+"Perhaps, because I am poor, for one reason. Poverty and pride often go
+together."
+
+"That is such a nice reason. I should be charmed to discover another
+that would pair with it. Mate that turtle, Mr. Moore."
+
+"Immediately. What do you think of marrying to sober Poverty many-tinted
+Caprice?"
+
+"Are you capricious?"
+
+"_You_ are."
+
+"A libel. I am steady as a rock, fixed as the polar star."
+
+"I look out at some early hour of the day, and see a fine, perfect
+rainbow, bright with promise, gloriously spanning the beclouded welkin
+of life. An hour afterwards I look again: half the arch is gone, and the
+rest is faded. Still later, the stern sky denies that it ever wore so
+benign a symbol of hope."
+
+"Well, Mr. Moore, you should contend against these changeful humours.
+They are your besetting sin. One never knows where to have you."
+
+"Miss Keeldar, I had once, for two years, a pupil who grew very dear to
+me. Henry is dear, but she was dearer. Henry never gives me trouble;
+she--well, she did. I think she vexed me twenty-three hours out of the
+twenty-four----"
+
+"She was never with you above three hours, or at the most six at a
+time."
+
+"She sometimes spilled the draught from my cup, and stole the food from
+my plate; and when she had kept me unfed for a day (and that did not
+suit me, for I am a man accustomed to take my meals with reasonable
+relish, and to ascribe due importance to the rational enjoyment of
+creature comforts)----"
+
+"I know you do. I can tell what sort of dinners you like best--perfectly
+well. I know precisely the dishes you prefer----"
+
+"She robbed these dishes of flavour, and made a fool of me besides. I
+like to sleep well. In my quiet days, when I was my own man, I never
+quarrelled with the night for being long, nor cursed my bed for its
+thorns. She changed all this."
+
+"Mr. Moore----"
+
+"And having taken from me peace of mind and ease of life, she took from
+me herself--quite coolly, just as if, when she was gone, the world would
+be all the same to me. I knew I should see her again at some time. At
+the end of two years, it fell out that we encountered again under her
+own roof, where she was mistress. How do you think she bore herself
+towards me, Miss Keeldar?"
+
+"Like one who had profited well by lessons learned from yourself."
+
+"She received me haughtily. She meted out a wide space between us, and
+kept me aloof by the reserved gesture, the rare and alienated glance,
+the word calmly civil."
+
+"She was an excellent pupil! Having seen you distant, she at once
+learned to withdraw. Pray, sir, admire in her _hauteur_ a careful
+improvement on your own coolness."
+
+"Conscience, and honour, and the most despotic necessity dragged me
+apart from her, and kept me sundered with ponderous fetters. She was
+free: she might have been clement."
+
+"Never free to compromise her self-respect, to seek where she had been
+shunned."
+
+"Then she was inconsistent; she tantalized as before. When I thought I
+had made up my mind to seeing in her only a lofty stranger, she would
+suddenly show me such a glimpse of loving simplicity--she would warm me
+with such a beam of reviving sympathy, she would gladden an hour with
+converse so gentle, gay, and kindly--that I could no more shut my heart
+on her image than I could close that door against her presence. Explain
+why she distressed me so."
+
+"She could not bear to be quite outcast; and then she would sometimes
+get a notion into her head, on a cold, wet day, that the schoolroom was
+no cheerful place, and feel it incumbent on her to go and see if you and
+Henry kept up a good fire; and once there, she liked to stay."
+
+"But she should not be changeful. If she came at all, she should come
+oftener."
+
+"There is such a thing as intrusion."
+
+"To-morrow you will not be as you are to-day."
+
+"I don't know. Will you?"
+
+"I am not mad, most noble Berenice! We may give one day to dreaming, but
+the next we must awake; and I shall awake to purpose the morning you are
+married to Sir Philip Nunnely. The fire shines on you and me, and shows
+us very clearly in the glass, Miss Keeldar; and I have been gazing on
+the picture all the time I have been talking. Look up! What a difference
+between your head and mine! I look old for thirty!"
+
+"You are so grave; you have such a square brow; and your face is sallow.
+I never regard you as a young man, nor as Robert's junior."
+
+"Don't you? I thought not. Imagine Robert's clear-cut, handsome face
+looking over my shoulder. Does not the apparition make vividly manifest
+the obtuse mould of my heavy traits? There!" (he started), "I have been
+expecting that wire to vibrate this last half-hour."
+
+The dinner-bell rang, and Shirley rose.
+
+"Mr. Moore," she said, as she gathered up her silks, "have you heard
+from your brother lately? Do you know what he means by staying in town
+so long? Does he talk of returning?"
+
+"He talks of returning; but what has caused his long absence I cannot
+tell. To speak the truth, I thought none in Yorkshire knew better than
+yourself why he was reluctant to come home."
+
+A crimson shadow passed across Miss Keeldar's cheek.
+
+"Write to him and urge him to come," she said. "I know there has been no
+impolicy in protracting his absence thus far. It is good to let the mill
+stand, while trade is so bad; but he must not abandon the county."
+
+"I am aware," said Louis, "that he had an interview with you the evening
+before he left, and I saw him quit Fieldhead afterwards. I read his
+countenance, or _tried_ to read it. He turned from me. I divined that he
+would be long away. Some fine, slight fingers have a wondrous knack at
+pulverizing a man's brittle pride. I suppose Robert put too much trust
+in his manly beauty and native gentlemanhood. Those are better off who,
+being destitute of advantage, cannot cherish delusion. But I will write,
+and say you advise his return."
+
+"Do not say _I_ advise his return, but that his return is advisable."
+
+The second bell rang, and Miss Keeldar obeyed its call.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+LOUIS MOORE.
+
+
+Louis Moore was used to a quiet life. Being a quiet man, he endured it
+better than most men would. Having a large world of his own in his own
+head and heart, he tolerated confinement to a small, still corner of the
+real world very patiently.
+
+How hushed is Fieldhead this evening! All but Moore--Miss Keeldar, the
+whole family of the Sympsons, even Henry--are gone to Nunnely. Sir
+Philip would have them come; he wished to make them acquainted with his
+mother and sisters, who are now at the priory. Kind gentleman as the
+baronet is, he asked the tutor too; but the tutor would much sooner have
+made an appointment with the ghost of the Earl of Huntingdon to meet
+him, and a shadowy ring of his merry men, under the canopy of the
+thickest, blackest, oldest oak in Nunnely Forest. Yes, he would rather
+have appointed tryst with a phantom abbess, or mist-pale nun, among the
+wet and weedy relics of that ruined sanctuary of theirs, mouldering in
+the core of the wood. Louis Moore longs to have something near him
+to-night; but not the boy-baronet, nor his benevolent but stern mother,
+nor his patrician sisters, nor one soul of the Sympsons.
+
+This night is not calm; the equinox still struggles in its storms. The
+wild rains of the day are abated; the great single cloud disparts and
+rolls away from heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all sapphire, but
+tossed buoyant before a continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight
+tempest. The moon reigns glorious, glad of the gale, as glad as if she
+gave herself to his fierce caress with love. No Endymion will watch for
+his goddess to-night. There are no flocks out on the mountains; and it
+is well, for to-night she welcomes Æolus.
+
+Moore, sitting in the schoolroom, heard the storm roar round the other
+gable and along the hall-front. This end was sheltered. He wanted no
+shelter; he desired no subdued sounds or screened position.
+
+"All the parlours are empty," said he. "I am sick at heart of this
+cell."
+
+He left it, and went where the casements, larger and freer than the
+branch-screened lattice of his own apartment, admitted unimpeded the
+dark-blue, the silver-fleeced, the stirring and sweeping vision of the
+autumn night-sky. He carried no candle; unneeded was lamp or fire. The
+broad and clear though cloud-crossed and fluctuating beam of the moon
+shone on every floor and wall.
+
+Moore wanders through all the rooms. He seems following a phantom from
+parlour to parlour. In the oak room he stops. This is not chill, and
+polished, and fireless like the _salon_. The hearth is hot and ruddy;
+the cinders tinkle in the intense heat of their clear glow; near the rug
+is a little work-table, a desk upon it, a chair near it.
+
+Does the vision Moore has tracked occupy that chair? You would think so,
+could you see him standing before it. There is as much interest now in
+his eye, and as much significance in his face, as if in this household
+solitude he had found a living companion, and was going to speak to it.
+
+He makes discoveries. A bag--a small satin bag--hangs on the chair-back.
+The desk is open, the keys are in the lock. A pretty seal, a silver pen,
+a crimson berry or two of ripe fruit on a green leaf, a small, clean,
+delicate glove--these trifles at once decorate and disarrange the stand
+they strew. Order forbids details in a picture--she puts them tidily
+away; but details give charm.
+
+Moore spoke.
+
+"Her mark," he said. "Here she has been--careless, attractive
+thing!--called away in haste, doubtless, and forgetting to return and
+put all to rights. Why does she leave fascination in her footprints?
+Whence did she acquire the gift to be heedless and never offend? There
+is always something to chide in her, and the reprimand never settles in
+displeasure on the heart, but, for her lover or her husband, when it had
+trickled a while in words, would naturally melt from his lips in a kiss.
+Better pass half an hour in remonstrating with her than a day in
+admiring or praising any other woman alive. Am I muttering?
+soliloquizing? Stop that."
+
+He did stop it. He stood thinking, and then he made an arrangement for
+his evening's comfort.
+
+He dropped the curtains over the broad window and regal moon. He shut
+out sovereign and court and starry armies; he added fuel to the hot but
+fast-wasting fire; he lit a candle, of which there were a pair on the
+table; he placed another chair opposite that near the workstand; and
+then he sat down. His next movement was to take from his pocket a small,
+thick book of blank paper, to produce a pencil, and to begin to write in
+a cramp, compact hand. Come near, by all means, reader. Do not be shy.
+Stoop over his shoulder fearlessly, and read as he scribbles.
+
+"It is nine o'clock; the carriage will not return before eleven, I am
+certain. Freedom is mine till then; till then I may occupy her room, sit
+opposite her chair, rest my elbow on her table, have her little
+mementoes about me.
+
+"I used rather to like Solitude--to fancy her a somewhat quiet and
+serious, yet fair nymph; an Oread, descending to me from lone
+mountain-passes, something of the blue mist of hills in her array and of
+their chill breeze in her breath, but much also of their solemn beauty
+in her mien. I once could court her serenely, and imagine my heart
+easier when I held her to it--all mute, but majestic.
+
+"Since that day I called S. to me in the schoolroom, and she came and
+sat so near my side; since she opened the trouble of her mind to me,
+asked my protection, appealed to my strength--since that hour I abhor
+Solitude. Cold abstraction, fleshless skeleton, daughter, mother, and
+mate of Death!
+
+"It is pleasant to write about what is near and dear as the core of my
+heart. None can deprive me of this little book, and through this pencil
+I can say to it what I will--say what I dare utter to nothing
+living--say what I dare not _think_ aloud.
+
+"We have scarcely encountered each other since that evening. Once, when
+I was alone in the drawing-room, seeking a book of Henry's, she entered,
+dressed for a concert at Stilbro'. Shyness--_her_ shyness, not
+mine--drew a silver veil between us. Much cant have I heard and read
+about 'maiden modesty,' but, properly used, and not hackneyed, the words
+are good and appropriate words. As she passed to the window, after
+tacitly but gracefully recognizing me, I could call her nothing in my
+own mind save 'stainless virgin.' To my perception, a delicate
+splendour robed her, and the modesty of girlhood was her halo. I may be
+the most fatuous, as I am one of the plainest, of men, but in truth that
+shyness of hers touched me exquisitely; it flattered my finest
+sensations. I looked a stupid block, I dare say. I was alive with a life
+of Paradise, as she turned _her_ glance from _my_ glance, and softly
+averted her head to hide the suffusion of her cheek.
+
+"I know this is the talk of a dreamer--of a rapt, romantic lunatic. I
+_do_ dream. I _will_ dream now and then; and if she has inspired romance
+into my prosaic composition, how can I help it?
+
+"What a child she is sometimes! What an unsophisticated, untaught thing!
+I see her now looking up into my face, and entreating me to prevent them
+from smothering her, and to be sure and give her a strong narcotic. I
+see her confessing that she was not so self-sufficing, so independent of
+sympathy, as people thought. I see the secret tear drop quietly from her
+eyelash. She said I thought her childish, and I did. She imagined I
+despised her. Despised her! It was unutterably sweet to feel myself at
+once near her and above her--to be conscious of a natural right and
+power to sustain her, as a husband should sustain his wife.
+
+"I worship her perfections; but it is her faults, or at least her
+foibles, that bring her near to me, that nestle her to my heart, that
+fold her about with my love, and that for a most selfish but
+deeply-natural reason. These faults are the steps by which I mount to
+ascendency over her. If she rose a trimmed, artificial mound, without
+inequality, what vantage would she offer the foot? It is the natural
+hill, with its mossy breaks and hollows, whose slope invites ascent,
+whose summit it is pleasure to gain.
+
+"To leave metaphor. It delights my eye to look on her. She suits me. If
+I were a king and she the housemaid that swept my palace-stairs, across
+all that space between us my eye would recognize her qualities; a true
+pulse would beat for her in my heart, though an unspanned gulf made
+acquaintance impossible. If I were a gentleman, and she waited on me as
+a servant, I could not help liking that Shirley. Take from her her
+education; take her ornaments, her sumptuous dress, all extrinsic
+advantages; take all grace, but such as the symmetry of her form renders
+inevitable; present her to me at a cottage door, in a stuff gown; let
+her offer me there a draught of water, with that smile, with that warm
+good-will with which she now dispenses manorial hospitality--I should
+like her. I should wish to stay an hour; I should linger to talk with
+that rustic. I should not feel as I _now_ do; I should find in her
+nothing divine; but whenever I met the young peasant, it would be with
+pleasure; whenever I left her, it would be with regret.
+
+"How culpably careless in her to leave her desk open, where I know she
+has money! In the lock hang the keys of all her repositories, of her
+very jewel-casket. There is a purse in that little satin bag; I see the
+tassel of silver beads hanging out. That spectacle would provoke my
+brother Robert. All her little failings would, I know, be a source of
+irritation to him. If they vex me it is a most pleasurable vexation. I
+delight to find her at fault; and were I always resident with her, I am
+aware she would be no niggard in thus ministering to my enjoyment. She
+would just give me something to do, to rectify--a theme for my tutor
+lectures. I never lecture Henry, never feel disposed to do so. If he
+does wrong--and that is very seldom, dear, excellent lad!--a word
+suffices. Often I do no more than shake my head. But the moment her
+_minois mutin_ meets my eye, expostulatory words crowd to my lips. From
+a taciturn man I believe she would transform me into a talker. Whence
+comes the delight I take in that talk? It puzzles myself sometimes. The
+more _crâne, malin, taquin_ is her mood, consequently the clearer
+occasion she gives me for disapprobation, the more I seek her, the
+better I like her. She is never wilder than when equipped in her habit
+and hat, never less manageable than when she and Zoë come in fiery from
+a race with the wind on the hills; and I confess it--to this mute page I
+may confess it--I have waited an hour in the court for the chance of
+witnessing her return, and for the dearer chance of receiving her in my
+arms from the saddle. I have noticed (again it is to this page only I
+would make the remark) that she will never permit any man but myself to
+render her that assistance. I have seen her politely decline Sir Philip
+Nunnely's aid. She is always mighty gentle with her young baronet,
+mighty tender for his feelings, forsooth, and of his very thin-skinned
+_amour propre_. I have marked her haughtily reject Sam Wynne's. Now I
+know--my heart knows it, for it has felt it--that she resigns herself to
+me unreluctantly. Is she conscious how my strength rejoices to serve
+her? I myself am not her slave--I declare it--but my faculties gather
+to her beauty, like the genii to the glisten of the lamp. All my
+knowledge, all my prudence, all my calm, and all my power stand in her
+presence humbly waiting a task. How glad they are when a mandate comes!
+What joy they take in the toils she assigns! Does she know it?
+
+"I have called her careless. It is remarkable that her carelessness
+never compromises her refinement. Indeed, through this very loophole of
+character, the reality, depth, genuineness of that refinement may be
+ascertained. A whole garment sometimes covers meagreness and
+malformation; through a rent sleeve a fair round arm may be revealed. I
+have seen and handled many of her possessions, because they are
+frequently astray. I never saw anything that did not proclaim the
+lady--nothing sordid, nothing soiled. In one sense she is as scrupulous
+as, in another, she is unthinking. As a peasant girl, she would go ever
+trim and cleanly. Look at the pure kid of this little glove, at the
+fresh, unsullied satin of the bag.
+
+"What a difference there is between S. and that pearl C. H.! Caroline, I
+fancy, is the soul of conscientious punctuality and nice exactitude. She
+would precisely suit the domestic habits of a certain fastidious kinsman
+of mine--so delicate, dexterous, quaint, quick, quiet--all done to a
+minute, all arranged to a strawbreadth. She would suit Robert. But what
+could _I_ do with anything so nearly faultless? _She_ is my equal, poor
+as myself. She is certainly pretty: a little Raffaelle head
+hers--Raffaelle in feature, quite English in expression, all insular
+grace and purity; but where is there anything to alter, anything to
+endure, anything to reprimand, to be anxious about? There she is, a lily
+of the valley, untinted, needing no tint. What change could improve her?
+What pencil dare to paint? _My_ sweetheart, if I ever have one, must
+bear nearer affinity to the rose--a sweet, lively delight guarded with
+prickly peril. _My_ wife, if I ever marry, must stir my great frame with
+a sting now and then; she must furnish use to her husband's vast mass of
+patience. I was not made so enduring to be mated with a lamb; I should
+find more congenial responsibility in the charge of a young lioness or
+leopardess. I like few things sweet but what are likewise pungent--few
+things bright but what are likewise hot. I like the summer day, whose
+sun makes fruit blush and corn blanch. Beauty is never so beautiful as
+when, if I tease it, it wreathes back on me with spirit. Fascination is
+never so imperial as when, roused and half ireful, she threatens
+transformation to fierceness. I fear I should tire of the mute,
+monotonous innocence of the lamb; I should ere long feel as burdensome
+the nestling dove which never stirred in my bosom; but my patience would
+exult in stilling the flutterings and training the energies of the
+restless merlin. In managing the wild instincts of the scarce manageable
+_bête fauve_ my powers would revel.
+
+"O my pupil! O Peri! too mutinous for heaven, too innocent for hell,
+never shall I do more than see, and worship, and wish for thee. Alas!
+knowing I could make thee happy, will it be my doom to see thee
+possessed by those who have not that power?
+
+"However kindly the hand, if it is feeble, it cannot bend Shirley; and
+she must be bent. It cannot curb her; and she must be curbed.
+
+"Beware, Sir Philip Nunnely! I never see you walking or sitting at her
+side, and observe her lips compressed, or her brow knit, in resolute
+endurance of some trait of your character which she neither admires nor
+likes, in determined toleration of some weakness she believes atoned for
+by a virtue, but which annoys her despite that belief; I never mark the
+grave glow of her face, the unsmiling sparkle of her eye, the slight
+recoil of her whole frame when you draw a little too near, and gaze a
+little too expressively, and whisper a little too warmly--I never
+witness these things but I think of the fable of Semele reversed.
+
+"It is not the daughter of Cadmus I see, nor do I realize her fatal
+longing to look on Jove in the majesty of his god-head. It is a priest
+of Juno that stands before me, watching late and lone at a shrine in an
+Argive temple. For years of solitary ministry he has lived on dreams.
+There is divine madness upon him. He loves the idol he serves, and prays
+day and night that his frenzy may be fed, and that the Ox-eyed may smile
+on her votary. She has heard; she will be propitious. All Argos
+slumbers. The doors of the temple are shut; the priest waits at the
+altar.
+
+"A shock of heaven and earth is felt--not by the slumbering city, only
+by that lonely watcher, brave and unshaken in his fanaticism. In the
+midst of silence, with no preluding sound, he is wrapped in sudden
+light. Through the roof, through the rent, wide-yawning, vast,
+white-blazing blue of heaven above, pours a wondrous descent, dread as
+the downrushing of stars. He has what he asked. Withdraw--forbear to
+look--I am blinded. I hear in that fane an unspeakable sound. Would that
+I could not hear it! I see an insufferable glory burning terribly
+between the pillars. Gods be merciful and quench it!
+
+"A pious Argive enters to make an early offering in the cool dawn of
+morning. There was thunder in the night; the bolt fell here. The shrine
+is shivered, the marble pavement round split and blackened. Saturnia's
+statue rises chaste, grand, untouched; at her feet piled ashes lie pale.
+No priest remains; he who watched will be seen no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There is the carriage! Let me lock up the desk and pocket the keys. She
+will be seeking them to-morrow; she will have to come to me. I hear her:
+'Mr. Moore, have you seen my keys?'
+
+"So she will say, in her clear voice, speaking with reluctance, looking
+ashamed, conscious that this is the twentieth time of asking. I will
+tantalize her, keep her with me, expecting, doubting; and when I _do_
+restore them, it shall not be without a lecture. Here is the bag, too,
+and the purse; the glove--pen--seal. She shall wring them all out of me
+slowly and separately--only by confession, penitence, entreaty. I never
+can touch her hand, or a ringlet of her head, or a ribbon of her dress,
+but I will make privileges for myself. Every feature of her face, her
+bright eyes, her lips, shall go through each change they know, for my
+pleasure--display each exquisite variety of glance and curve, to
+delight, thrill, perhaps more hopelessly to enchain me. If I must be her
+slave, I will not lose my freedom for nothing."
+
+He locked the desk, pocketed all the property, and went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+RUSHEDGE--A CONFESSIONAL.
+
+
+Everybody said it was high time for Mr. Moore to return home. All
+Briarfield wondered at his strange absence, and Whinbury and Nunnely
+brought each its separate contribution of amazement.
+
+Was it known why he stayed away? Yes. It was known twenty--forty times
+over, there being at least forty plausible reasons adduced to account
+for the unaccountable circumstance. Business it was not--_that_ the
+gossips agreed. He had achieved the business on which he departed long
+ago. His four ringleaders he had soon scented out and run down. He had
+attended their trial, heard their conviction and sentence, and seen them
+safely shipped prior to transportation.
+
+This was known at Briarfield. The newspapers had reported it. The
+_Stilbro' Courier_ had given every particular, with amplifications. None
+applauded his perseverance or hailed his success, though the mill-owners
+were glad of it, trusting that the terrors of law vindicated would
+henceforward paralyze the sinister valour of disaffection. Disaffection,
+however, was still heard muttering to himself. He swore ominous oaths
+over the drugged beer of alehouses, and drank strange toasts in fiery
+British gin.
+
+One report affirmed that Moore _dared_ not come to Yorkshire; he knew
+his life was not worth an hour's purchase if he did.
+
+"I'll tell him that," said Mr. Yorke, when his foreman mentioned the
+rumour; "and if _that_ does not bring him home full gallop, nothing
+will."
+
+Either that or some other motive prevailed at last to recall him. He
+announced to Joe Scott the day he should arrive at Stilbro', desiring
+his hackney to be sent to the George for his accommodation; and Joe
+Scott having informed Mr. Yorke, that gentleman made it in his way to
+meet him.
+
+It was market-day. Moore arrived in time to take his usual place at the
+market dinner. As something of a stranger, and as a man of note and
+action, the assembled manufacturers received him with a certain
+distinction. Some, who in public would scarcely have dared to
+acknowledge his acquaintance, lest a little of the hate and vengeance
+laid up in store for him should perchance have fallen on them, in
+private hailed him as in some sort their champion. When the wine had
+circulated, their respect would have kindled to enthusiasm had not
+Moore's unshaken nonchalance held it in a damp, low, smouldering state.
+
+Mr. Yorke, the permanent president of these dinners, witnessed his young
+friend's bearing with exceeding complacency. If one thing could stir his
+temper or excite his contempt more than another, it was to see a man
+befooled by flattery or elate with popularity. If one thing smoothed,
+soothed, and charmed him especially, it was the spectacle of a public
+character incapable of relishing his publicity--_incapable_, I say.
+Disdain would but have incensed; it was indifference that appeased his
+rough spirit.
+
+Robert, leaning back in his chair, quiet and almost surly, while the
+clothiers and blanket-makers vaunted his prowess and rehearsed his
+deeds--many of them interspersing their flatteries with coarse
+invectives against the operative class--was a delectable sight for Mr.
+Yorke. His heart tingled with the pleasing conviction that these gross
+eulogiums shamed Moore deeply, and made him half scorn himself and his
+work. On abuse, on reproach, on calumny, it is easy to smile; but
+painful indeed is the panegyric of those we contemn. Often had Moore
+gazed with a brilliant countenance over howling crowds from a hostile
+hustings. He had breasted the storm of unpopularity with gallant bearing
+and soul elate; but he drooped his head under the half-bred tradesmen's
+praise, and shrank chagrined before their congratulations.
+
+Yorke could not help asking him how he liked his supporters, and whether
+he did not think they did honour to his cause. "But it is a pity, lad,"
+he added, "that you did not hang these four samples of the unwashed. If
+you had managed _that_ feat, the gentry here would have riven the horses
+out of the coach, yoked to a score of asses, and drawn you into Stilbro'
+like a conquering general."
+
+Moore soon forsook the wine, broke from the party, and took the road.
+In less than five minutes Mr. Yorke followed him. They rode out of
+Stilbro' together.
+
+It was early to go home, but yet it was late in the day. The last ray of
+the sun had already faded from the cloud-edges, and the October night
+was casting over the moorlands the shadow of her approach.
+
+Mr. Yorke, moderately exhilarated with his moderate libations, and not
+displeased to see young Moore again in Yorkshire, and to have him for
+his comrade during the long ride home, took the discourse much to
+himself. He touched briefly, but scoffingly, on the trials and the
+conviction; he passed thence to the gossip of the neighbourhood, and ere
+long he attacked Moore on his own personal concerns.
+
+"Bob, I believe you are worsted, and you deserve it. All was smooth.
+Fortune had fallen in love with you. She had decreed you the first prize
+in her wheel--twenty thousand pounds; she only required that you should
+hold your hand out and take it. And what did you do? You called for a
+horse and rode a-hunting to Warwickshire. Your sweetheart--Fortune, I
+mean--was perfectly indulgent. She said, 'I'll excuse him; he's young.'
+She waited, like 'Patience on a monument,' till the chase was over and
+the vermin-prey run down. She expected you would come back then, and be
+a good lad. You might still have had her first prize.
+
+"It capped her beyond expression, and me too, to find that, instead of
+thundering home in a breakneck gallop and laying your assize laurels at
+her feet, you coolly took coach up to London. What you have done there
+Satan knows; nothing in this world, I believe, but sat and sulked. Your
+face was never lily fair, but it is olive green now. You're not as bonny
+as you were, man."
+
+"And who is to have this prize you talk so much about?"
+
+"Only a baronet; that is all. I have not a doubt in my own mind you've
+lost her. She will be Lady Nunnely before Christmas."
+
+"Hem! Quite probable."
+
+"But she need not to have been. Fool of a lad! I swear you might have
+had her."
+
+"By what token, Mr. Yorke?"
+
+"By every token--by the light of her eyes, the red of her cheeks. Red
+they grew when your name was mentioned, though of custom they are pale."
+
+"My chance is quite over, I suppose?"
+
+"It ought to be. But try; it is worth trying. I call this Sir Philip
+milk and water. And then he writes verses, they say--tags rhymes. _You_
+are above that, Bob, at all events."
+
+"Would you advise me to propose, late as it is, Mr. Yorke--at the
+eleventh hour?"
+
+"You can but make the experiment, Robert. If she has a fancy for
+you--and, on my conscience, I believe she has or had--she will forgive
+much. But, my lad, you are laughing. Is it at me? You had better grin at
+your own perverseness. I see, however, you laugh at the wrong side of
+your mouth. You have as sour a look at this moment as one need wish to
+see."
+
+"I have so quarrelled with myself, Yorke. I have so kicked against the
+pricks, and struggled in a strait waistcoat, and dislocated my wrists
+with wrenching them in handcuffs, and battered my hard head by driving
+it against a harder wall."
+
+"Ha! I'm glad to hear that. Sharp exercise yon! I hope it has done you
+good--ta'en some of the self-conceit out of you?"
+
+"Self-conceit? What is it? Self-respect, self-tolerance even, what are
+they? Do you sell the articles? Do you know anybody who does? Give an
+indication. They would find in me a liberal chapman. I would part with
+my last guinea this minute to buy."
+
+"Is it so with you, Robert? I find that spicy. I like a man to speak his
+mind. What has gone wrong?"
+
+"The machinery of all my nature; the whole enginery of this human mill;
+the boiler, which I take to be the heart, is fit to burst."
+
+"That suld be putten i' print; it's striking. It's almost blank verse.
+Ye'll be jingling into poetry just e'now. If the afflatus comes, give
+way, Robert. Never heed me; I'll bear it this whet [time]."
+
+"Hideous, abhorrent, base blunder! You may commit in a moment what you
+will rue for years--what life cannot cancel."
+
+"Lad, go on. I call it pie, nuts, sugar-candy. I like the taste
+uncommonly. Go on. It will do you good to talk. The moor is before us
+now, and there is no life for many a mile round."
+
+"I _will_ talk. I am not ashamed to tell. There is a sort of wild cat in
+my breast, and I choose that you shall hear how it can yell."
+
+"To me it is music. What grand voices you and Louis have! When Louis
+sings--tones off like a soft, deep bell--I've felt myself tremble again.
+The night is still. It listens. It is just leaning down to you, like a
+black priest to a blacker penitent. Confess, lad. Smooth naught down. Be
+candid as a convicted, justified, sanctified Methody at an experience
+meeting. Make yourself as wicked as Beelzebub. It will ease your mind."
+
+"As mean as Mammon, you would say. Yorke, if I got off horseback and
+laid myself down across the road, would you have the goodness to gallop
+over me, backwards and forwards, about twenty times?"
+
+"Wi' all the pleasure in life, if there were no such thing as a
+coroner's inquest."
+
+"Hiram Yorke, I certainly believed she loved me. I have seen her eyes
+sparkle radiantly when she has found me out in a crowd; she has flushed
+up crimson when she has offered me her hand, and said, 'How do you do,
+Mr. Moore?'
+
+"My name had a magical influence over her. When others uttered it she
+changed countenance--I know she did. She pronounced it herself in the
+most musical of her many musical tones. She was cordial to me; she took
+an interest in me; she was anxious about me; she wished me well; she
+sought, she seized every opportunity to benefit me. I considered,
+paused, watched, weighed, wondered. I could come to but one
+conclusion--this is love.
+
+"I looked at her, Yorke. I saw in her youth and a species of beauty. I
+saw power in her. Her wealth offered me the redemption of my honour and
+my standing. I owed her gratitude. She had aided me substantially and
+effectually by a loan of five thousand pounds. Could I remember these
+things? Could I believe she loved me? Could I hear wisdom urge me to
+marry her, and disregard every dear advantage, disbelieve every
+flattering suggestion, disdain every well-weighed counsel, turn and
+leave her? Young, graceful, gracious--my benefactress, attached to me,
+enamoured of me. I used to say so to myself; dwell on the word; mouth it
+over and over again; swell over it with a pleasant, pompous complacency,
+with an admiration dedicated entirely to myself, and unimpaired even by
+esteem for her; indeed I smiled in deep secrecy at her _naïveté_ and
+simplicity in being the first to love, and to show it. That whip of
+yours seems to have a good heavy handle, Yorke; you can swing it about
+your head and knock me out of the saddle, if you choose. I should rather
+relish a loundering whack."
+
+"Tak patience, Robert, till the moon rises and I can see you. Speak
+plain out--did you love her or not? I could like to know. I feel
+curious."
+
+"Sir--sir--I say--she is very pretty, in her own style, and very
+attractive. She has a look, at times, of a thing made out of fire and
+air, at which I stand and marvel, without a thought of clasping and
+kissing it. I felt in her a powerful magnet to my interest and vanity. I
+never felt as if nature meant her to be my other and better self. When a
+question on that head rushed upon me, I flung it off, saying brutally I
+should be rich with her and ruined without her--vowing I would be
+practical, and not romantic."
+
+"A very sensible resolve. What mischief came of it, Bob?"
+
+"With this sensible resolve I walked up to Fieldhead one night last
+August. It was the very eve of my departure for Birmingham; for, you
+see, I wanted to secure Fortune's splendid prize. I had previously
+dispatched a note requesting a private interview. I found her at home,
+and alone.
+
+"She received me without embarrassment, for she thought I came on
+business. _I_ was embarrassed enough, but determined. I hardly know how
+I got the operation over; but I went to work in a hard, firm
+fashion--frightful enough, I dare say. I sternly offered myself--my fine
+person--with my debts, of course, as a settlement.
+
+"It vexed me, it kindled my ire, to find that she neither blushed,
+trembled, nor looked down. She responded, 'I doubt whether I have
+understood you, Mr. Moore.'
+
+"And I had to go over the whole proposal twice, and word it as plainly
+as A B C, before she would fully take it in. And then, what did she do?
+Instead of faltering a sweet Yes, or maintaining a soft, confused
+silence (which would have been as good), she started up, walked twice
+fast through the room, in the way that _she_ only does, and no other
+woman, and ejaculated, 'God bless me!'
+
+"Yorke, I stood on the hearth, backed by the mantelpiece; against it I
+leaned, and prepared for anything--everything. I knew my doom, and I
+knew myself. There was no misunderstanding her aspect and voice. She
+stopped and looked at me.
+
+"'God bless me!' she piteously repeated, in that shocked, indignant, yet
+saddened accent. 'You have made a strange proposal--strange from _you_;
+and if you knew how strangely you worded it and looked it, you would be
+startled at yourself. You spoke like a brigand who demanded my purse
+rather than like a lover who asked my heart.'
+
+"A queer sentence, was it not, Yorke? And I knew, as she uttered it, it
+was true as queer. Her words were a mirror in which I saw myself.
+
+"I looked at her, dumb and wolfish. She at once enraged and shamed me.
+
+"'Gérard Moore, you know you don't love Shirley Keeldar.' I might have
+broken out into false swearing--vowed that I did love her; but I could
+not lie in her pure face. I could not perjure myself in her truthful
+presence. Besides, such hollow oaths would have been vain as void. She
+would no more have believed me than she would have believed the ghost of
+Judas, had he broken from the night and stood before her. Her female
+heart had finer perceptions than to be cheated into mistaking my
+half-coarse, half-cold admiration for true-throbbing, manly love.
+
+"What next happened? you will say, Mr. Yorke.
+
+"Why, she sat down in the window-seat and cried. She cried passionately.
+Her eyes not only rained but lightened. They flashed, open, large, dark,
+haughty, upon me. They said, 'You have pained me; you have outraged me;
+you have deceived me.'
+
+"She added words soon to looks.
+
+"'I _did_ respect--I _did_ admire--I _did_ like you,' she said--'yes, as
+much as if you were my brother; and _you--you_ want to make a
+speculation of me. You would immolate me to that mill, your Moloch!'
+
+"I had the common sense to abstain from any word of excuse, any attempt
+at palliation. I stood to be scorned.
+
+"Sold to the devil for the time being, I was certainly infatuated. When
+I did speak, what do you think I said?
+
+"'Whatever my own feelings were, I was persuaded _you_ loved _me_, Miss
+Keeldar.'
+
+"Beautiful, was it not? She sat quite confounded. 'Is it Robert Moore
+that speaks?' I heard her mutter. 'Is it a man--or something lower?'
+
+"'Do you mean,' she asked aloud--'do you mean you thought I loved you as
+we love those we wish to marry?'
+
+"It _was_ my meaning, and I said so.
+
+"'You conceived an idea obnoxious to a woman's feelings,' was her
+answer. 'You have announced it in a fashion revolting to a woman's soul.
+You insinuate that all the frank kindness I have shown you has been a
+complicated, a bold, and an immodest manœuvre to ensnare a husband. You
+imply that at last you come here out of pity to offer me your hand,
+because I have courted you. Let me say this: Your sight is jaundiced;
+you have seen wrong. Your mind is warped; you have judged wrong. Your
+tongue betrays you; you now speak wrong. I never loved you. Be at rest
+there. My heart is as pure of passion for you as yours is barren of
+affection for me.'
+
+"I hope I was answered, Yorke?
+
+"'I seem to be a blind, besotted sort of person,' was my remark.
+
+"'_Loved_ you!' she cried. 'Why, I have been as frank with you as a
+sister--never shunned you, never feared you. You cannot,' she affirmed
+triumphantly--'you cannot make me tremble with your coming, nor
+accelerate my pulse by your influence.'
+
+"I alleged that often, when she spoke to me, she blushed, and that the
+sound of my name moved her.
+
+"'Not for _your_ sake!' she declared briefly. I urged explanation, but
+could get none.
+
+"'When I sat beside you at the school feast, did you think I loved you
+then? When I stopped you in Maythorn Lane, did you think I loved you
+then? When I called on you in the counting-house, when I walked with you
+on the pavement, did you think I loved you then?'
+
+"So she questioned me; and I said I did.
+
+"By the Lord! Yorke, she rose, she grew tall, she expanded and refined
+almost to flame. There was a trembling all through her, as in live coal
+when its vivid vermilion is hottest.
+
+"'That is to say that you have the worst opinion of me; that you deny me
+the possession of all I value most. That is to say that I am a traitor
+to all my sisters; that I have acted as no woman can act without
+degrading herself and her sex; that I have sought where the incorrupt of
+my kind naturally scorn and abhor to seek.' She and I were silent for
+many a minute. 'Lucifer, Star of the Morning,' she went on, 'thou art
+fallen! You, once high in my esteem, are hurled down; you, once intimate
+in my friendship, are cast out. Go!'
+
+"I went not. I had heard her voice tremble, seen her lip quiver. I knew
+another storm of tears would fall, and then I believed some calm and
+some sunshine must come, and I would wait for it.
+
+"As fast, but more quietly than before, the warm rain streamed down.
+There was another sound in her weeping--a softer, more regretful sound.
+While I watched, her eyes lifted to me a gaze more reproachful than
+haughty, more mournful than incensed.
+
+"'O Moore!' said she. It was worse than 'Et tu, Brute!'
+
+"I relieved myself by what should have been a sigh, but it became a
+groan. A sense of Cain-like desolation made my breast ache.
+
+"'There has been error in what I have done,' I said, 'and it has won me
+bitter wages, which I will go and spend far from her who gave them.'
+
+"I took my hat. All the time I could not have borne to depart so, and I
+believed she would not let me. Nor would she but for the mortal pang I
+had given her pride, that cowed her compassion and kept her silent.
+
+"I was obliged to turn back of my own accord when I reached the door, to
+approach her, and to say, 'Forgive me.'
+
+"'I could, if there was not myself to forgive too,' was her reply; 'but
+to mislead a sagacious man so far I must have done wrong.'
+
+"I broke out suddenly with some declamation I do not remember. I know
+that it was sincere, and that my wish and aim were to absolve her to
+herself. In fact, in her case self-accusation was a chimera.
+
+"At last she extended her hand. For the first time I wished to take her
+in my arms and kiss her. I _did_ kiss her hand many times.
+
+"'Some day we shall be friends again,' she said, 'when you have had time
+to read my actions and motives in a true light, and not so horribly to
+misinterpret them. Time may give you the right key to all. Then,
+perhaps, you will comprehend me, and then we shall be reconciled.'
+
+"Farewell drops rolled slow down her cheeks. She wiped them away.
+
+"'I am sorry for what has happened--deeply sorry,' she sobbed. So was I,
+God knows! Thus were we severed."
+
+"A queer tale!" commented Mr. Yorke.
+
+"I'll do it no more," vowed his companion; "never more will I mention
+marriage to a woman unless I feel love. Henceforth credit and commerce
+may take care of themselves. Bankruptcy may come when it lists. I have
+done with slavish fear of disaster. I mean to work diligently, wait
+patiently, bear steadily. Let the worst come, I will take my axe and an
+emigrant's berth, and go out with Louis to the West; he and I have
+settled it. No woman shall ever again look at me as Miss Keeldar looked,
+ever again feel towards me as Miss Keeldar felt. In no woman's presence
+will I ever again stand at once such a fool and such a knave, such a
+brute and such a puppy."
+
+"Tut!" said the imperturbable Yorke, "you make too much of it; but
+still, I say, I am capped. Firstly, that she did not love you; and
+secondly, that you did not love her. You are both young; you are both
+handsome; you are both well enough for wit and even for temper--take you
+on the right side. What ailed you that you could not agree?"
+
+"We never _have_ been, never _could_ be _at home_ with each other,
+Yorke. Admire each other as we might at a distance, still we jarred when
+we came very near. I have sat at one side of a room and observed her at
+the other, perhaps in an excited, genial moment, when she had some of
+her favourites round her--her old beaux, for instance, yourself and
+Helstone, with whom she is so playful, pleasant, and eloquent. I have
+watched her when she was most natural, most lively, and most lovely; my
+judgment has pronounced her beautiful. Beautiful she is at times, when
+her mood and her array partake of the splendid. I have drawn a little
+nearer, feeling that our terms of acquaintance gave me the right of
+approach. I have joined the circle round her seat, caught her eye, and
+mastered her attention; then we have conversed; and others, thinking me,
+perhaps, peculiarly privileged, have withdrawn by degrees, and left us
+alone. Were we happy thus left? For myself, I must say No. Always a
+feeling of constraint came over me; always I was disposed to be stern
+and strange. We talked politics and business. No soft sense of domestic
+intimacy ever opened our hearts, or thawed our language and made it flow
+easy and limpid. If we had confidences, they were confidences of the
+counting-house, not of the heart. Nothing in her cherished affection in
+me, made me better, gentler; she only stirred my brain and whetted my
+acuteness. She never crept into my heart or influenced its pulse; and
+for this good reason, no doubt, because I had not the secret of making
+her love me."
+
+"Well, lad, it is a queer thing. I might laugh at thee, and reckon to
+despise thy refinements; but as it is dark night and we are by
+ourselves, I don't mind telling thee that thy talk brings back a glimpse
+of my own past life. Twenty-five years ago I tried to persuade a
+beautiful woman to love me, and she would not. I had not the key to her
+nature; she was a stone wall to me, doorless and windowless."
+
+"But you loved _her_, Yorke; you worshipped Mary Cave. Your conduct,
+after all, was that of a man--never of a fortune-hunter."
+
+"Ay, I _did_ love her; but then she was beautiful as the moon we do
+_not_ see to-night. There is naught like her in these days. Miss
+Helstone, maybe, has a look of her, but nobody else."
+
+"Who has a look of her?"
+
+"That black-coated tyrant's niece--that quiet, delicate Miss Helstone.
+Many a time I have put on my spectacles to look at the lassie in church,
+because she has gentle blue een, wi' long lashes; and when she sits in
+shadow, and is very still and very pale, and is, happen, about to fall
+asleep wi' the length of the sermon and the heat of the biggin', she is
+as like one of Canova's marbles as aught else."
+
+"Was Mary Cave in that style?"
+
+"Far grander!--less lass-like and flesh-like. You wondered why she
+hadn't wings and a crown. She was a stately, peaceful angel was my
+Mary."
+
+"And you could not persuade her to love you?"
+
+"Not with all I could do, though I prayed Heaven many a time, on my
+bended knees, to help me."
+
+"Mary Cave was not what you think her, Yorke. I have seen her picture at
+the rectory. She is no angel, but a fair, regular-featured,
+taciturn-looking woman--rather too white and lifeless for my taste. But,
+supposing she had been something better than she was----"
+
+"Robert," interrupted Yorke, "I could fell you off your horse at this
+moment. However, I'll hold my hand. Reason tells me you are right and I
+am wrong. I know well enough that the passion I still have is only the
+remnant of an illusion. If Miss Cave had possessed either feeling or
+sense, she could not have been so perfectly impassible to my regard as
+she showed herself; she must have preferred me to that copper-faced
+despot."
+
+"Supposing, Yorke, she had been educated (no women were educated in
+those days); supposing she had possessed a thoughtful, original mind, a
+love of knowledge, a wish for information, which she took an artless
+delight in receiving from your lips, and having measured out to her by
+your hand; supposing her conversation, when she sat at your side, was
+fertile, varied, imbued with a picturesque grace and genial interest,
+quiet flowing but clear and bounteous; supposing that when you stood
+near her by chance, or when you sat near her by design, comfort at once
+became your atmosphere, and content your element; supposing that
+whenever her face was under your gaze, or her idea filled your thoughts,
+you gradually ceased to be hard and anxious, and pure affection, love of
+home, thirst for sweet discourse, unselfish longing to protect and
+cherish, replaced the sordid, cankering calculations of your trade;
+supposing, with all this, that many a time, when you had been so happy
+as to possess your Mary's little hand, you had felt it tremble as you
+held it, just as a warm little bird trembles when you take it from its
+nest; supposing you had noticed her shrink into the background on your
+entrance into a room, yet if you sought her in her retreat she welcomed
+you with the sweetest smile that ever lit a fair virgin face, and only
+turned her eyes from the encounter of your own lest their clearness
+should reveal too much; supposing, in short, your Mary had been not
+cold, but modest; not vacant, but reflective; not obtuse, but sensitive;
+not inane, but innocent; not prudish, but pure,--would you have left her
+to court another woman for her wealth?"
+
+Mr. Yorke raised his hat, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.
+
+"The moon is up," was his first not quite relevant remark, pointing with
+his whip across the moor. "There she is, rising into the haze, staring
+at us wi' a strange red glower. She is no more silver than old
+Helstone's brow is ivory. What does she mean by leaning her cheek on
+Rushedge i' that way, and looking at us wi' a scowl and a menace?"
+
+"Yorke, if Mary had loved you silently yet faithfully, chastely yet
+fervently, as you would wish your wife to love, would you have left
+her?"
+
+"Robert!"--he lifted his arm, he held it suspended, and paused--"Robert!
+this is a queer world, and men are made of the queerest dregs that
+Chaos churned up in her ferment. I might swear sounding oaths--oaths
+that would make the poachers think there was a bittern booming in
+Bilberry Moss--that, in the case you put, death only should have parted
+me from Mary. But I have lived in the world fifty-five years; I have
+been forced to study human nature; and, to speak a dark truth, the odds
+are, if Mary had loved and not scorned me, if I had been secure of her
+affection, certain of her constancy, been irritated by no doubts, stung
+by no humiliations--the odds are" (he let his hand fall heavy on the
+saddle)--"the odds are I should have left her!"
+
+They rode side by side in silence. Ere either spoke again they were on
+the other side of Rushedge. Briarfield lights starred the purple skirt
+of the moor. Robert, being the youngest, and having less of the past to
+absorb him than his comrade, recommenced first.
+
+"I believe--I daily find it proved--that we can get nothing in this
+world worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, except
+out of purifying flame or through strengthening peril. We err, we fall,
+we are humbled; then we walk more carefully. We greedily eat and drink
+poison out of the gilded cup of vice or from the beggar's wallet of
+avarice. We are sickened, degraded; everything good in us rebels against
+us; our souls rise bitterly indignant against our bodies; there is a
+period of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rules
+thereafter."
+
+"What art thou going to do now, Robert? What are thy plans?"
+
+"For my private plans, I'll keep them to myself--which is very easy, as
+at present I have none. No private life is permitted a man in my
+position--a man in debt. For my public plans, my views are a little
+altered. While I was in Birmingham I looked a little into reality,
+considered closely and at their source the causes of the present
+troubles of this country. I did the same in London. Unknown, I could go
+where I pleased, mix with whom I would. I went where there was want of
+food, of fuel, of clothing; where there was no occupation and no hope. I
+saw some, with naturally elevated tendencies and good feelings, kept
+down amongst sordid privations and harassing griefs. I saw many
+originally low, and to whom lack of education left scarcely anything but
+animal wants, disappointed in those wants, ahungered, athirst, and
+desperate as famished animals. I saw what taught my brain a new lesson,
+and filled my breast with fresh feelings. I have no intention to profess
+more softness or sentiment than I have hitherto professed; mutiny and
+ambition I regard as I have always regarded them. I should resist a
+riotous mob just as heretofore; I should open on the scent of a runaway
+ringleader as eagerly as ever, and run him down as relentlessly, and
+follow him up to condign punishment as rigorously; but I should do it
+now chiefly for the sake and the security of those he misled. Something
+there is to look to, Yorke, beyond a man's personal interest, beyond the
+advancement of well-laid schemes, beyond even the discharge of
+dishonouring debts. To respect himself, a man must believe he renders
+justice to his fellow-men. Unless I am more considerate to ignorance,
+more forbearing to suffering, than I have hitherto been, I shall scorn
+myself as grossly unjust.--What now?" he said, addressing his horse,
+which, hearing the ripple of water, and feeling thirsty, turned to a
+wayside trough, where the moonbeam was playing in a crystal eddy.
+
+"Yorke," pursued Moore, "ride on; I must let him drink."
+
+Yorke accordingly rode slowly forwards, occupying himself as he advanced
+in discriminating, amongst the many lights now spangling the distance,
+those of Briarmains. Stilbro' Moor was left behind; plantations rose
+dusk on either hand; they were descending the hill; below them lay the
+valley with its populous parish: they felt already at home.
+
+Surrounded no longer by heath, it was not startling to Mr. Yorke to see
+a hat rise, and to hear a voice speak behind the wall. The words,
+however, were peculiar.
+
+"When the wicked perisheth there is shouting," it said; and added, "As
+the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more" (with a deeper growl):
+"terrors take hold of him as waters; hell is naked before him. He shall
+die without knowledge."
+
+A fierce flash and sharp crack violated the calm of night. Yorke, ere he
+turned, knew the four convicts of Birmingham were avenged.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+UNCLE AND NIECE.
+
+
+The die was cast. Sir Philip Nunnely knew it; Shirley knew it; Mr.
+Sympson knew it. That evening, when all the Fieldhead family dined at
+Nunnely Priory, decided the business.
+
+Two or three things conduced to bring the baronet to a point. He had
+observed that Miss Keeldar looked pensive and delicate. This new phase
+in her demeanour smote him on his weak or poetic side. A spontaneous
+sonnet brewed in his brain; and while it was still working there, one of
+his sisters persuaded his lady-love to sit down to the piano and sing a
+ballad--one of Sir Philip's own ballads. It was the least elaborate, the
+least affected--out of all comparison the best of his numerous efforts.
+
+It chanced that Shirley, the moment before, had been gazing from a
+window down on the park. She had seen that stormy moonlight which "le
+Professeur Louis" was perhaps at the same instant contemplating from her
+own oak-parlour lattice; she had seen the isolated trees of the
+domain--broad, strong, spreading oaks, and high-towering heroic
+beeches--wrestling with the gale. Her ear had caught the full roar of
+the forest lower down; the swift rushing of clouds, the moon, to the
+eye, hasting swifter still, had crossed her vision. She turned from
+sight and sound--touched, if not rapt; wakened, if not inspired.
+
+She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the
+ballad--faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that
+disaster could not shake; love that in calamity waxed fonder, in poverty
+clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air; in themselves they
+were simple and sweet. Perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when
+_well_ sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well. She breathed
+into the feeling softness; she poured round the passion force. Her voice
+was fine that evening, its expression dramatic. She impressed all, and
+charmed one.
+
+On leaving the instrument she went to the fire, and sat down on a
+seat--semi-stool, semi-cushion. The ladies were round her; none of them
+spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her as
+quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange
+fowl. What made her sing so? _They_ never sang so. Was it _proper_ to
+sing with such expression, with such originality--so unlike a
+school-girl? Decidedly not. It was strange, it was unusual. What was
+_strange_ must be _wrong_; what was _unusual_ must be _improper_.
+Shirley was judged.
+
+Moreover, old Lady Nunnely eyed her stonily from her great chair by the
+fireside. Her gaze said, "This woman is not of mine or my daughters'
+kind. I object to her as my son's wife."
+
+Her son, catching the look, read its meaning. He grew alarmed. What he
+so wished to win there was danger he might lose. He must make haste.
+
+The room they were in had once been a picture-gallery. Sir Philip's
+father--Sir Monckton--had converted it into a saloon; but still it had a
+shadowy, long-withdrawing look. A deep recess with a window--a recess
+that held one couch, one table, and a fairy cabinet--formed a room
+within a room. Two persons standing there might interchange a dialogue,
+and, so it were neither long nor loud, none be the wiser.
+
+Sir Philip induced two of his sisters to perpetrate a duet. He gave
+occupation to the Misses Sympson. The elder ladies were conversing
+together. He was pleased to remark that meantime Shirley rose to look at
+the pictures. He had a tale to tell about one ancestress, whose dark
+beauty seemed as that of a flower of the south. He joined her, and began
+to tell it.
+
+There were mementoes of the same lady in the cabinet adorning the
+recess; and while Shirley was stooping to examine the missal and the
+rosary on the inlaid shelf, and while the Misses Nunnely indulged in a
+prolonged screech, guiltless of expression, pure of originality,
+perfectly conventional and absolutely unmeaning, Sir Philip stooped too,
+and whispered a few hurried sentences. At first Miss Keeldar was struck
+so still you might have fancied that whisper a charm which had changed
+her to a statue; but she presently looked up and answered. They parted.
+Miss Keeldar returned to the fire, and resumed her seat. The baronet
+gazed after her, then went and stood behind his sisters. Mr.
+Sympson--Mr. Sympson only--had marked the pantomime.
+
+That gentleman drew his own conclusions. Had he been as acute as he was
+meddling, as profound as he was prying, he might have found that in Sir
+Philip's face whereby to correct his inference. Ever shallow, hasty, and
+positive, he went home quite cock-a-hoop.
+
+He was not a man that kept secrets well. When elate on a subject, he
+could not avoid talking about it. The next morning, having occasion to
+employ his son's tutor as his secretary, he must needs announce to him,
+in mouthing accents, and with much flimsy pomp of manner, that he had
+better hold himself prepared for a return to the south at an early day,
+as the important business which had detained him (Mr. Sympson) so long
+in Yorkshire was now on the eve of fortunate completion. His anxious and
+laborious efforts were likely, at last, to be crowned with the happiest
+success. A truly eligible addition was about to be made to the family
+connections.
+
+"In Sir Philip Nunnely?" Louis Moore conjectured.
+
+Whereupon Mr. Sympson treated himself simultaneously to a pinch of snuff
+and a chuckling laugh, checked only by a sudden choke of dignity, and an
+order to the tutor to proceed with business.
+
+For a day or two Mr. Sympson continued as bland as oil, but also he
+seemed to sit on pins, and his gait, when he walked, emulated that of a
+hen treading a hot girdle. He was for ever looking out of the window and
+listening for chariot-wheels. Bluebeard's wife--Sisera's mother--were
+nothing to him. He waited when the matter should be opened in form, when
+himself should be consulted, when lawyers should be summoned, when
+settlement discussions and all the delicious worldly fuss should
+pompously begin.
+
+At last there came a letter. He himself handed it to Miss Keeldar out of
+the bag. He knew the handwriting; he knew the crest on the seal. He did
+not see it opened and read, for Shirley took it to her own room; nor did
+he see it answered, for she wrote her reply shut up, and was very long
+about it--the best part of a day. He questioned her whether it was
+answered; she responded, "Yes."
+
+Again he waited--waited in silence, absolutely not daring to speak, kept
+mute by something in Shirley's face--a very awful something--inscrutable
+to him as the writing on the wall to Belshazzar. He was moved more than
+once to call Daniel, in the person of Louis Moore, and to ask an
+interpretation; but his dignity forbade the familiarity. Daniel himself,
+perhaps, had his own private difficulties connected with that baffling
+bit of translation; he looked like a student for whom grammars are blank
+and dictionaries dumb.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Sympson had been out, to while away an anxious hour in the society
+of his friends at De Walden Hall. He returned a little sooner than was
+expected. His family and Miss Keeldar were assembled in the oak parlour.
+Addressing the latter, he requested her to step with him into another
+room. He wished to have with her a "_strictly_ private interview."
+
+She rose, asking no questions and professing no surprise.
+
+"Very well, sir," she said, in the tone of a determined person who is
+informed that the dentist is come to extract that large double tooth of
+his, from which he has suffered such a purgatory this month past. She
+left her sewing and her thimble in the window-seat, and followed her
+uncle where he led.
+
+Shut into the drawing-room, the pair took seats, each in an arm-chair,
+placed opposite, a few yards between them.
+
+"I have been to De Walden Hall," said Mr. Sympson. He paused. Miss
+Keeldar's eyes were on the pretty white-and-green carpet. _That_
+information required no response. She gave none.
+
+"I have learned," he went on slowly--"I have learned a circumstance
+which surprises me."
+
+Resting her cheek on her forefinger, she waited to be told _what_
+circumstance.
+
+"It seems that Nunnely Priory is shut up--that the family are gone back
+to their place in ----shire. It seems that the baronet--that the
+baronet--that Sir Philip himself has accompanied his mother and
+sisters."
+
+"Indeed!" said Shirley.
+
+"May I ask if you share the amazement with which I received this news?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"_Is_ it news to you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I mean--I mean," pursued Mr. Sympson, now fidgeting in his chair,
+quitting his hitherto brief and tolerably clear phraseology, and
+returning to his customary wordy, confused, irritable style--"I mean to
+have a _thorough_ explanation. I will _not_ be put off. I--I--shall
+_insist_ on being heard, and on--on having my own way. My questions
+_must_ be answered. I will have clear, satisfactory replies. I am not to
+be trifled with. (Silence.)
+
+"It is a strange and an extraordinary thing--a very singular--a most odd
+thing! I thought all was right, knew no other; and there--the family are
+gone!"
+
+"I suppose, sir, they had a right to go."
+
+"_Sir Philip is gone!_" (with emphasis).
+
+Shirley raised her brows. "_Bon voyage!_" said she.
+
+"This will not do; this must be altered, ma'am."
+
+He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he looked perfectly
+incensed, and perfectly helpless.
+
+"Come, come now, uncle," expostulated Shirley, "do not begin to fret and
+fume, or we shall make no sense of the business. Ask me what you want to
+know. I am as willing to come to an explanation as you. I promise you
+truthful replies."
+
+"I want--I demand to know, Miss Keeldar, whether Sir Philip has made you
+an offer?"
+
+"He has."
+
+"You avow it?"
+
+"I avow it. But now, go on. Consider that point settled."
+
+"He made you an offer that night we dined at the priory?"
+
+"It is enough to say that he made it. Go on."
+
+"He proposed in the recess--in the room that used to be a
+picture-gallery--that Sir Monckton converted into it saloon?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"You were both examining a cabinet. I saw it all. My sagacity was not at
+fault--it never is. Subsequently you received a letter from him. On what
+subject--of what nature were the contents?"
+
+"No matter."
+
+"Ma'am, is that the way in which you speak to me?"
+
+Shirley's foot tapped quick on the carpet.
+
+"There you sit, silent and sullen--_you_ who promised truthful replies."
+
+"Sir, I have answered you thus far. Proceed."
+
+"I should like to see that letter."
+
+"You _cannot_ see it."
+
+"I _must_ and _shall_, ma'am; I am your guardian."
+
+"Having ceased to be a ward, I have no guardian."
+
+"Ungrateful being! Reared by me as my own daughter----"
+
+"Once more, uncle, have the kindness to keep to the point. Let us both
+remain cool. For my part, I do not wish to get into a passion; but, you
+know, once drive me beyond certain bounds, I care little what I say--I
+am not then soon checked. Listen! You have asked me whether Sir Philip
+made me an offer. That question is answered. What do you wish to know
+next?"
+
+"I desire to know whether you accepted or refused him, and know it I
+will."
+
+"Certainly, you ought to know it. I refused him."
+
+"Refused him! You--_you_, Shirley Keeldar, _refused_ Sir Philip
+Nunnely?"
+
+"I did."
+
+The poor gentleman bounced from his chair, and first rushed and then
+trotted through the room.
+
+"There it is! There it is! There it is!"
+
+"Sincerely speaking, I am sorry, uncle, you are so disappointed."
+
+Concession, contrition, never do any good with some people. Instead of
+softening and conciliating, they but embolden and harden them. Of that
+number was Mr. Sympson.
+
+"_I_ disappointed? What is it to me? Have _I_ an interest in it? You
+would insinuate, perhaps, that I have motives?"
+
+"Most people have motives of some sort for their actions."
+
+"She accuses me to my face! I, that have been a parent to her, she
+charges with bad motives!"
+
+"_Bad_ motives I did not say."
+
+"And now you prevaricate; you have no principles!"
+
+"Uncle, you tire me. I want to go away."
+
+"Go you shall not! I will be answered. What are your intentions, Miss
+Keeldar?"
+
+"In what respect?"
+
+"In respect of matrimony?"
+
+"To be quiet, and to do just as I please."
+
+"Just as you please! The words are to the last degree indecorous."
+
+"Mr. Sympson, I advise you not to become insulting. You know I will not
+bear that."
+
+"You read French. Your mind is poisoned with French novels. You have
+imbibed French principles."
+
+"The ground you are treading now returns a mighty hollow sound under
+your feet. Beware!"
+
+"It will end in infamy, sooner or later. I have foreseen it all along."
+
+"Do you assert, sir, that something in which _I_ am concerned will end
+in infamy?"
+
+"That it will--that it will. You said just now you would act as you
+please. You acknowledge no rules--no limitations."
+
+"Silly stuff, and vulgar as silly!"
+
+"Regardless of decorum, you are prepared to fly in the face of
+propriety."
+
+"You tire me, uncle."
+
+"What, madam--_what_ could be your reasons for refusing Sir Philip?"
+
+"At last there is another sensible question; I shall be glad to reply to
+it. Sir Philip is too young for me. I regard him as a boy. All his
+relations--his mother especially--would be annoyed if he married me.
+Such a step would embroil him with them. I am not his equal in the
+world's estimation."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Our dispositions are not compatible."
+
+"Why, a more amiable gentleman never breathed."
+
+"He is very amiable--very excellent--truly estimable; but _not my
+master_--not in one point. I could not trust myself with his happiness.
+I would not undertake the keeping of it for thousands. I will accept no
+hand which cannot hold me in check."
+
+"I thought you liked to do as you please. You are vastly inconsistent."
+
+"When I promise to obey, it shall be under the conviction that I can
+keep that promise. I could not obey a youth like Sir Philip. Besides, he
+would never command me. He would expect me always to rule--to guide--and
+I have no taste whatever for the office."
+
+"_You_ no taste for swaggering, and subduing, and ordering, and ruling?"
+
+"Not my husband; only my uncle."
+
+"Where is the difference?"
+
+"There _is_ a slight difference--that is certain. And I know full well
+any man who wishes to live in decent comfort with me as a husband must
+be able to control me."
+
+"I wish you had a real tyrant."
+
+"A tyrant would not hold me for a day, not for an hour. I would
+rebel--break from him--defy him."
+
+"Are you not enough to bewilder one's brain with your
+self-contradiction?"
+
+"It is evident I bewilder your brain."
+
+"You talk of Sir Philip being young. He is two-and-twenty."
+
+"My husband must be thirty, with the sense of forty."
+
+"You had better pick out some old man--some white-headed or bald-headed
+swain."
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"You could lead some doting fool; you might pin him to your apron."
+
+"I might do that with a boy; but it is not my vocation. Did I not say I
+prefer a _master_--one in whose presence I shall feel obliged and
+disposed to be good; one whose control my impatient temper must
+acknowledge; a man whose approbation can reward, whose displeasure
+punish me; a man I shall feel it impossible not to love, and very
+possible to fear?"
+
+"What is there to hinder you from doing all this with Sir Philip? He is
+a baronet--a man of rank, property, connections far above yours. If you
+talk of intellect, he is a poet--he writes verses; which you, I take it,
+cannot do, with all your cleverness."
+
+"Neither his title, wealth, pedigree, nor poetry avail to invest him
+with the power I describe. These are feather-weights; they want ballast.
+A measure of sound, solid, practical sense would have stood him in
+better stead with me."
+
+"You and Henry rave about poetry! You used to catch fire like tinder on
+the subject when you were a girl."
+
+"O uncle, there is nothing really valuable in this world, there is
+nothing glorious in the world to come that is not poetry!"
+
+"Marry a poet, then, in God's name!"
+
+"Show him me, and I will."
+
+"Sir Philip."
+
+"Not at all. You are almost as good a poet as he."
+
+"Madam, you are wandering from the point."
+
+"Indeed, uncle, I wanted to do so, and I shall be glad to lead you away
+with me. Do not let us get out of temper with each other; it is not
+worth while."
+
+"Out of temper, Miss Keeldar! I should be glad to know who is out of
+temper."
+
+"_I_ am not, yet."
+
+"If you mean to insinuate that _I_ am, I consider that you are guilty of
+impertinence."
+
+"You will be soon, if you go on at that rate."
+
+"There it is! With your pert tongue you would try the patience of a
+Job."
+
+"I know I should."
+
+"No levity, miss! This is not a laughing matter. It is an affair I am
+resolved to probe thoroughly, convinced that there is mischief at the
+bottom. You described just now, with far too much freedom for your years
+and sex, the sort of individual you would prefer as a husband. Pray, did
+you paint from the life?"
+
+Shirley opened her lips, but instead of speaking she only glowed
+rose-red.
+
+"I shall have an answer to that question," affirmed Mr. Sympson,
+assuming vast courage and consequence on the strength of this symptom of
+confusion.
+
+"It was an historical picture, uncle, from several originals."
+
+"Several originals! Bless my heart!"
+
+"I have been in love several times."
+
+"This is cynical."
+
+"With heroes of many nations."
+
+"What next----"
+
+"And philosophers."
+
+"She is mad----"
+
+"Don't ring the bell, uncle; you will alarm my aunt."
+
+"Your poor dear aunt, what a niece has she!"
+
+"Once I loved Socrates."
+
+"Pooh! no trifling, ma'am."
+
+"I admired Themistocles, Leonidas, Epaminondas."
+
+"Miss Keeldar----"
+
+"To pass over a few centuries, Washington was a plain man, but I liked
+him; but to speak of the actual present----"
+
+"Ah! the actual present."
+
+"To quit crude schoolgirl fancies, and come to realities."
+
+"Realities! That is the test to which you shall be brought, ma'am."
+
+"To avow before what altar I now kneel--to reveal the present idol of my
+soul----"
+
+"You will make haste about it, if you please. It is near luncheon time,
+and confess _you shall_."
+
+"Confess I must. My heart is full of the secret. It must be spoken. I
+only wish you were Mr. Helstone instead of Mr. Sympson; you would
+sympathize with me better."
+
+"Madam, it is a question of common sense and common prudence, not of
+sympathy and sentiment, and so on. Did you say it was Mr. Helstone?"
+
+"Not precisely, but as near as may be; they are rather alike."
+
+"I will know the name; I will have particulars."
+
+"They positively _are_ rather alike. Their very faces are not
+dissimilar--a pair of human falcons--and dry, direct, decided both. But
+my hero is the mightier of the two. His mind has the clearness of the
+deep sea, the patience of its rocks, the force of its billows."
+
+"Rant and fustian!"
+
+"I dare say he can be harsh as a saw-edge and gruff as a hungry raven."
+
+"Miss Keeldar, does the person reside in Briarfield? Answer me that."
+
+"Uncle, I am going to tell you; his name is trembling on my tongue."
+
+"Speak, girl!"
+
+"That was well said, uncle. 'Speak, girl!' It is quite tragic. England
+has howled savagely against this man, uncle, and she will one day roar
+exultingly over him. He has been unscared by the howl, and he will be
+unelated by the shout."
+
+"I said she was mad. She is."
+
+"This country will change and change again in her demeanour to him; he
+will never change in his duty to her. Come, cease to chafe, uncle, I'll
+tell you his name."
+
+"You shall tell me, or----"
+
+"Listen! Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington."
+
+Mr. Sympson rose up furious. He bounced out of the room, but immediately
+bounced back again, shut the door, and resumed his seat.
+
+"Ma'am, you _shall_ tell me _this_. Will your principles permit you to
+marry a man without money--a man below you?"
+
+"Never a man below me."
+
+(In a high voice.) "Will you, Miss Keeldar, marry a poor man?"
+
+"What right have you, Mr. Sympson, to ask me?"
+
+"I insist upon knowing."
+
+"You don't go the way to know."
+
+"My family respectability shall not be compromised."
+
+"A good resolution; keep it."
+
+"Madam, it is _you_ who shall keep it."
+
+"Impossible, sir, since I form no part of your family."
+
+"Do you disown us?"
+
+"I disdain your dictatorship."
+
+"Whom _will_ you marry, Miss Keeldar?"
+
+"Not Mr. Sam Wynne, because I scorn him; not Sir Philip Nunnely, because
+I _only_ esteem him."
+
+"Whom have you in your eye?"
+
+"Four rejected candidates."
+
+"Such obstinacy could not be unless you were under improper influence."
+
+"What do you mean? There are certain phrases potent to make my blood
+boil. Improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?"
+
+"Are you a young lady?"
+
+"I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will
+be treated."
+
+"Do you know" (leaning mysteriously forward, and speaking with ghastly
+solemnity)--"do you know the whole neighbourhood teems with rumours
+respecting you and a bankrupt tenant of yours, the foreigner Moore?"
+
+"Does it?"
+
+"It does. Your name is in every mouth."
+
+"It honours the lips it crosses, and I wish to the gods it may purify
+them."
+
+"Is it _that_ person who has power to influence you?"
+
+"Beyond any whose cause you have advocated."
+
+"Is it he you will marry?"
+
+"He is handsome, and manly, and commanding."
+
+"You declare it to my face! The Flemish knave! the low trader!"
+
+"He is talented, and venturous, and resolute. Prince is on his brow, and
+ruler in his bearing."
+
+"She glories in it! She conceals nothing! No shame, no fear!"
+
+"When we speak the name of Moore, shame should be forgotten and fear
+discarded. The Moores know only honour and courage."
+
+"I say she is mad."
+
+"You have taunted me till my blood is up; you have worried me till I
+turn again."
+
+"That Moore is the brother of my son's tutor. Would you let the usher
+call you sister?"
+
+Bright and broad shone Shirley's eye as she fixed it on her questioner
+now.
+
+"No, no; not for a province of possession, not for a century of life."
+
+"You cannot separate the husband from his family."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Mr. Louis Moore's sister you will be."
+
+"Mr. Sympson, I am sick at heart with all this weak trash; I will bear
+no more. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, your aims are not my aims,
+your gods are not my gods. We do not view things in the same light; we
+do not measure them by the same standard; we hardly speak in the same
+tongue. Let us part."
+
+"It is not," she resumed, much excited--"it is not that I hate you; you
+are a good sort of man. Perhaps you mean well in your way. But we cannot
+suit; we are ever at variance. You annoy me with small meddling, with
+petty tyranny; you exasperate my temper, and make and keep me
+passionate. As to your small maxims, your narrow rules, your little
+prejudices, aversions, dogmas, bundle them off. Mr. Sympson, go, offer
+them a sacrifice to the deity you worship; I'll none of them. I wash my
+hands of the lot. I walk by another creed, light, faith, and hope than
+you."
+
+"Another creed! I believe she is an infidel."
+
+"An infidel to _your_ religion, an atheist to _your_ god."
+
+"_An--atheist!!!_"
+
+"Your god, sir, is the world. In my eyes you too, if not an infidel, are
+an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship; in all things you
+appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your
+fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you,
+have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre.
+Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes
+best--making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the
+imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius, and fetters the dead to
+the living. In his realm there is hatred--secret hatred; there is
+disgust--unspoken disgust; there is treachery--family treachery; there
+is vice--deep, deadly domestic vice. In his dominions children grow
+unloving between parents who have never loved; infants are nursed on
+deception from their very birth; they are reared in an atmosphere
+corrupt with lies. Your god rules at the bridal of kings; look at your
+royal dynasties! Your deity is the deity of foreign aristocracies;
+analyze the blue blood of Spain! Your god is the Hymen of France; what
+is French domestic life? All that surrounds him hastens to decay; all
+declines and degenerates under his sceptre. _Your_ god is a masked
+Death."
+
+"This language is terrible! My daughters and you must associate no
+longer, Miss Keeldar; there is danger in such companionship. Had I known
+you a little earlier--but, extraordinary as I thought you, I could not
+have believed----"
+
+"Now, sir, do you begin to be aware that it is useless to scheme for me;
+that in doing so you but sow the wind to reap the whirlwind? I sweep
+your cobweb projects from my path, that I may pass on unsullied. I am
+anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall
+dispose of my hand--_they only_. Know this at last."
+
+Mr. Sympson was becoming a little bewildered.
+
+"Never heard such language!" he muttered again and again; "never was so
+addressed in my life--never was so used!"
+
+"You are quite confused, sir. You had better withdraw, or I will."
+
+He rose hastily. "We must leave this place; they must pack up at once."
+
+"Do not hurry my aunt and cousins; give them time."
+
+"No more intercourse; she's not proper."
+
+He made his way to the door. He came back for his handkerchief. He
+dropped his snuff-box, leaving the contents scattered on the carpet; he
+stumbled out. Tartar lay outside across the mat; Mr. Sympson almost fell
+over him. In the climax of his exasperation he hurled an oath at the dog
+and a coarse epithet at his mistress.
+
+"Poor Mr. Sympson! he is both feeble and vulgar," said Shirley to
+herself. "My head aches, and I am tired," she added; and leaning her
+head upon a cushion, she softly subsided from excitement to repose. One,
+entering the room a quarter of an hour afterwards, found her asleep.
+When Shirley had been agitated, she generally took this natural
+refreshment; it would come at her call.
+
+The intruder paused in her unconscious presence, and said, "Miss
+Keeldar."
+
+Perhaps his voice harmonized with some dream into which she was passing.
+It did not startle, it hardly roused her. Without opening her eyes, she
+but turned her head a little, so that her cheek and profile, before
+hidden by her arm, became visible. She looked rosy, happy, half smiling,
+but her eyelashes were wet. She had wept in slumber; or perhaps, before
+dropping asleep, a few natural tears had fallen after she had heard that
+epithet. No man--no woman--is always strong, always able to bear up
+against the unjust opinion, the vilifying word. Calumny, even from the
+mouth of a fool, will sometimes cut into unguarded feelings. Shirley
+looked like a child that had been naughty and punished, but was now
+forgiven and at rest.
+
+"Miss Keeldar," again said the voice. This time it woke her. She looked
+up, and saw at her side Louis Moore--not close at her side, but
+standing, with arrested step, two or three yards from her.
+
+"O Mr. Moore!" she said. "I was afraid it was my uncle again: he and I
+have quarrelled."
+
+"Mr. Sympson should let you alone," was the reply. "Can he not see that
+you are as yet far from strong?"
+
+"I assure you he did not find me weak. I did not cry when he was here."
+
+"He is about to evacuate Fieldhead--so he says. He is now giving orders
+to his family. He has been in the schoolroom issuing commands in a
+manner which, I suppose, was a continuation of that with which he has
+harassed you."
+
+"Are you and Henry to go?"
+
+"I believe, as far as Henry is concerned, that was the tenor of his
+scarcely intelligible directions; but he may change all to-morrow. He is
+just in that mood when you cannot depend on his consistency for two
+consecutive hours. I doubt whether he will leave you for weeks yet. To
+myself he addressed some words which will require a little attention and
+comment by-and-by, when I have time to bestow on them. At the moment he
+came in I was busied with a note I had got from Mr. Yorke--so fully
+busied that I cut short the interview with him somewhat abruptly. I left
+him raving. Here is the note. I wish you to see it. It refers to my
+brother Robert." And he looked at Shirley.
+
+"I shall be glad to hear news of him. Is he coming home?"
+
+"He is come. He is in Yorkshire. Mr. Yorke went yesterday to Stilbro' to
+meet him."
+
+"Mr. Moore, something is wrong----"
+
+"Did my voice tremble? He is now at Briarmains, and I am going to see
+him."
+
+"What has occurred?"
+
+"If you turn so pale I shall be sorry I have spoken. It might have been
+worse. Robert is not dead, but much hurt."
+
+"O sir, it is you who are pale. Sit down near me."
+
+"Read the note. Let me open it."
+
+Miss Keeldar read the note. It briefly signified that last night Robert
+Moore had been shot at from behind the wall of Milldean plantation, at
+the foot of the Brow; that he was wounded severely, but it was hoped not
+fatally. Of the assassin, or assassins, nothing was known; they had
+escaped. "No doubt," Mr. Yorke observed, "it was done in revenge. It was
+a pity ill-will had ever been raised; but that could not be helped now."
+
+"He is my only brother," said Louis, as Shirley returned the note. "I
+cannot hear unmoved that ruffians have laid in wait for him, and shot
+him down, like some wild beast from behind a wall."
+
+"Be comforted; be hopeful. He will get better--I know he will."
+
+Shirley, solicitous to soothe, held her hand over Mr. Moore's as it lay
+on the arm of the chair. She just touched it lightly, scarce palpably.
+
+"Well, give me your hand," he said. "It will be for the first time; it
+is in a moment of calamity. Give it me."
+
+Awaiting neither consent nor refusal, he took what he asked.
+
+"I am going to Briarmains now," he went on. "I want you to step over to
+the rectory and tell Caroline Helstone what has happened. Will you do
+this? She will hear it best from you."
+
+"Immediately," said Shirley, with docile promptitude. "Ought I to say
+that there is no danger?"
+
+"Say so."
+
+"You will come back soon, and let me know more?"
+
+"I will either come or write."
+
+"Trust me for watching over Caroline. I will communicate with your
+sister too; but doubtless she is already with Robert?"
+
+"Doubtless, or will be soon. Good-morning now."
+
+"You will bear up, come what may."
+
+"We shall see that."
+
+Shirley's fingers were obliged to withdraw from the tutor's. Louis was
+obliged to relinquish that hand folded, clasped, hidden in his own.
+
+"I thought I should have had to support her," he said, as he walked
+towards Briarmains, "and it is she who has made me strong. That look of
+pity, that gentle touch! No down was ever softer, no elixir more potent!
+It lay like a snowflake; it thrilled like lightning. A thousand times I
+have longed to possess that hand--to have it in mine. I _have_ possessed
+it; for five minutes I held it. Her fingers and mine can never be
+strangers more. Having met once they must meet again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE SCHOOLBOY AND THE WOOD-NYMPH.
+
+
+Briarmains being nearer than the Hollow, Mr. Yorke had conveyed his
+young comrade there. He had seen him laid in the best bed of the house,
+as carefully as if he had been one of his own sons. The sight of his
+blood, welling from the treacherously inflicted wound, made him indeed
+the son of the Yorkshire gentleman's heart. The spectacle of the sudden
+event, of the tall, straight shape prostrated in its pride across the
+road, of the fine southern head laid low in the dust, of that youth in
+prime flung at once before him pallid, lifeless, helpless--this was the
+very combination of circumstances to win for the victim Mr. Yorke's
+liveliest interest.
+
+No other hand was there to raise--to aid, no other voice to question
+kindly, no other brain to concert measures; he had to do it all himself.
+This utter dependence of the speechless, bleeding youth (as a youth he
+regarded him) on his benevolence secured that benevolence most
+effectually. Well did Mr. Yorke like to have power, and to use it. He
+had now between his hands power over a fellow-creature's life. It suited
+him.
+
+No less perfectly did it suit his saturnine better half. The incident
+was quite in her way and to her taste. Some women would have been
+terror-struck to see a gory man brought in over their threshold, and
+laid down in their hall in the "howe of the night." There, you would
+suppose, was subject-matter for hysterics. No. Mrs. Yorke went into
+hysterics when Jessie would not leave the garden to come to her
+knitting, or when Martin proposed starting for Australia, with a view to
+realize freedom and escape the tyranny of Matthew; but an attempted
+murder near her door--a half-murdered man in her best bed--set her
+straight, cheered her spirits, gave her cap the dash of a turban.
+
+Mrs. Yorke was just the woman who, while rendering miserable the
+drudging life of a simple maid-servant, would nurse like a heroine a
+hospital full of plague patients. She almost loved Moore. Her tough
+heart almost yearned towards him when she found him committed to her
+charge--left in her arms, as dependent on her as her youngest-born in
+the cradle. Had she seen a domestic or one of her daughters give him a
+draught of water or smooth his pillow, she would have boxed the
+intruder's ears. She chased Jessie and Rose from the upper realm of the
+house; she forbade the housemaids to set their foot in it.
+
+Now, if the accident had happened at the rectory gates, and old Helstone
+had taken in the martyr, neither Yorke nor his wife would have pitied
+him. They would have adjudged him right served for his tyranny and
+meddling. As it was, he became, for the present, the apple of their eye.
+
+Strange! Louis Moore was permitted to come--to sit down on the edge of
+the bed and lean over the pillow; to hold his brother's hand, and press
+his pale forehead with his fraternal lips; and Mrs. Yorke bore it well.
+She suffered him to stay half the day there; she once suffered him to
+sit up all night in the chamber; she rose herself at five o'clock of a
+wet November morning, and with her own hands lit the kitchen fire, and
+made the brothers a breakfast, and served it to them herself.
+Majestically arrayed in a boundless flannel wrapper, a shawl, and her
+nightcap, she sat and watched them eat, as complacently as a hen beholds
+her chickens feed. Yet she gave the cook warning that day for venturing
+to make and carry up to Mr. Moore a basin of sago-gruel; and the
+housemaid lost her favour because, when Mr. Louis was departing, she
+brought him his surtout aired from the kitchen, and, like a "forward
+piece" as she was, helped him on with it, and accepted in return a
+smile, a "Thank you, my girl," and a shilling. Two ladies called one
+day, pale and anxious, and begged earnestly, humbly, to be allowed to
+see Mr. Moore one instant. Mrs. Yorke hardened her heart, and sent them
+packing--not without opprobrium.
+
+But how was it when Hortense Moore came? Not so bad as might have been
+expected. The whole family of the Moores really seemed to suit Mrs.
+Yorke so as no other family had ever suited her. Hortense and she
+possessed an exhaustless mutual theme of conversation in the corrupt
+propensities of servants. Their views of this class were similar; they
+watched them with the same suspicion, and judged them with the same
+severity. Hortense, too, from the very first showed no manner of
+jealousy of Mrs. Yorke's attentions to Robert--she let her keep the post
+of nurse with little interference; and, for herself, found ceaseless
+occupation in fidgeting about the house, holding the kitchen under
+surveillance, reporting what passed there, and, in short, making herself
+generally useful. Visitors they both of them agreed in excluding
+sedulously from the sickroom. They held the young mill-owner captive,
+and hardly let the air breathe or the sun shine on him.
+
+Mr. MacTurk, the surgeon to whom Moore's case had been committed,
+pronounced his wound of a dangerous, but, he trusted, not of a hopeless
+character. At first he wished to place with him a nurse of his own
+selection; but this neither Mrs. Yorke nor Hortense would hear of. They
+promised faithful observance of directions. He was left, therefore, for
+the present in their hands.
+
+Doubtless they executed the trust to the best of their ability; but
+something got wrong. The bandages were displaced or tampered with; great
+loss of blood followed. MacTurk, being summoned, came with steed afoam.
+He was one of those surgeons whom it is dangerous to vex--abrupt in his
+best moods, in his worst savage. On seeing Moore's state he relieved his
+feelings by a little flowery language, with which it is not necessary to
+strew the present page. A bouquet or two of the choicest blossoms fell
+on the unperturbed head of one Mr. Graves, a stony young assistant he
+usually carried about with him; with a second nosegay he gifted another
+young gentleman in his train--an interesting fac-simile of himself,
+being indeed his own son; but the full _corbeille_ of blushing bloom
+fell to the lot of meddling womankind, _en masse_.
+
+For the best part of one winter night himself and satellites were busied
+about Moore. There at his bedside, shut up alone with him in his
+chamber, they wrought and wrangled over his exhausted frame. They three
+were on one side of the bed, and Death on the other. The conflict was
+sharp; it lasted till day broke, when the balance between the
+belligerents seemed so equal that both parties might have claimed the
+victory.
+
+At dawn Graves and young MacTurk were left in charge of the patient,
+while the senior went himself in search of additional strength, and
+secured it in the person of Mrs. Horsfall, the best nurse on his staff.
+To this woman he gave Moore in charge, with the sternest injunctions
+respecting the responsibility laid on her shoulders. She took this
+responsibility stolidly, as she did also the easy-chair at the bedhead.
+That moment she began her reign.
+
+Mrs. Horsfall had one virtue--orders received from MacTurk she obeyed to
+the letter. The ten commandments were less binding in her eyes than her
+surgeon's dictum. In other respects she was no woman, but a dragon.
+Hortense Moore fell effaced before her; Mrs. Yorke withdrew--crushed;
+yet both these women were personages of some dignity in their own
+estimation, and of some bulk in the estimation of others. Perfectly
+cowed by the breadth, the height, the bone, and the brawn of Mrs.
+Horsfall, they retreated to the back parlour. She, for her part, sat
+upstairs when she liked, and downstairs when she preferred it. She took
+her dram three times a day, and her pipe of tobacco four times.
+
+As to Moore, no one now ventured to inquire about him. Mrs. Horsfall had
+him at dry-nurse. It was she who was to do for him, and the general
+conjecture now ran that she did for him accordingly.
+
+Morning and evening MacTurk came to see him. His case, thus complicated
+by a new mischance, was become one of interest in the surgeon's eyes. He
+regarded him as a damaged piece of clockwork, which it would be
+creditable to his skill to set agoing again. Graves and young
+MacTurk--Moore's sole other visitors--contemplated him in the light in
+which they were wont to contemplate the occupant for the time being of
+the dissecting-room at Stilbro' Infirmary.
+
+Robert Moore had a pleasant time of it--in pain, in danger, too weak to
+move, almost too weak to speak, a sort of giantess his keeper, the three
+surgeons his sole society. Thus he lay through the diminishing days and
+lengthening nights of the whole drear month of November.
+
+In the commencement of his captivity Moore used feebly to resist Mrs.
+Horsfall. He hated the sight of her rough bulk, and dreaded the contact
+of her hard hands; but she taught him docility in a trice. She made no
+account whatever of his six feet, his manly thews and sinews; she turned
+him in his bed as another woman would have turned a babe in its cradle.
+When he was good she addressed him as "my dear" and "honey," and when he
+was bad she sometimes shook him. Did he attempt to speak when MacTurk
+was there, she lifted her hand and bade him "Hush!" like a nurse
+checking a forward child. If she had not smoked, if she had not taken
+gin, it would have been better, he thought; but she did both. Once, in
+her absence, he intimated to MacTurk that "that woman was a
+dram-drinker."
+
+"Pooh! my dear sir, they are all so," was the reply he got for his
+pains. "But Horsfall has this virtue," added the surgeon--"drunk or
+sober, she always remembers to obey _me_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length the latter autumn passed; its fogs, its rains withdrew from
+England their mourning and their tears; its winds swept on to sigh over
+lands far away. Behind November came deep winter--clearness, stillness,
+frost accompanying.
+
+A calm day had settled into a crystalline evening. The world wore a
+North Pole colouring; all its lights and tints looked like the
+_reflets_[A] of white, or violet, or pale green gems. The hills wore a
+lilac blue; the setting sun had purple in its red; the sky was ice, all
+silvered azure; when the stars rose, they were of white crystal, not
+gold; gray, or cerulean, or faint emerald hues--cool, pure, and
+transparent--tinged the mass of the landscape.
+
+    [A] Find me an English word as good, reader, and I will gladly
+        dispense with the French word. "Reflections" won't do.
+
+What is this by itself in a wood no longer green, no longer even russet,
+a wood neutral tint--this dark blue moving object? Why, it is a
+schoolboy--a Briarfield grammar-school boy--who has left his companions,
+now trudging home by the highroad, and is seeking a certain tree, with a
+certain mossy mound at its root, convenient as a seat. Why is he
+lingering here? The air is cold and the time wears late. He sits down.
+What is he thinking about? Does he feel the chaste charm Nature wears
+to-night? A pearl-white moon smiles through the gray trees; does he care
+for her smile?
+
+Impossible to say; for he is silent, and his countenance does not speak.
+As yet it is no mirror to reflect sensation, but rather a mask to
+conceal it. This boy is a stripling of fifteen--slight, and tall of his
+years. In his face there is as little of amenity as of servility, his
+eye seems prepared to note any incipient attempt to control or overreach
+him, and the rest of his features indicate faculties alert for
+resistance. Wise ushers avoid unnecessary interference with that lad.
+To break him in by severity would be a useless attempt; to win him by
+flattery would be an effort worse than useless. He is best let alone.
+Time will educate and experience train him.
+
+Professedly Martin Yorke (it is a young Yorke, of course) tramples on
+the name of poetry. Talk sentiment to him, and you would be answered by
+sarcasm. Here he is, wandering alone, waiting duteously on Nature, while
+she unfolds a page of stern, of silent, and of solemn poetry beneath his
+attentive gaze.
+
+Being seated, he takes from his satchel a book--not the Latin grammar,
+but a contraband volume of fairy tales. There will be light enough yet
+for an hour to serve his keen young vision. Besides, the moon waits on
+him; her beam, dim and vague as yet, fills the glade where he sits.
+
+He reads. He is led into a solitary mountain region; all round him is
+rude and desolate, shapeless, and almost colourless. He hears bells
+tinkle on the wind. Forth-riding from the formless folds of the mist
+dawns on him the brightest vision--a green-robed lady, on a snow-white
+palfrey. He sees her dress, her gems, and her steed. She arrests him
+with some mysterious question. He is spell-bound, and must follow her
+into fairyland.
+
+A second legend bears him to the sea-shore. There tumbles in a strong
+tide, boiling at the base of dizzy cliffs. It rains and blows. A reef of
+rocks, black and rough, stretches far into the sea. All along, and
+among, and above these crags dash and flash, sweep and leap, swells,
+wreaths, drifts of snowy spray. Some lone wanderer is out on these
+rocks, treading with cautious step the wet, wild seaweed; glancing down
+into hollows where the brine lies fathoms deep and emerald clear, and
+seeing there wilder and stranger and huger vegetation than is found on
+land, with treasure of shells--some green, some purple, some
+pearly--clustered in the curls of the snaky plants. He hears a cry.
+Looking up and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a tall,
+pale thing--shaped like man, but made of spray--transparent, tremulous,
+awful. It stands not alone. They are all human figures that wanton in
+the rocks--a crowd of foam-women--a band of white, evanescent Nereids.
+
+Hush! Shut the book; hide it in the satchel. Martin hears a tread. He
+listens. No--yes. Once more the dead leaves, lightly crushed, rustle on
+the wood path. Martin watches; the trees part, and a woman issues
+forth.
+
+She is a lady dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face. Martin
+never met a lady in this wood before--nor any female, save, now and
+then, a village girl come to gather nuts. To-night the apparition does
+not displease him. He observes, as she approaches, that she is neither
+old nor plain, but, on the contrary, very youthful; and, but that he now
+recognizes her for one whom he has often wilfully pronounced ugly, he
+would deem that he discovered traits of beauty behind the thin gauze of
+that veil.
+
+She passes him and says nothing. He knew she would. All women are proud
+monkeys, and he knows no more conceited doll than that Caroline
+Helstone. The thought is hardly hatched in his mind when the lady
+retraces those two steps she had got beyond him, and raising her veil,
+reposes her glance on his face, while she softly asks, "Are you one of
+Mr. Yorke's sons?"
+
+No human evidence would ever have been able to persuade Martin Yorke
+that he blushed when thus addressed; yet blush he did, to the ears.
+
+"I am," he said bluntly, and encouraged himself to wonder,
+superciliously, what would come next.
+
+"You are Martin, I think?" was the observation that followed.
+
+It could not have been more felicitous. It was a simple sentence--very
+artlessly, a little timidly, pronounced; but it chimed in harmony to the
+youth's nature. It stilled him like a note of music.
+
+Martin had a keen sense of his personality; he felt it right and
+sensible that the girl should discriminate him from his brothers. Like
+his father, he hated ceremony. It was acceptable to hear a lady address
+him as "Martin," and not Mr. Martin or Master Martin, which form would
+have lost her his good graces for ever. Worse, if possible, than
+ceremony was the other extreme of slipshod familiarity. The slight tone
+of bashfulness, the scarcely perceptible hesitation, was considered
+perfectly in place.
+
+"I am Martin," he said.
+
+"Are your father and mother well?" (it was lucky she did not say _papa_
+and _mamma_; that would have undone all); "and Rose and Jessie?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"My cousin Hortense is still at Briarmains?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+Martin gave a comic half-smile and demi-groan. The half-smile was
+responded to by the lady, who could guess in what sort of odour Hortense
+was likely to be held by the young Yorkes.
+
+"Does your mother like her?"
+
+"They suit so well about the servants they can't help liking each
+other."
+
+"It is cold to-night."
+
+"Why are you out so late?"
+
+"I lost my way in this wood."
+
+Now, indeed, Martin allowed himself a refreshing laugh of scorn.
+
+"Lost your way in the mighty forest of Briarmains! You deserve never
+more to find it."
+
+"I never was here before, and I believe I am trespassing now. You might
+inform against me if you chose, Martin, and have me fined. It is your
+father's wood."
+
+"I should think I knew that. But since you are so simple as to lose your
+way, I will guide you out."
+
+"You need not. I have got into the track now. I shall be right. Martin"
+(a little quickly), "how is Mr. Moore?"
+
+Martin had heard certain rumours; it struck him that it might be amusing
+to make an experiment.
+
+"Going to die. Nothing can save him. All hope flung overboard!"
+
+She put her veil aside. She looked into his eyes, and said, "To die!"
+
+"To die. All along of the women, my mother and the rest. They did
+something about his bandages that finished everything. He would have got
+better but for them. I am sure they should be arrested, cribbed, tried,
+and brought in for Botany Bay, at the very least."
+
+The questioner, perhaps, did nor hear this judgment. She stood
+motionless. In two minutes, without another word, she moved forwards; no
+good-night, no further inquiry. This was not amusing, nor what Martin
+had calculated on. He expected something dramatic and demonstrative. It
+was hardly worth while to frighten the girl if she would not entertain
+him in return. He called, "Miss Helstone!"
+
+She did not hear or turn. He hastened after and overtook her.
+
+"Come; are you uneasy about what I said?"
+
+"You know nothing about death, Martin; you are too young for me to talk
+to concerning such a thing."
+
+"Did you believe me? It's all flummery! Moore eats like three men. They
+are always making sago or tapioca or something good for him. I never go
+into the kitchen but there is a saucepan on the fire, cooking him some
+dainty. I think I will play the old soldier, and be fed on the fat of
+the land like him."
+
+"Martin! Martin!" Here her voice trembled, and she stopped.
+
+"It is exceedingly wrong of you, Martin. You have almost killed me."
+
+Again she stopped. She leaned against a tree, trembling, shuddering, and
+as pale as death.
+
+Martin contemplated her with inexpressible curiosity. In one sense it
+was, as he would have expressed it, "nuts" to him to see this. It told
+him so much, and he was beginning to have a great relish for discovering
+secrets. In another sense it reminded him of what he had once felt when
+he had heard a blackbird lamenting for her nestlings, which Matthew had
+crushed with a stone, and that was not a pleasant feeling. Unable to
+find anything very appropriate to _say_ in order to comfort her, he
+began to cast about in his mind what he could _do_. He smiled. The lad's
+smile gave wondrous transparency to his physiognomy.
+
+"Eureka!" he cried. "I'll set all straight by-and-by. You are better
+now, Miss Caroline. Walk forward," he urged.
+
+Not reflecting that it would be more difficult for Miss Helstone than
+for himself to climb a wall or penetrate a hedge, he piloted her by a
+short cut which led to no gate. The consequence was he had to help her
+over some formidable obstacles, and while he railed at her for
+helplessness, he perfectly liked to feel himself of use.
+
+"Martin, before we separate, assure me seriously, and on your word of
+honour, that Mr. Moore is better."
+
+"How very much you think of that Moore!"
+
+"No--but--many of his friends may ask me, and I wish to be able to give
+an authentic answer."
+
+"You may tell them he is well enough, only idle. You may tell them that
+he takes mutton chops for dinner, and the best of arrowroot for supper.
+I intercepted a basin myself one night on its way upstairs, and ate half
+of it."
+
+"And who waits on him, Martin? who nurses him?"
+
+"Nurses him? The great baby! Why, a woman as round and big as our
+largest water-butt--a rough, hard-favoured old girl. I make no doubt
+she leads him a rich life. Nobody else is let near him. He is chiefly in
+the dark. It is my belief she knocks him about terribly in that chamber.
+I listen at the wall sometimes when I am in bed, and I think I hear her
+thumping him. You should see her fist. She could hold half a dozen hands
+like yours in her one palm. After all, notwithstanding the chops and
+jellies he gets, I would not be in his shoes. In fact, it is my private
+opinion that she eats most of what goes up on the tray to Mr. Moore. I
+wish she may not be starving him."
+
+Profound silence and meditation on Caroline's part, and a sly
+watchfulness on Martin's.
+
+"You never see him, I suppose, Martin?"
+
+"I? No. I don't care to see him, for my own part."
+
+Silence again.
+
+"Did not you come to our house once with Mrs. Pryor, about five weeks
+since, to ask after him?" again inquired Martin.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I dare say you wished to be shown upstairs?"
+
+"We _did_ wish it. We entreated it; but your mother declined."
+
+"Ay! she declined. I heard it all. She treated you as it is her pleasure
+to treat visitors now and then. She behaved to you rudely and harshly."
+
+"She was not kind; for you know, Martin, we are relations, and it is
+natural we should take an interest in Mr. Moore. But here we must part;
+we are at your father's gate."
+
+"Very well, what of that? I shall walk home with you."
+
+"They will miss you, and wonder where you are."
+
+"Let them. I can take care of myself, I suppose."
+
+Martin knew that he had already incurred the penalty of a lecture, and
+dry bread for his tea. No matter; the evening had furnished him with an
+adventure. It was better than muffins and toast.
+
+He walked home with Caroline. On the way he promised to see Mr. Moore,
+in spite of the dragon who guarded his chamber, and appointed an hour on
+the next day when Caroline was to come to Briarmains Wood and get
+tidings of him. He would meet her at a certain tree. The scheme led to
+nothing; still he liked it.
+
+Having reached home, the dry bread and the lecture were duly
+administered to him, and he was dismissed to bed at an early hour. He
+accepted his punishment with the toughest stoicism.
+
+Ere ascending to his chamber he paid a secret visit to the dining-room,
+a still, cold, stately apartment, seldom used, for the family
+customarily dined in the back parlour. He stood before the mantelpiece,
+and lifted his candle to two pictures hung above--female heads: one, a
+type of serene beauty, happy and innocent; the other, more lovely, but
+forlorn and desperate.
+
+"She looked like _that_," he said, gazing on the latter sketch, "when
+she sobbed, turned white, and leaned against the tree."
+
+"I suppose," he pursued, when he was in his room, and seated on the edge
+of his pallet-bed--"I suppose she is what they call '_in love_'--yes,
+_in love_ with that long thing in the next chamber. Whisht! is that
+Horsfall clattering him? I wonder he does not yell out. It really sounds
+as if she had fallen on him tooth and nail; but I suppose she is making
+the bed. I saw her at it once. She hit into the mattresses as if she was
+boxing. It is queer, Zillah (they call her Zillah)--Zillah Horsfall is a
+woman, and Caroline Helstone is a woman; they are two individuals of the
+same species--not much alike though. Is she a pretty girl, that
+Caroline? I suspect she is; very nice to look at--something so clear in
+her face, so soft in her eyes. I approve of her looking at me; it does
+me good. She has long eyelashes. Their shadow seems to rest where she
+gazes, and to instil peace and thought. If she behaves well, and
+continues to suit me as she has suited me to-day, I may do her a good
+turn. I rather relish the notion of circumventing my mother and that
+ogress old Horsfall. Not that I like humouring Moore; but whatever I do
+I'll be paid for, and in coin of my own choosing. I know what reward I
+will claim--one displeasing to Moore, and agreeable to myself."
+
+He turned into bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+MARTIN'S TACTICS.
+
+
+It was necessary to the arrangement of Martin's plan that he should stay
+at home that day. Accordingly, he found no appetite for breakfast, and
+just about school-time took a severe pain about his heart, which
+rendered it advisable that, instead of setting out to the grammar school
+with Mark, he should succeed to his father's arm-chair by the fireside,
+and also to his morning paper. This point being satisfactorily settled,
+and Mark being gone to Mr. Summer's class, and Matthew and Mr. Yorke
+withdrawn to the counting-house, three other exploits--nay,
+four--remained to be achieved.
+
+The first of these was to realize the breakfast he had not yet tasted,
+and with which his appetite of fifteen could ill afford to dispense; the
+second, third, fourth, to get his mother, Miss Moore, and Mrs. Horsfall
+successfully out of the way before four o'clock that afternoon.
+
+The first was, for the present, the most pressing, since the work before
+him demanded an amount of energy which the present empty condition of
+his youthful stomach did not seem likely to supply.
+
+Martin knew the way to the larder, and knowing this way he took it. The
+servants were in the kitchen, breakfasting solemnly with closed doors;
+his mother and Miss Moore were airing themselves on the lawn, and
+discussing the closed doors aforesaid. Martin, safe in the larder, made
+fastidious selection from its stores. His breakfast had been delayed; he
+was determined it should be _recherché_. It appeared to him that a
+variety on his usual somewhat insipid fare of bread and milk was both
+desirable and advisable; the savoury and the salutary he thought might
+be combined. There was store of rosy apples laid in straw upon a shelf;
+he picked out three. There was pastry upon a dish; he selected an
+apricot puff and a damson tart. On the plain household bread his eye
+did not dwell; but he surveyed with favour some currant tea-cakes, and
+condescended to make choice of one. Thanks to his clasp-knife, he was
+able to appropriate a wing of fowl and a slice of ham; a cantlet of cold
+custard-pudding he thought would harmonize with these articles; and
+having made this final addition to his booty, he at length sallied forth
+into the hall.
+
+He was already half-way across--three steps more would have anchored him
+in the harbour of the back parlour--when the front door opened, and
+there stood Matthew. Better far had it been the Old Gentleman, in full
+equipage of horns, hoofs, and tail.
+
+Matthew, sceptic and scoffer, had already failed to subscribe a prompt
+belief in that pain about the heart. He had muttered some words, amongst
+which the phrase "shamming Abraham" had been very distinctly audible,
+and the succession to the armchair and newspaper had appeared to affect
+him with mental spasms. The spectacle now before him--the apples, the
+tarts, the tea-cakes, the fowl, ham, and pudding--offered evidence but
+too well calculated to inflate his opinion of his own sagacity.
+
+Martin paused _interdit_ one minute, one instant; the next he knew his
+ground, and pronounced all well. With the true perspicacity _des âmes
+élites_, he at once saw how this at first sight untoward event might be
+turned to excellent account. He saw how it might be so handled as to
+secure the accomplishment of his second task--namely, the disposal of
+his mother. He knew that a collision between him and Matthew always
+suggested to Mrs. Yorke the propriety of a fit of hysterics. He further
+knew that, on the principle of calm succeeding to storm, after a morning
+of hysterics his mother was sure to indulge in an afternoon of bed. This
+would accommodate him perfectly.
+
+The collision duly took place in the hall. A dry laugh, an insulting
+sneer, a contemptuous taunt, met by a nonchalant but most cutting reply,
+were the signals. They rushed at it. Martin, who usually made little
+noise on these occasions, made a great deal now. In flew the servants,
+Mrs. Yorke, Miss Moore. No female hand could separate them. Mr. Yorke
+was summoned.
+
+"Sons," said he, "one of you must leave my roof if this occurs again. I
+will have no Cain and Abel strife here."
+
+Martin now allowed himself to be taken off. He had been hurt; he was the
+youngest and slightest. He was quite cool, in no passion; he even
+smiled, content that the most difficult part of the labour he had set
+himself was over.
+
+Once he seemed to flag in the course of the morning.
+
+"It is not worth while to bother myself for that Caroline," he remarked.
+But a quarter of an hour afterwards he was again in the dining-room,
+looking at the head with dishevelled tresses, and eyes turbid with
+despair.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I made her sob, shudder, almost faint. I'll see her
+smile before I've done with her; besides, I want to outwit all these
+womenites."
+
+Directly after dinner Mrs. Yorke fulfilled her son's calculation by
+withdrawing to her chamber. Now for Hortense.
+
+That lady was just comfortably settled to stocking-mending in the back
+parlour, when Martin--laying down a book which, stretched on the sofa
+(he was still indisposed, according to his own account), he had been
+perusing in all the voluptuous ease of a yet callow pacha--lazily
+introduced some discourse about Sarah, the maid at the Hollow. In the
+course of much verbal meandering he insinuated information that this
+damsel was said to have three suitors--Frederic Murgatroyd, Jeremiah
+Pighills, and John-of-Mally's-of-Hannah's-of-Deb's; and that Miss Mann
+had affirmed she knew for a fact that, now the girl was left in sole
+charge of the cottage, she often had her swains to meals, and
+entertained them with the best the house afforded.
+
+It needed no more. Hortense could not have lived another hour without
+betaking herself to the scene of these nefarious transactions, and
+inspecting the state of matters in person. Mrs. Horsfall remained.
+
+Martin, master of the field now, extracted from his mother's work-basket
+a bunch of keys; with these he opened the sideboard cupboard, produced
+thence a black bottle and a small glass, placed them on the table,
+nimbly mounted the stairs, made for Mr. Moore's door, tapped; the nurse
+opened.
+
+"If you please, ma'am, you are invited to step into the back parlour and
+take some refreshment. You will not be disturbed; the family are out."
+
+He watched her down; he watched her in; himself shut the door. He knew
+she was safe.
+
+The hard work was done; now for the pleasure. He snatched his cap, and
+away for the wood.
+
+It was yet but half-past three. It had been a fine morning, but the sky
+looked dark now. It was beginning to snow; the wind blew cold; the wood
+looked dismal, the old tree grim. Yet Martin approved the shadow on his
+path. He found a charm in the spectral aspect of the doddered oak.
+
+He had to wait. To and fro he walked, while the flakes fell faster; and
+the wind, which at first had but moaned, pitifully howled.
+
+"She is long in coming," he muttered, as he glanced along the narrow
+track. "I wonder," he subjoined, "what I wish to see her so much for?
+She is not coming for me. But I have power over her, and I want her to
+come that I may use that power."
+
+He continued his walk.
+
+"Now," he resumed, when a further period had elapsed, "if she fails to
+come, I shall hate and scorn her."
+
+It struck four. He heard the church clock far away. A step so quick, so
+light, that, but for the rustling of leaves, it would scarcely have
+sounded on the wood-walk, checked his impatience. The wind blew fiercely
+now, and the thickening white storm waxed bewildering; but on she came,
+and not dismayed.
+
+"Well, Martin," she said eagerly, "how is he?"
+
+"It is queer how she thinks of _him_," reflected Martin. "The blinding
+snow and bitter cold are nothing to her, I believe; yet she is but a
+'chitty-faced creature,' as my mother would say. I could find in my
+heart to wish I had a cloak to wrap her in."
+
+Thus meditating to himself, he neglected to answer Miss Helstone.
+
+"You have seen him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh! you promised you would."
+
+"I mean to do better by you than that. Didn't I say _I_ don't care to
+see him?"
+
+"But now it will be so long before I get to know any thing certain about
+him, and I am sick of waiting. Martin, _do_ see him, and give him
+Caroline Helstone's regards, and say she wished to know how he was, and
+if anything could be done for his comfort."
+
+"I won't."
+
+"You are changed. You were so friendly last night."
+
+"Come, we must not stand in this wood; it is too cold."
+
+"But before I go promise me to come again to-morrow with news."
+
+"No such thing. I am much too delicate to make and keep such
+appointments in the winter season. If you knew what a pain I had in my
+chest this morning, and how I went without breakfast, and was knocked
+down besides, you'd feel the impropriety of bringing me here in the
+snow. Come, I say."
+
+"Are you really delicate, Martin?"
+
+"Don't I look so?"
+
+"You have rosy cheeks."
+
+"That's hectic. Will you come--or you won't?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"With me. I was a fool not to bring a cloak. I would have made you
+cosy."
+
+"You are going home; my nearest road lies in the opposite direction."
+
+"Put your arm through mine; I'll take care of you."
+
+"But the wall--the hedge--it is such hard work climbing, and you are too
+slender and young to help me without hurting yourself."
+
+"You shall go through the gate."
+
+"But----"
+
+"But, but--will you trust me or not?"
+
+She looked into his face.
+
+"I think I will. Anything rather than return as anxious as I came."
+
+"I can't answer for that. This, however, I promise you: be ruled by me,
+and you shall see Moore yourself."
+
+"See him myself?"
+
+"Yourself."
+
+"But, dear Martin, does he know?"
+
+"Ah! I'm dear now. No, he doesn't know."
+
+"And your mother and the others?"
+
+"All is right."
+
+Caroline fell into a long, silent fit of musing, but still she walked on
+with her guide. They came in sight of Briarmains.
+
+"Have you made up your mind?" he asked.
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Decide; we are just on the spot. I _won't_ see him--that I tell
+you--except to announce your arrival."
+
+"Martin, you are a strange boy, and this is a strange step; but all I
+feel _is_ and _has_ been, for a long time, strange. I will see him."
+
+"Having said that, you will neither hesitate nor retract?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Here we are, then. Do not be afraid of passing the parlour window; no
+one will see you. My father and Matthew are at the mill, Mark is at
+school, the servants are in the back kitchen, Miss Moore is at the
+cottage, my mother in her bed, and Mrs. Horsfall in paradise. Observe--I
+need not ring. I open the door; the hall is empty, the staircase quiet;
+so is the gallery. The whole house and all its inhabitants are under a
+spell, which I will not break till you are gone."
+
+"Martin, I trust you."
+
+"You never said a better word. Let me take your shawl. I will shake off
+the snow and dry it for you. You are cold and wet. Never mind; there is
+a fire upstairs. Are you ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Follow me."
+
+He left his shoes on the mat, mounted the stair unshod. Caroline stole
+after, with noiseless step. There was a gallery, and there was a
+passage; at the end of that passage Martin paused before a door and
+tapped. He had to tap twice--thrice. A voice, known to one listener, at
+last said, "Come in."
+
+The boy entered briskly.
+
+"Mr. Moore, a lady called to inquire after you. None of the women were
+about. It is washing-day, and the maids are over the crown of the head
+in soap-suds in the back kitchen, so I asked her to step up."
+
+"Up here, sir?"
+
+"Up here, sir; but if you object, she shall go down again."
+
+"Is this a place or am I a person to bring a lady to, you absurd lad?"
+
+"No; so I'll take her off."
+
+"Martin, you will stay here. Who is she?"
+
+"Your grandmother from that château on the Scheldt Miss Moore talks
+about."
+
+"Martin," said the softest whisper at the door, "don't be foolish."
+
+"Is she there?" inquired Moore hastily. He had caught an imperfect
+sound.
+
+"She is there, fit to faint. She is standing on the mat, shocked at your
+want of filial affection."
+
+"Martin, you are an evil cross between an imp and a page. What is she
+like?"
+
+"More like me than you; for she is young and beautiful."
+
+"You are to show her forward. Do you hear?"
+
+"Come, Miss Caroline."
+
+"Miss Caroline!" repeated Moore.
+
+And when Miss Caroline entered she was encountered in the middle of the
+chamber by a tall, thin, wasted figure, who took both her hands.
+
+"I give you a quarter of an hour," said Martin, as he withdrew, "no
+more. Say what you have to say in that time. Till it is past I will wait
+in the gallery; nothing shall approach; I'll see you safe away. Should
+you persist in staying longer, I leave you to your fate."
+
+He shut the door. In the gallery he was as elate as a king. He had never
+been engaged in an adventure he liked so well, for no adventure had ever
+invested him with so much importance or inspired him with so much
+interest.
+
+"You are come at last," said the meagre man, gazing on his visitress
+with hollow eyes.
+
+"Did you expect me before?"
+
+"For a month, near two months, we have been very near; and I have been
+in sad pain, and danger, and misery, Cary."
+
+"I could not come."
+
+"Couldn't you? But the rectory and Briarmains are very near--not two
+miles apart."
+
+There was pain and there was pleasure in the girl's face as she listened
+to these implied reproaches. It was sweet, it was bitter to defend
+herself.
+
+"When I say I could not come, I mean I could not see you; for I came
+with mamma the very day we heard what had happened. Mr. MacTurk then
+told us it was impossible to admit any stranger."
+
+"But afterwards--every fine afternoon these many weeks past I have
+waited and listened. Something here, Cary"--laying his hand on his
+breast--"told me it was impossible but that you should think of me. Not
+that I merit thought; but we are old acquaintance--we are cousins."
+
+"I came again, Robert; mamma and I came again."
+
+"Did you? Come, that is worth hearing. Since you came again, we will sit
+down and talk about it."
+
+They sat down. Caroline drew her chair up to his. The air was now dark
+with snow; an Iceland blast was driving it wildly. This pair neither
+heard the long "wuthering" rush, nor saw the white burden it drifted.
+Each seemed conscious but of one thing--the presence of the other.
+
+"So mamma and you came again?"
+
+"And Mrs. Yorke did treat us strangely. We asked to see you. 'No,' said
+she, 'not in my house. I am at present responsible for his life; it
+shall not be forfeited for half an hour's idle gossip.' But I must not
+tell you all she said; it was very disagreeable. However, we came yet
+again--mamma, Miss Keeldar, and I. This time we thought we should
+conquer, as we were three against one, and Shirley was on our side. But
+Mrs. Yorke opened such a battery."
+
+Moore smiled. "What did she say?"
+
+"Things that astonished us. Shirley laughed at last; I cried; mamma was
+seriously annoyed. We were all three driven from the field. Since that
+time I have only walked once a day past the house, just for the
+satisfaction of looking up at your window, which I could distinguish by
+the drawn curtains. I really dared not come in."
+
+"I _have_ wished for you, Caroline."
+
+"I did not know that; I never dreamt one instant that you thought of me.
+If I had but most distantly imagined such a possibility----"
+
+"Mrs. Yorke would still have beaten you."
+
+"She would not. Stratagem should have been tried, if persuasion failed.
+I would have come to the kitchen door; the servants should have let me
+in, and I would have walked straight upstairs. In fact, it was far more
+the fear of intrusion--the fear of yourself--that baffled me than the
+fear of Mrs. Yorke."
+
+"Only last night I despaired of ever seeing you again. Weakness has
+wrought terrible depression in me--terrible depression."
+
+"And you sit alone?"
+
+"Worse than alone."
+
+"But you must be getting better, since you can leave your bed?"
+
+"I doubt whether I shall live. I see nothing for it, after such
+exhaustion, but decline."
+
+"You--you shall go home to the Hollow."
+
+"Dreariness would accompany, nothing cheerful come near me."
+
+"I _will_ alter this. This _shall_ be altered, were there ten Mrs.
+Yorkes to do battle with."
+
+"Cary, you make me smile."
+
+"Do smile; smile again. Shall I tell you what I should like?"
+
+"Tell me anything--only keep talking. I am Saul; but for music I should
+perish."
+
+"I should like you to be brought to the rectory, and given to me and
+mamma."
+
+"A precious gift! I have not laughed since they shot me till now."
+
+"Do you suffer pain, Robert?"
+
+"Not so much pain now; but I am hopelessly weak, and the state of my
+mind is inexpressible--dark, barren, impotent. Do you not read it all in
+my face? I look a mere ghost."
+
+"Altered; yet I should have known you anywhere. But I understand your
+feelings; I experienced something like it. Since we met, I too have been
+very ill."
+
+"_Very_ ill?"
+
+"I thought I should die. The tale of my life seemed told. Every night,
+just at midnight, I used to wake from awful dreams; and the book lay
+open before me at the last page, where was written 'Finis.' I had
+strange feelings."
+
+"You speak my experience."
+
+"I believed I should never see you again; and I grew so thin--as thin as
+you are now. I could do nothing for myself--neither rise nor lie down;
+and I could not eat. Yet you see I am better."
+
+"Comforter--sad as sweet. I am too feeble to say what I feel; but while
+you speak I _do_ feel."
+
+"Here I am at your side, where I thought never more to be. Here I speak
+to you. I see you listen to me willingly--look at me kindly. Did I count
+on that? I despaired."
+
+Moore sighed--a sigh so deep it was nearly a groan. He covered his eyes
+with his hand.
+
+"May I be spared to make some atonement."
+
+Such was his prayer.
+
+"And for what?"
+
+"We will not touch on it now, Cary; unmanned as I am, I have not the
+power to cope with such a topic. Was Mrs. Pryor with you during your
+illness?"
+
+"Yes"--Caroline smiled brightly--"you know she is mamma?"
+
+"I have heard--Hortense told me; but that tale too I will receive from
+yourself. Does she add to your happiness?"
+
+"What! mamma? She is _dear_ to me; _how_ dear I cannot say. I was
+altogether weary, and she held me up."
+
+"I deserve to hear that in a moment when I can scarce lift my hand to my
+head. I deserve it."
+
+"It is no reproach against you."
+
+"It is a coal of fire heaped on my head; and so is every word you
+address to me, and every look that lights your sweet face. Come still
+nearer, Lina; and give me your hand--if my thin fingers do not scare
+you."
+
+She took those thin fingers between her two little hands; she bent her
+head _et les effleura de ses lèvres_. (I put that in French because the
+word _effleurer_ is an exquisite word.) Moore was much moved. A large
+tear or two coursed down his hollow cheek.
+
+"I'll keep these things in my heart, Cary; that kiss I will put by, and
+you shall hear of it again one day."
+
+"Come out!" cried Martin, opening the door--"come away; you have had
+twenty minutes instead of a quarter of an hour."
+
+"She will not stir yet, you hempseed."
+
+"I dare not stay longer, Robert."
+
+"Can you promise to return?"
+
+"No, she can't," responded Martin. "The thing mustn't become customary.
+I can't be troubled. It's very well for once; I'll not have it
+repeated."
+
+"_You_'ll not have it repeated."
+
+"Hush! don't vex him; we could not have met to-day but for him. But I
+will come again, if it is your wish that I should come."
+
+"It _is_ my wish--my _one_ wish--almost the only wish I can feel."
+
+"Come this minute. My mother has coughed, got up, set her feet on the
+floor. Let her only catch you on the stairs, Miss Caroline. You're not
+to bid him good-bye"--stepping between her and Moore--"you are to
+march."
+
+"My shawl, Martin."
+
+"I have it. I'll put it on for you when you are in the hall."
+
+He made them part. He would suffer no farewell but what could be
+expressed in looks. He half carried Caroline down the stairs. In the
+hall he wrapped her shawl round her, and, but that his mother's tread
+then creaked in the gallery, and but that a sentiment of diffidence--the
+proper, natural, therefore the noble impulse of his boy's heart--held
+him back, he would have claimed his reward; he would have said, "Now,
+Miss Caroline, for all this give me one kiss." But ere the words had
+passed his lips she was across the snowy road, rather skimming than
+wading the drifts.
+
+"She is my debtor, and I _will_ be paid."
+
+He flattered himself that it was opportunity, not audacity, which had
+failed him. He misjudged the quality of his own nature, and held it for
+something lower than it was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+CASE OF DOMESTIC PERSECUTION--REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF PIOUS PERSEVERANCE
+IN THE DISCHARGE OF RELIGIOUS DUTIES.
+
+
+Martin, having known the taste of excitement, wanted a second draught;
+having felt the dignity of power, he loathed to relinquish it. Miss
+Helstone--that girl he had always called ugly, and whose face was now
+perpetually before his eyes, by day and by night, in dark and in
+sunshine--had once come within his sphere. It fretted him to think the
+visit might never be repeated.
+
+Though a schoolboy he was no ordinary schoolboy; he was destined to grow
+up an original. At a few years' later date he took great pains to pare
+and polish himself down to the pattern of the rest of the world, but he
+never succeeded; an unique stamp marked him always. He now sat idle at
+his desk in the grammar school, casting about in his mind for the means
+of adding another chapter to his commenced romance. He did not yet know
+how many commenced life-romances are doomed never to get beyond the
+first, or at most the second chapter. His Saturday half-holiday he spent
+in the wood with his book of fairy legends, and that other unwritten
+book of his imagination.
+
+Martin harboured an irreligious reluctance to see the approach of
+Sunday. His father and mother, while disclaiming community with the
+Establishment, failed not duly, once on the sacred day, to fill their
+large pew in Briarfield Church with the whole of their blooming family.
+Theoretically, Mr. Yorke placed all sects and churches on a level. Mrs.
+Yorke awarded the palm to Moravians and Quakers, on account of that
+crown of humility by these worthies worn. Neither of them were ever
+known, however, to set foot in a conventicle.
+
+Martin, I say, disliked Sunday, because the morning service was long,
+and the sermon usually little to his taste. This Saturday afternoon,
+however, his woodland musings disclosed to him a new-found charm in the
+coming day.
+
+It proved a day of deep snow--so deep that Mrs. Yorke during breakfast
+announced her conviction that the children, both boys and girls, would
+be better at home; and her decision that, instead of going to church,
+they should sit silent for two hours in the back parlour, while Rose and
+Martin alternately read a succession of sermons--John Wesley's
+"Sermons." John Wesley, being a reformer and an agitator, had a place
+both in her own and her husband's favour.
+
+"Rose will do as she pleases," said Martin, not looking up from the book
+which, according to his custom then and in after-life, he was studying
+over his bread and milk.
+
+"Rose will do as she is told, and Martin too," observed the mother.
+
+"I am going to church."
+
+So her son replied, with the ineffable quietude of a true Yorke, who
+knows his will and means to have it, and who, if pushed to the wall,
+will let himself be crushed to death, provided no way of escape can be
+found, but will never capitulate.
+
+"It is not fit weather," said the father.
+
+No answer. The youth read studiously; he slowly broke his bread and
+sipped his milk.
+
+"Martin hates to go to church, but he hates still more to obey," said
+Mrs. Yorke.
+
+"I suppose I am influenced by pure perverseness?"
+
+"Yes, you are."
+
+"Mother, _I am not_."
+
+"By what, then, are you influenced?"
+
+"By a complication of motives, the intricacies of which I should as soon
+think of explaining to you as I should of turning myself inside out to
+exhibit the internal machinery of my frame."
+
+"Hear Martin! hear him!" cried Mr. Yorke. "I must see and have this lad
+of mine brought up to the bar. Nature meant him to live by his tongue.
+Hesther, your third son must certainly be a lawyer; he has the
+stock-in-trade--brass, self-conceit, and words--words--words."
+
+"Some bread, Rose, if you please," requested Martin, with intense
+gravity, serenity, phlegm. The boy had naturally a low, plaintive voice,
+which in his "dour moods" rose scarcely above a lady's whisper. The more
+inflexibly stubborn the humour, the softer, the sadder the tone. He
+rang the bell, and gently asked for his walking-shoes.
+
+"But, Martin," urged his sire, "there is drift all the way; a man could
+hardly wade through it. However, lad," he continued, seeing that the boy
+rose as the church bell began to toll, "this is a case wherein I would
+by no means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by all
+means. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet, besides the
+depth under foot. Go out into it, since thou prefers it to a warm
+fireside."
+
+Martin quietly assumed his cloak, comforter, and cap, and deliberately
+went out.
+
+"My father has more sense than my mother," he pronounced. "How women
+miss it! They drive the nail into the flesh, thinking they are hammering
+away at insensate stone."
+
+He reached church early.
+
+"Now, if the weather frightens her (and it is a real December tempest),
+or if that Mrs. Pryor objects to her going out, and I should miss her
+after all, it will vex me; but, tempest or tornado, hail or ice, she
+_ought_ to come, and if she has a mind worthy of her eyes and features
+she _will_ come. She will be here for the chance of seeing me, as I am
+here for the chance of seeing her. She will want to get a word
+respecting her confounded sweetheart, as I want to get another flavour
+of what I think the essence of life--a taste of existence, with the
+spirit preserved in it, and not evaporated. Adventure is to stagnation
+what champagne is to flat porter."
+
+He looked round. The church was cold, silent, empty, but for one old
+woman. As the chimes subsided and the single bell tolled slowly, another
+and another elderly parishioner came dropping in, and took a humble
+station in the free sittings. It is always the frailest, the oldest, and
+the poorest that brave the worst weather, to prove and maintain their
+constancy to dear old mother church. This wild morning not one affluent
+family attended, not one carriage party appeared--all the lined and
+cushioned pews were empty; only on the bare oaken seats sat ranged the
+gray-haired elders and feeble paupers.
+
+"I'll scorn her if she doesn't come," muttered Martin, shortly and
+savagely, to himself. The rector's shovel-hat had passed the porch. Mr.
+Helstone and his clerk were in the vestry.
+
+The bells ceased--the reading-desk was filled--the doors were
+closed--the service commenced. Void stood the rectory pew--she was not
+there. Martin scorned her.
+
+"Worthless thing! vapid thing! commonplace humbug! Like all other
+girls--weakly, selfish, shallow!"
+
+Such was Martin's liturgy.
+
+"She is not like our picture. Her eyes are not large and expressive; her
+nose is not straight, delicate, Hellenic; her mouth has not that charm I
+thought it had, which I imagined could beguile me of sullenness in my
+worst moods. What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy, a _girl_, in
+short."
+
+So absorbed was the young cynic he forgot to rise from his knees at the
+proper place, and was still in an exemplary attitude of devotion when,
+the litany over, the first hymn was given out. To be so caught did not
+contribute to soothe him. He started up red (for he was as sensitive to
+ridicule as any girl). To make the matter worse, the church door had
+reopened, and the aisles were filling: patter, patter, patter, a hundred
+little feet trotted in. It was the Sunday scholars. According to
+Briarfield winter custom, these children had till now been kept where
+there was a warm stove, and only led into church just before the
+communion and sermon.
+
+The little ones were settled first, and at last, when the boys and the
+younger girls were all arranged--when the organ was swelling high, and
+the choir and congregation were rising to uplift a spiritual song--a
+tall class of young women came quietly in, closing the procession. Their
+teacher, having seen them seated, passed into the rectory pew. The
+French-gray cloak and small beaver bonnet were known to Martin; it was
+the very costume his eyes had ached to catch. Miss Helstone had not
+suffered the storm to prove an impediment. After all, she was come to
+church. Martin probably whispered his satisfaction to his hymn book; at
+any rate, he therewith hid his face two minutes.
+
+Satisfied or not, he had time to get very angry with her again before
+the sermon was over. She had never once looked his way; at least he had
+not been so lucky as to encounter a glance.
+
+"If," he said--"if she takes no notice of me, if she shows I am not in
+her thoughts, I shall have a worse, a meaner opinion of her than ever.
+Most despicable would it be to come for the sake of those sheep-faced
+Sunday scholars, and not for my sake or that long skeleton Moore's."
+
+The sermon found an end; the benediction was pronounced; the
+congregation dispersed. She had not been near him.
+
+Now, indeed, as Martin set his face homeward, he felt that the sleet was
+sharp and the east wind cold.
+
+His nearest way lay through some fields. It was a dangerous, because an
+untrodden way. He did not care; he would take it. Near the second stile
+rose a clump of trees. Was that an umbrella waiting there? Yes, an
+umbrella, held with evident difficulty against the blast; behind it
+fluttered a French-gray cloak. Martin grinned as he toiled up the steep,
+encumbered field, difficult to the foot as a slope in the upper realms
+of Etna. There was an inimitable look in his face when, having gained
+the stile, he seated himself coolly thereupon, and thus opened a
+conference which, for his own part, he was willing to prolong
+indefinitely.
+
+"I think you had better strike a bargain. Exchange me for Mrs. Pryor."
+
+"I was not sure whether you would come this way, Martin, but I thought I
+would run the chance. There is no such thing as getting a quiet word
+spoken in the church or churchyard."
+
+"Will you agree?--make over Mrs. Pryor to my mother, and put me in her
+skirts?"
+
+"As if I could understand you! What puts Mrs. Pryor into your head?"
+
+"You call her 'mamma,' don't you?"
+
+"She _is_ my mamma."
+
+"Not possible--or so inefficient, so careless a mamma; I should make a
+five times better one. You _may_ laugh. I have no objection to see you
+laugh. Your teeth--I hate ugly teeth; but yours are as pretty as a pearl
+necklace, and a necklace of which the pearls are very fair, even, and
+well matched too."
+
+"Martin, what now? I thought the Yorkes never paid compliments?"
+
+"They have not done till this generation; but I feel as if it were my
+vocation to turn out a new variety of the Yorke species. I am rather
+tired of my own ancestors. We have traditions going back for four
+ages--tales of Hiram, which was the son of Hiram, which was the son of
+Samuel, which was the son of John, which was the son of Zerubbabel
+Yorke. All, from Zerubbabel down to the last Hiram, were such as you see
+my father. Before that there was a Godfrey. We have his picture; it
+hangs in Moore's bedroom; it is like me. Of his character we know
+nothing; but I am sure it was different to his descendants. He has long,
+curling dark hair; he is carefully and cavalierly dressed. Having said
+that he is like me, I need not add that he is handsome."
+
+"You are not handsome, Martin."
+
+"No; but wait awhile--just let me take my time. I mean to begin from
+this day to cultivate, to polish, and we shall see."
+
+"You are a very strange, a very unaccountable boy, Martin. But don't
+imagine you ever will be handsome; you cannot."
+
+"I mean to try. But we were talking about Mrs. Pryor. She must be the
+most unnatural mamma in existence, coolly to let her daughter come out
+in this weather. Mine was in such a rage because I would go to church;
+she was fit to fling the kitchen brush after me."
+
+"Mamma was very much concerned about me; but I am afraid I was
+obstinate. I _would_ go."
+
+"To see me?"
+
+"Exactly; I thought of nothing else. I greatly feared the snow would
+hinder you from coming. You don't know how pleased I was to see you all
+by yourself in the pew."
+
+"_I_ came to fulfil my duty, and set the parish a good example. And so
+you were obstinate, were you? I should like to see you obstinate, I
+should. Wouldn't I have you in good discipline if I owned you? Let me
+take the umbrella."
+
+"I can't stay two minutes; our dinner will be ready."
+
+"And so will ours; and we have always a hot dinner on Sundays. Roast
+goose to-day, with apple-pie and rice-pudding. I always contrive to know
+the bill of fare. Well, I like these things uncommonly; but I'll make
+the sacrifice, if you will."
+
+"We have a cold dinner. My uncle will allow no unnecessary cooking on
+the Sabbath. But I must return; the house would be in commotion if I
+failed to appear."
+
+"So will Briarmains, bless you! I think I hear my father sending out the
+overlooker and five of the dyers, to look in six directions for the body
+of his prodigal son in the snow; and my mother repenting her of her
+many misdeeds towards me, now I am gone."
+
+"Martin, how is Mr. Moore?"
+
+"_That_ is what you came for, just to say that word."
+
+"Come, tell me quickly."
+
+"Hang him! he is no worse; but as ill-used as ever--mewed up, kept in
+solitary confinement. They mean to make either an idiot or a maniac of
+him, and take out a commission of lunacy. Horsfall starves him; you saw
+how thin he was."
+
+"You were very good the other day, Martin."
+
+"What day? I am always good--a model."
+
+"When will you be so good again?"
+
+"I see what you are after; but you'll not wheedle me--I am no
+cat's-paw."
+
+"But it must be done. It is quite a right thing, and a necessary thing."
+
+"How you encroach! Remember, I managed the matter of my own free will
+before."
+
+"And you will again."
+
+"I won't. The business gave me far too much trouble. I like my ease."
+
+"Mr. Moore wishes to see me, Martin, and I wish to see him."
+
+"I dare say" (coolly).
+
+"It is too bad of your mother to exclude his friends."
+
+"Tell her so."
+
+"His own relations."
+
+"Come and blow her up."
+
+"You know that would advance nothing. Well, I shall stick to my point.
+See him I will. If you won't help me, I'll manage without help."
+
+"Do; there is nothing like self-reliance, self-dependence."
+
+"I have no time to reason with you now; but I consider you provoking.
+Good-morning."
+
+Away she went, the umbrella shut, for she could not carry it against the
+wind.
+
+"She is not vapid; she is not shallow," said Martin. "I shall like to
+watch, and mark how she will work her way without help. If the storm
+were not of snow, but of fire--such as came refreshingly down on the
+cities of the plain--she would go through it to procure five minutes'
+speech of that Moore. Now, I consider I have had a pleasant morning.
+The disappointments got time on; the fears and fits of anger only made
+that short discourse pleasanter, when it came at last. She expected to
+coax me at once. She'll not manage that in one effort. She shall come
+again, again, and yet again. It would please me to put her in a
+passion--to make her cry. I want to discover how far she will go--what
+she will do and dare--to get her will. It seems strange and new to find
+one human being thinking so much about another as she thinks about
+Moore. But it is time to go home; my appetite tells me the hour. Won't I
+walk into that goose? and we'll try whether Matthew or I shall get the
+largest cut of the apple-pie to-day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+WHEREIN MATTERS MAKE SOME PROGRESS, BUT NOT MUCH.
+
+
+Martin had planned well. He had laid out a dexterously concerted scheme
+for his private amusement. But older and wiser schemers than he are
+often doomed to see their finest-spun projects swept to annihilation by
+the sudden broom of Fate, that fell housewife whose red arm none can
+control. In the present instance this broom was manufactured out of the
+tough fibres of Moore's own stubborn purpose, bound tight with his will.
+He was now resuming his strength, and making strange head against Mrs.
+Horsfall. Each morning he amazed that matron with a fresh astonishment.
+First he discharged her from her valet duties; he would dress himself.
+Then he refused the coffee she brought him; he would breakfast with the
+family. Lastly, he forbade her his chamber. On the same day, amidst the
+outcries of all the women in the place, he put his head out of doors.
+The morning after, he followed Mr. Yorke to his counting-house, and
+requested an envoy to fetch a chaise from the Red House Inn. He was
+resolved, he said, to return home to the Hollow that very afternoon. Mr.
+Yorke, instead of opposing, aided and abetted him. The chaise was sent
+for, though Mrs. Yorke declared the step would be his death. It came.
+Moore, little disposed to speak, made his purse do duty for his tongue.
+He expressed his gratitude to the servants and to Mrs. Horsfall by the
+chink of his coin. The latter personage approved and understood this
+language perfectly; it made amends for all previous contumacy. She and
+her patient parted the best friends in the world.
+
+The kitchen visited and soothed, Moore betook himself to the parlour. He
+had Mrs. Yorke to appease; not quite so easy a task as the pacification
+of her housemaids. There she sat plunged in sullen dudgeon, the
+gloomiest speculations on the depths of man's ingratitude absorbing her
+thoughts. He drew near and bent over her; she was obliged to look up,
+if it were only to bid him "avaunt." There was beauty still in his pale,
+wasted features; there was earnestness and a sort of sweetness--for he
+was smiling--in his hollow eyes.
+
+"Good-bye!" he said, and as he spoke the smile glittered and melted. He
+had no iron mastery of his sensations now; a trifling emotion made
+itself apparent in his present weak state.
+
+"And what are you going to leave us for?" she asked. "We will keep you,
+and do anything in the world for you, if you will only stay till you are
+stronger."
+
+"Good-bye!" he again said; and added, "You have been a mother to me;
+give your wilful son one embrace."
+
+Like a foreigner, as he was, he offered her first one cheek, then the
+other. She kissed him.
+
+"What a trouble--what a burden I have been to you!" he muttered.
+
+"You are the worst trouble now, headstrong youth!" was the answer. "I
+wonder who is to nurse you at Hollow's Cottage? Your sister Hortense
+knows no more about such matters than a child."
+
+"Thank God! for I have had nursing enough to last me my life."
+
+Here the little girls came in--Jessie crying, Rose quiet but grave.
+Moore took them out into the hall to soothe, pet, and kiss them. He knew
+it was not in their mother's nature to bear to see any living thing
+caressed but herself. She would have felt annoyed had he fondled a
+kitten in her presence.
+
+The boys were standing about the chaise as Moore entered it; but for
+them he had no farewell. To Mr. Yorke he only said, "You have a good
+riddance of me. That was an unlucky shot for you, Yorke; it turned
+Briarmains into an hospital. Come and see me at the cottage soon."
+
+He drew up the glass; the chaise rolled away. In half an hour he
+alighted at his own garden wicket. Having paid the driver and dismissed
+the vehicle, he leaned on that wicket an instant, at once to rest and to
+muse.
+
+"Six months ago I passed out at this gate," said he, "a proud, angry,
+disappointed man. I come back sadder and wiser; weakly enough, but not
+worried. A cold, gray, yet quiet world lies round--a world where, if I
+hope little, I fear nothing. All slavish terrors of embarrassment have
+left me. Let the worst come, I can work, as Joe Scott does, for an
+honourable living; in such doom I yet see some hardship but no
+degradation. Formerly, pecuniary ruin was equivalent in my eyes to
+personal dishonour. It is not so now; I know the difference. Ruin _is_
+an evil, but one for which I am prepared; the day of whose coming I
+know, for I have calculated. I can yet put it off six months--not an
+hour longer. If things by that time alter, which is not probable; if
+fetters, which now seem indissoluble, should be loosened from our trade
+(of all things the most unlikely to happen), I might conquer in this
+long struggle yet--I might--good God! what might I not do? But the
+thought is a brief madness; let me see things with sane eyes. Ruin will
+come, lay her axe to my fortune's roots, and hew them down. I shall
+snatch a sapling, I shall cross the sea, and plant it in American woods.
+Louis will go with me. Will none but Louis go? I cannot tell--I have no
+right to ask."
+
+He entered the house.
+
+It was afternoon, twilight yet out of doors--starless and moonless
+twilight; for though keenly freezing with a dry, black frost, heaven
+wore a mask of clouds congealed and fast locked. The mill-dam too was
+frozen. The Hollow was very still. Indoors it was already dark. Sarah
+had lit a good fire in the parlour; she was preparing tea in the
+kitchen.
+
+"Hortense," said Moore, as his sister bustled up to help him off with
+his cloak, "I am pleased to come home."
+
+Hortense did not feel the peculiar novelty of this expression coming
+from her brother, who had never before called the cottage his home, and
+to whom its narrow limits had always heretofore seemed rather
+restrictive than protective. Still, whatever contributed to his
+happiness pleased her, and she expressed herself to that effect.
+
+He sat down, but soon rose again. He went to the window; he came back to
+the fire.
+
+"Hortense!"
+
+"Mon frère?"
+
+"This little parlour looks very clean and pleasant--unusually bright,
+somehow."
+
+"It is true, brother; I have had the whole house thoroughly and
+scrupulously cleaned in your absence."
+
+"Sister, I think on this first day of your return home you ought to have
+a friend or so to tea, if it were only to see how fresh and spruce you
+have made the little place."
+
+"True, brother. If it were not late I might send for Miss Mann."
+
+"So you might; but it really is too late to disturb that good lady, and
+the evening is much too cold for her to come out."
+
+"How thoughtful in you, dear Gérard! We must put it off till another
+day."
+
+"I want some one to-day, dear sister--some quiet guest, who would tire
+neither of us."
+
+"Miss Ainley?"
+
+"An excellent person, they say; but she lives too far off. Tell Harry
+Scott to step up to the rectory with a request from you that Caroline
+Helstone should come and spend the evening with you."
+
+"Would it not be better to-morrow, dear brother?"
+
+"I should like her to see the place as it is just now; its brilliant
+cleanliness and perfect neatness are so much to your credit."
+
+"It might benefit her in the way of example."
+
+"It might and must; she ought to come."
+
+He went into the kitchen.
+
+"Sarah, delay tea half an hour." He then commissioned her to dispatch
+Harry Scott to the rectory, giving her a twisted note hastily scribbled
+in pencil by himself, and addressed "Miss Helstone."
+
+Scarcely had Sarah time to get impatient under the fear of damage to her
+toast already prepared when the messenger returned, and with him the
+invited guest.
+
+She entered through the kitchen, quietly tripped up Sarah's stairs to
+take off her bonnet and furs, and came down as quietly, with her
+beautiful curls nicely smoothed, her graceful merino dress and delicate
+collar all trim and spotless, her gay little work-bag in her hand. She
+lingered to exchange a few kindly words with Sarah, and to look at the
+new tortoise-shell kitten basking on the kitchen hearth, and to speak to
+the canary-bird, which a sudden blaze from the fire had startled on its
+perch; and then she betook herself to the parlour.
+
+The gentle salutation, the friendly welcome, were interchanged in such
+tranquil sort as befitted cousins meeting; a sense of pleasure, subtle
+and quiet as a perfume, diffused itself through the room; the
+newly-kindled lamp burnt up bright; the tray and the singing urn were
+brought in.
+
+"I am pleased to come home," repeated Mr. Moore.
+
+They assembled round the table. Hortense chiefly talked. She
+congratulated Caroline on the evident improvement in her health. Her
+colour and her plump cheeks were returning, she remarked. It was true.
+There was an obvious change in Miss Helstone. All about her seemed
+elastic; depression, fear, forlornness, were withdrawn. No longer
+crushed, and saddened, and slow, and drooping, she looked like one who
+had tasted the cordial of heart's ease, and been lifted on the wing of
+hope.
+
+After tea Hortense went upstairs. She had not rummaged her drawers for a
+month past, and the impulse to perform that operation was now become
+resistless. During her absence the talk passed into Caroline's hands.
+She took it up with ease; she fell into her best tone of conversation. A
+pleasing facility and elegance of language gave fresh charm to familiar
+topics; a new music in the always soft voice gently surprised and
+pleasingly captivated the listener; unwonted shades and lights of
+expression elevated the young countenance with character, and kindled it
+with animation.
+
+"Caroline, you look as if you had heard good tidings," said Moore, after
+earnestly gazing at her for some minutes.
+
+"Do I?"
+
+"I sent for you this evening that I might be cheered; but you cheer me
+more than I had calculated."
+
+"I am glad of that. And I _really_ cheer you?"
+
+"You look brightly, move buoyantly, speak musically."
+
+"It is pleasant to be here again."
+
+"Truly it is pleasant; I feel it so. And to see health on your cheek and
+hope in your eye is pleasant, Cary; but what is this hope, and what is
+the source of this sunshine I perceive about you?"
+
+"For one thing, I am happy in mamma. I love her so much, and she loves
+me. Long and tenderly she nursed me. Now, when her care has made me
+well, I can occupy myself for and with her all the day. I say it is my
+turn to attend to her; and I _do_ attend to her. I am her waiting-woman
+as well as her child. I like--you would laugh if you knew what pleasure
+I have in making dresses and sewing for her. She looks so nice now,
+Robert; I will not let her be old-fashioned. And then, she is charming
+to talk to--full of wisdom, ripe in judgment, rich in information,
+exhaustless in stores her observant faculties have quietly amassed.
+Every day that I live with her I like her better, I esteem her more
+highly, I love her more tenderly."
+
+"_That_ for one thing, then, Cary. You talk in such a way about 'mamma'
+it is enough to make one jealous of the old lady."
+
+"She is not old, Robert."
+
+"Of the young lady, then."
+
+"She does not pretend to be young."
+
+"Well, of the matron. But you said 'mamma's' affection was _one_ thing
+that made you happy; now for the other thing."
+
+"I am glad you are better."
+
+"What besides?"
+
+"I am glad we are friends."
+
+"You and I?"
+
+"Yes. I once thought we never should be."
+
+"Cary, some day I mean to tell you a thing about myself that is not to
+my credit, and consequently will not please you."
+
+"Ah, don't! I cannot bear to think ill of you."
+
+"And I cannot bear that you should think better of me than I deserve."
+
+"Well, but I half know your 'thing;' indeed, I believe I know all about
+it."
+
+"You do not."
+
+"I believe I do."
+
+"Whom does it concern besides me?"
+
+She coloured; she hesitated; she was silent.
+
+"Speak, Cary! Whom does it concern?"
+
+She tried to utter a name, and could not.
+
+"Tell me; there is none present but ourselves. Be frank."
+
+"But if I guess wrong?"
+
+"I will forgive. Whisper, Cary."
+
+He bent his ear to her lips. Still she would not, or could not, speak
+clearly to the point. Seeing that Moore waited and was resolved to hear
+something, she at last said, "Miss Keeldar spent a day at the rectory
+about a week since. The evening came on very wintry, and we persuaded
+her to stay all night."
+
+"And you and she curled your hair together?"
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"And then you chattered, and she told you----"
+
+"It was not at curling-hair time, so you are not as wise as you think;
+and, besides, she didn't tell me."
+
+"You slept together afterwards?"
+
+"We occupied the same room and bed. We did not sleep much; we talked the
+whole night through."
+
+"I'll be sworn you did! And then it all came out--_tant pis_. I would
+rather you had heard it from myself."
+
+"You are quite wrong. She did not tell me what you suspect--she is not
+the person to proclaim such things; but yet I inferred something from
+parts of her discourse. I gathered more from rumour, and I made out the
+rest by instinct."
+
+"But if she did not tell you that I wanted to marry her for the sake of
+her money, and that she refused me indignantly and scornfully (you need
+neither start nor blush; nor yet need you prick your trembling fingers
+with your needle. That is the plain truth, whether you like it or
+not)--if such was not the subject of her august confidences, on what
+point did they turn? You say you talked the whole night through; what
+about?"
+
+"About things we never thoroughly discussed before, intimate friends as
+we have been; but you hardly expect I should tell you?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Cary; you will tell me. You said we were friends, and friends
+should always confide in each other."
+
+"But you are sure you won't repeat it?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"Not to Louis?"
+
+"Not even to Louis. What does Louis care for young ladies' secrets?"
+
+"Robert, Shirley is a curious, magnanimous being."
+
+"I dare say. I can imagine there are both odd points and grand points
+about her."
+
+"I have found her chary in showing her feelings; but when they rush out,
+river-like, and pass full and powerful before you--almost without leave
+from her--you gaze, wonder; you admire, and--I think--love her."
+
+"You saw this spectacle?"
+
+"Yes; at dead of night, when all the house was silent, and starlight and
+the cold reflection from the snow glimmered in our chamber, then I saw
+Shirley's heart."
+
+"Her heart's core? Do you think she showed you that?"
+
+"Her heart's core."
+
+"And how was it?"
+
+"Like a shrine, for it was holy; like snow, for it was pure; like
+flame, for it was warm; like death, for it was strong."
+
+"Can she love? tell me that."
+
+"What think you?"
+
+"She has loved none that have loved her yet."
+
+"Who are those that have loved her?"
+
+He named a list of gentlemen, closing with Sir Philip Nunnely.
+
+"She has loved none of these."
+
+"Yet some of them were worthy of a woman's affection."
+
+"Of some women's, but not of Shirley's."
+
+"Is she better than others of her sex?"
+
+"She is peculiar, and more dangerous to take as a wife--rashly."
+
+"I can imagine that."
+
+"She spoke of you----"
+
+"Oh, she did! I thought you denied it."
+
+"She did not speak in the way you fancy; but I asked her, and I would
+make her tell me what she thought of you, or rather how she felt towards
+you. I wanted to know; I had long wanted to know."
+
+"So had I; but let us hear. She thinks meanly, she feels contemptuously,
+doubtless?"
+
+"She thinks of you almost as highly as a woman can think of a man. You
+know she can be eloquent. I yet feel in fancy the glow of the language
+in which her opinion was conveyed."
+
+"But how does she feel?"
+
+"Till you shocked her (she said you had shocked her, but she would not
+tell me how) she felt as a sister feels towards a brother of whom she is
+at once fond and proud."
+
+"I'll shock her no more, Cary, for the shock rebounded on myself till I
+staggered again. But that comparison about sister and brother is all
+nonsense. She is too rich and proud to entertain fraternal sentiments
+for me."
+
+"You don't know her, Robert; and, somehow, I fancy now (I had other
+ideas formerly) that you cannot know her. You and she are not so
+constructed as to be able thoroughly to understand each other."
+
+"It may be so. I esteem her, I admire her; and yet my impressions
+concerning her are harsh--perhaps uncharitable. I believe, for instance,
+that she is incapable of love----"
+
+"Shirley incapable of love!"
+
+"That she will never marry. I imagine her jealous of compromising her
+pride, of relinquishing her power, of sharing her property."
+
+"Shirley has hurt your _amour propre_."
+
+"She did hurt it; though I had not an emotion of tenderness, nor a spark
+of passion for her."
+
+"Then, Robert, it was very wicked in you to want to marry her."
+
+"And very mean, my little pastor, my pretty priestess. I never wanted to
+kiss Miss Keeldar in my life, though she has fine lips, scarlet and
+round as ripe cherries; or, if I did wish it, it was the mere desire of
+the eye."
+
+"I doubt, now, whether you are speaking the truth. The grapes or the
+cherries are sour--'hung too high.'"
+
+"She has a pretty figure, a pretty face, beautiful hair. I acknowledge
+all her charms and feel none of them, or only feel them in a way she
+would disdain. I suppose I was truly tempted by the mere gilding of the
+bait. Caroline, what a noble fellow your Robert is--great, good,
+disinterested, and then so pure!"
+
+"But not perfect. He made a great blunder once, and we will hear no more
+about it."
+
+"And shall we think no more about it, Cary? Shall we not despise him in
+our heart--gentle but just, compassionate but upright?"
+
+"Never! We will remember that with what measure we mete it shall be
+measured unto us, and so we will give no scorn, only affection."
+
+"Which won't satisfy, I warn you of that. Something besides
+affection--something far stronger, sweeter, warmer--will be demanded one
+day. Is it there to give?"
+
+Caroline was moved, much moved.
+
+"Be calm, Lina," said Moore soothingly. "I have no intention, because I
+have no right, to perturb your mind now, nor for months to come. Don't
+look as if you would leave me. We will make no more agitating allusions;
+we will resume our gossip. Do not tremble; look me in the face. See what
+a poor, pale, grim phantom I am--more pitiable than formidable."
+
+She looked shyly. "There is something formidable still, pale as you
+are," she said, as her eye fell under his.
+
+"To return to Shirley," pursued Moore: "is it your opinion that she is
+ever likely to marry?"
+
+"She loves."
+
+"Platonically--theoretically--all humbug!"
+
+"She loves what I call sincerely."
+
+"Did she say so?"
+
+"I cannot affirm that she said so. No such confession as 'I love this
+man or that' passed her lips."
+
+"I thought not."
+
+"But the feeling made its way in spite of her, and I saw it. She spoke
+of one man in a strain not to be misunderstood. Her voice alone was
+sufficient testimony. Having wrung from her an opinion on your
+character, I demanded a second opinion of--another person about whom I
+had my conjectures, though they were the most tangled and puzzled
+conjectures in the world. I would _make_ her speak. I shook her, I chid
+her, I pinched her fingers when she tried to put me off with gibes and
+jests in her queer provoking way, and at last out it came. The voice, I
+say, was enough; hardly raised above a whisper, and yet such a soft
+vehemence in its tones. There was no confession, no confidence, in the
+matter. To these things she cannot condescend; but I am sure that man's
+happiness is dear to her as her own life."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"I charged her with the fact. She did not deny, she did not avow, but
+looked at me. I saw her eyes by the snow-gleam. It was quite enough. I
+triumphed over her mercilessly."
+
+"What right had _you_ to triumph? Do you mean to say _you_ are fancy
+free?"
+
+"Whatever _I_ am, Shirley is a bondswoman. Lioness, she has found her
+captor. Mistress she may be of all round her, but her own mistress she
+is not."
+
+"So you exulted at recognizing a fellow-slave in one so fair and
+imperial?"
+
+"I did; Robert, you say right, in one so fair and imperial."
+
+"You confess it--a _fellow_-slave?"
+
+"I confess nothing; but I say that haughty Shirley is no more free than
+was Hagar."
+
+"And who, pray, is the Abraham, the hero of a patriarch who has achieved
+such a conquest?"
+
+"You still speak scornfully, and cynically, and sorely; but I will make
+you change your note before I have done with you."
+
+"We will see that. Can she marry this Cupidon?"
+
+"Cupidon! he is just about as much a Cupidon as you are a Cyclops."
+
+"Can she marry him?"
+
+"You will see."
+
+"I want to know his name, Cary."
+
+"Guess it."
+
+"Is it any one in this neighbourhood?"
+
+"Yes, in Briarfield parish."
+
+"Then it is some person unworthy of her. I don't know a soul in
+Briarfield parish her equal."
+
+"Guess."
+
+"Impossible. I suppose she is under a delusion, and will plunge into
+some absurdity, after all."
+
+Caroline smiled.
+
+"Do _you_ approve the choice?" asked Moore.
+
+"Quite, _quite_."
+
+"Then I _am_ puzzled; for the head which owns this bounteous fall of
+hazel curls is an excellent little thinking machine, most accurate in
+its working. It boasts a correct, steady judgment, inherited from
+'mamma,' I suppose."
+
+"And I _quite_ approve, and mamma was charmed."
+
+"'Mamma' charmed--Mrs. Pryor! It can't be romantic, then?"
+
+"It _is_ romantic, but it is also right."
+
+"Tell me, Cary--tell me out of pity; I am too weak to be tantalized."
+
+"You shall be tantalized--it will do you no harm; you are not so weak as
+you pretend."
+
+"I have twice this evening had some thoughts of falling on the floor at
+your feet."
+
+"You had better not. I shall decline to help you up."
+
+"And worshipping you downright. My mother was a Roman Catholic. You look
+like the loveliest of her pictures of the Virgin. I think I will embrace
+her faith and kneel and adore."
+
+"Robert, Robert, sit still; don't be absurd. I will go to Hortense if
+you commit extravagances."
+
+"You have stolen my senses. Just now nothing will come into my mind but
+_les litanies de la sainte Vièrge. Rose céleste, reine des anges_!"
+
+"_Tour d'ivoire, maison d'or_--is not that the jargon? Well, sit down
+quietly, and guess your riddle."
+
+"But 'mamma' charmed--there's the puzzle."
+
+"I'll tell you what mamma said when I told her. 'Depend upon it, my
+dear, such a choice will make the happiness of Miss Keeldar's life.'"
+
+"I'll guess once, and no more. It is old Helstone. She is going to be
+your aunt."
+
+"I'll tell my uncle; I'll tell Shirley!" cried Caroline, laughing
+gleefully. "Guess again, Robert; your blunders are charming."
+
+"It is the parson--Hall."
+
+"Indeed, no; he is mine, if you please."
+
+"Yours! Ay, the whole generation of women in Briarfield seem to have
+made an idol of that priest. I wonder why; he is bald, sand-blind,
+gray-haired."
+
+"Fanny will be here to fetch me before you have solved the riddle, if
+you don't make haste."
+
+"I'll guess no more--I am tired; and then I don't care. Miss Keeldar may
+marry _le grand Turc_ for me."
+
+"Must I whisper?"
+
+"That you must, and quickly. Here comes Hortense; come near, a little
+nearer, my own Lina. I care for the whisper more than the words."
+
+She whispered. Robert gave a start, a flash of the eye, a brief laugh.
+Miss Moore entered, and Sarah followed behind, with information that
+Fanny was come. The hour of converse was over.
+
+Robert found a moment to exchange a few more whispered sentences. He was
+waiting at the foot of the staircase as Caroline descended after putting
+on her shawl.
+
+"Must I call Shirley a noble creature now?" he asked.
+
+"If you wish to speak the truth, certainly."
+
+"Must I forgive her?"
+
+"Forgive her? Naughty Robert! Was she in the wrong, or were you?"
+
+"Must I at length love her downright, Cary?"
+
+Caroline looked keenly up, and made a movement towards him, something
+between the loving and the petulant.
+
+"Only give the word, and I'll try to obey you."
+
+"Indeed, you must not love her; the bare idea is perverse."
+
+"But then she is handsome, peculiarly handsome. Hers is a beauty that
+grows on you. You think her but graceful when you first see her; you
+discover her to be beautiful when you have known her for a year."
+
+"It is not you who are to say these things. Now, Robert, be good."
+
+"O Cary, I have no love to give. Were the goddess of beauty to woo me, I
+could not meet her advances. There is no heart which I can call mine in
+this breast."
+
+"So much the better; you are a great deal safer without. Good-night."
+
+"Why must you always go, Lina, at the very instant when I most want you
+to stay?"
+
+"Because you most wish to retain when you are most certain to lose."
+
+"Listen; one other word. Take care of your own heart--do you hear me?"
+
+"There is no danger."
+
+"I am not convinced of that. The Platonic parson, for instance."
+
+"Who--Malone?"
+
+"Cyril Hall. I owe more than one twinge of jealousy to that quarter."
+
+"As to you, you have been flirting with Miss Mann. She showed me the
+other day a plant you had given her.--Fanny, I am ready."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+WRITTEN IN THE SCHOOLROOM.
+
+
+Louis Moore's doubts respecting the immediate evacuation of Fieldhead by
+Mr. Sympson turned out to be perfectly well founded. The very next day
+after the grand quarrel about Sir Philip Nunnely a sort of
+reconciliation was patched up between uncle and niece. Shirley, who
+could never find it in her heart to be or to seem inhospitable (except
+in the single instance of Mr. Donne), begged the whole party to stay a
+little longer. She begged in such earnest it was evident she wished it
+for some reason. They took her at her word. Indeed, the uncle could not
+bring himself to leave her quite unwatched--at full liberty to marry
+Robert Moore as soon as that gentleman should be able (Mr. Sympson
+piously prayed this might never be the case) to reassert his supposed
+pretensions to her hand. They all stayed.
+
+In his first rage against all the house of Moore, Mr. Sympson had so
+conducted himself towards Mr. Louis that that gentleman--patient of
+labour or suffering, but intolerant of coarse insolence--had promptly
+resigned his post, and could now be induced to resume and retain it only
+till such time as the family should quit Yorkshire. Mrs. Sympson's
+entreaties prevailed with him thus far; his own attachment to his pupil
+constituted an additional motive for concession; and probably he had a
+third motive, stronger than either of the other two. Probably he would
+have found it very hard indeed to leave Fieldhead just now.
+
+Things went on for some time pretty smoothly. Miss Keeldar's health was
+re-established; her spirits resumed their flow. Moore had found means to
+relieve her from every nervous apprehension; and, indeed, from the
+moment of giving him her confidence, every fear seemed to have taken
+wing. Her heart became as lightsome, her manner as careless, as those of
+a little child, that, thoughtless of its own life or death, trusts all
+responsibility to its parents. He and William Farren--through whose
+medium he made inquiries concerning the state of Phœbe--agreed in
+asserting that the dog was not mad, that it was only ill-usage which had
+driven her from home; for it was proved that her master was in the
+frequent habit of chastising her violently. Their assertion might or
+might not be true. The groom and gamekeeper affirmed to the
+contrary--both asserting that, if hers was not a clear case of
+hydrophobia, there was no such disease. But to this evidence Louis Moore
+turned an incredulous ear. He reported to Shirley only what was
+encouraging. She believed him; and, right or wrong, it is certain that
+in her case the bite proved innocuous.
+
+November passed; December came. The Sympsons were now really departing.
+It was incumbent on them to be at home by Christmas. Their packages were
+preparing; they were to leave in a few days. One winter evening, during
+the last week of their stay, Louis Moore again took out his little blank
+book, and discoursed with it as follows:--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"She is lovelier than ever. Since that little cloud was dispelled all
+the temporary waste and wanness have vanished. It was marvellous to see
+how soon the magical energy of youth raised her elastic and revived her
+blooming.
+
+"After breakfast this morning, when I had seen her, and listened to her,
+and, so to speak, felt her, in every sentient atom of my frame, I passed
+from her sunny presence into the chill drawing-room. Taking up a little
+gilt volume, I found it to contain a selection of lyrics. I read a poem
+or two; whether the spell was in me or in the verse I know not, but my
+heart filled genially, my pulse rose. I glowed, notwithstanding the
+frost air. I, too, am young as yet. Though she said she never considered
+me young, I am barely thirty. There are moments when life, for no other
+reason than my own youth, beams with sweet hues upon me.
+
+"It was time to go to the schoolroom. I went. That same schoolroom is
+rather pleasant in a morning. The sun then shines through the low
+lattice; the books are in order; there are no papers strewn about; the
+fire is clear and clean; no cinders have fallen, no ashes accumulated. I
+found Henry there, and he had brought with him Miss Keeldar. They were
+together.
+
+"I said she was lovelier than ever. She is. A fine rose, not deep but
+delicate, opens on her cheek. Her eye, always dark, clear, and speaking,
+utters now a language I cannot render; it is the utterance, seen not
+heard, through which angels must have communed when there was 'silence
+in heaven.' Her hair was always dusk as night and fine as silk, her neck
+was always fair, flexible, polished; but both have now a new charm. The
+tresses are soft as shadow, the shoulders they fall on wear a goddess
+grace. Once I only _saw_ her beauty, now I _feel_ it.
+
+"Henry was repeating his lesson to her before bringing it to me. One of
+her hands was occupied with the book; he held the other. That boy gets
+more than his share of privileges; he dares caress and is caressed. What
+indulgence and compassion she shows him! Too much. If this went on,
+Henry in a few years, when his soul was formed, would offer it on her
+altar, as I have offered mine.
+
+"I saw her eyelid flitter when I came in, but she did not look up; _now_
+she hardly ever gives me a glance. She seems to grow silent too; to _me_
+she rarely speaks, and when I am present, she says little to others. In
+my gloomy moments I attribute this change to indifference, aversion,
+what not? In my sunny intervals I give it another meaning. I say, were I
+her equal, I could find in this shyness coyness, and in that coyness
+love. As it is, dare I look for it? What could I do with it if found?
+
+"This morning I dared at least contrive an hour's communion for her and
+me; I dared not only _wish_ but _will_ an interview with her. I dared
+summon solitude to guard us. Very decidedly I called Henry to the door.
+Without hesitation I said, 'Go where you will, my boy; but, till I call
+you, return not here.'
+
+"Henry, I could see, did not like his dismissal. That boy is young, but
+a thinker; his meditative eye shines on me strangely sometimes. He half
+feels what links me to Shirley; he half guesses that there is a dearer
+delight in the reserve with which I am treated than in all the
+endearments he is allowed. The young, lame, half-grown lion would growl
+at me now and then, because I have tamed his lioness and am her keeper,
+did not the habit of discipline and the instinct of affection hold him
+subdued. Go, Henry; you must learn to take your share of the bitter of
+life with all of Adam's race that have gone before or will come after
+you. Your destiny can be no exception to the common lot; be grateful
+that your love is overlooked thus early, before it can claim any
+affinity to passion. An hour's fret, a pang of envy, suffice to express
+what you feel. Jealousy hot as the sun above the line, rage destructive
+as the tropic storm, the clime of your sensations ignores--as yet.
+
+"I took my usual seat at the desk, quite in my usual way. I am blessed
+in that power to cover all inward ebullition with outward calm. No one
+who looks at my slow face can guess the vortex sometimes whirling in my
+heart, and engulfing thought and wrecking prudence. Pleasant is it to
+have the gift to proceed peacefully and powerfully in your course
+without alarming by one eccentric movement. It was not my present
+intention to utter one word of love to her, or to reveal one glimpse of
+the fire in which I wasted. Presumptuous I never have been; presumptuous
+I never will be. Rather than even _seem_ selfish and interested, I would
+resolutely rise, gird my loins, part and leave her, and seek, on the
+other side of the globe, a new life, cold and barren as the rock the
+salt tide daily washes. My design this morning was to take of her a near
+scrutiny--to read a line in the page of her heart. Before I left I
+determined to know _what_ I was leaving.
+
+"I had some quills to make into pens. Most men's hands would have
+trembled when their hearts were so stirred; mine went to work steadily,
+and my voice, when I called it into exercise, was firm.
+
+"'This day week you will be alone at Fieldhead, Miss Keeldar.'
+
+"'Yes: I rather think my uncle's intention to go is a settled one now.'
+
+"'He leaves you dissatisfied.'
+
+"'He is not pleased with me.'
+
+"'He departs as he came--no better for his journey. This is mortifying.'
+
+"'I trust the failure of his plans will take from him all inclination to
+lay new ones.'
+
+"'In his way Mr. Sympson honestly wished you well. All he has done or
+intended to do he believed to be for the best.'
+
+"'You are kind to undertake the defence of a man who has permitted
+himself to treat you with so much insolence.'
+
+"'I never feel shocked at, or bear malice for, what is spoken in
+character; and most perfectly in character was that vulgar and violent
+onset against me, when he had quitted you worsted.'
+
+"'You cease now to be Henry's tutor?'
+
+"'I shall be parted from Henry for a while (if he and I live we shall
+meet again somehow, for we love each other) and be ousted from the bosom
+of the Sympson family for ever. Happily this change does not leave me
+stranded; it but hurries into premature execution designs long formed.'
+
+"'No change finds you off your guard. I was sure, in your calm way, you
+would be prepared for sudden mutation. I always think you stand in the
+world like a solitary but watchful, thoughtful archer in a wood. And the
+quiver on your shoulder holds more arrows than one; your bow is provided
+with a second string. Such too is your brother's wont. You two might go
+forth homeless hunters to the loneliest western wilds; all would be well
+with you. The hewn tree would make you a hut, the cleared forest yield
+you fields from its stripped bosom, the buffalo would feel your
+rifle-shot, and with lowered horns and hump pay homage at your feet.'
+
+"'And any Indian tribe of Blackfeet or Flatheads would afford us a
+bride, perhaps?'
+
+"'No' (hesitating), 'I think not. The savage is sordid. I think--that
+is, I _hope_--you would neither of you share your hearth with that to
+which you could not give your heart.'
+
+"'What suggested the wild West to your mind, Miss Keeldar? Have you been
+with me in spirit when I did not see you? Have you entered into my
+day-dreams, and beheld my brain labouring at its scheme of a future?'
+
+"She had separated a slip of paper for lighting tapers--a spill, as it
+is called--into fragments. She threw morsel by morsel into the fire, and
+stood pensively watching them consume. She did not speak.
+
+"'How did you learn what you seem to know about my intentions?'
+
+"'I know nothing. I am only discovering them now. I spoke at hazard.'
+
+"'Your hazard sounds like divination. A tutor I will never be again;
+never take a pupil after Henry and yourself; not again will I sit
+habitually at another man's table--no more be the appendage of a family.
+I am now a man of thirty; I have never been free since I was a boy of
+ten. I have such a thirst for freedom, such a deep passion to know her
+and call her mine, such a day-desire and night-longing to win her and
+possess her, I will not refuse to cross the Atlantic for her sake; her I
+will follow deep into virgin woods. Mine it shall not be to accept a
+savage girl as a slave--she could not be a wife. I know no white woman
+whom I love that would accompany me; but I am certain Liberty will await
+me, sitting under a pine. When I call her she will come to my loghouse,
+and she shall fill my arms.'
+
+"She could not hear me speak so unmoved, and she _was_ moved. It was
+right--I meant to move her. She could not answer me, nor could she look
+at me. I should have been sorry if she could have done either. Her cheek
+glowed as if a crimson flower through whose petals the sun shone had
+cast its light upon it. On the white lid and dark lashes of her downcast
+eye trembled all that is graceful in the sense of half-painful,
+half-pleasing shame.
+
+"Soon she controlled her emotion, and took all her feelings under
+command. I saw she had felt insurrection, and was waking to empire. She
+sat down. There was that in her face which I could read. It said, I see
+the line which is my limit; nothing shall make me pass it. I feel--I
+know how far I may reveal my feelings, and when I must clasp the volume.
+I have advanced to a certain distance, as far as the true and sovereign
+and undegraded nature of my kind permits; now here I stand rooted. My
+heart may break if it is baffled; let it break. It shall never dishonour
+me; it shall never dishonour my sisterhood in me. Suffering before
+degradation! death before treachery!
+
+"I, for my part, said, 'If she were poor, I would be at her feet; if she
+were lowly, I would take her in my arms. Her gold and her station are
+two griffins that guard her on each side. Love looks and longs, and
+dares not; Passion hovers round, and is kept at bay; Truth and Devotion
+are scared. There is nothing to lose in winning her, no sacrifice to
+make. It is all clear gain, and therefore unimaginably difficult.'
+
+"Difficult or not, something must be done, something must be said. I
+could not, and would not, sit silent with all that beauty modestly mute
+in my presence. I spoke thus, and still I spoke with calm. Quiet as my
+words were, I could hear they fell in a tone distinct, round, and deep.
+
+"'Still, I know I shall be strangely placed with that mountain nymph
+Liberty. She is, I suspect, akin to that Solitude which I once wooed,
+and from which I now seek a divorce. These Oreads are peculiar. They
+come upon you with an unearthly charm, like some starlight evening; they
+inspire a wild but not warm delight; their beauty is the beauty of
+spirits; their grace is not the grace of life, but of seasons or scenes
+in nature. Theirs is the dewy bloom of morning, the languid flush of
+evening, the peace of the moon, the changefulness of clouds. I want and
+will have something different. This elfish splendour looks chill to my
+vision, and feels frozen to my touch. I am not a poet; I cannot live
+with abstractions. You, Miss Keeldar, have sometimes, in your laughing
+satire, called me a material philosopher, and implied that I live
+sufficiently for the substantial. Certainly I feel material from head to
+foot; and glorious as Nature is, and deeply as I worship her with the
+solid powers of a solid heart, I would rather behold her through the
+soft human eyes of a loved and lovely wife than through the wild orbs of
+the highest goddess of Olympus.'
+
+"'Juno could not cook a buffalo steak as you like it,' said she.
+
+"'She could not; but I will tell you who could--some young, penniless,
+friendless orphan girl. I wish I could find such a one--pretty enough
+for me to love, with something of the mind and heart suited to my taste;
+not uneducated--honest and modest. I care nothing for attainments, but I
+would fain have the germ of those sweet natural powers which nothing
+acquired can rival; any temper Fate wills--I can manage the hottest. To
+such a creature as this I should like to be first tutor and then
+husband. I would teach her my language, my habits and my principles, and
+then I would reward her with my love.'
+
+"'_Reward_ her, lord of the creation--_reward_ her!'" ejaculated she,
+with a curled lip.
+
+"'And be repaid a thousandfold.'
+
+"'If she willed it, monseigneur.'
+
+"'And she _should_ will it.'
+
+"'You have stipulated for any temper Fate wills. Compulsion is flint and
+a blow to the metal of some souls.'
+
+"'And love the spark it elicits.'
+
+"'Who cares for the love that is but a spark--seen, flown upward, and
+gone?'
+
+"'I must find my orphan girl. Tell me how, Miss Keeldar.'
+
+"'Advertise; and be sure you add, when you describe the qualifications,
+she must be a good plain cook.'
+
+"'I must find her; and when I do find her I shall marry her.'
+
+"'Not you!' and her voice took a sudden accent of peculiar scorn.
+
+"I liked this. I had roused her from the pensive mood in which I had
+first found her. I would stir her further.
+
+"'Why doubt it?'
+
+"'_You_ marry!'
+
+"'Yes, of course; nothing more evident than that I can and shall.'
+
+"'The contrary is evident, Mr. Moore.'
+
+"She charmed me in this mood--waxing disdainful, half insulting; pride,
+temper, derision, blent in her large fine eye, that had just now the
+look of a merlin's.
+
+"'Favour me with your reasons for such an opinion, Miss Keeldar.'
+
+"'How will _you_ manage to marry, I wonder?'
+
+"'I shall manage it with ease and speed when I find the proper person.'
+
+"'Accept celibacy!' (and she made a gesture with her hand as if she gave
+me something) 'take it as your doom!'
+
+"'No; you cannot give what I already have. Celibacy has been mine for
+thirty years. If you wish to offer me a gift, a parting present, a
+keepsake, you must change the boon.'
+
+"'Take worse, then!'
+
+"'How--what?'
+
+"I now felt, and looked, and spoke eagerly. I was unwise to quit my
+sheet-anchor of calm even for an instant; it deprived me of an advantage
+and transferred it to her. The little spark of temper dissolved in
+sarcasm, and eddied over her countenance in the ripples of a mocking
+smile.
+
+"'Take a wife that has paid you court to save your modesty, and thrust
+herself upon you to spare your scruples.'
+
+"'Only show me where.'
+
+"'Any stout widow that has had a few husbands already, and can manage
+these things.'
+
+"'She must not be rich, then. Oh these riches!'
+
+"'Never would you have gathered the produce of the gold-bearing garden.
+You have not courage to confront the sleepless dragon; you have not
+craft to borrow the aid of Atlas.'
+
+"'You look hot and haughty.'
+
+"'And you far haughtier. Yours is the monstrous pride which counterfeits
+humility.'
+
+"'I am a dependant; I know my place.'
+
+"'I am a woman; I know mine.'
+
+"'I am poor; I must be proud.'
+
+"'I have received ordinances, and own obligations stringent as yours.'
+
+"We had reached a critical point now, and we halted and looked at each
+other. _She_ would not give in, I felt. Beyond this I neither felt nor
+saw. A few moments yet were mine. The end was coming--I heard its
+rush--but not come. I would dally, wait, talk, and when impulse urged I
+would act. I am never in a hurry; I never was in a hurry in my whole
+life. Hasty people drink the nectar of existence scalding hot; I taste
+it cool as dew. I proceeded: 'Apparently, Miss Keeldar, you are as
+little likely to marry as myself. I know you have refused three--nay,
+four--advantageous offers, and, I believe, a fifth. Have you rejected
+Sir Philip Nunnely?'
+
+"I put this question suddenly and promptly.
+
+"'Did you think I should take him?'
+
+"'I thought you might.'
+
+"'On what grounds, may I ask?'
+
+"'Conformity of rank, age, pleasing contrast of temper--for _he_ is mild
+and amiable--harmony of intellectual tastes.'
+
+"'A beautiful sentence! Let us take it to pieces. "Conformity of rank."
+He is quite above me. Compare my grange with his palace, if you please.
+I am disdained by his kith and kin. "Suitability of age." We were born
+in the same year; consequently he is still a boy, while I am a
+woman--ten years his senior to all intents and purposes. "Contrast of
+temper." Mild and amiable, is he; I--what? Tell me.'
+
+"'Sister of the spotted, bright, quick, fiery leopard.'
+
+"'And you would mate me with a kid--the millennium being yet millions of
+centuries from mankind; being yet, indeed, an archangel high in the
+seventh heaven, uncommissioned to descend? Unjust barbarian! "Harmony of
+intellectual tastes." He is fond of poetry, and I hate it----'
+
+"'Do you? That is news.'
+
+"'I absolutely shudder at the sight of metre or at the sound of rhyme
+whenever I am at the priory or Sir Philip at Fieldhead. Harmony,
+indeed! When did I whip up syllabub sonnets or string stanzas fragile as
+fragments of glass? and when did I betray a belief that those
+penny-beads were genuine brilliants?'
+
+"'You might have the satisfaction of leading him to a higher standard,
+of improving his tastes.'
+
+"'Leading and improving! teaching and tutoring! bearing and forbearing!
+Pah! my husband is not to be my baby. I am not to set him his daily
+lesson and see that he learns it, and give him a sugar-plum if he is
+good, and a patient, pensive, pathetic lecture if he is bad. But it is
+like a tutor to talk of the "satisfaction of teaching." I suppose _you_
+think it the finest employment in the world. I don't. I reject it.
+Improving a husband! No. I shall insist upon my husband improving me, or
+else we part.'
+
+"'God knows it is needed!'
+
+"'What do you mean by that, Mr. Moore?'
+
+"'What I say. Improvement is imperatively needed.'
+
+"'If you were a woman you would school _monsieur, votre mari_,
+charmingly. It would just suit you; schooling is your vocation.'
+
+"'May I ask whether, in your present just and gentle mood, you mean to
+taunt me with being a tutor?'
+
+"'Yes, bitterly; and with anything else you please--any defect of which
+you are painfully conscious.'
+
+"'With being poor, for instance?'
+
+"'Of course; that will sting you. You are sore about your poverty; you
+brood over that.'
+
+"'With having nothing but a very plain person to offer the woman who may
+master my heart?'
+
+"'Exactly. You have a habit of calling yourself plain. You are sensitive
+about the cut of your features because they are not quite on an Apollo
+pattern. You abase them more than is needful, in the faint hope that
+others may say a word in their behalf--which won't happen. Your face is
+nothing to boast of, certainly--not a pretty line nor a pretty tint to
+be found therein.'
+
+"'Compare it with your own.'
+
+"'It looks like a god of Egypt--a great sand-buried stone head; or
+rather I will compare it to nothing so lofty. It looks like Tartar. You
+are my mastiff's cousin. I think you as much like him as a man can be
+like a dog.'
+
+"'Tartar is your dear companion. In summer, when you rise early, and
+run out into the fields to wet your feet with the dew, and freshen your
+cheek and uncurl your hair with the breeze, you always call him to
+follow you. You call him sometimes with a whistle that you learned from
+me. In the solitude of your wood, when you think nobody but Tartar is
+listening, you whistle the very tunes you imitated from my lips, or sing
+the very songs you have caught up by ear from my voice. I do not ask
+whence flows the feeling which you pour into these songs, for I know it
+flows out of your heart, Miss Keeldar. In the winter evenings Tartar
+lies at your feet. You suffer him to rest his head on your perfumed lap;
+you let him couch on the borders of your satin raiment. His rough hide
+is familiar with the contact of your hand. I once saw you kiss him on
+that snow-white beauty spot which stars his broad forehead. It is
+dangerous to say I am like Tartar; it suggests to me a claim to be
+treated like Tartar.'
+
+"'Perhaps, sir, you can extort as much from your penniless and
+friendless young orphan girl, when you find her.'
+
+"'Oh could I find her such as I image her! Something to tame first, and
+teach afterwards; to break in, and then to fondle. To lift the destitute
+proud thing out of poverty; to establish power over and then to be
+indulgent to the capricious moods that never were influenced and never
+indulged before; to see her alternately irritated and subdued about
+twelve times in the twenty-four hours; and perhaps, eventually, when her
+training was accomplished, to behold her the exemplary and patient
+mother of about a dozen children, only now and then lending little Louis
+a cordial cuff by way of paying the interest of the vast debt she owes
+his father. Oh' (I went on), 'my orphan girl would give me many a kiss;
+she would watch on the threshold for my coming home of an evening; she
+would run into my arms; she would keep my hearth as bright as she would
+make it warm. God bless the sweet idea! Find her I must.'
+
+"Her eyes emitted an eager flash, her lips opened; but she reclosed
+them, and impetuously turned away.
+
+"'Tell me, tell me where she is, Miss Keeldar!'
+
+"Another movement, all haughtiness and fire and impulse.
+
+"'I must know. You _can_ tell me; you _shall_ tell me.'
+
+"'I _never will_.'
+
+"She turned to leave me. Could I now let her part as she had always
+parted from me? No. I had gone too far not to finish; I had come too
+near the end not to drive home to it. All the encumbrance of doubt, all
+the rubbish of indecision, must be removed at once, and the plain truth
+must be ascertained. She must take her part, and tell me what it was; I
+must take mine and adhere to it.
+
+"'A minute, madam,' I said, keeping my hand on the door-handle before I
+opened it. 'We have had a long conversation this morning, but the last
+word has not been spoken yet. It is yours to speak it.'
+
+"'May I pass?'
+
+"'No; I guard the door. I would almost rather die than let you leave me
+just now, without speaking the word I demand.'
+
+"'What dare you expect me to say?'
+
+"'What I am dying and perishing to hear; what I _must_ and _will_ hear;
+what you dare not now suppress.'
+
+"'Mr. Moore, I hardly know what you mean. You are not like yourself.'
+
+"I suppose I hardly was like my usual self, for I scared her--that I
+could see. It was right: she must be scared to be won.
+
+"'You _do_ know what I mean, and for the first time I stand before you
+_myself_. I have flung off the tutor, and beg to introduce you to the
+man. And remember, he is a gentleman.'
+
+"She trembled. She put her hand to mine as if to remove it from the
+lock. She might as well have tried to loosen, by her soft touch, metal
+welded to metal. She felt she was powerless, and receded; and again she
+trembled.
+
+"What change I underwent I cannot explain, but out of her emotion passed
+into me a new spirit. I neither was crushed nor elated by her lands and
+gold; I thought not of them, cared not for them. They were
+nothing--dross that could not dismay me. I saw only herself--her young
+beautiful form, the grace, the majesty, the modesty of her girlhood.
+
+"'My pupil,' I said.
+
+"'My master,' was the low answer.
+
+"'I have a thing to tell you.'
+
+"She waited with declined brow and ringlets drooped.
+
+"'I have to tell you that for four years you have been growing into
+your tutor's heart, and that you are rooted there now. I have to declare
+that you have bewitched me, in spite of sense, and experience, and
+difference of station and estate. You have so looked, and spoken, and
+moved; so shown me your faults and your virtues--beauties rather, they
+are hardly so stern as virtues--that I love you--love you with my life
+and strength. It is out now.'
+
+"She sought what to say, but could not find a word. She tried to rally,
+but vainly. I passionately repeated that I loved her.
+
+"'Well, Mr. Moore, what then?' was the answer I got, uttered in a tone
+that would have been petulant if it had not faltered.
+
+"'Have you nothing to say to me? Have you no love for me?'
+
+"'A little bit.'
+
+"'I am not to be tortured. I will not even play at present.'
+
+"'I don't want to play; I want to go.'
+
+"'I wonder you dare speak of going at this moment. _You_ go! What! with
+my heart in your hand, to lay it on your toilet and pierce it with your
+pins? From my presence you do not stir, out of my reach you do not
+stray, till I receive a hostage--pledge for pledge--your heart for
+mine.'
+
+"'The thing you want is mislaid--lost some time since. Let me go and
+seek it.'
+
+"'Declare that it is where your keys often are--in my possession.'
+
+"'You ought to know. And where are my keys, Mr. Moore? Indeed and truly
+I have lost them again; and Mrs. Gill wants some money, and I have none,
+except this sixpence.'
+
+"She took the coin out of her apron pocket, and showed it in her palm. I
+could have trifled with her, but it would not do; life and death were at
+stake. Mastering at once the sixpence and the hand that held it, I
+demanded, 'Am I to die without you, or am I to live for you?'
+
+"'Do as you please. Far be it from me to dictate your choice.'
+
+"'You shall tell me with your own lips whether you doom me to exile or
+call me to hope.'
+
+"'Go; I can bear to be left.'
+
+"'Perhaps I too _can_ bear to leave you. But reply, Shirley, my pupil,
+my sovereign--reply.'
+
+"'Die without me if you will; live for me if you dare.'
+
+"'I am not afraid of you, my leopardess. I _dare_ live for and with you,
+from this hour till my death. Now, then, I have you. You are mine. I
+will never let you go. Wherever my home be, I have chosen my wife. If I
+stay in England, in England you will stay; if I cross the Atlantic, you
+will cross it also. Our lives are riveted, our lots intertwined.'
+
+"'And are we equal, then, sir? are we equal at last?'
+
+"'You are younger, frailer, feebler, more ignorant than I.'
+
+"'Will you be good to me, and never tyrannize?'
+
+"'Will you let me breathe, and not bewilder me? You must not smile at
+present. The world swims and changes round me. The sun is a dizzying
+scarlet blaze, the sky a violet vortex whirling over me.'
+
+"I am a strong man, but I staggered as I spoke. All creation was
+exaggerated. Colour grew more vivid, motion more rapid, life itself more
+vital. I hardly saw her for a moment, but I heard her voice--pitilessly
+sweet. She would not subdue one of her charms in compassion. Perhaps she
+did not know what I felt.
+
+"'You name me leopardess. Remember, the leopardess is tameless,' said
+she.
+
+"'Tame or fierce, wild or subdued, you are _mine_.'
+
+"'I am glad I know my keeper and am used to him. Only his voice will I
+follow; only his hand shall manage me; only at his feet will I repose.'
+
+"I took her back to her seat, and sat down by her side. I wanted to hear
+her speak again. I could never have enough of her voice and her words.
+
+"'How much do you love me?' I asked.
+
+"'Ah! you know. I will not gratify you--I will not flatter.'
+
+"'I don't know half enough; my heart craves to be fed. If you knew how
+hungry and ferocious it is, you would hasten to stay it with a kind word
+or two.'
+
+"'Poor Tartar!' said she, touching and patting my hand--'poor fellow,
+stalwart friend, Shirley's pet and favourite, lie down!'
+
+"'But I will not lie down till I am fed with one sweet word.'
+
+"And at last she gave it.
+
+"'Dear Louis, be faithful to me; never leave me. I don't care for life
+unless I may pass it at your side.'
+
+"'Something more.'
+
+"She gave me a change; it was not her way to offer the same dish twice.
+
+"'Sir,' she said, starting up, 'at your peril you ever again name such
+sordid things as money, or poverty, or inequality. It will be absolutely
+dangerous to torment me with these maddening scruples. I defy you to do
+it.'
+
+"My face grew hot. I did once more wish I were not so poor or she were
+not so rich. She saw the transient misery; and then, indeed, she
+caressed me. Blent with torment, I experienced rapture.
+
+"'Mr. Moore,' said she, looking up with a sweet, open, earnest
+countenance, 'teach me and help me to be good. I do not ask you to take
+off my shoulders all the cares and duties of property, but I ask you to
+share the burden, and to show me how to sustain my part well. Your
+judgment is well balanced, your heart is kind, your principles are
+sound. I know you are wise; I feel you are benevolent; I believe you are
+conscientious. Be my companion through life; be my guide where I am
+ignorant; be my master where I am faulty; be my friend always!'
+
+"'So help me God, I will!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yet again a passage from the blank book if you like, reader; if you
+don't like it, pass it over:--
+
+"The Sympsons are gone, but not before discovery and explanation. My
+manner must have betrayed something, or my looks. I was quiet, but I
+forgot to be guarded sometimes. I stayed longer in the room than usual;
+I could not bear to be out of her presence; I returned to it, and basked
+in it, like Tartar in the sun. If she left the oak parlour,
+instinctively I rose and left it too. She chid me for this procedure
+more than once. I did it with a vague, blundering idea of getting a word
+with her in the hall or elsewhere. Yesterday towards dusk I had her to
+myself for five minutes by the hall fire. We stood side by side; she was
+railing at me, and I was enjoying the sound of her voice. The young
+ladies passed, and looked at us; we did not separate. Ere long they
+repassed, and again looked. Mrs. Sympson came; we did not move. Mr.
+Sympson opened the dining-room door. Shirley flashed him back full
+payment for his spying gaze. She curled her lip and tossed her tresses.
+The glance she gave was at once explanatory and defiant. It said: 'I
+like Mr. Moore's society, and I dare you to find fault with my taste.'
+
+"I asked, 'Do you mean him to understand how matters are?'
+
+"'I do,' said she; 'but I leave the development to chance. There will be
+a scene. I neither invite it nor fear it; only, you must be present, for
+I am inexpressibly tired of facing him solus. I don't like to see him in
+a rage. He then puts off all his fine proprieties and conventional
+disguises, and the real human being below is what you would call
+_commun, plat, bas--vilain et un peu méchant_. His ideas are not clean,
+Mr. Moore; they want scouring with soft soap and fuller's earth. I
+think, if he could add his imagination to the contents of Mrs. Gill's
+bucking-basket, and let her boil it in her copper, with rain-water and
+bleaching-powder (I hope you think me a tolerable laundress), it would
+do him incalculable good.'
+
+"This morning, fancying I heard her descend somewhat early, I was down
+instantly. I had not been deceived. There she was, busy at work in the
+breakfast-parlour, of which the housemaid was completing the arrangement
+and dusting. She had risen betimes to finish some little keepsake she
+intended for Henry. I got only a cool reception, which I accepted till
+the girl was gone, taking my book to the window-seat very quietly. Even
+when we were alone I was slow to disturb her. To sit with her in sight
+was happiness, and the proper happiness, for early morning--serene,
+incomplete, but progressive. Had I been obtrusive, I knew I should have
+encountered rebuff. 'Not at home to suitors' was written on her brow.
+Therefore I read on, stole now and then a look, watched her countenance
+soften and open as she felt I respected her mood, and enjoyed the gentle
+content of the moment.
+
+"The distance between us shrank, and the light hoar-frost thawed
+insensibly. Ere an hour elapsed I was at her side, watching her sew,
+gathering her sweet smiles and her merry words, which fell for me
+abundantly. We sat, as we had a right to sit, side by side; my arm
+rested on her chair; I was near enough to count the stitches of her
+work, and to discern the eye of her needle. The door suddenly opened.
+
+"I believe, if I had just then started from her, she would have
+despised me. Thanks to the phlegm of my nature, I rarely start. When I
+am well-off, _bien_, comfortable, I am not soon stirred. _Bien_ I
+was--_très bien_--consequently immutable. No muscle moved. I hardly
+looked to the door.
+
+"'Good-morning, uncle,' said she, addressing that personage, who paused
+on the threshold in a state of petrifaction.
+
+"'Have you been long downstairs, Miss Keeldar, and alone with Mr.
+Moore?'
+
+"'Yes, a very long time. We both came down early; it was scarcely
+light.'
+
+"'The proceeding is improper----'
+
+"'It was at first, I was rather cross, and not civil; but you will
+perceive that we are now friends.'
+
+"'I perceive more than you would wish me to perceive.'
+
+"'Hardly, sir,' said I; 'we have no disguises. Will you permit me to
+intimate that any further observations you have to make may as well be
+addressed to me? Henceforward I stand between Miss Keeldar and all
+annoyance.'
+
+"'_You!_ What have _you_ to do with Miss Keeldar?'
+
+"'To protect, watch over, serve her.'
+
+"'You, sir--you, the tutor?'
+
+"'Not one word of insult, sir,' interposed she; 'not one syllable of
+disrespect to Mr. Moore in this house.'
+
+"'Do you take his part?'
+
+"'_His_ part? oh yes!'
+
+"She turned to me with a sudden fond movement, which I met by circling
+her with my arm. She and I both rose.
+
+"'Good Ged!' was the cry from the morning-gown standing quivering at the
+door. _Ged_, I think, must be the cognomen of Mr. Sympson's Lares. When
+hard pressed he always invokes this idol.
+
+"'Come forward, uncle; you shall hear all.--Tell him all, Louis.'
+
+"'I dare him to speak--the beggar! the knave! the specious hypocrite!
+the vile, insinuating, infamous menial!--Stand apart from my niece, sir.
+Let her go!'
+
+"She clung to me with energy. 'I am near my future husband,' she said.
+'Who dares touch him or me?'
+
+"'Her husband!' He raised and spread his hands. He dropped into a seat.
+
+"'A while ago you wanted much to know whom I meant to marry. My
+intention was then formed, but not mature for communication. Now it is
+ripe, sun-mellowed, perfect. Take the crimson peach--take Louis Moore!'
+
+"'But' (savagely) 'you _shall not_ have him; he _shall not_ have you.'
+
+"'I would die before I would have another. I would die if I might not
+have him.'
+
+"He uttered words with which this page shall never be polluted.
+
+"She turned white as death; she shook all over; she lost her strength. I
+laid her down on the sofa; just looked to ascertain that she had not
+fainted--of which, with a divine smile, she assured me. I kissed her;
+and then, if I were to perish, I cannot give a clear account of what
+happened in the course of the next five minutes. She has since--through
+tears, laughter, and trembling--told me that I turned terrible, and gave
+myself to the demon. She says I left her, made one bound across the
+room; that Mr. Sympson vanished through the door as if shot from a
+cannon. I also vanished, and she heard Mrs. Gill scream.
+
+"Mrs. Gill was still screaming when I came to my senses. I was then in
+another apartment--the oak parlour, I think. I held Sympson before me
+crushed into a chair, and my hand was on his cravat. His eyes rolled in
+his head; I was strangling him, I think. The housekeeper stood wringing
+her hands, entreating me to desist. I desisted that moment, and felt at
+once as cool as stone. But I told Mrs. Gill to fetch the Red-House Inn
+chaise instantly, and informed Mr. Sympson he must depart from Fieldhead
+the instant it came. Though half frightened out of his wits, he declared
+he would not. Repeating the former order, I added a commission to fetch
+a constable. I said, 'You _shall_ go, by fair means or foul.'
+
+"He threatened prosecution; I cared for nothing. I had stood over him
+once before, not quite so fiercely as now, but full as austerely. It was
+one night when burglars attempted the house at Sympson Grove, and in his
+wretched cowardice he would have given a vain alarm, without daring to
+offer defence. I had then been obliged to protect his family and his
+abode by mastering himself--and I had succeeded. I now remained with him
+till the chaise came. I marshalled him to it, he scolding all the way.
+He was terribly bewildered, as well as enraged. He would have resisted
+me, but knew not how. He called for his wife and daughters to come. I
+said they should follow him as soon as they could prepare. The smoke,
+the fume, the fret of his demeanour was inexpressible, but it was a fury
+incapable of producing a deed. That man, properly handled, must ever
+remain impotent. I know he will never touch me with the law. I know his
+wife, over whom he tyrannizes in trifles, guides him in matters of
+importance. I have long since earned her undying mother's gratitude by
+my devotion to her boy. In some of Henry's ailments I have nursed
+him--better, she said, than any woman could nurse. She will never forget
+that. She and her daughters quitted me to-day, in mute wrath and
+consternation; but she respects me. When Henry clung to my neck as I
+lifted him into the carriage and placed him by her side, when I arranged
+her own wrapping to make her warm, though she turned her head from me, I
+saw the tears start to her eyes. She will but the more zealously
+advocate my cause because she has left me in anger. I am glad of
+this--not for my own sake, but for that of my life and idol--my
+Shirley."
+
+Once again he writes, a week after:--"I am now at Stilbro'. I have taken
+up my temporary abode with a friend--a professional man, in whose
+business I can be useful. Every day I ride over to Fieldhead. How long
+will it be before I can call that place my home, and its mistress mine?
+I am not easy, not tranquil; I am tantalized, sometimes tortured. To see
+her now, one would think she had never pressed her cheek to my shoulder,
+or clung to me with tenderness or trust. I feel unsafe; she renders me
+miserable. I am shunned when I visit her; she withdraws from my reach.
+Once this day I lifted her face, resolved to get a full look down her
+deep, dark eyes. Difficult to describe what I read there! Pantheress!
+beautiful forest-born! wily, tameless, peerless nature! She gnaws her
+chain; I see the white teeth working at the steel! She has dreams of her
+wild woods and pinings after virgin freedom. I wish Sympson would come
+again, and oblige her again to entwine her arms about me. I wish there
+was danger she should lose me, as there is risk I shall lose her. No;
+final loss I do not fear, but long delay----
+
+"It is now night--midnight. I have spent the afternoon and evening at
+Fieldhead. Some hours ago she passed me, coming down the oak staircase
+to the hall. She did not know I was standing in the twilight, near the
+staircase window, looking at the frost-bright constellations. How
+closely she glided against the banisters! How shyly shone her large eyes
+upon me! How evanescent, fugitive, fitful she looked--slim and swift as
+a northern streamer!
+
+"I followed her into the drawing-room. Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone
+were both there; she has summoned them to bear her company awhile. In
+her white evening dress, with her long hair flowing full and wavy, with
+her noiseless step, her pale cheek, her eye full of night and lightning,
+she looked, I thought, spirit-like--a thing made of an element, the
+child of a breeze and a flame, the daughter of ray and raindrop--a thing
+never to be overtaken, arrested, fixed. I wished I could avoid following
+her with my gaze as she moved here and there, but it was impossible. I
+talked with the other ladies as well as I could, but still I looked at
+her. She was very silent; I think she never spoke to me--not even when
+she offered me tea. It happened that she was called out a minute by Mrs.
+Gill. I passed into the moonlit hall, with the design of getting a word
+as she returned; nor in this did I fail.
+
+"'Miss Keeldar, stay one instant,' said I, meeting her.
+
+"'Why? the hall is too cold.'
+
+"'It is not cold for me; at my side it should not be cold for you.'
+
+"'But I shiver.'
+
+"'With fear, I believe. What makes you fear me? You are quiet and
+distant. Why?'
+
+"'I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the
+moonlight.'
+
+"'_Do not--do not_ pass! Stay with me awhile. Let us exchange a few
+quiet words. It is three days since I spoke to you alone. Such changes
+are cruel.'
+
+"'I have no wish to be cruel,' she responded, softly enough. Indeed
+there was softness in her whole deportment--in her face, in her voice;
+but there was also reserve, and an air fleeting, evanishing, intangible.
+
+"'You certainly give me pain,' said I. 'It is hardly a week since you
+called me your future husband and treated me as such. Now I am once more
+the tutor for you. I am addressed as Mr. Moore and sir. Your lips have
+forgotten Louis.'
+
+"'No, Louis, no. It is an easy, liquid name--not soon forgotten.'
+
+"'Be cordial to Louis, then; approach him--let him approach.'
+
+"'I _am_ cordial,' said she, hovering aloof like a white shadow.
+
+"'Your voice is very sweet and very low,' I answered, quietly advancing.
+'You seem subdued, but still startled.'
+
+"'No--quite calm, and afraid of nothing,' she assured me.
+
+"'Of nothing but your votary.'
+
+"I bent a knee to the flags at her feet.
+
+"'You see I am in a new world, Mr. Moore. I don't know myself; I don't
+know you. But rise. When you do so I feel troubled and disturbed.'
+
+"I obeyed. It would not have suited me to retain that attitude long. I
+courted serenity and confidence for her, and not vainly. She trusted and
+clung to me again.
+
+"'Now, Shirley,' I said, 'you can conceive I am far from happy in my
+present uncertain, unsettled state.'
+
+"'Oh yes, you _are_ happy!' she cried hastily. 'You don't know how happy
+you are. Any change will be for the worse.'
+
+"'Happy or not, I cannot bear to go on so much longer. You are too
+generous to require it.'
+
+"'Be reasonable, Louis; be patient! I like you because you are patient.'
+
+"'Like me no longer, then; love me instead. Fix our marriage day; think
+of it to-night, and decide.'
+
+"She breathed a murmur, inarticulate yet expressive; darted, or melted,
+from my arms--and I lost her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THE WINDING-UP.
+
+
+Yes, reader, we must settle accounts now. I have only briefly to narrate
+the final fates of some of the personages whose acquaintance we have
+made in this narrative, and then you and I must shake hands, and for the
+present separate.
+
+Let us turn to the curates--to the much-loved, though long-neglected.
+Come forward, modest merit! Malone, I see, promptly answers the
+invocation. He knows his own description when he hears it.
+
+No, Peter Augustus; we can have nothing to say to you. It won't do.
+Impossible to trust ourselves with the touching tale of your deeds and
+destinies. Are you not aware, Peter, that a discriminating public has
+its crotchets; that the unvarnished truth does not answer; that plain
+facts will not digest? Do you not know that the squeak of the real pig
+is no more relished now than it was in days of yore? Were I to give the
+catastrophe of your life and conversation, the public would sweep off in
+shrieking hysterics, and there would be a wild cry for sal-volatile and
+burnt feathers. "Impossible!" would be pronounced here; "untrue!" would
+be responded there; "inartistic!" would be solemnly decided. Note well.
+Whenever you present the actual, simple truth, it is, somehow, always
+denounced as a lie--they disown it, cast it off, throw it on the parish;
+whereas the product of your own imagination, the mere figment, the sheer
+fiction, is adopted, petted, termed pretty, proper, sweetly natural--the
+little, spurious wretch gets all the comfits, the honest, lawful
+bantling all the cuffs. Such is the way of the world, Peter; and as you
+are the legitimate urchin, rude, unwashed, and naughty, you must stand
+down.
+
+Make way for Mr. Sweeting.
+
+Here he comes, with his lady on his arm--the most splendid and the
+weightiest woman in Yorkshire--Mrs. Sweeting, formerly Miss Dora Sykes.
+They were married under the happiest auspices, Mr. Sweeting having been
+just inducted to a comfortable living, and Mr. Sykes being in
+circumstances to give Dora a handsome portion. They lived long and
+happily together, beloved by their parishioners and by a numerous circle
+of friends.
+
+There! I think the varnish has been put on very nicely.
+
+Advance, Mr. Donne.
+
+This gentleman turned out admirably--far better than either you or I
+could possibly have expected, reader. He, too, married a most sensible,
+quiet, lady-like little woman. The match was the making of him. He
+became an exemplary domestic character, and a truly active parish priest
+(as a pastor he, to his dying day, conscientiously refused to act). The
+outside of the cup and platter he burnished up with the best
+polishing-powder; the furniture of the altar and temple he looked after
+with the zeal of an upholsterer, the care of a cabinet-maker. His little
+school, his little church, his little parsonage, all owed their erection
+to him; and they did him credit. Each was a model in its way. If
+uniformity and taste in architecture had been the same thing as
+consistency and earnestness in religion, what a shepherd of a Christian
+flock Mr. Donne would have made! There was one art in the mastery of
+which nothing mortal ever surpassed Mr. Donne: it was that of begging.
+By his own unassisted efforts he begged all the money for all his
+erections. In this matter he had a grasp of plan, a scope of action
+quite unique. He begged of high and low--of the shoeless cottage brat
+and the coroneted duke. He sent out begging-letters far and wide--to old
+Queen Charlotte, to the princesses her daughters, to her sons the royal
+dukes, to the Prince Regent, to Lord Castlereagh, to every member of the
+ministry then in office; and, what is more remarkable, he screwed
+something out of every one of these personages. It is on record that he
+got five pounds from the close-fisted old lady Queen Charlotte, and two
+guineas from the royal profligate her eldest son. When Mr. Donne set out
+on begging expeditions, he armed himself in a complete suit of brazen
+mail. That you had given a hundred pounds yesterday was with him no
+reason why you should not give two hundred to-day. He would tell you so
+to your face, and, ten to one, get the money out of you. People gave to
+get rid of him. After all, he did some good with the cash. He was
+useful in his day and generation.
+
+Perhaps I ought to remark that on the premature and sudden vanishing of
+Mr. Malone from the stage of Briarfield parish (you cannot know how it
+happened, reader; your curiosity must be robbed to pay your elegant love
+of the pretty and pleasing), there came as his successor another Irish
+curate, Mr. Macarthey. I am happy to be able to inform you, _with
+truth_, that this gentleman did as much credit to his country as Malone
+had done it discredit. He proved himself as decent, decorous, and
+conscientious as Peter was rampant, boisterous, and---- This last
+epithet I choose to suppress, because it would let the cat out of the
+bag. He laboured faithfully in the parish. The schools, both Sunday and
+day schools, flourished under his sway like green bay trees. Being
+human, of course he had his faults. These, however, were proper,
+steady-going, clerical faults--what many would call virtues. The
+circumstance of finding himself invited to tea with a Dissenter would
+unhinge him for a week. The spectacle of a Quaker wearing his hat in the
+church, the thought of an unbaptized fellow-creature being interred with
+Christian rites--these things could make strange havoc in Mr.
+Macarthey's physical and mental economy. Otherwise he was sane and
+rational, diligent and charitable.
+
+I doubt not a justice-loving public will have remarked, ere this, that I
+have thus far shown a criminal remissness in pursuing, catching, and
+bringing to condign punishment the would-be assassin of Mr. Robert
+Moore. Here was a fine opening to lead my willing readers a dance, at
+once decorous and exciting--a dance of law and gospel, of the dungeon,
+the dock, and the "dead-thraw." You might have liked it, reader, but _I_
+should not. I and my subject would presently have quarrelled, and then I
+should have broken down. I was happy to find that facts perfectly
+exonerated me from the attempt. The murderer was never punished, for the
+good reason that he was never caught--the result of the further
+circumstance that he was never pursued. The magistrates made a
+shuffling, as if they were going to rise and do valiant things; but
+since Moore himself, instead of urging and leading them as heretofore,
+lay still on his little cottage-couch, laughing in his sleeve, and
+sneering with every feature of his pale, foreign face, they considered
+better of it, and after fulfilling certain indispensable forms,
+prudently resolved to let the matter quietly drop, which they did.
+
+Mr. Moore knew who had shot him, and all Briarfield knew. It was no
+other than Michael Hartley, the half-crazed weaver once before alluded
+to, a frantic Antinomian in religion, and a mad leveller in politics.
+The poor soul died of delirium tremens a year after the attempt on
+Moore, and Robert gave his wretched widow a guinea to bury him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The winter is over and gone; spring has followed with beamy and shadowy,
+with flowery and showery flight. We are now in the heart of summer--in
+mid-June--the June of 1812.
+
+It is burning weather. The air is deep azure and red gold. It fits the
+time; it fits the age; it fits the present spirit of the nations. The
+nineteenth century wantons in its giant adolescence; the Titan boy
+uproots mountains in his game, and hurls rocks in his wild sport. This
+summer Bonaparte is in the saddle; he and his host scour Russian
+deserts. He has with him Frenchmen and Poles, Italians and children of
+the Rhine, six hundred thousand strong. He marches on old Moscow. Under
+old Moscow's walls the rude Cossack waits him. Barbarian stoic! he waits
+without fear of the boundless ruin rolling on. He puts his trust in a
+snow-cloud; the wilderness, the wind, and the hail-storm are his refuge;
+his allies are the elements--air, fire, water. And what are these? Three
+terrible archangels ever stationed before the throne of Jehovah. They
+stand clothed in white, girdled with golden girdles; they uplift vials,
+brimming with the wrath of God. Their time is the day of vengeance;
+their signal, the word of the Lord of hosts, "thundering with the voice
+of His excellency."
+
+"Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the
+treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of
+trouble, against the day of battle and war?
+
+"Go your ways. Pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth."
+
+It is done. The earth is scorched with fire; the sea becomes "as the
+blood of a dead man;" the islands flee away; the mountains are not
+found.
+
+In this year, Lord Wellington assumed the reins in Spain. They made him
+generalissimo, for their own salvation's sake. In this year he took
+Badajos, he fought the field of Vittoria, he captured Pampeluna, he
+stormed San Sebastian; in this year he won Salamanca.
+
+Men of Manchester, I beg your pardon for this slight _résumé_ of warlike
+facts, but it is of no consequence. Lord Wellington is, for you, only a
+decayed old gentleman now. I rather think some of you have called him a
+"dotard;" you have taunted him with his age and the loss of his physical
+vigour. What fine heroes you are yourselves! Men like you have a right
+to trample on what is mortal in a demigod. Scoff at your ease; your
+scorn can never break his grand old heart.
+
+But come, friends, whether Quakers or cotton-printers, let us hold a
+peace-congress, and let out our venom quietly. We have been talking with
+unseemly zeal about bloody battles and butchering generals; we arrive
+now at a triumph in your line. On the 18th of June 1812 the Orders in
+Council were repealed, and the blockaded ports thrown open. You know
+very well--such of you as are old enough to remember--you made Yorkshire
+and Lancashire shake with your shout on that occasion. The ringers
+cracked a bell in Briarfield belfry; it is dissonant to this day. The
+Association of Merchants and Manufacturers dined together at Stilbro',
+and one and all went home in such a plight as their wives would never
+wish to witness more. Liverpool started and snorted like a river-horse
+roused amongst his reeds by thunder. Some of the American merchants felt
+threatenings of apoplexy, and had themselves bled--all, like wise men,
+at this first moment of prosperity, prepared to rush into the bowels of
+speculation, and to delve new difficulties, in whose depths they might
+lose themselves at some future day. Stocks which had been accumulating
+for years now went off in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
+Warehouses were lightened, ships were laden; work abounded, wages rose;
+the good time seemed come. These prospects might be delusive, but they
+were brilliant--to some they were even true. At that epoch, in that
+single month of June, many a solid fortune was realized.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a whole province rejoices, the humblest of its inhabitants tastes a
+festal feeling; the sound of public bells rouses the most secluded
+abode, as if with a call to be gay. And so Caroline Helstone thought,
+when she dressed herself more carefully than usual on the day of this
+trading triumph, and went, attired in her neatest muslin, to spend the
+afternoon at Fieldhead, there to superintend certain millinery
+preparations for a great event, the last appeal in these matters being
+reserved for her unimpeachable taste. She decided on the wreath, the
+veil, the dress to be worn at the altar. She chose various robes and
+fashions for more ordinary occasions, without much reference to the
+bride's opinion--that lady, indeed, being in a somewhat impracticable
+mood.
+
+Louis had presaged difficulties, and he had found them--in fact, his
+mistress had shown herself exquisitely provoking, putting off her
+marriage day by day, week by week, month by month, at first coaxing him
+with soft pretences of procrastination, and in the end rousing his whole
+deliberate but determined nature to revolt against her tyranny, at once
+so sweet and so intolerable.
+
+It had needed a sort of tempest-shock to bring her to the point; but
+there she was at last, fettered to a fixed day. There she lay, conquered
+by love, and bound with a vow.
+
+Thus vanquished and restricted, she pined, like any other chained
+denizen of deserts. Her captor alone could cheer her; his society only
+could make amends for the lost privilege of liberty. In his absence she
+sat or wandered alone, spoke little, and ate less.
+
+She furthered no preparations for her nuptials; Louis was himself
+obliged to direct all arrangements. He was virtually master of Fieldhead
+weeks before he became so nominally--the least presumptuous, the kindest
+master that ever was, but with his lady absolute. She abdicated without
+a word or a struggle. "Go to Mr. Moore, ask Mr. Moore," was her answer
+when applied to for orders. Never was wooer of wealthy bride so
+thoroughly absolved from the subaltern part, so inevitably compelled to
+assume a paramount character.
+
+In all this Miss Keeldar partly yielded to her disposition; but a remark
+she made a year afterwards proved that she partly also acted on system.
+"Louis," she said, "would never have learned to rule if she had not
+ceased to govern. The incapacity of the sovereign had developed the
+powers of the premier."
+
+It had been intended that Miss Helstone should act as bridesmaid at the
+approaching nuptials, but Fortune had destined her another part.
+
+She came home in time to water her plants. She had performed this little
+task. The last flower attended to was a rose-tree, which bloomed in a
+quiet green nook at the back of the house. This plant had received the
+refreshing shower; she was now resting a minute. Near the wall stood a
+fragment of sculptured stone--a monkish relic--once, perhaps, the base
+of a cross. She mounted it, that she might better command the view. She
+had still the watering pot in one hand; with the other her pretty dress
+was held lightly aside, to avoid trickling drops. She gazed over the
+wall, along some lonely fields; beyond three dusk trees, rising side by
+side against the sky; beyond a solitary thorn at the head of a solitary
+lane far off. She surveyed the dusk moors, where bonfires were kindling.
+The summer evening was warm; the bell-music was joyous; the blue smoke
+of the fires looked soft, their red flame bright. Above them, in the sky
+whence the sun had vanished, twinkled a silver point--the star of love.
+
+Caroline was not unhappy that evening--far otherwise; but as she gazed
+she sighed, and as she sighed a hand circled her, and rested quietly on
+her waist. Caroline thought she knew who had drawn near; she received
+the touch unstartled.
+
+"I am looking at Venus, mamma. See, she is beautiful. How white her
+lustre is, compared with the deep red of the bonfires!"
+
+The answer was a closer caress; and Caroline turned, and looked, not
+into Mrs. Pryor's matron face, but up at a dark manly visage. She
+dropped her watering-pot and stepped down from the pedestal.
+
+"I have been sitting with 'mamma' an hour," said the intruder. "I have
+had a long conversation with her. Where, meantime, have you been?"
+
+"To Fieldhead. Shirley is as naughty as ever, Robert. She will neither
+say Yes nor No to any question put. She sits alone. I cannot tell
+whether she is melancholy or nonchalant. If you rouse her or scold her,
+she gives you a look, half wistful, half reckless, which sends you away
+as queer and crazed as herself. What Louis will make of her, I cannot
+tell. For my part, if I were a gentleman, I think I would not dare
+undertake her."
+
+"Never mind them. They were cut out for each other. Louis, strange to
+say, likes her all the better for these freaks. He will manage her, if
+any one can. She tries him, however. He has had a stormy courtship for
+such a calm character; but you see it all ends in victory for him.
+Caroline, I have sought you to ask an audience. Why are those bells
+ringing?"
+
+"For the repeal of your terrible law--the Orders you hate so much. You
+are pleased, are you not?"
+
+"Yesterday evening at this time I was packing some books for a
+sea-voyage. They were the only possessions, except some clothes, seeds,
+roots, and tools, which I felt free to take with me to Canada. I was
+going to leave you."
+
+"To leave me? To leave _me_?"
+
+Her little fingers fastened on his arm; she spoke and looked affrighted.
+
+"Not now--not now. Examine my face--yes, look at me well. Is the despair
+of parting legible thereon?"
+
+She looked into an illuminated countenance, whose characters were all
+beaming, though the page itself was dusk. This face, potent in the
+majesty of its traits, shed down on her hope, fondness, delight.
+
+"Will the repeal do you good--_much_ good, _immediate_ good?" she
+inquired.
+
+"The repeal of the Orders in Council saves me. Now I shall not turn
+bankrupt; now I shall not give up business; now I shall not leave
+England; now I shall be no longer poor; now I can pay my debts; now all
+the cloth I have in my warehouses will be taken off my hands, and
+commissions given me for much more. This day lays for my fortunes a
+broad, firm foundation, on which, for the first time in my life, I can
+securely build."
+
+Caroline devoured his words; she held his hand in hers; she drew a long
+breath.
+
+"You are saved? Your heavy difficulties are lifted?"
+
+"They are lifted. I breathe. I can act."
+
+"At last! Oh, Providence is kind! Thank Him, Robert."
+
+"I do thank Providence."
+
+"And I also, for your sake!" She looked up devoutly.
+
+"Now I can take more workmen, give better wages, lay wiser and more
+liberal plans, do some good, be less selfish. _Now_, Caroline, I can
+have a house--a home which I can truly call mine--and _now_----"
+
+He paused, for his deep voice was checked.
+
+"And _now_," he resumed--"now I can think of marriage, _now_ I can seek
+a wife."
+
+This was no moment for her to speak. She did not speak.
+
+"Will Caroline, who meekly hopes to be forgiven as she forgives--will
+she pardon all I have made her suffer, all that long pain I have
+wickedly caused her, all that sickness of body and mind she owed to me?
+Will she forget what she knows of my poor ambition, my sordid schemes?
+Will she let me expiate these things? Will she suffer me to prove that,
+as I once deserted cruelly, trifled wantonly, injured basely, I can now
+love faithfully, cherish fondly, treasure tenderly?"
+
+His hand was in Caroline's still; a gentle pressure answered him.
+
+"Is Caroline mine?"
+
+"Caroline is yours."
+
+"I will prize her. The sense of her value is here, in my heart; the
+necessity for her society is blended with my life. Not more jealous
+shall I be of the blood whose flow moves my pulses than of her happiness
+and well-being."
+
+"I love you, too, Robert, and will take faithful care of you."
+
+"Will you take faithful care of me? Faithful care! As if that rose
+should promise to shelter from tempest this hard gray stone! But she
+_will_ care for me, in her way. These hands will be the gentle
+ministrants of every comfort I can taste. I know the being I seek to
+entwine with my own will bring me a solace, a charity, a purity, to
+which, of myself, I am a stranger."
+
+Suddenly Caroline was troubled; her lip quivered.
+
+"What flutters my dove?" asked Moore, as she nestled to and then
+uneasily shrank from him.
+
+"Poor mamma! I am all mamma has. Must I leave her?"
+
+"Do you know, I thought of that difficulty. I and 'mamma' have discussed
+it."
+
+"Tell me what you wish, what you would like, and I will consider if it
+is possible to consent. But I cannot desert her, even for you. I cannot
+break her heart, even for your sake."
+
+"She was faithful when I was false--was she not? I never came near your
+sick-bed, and she watched it ceaselessly."
+
+"What must I do? Anything but leave her."
+
+"At my wish you never shall leave her."
+
+"She may live very near us?"
+
+"With us--only she will have her own rooms and servant. For this she
+stipulates herself."
+
+"You know she has an income, that, with her habits, makes her quite
+independent?"
+
+"She told me that, with a gentle pride that reminded me of somebody
+else."
+
+"She is not at all interfering, and incapable of gossip."
+
+"I know her, Cary. But if, instead of being the personification of
+reserve and discretion, she were something quite opposite, I should not
+fear her."
+
+"Yet she will be your mother-in-law?" The speaker gave an arch little
+nod. Moore smiled.
+
+"Louis and I are not of the order of men who fear their mothers-in-law,
+Cary. Our foes never have been, nor will be, those of our own household.
+I doubt not my mother-in-law will make much of me."
+
+"That she will--in her quiet way, you know. She is not demonstrative;
+and when you see her silent, or even cool, you must not fancy her
+displeased; it is only a manner she has. Be sure to let me interpret for
+her whenever she puzzles you; always believe my account of the matter,
+Robert."
+
+"Oh, implicitly! Jesting apart, I feel that she and I will suit--_on ne
+peut mieux_. Hortense, you know, is exquisitely susceptible--in our
+French sense of the word--and not, perhaps, always reasonable in her
+requirements; yet, dear, honest girl, I never painfully wounded her
+feelings or had a serious quarrel with her in my life."
+
+"No; you are most generously considerate, indeed, most tenderly
+indulgent to her; and you will be considerate with mamma. You are a
+gentleman all through, Robert, to the bone, and nowhere so perfect a
+gentleman as at your own fireside."
+
+"A eulogium I like; it is very sweet. I am well pleased my Caroline
+should view me in this light."
+
+"Mamma just thinks of you as I do."
+
+"Not quite, I hope?"
+
+"She does not want to marry you--don't be vain; but she said to me the
+other day, 'My dear, Mr. Moore has pleasing manners; he is one of the
+few gentlemen I have seen who combine politeness with an air of
+sincerity.'"
+
+"'Mamma' is rather a misanthropist, is she not? Not the best opinion of
+the sterner sex?"
+
+"She forbears to judge them as a whole, but she has her exceptions whom
+she admires--Louis and Mr. Hall, and, of late, yourself. She did not
+like you once; I knew that, because she would never speak of you. But,
+Robert----"
+
+"Well, what now? What is the new thought?"
+
+"You have not seen my uncle yet?"
+
+"I have. 'Mamma' called him into the room. He consents conditionally. If
+I prove that I can keep a wife, I may have her; and I _can_ keep her
+better than he thinks--better than I choose to boast."
+
+"If you get rich you will do good with your money, Robert?"
+
+"I _will_ do good; you shall tell me how. Indeed, I have some schemes of
+my own, which you and I will talk about on our own hearth one day. I
+have seen the necessity of doing good; I have learned the downright
+folly of being selfish. Caroline, I foresee what I will now foretell.
+This war _must_ ere long draw to a close. Trade is likely to prosper for
+some years to come. There may be a brief misunderstanding between
+England and America, but that will not last. What would you think if,
+one day--perhaps ere another ten years elapse--Louis and I divide
+Briarfield parish betwixt us? Louis, at any rate, is certain of power
+and property. He will not bury his talents. He is a benevolent fellow,
+and has, besides, an intellect of his own of no trifling calibre. His
+mind is slow but strong. It must work. It may work deliberately, but it
+will work well. He will be made magistrate of the district--Shirley says
+he shall. She would proceed impetuously and prematurely to obtain for
+him this dignity, if he would let her, but he will not. As usual, he
+will be in no haste. Ere he has been master of Fieldhead a year all the
+district will feel his quiet influence, and acknowledge his unassuming
+superiority. A magistrate is wanted; they will, in time, invest him with
+the office voluntarily and unreluctantly. Everybody admires his future
+wife, and everybody will, in time, like him. He is of the _pâte_
+generally approved, _bon comme le pain_--daily bread for the most
+fastidious, good for the infant and the aged, nourishing for the poor,
+wholesome for the rich. Shirley, in spite of her whims and oddities, her
+dodges and delays, has an infatuated fondness for him. She will one day
+see him as universally beloved as even _she_ could wish. He will also be
+universally esteemed, considered, consulted, depended on--too much so.
+His advice will be always judicious, his help always good-natured. Ere
+long both will be in inconvenient request. He will have to impose
+restrictions. As for me, if I succeed as I intend to do, my success will
+add to his and Shirley's income. I can double the value of their mill
+property. I can line yonder barren Hollow with lines of cottages and
+rows of cottage-gardens----"
+
+"Robert! And root up the copse?"
+
+"The copse shall be firewood ere five years elapse. The beautiful wild
+ravine shall be a smooth descent; the green natural terrace shall be a
+paved street. There shall be cottages in the dark ravine, and cottages
+on the lonely slopes. The rough pebbled track shall be an even, firm,
+broad, black, sooty road, bedded with the cinders from my mill; and my
+mill, Caroline--my mill shall fill its present yard."
+
+"Horrible! You will change our blue hill-country air into the Stilbro'
+smoke atmosphere."
+
+"I will pour the waters of Pactolus through the valley of Briarfield."
+
+"I like the beck a thousand times better."
+
+"I will get an Act for enclosing Nunnely Common, and parcelling it out
+into farms."
+
+"Stilbro' Moor, however, defies you, thank Heaven! What can you grow in
+Bilberry Moss? What will flourish on Rushedge?"
+
+"Caroline, the houseless, the starving, the unemployed shall come to
+Hollow's Mill from far and near; and Joe Scott shall give them work, and
+Louis Moore, Esq., shall let them a tenement, and Mrs. Gill shall mete
+them a portion till the first pay-day."
+
+She smiled up in his face.
+
+"Such a Sunday school as you will have, Cary! such collections as you
+will get! such a day school as you and Shirley and Miss Ainley will have
+to manage between you! The mill shall find salaries for a master and
+mistress, and the squire or the clothier shall give a treat once a
+quarter."
+
+She mutely offered a kiss--an offer taken unfair advantage of, to the
+extortion of about a hundred kisses.
+
+"Extravagant day-dreams," said Moore, with a sigh and smile, "yet
+perhaps we may realize some of them. Meantime, the dew is falling. Mrs.
+Moore, I shall take you in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is August. The bells clash out again, not only through Yorkshire, but
+through England. From Spain the voice of a trumpet has sounded long; it
+now waxes louder and louder; it proclaims Salamanca won. This night is
+Briarfield to be illuminated. On this day the Fieldhead tenantry dine
+together; the Hollow's Mill workpeople will be assembled for a like
+festal purpose; the schools have a grand treat. This morning there were
+two marriages solemnized in Briarfield church--Louis Gérard Moore, Esq.,
+late of Antwerp, to Shirley, daughter of the late Charles Cave Keeldar,
+Esq., of Fieldhead; Robert Gérard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's Mill, to
+Caroline, niece of the Rev. Matthewson Helstone, M.A., rector of
+Briarfield.
+
+The ceremony, in the first instance, was performed by Mr. Helstone,
+Hiram Yorke, Esq., of Briarmains, giving the bride away. In the second
+instance, Mr. Hall, vicar of Nunnely, officiated. Amongst the bridal
+train the two most noticeable personages were the youthful bridesmen,
+Henry Sympson and Martin Yorke.
+
+I suppose Robert Moore's prophecies were, partially at least, fulfilled.
+The other day I passed up the Hollow, which tradition says was once
+green, and lone, and wild; and there I saw the manufacturer's day-dreams
+embodied in substantial stone and brick and ashes--the cinder-black
+highway, the cottages, and the cottage gardens; there I saw a mighty
+mill, and a chimney ambitious as the tower of Babel. I told my old
+housekeeper when I came home where I had been.
+
+"Ay," said she, "this world has queer changes. I can remember the old
+mill being built--the very first it was in all the district; and then I
+can remember it being pulled down, and going with my lake-lasses
+[companions] to see the foundation-stone of the new one laid. The two
+Mr. Moores made a great stir about it. They were there, and a deal of
+fine folk besides, and both their ladies; very bonny and grand they
+looked. But Mrs. Louis was the grandest; she always wore such handsome
+dresses. Mrs. Robert was quieter like. Mrs. Louis smiled when she
+talked. She had a real, happy, glad, good-natured look; but she had een
+that pierced a body through. There is no such ladies nowadays."
+
+"What was the Hollow like then, Martha?"
+
+"Different to what it is now; but I can tell of it clean different
+again, when there was neither mill, nor cot, nor hall, except Fieldhead,
+within two miles of it. I can tell, one summer evening, fifty years
+syne, my mother coming running in just at the edge of dark, almost
+fleyed out of her wits, saying she had seen a fairish [fairy] in
+Fieldhead Hollow; and that was the last fairish that ever was seen on
+this countryside (though they've been heard within these forty years). A
+lonesome spot it was, and a bonny spot, full of oak trees and nut trees.
+It is altered now."
+
+The story is told. I think I now see the judicious reader putting on his
+spectacles to look for the moral. It would be an insult to his sagacity
+to offer directions. I only say, God speed him in the quest!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+ESTABLISHED 1798
+
+[Illustration]
+
+T. NELSON AND SONS
+
+PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+THE NELSON CLASSICS.
+
+_Uniform with this Volume and Same Price._
+
+
+=Jack Sheppard.= HARRISON AINSWORTH.
+
+
+=Masterman Ready.= CAPTAIN MARRYAT.
+
+
+=Michael Strogoff.= JULES VERNE.
+
+
+=The Wide Wide World.= ELIZ. WETHERELL.
+
+This famous American novel has for many years been a classic in every
+home. It is a masterpiece of the best type of domestic fiction.
+
+
+=Hereward the Wake.= CHARLES KINGSLEY.
+
+This brilliant romance tells of the last stand of the great English
+leader, Hereward, against the advance of the Normans. The scene is
+largely laid in the Fen country, and every page is a record of fierce
+strife. The fall of Hereward is one of the greatest death scenes in
+literature.
+
+
+=David Copperfield--I.= CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+=David Copperfield--II.= CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+"David Copperfield" is, by general consent, Dickens's masterpiece,
+showing, as it does, all his peculiar merits in their highest form. It
+is the most autobiographical of his novels, and the one into which he
+put most of his philosophy of life.
+
+
+=Jane Eyre.= CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
+
+"Jane Eyre" is Charlotte Brontë's first and most famous work. It was the
+first realistic novel, in the modern sense of the word, in English
+literature, and its influence has been beyond reckoning. It ranks as one
+of the great novels of the nineteenth century.
+
+
+=Verdant Green.= CUTHBERT BEDE.
+
+This is the humorous classic of Oxford life. Published more than half a
+century ago, its humour is as fresh to-day as ever.
+
+
+=Pickwick Papers--I.= CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+=Pickwick Papers--II.= CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+Every year sees a new edition of "Pickwick," and the world still asks
+for more. It is one of the world's greatest romances of the road, where
+adventures fall to those who seek them. It is also a faithful and loving
+picture of an older England, from which we have travelled far to-day. We
+may become a wiser people, but we shall never again be so humorous.
+
+
+=Windsor Castle.= HARRISON AINSWORTH.
+
+The romances of Harrison Ainsworth need no advertisement. In this, as in
+his "Tower of London" and "Old St. Paul's," he has taken one of
+England's great historical sites, and woven around it an appropriate
+romance.
+
+
+=Peg Woffington.= CHARLES READE.
+
+"Peg Woffington" was the first of Charles Reade's romances, and was
+founded upon his comedy, "Masks and Faces." The story of the famous
+Irish actress who dazzled London in the eighteenth century, and with
+whom Garrick was in love, has been made the foundation of a charming
+romance.
+
+
+=Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character.= Dean RAMSAY.
+
+The only book of jests that has ever attained an honourable place in
+literature. Its wealth of genuine humour is a perpetual refutation of
+the old slander that Scots joke "wi' deeficulty."
+
+
+=Parables from Nature.= Mrs. GATTY.
+
+This is one of the great children's books of the world. It was a classic
+in our grandmothers' time, and possesses that imperishable charm which
+makes it as attractive to-day as when it was first written.
+
+
+=Lavengro.= GEORGE BORROW.
+
+The greatest romance of the road in English literature, telling of all
+the byways and humours of that older England which is fast disappearing.
+
+
+=Little Women.= LOUISA M. ALCOTT.
+
+This delightful book has become a possession of childhood and youth. It
+has captured the affections of millions of young people in two
+continents, and is certainly the finest piece of work in the whole range
+of Miss Alcott's breezy, hopeful, genial, and tender writings.
+
+
+=Pride and Prejudice.= JANE AUSTEN.
+
+=Sense and Sensibility.= JANE AUSTEN.
+
+Sir Walter Scott was among the earliest to detect the merits of Miss
+Austen's work, and of recent years her humour and her keen insight into
+human nature have been abundantly recognized, so that to-day she is
+probably the most read novelist of her period. In Sir Walter Scott's
+phrase she possesses "the exquisite touch which renders ordinary
+commonplace things and characters interesting."
+
+
+=Toilers of the Sea.= VICTOR HUGO.
+
+=The Laughing Man.= VICTOR HUGO.
+
+=Les Misérables--I.= VICTOR HUGO.
+
+=Les Misérables--II.= VICTOR HUGO.
+
+
+='Ninety-Three.= VICTOR HUGO.
+
+Victor Hugo took the romantic novel as invented by Sir Walter Scott and
+gave it a new and philosophic interest. All his great romances have a
+purpose. "Les Misérables" exposes the tyranny of human laws; "The
+Toilers of the Sea" shows the conflict of man with nature; "The Laughing
+Man" expounds the tyranny of the aristocratic ideal as exemplified in
+England. But being a great artist as well as a great thinker, he never
+turned his romances into pamphlets. Drama is always his aim, and no
+novelist has attained more often the supreme dramatic moment.
+
+
+=The Heir of Redclyffe.= C. M. YONGE.
+
+This is a reprint of Miss Yonge's most famous tale. It has been said of
+her that she domesticated the historical romance, which owed its origin
+to Sir Walter Scott, and her characters were for long the ideal figures
+of most English households.
+
+
+=Wild Wales.= GEORGE BORROW.
+
+This book was the result of Borrow's wanderings after the publication of
+"Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye." He tramped on foot throughout the
+country, and the work is a classic of description, both of the scenery
+and people.
+
+
+=The Cloister and the Hearth.= CHARLES READE.
+
+There are many who think this the greatest of all historical novels, and
+it is certain that there are few better. It is not a story so much as a
+vast and varied transcript of life. It is also a delightful romance, and
+Gerard and Margaret are among the immortals of fiction.
+
+
+=Romola.= GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+This is the only novel of George Eliot's in which the scene is laid
+outside her own country. It is a story of Florence during the time of
+the Renaissance, a marvellous picture of the intellectual and moral
+ferment which the New Learning created. With amazing learning and
+insight the author portrays the souls of men and women, and her study of
+a weak man and a strong woman has rarely been surpassed in English
+literature for dramatic power and moral truth.
+
+
+=Silas Marner.= GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+This, the shortest and the most exquisite of George Eliot's tales,
+represents her great powers at their best. In the picture of the hero
+she shows a profound understanding of human nature, and the feelings
+which were then moving rural and industrial England.
+
+
+=The Abbot.= Sir WALTER SCOTT.
+
+One of the Waverley novels which has always been deservedly popular.
+
+
+=Bride of Lammermoor.= Sir WALTER SCOTT.
+
+The story is a tragedy on the lines of Greek drama, and the ending has
+been pronounced by great critics to be the most moving in prose
+literature. In the Master of Ravenswood, Scott has drawn perhaps his
+greatest tragic figure, and in Caleb Balderstone one of his most
+humorous creations.
+
+
+=The Black Tulip.= ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
+
+This was the last of Dumas' great stories. It is a veritable _tour de
+force_, for in it the reader follows with consuming interest the
+vicissitudes of a tulip, and the human element in the story is quite
+subsidiary. Nevertheless, it contains such strongly-drawn characters as
+Cornelius van Baerle, the guardian of the tulip, and Rosa, the jailer's
+daughter.
+
+
+=Tom Cringle's Log.= MICHAEL SCOTT.
+
+A brilliant story of West Indian life by an author who combined abundant
+personal experience with keen observation, sprightly temper, and
+delightful humour. "Tom Cringle's Log" has been many times reprinted,
+and has lost nothing of its popularity and power to please.
+
+
+=Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.=
+
+Tens of thousands of readers have been led to Shakespeare by the
+charmingly told stories which Charles and Mary Lamb, about a hundred
+years ago, extracted from the plays of the greatest dramatist of all
+time. Though produced by Lamb at the very outset of his literary career,
+these stories betray that unique and finished art, that delightful
+freshness and rare sympathy, which are the characteristics of his mature
+work.
+
+
+=The Scarlet Letter.= NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+This is one of the most powerful and affecting stories ever conceived.
+On its first appearance, in 1850, it immediately leaped high into public
+favour, and attained the distinction of an unmistakable classic. The
+tragedy of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale is wrought out in the
+midst of an austere Puritan community, which exacts the bitterest
+expiation for sin.
+
+
+
+
+THE NELSON CLASSICS.
+
+
+_Uniform with this Volume and Same Price_.
+
+CONDENSED LIST.
+
+     1. A Tale of Two Cities.
+     2. Tom Brown's Schooldays.
+     3. The Deerslayer.
+     4. Henry Esmond.
+     5. Hypatia.
+     6. The Mill on the Floss.
+     7. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+     8. The Last of the Mohicans.
+     9. Adam Bede.
+    10. The Old Curiosity Shop.
+    11. Oliver Twist.
+    12. Kenilworth.
+    13. Robinson Crusoe.
+    14. The Last Days of Pompeii.
+    15. Cloister and the Hearth.
+    16. Ivanhoe.
+    17. East Lynne.
+    18. Cranford.
+    19. John Halifax, Gentleman.
+    20. The Pathfinder.
+    21. Westward Ho!
+    22. The Three Musketeers.
+    23. The Channings.
+    24. The Pilgrim's Progress.
+    25. Pride and Prejudice.
+    26. Quentin Durward.
+    27. Villette.
+    28. Hard Times.
+    29. Child's History of England.
+    30. The Bible in Spain.
+    31. Gulliver's Travels.
+    32. Sense and Sensibility.
+    33. Kate Coventry.
+    34. Silas Marner.
+    35. Notre Dame.
+    36. Old St. Paul's.
+    37. Waverley.
+    38. 'Ninety-Three.
+    39. Eothen.
+    40. Toilers of the Sea.
+    41. Children of the New Forest.
+    42. The Laughing Man.
+    43. A Book of Golden Deeds.
+    44. Great Expectations.
+    45. Guy Mannering.
+    46. Modern Painters (Selections)
+    47. Les Misérables--I.
+    48. Les Misérables--II.
+    49. The Monastery.
+    50. Romola.
+    51. The Vicar of Wakefield.
+    52. Emma.
+    53. Lavengro.
+    54. Emerson's Essays.
+    55. The Bride of Lammermoor.
+    56. The Abbot.
+    57. Tom Cringle's Log.
+    58. Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.
+    59. The Scarlet Letter.
+    60. Old Mortality.
+    61. The Romany Rye.
+    62. Hans Andersen.
+    63. The Black Tulip.
+    64. Little Women.
+    65. The Talisman.
+    66. Scottish Life and Character.
+    67. The Woman in White.
+    68. Tales of Mystery.
+    69. Fair Maid of Perth.
+    70. Parables from Nature.
+    71. Peg Woffington.
+    72. Windsor Castle.
+    73. Edmund Burke.
+    74. Ingoldsby Legends.
+    75. Pickwick Papers.--I.
+    76. Pickwick Papers.--II.
+    77. Verdant Green.
+    78. The Heir of Redclyffe.
+    79. Wild Wales.
+    80. Two Years Before the Mast.
+    81. Jane Eyre.
+    82. David Copperfield.--I.
+    83. David Copperfield.--II.
+    84. Hereward the Wake.
+    85. Wide Wide World.
+    86. Michael Strogoff.
+
+THOMAS NELSON AND SONS.
+
+
+
+
+    Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Variations in hyphenated words have been retained as
+    they appear in the original publication.
+
+    Changes have been made as follows:
+
+    Page 30
+    with some inpatience _changed to_
+    with some impatience
+
+    Page 48
+    very bravely mantained _changed to_
+    very bravely maintained
+
+    Page 120
+    Sudgen, his staff; and Sudgen arrest him _changed to_
+    Sugden, his staff; and Sugden arrest him
+
+    Page 166
+    The old atticed _changed to_
+    The old latticed
+
+    Page 175
+    Let as have _changed to_
+    Let us have
+
+    Page 185
+    Mrs. Gill, my houskeeper _changed to_
+    Mrs. Gill, my housekeeper
+
+    Page 224
+    by a downward gave _changed to_
+    by a downward gaze
+
+    Page 242
+    gently invired him _changed to_
+    gently invited him
+
+    Page 245
+    a smiling Melancthon _changed to_
+    a smiling Melanchthon
+
+    Page 255
+    Sentinels of Nunwood _changed to_
+    Sentinels of Nunnwood
+
+    Page 260
+    only the profiters _changed to_
+    only the profiteers
+
+    Page 274
+    dark gray irids _changed to_
+    dark gray irides
+
+    Page 297
+    alight and alow _changed to_
+    alight and aglow
+
+    Page 380
+    my old accupation _changed to_
+    my old occupation
+
+    Page 492
+    not without approbrium _changed to_
+    not without opprobrium
+
+    Punctuation has been changed as follows:
+
+    Page 119
+    Mr Moore, we lived _changed to_
+    Mr. Moore, we lived
+
+    Page 145
+    stones on the road? _changed to_
+    stones on the road.
+
+    Page 393
+    "Shirley, my woman _changed to_
+    'Shirley, my woman
+
+    Page 540
+    _reward_ her!" _changed to_
+    _reward_ her!'"
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Shirley</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Charlotte Brontë</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 16, 2009 [eBook #30486]<br />
+[Most recently updated: January 28, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Brenda Lewis, Fox in the Stars and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHIRLEY ***</div>
+
+<h1><big>SHIRLEY</big><br />
+<br />
+<span class="by">BY</span><br />
+
+CHARLOTTE BRONTË<br />
+<br />
+<span class="pub">T. Nelson &amp; Sons</span></h1>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 405px;">
+<img src="images/front.jpg" width="405" height="600" alt="Title" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 387px;">
+<img src="images/i001.jpg" width="387" height="600" alt="Frontispiece" title="" />
+<span class="caption">Moore placed his hand on his cousin&#39;s shoulder, stooped,
+and left a kiss on her forehead.</span>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table summary="Table of Contents" class="toc">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">I.</td>
+<td class="tdl"> <span class="smcap">Levitical</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#I">3</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">II.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Wagons</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#II">16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Mr. Yorke</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#III">31</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Mr. Yorke (continued)</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#IV">40</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">V.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Hollow's Cottage</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#V">51</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Coriolanus</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#VI">66</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Curates at Tea</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#VII">85</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Noah and Moses</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#VIII">110</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Briarmains</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#IX">125</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">X.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Old Maids</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#X">147</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Fieldhead</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XI">164</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Shirley and Caroline</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XII">181</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Further Communications on Business</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XIII">201</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Shirley Seeks to be saved by Works</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XIV">226</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Mr. Donne's Exodus</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XV">239</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Whitsuntide</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XVI">253</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The School Feast</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XVII">264</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Which the Genteel Reader is recommended
+to skip, Low Persons being
+here introduced</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XVIII">279</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">A Summer Night</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XIX">290</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">To-morrow</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XX">306</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Pryor</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXI">319</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Two Lives</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXII">336</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">An Evening Out</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXIII">346</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Valley of the Shadow of Death</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXIV">365</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The West Wind blows</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXV">384</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Old Copy-books</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXVI">392</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The First Bluestocking</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXVII">410</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Ph&oelig;be</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXVIII">433</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Louis Moore</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXIX">453</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXX.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Rushedge&mdash;a Confessional</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXX">461</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Uncle and Niece</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXI">475</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Schoolboy and the Wood-nymph</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXII">491</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Martin's Tactics</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXIII">502</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Case of Domestic Persecution&mdash;Remarkable
+Instance of Pious Perseverance
+in the Discharge of Religious
+Duties</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXIV">513</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Wherein Matters make some Progress,
+but not much</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXV">521</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Written in the Schoolroom</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXVI">534</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XXXVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Winding-up</span></td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#XXXVII">555</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<h1>SHIRLEY.</h1>
+
+
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>3<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+<a name="I" id="I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br />
+<br />
+<small>LEVITICAL.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="cap"><span class="smcap">Of</span> 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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;ay, even an Anglo-Catholic&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>4<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Curates were scarce then: there was no Pastoral Aid&mdash;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
+night-gown 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>These gentlemen are in the bloom of youth; they possess
+all the activity of that interesting age&mdash;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
+<em>ennui</em>, more cursed with monotony, than the toil of the
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>5<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+weaver at his loom, seems to yield them an unfailing supply
+of enjoyment and occupation.</p>
+
+<p>I allude to a rushing backwards and forwards, amongst
+themselves, to and from their respective lodgings&mdash;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&mdash;the thing is never named amongst them; theology
+they may discuss occasionally, but piety&mdash;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&mdash;their respective
+landladies&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>6<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gale offered the loaf.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;these topics were now,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>7<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+as ever, totally without interest for them&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 varying 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.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sweeting was bantered about his stature&mdash;he was
+a little man, a mere boy in height and breadth compared
+with the athletic Malone; rallied on his musical accomplishments&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 (MaloneÂ’s name was Peter
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>8<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Malone----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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;as they thus sat, a foot was heard on the
+outer door-step, and the knocker quivered to a sharp appeal.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gale went and opened.</p>
+
+<p>"Whom have you upstairs in the parlour?" asked a
+voice&mdash;a rather remarkable voice, nasal in tone, abrupt in
+utterance.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>9<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+"I want to know first whether it is worth my while
+walking in. Whom have you upstairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"The curates, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What! all of them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Been dining here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"That will do."</p>
+
+<p>With these words a person entered&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey!" he ejaculated to himself; then turning to Mr.
+Gale&mdash;"Have you often this sort of work?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gale had been a churchwarden, and was indulgent
+to the clergy.</p>
+
+<p>"They're young, you know, sir&mdash;they're young," said he
+deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Young! They want caning. Bad boys&mdash;bad boys!
+And if you were a Dissenter, John Gale, instead of being
+a good Churchman, they'd do the like&mdash;they'd expose
+themselves; but I'll&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And they were silent; they were transfixed; and so
+was the invader. He&mdash;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&mdash;<em>he</em> folded his arms on his chest and surveyed
+his young friends, if friends they were, much at his
+leisure.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" he began, delivering his words in a voice no
+longer nasal, but deep&mdash;more than deep&mdash;a voice made
+purposely hollow and cavernous&mdash;"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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>10<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, Mr. Helstone," began Mr. Donne;
+"take a seat, pray, sir. Have a glass of wine?"</p>
+
+<p>His civilities received no answer. The falcon in the
+black coat proceeded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What do I talk about the gift of tongues? Gift,
+indeed! I mistook the chapter, and book, and Testament&mdash;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.
+<em>You</em>, apostles? What! you three? Certainly not; three
+presumptuous Babylonish masons&mdash;neither more nor less!"</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you, sir, we were only having a little chat
+together over a glass of wine after a friendly dinner&mdash;settling
+the Dissenters!"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;you three alone&mdash;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.&mdash;It is yours, Malone."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>11<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>you</em>, 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&mdash;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 <em>you</em>, when you are left to
+yourselves, without your rectors&mdash;myself, and Hall, and
+Boultby&mdash;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.&mdash;I have
+an errand unto thee, O captain!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" inquired Malone discontentedly. "There
+can be no funeral to take at this time of day."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any arms about you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Arms, sir?&mdash;yes, and legs." And he advanced the
+mighty members.</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! weapons I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. Will you go to Hollow's Mill?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is stirring at Hollow's Mill?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I am none of his well-wishers, sir. I don't care for
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Soh! Malone, you are afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"You know me better than that. If I really thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>12<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"But there <em>is</em> a chance of a row; if a positive riot does
+not take place&mdash;of which, indeed, I see no signs&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"They will bring them in safely and quietly enough, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;being,
+as he is, its detestation&mdash;bore a 'charmed life,' as they say
+in tale-books. He takes no warning from the fate of Pearson,
+nor from that of Armitage&mdash;shot, one in his own house and
+the other on the moor."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you hear, Davy?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know Mike Hartley, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Antinomian weaver? Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that has nothing to do with Moore."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides being an Antinomian, he is a violent Jacobin
+and leveller, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>13<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+have already heard it hinted that he seems to have a queer
+hankering after Moore. Is that what you allude to,
+Sweeting?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>hankering</em>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't tell, Davy. He may be crazed, or he may be
+only crafty, or perhaps a little of both."</p>
+
+<p>"He talks of seeing visions, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell it, sir. What was it?" urged Sweeting.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Saph! Who was Saph, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But the vision, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>14<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+perceived they were soldiers&mdash;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 he 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&mdash;nothing
+but the faint music playing a solemn march."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did they go, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 rolled, 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you credit it, sir?" asked Sweeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you, Davy?&mdash;But come, Malone; why are you
+not off?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am rather surprised, sir, you did not stay with Moore
+yourself. You like this kind of thing."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;unless
+(turning suddenly to Messrs. Sweeting and Donne)&mdash;unless
+Davy Sweeting or Joseph Donne prefers going.&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>15<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Peter. Little David shall be the champion, or spotless
+Joseph.&mdash;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&mdash;in the corner."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I never touch them. I never did touch anything of
+the kind," said Mr. Donne.</p>
+
+<p>"I am almost a stranger to Mr. Moore," murmured
+Sweeting.</p>
+
+<p>"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.&mdash;Get their hats, Peter. They'll
+both of 'em go."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; no, Mr. Helstone. My mother wouldn't like
+it," pleaded Sweeting.</p>
+
+<p>"And I make it a rule never to get mixed up in affairs
+of the kind," observed Donne.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>16<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE WAGONS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> evening was pitch dark: star and moon were quenched
+in gray rain-clouds&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;a
+muffled, streaming vault, all black, save where, towards
+the east, the furnaces of Stilbro' ironworks threw a tremulous
+lurid shimmer on the horizon&mdash;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&mdash;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 realized the
+dream; but the company assembled in that kitchen were
+Mr. Helstone's own parishioners; they all knew him. He
+sighed, and passed on.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>17<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He came to a little white house&mdash;you could see it was
+white even through this dense darkness&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore is at home, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, but he is not in."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in! Where is he then?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the mill&mdash;in the counting-house."</p>
+
+<p>Here one of the crimson doors opened.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;indeed a screw of
+curl-paper on each side the temples quite forbade that
+supposition&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>18<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+using for the purpose the thick end of his shillelah, with
+which he beat a rousing tattoo. A key turned; the door
+unclosed.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it Joe Scott? What news of the wagons, Joe?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; it's myself. Mr. Helstone would send me."</p>
+
+<p>"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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;I told him
+so&mdash;and on such a night; but walk forwards."</p>
+
+<p>Through a dark apartment, of aspect undistinguishable,
+Malone followed the speaker into a light and bright room
+within&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Comfortable quarters you have here, Mr. Moore; and
+all snug to yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but my sister would be glad to see you, if you
+would prefer stepping into the house."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sweeting! Which of them is that? The gentleman
+in the chocolate overcoat, or the little gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>"The little one&mdash;he of Nunnely; the cavalier of the
+Misses Sykes, with the whole six of whom he is in love,
+ha! ha!"</p>
+
+<p>"Better be generally in love with all than specially with
+one, I should think, in that quarter."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>19<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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&mdash;which do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>With a queer, quiet smile Mr. Moore replied, "Dora, of
+course, or Harriet."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha! you've an excellent guess. But what made
+you hit on those two?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right; Dora it is. But he has no chance, has
+he, Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>"What has Mr. Sweeting besides his curacy?"</p>
+
+<p>This question seemed to tickle Malone amazingly. He
+laughed for full three minutes before he answered it.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"How would he propose to keep Miss Sykes in gowns
+only?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Sykes carries on an extensive concern."</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore he must be wealthy, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what I heard, Moore, the other day?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Perhaps that I <em>was</em> about to effect some such
+change. Your Briarfield gossips are capable of saying
+that or sillier things."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;to be married, in short, ha! ha!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>20<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Now, which is it? Dora, I am sure. You said she was
+the handsomest."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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 nowhere; 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 love-making, etc."</p>
+
+<p>"I go along with you completely, Moore. If there is
+one notion I hate more than another, it is that of marriage&mdash;I
+mean marriage in the vulgar weak sense, as a mere
+matter of sentiment&mdash;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&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Hark!" said he. "Did you hear wheels?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I only wish the machines&mdash;the frames&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>21<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You came by the Redhouse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"There would be nothing on that road. It is in the
+direction of Stilbro' the risk lies."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think there is risk?"</p>
+
+<p>"What these fellows have done to others they may do
+to me. There is only this difference: most of the manufacturers
+seem paralyzed 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are rich and thriving, Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>ennui</em>&mdash;"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>22<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Malone," said he, "you must require refreshment
+after your wet walk. I forget hospitality."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my fancy," said he, "to have every convenience
+within myself, and not to be dependent on the feminity
+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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Try me. I've done it hundreds of times at college."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a dishful, then, and there's the gridiron. Turn
+them quickly. You know the secret of keeping the juices
+in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never fear me; you shall see. Hand a knife and fork,
+please."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;still
+from the same well-stored recess, his cupboard&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, Sarah?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. Will you come to supper, please, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He returned.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>23<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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&mdash;whew! how the fat
+spits! it has burnt my hand&mdash;destined to be ruled by
+women. Now you and I, Moore&mdash;there's a fine brown
+one for you, and full of gravy&mdash;you and I will have no gray
+mares in our stables when we marry."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; I never think about it. If the gray
+mare is handsome and tractable, why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"The chops are done. Is the punch brewed?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+face 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&mdash;not that it is frank or cheerful
+even then, but you feel the influence of a certain sedate
+charm, suggestive, whether truly or delusively, of a considerate,
+perhaps a kind nature, of feelings that may
+wear well at home&mdash;patient, forbearing, possibly faithful
+feelings. He is still young&mdash;not more than thirty; his
+stature is tall, his figure slender. His manner of speaking
+displeases. He has an outlandish accent, which, notwithstanding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>24<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+a studied carelessness of pronunciation and diction,
+grates on a British, and especially on a Yorkshire, ear.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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 G&eacute;rard Moore, to the exclusion of
+philanthropic consideration for general interests, with
+which he regarded the said G&eacute;rard Moore as in a great
+measure disconnected. Trade was Mr. Moore's hereditary
+calling: the G&eacute;rards 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 G&eacute;rard, with the
+prospect of his bride inheriting her father Constantine
+G&eacute;rard's share in the business. She inherited, as we have
+seen, but his share in the liabilities of the firm; 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 G&eacute;rard and Moore on a
+scale at least equal to its former greatness. It was even
+supposed that he took by-past 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, <em>his</em> probably was impressed in
+no golden characters.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>25<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+small things. When he came to Yorkshire, he&mdash;whose
+ancestors had owned warehouses in this seaport, and
+factories in that inland town, had possessed their town-house
+and their country-seat&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The period of which I write was an overshadowed one in
+British history, and especially in the history of the northern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>26<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+provinces. War was then at its height. Europe was all
+involved therein. England, if not weary, was worn with
+long resistance&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;who could not get work, and consequently
+could not get wages, and consequently could not get bread&mdash;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&mdash;ate the bread and drank the waters of
+affliction.</p>
+
+<p>Misery generates hate. These sufferers hated the machines
+which they believed took their bread from them; they hated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>27<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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; G&eacute;rard 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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, Joe Scott! Is all right?"</p>
+
+<p>Probably Joe Scott was yet at too great a distance to
+hear the inquiry. He did not answer it.</p>
+
+<p>"Is all right, I say?" again asked Moore, when the
+elephant-like leader's nose almost touched his.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>28<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>And there was a run. The wagons stood still; they
+were now deserted.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a billet. It bore no address without;
+within was the superscription:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To the Divil of Hollow's Miln."</p>
+
+<p>We will not copy the rest of the orthography, which was
+very peculiar, but translate it into legible English. It ran
+thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Having led the wagons within the gates, he hastened
+towards the cottage. Opening the door, he spoke a few<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>29<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;there is the
+key&mdash;and ring the mill-bell as loud as you can. Afterwards
+you will get another lantern and help me to light up the
+front."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Moore, what is your business with us? I thought
+you would want us to-night&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>30<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"To Stilbro' Moor! What to do? To meet the
+wagons?"</p>
+
+<p>"The wagons are come home an hour ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Then all's right. What more would you have?"</p>
+
+<p>"They came home empty; and Joe Scott and company
+are left on the moor, and so are the frames. Read that
+scrawl."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helstone received and perused the document of
+which the contents have before been given.</p>
+
+<p>"Hum! They've only served you as they serve others.
+But, however, the poor fellows in the ditch will be expecting
+help with some <a name="impatience" id="impatience"></a><ins title="was inpatience">impatience</ins>. 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."</p>
+
+<p>"He has been eating a mutton chop."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!&mdash;Peter Augustus, be on your guard. Eat no
+more mutton chops to-night. You are left here in command
+of these premises&mdash;an honourable post!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is anybody to stay with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"As many of the present assemblage as choose.&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>31<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MR. YORKE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Cheerfulness</span>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>32<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+eyes and hands with a Supplehough, or to inflate my lungs
+with a Barraclough, in horror and denunciation of the
+diabolical rector of Briarfield.</p>
+
+<p>He was not diabolical at all. The evil simply was&mdash;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 <em>was</em> cursed, and by many of his own parishioners,
+as by others he was adored&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;namely, a fellow-feeling for
+the dogged tone with which these opinions were asserted,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>33<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and a respect for the consistency of Moore's crabbed contumacy.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Does your Peninsular news please you still?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" was the surly demand of the
+rector.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, have you still faith in that Baal of a Lord
+Wellington?"</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you mean now?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe Wellington will flog Bonaparte's marshals
+into the sea the day it pleases him to lift his arm."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"God often defends the powerful."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>34<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+side? Were they more numerous? Were they better
+appointed? Were they more mighty, in a word&mdash;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'&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I scorn to answer you."</p>
+
+<p>Moore accordingly answered himself&mdash;at least, he subjoined
+to what he had just said an additional observation
+in a lower voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, in Italy he was as great as any Moses! He was
+the right thing there, fit to head and organize 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 civilization as France did, she would hardly have retreated
+so shamelessly."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say that besotted imperial France
+is any worse than bloody republican France?" demanded
+Helstone fiercely.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>35<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Nah, maister; did th' wagons hit home?" demanded
+a voice from the vehicle.</p>
+
+<p>"Can that be Joe Scott?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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
+telled '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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>36<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Well, I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Yorke."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;good-evening,
+Mr. Helstone&mdash;we'se do."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helstone returned the salutation of the individual
+in the gig very stiffly indeed. That individual proceeded,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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 could iv'ry one be a Wellington&mdash;that
+would please ye, Mr. Helstone&mdash;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' <em>Stilbro' Courier</em>
+ower this job, as it is, I dare say. I'se expect no less."</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll promise you no less, Mr. Yorke, for I'll write
+the article myself," returned the rector.</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Let them alone, will ye, Moore? Do you promise that?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>37<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;in every vestry-meeting and justice-meeting where
+we encountered one another."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>38<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"It is just what I should expect of you, Mr. Yorke."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it agree wi' ye now, Mr. Helstone, to be riding
+out after rioters, of a wet night, at your age?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He is doing garrison-duty at Hollow's Mill."</p>
+
+<p>"You left him a sup o' wine, I hope, Bob" (turning to
+Mr. Moore), "to keep his courage up?"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you so particular to that chair, Mr. Yorke?"
+asked Moore, lazily vacating the place in obedience to
+orders.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Moore, are you ready to go?" inquired the rector.</p>
+
+<p>"Nay; Robert's not ready, or rather, I'm not ready
+to part wi' him. He's an ill lad, and wants correcting."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sir? What have I done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Made thyself enemies on every hand."</p>
+
+<p>"What do I care for that? What difference does it
+make to me whether your Yorkshire louts hate me or like
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, there it is. The lad is a mak' of an alien amang
+us. His father would never have talked i' that way.&mdash;Go
+back to Antwerp, where you were born and bred, mauvaise
+t&ecirc;te!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mauvaise t&ecirc;te vous-m&ecirc;me; je ne fais que mon devoir;
+quant &agrave; vos lourdauds de paysans, je m'en moque!"</p>
+
+<p>"En ravanche, mon gar&ccedil;on, nos lourdauds de paysans
+se moqueront de toi; sois en certain," replied Yorke,
+speaking with nearly as pure a French accent as G&eacute;rard
+Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"C'est bon! c'est bon! Et puisque cela m'est &eacute;gal,
+que mes amis ne s'en inqui&egrave;tent pas."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>39<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Tes amis! O&ugrave; sont-ils, tes amis?"</p>
+
+<p>"Je fais &eacute;cho, o&ugrave; sont-ils? et je suis fort aise que l'&eacute;cho
+seul y r&eacute;pond. Au diable les amis! Je me souviens encore
+du moment o&ugrave; mon p&egrave;re et mes oncles G&eacute;rard appell&egrave;rent
+autour d'eux leurs amis, et Dieu sait si les amis se
+sont empress&eacute;s d'accourir &agrave; leur secours! Tenez, M.
+Yorke, ce mot, ami, m'irrite trop; ne m'en parlez plus."</p>
+
+<p>"Comme tu voudras."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>40<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MR. YORKE (<em>continued</em>).</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">A Yorkshire</span> gentleman he was, <em>par excellence</em>, 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&mdash;not a Norman
+line anywhere; it was an inelegant, unclassic, unaristocratic
+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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Yorke, in the first place, was without the organ of
+veneration&mdash;a great want, and which throws a man wrong
+on every point where veneration is required. Secondly,
+he was without the organ of comparison&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>The want of veneration made him intolerant to those
+above him&mdash;kings and nobles and priests, dynasties and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>41<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 realize
+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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>42<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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&mdash;a disease rather than a gift of the mind?</p>
+
+<p>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. An illusion, of course;
+but the fanatics cling to their dream, and would not give
+it for gold.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;whatever force struggled,
+whatever fire glowed, in his breast&mdash;if he could not have
+played the man in the counting-house, of the tradesman in
+the Piece Hall, might have lived despised, and died scorned,
+under the eyes of Hiram Yorke.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;and properly, too, because he first
+turns a dark, cold, careless side to them&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>43<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+pitied, and he is apt to laugh in his sleeve when any misguided
+sympathizer 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;who, like many
+who abhor being controlled, knew how to control with
+vigour&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>44<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+"was as much better than a cockney's lisp as a bull's bellow
+than a raton's squeak."</p>
+
+<p>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 analyze 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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 caf&eacute;s and theatres, voices like his. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>45<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+was young then, and when he looked at and listened to the
+alien, he seemed young again.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>As to the other guest now present in Mr. Yorke's parlour,
+Mr. Helstone, between him and his host there existed a
+double antipathy&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a girl with the face of a
+Madonna; a girl of living marble&mdash;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&mdash;no
+doubt he had a reason&mdash;he loved her.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helstone, at that time curate of Briarfield, loved
+Mary too&mdash;or, at any rate, he fancied her. Several others<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>46<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+admired her, for she was beautiful as a monumental angel;
+but the clergyman was preferred for his office's sake&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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. <em>His</em> 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&mdash;for he had scarcely noticed her
+decline&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>His dry-eyed and sober mourning scandalized 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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>47<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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&mdash;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 Cave 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.</p>
+
+<p>Of the nature and strength of this animosity Mr. Helstone
+was but half aware. He neither knew how much
+Yorke had loved Mary Cave, 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.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>48<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 grievances had been
+heaped on 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"&mdash;the originators of which deserved impeachment
+and the scaffold, if ever public men did&mdash;that hung a
+millstone about England's neck.</p>
+
+<p>"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 their pauper families were kept on the fat of
+the land?"</p>
+
+<p>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 <a name="maintained" id="maintained"></a><ins title="was mantained">maintained</ins> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>49<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+the king was a deadly sin, and that there was such a thing
+as 'judgment to come.'"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," said Mr. Helstone, collecting all his dignity&mdash;"sir,
+the great knowledge of man is to know himself, and the
+bourne whither his own steps tend."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 vainglorious fools withal, and was dashed to pieces
+with his fall."</p>
+
+<p>"Now," interposed Mr. Moore, who had hitherto sat a
+silent but amused spectator of this worldly 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 blackballed 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&mdash;worse than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>50<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+ever I suspected you to be.&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"I am going, however, Mr. Moore," said the rector
+sternly. "Come with me or not, as you please."</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, he shall not have the choice; he <em>shall</em> 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."</p>
+
+<p>He rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>"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.&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>51<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br />
+<br />
+<small>HOLLOW'S COTTAGE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Moore's</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're not custen dahn, then, maister?" cried Joe.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a stiver, mon gar&ccedil;on&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there mony o' your mak' i' your country?" inquired
+Joe, as he folded up his temporary bed, and put it away.</p>
+
+<p>"In my country! Which is my country?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, France&mdash;isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not it, indeed! The circumstance of the French
+having seized Antwerp, where I was born, does not make
+me a Frenchman."</p>
+
+<p>"Holland, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not a Dutchman. Now you are confounding
+Antwerp with Amsterdam."</p>
+
+<p>"Flanders?"</p>
+
+<p>"I scorn the insinuation, Joe! I a Flamand! Have I a
+Flemish face&mdash;the clumsy nose standing out, the mean forehead
+falling back, the pale blue eyes '&agrave; fleur de t&ecirc;te'? 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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>52<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Joe, you're an impudent dog; but I've always been
+accustomed to a boorish sort of insolence from my youth
+up. The 'classe ouvri&egrave;re'&mdash;that is, the working people in
+Belgium&mdash;bear themselves brutally towards their employers;
+and by <em>brutally</em>, Joe, I mean <em>brutalement</em>&mdash;which,
+perhaps, when properly translated, should be <em>roughly</em>."</p>
+
+<p>"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!'"</p>
+
+<p>"You <em>are</em> savages, Joe. You don't suppose you're
+civilized, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You think yourself a clever fellow, I know, Scott."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a great man&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>53<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 realized
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+snow-storms, through heavy rain, through hard frost.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore stood at the entrance to watch them pass.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>54<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore haunted his mill, his mill-yard, his dye-house,
+and his warehouse till the sickly dawn strengthened into
+day. The sun even rose&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>And now at last Mr. Moore quitted the mill-yard, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>55<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;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&mdash;a snug nest for content
+and contemplation, but one within which the wings
+of action and ambition could not long lie folded.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, bien! Tu ne d&eacute;je&ucirc;nes pas ce matin?"</p>
+
+<p>The answer, and the rest of the conversation, was in
+French; but as this is an English book, I shall translate
+it into English.</p>
+
+<p>"Is breakfast ready, Hortense?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; it has been ready half an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I am ready too. I have a canine hunger."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>56<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>She seemed a little older than Mr. Moore&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Mademoiselle had an excellent opinion of herself&mdash;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 G&eacute;rard 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>57<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Quelle id&eacute;e! to destroy them. Quelle action honteuse!
+On voyait bien que les ouvriers de ce pays &eacute;taient &agrave; la fois
+betes et m&eacute;chants. C'&eacute;tait absolument comme les domestiques
+anglais, les servantes surtout: rien d'insupportable
+comme cette Sara, par exemple!"</p>
+
+<p>"She looks clean and industrious," Mr. Moore remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;delightfully prepared by my own hands&mdash;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 fr&egrave;re!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid you are not very happy in England, Hortense."</p>
+
+<p>"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-&eacute;lev&eacute;). 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>58<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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
+G&eacute;rards, 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Hortense, in Antwerp we were known rich; in England
+we were never known but poor."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well! don't put on the sabots again. I told you
+before I thought they were not quite the thing for this
+country."</p>
+
+<p>"But, brother, they are not common sabots, such as
+the peasantry wear. I tell you, they are sabots noirs,
+tr&egrave;s propres, tr&egrave;s convenables. At Mons and Leuze&mdash;cities
+not very far removed from the elegant capital of
+Brussels&mdash;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 chauss&eacute;es in a pair of
+Paris brodequins, on m'en dirait des nouvelles!"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind Mons and Leuze and the Flemish chauss&eacute;es;
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"Caroline! <em>I</em> ask Caroline? <em>I</em> consult her about my
+dress? It is <em>she</em> who on all points should consult <em>me</em>.
+She is a child."</p>
+
+<p>"She is eighteen, or at least seventeen&mdash;old enough to
+know all about gowns, petticoats, and chaussures."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>59<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"With all my heart. Is she coming this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"She will come at ten, as usual, to take her French
+lesson."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't find that she sneers at you, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;all, in short, which belongs to a person
+well born and well bred."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you at all fond of her?"</p>
+
+<p>"For <em>fond</em> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"She behaves pretty well at lessons?"</p>
+
+<p>"To <em>me</em> 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 clearly that Caroline is
+not perfect, that there is much to be desired in her."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me a last cup of coffee, and while I am drinking
+it amuse me with an account of her faults."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;a reserve, I think&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand your account in the least. What
+do you mean by 'unsettled hurries,' for instance?"</p>
+
+<p>"An example will, perhaps, be the most satisfactory
+explanation. I sometimes, you are aware, make her read<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>60<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;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 &agrave; la mort.' I told her this was improper language.
+'Dieu!' she exclaimed, 'il n'y a donc pas deux lignes de
+po&euml;sie dans toute la litt&eacute;rature fran&ccedil;aise?' 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
+Ch&eacute;nier, '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 Ch&eacute;nier 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Be sure you do, Hortense. Here she comes. That was
+her shadow passed the window, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! truly. She is too early&mdash;half an hour before her
+time.&mdash;My child, what brings you here before I have breakfasted?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I came in haste to see how you were, Hortense, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>61<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! it is unspeakable. You sympathize with us?
+Your uncle sympathizes with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle is very angry&mdash;but he was with Robert, I
+believe, was he not?&mdash;Did he not go with you to Stilbro'
+Moor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we set out in very martial style, Caroline; but the
+prisoners we went to rescue met us half-way."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course nobody was hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no; only Joe Scott's wrists were a little galled
+with being pinioned too tightly behind his back."</p>
+
+<p>"You were not there? You were not with the wagons
+when they were attacked?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. One seldom has the fortune to be present at occurrences
+at which one would particularly wish to assist."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going this morning? I saw Murgatroyd
+saddling your horse in the yard."</p>
+
+<p>"To Whinbury. It is market day."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Yorke is going too. I met him in his gig. Come
+home with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two are better than one, and nobody dislikes Mr.
+Yorke&mdash;at least, poor people do not dislike him."</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore he would be a protection to me, who am
+hated?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who are <em>misunderstood</em>. That, probably, is the word.
+Shall you be late?&mdash;Will he be late, Cousin Hortense?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is too probable. He has often much business to
+transact at Whinbury. Have you brought your exercise-book,
+child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.&mdash;What time will you return, Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"I generally return at seven. Do you wish me to be
+at home earlier?"</p>
+
+<p>"Try rather to be back by six. It is not absolutely dark
+at six now, but by seven daylight is quite gone."</p>
+
+<p>"And what danger is to be apprehended, Caroline, when
+daylight <em>is</em> gone? What peril do you conceive comes as
+the companion of darkness for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>62<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"And I am 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&mdash;not,
+indeed, from behind a hedge, but in his own house,
+through his staircase window, as he was going to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;or
+before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly he will," affirmed Hortense. "And now, my
+child, prepare your lessons for repetition, while I put the
+peas to soak for the pur&eacute;e at dinner."</p>
+
+<p>With this direction she left the room.</p>
+
+<p>"You suspect I have many enemies, then, Caroline,"
+said Mr. Moore, "and doubtless you know me to be destitute
+of friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not destitute, Robert. There is your sister, your
+brother Louis, whom I have never seen; there is Mr. Yorke,
+and there is my uncle&mdash;besides, of course, many more."</p>
+
+<p>Robert smiled. "You would be 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash;" She
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Till what? Till he dies?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. How harsh to say that! I never think of his
+dying. He is only fifty-five. But till&mdash;in short, till events
+offer other occupations for me."</p>
+
+<p>"A remarkably vague prospect! Are you content
+with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I used to be, formerly. Children, you know, have
+little reflection, or rather their reflections run on ideal themes.
+There are moments <em>now</em> when I am not quite satisfied."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>63<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am making no money&mdash;earning nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"You come to the point, Lina. You too, then, wish to
+make money?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on. Let us hear what way."</p>
+
+<p>"I could be apprenticed to your trade&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Help <em>me</em>? You should think of yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I do think of myself; but must one for ever think only
+of oneself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of whom else do I think? Of whom else <em>dare</em> I think?
+The poor ought to have no large sympathies; it is their
+duty to be narrow."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Robert&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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 smell
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"No cottage would be happy then."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash;" Second hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"I am all ear, Caroline."</p>
+
+<p>"In (courage! let me speak the truth)&mdash;in your manner&mdash;mind,
+I say only <em>manner</em>&mdash;to these Yorkshire workpeople."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>64<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"You have often wanted to tell me that, have you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; often&mdash;very often."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"As if your living cloth-dressers were all machines like
+your frames and shears. In your own house you seem
+different."</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>forte</em>. 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."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't expect them to love you, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor wish it."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I am not an affectionate man, Caroline.
+The attachment of a very few suffices me."</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, Robert, will you mend me a pen or two
+before you go?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Such as you generally make for me and Hortense;
+not your own broad points."</p>
+
+<p>"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 Skyes's wool-warehouse."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be making money."</p>
+
+<p>"More likely losing it."</p>
+
+<p>As he finished mending the pens, a horse, saddled and
+bridled, was brought up to the garden-gate.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He quitted the room, and went out into the garden
+ground behind the mill. A sweet fringe of young verdure
+and opening flowers&mdash;snowdrop, crocus, even primrose&mdash;bloomed
+in the sunshine under the hot wall of the factory.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>65<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, good-morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Robert. It is pretty; it looks, as it lies
+there, like sparkles of sunshine and blue sky. Good-morning."</p>
+
+<p>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 his saddle again, transferred the reins
+to Murgatroyd, and re-entered the cottage.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never have. Some children's socks, which Mrs.
+Ramsden has ordered, to knit for the Jew's basket; but
+they will keep."</p>
+
+<p>"Jew's basket be&mdash;sold! Never was utensil better
+named. Anything more Jewish than it&mdash;its contents and
+their prices&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled. "No."</p>
+
+<p>"The old Cossack! I dare say not," muttered Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded her head, and her eyes lit up.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Hortense, coming in ten minutes after, found, to her
+surprise, that Caroline had not yet commenced her exercise.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>66<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>CORIOLANUS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Mademoiselle Moore</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>67<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+mixture of blood, she was, in a distant sense, the cousin of
+Robert, Louis, and Hortense. Her father was the brother
+of Mr. Helstone&mdash;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 needle-work.
+Mdlle. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>68<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 determinative," 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&mdash;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 Mdlle. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally&mdash;but this happened very rarely&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>69<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;almost animated, quite gentle and friendly.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>70<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+it's not fit for dogs." Notwithstanding Sarah's scorn, it
+was a savoury repast enough. The soup was a sort of
+pur&eacute;e 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&mdash;nature unknown, but supposed to be miscellaneous&mdash;singularly
+chopped up with crumbs of bread,
+seasoned uniquely though not unpleasantly, and baked in
+a mould&mdash;a queer but by no means unpalatable dish.
+Greens, oddly bruised, formed the accompanying vegetable;
+and a p&acirc;t&eacute; of fruit, conserved after a recipe devised by
+Madame G&eacute;rard Moore's "grand'm&egrave;re," and from the
+taste of which it appeared probable that "m&eacute;lasse" had
+been substituted for sugar, completed the dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline had no objection to this Belgian cookery&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after dinner Caroline coaxed her governess-cousin
+upstairs to dress. This man&oelig;uvre 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>71<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+first was a positive matter of morality&mdash;it was quite improper
+not to wear a fichu; the second was the ensign of a good
+housewife&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a wearifu' process, but considered
+by Hortense G&eacute;rard, and by her ancestresses before her for
+long generations back, as one of the first "duties of a
+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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>72<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 every day, 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&mdash;the result could only be a fresh
+pair of hose, probably in worse condition. She adhered,
+therefore, to the ills she knew.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I am tired. May I leave my work now, cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 go&ucirc;ter, or
+tea, as you call it."</p>
+
+<p>"But it has not yet struck six. He may still come."</p>
+
+<p>"He will not, I tell you. I can calculate his movements.
+I understand my brother."</p>
+
+<p>Suspense is irksome, disappointment bitter. All the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>73<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"How low you seem, miss! But it's all because your
+cousin keeps you so close to work. It's a shame!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing of the kind, Sarah," was the brief reply.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Sarah, does your master often come home early from
+market when it is wet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, hardly; but just to-day, for some reason, he
+has made a difference."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"What should I be mistaken for? I know his horse
+surely?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you did not see himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Sarah, are you making a gown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Is it a handsome one?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You're very kind, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss, you are cutting the stuff wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"So I am; but it is only a snip. There is no harm done."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>74<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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 time 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.</p>
+
+<p>"We had ceased to expect you. They asserted you
+would not come," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"But I promised to return soon. <em>You</em> expected me, I
+suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Robert; I dared not when it rained so fast. And
+you are wet and chilled. Change everything. If you
+took cold, I should&mdash;we should blame ourselves in some
+measure."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not wet through: my riding-coat is waterproof.
+Dry shoes are all I require. There&mdash;the fire is pleasant
+after facing the cold wind and rain for a few miles."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I do&mdash;to-night, at least."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you certain you are not fretting about your frames,
+and your business, and the war?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not just now."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you positive you don't feel Hollow's Cottage too
+small for you, and narrow, and dismal?"</p>
+
+<p>"At this moment, no."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you affirm that you are not bitter at heart because
+rich and great people forget you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No more questions. You are mistaken if you think I
+am anxious to curry favour with rich and great people. I
+only want means&mdash;a position&mdash;a career."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>75<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Which your own talent and goodness shall win you.
+You were made to be great; you <em>shall</em> be great."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;better than you know it yourself.
+Would it be efficacious? Would it work? Yes&mdash;poverty,
+misery, bankruptcy. Oh, life is not what you
+think it, Lina!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you are what I think you."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not."</p>
+
+<p>"You are better, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Far worse."</p>
+
+<p>"No; far better. I know you are good."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You look so, and I feel you <em>are</em> so."</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you feel it?"</p>
+
+<p>"In my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! You judge me with your heart, Lina: you
+should judge me with your head."</p>
+
+<p>"I do; and then I am quite proud of you. Robert, you
+cannot tell all my thoughts about you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore's dark face mustered colour; his lips smiled,
+and yet were compressed; his eyes laughed, and yet he
+resolutely knit his brow.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"If you did, I should not esteem you so much. It is
+because you are modest that I have such confidence in
+your merit."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you flattering me?" he demanded, turning sharply
+upon her, and searching her face with an eye of acute
+penetration.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said softly, laughing at his sudden quickness.
+She seemed to think it unnecessary to proffer any eager
+disavowal of the charge.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't care whether I think you flatter me or
+not?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You are so secure of your own intentions?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"What are they, Caroline?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only to ease my mind by expressing for once part of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>76<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+what I think, and then to make you better satisfied with
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"By assuring me that my kinswoman is my sincere
+friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. I am your sincere friend, Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am&mdash;what chance and change shall make me,
+Lina."</p>
+
+<p>"Not my enemy, however?"</p>
+
+<p>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 "caf&eacute; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline scarcely heard mademoiselle's explosion of
+wrath when she rejoined them; the long declamation
+about the "conduite indigne de cette m&eacute;chante cr&eacute;ature"
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Mademoiselle admitted the truth of this conjecture:
+according to her, "ces paysannes anglaises &eacute;taient tout
+insupportables." What would she not give for some
+"bonne cuisini&egrave;re anversoise," with the high cap, short
+petticoat, and decent sabots proper to her class&mdash;something
+better, indeed, than an insolent coquette in a flounced
+gown, and absolutely without cap! (For Sarah, it appears,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>77<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.)</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I try and get you an Antwerp girl?" asked Mr.
+Moore, who, stern in public, was on the whole very kind
+in private.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;excuse my
+petulance&mdash;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 unruly set."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing refines like affection. Family jarring vulgarizes;
+family union elevates. Hortense, pleased with her
+brother, and grateful to him, looked, as she touched her
+guitar, almost graceful, almost handsome; her everyday
+fretful look was gone for a moment, and was replaced by
+a "sourire plein de bont&eacute;." 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 na&iuml;ve 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.</p>
+
+<p>It is true a little lecture to Caroline followed, on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>78<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+vanity of <em>wishing</em> and the duty of <em>trying</em>. "As Rome,"
+it was suggested, "had not been built in a day, so neither
+had Mademoiselle G&eacute;rard Moore's education been completed
+in a week, or by merely <em>wishing</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall we do now, Caroline?" asked Mr. Moore,
+returning to his seat beside his cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall we do, Robert?" repeated she playfully.
+"You decide."</p>
+
+<p>"Not play at chess?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor draughts, nor backgammon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; we both hate silent games that only keep
+one's hands employed, don't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe we do. Then shall we talk scandal?"</p>
+
+<p>"About whom? Are we sufficiently interested in anybody
+to take a pleasure in pulling their character to
+pieces?"</p>
+
+<p>"A question that comes to the point. For my part,
+unamiable as it sounds, I must say no."</p>
+
+<p>"And I too. But it is strange, though we want no
+third&mdash;fourth, I mean (she hastily and with contrition
+glanced at Hortense), living person among us&mdash;so selfish
+we are in our happiness&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Who shall be the speaker? What language shall he
+utter? French?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your French forefathers don't speak so sweetly, nor so
+solemnly, nor so impressively as your English ancestors,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>79<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Robert. To-night you shall be entirely English. You
+shall read an English book."</p>
+
+<p>"An old English book?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, an old English book&mdash;one that you like; and I
+will 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."</p>
+
+<p>"I must read Shakespeare?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"With a view to making me better? Is it to operate
+like a sermon?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is to stir you, to give you new sensations. It is to
+make you feel your life strongly&mdash;not only your virtues,
+but your vicious, perverse points."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline, who, mounted on a chair, had been rummaging
+the bookcase, returned with a book.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, then, sit near me, and correct when I mispronounce."</p>
+
+<p>"I am to be the teacher then, and you my pupil?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ainsi, soit-il!"</p>
+
+<p>"And Shakespeare is our science, since we are going to
+study?"</p>
+
+<p>"It appears so."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>80<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"If you do, Robert, I'll take Shakespeare away; and
+I'll shrivel up within myself, and put on my bonnet and go
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down. Here I begin."</p>
+
+<p>"One minute, if you please, brother," interrupted mademoiselle.
+"When the gentleman of a family reads, the
+ladies should always sew.&mdash;Caroline, dear child, take your
+embroidery. You may get three sprigs done to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline looked dismayed. "I can't see by lamp-light;
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"Fi, donc! Quel enfantillage!" began Hortense. Mr.
+Moore, as usual, suavely interposed.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;she
+must look at the book."</p>
+
+<p>He placed it between them, reposed his arm on the back
+of Caroline's chair, and thus began to read.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a vicious point hit already," she said. "You
+sympathize with that proud patrician who does not sympathize
+with his famished fellow-men, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>81<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+sympathized; he was not scandalized by it; and again
+Caroline whispered, "There I see another glimpse of
+brotherhood in error."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;all scenes made of condensed truth and
+strength&mdash;came on in succession and carried with them in
+their deep, fast flow the heart and mind of reader and
+listener.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, have you felt Shakespeare?" asked Caroline,
+some ten minutes after her cousin had closed the book.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"And have you felt anything in Coriolanus like you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I have."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he not faulty as well as great?"</p>
+
+<p>Moore nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And what was his fault? What made him hated by
+the citizens? What caused him to be banished by his
+countrymen?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think it was?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ask again&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i8">'Whether was it pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which out of daily fortune ever taints<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The happy man? whether defect of judgment,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>82<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To fail in the disposing of those chances<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which he was lord of? or whether nature,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not to be other than one thing, not moving<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even with the same austerity and garb<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As he controlled the war?'"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"Well, answer yourself, Sphinx."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the moral you tack to the play. What puts
+such notions into your head?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Who tells you these things?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And would you have me truckle to them?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a little democrat, Caroline. If your uncle
+knew, what would he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you fancy you comprehend the subjects on
+which you advise me?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>are</em> sometimes,
+can I venture to be affectionate in return?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Lina, I've had my lesson both in languages and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>83<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 Andr&eacute;
+Ch&eacute;nier&mdash;'La Jeune Captive.' Do you remember it still?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Repeat it, then. Take your time and mind your
+accent; especially let us have no English <em>u</em>'s."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline, beginning in a low, rather tremulous voice, but
+gaining courage as she proceeded, repeated the sweet verses
+of Ch&eacute;nier. The last three stanzas she rehearsed well.</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Mon beau voyage encore est si loin de sa fin!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Je pars, et des ormeaux qui bordent le chemin<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">J'ai pass&eacute; le premiers &agrave; peine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Au banquet de la vie &agrave; peine commenc&eacute;,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Un instant seulement mes l&egrave;vres ont press&eacute;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">La coupe en mes mains encore pleine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Je ne suis qu'au printemps&mdash;je veux voir la moisson;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Et comme le soleil, de saison en saison,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Je veux achever mon ann&eacute;e,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brillante sur ma tige, et l'honneur du jardin<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Je n'ai vu luire encore que les feux du matin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Je veux achever ma journ&eacute;e!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>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&mdash;animated,
+interested, touched&mdash;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&mdash;friendship,
+perhaps, affection, interest. When she had finished, she
+turned to Moore, and met his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that pretty well repeated?" she inquired, smiling
+like any happy, docile child.</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you know? Have you not listened?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;and looked. You are fond of poetry, Lina?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>84<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"When I meet with <em>real</em> poetry, I cannot rest till I have
+learned it by heart, and so made it partly mine."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the evening is gone already," she observed, "and
+it will be long, I suppose, before I pass another here."</p>
+
+<p>Hortense had been for some time nodding over her
+knitting; fallen into a doze now, she made no response
+to the remark.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"I like to come here; but I have no desire to be intrusive.
+I am not hinting to be asked; you must understand
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I understand thee, child. You sometimes lecture
+me for wishing to be rich, Lina; but if I <em>were</em> rich,
+you should live here always&mdash;at any rate, you should live
+with me wherever my habitation might be."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be pleasant; and if you were poor&mdash;ever
+so poor&mdash;it would still be pleasant. Good-night, Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"I promised to walk with you up to the rectory."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Here is your muff; don't wake Hortense&mdash;come."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;not in phrase, compliment, profession, but in manner,
+in look, and in soft and friendly tones.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This won't do! There's weakness&mdash;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."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>85<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE CURATES AT TEA.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Caroline Helstone</span> 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, overspread 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&mdash;the world of gods.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>86<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+of poison, none of the barb which no leech's hand can
+extract. That perilous passion&mdash;an agony ever in some
+of its phases; with many, an agony throughout&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>Caroline, having been convoyed 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! You've been gadding abroad all day&mdash;visiting,
+dining out, and what not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Only at the cottage."</p>
+
+<p>"And have you learned your lessons?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And made a shirt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only part of one."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 check 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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>87<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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&mdash;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&mdash;no false dawn, but the true spring of
+morning&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>felt</em> it. When I looked up at him after repeating
+Ch&eacute;nier'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&mdash;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,&mdash;it is far better&mdash;original, quiet,
+manly, sincere. I <em>do</em> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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 soberizing 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>88<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;a
+girl&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helstone opined that "they were like other fools
+who had just paired&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle," said she, "whenever you speak of marriage
+you speak of it scornfully. Do you think people shouldn't
+marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is decidedly the wisest plan to remain single, especially
+for women."</p>
+
+<p>"Are all marriages unhappy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Millions of marriages are unhappy. If everybody
+confessed the truth, perhaps all are more or less so."</p>
+
+<p>"You are always vexed when you are asked to come
+and marry a couple. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because one does not like to act as accessory to the
+commission of a piece of pure folly."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"But why," said she, "should it be pure folly? If
+two people like each other, why shouldn't they consent to
+live together?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>89<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"They tire of each other&mdash;they tire of each other in a
+month. A yokefellow is not a companion; he or she is
+a fellow-sufferer."</p>
+
+<p>It was by no means na&iuml;ve simplicity which inspired
+Caroline's next remark; it was a sense of antipathy to
+such opinions, and of displeasure at him who held them.</p>
+
+<p>"One would think you had never been married, uncle.
+One would think you were an old bachelor."</p>
+
+<p>"Practically, I am so."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have been married. Why were you so inconsistent
+as to marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every man is mad once or twice in his life."</p>
+
+<p>"So you tired of my aunt, and my aunt of you, and you
+were miserable together?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helstone pushed out his cynical lip, wrinkled his
+brown forehead, and gave an inarticulate grunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Did she not suit you? Was she not good-tempered?
+Did you not get used to her? Were you not sorry when
+she died?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>She was reviewing his character, his disposition, repeating
+his sentiments on marriage. Many a time had she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>90<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;a strange shape, dim,
+sinister, scarcely earthly&mdash;the half-remembered image of her
+own father, James Helstone, Matthewson Helstone's brother.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a dark recollection it was&mdash;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&mdash;still more
+painful&mdash;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 raving 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <em>their</em> 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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helstone, thus addressed, wheeled about in his chair,
+and looked over his spectacles at his niece. He was taken
+aback.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>91<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+any recollections or speculations about her parents, he
+could not fancy.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father and mother? Who has been talking to
+you about them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody; but I remember something of what papa
+was, and I pity mamma. Where is she?"</p>
+
+<p>This "Where is she?" had been on Caroline's lips hundreds
+of times before, but till now she had never uttered it.</p>
+
+<p>"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 school-time. You go to your
+cousin at ten, don't you? The clock has struck."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;thin and serious, but graceful!
+I do like his face, I do like his aspect, I do like him
+so much&mdash;better than any of those shuffling curates, for
+instance&mdash;better than anybody; bonny Robert!"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>92<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 martyrized; do not doubt that
+your mental stomach&mdash;if you have such a thing&mdash;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&mdash;some,
+it is said, die under it&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Half-bitter! Is that wrong? No; it should be bitter:
+bitterness is strength&mdash;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&mdash;deadly when confronted with injustice.</p>
+
+<p>Who has read the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee"&mdash;that old
+Scotch ballad, written I know not in what generation nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>93<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+by what hand? Mary had been ill-used&mdash;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 ingle-nook of home
+to the white-shrouded and icy hills. Crouched under the
+"cauld drift," she recalls every image of horror&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Oh, ance I lived happily by yon bonny burn&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The warld was in love wi' me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But now I maun sit 'neath the cauld drift and mourn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And curse black Robin-a-Ree!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Then whudder awa, thou bitter biting blast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And sough through the scrunty tree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And smoor me up in the snaw fu' fast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And n'er let the sun me see!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Oh, never melt awa, thou wreath o' snaw,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That's sae kind in graving me;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But hide me frae the scorn and guffaw<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O' villains like Robin-a-Ree!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>But what has been said in the last page or two is 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&mdash;a natural,
+sometimes an inevitable chance, but big with misery.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>94<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+turn upon herself? If she is weak, she will try the first
+expedient&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>She tried to read&mdash;her thoughts wandered; she tried to sew&mdash;every
+stitch she put in was an <em>ennui</em>, the occupation was
+insufferably tedious; she opened her desk and attempted to
+write a French composition&mdash;she wrote nothing but mistakes.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a gentleman&mdash;a tall man&mdash;just the height of
+Robert. For one second she thought it was Robert&mdash;for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>95<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;Malone's.
+He was ushered into the dining-room, where, doubtless,
+he speedily helped his rector to empty the decanters.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fact to be noted, that at whatever house in
+Briarfield, Whinbury, or Nunnely one curate dropped in
+to a meal&mdash;dinner or tea, as, the case might be&mdash;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&mdash;young
+men&mdash;educated men, like Moore; yet, for her, how great
+the difference! Their society was a bore&mdash;his a delight.</p>
+
+<p>Not only was she destined to be favoured with their
+clerical company, but Fortune was at this moment bringing
+her four other guests&mdash;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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Sykes and the three Misses Sykes."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>96<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;I
+do not boast of it, but I <em>know</em> 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&mdash;be the same in dress, manner, opinion,
+principle, or practice&mdash;therein they are wrong."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. and Misses Sykes, far from being exceptions to this
+observation, were pointed illustrations of its truth. Miss
+Mary&mdash;a well-looked, well-meant, and, on the whole, well-dispositioned
+girl&mdash;wore her complacency with some state,
+though without harshness. Miss Harriet&mdash;a beauty&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 arm-chair, into which she at length recollected she
+ought to induct Mrs. Sykes&mdash;and indeed that lady saved
+her the trouble by depositing herself therein&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>97<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>Pause second.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;for last Thursday evening she had been sitting at
+home, reading a novel which Robert had lent her&mdash;elicited
+a simultaneous expression of surprise from the lips of the
+four ladies.</p>
+
+<p>"We were all there," said Miss Mary&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And there was Dr. Broadbent," cried Hannah&mdash;"such
+a beautiful speaker! You couldn't expect it of him, for
+he is almost a vulgar-looking man."</p>
+
+<p>"But such a dear man," interrupted Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"And such a good man, such a useful man," added her
+mother.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The sole means she found of reviving the flagging discourse
+was by asking them if they would all stay to tea;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>98<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and a cruel struggle it cost her to perform this piece of
+civility. Mrs. Sykes had begun, "We are much obliged
+to you, but&mdash;&mdash;" when in came Fanny once more.</p>
+
+<p>"The gentlemen will stay the evening, ma'am," was
+the message she brought from Mr. Helstone.</p>
+
+<p>"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 will stay," remarked Mrs. Sykes.
+"We shall be quite a pleasant little party. I always like
+to meet the clergy."</p>
+
+<p>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 but a slack contributor; and if
+she had possessed plenty of money, she would rather, when
+it was brought to the rectory&mdash;an awful incubus!&mdash;have
+purchased the whole stock than contributed a single pin-cushion.</p>
+
+<p>It ought perhaps to be explained in passing, for the
+benefit of those who are not <em>au fait</em> to the mysteries of the
+"Jew-basket" and "missionary-basket," that these <em>meubles</em>
+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 pin-cushions,
+needle-books, card-racks, 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 up 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 off its contents on a shrinking male public.
+An exciting time it is when that turn comes round. Some
+active-minded woman, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>99<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+per cent. above 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there any tea-cakes?" asked the young mistress.</p>
+
+<p>"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).</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And which tea-things are we to have?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"And mun we have th' urn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and now get it ready as quickly as you can, for
+the sooner we have tea over the sooner they will go&mdash;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&mdash;far from it&mdash;but they are different
+from me."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>100<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>She went in.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>101<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1stly. "Have you had a walk to-day, Miss Helstone?"</p>
+
+<p>2ndly. "Have you seen your cousin Moore lately?"</p>
+
+<p>3rdly. "Does your class at the Sunday school keep up its
+number?"</p>
+
+<p>These three questions being put and responded to, between
+Caroline and Malone reigned silence.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;abuse
+of the people of Briarfield; of the natives of Yorkshire
+generally; complaints of the want of high society;
+of the backward state of civilization 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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>102<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Tea was a long time in progress; all the guests gabbled
+as their hostess had expected they would. Mr. Helstone,
+being in excellent spirits&mdash;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&mdash;kept up a brilliant flow of easy prattle
+with his right-hand and left-hand neighbours, and even
+with his <em>vis-&agrave;-vis</em>, 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&mdash;inferior, toys to play with, to amuse
+a vacant hour, and to be thrown away.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Hannah, on the contrary, demanded no respect, only
+flattery. If her admirers only <em>told</em> her that she was an
+angel, she would let them <em>treat</em> 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
+<em>ennuis</em> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>103<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &pound;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&mdash;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)&mdash;her
+parents, I say, would have delivered Hannah over to
+his lovingkindness 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;long,
+indeed, after signs of impatience had been manifested all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>104<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"For whom are we waiting?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>r&ocirc;le</em>
+which, he thought, had given him such a felicitous distinction,
+drawing upon him such flattering general notice.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a song. <em>Con amore</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p>The triumph began. Malone, much chagrined at hearing
+him pipe up in most superior style, determined to earn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>105<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Very sullenly did his countenance lower when he saw
+himself abandoned&mdash;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. G&eacute;rard 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;closing her
+eyes and depressing her head&mdash;caused by what seemed to
+her the unmeaning hum around her,&mdash;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 close at her ear, gossip which rang the changes
+on four subjects&mdash;her own health and that of the various<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>106<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 clear 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&mdash;rested at least her limbs, her senses, her hearing,
+her vision&mdash;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&mdash;not,
+however, coming to see his cousin, but intent
+solely on communicating a brief piece of intelligence to
+the rector.</p>
+
+<p>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 <em>the</em>
+voice&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>107<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I only left the drawing-room a minute for a little
+quiet."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I tell my uncle you are here?" asked she, still
+in the same subdued voice.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I can say to you all I had to say to him. You
+will be my messenger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Robert."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>108<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"And why no, Caroline?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it will set all the neighbourhood against you
+more than ever."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>Moore laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"A most pithy vaunt," said he&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<p>"How can I help it? You are my cousin. If anything
+happened&mdash;&mdash;" She stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing will happen, Lina. To speak in your own
+language, there is a Providence above all&mdash;is there not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dear Robert. May He guard you!"</p>
+
+<p>"And if prayers have efficacy, yours will benefit me.
+You pray for me sometimes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not <em>sometimes</em>, Robert. You, and Louis, and Hortense
+are <em>always</em> remembered."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Annihilate that doubt. It is groundless."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>109<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 <em>bourgeois</em> scutcheon the foul stain of bankruptcy."</p>
+
+<p>The hint, though conveyed thus tenderly and modestly
+(as Caroline thought), was felt keenly and comprehended
+clearly.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I only think&mdash;or I <em>will only</em> think&mdash;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&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"What made you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your look&mdash;your manner."</p>
+
+<p>"But look at me now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you are different now. At present I dare speak
+to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet I am the same, except that I have left the tradesman
+behind me in the Hollow. Your kinsman alone stands
+before you."</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin Robert&mdash;not Mr. Moore."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of Mr. Moore. Caroline&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go, Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;put down the
+candle an instant&mdash;good-night. I kiss you because we
+are cousins, and, being cousins, one&mdash;two&mdash;three kisses are
+allowable. Caroline, good-night."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>110<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>NOAH AND MOSES.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> next day Moore had risen before the sun, and had
+taken a ride to Whinbury and back ere his sister had made
+the caf&eacute; 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&mdash;complicated and often dismal
+mysteries&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;for it was a fine
+and mild morning for the season&mdash;and wishing to be out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>111<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"You have what is necessary, I suppose?" said Mr.
+Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, ay! all's right."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the same he had produced for Malone's
+benefit&mdash;a tumbler, and a jug, placed them on the table,
+and said to his guest,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Help yourself; there's water in that jar in the corner."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>112<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Ay!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen Mr. Sykes this morning?" inquired
+Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"I seed him a hauf an hour&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Helstone came in marching nimbly and erect, looking
+browner, keener, and livelier than usual.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sugden has."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are going to seek him now? I'll accompany
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be spared that trouble, sir; he is coming to
+seek me. I'm just now sitting in state waiting his arrival."</p>
+
+<p>"And who is it? One of my parishioners?"</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It's a friend of yours, Mr. Helstone, a gentleman you
+often speak of."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! His name, Joe? You look well this
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Only the Rev. Moses Barraclough; t' tub orator you
+call him sometimes, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said the rector, taking out his snuff-box, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>113<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+administering to himself a very long pinch&mdash;"ah! couldn't
+have supposed it. Why, the pious man never was a workman
+of yours, Moore. He's a tailor by trade."</p>
+
+<p>"And so much the worse grudge I owe him, for interfering
+and setting my discarded men against me."</p>
+
+<p>"And Moses was actually present at the battle of Stilbro'
+Moor? He went there, wooden leg and all?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 blackened."</p>
+
+<p>"And how was he found out?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Joe's a sensible fellow," interjected Helstone.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;and Fred has a middling
+face, while Moses is none so handsome, as we all
+knaw&mdash;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&mdash;indeed,
+anybody that hears him roaring at a revival or a love-feast
+may be sure he's no weakling."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>114<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>A gig was heard to roll into the yard. Mr. Sykes entered&mdash;a
+tall stout man of about fifty, comely of feature, but
+feeble of physiognomy. He looked anxious.</p>
+
+<p>"Have they been? Are they gone? Have you got
+him? Is it over?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," returned Moore with phlegm. "We are
+waiting for them."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll not come; it's near noon. Better give it up.
+It will excite bad feeling&mdash;make a stir&mdash;cause perhaps fatal
+consequences."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>You</em> need not appear," said Moore. "I shall meet
+them in the yard when they come; <em>you</em> can stay here."</p>
+
+<p>"But my name must be seen in the law proceedings.
+A wife and family, Mr. Moore&mdash;a wife and family make a
+man cautious."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 made him at least <em>word</em>-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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>115<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+but <em>he</em>&mdash;Christie Sykes&mdash;would spend his last penny in
+law before he would be beaten; he'd settle them, or he'd
+see.</p>
+
+<p>"Take another glass," urged Moore.</p>
+
+<p>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 season of the year&mdash;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 a morning,
+but occasionally it really was prudent to take precautions.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite prudent, and take them by all means," urged the
+host.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You, sir, as a clergyman," said he, "may feel it disagreeable
+to be present amidst 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&mdash;as
+she is every night&mdash;I get quite excited. I couldn't
+describe to you, sir, my feelings. Really, if anybody was
+to come&mdash;thieves or anything&mdash;I believe I should enjoy it,
+such is my spirit."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;her Coriolanus&mdash;just now? Would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>116<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;so suave to one,
+so tender to the other&mdash;reading Shakespeare and listening
+to Ch&eacute;nier?</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it was the same man, only seen on a different side&mdash;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&mdash;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 undegraded, the
+disciple of reason, <em>not</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Joseph Scott," began a snuffling voice&mdash;Scott was
+standing sentinel at the counting-house door&mdash;"might we
+inquire if your master be within, and is to be spoken to?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>117<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"He's within, ay," said Joe nonchalantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you then, if <em>you</em> please" (emphasis on "you"),
+"have the goodness to tell <em>him</em> that twelve gentlemen wants
+to see him."</p>
+
+<p>"He'd happen ax what for," suggested Joe. "I mught
+as weel tell him that at t' same time."</p>
+
+<p>"For a purpose," was the answer. Joe entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Please, sir, there's twelve gentlemen wants to see ye,
+'for a purpose.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Good, Joe; I'm their man.&mdash;Sugden, come when I
+whistle."</p>
+
+<p>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 cat like, 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Barraclough," said Moore debonairly,
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Peace be unto you!" was the answer, Mr. Barraclough
+entirely closing his naturally half-shut eyes as he
+delivered it.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"To the point, if you please, and let me hear what it is."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>118<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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."</p>
+
+<p>With that he doffed his hat, and held it out as a begging-box,
+a brazen grin at the same time crossing his countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"If I gave you sixpence you would drink it."</p>
+
+<p>Barraclough uplifted the palms of his hands and the
+whites of his eyes, evincing in the gesture a mere burlesque
+of hypocrisy.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>you</em> refuse, it is my duty to
+warn <em>you</em>, in very decided terms, that measures will be had
+resort to" (he meant recourse) "which will probably terminate
+in&mdash;in bringing <em>you</em> to a sense of the unwisdom, of
+the&mdash;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&mdash;the cliffs of Albion&mdash;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.&mdash;What hev ye to say tull't, lads?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>119<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+turning round to the other members of the deputation,
+who responded unanimously, "Hear, hear!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Or iver you set up the pole o' your tent amang us,
+<a name="Mr" id="Mr"></a><ins title="fullstop omitted">Mr.</ins> Moore, we lived i' peace and quietness&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"What if I don't follow your advice, Mr. Barraclough?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Looard pardon you! The Looard soften your
+heart, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you in connection with the Wesleyans now, Mr.
+Barraclough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Praise God! Bless His name! I'm a joined Methody!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>120<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Barraclough was going to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>do</em> refuse&mdash;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
+<em>can</em> do&mdash;and this you will never <em>dare</em> to do&mdash;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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>He whistled shrill and loud. <a name="Sugden1" id="Sugden1"></a><ins title="was Sudgen">Sugden</ins>, his staff and
+warrant, came on the scene.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;you! a preacher of the
+gospel!&mdash;<a name="Sugden2" id="Sugden2"></a><ins title="was Sudgen">Sugden</ins>,
+arrest him!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Both barrels are loaded," said he. "I'm quite determined!
+Keep off!"</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>121<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+spoken; he was hard-favoured, but modest and
+manly-looking.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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&mdash;for, as ye say,
+that way o' going on'll niver stop invention; but I'll talk&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I the whole body of clothiers in Yorkshire? Answer
+me that."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye're yourseln."</p>
+
+<p>"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. <em>I'll never give in.</em>"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>122<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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&mdash;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&mdash;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?</p>
+
+<p>Farren, as he went home to his cottage&mdash;once, in better
+times, a decent, clean, pleasant place, but now, though still
+clean, very dreary, because so poor&mdash;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&mdash;almost hopeless.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>He still stood brooding in silence, when a gentleman in
+black came up&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>123<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+an abstracted and somewhat doleful air; but in approaching
+Farren he looked up, and then a hearty expression
+illuminated the preoccupied, serious face.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it you, William? How are you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Middling, Mr. Hall. How are <em>ye</em>? Will ye step in and
+rest ye?"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;for the children had come round his knee, and the
+father and mother stood before him&mdash;he said abruptly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And how are you all? How do you get on?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Mr. Moore turned you off?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not like you to say so, William."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;they're
+pined&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>124<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Again he reflected.</p>
+
+<p>"You've no money, William, and you've nothing you
+could sell to raise a small sum?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 'at she brought for a portion when we
+were wed."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you, William?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>will</em> say there's not a soberer, honester man i' England
+nor he is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll speak to one or two friends, and I think I can
+promise to let him have &pound;5 in a day or two&mdash;as a loan, ye
+mind, not a gift. He must pay it back."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, sir. I'm quite agreeable to that."</p>
+
+<p>"Meantime, there's a few shillings for you, Grace, just to
+keep the pot boiling till custom comes.&mdash;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.&mdash;You begin, Ben. What is your name?"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>125<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>BRIARMAINS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Messrs. Helstone</span> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"And where is Sugden?" demanded Moore, looking
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;Farren I think his name is&mdash;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&mdash;wooden leg and all&mdash;through
+the aperture, and saw them mount the gig (always with our
+good friend Sykes's permission, of course). Sugden took
+the reins&mdash;he drives like Jehu&mdash;and in another quarter of
+an hour Barraclough will be safe in Stilbro' jail."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>126<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Joe, do you know those Farrens? They are not well
+off, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;fair paired. They've selled most o' t'
+stuff out o' th' house."</p>
+
+<p>"He was not a bad workman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye never had a better, sir, sin' ye began trade."</p>
+
+<p>"And decent people&mdash;the whole family?"</p>
+
+<p>"Niver dacenter. Th' wife's a raight cant body, and as
+clean&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, then, you can go, Joe. You need not stand
+there staring at me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ye've no orders to give, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"None, but for you to take yourself off."</p>
+
+<p>Which Joe did accordingly.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>127<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+still bare boughs; and so did the leafless grove of walnut-trees
+rising tall behind the house.</p>
+
+<p>In the dusk of the moonless if starry night, lights from
+windows 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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Oh! who can explain<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This struggle for life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This travail and pain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This trembling and strife?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Plague, earthquake, and famine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And tumult and war,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The wonderful coming<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Of Jesus declare!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"For every fight<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is dreadful and loud:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The warrior's delight<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Is slaughter and blood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His foes overturning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Till all shall expire:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And this is with burning,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And fuel, and fire!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"What a mercy is this!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">What a heaven of bliss!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How unspeakably happy am I!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>128<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span><br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Gathered into the fold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With Thy people enrolled,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With Thy people to live and to die!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh, the goodness of God<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In employing a clod<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His tribute of glory to raise;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His standard to bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And with triumph declare<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">His unspeakable riches of grace!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Oh, the fathomless love<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That has deigned to approve<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And prosper the work of my hands.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With my pastoral crook<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I went over the brook,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And behold I am spread into bands!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Who, I ask in amaze,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hath begotten me these?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And inquire from what quarter they came.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">My full heart it replies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are born from the skies,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And gives glory to God and the Lamb!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>The stanza which followed this, after another and longer
+interregnum of shouts, yells, ejaculations, frantic cries,
+agonized groans, seemed to cap the climax of noise and zeal.</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Sleeping on the brink of sin,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tophet gaped to take us in;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mercy to our rescue flew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Broke the snare, and brought us through.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Here, as in a lion's den,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Undevoured we still remain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pass secure the watery flood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hanging on the arm of God.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Here&mdash;&mdash;"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>(Terrible, most distracting to the ear, was the strained
+shout in which the last stanza was given.)</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Here we raise our voices higher,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shout in the refiner's fire,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clap our hands amidst the flame,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Glory give to Jesus' name!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>The roof of the chapel did <em>not</em> fly off, which speaks volumes
+in praise of its solid slating.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>129<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;green forest and blue water
+scenery&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <em>will</em> 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&mdash;he is watching
+his children. Opposite to him sits his lady&mdash;a personage
+whom I might describe minutely, but I feel no vocation to
+the task. I see her, though, very plainly before me&mdash;a
+large woman of the gravest aspect, care on her front and
+on her shoulders, but not overwhelming, 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 if any unhappy wight&mdash;especially of the female
+sex&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>130<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Yorke and she agreed perfectly well, yet he was
+naturally a social, hospitable man, an 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the most like
+him of the whole group&mdash;but it is a granite head copied in
+ivory; all is softened in colour and line. Yorke himself
+has a harsh face&mdash;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&mdash;a young soul<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>131<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;of
+her mother, for instance, whose irrationally hard and strict
+rule she has often defied&mdash;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&mdash;how different!</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;and first that of your little life, Jessy.</p>
+
+<p>Do you know this place? No, you never saw it; but
+you recognize the nature of these trees, this foliage&mdash;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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>132<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+that hour alone in a foreign country, and the soil of that
+country gave Jessy a grave.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>The three eldest of the family are all boys&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the eruption of Vesuvius? Flame and shadow
+seem the component parts of that lad's soul&mdash;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&mdash;you would say, an Italian stiletto
+in a sheath of British workmanship. He is crossed in the
+game&mdash;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&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>133<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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 will 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.</p>
+
+<p>Take Mr. Yorke's family in the aggregate: there is as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>134<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+much mental power in those six young heads, as much
+originality, as much activity and vigour of brain, as&mdash;divided
+amongst half a dozen commonplace broods&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;who delights in Scotch and Italian songs, and has
+taught his musical little daughter some of the best&mdash;that
+the ring at the outer door was not observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," says Mrs. Yorke, in that conscientiously constrained
+and solemnized 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&mdash;"come
+in!" And in came Robert Moore.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Can a single man be said to have a home, madam?"
+he asks.</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" says Mrs. Yorke, who despises conventional
+smoothness quite as much as her husband does, and practises<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>135<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+it as little, and whose plain speaking on all occasions
+is carried to a point calculated, sometimes, to awaken
+admiration, but oftener alarm&mdash;"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not tempted now, at any rate. I think these
+are not times for marrying or giving in marriage."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.")</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, my little lassie, he promised; I'll bear witness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>136<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+But make him say it over again now, Jessy. Such as he
+are only false loons."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Bonny!" cried Mr. Yorke. "That's the reason that
+he should be, and proof that he is, a scoundrel."</p>
+
+<p>"But he looks too sorrowful to be false," here interposed
+a quiet voice from behind the father's chair. "If
+he was always laughing, I should think he forgot promises
+soon, but Mr. Moore never laughs."</p>
+
+<p>"Your sentimental buck is the greatest cheat of all,
+Rose," remarked Mr. Yorke.</p>
+
+<p>"He's not sentimental," said Rose.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore turned to her with a little surprise, smiling
+at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know I am not sentimental, Rose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I heard a lady say you were not."</p>
+
+<p>"Voil&agrave;, qui devient int&eacute;ressant!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke,
+hitching his chair nearer the fire. "A lady! That has
+quite a romantic twang. We must guess who it is.&mdash;Rosy,
+whisper the name low to your father. Don't let <em>him</em>
+hear."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Firstly, because I say so; and secondly, because
+discretion and reserve are a girl's best wisdom."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear madam," observed Moore, "what you say is
+excellent&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it not?" asked Jessy. "More good than if the
+rough lads came round you.&mdash;You call them rough, mother,
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>137<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Yes, mignonne, a thousand times more good. I have
+rough lads enough about me all day long, poulet."</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>our</em> friend, and we'll keep him.&mdash;But mind, Rose,
+he's not so much your friend as he is mine. He is my
+<em>particular acquaintance</em>; remember that!" And she held
+up her small hand with an admonitory gesture.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;its work
+and privations&mdash;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 <em>was</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Rose, tell me the name of this lady who denied
+that I was sentimental," urged Mr. Moore.</p>
+
+<p>Rose had no idea of tantalization, or she would have
+held him a while in doubt. She answered briefly, "I can't.
+I don't know her name."</p>
+
+<p>"Describe her to me. What was she like? Where did
+you see her?"</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>138<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+grown-up ladies were sitting in a corner of the drawing-room
+talking about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you know none of them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hannah, and Harriet, and Dora, and Mary Sykes."</p>
+
+<p>"Good. Were they abusing me, Rosy?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What besides?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hannah Sykes said you were a solemn puppy."</p>
+
+<p>"Better!" cried Mr. Yorke, laughing. "Oh, excellent!
+Hannah! that's the one with the red hair&mdash;a fine
+girl, but half-witted."</p>
+
+<p>"She has wit enough for me, it appears," said Moore.
+"A solemn puppy, indeed! Well, Rose, go on."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <em>that</em> Miss Pearson
+would like to catch you. She set her cap at you when you
+first came into the country, old as she is."</p>
+
+<p>"And who contradicted her, Rosy?" inquired Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>139<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+'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."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us hear."</p>
+
+<p>"She is nice; she is fair; she has a pretty white slender
+throat; she has long curls, not stiff ones&mdash;they hang loose
+and soft, their colour is brown but not dark; she speaks
+quietly, with a clear tone; she never makes a bustle in
+moving; she often wears a gray silk dress; she is neat all
+over&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you won't have me? You push me away."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Jessy, you care nothing about me. You never
+come to see me now at the Hollow."</p>
+
+<p>"Because you don't ask me."</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll say the same then. I mean always to hate women.
+They're such dolls; they do nothing but dress themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>140<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+finely, and go swimming about to be admired. I'll never
+marry. I'll be a bachelor."</p>
+
+<p>"Stick to it! stick to it!&mdash;Hesther" (addressing his
+wife), "I was like him when I was his age&mdash;a regular
+misogamist; and, behold! by the time I was three-and-twenty&mdash;being
+then a tourist in France and Italy, and the
+Lord knows where&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>And Mark stopped. He did not smile, he did not look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>141<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+round for admiration. He had said his say, and was
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Ma foi! mon ami," observed Mr. Moore to Yorke,
+"ce sont vraiment des enfants terribles, que les v&ocirc;tres!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"That's my kind little advocate!" said Moore, taking
+Rose's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Ladies always do speak spitefully," observed Martin.
+"It is the nature of womenites to be spiteful."</p>
+
+<p>Matthew now, for the first time, opened his lips. "What
+a fool Martin is, to be always gabbling about what he does
+not understand!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is my privilege, as a freeman, to gabble on whatever
+subject I like," responded Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"this fellow forgets,
+what every cottier in Briarfield knows, that all born of our
+house have that arched instep under which water can flow&mdash;proof
+that there has not been a slave of the blood for
+three hundred years."</p>
+
+<p>"Mountebank!" said Matthew.</p>
+
+<p>"Lads, be silent!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke.&mdash;"Martin,
+you are a mischief-maker. There would have been no
+disturbance but for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! Is that correct? Did I begin, or did
+Matthew? Had I spoken to him when he accused me of
+gabbling like a fool?"</p>
+
+<p>"A presumptuous fool!" repeated Matthew.</p>
+
+<p>Here Mrs. Yorke commenced rocking herself&mdash;rather a
+portentous movement with her, as it was occasionally
+followed, especially when Matthew was worsted in a conflict,
+by a fit of hysterics.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>142<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"He has no right, my lad; but forgive your brother
+until seventy-and-seven times," said Mr. Yorke soothingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Always alike, and theory and practice always adverse!"
+murmured Martin as he turned to leave the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Where art thou going, my son?" asked the father.</p>
+
+<p>"Somewhere where I shall be safe from insult, if in this
+house I can find any such place."</p>
+
+<p>Matthew laughed very insolently. Martin threw a
+strange look at him, and trembled through all his slight
+lad's frame; but he restrained himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose there is no objection to my withdrawing?"
+he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Go, my lad; but remember not to bear malice."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Here Mr. Moore, by way of averting, or at least escaping,
+a scene&mdash;which a sob from Mrs. Yorke warned him was
+likely to come on&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you employment for a good workman?" asked
+Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"A nonsense question in these times, when you know
+that every master has many good workmen to whom he
+cannot give full employment."</p>
+
+<p>"You must oblige me by taking on this man, if possible."</p>
+
+<p>"My lad, I can take on no more hands to oblige all
+England."</p>
+
+<p>"It does not signify; I must find him a place somewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"William Farren."</p>
+
+<p>"I know William. A right-down honest man is William."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>143<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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 the 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&mdash;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&mdash;a
+fellow who preaches at the chapel yonder sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Not Moses Barraclough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you've arrested him? Good! Then out of a
+scoundrel you're going to make a martyr. You've done a
+wise thing."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Mr. Yorke, what can you find for him to
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"<em>I</em> find! You'll make me use language I'm not accustomed
+to use. I wish you would go home. Here is the
+door; set off."</p>
+
+<p>Moore sat down on one of the hall chairs.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't give him work in your mill&mdash;good; but
+you have land. Find him some occupation on your land,
+Mr. Yorke."</p>
+
+<p>"Bob, I thought you cared nothing about our <em>lourdauds
+de paysans</em>. I don't understand this change."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>144<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Let him have it yourself. If you are so very much in
+earnest, strain a point."</p>
+
+<p>"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 showed 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&mdash;if
+there dawns no prospect of peace&mdash;if the Orders in
+Council are not, at least, suspended, so as to open our way
+in the West&mdash;I do not know where I am 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, let us take a turn on the front. It is a starlight
+night," said Mr. Yorke.</p>
+
+<p>They passed out, closing the front door after them,
+and side by side paced the frost-white pavement to and
+fro.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a second failure&mdash;which I may delay, but which,
+at this moment, I see no way finally to avert&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"You want capital&mdash;that's all you want."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but you might as well say that breath is all a dead
+man wants to live."</p>
+
+<p>"I know&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>145<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+need to take thought for the morrow; or desperations&mdash;the
+last and reckless joy of the deeply wretched, who never
+hope to rise out of the slough of their utter poverty."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you try if you had a chance?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. It depends on&mdash;in short, it depends on
+many things."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you take an old woman?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather break stones on the <a name="road" id="road"></a><ins title="was question mark">road.</ins>"</p>
+
+<p>"So would I. Would you take an ugly one?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Not if she were rich?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not if she were dressed in gems. I could not love&mdash;I
+could not fancy&mdash;I could not endure her. My taste must
+have satisfaction, or disgust would break out in despotism,
+or worse&mdash;freeze to utter iciness."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never try, I tell you. Grace at least I <em>will</em> have,
+and youth and symmetry&mdash;yes, and what I call beauty."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;a life-long
+struggle."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me alone, Yorke."</p>
+
+<p>"If you are romantic, Robert, and especially if you are
+already in love, it is of no use talking."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not romantic. I am stripped of romance as bare
+as the white tenters in that field are of cloth."</p>
+
+<p>"Always use such figures of speech, lad; I can understand
+them. And there is no love affair to disturb your
+judgment?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I had said enough on that subject before.
+Love for me? Stuff!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, if you are sound both in heart and head,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>146<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+there is no reason why you should not profit by a good
+chance if it offers; therefore, wait and see."</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite oracular, Yorke."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"My namesake the physician's almanac could not speak
+more guardedly."</p>
+
+<p>"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 maks no difference to me. Go
+home, now. It has stricken ten. Miss Hortense will be
+wondering where ye are."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>147<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>CHAPTER X.<br />
+<br />
+<small>OLD MAIDS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Time</span> 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&mdash;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&mdash;and there were thousands
+whom the war placed where it placed them, shuddering on
+the verge of bankruptcy&mdash;insisted on peace with the energy
+of desperation.</p>
+
+<p>They held meetings, they made speeches, they got up
+petitions to extort this boon; on what terms it was made
+they cared not.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;that is,
+their own&mdash;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&mdash;not
+at all from the motives Christ teaches, but
+rather from those Mammon instils. During the late war,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>148<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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;
+<em>then</em>, perhaps, transfigured at once into British bulldogs,
+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
+civilized&mdash;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 shop-keepers!</p>
+
+<p>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 <em>could</em> 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>149<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;he
+knew that England, a free realm, could not <em>then</em> 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 <span class="smcap">man</span> then representing England
+in the Peninsula, of his advance from success to success&mdash;that
+advance so deliberate but so unswerving, so
+circumspect but so certain, so "unhasting" but so "unresting;"
+when he read Lord Wellington's own dispatches
+in the columns of the newspapers, documents written by
+modesty to the dictation of truth&mdash;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 he had to care for, his
+hopes he had to pursue; and he would fulfil his destiny.</p>
+
+<p>He fulfilled 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>150<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 <em>brusquerie</em>&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;on the contrary, finding himself on all
+occasions extremely wide-awake&mdash;had watched them when
+they bade each other good-night. He had just seen their
+eyes meet once&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>151<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+against flirtation and love-making, and vowed he would
+have no such folly going on under his roof.</p>
+
+<p>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 his mind. Having but an indifferent opinion of
+women, he always suspected them. He thought they needed
+constant watching. It was in a tone dryly significant he
+desired her to cease her daily visits to the Hollow. He
+expected a start, a look of depreciation. The start he saw,
+but it was a very slight one; no look whatever was directed
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear me?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you mean to attend to what I say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"And there must be no letter-scribbling to your cousin
+Hortense&mdash;no intercourse whatever. I do not approve of
+the principles of the family. They are Jacobinical."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;which she very seldom did,
+since the mere utterance of his name made her face grow hot&mdash;the
+answer was, he 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.</p>
+
+<p>At church only Caroline had the chance of seeing him,
+and there she rarely looked at him. It was both too much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>152<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+pain and too much pleasure to look&mdash;it excited too much
+emotion; and that it was all wasted emotion she had
+learned well to comprehend.</p>
+
+<p>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 awhile on its occupant. He was there alone.
+Hortense had been kept at home by prudent considerations
+relative to the rain and a new spring <em>chapeau</em>. 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 sympathize. Nothing that
+they had ever talked of together was now in his mind: he
+was wrapt from her by interests and responsibilities in which
+it was deemed such as she could have no part.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;to
+understand its perplexities, liabilities, duties, exactions;
+endeavoured to realize the state of mind 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>153<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, her imagination was full of pictures&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 rain-drop 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>154<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;inaction would suit the frame of mind into
+which she was now declining&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>She reflected.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>She mused again.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>155<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>Her fire was decayed to its last cinder; Malone had
+departed; and now the study bell rang for prayers.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very diligent at that sewing, Miss Caroline,"
+continued the girl, approaching her little table.</p>
+
+<p>"I am tired of it, Fanny."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why do you go on with it? Put it down. Read,
+or do something to amuse you."</p>
+
+<p>"It is solitary in this house, Fanny. Don't you think
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>156<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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."</p>
+
+<p>"But their houses are dismal: they are both old maids.
+I am certain old maids are a very unhappy race."</p>
+
+<p>"Not they, miss. They can't be unhappy; they take
+such care of themselves. They are all selfish."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Ainley is not selfish, Fanny. She is always doing
+good. How devotedly kind she was to her step-mother 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"They shouldn't, miss. I believe she is a good woman.
+But gentlemen think only of ladies' looks."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>Fanny helped Miss Helstone to put away her work, and
+afterwards assisted her to dress.</p>
+
+<p>"<em>You</em>'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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a wan shade
+seemed to circle them; her countenance was dejected&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>157<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>She paid her visits&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Mann did not make herself, or tune her voice,
+Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"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 wooes the primrose from the turf and the lily from
+the wood-moss."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>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?)&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>158<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>This was no ordinary doom&mdash;to be fixed with Miss Mann's
+eye. Robert Moore had undergone it once, and had never
+forgotten the circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a tone without vibration or inflection&mdash;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&mdash;almost her sole&mdash;fault was that she
+was censorious.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>159<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 sympathizing words, but
+with a sympathizing voice. The loneliness of her condition
+struck her visitor in a new light, as did also the
+character of her ugliness&mdash;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 confidante 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.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Mann felt that she was understood partly, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>160<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;when all humanity has
+forgotten the dying tenant of a decaying house&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>161<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+on herself, and had only the occasional assistance of a little
+girl who lived in a cottage near.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<em>very</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Her welcome to Caroline was formal, even in its kindness&mdash;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&mdash;at
+least all the female neighbourhood&mdash;knew something
+of it. No one spoke against Miss Ainley except lively
+young gentlemen and inconsiderate old ones, who declared
+her hideous.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;what some would
+call "a saint;" and she referred to religion often in sanctioned
+phrase&mdash;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&mdash;be it religious or
+moral truth&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>162<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and commit impiety when they think they are achieving
+wit.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;one only&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Helstone studied well the mind and heart now
+revealed to her. She found no high intellect to admire&mdash;the
+old maid was merely sensible&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;to her ideas, so forlorn. Yet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>163<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"I will bestir myself," was her resolution, "and try
+to be wise if I cannot be good."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>To do her justice, she executed her plans conscientiously,
+perseveringly. It was very hard work at first&mdash;it was
+even hard work to the end&mdash;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 gray life here and there when she found she had done
+good, imparted pleasure, or allayed suffering.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>164<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>FIELDHEAD.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Yet</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;crying
+in a sort of intolerable despair, which, when it rushed
+over her, smote down her strength, and reduced her to
+childlike helplessness.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>165<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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&mdash;the deep, secret, anxious yearning to
+discover and know her mother strengthened daily; but
+with the desire was coupled a doubt, a dread&mdash;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&mdash;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 conclusion that it was perhaps better
+never to know her parent than to know her and not like her.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Her long and late walks lay always, as has been said,
+on lonely roads; but in whatever direction she had rambled&mdash;whether
+along the drear skirts of Stilbro' Moor or over
+the sunny stretch of Nunnely Common&mdash;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 hillcrests.
+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&mdash;for she came in all weathers.</p>
+
+<p>There were nights when it failed to appear. She knew
+then that Robert was from home, and went away doubly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>166<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 bearing; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>If Fieldhead had few other merits as a building, it might
+at least be termed picturesque. Its regular architecture,
+and the gray and mossy colouring communicated by time,
+gave it a just claim to this epithet. The old
+<a name="latticed" id="latticed"></a><ins title="was atticed">latticed</ins>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>167<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+looked solemnly and mildly down on Caroline from beneath
+that sombre canopy.</p>
+
+<p>She felt this night and prospect mournfully lovely. She
+wished she could be 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 her 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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>The apparition had been transient&mdash;scarce seen ere
+gone; but its electric passage left her veins kindled, her
+soul insurgent. It found her despairing, it left her desperate&mdash;two
+different states.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>does</em>, he <em>must</em>, 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!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus, in the utter sickness of longing and disappointment,
+she went home.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning at breakfast, where 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?"</p>
+
+<p>Her uncle, ignorant as the table supporting his coffee-cup
+of all his niece had undergone and was undergoing,
+scarcely believed his ears.</p>
+
+<p>"What whim now?" he asked. "Are you bewitched?
+What can you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not well, and need a change," she said.</p>
+
+<p>He examined her. He discovered she had <em>experienced</em> a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>168<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is the matter with you?" he asked.
+"What is wrong? How are you ailing?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer; only the brown eyes filled, the faintly-tinted
+lips trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out for a situation, indeed! For what situation
+are you fit? What have you been doing with yourself?
+You are not well."</p>
+
+<p>"I should be well if I went from home."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, uncle, I don't want one. A doctor could do me no
+good. I merely want change of air and scene."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But, uncle, some day I must do something for myself;
+I have no fortune. I had better begin now."</p>
+
+<p>"While I live, you shall not turn out as a governess,
+Caroline. I will not have it said that my niece is a governess."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>169<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, uncle; but I long for a change."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is not fantasy and whim, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Necessity, I think. I feel weaker than formerly. I
+believe I should have more to do."</p>
+
+<p>"Admirable! She feels weak, and <em>therefore</em> she should be
+set to hard labour&mdash;'clair comme le jour,' as Moore&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle, I wish you were less generous and more&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"More what?"</p>
+
+<p>Sympathizing 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Only to be a governess."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What with? My doll?" asked Caroline to herself as
+she quitted the room.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>170<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Commonplace young ladies can be quite as hard as
+commonplace young gentlemen&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>171<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes, uncle, when I forget."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"With <em>you</em>, uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick! quick! I am always busy, you know. I
+have no time to lose."</p>
+
+<p>She hurriedly gathered up her materials, asking, meantime,
+where they were going.</p>
+
+<p>"To Fieldhead."</p>
+
+<p>"Fieldhead! What! to see old James Booth, the
+gardener? Is he ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to see Miss Shirley Keeldar."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Keeldar! Is she coming to Yorkshire? Is she
+at Fieldhead?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is. She has been there a week. I met her at a
+party last night&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"She is now come of age, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>her</em>."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! Put your bonnet on."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she proud, uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know. You hardly imagine she would show her
+pride to me, I suppose? A chit like that would scarcely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>172<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+presume to give herself airs with the rector of her parish,
+however rich she might be."</p>
+
+<p>"No. But how did she behave to other people?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Very sombre it was&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;if you know what a
+"spring clean" is&mdash;very execrable and inhuman. Whoever,
+having the bowels of humanity, has seen servants
+scrubbing at these polished wooden walls with beeswaxed
+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&mdash;the drawing-room,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>173<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+to wit, formerly also an oak-room&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+silvan 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.</p>
+
+<p>This lady received the visitors with a mixture of ceremony
+and diffidence quite English. No middle-aged matron who
+was not an Englishwoman <em>could</em> evince precisely the same
+manner&mdash;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, sympathized 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.</p>
+
+<p>She and this lady would, if alone, have at once got on
+extremely well together. The lady had the clearest voice
+imaginable&mdash;infinitely softer and more tuneful than could
+have been reasonably expected from forty years&mdash;and a
+form decidedly inclined to <em>embonpoint</em>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>174<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+sarcastic, keen eye, that clearly expressed impatience of her
+chilly ceremony, and annoyance at her want of <em>aplomb</em>.
+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.</p>
+
+<p>There is real grace in ease of manner, and so old Helstone
+felt 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 <em>do</em> think
+Mr. Yorke has made me a Jacobin. Good-morning."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The rector immediately bowed very low to Mrs. Pryor,
+and expressed himself obliged to her.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Keeldar thinks as you think, I hope, madam."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>175<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Difference of age and difference of temperament occasion
+difference of sentiment," was the reply. "It can
+scarcely be expected that the eager and young should hold
+the opinions of the cool and middle-aged."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! oh! we are independent; we think for ourselves!"
+cried Mr. Helstone. "We are a little Jacobin,
+for anything I know&mdash;a little freethinker, in good earnest.
+Let <a name="us" id="us"></a><ins title="was as">us</ins> have a confession of faith on the spot."</p>
+
+<p>And he took the heiress's two hands&mdash;causing her to
+let fall her whole cargo of flowers&mdash;and seated her by him
+on the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>"Say your creed," he ordered.</p>
+
+<p>"The Apostles' Creed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>She said it like a child.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for St. Athanasius's. That's the test!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me gather up my flowers. Here is Tartar coming;
+he will tread upon them."</p>
+
+<p>Tartar was a rather large, strong, and fierce-looking dog,
+very ugly, being of a breed between mastiff and bulldog,
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"My niece Caroline."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar shook hands with her, and then looked at
+her. Caroline also looked at her hostess.</p>
+
+<p>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)&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>176<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 gray (no green lights in them&mdash;transparent, pure,
+neutral gray), and her hair of the darkest brown. Her
+features were distinguished&mdash;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"&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"You see she is only a feeble chick," observed Mr.
+Helstone.</p>
+
+<p>"She looks young&mdash;younger than I.&mdash;How old are
+you?" she inquired in a manner that would have been
+patronizing if it had not been extremely solemn and simple.</p>
+
+<p>"Eighteen years and six months."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am twenty-one."</p>
+
+<p>She said no more. She had now placed her flowers on
+the table, and was busied in arranging them.</p>
+
+<p>"And St. Athanasius's Creed?" urged the rector.
+"You believe it all, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't remember it quite all. I will give you a nosegay,
+Mr. Helstone, when I have given your niece one."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you tired with your walk?" she inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not in the least. It is but a short distance&mdash;but
+a mile."</p>
+
+<p>"You look pale.&mdash;Is she always so pale?" she asked,
+turning to the rector.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>177<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"She used to be as rosy as the reddest of your flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is she altered? What has made her pale? Has
+she been ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"She tells me she wants a change."</p>
+
+<p>"She ought to have one. You ought to give her one.
+You should send her to the sea-coast."</p>
+
+<p>"I will, ere summer is over. Meantime, I intend her
+to make acquaintance with you, if you have no objection."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak my sentiments precisely, ma'am," said
+Shirley, "and I thank you for anticipating me.&mdash;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.&mdash;Do I not guess rightly,
+Mrs. Pryor?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"No; and perhaps it will be long enough before I
+obtain it.&mdash;I am sometimes sadly tantalized, 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 a sentence,
+entreat as I may."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor here smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said her pupil, "I know what that smile means.
+You are thinking of my gentleman-tenant.&mdash;Do you know
+Mr. Moore of the Hollow?" she asked Mr. Helstone.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! ay! Your tenant&mdash;so he is. You have seen
+a good deal of him, no doubt, since you came?"</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>178<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;that G&eacute;rard Moore&mdash;before
+me, gravely talking to me of business, really I
+feel quite gentlemanlike. 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, just now. His name is entirely blotted
+from my good books."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter? What has he done?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"What are Moore's politics?" inquired Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"Those of a tradesman," returned the rector&mdash;"narrow,
+selfish, and unpatriotic. The man is eternally writing and
+speaking against the continuance of the war. I have no
+patience with him."</p>
+
+<p>"The war hurts his trade. I remember he remarked
+that only yesterday. But what other objection have you
+to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is enough."</p>
+
+<p>"He looks the gentleman, in my sense of the term,"
+pursued Shirley, "and it pleases me to think he is such."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>179<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+an arch, searching glance at the speaker from her deep,
+expressive eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"<em>You</em> are his friend, at any rate," she said. "You
+defend him in his absence."</p>
+
+<p>"I am both his friend and his relative," was the prompt
+reply. "Robert Moore is my cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then, you can tell me all about him. Just give
+me a sketch of his character."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Be sure you wear it for my sake," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Next my heart, of course," responded Helstone.&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I like a descent," said Shirley; "I like to clear it
+rapidly; and especially I like that romantic Hollow with
+all my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Romantic, with a mill in it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Romantic with a mill in it. The old mill and the
+white cottage are each admirable in its way."</p>
+
+<p>"And the counting-house, Mr. Keeldar?"</p>
+
+<p>"The counting-house is better than my bloom-coloured
+drawing-room. I adore the counting-house."</p>
+
+<p>"And the trade? The cloth, the greasy wool, the
+polluting dyeing-vats?"</p>
+
+<p>"The trade is to be thoroughly respected."</p>
+
+<p>"And the tradesman is a hero? Good!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to hear you say so. I thought the tradesman
+looked heroic."</p>
+
+<p>Mischief, spirit, and glee sparkled all over her face as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>180<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+she thus bandied words with the old Cossack, who almost
+equally enjoyed the tilt.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Keeldar, you have no mercantile blood in your
+veins. Why are you so fond of trade?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I am a mill-owner, of course. Half my income
+comes from the works in that Hollow."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't enter into partnership&mdash;that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>181<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>SHIRLEY AND CAROLINE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Shirley</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+fraternized 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."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>182<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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;
+ere long she was whistling; the whistle struck into a tune,
+and very sweetly and deftly it was executed.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear!" expostulated Mrs. Pryor.</p>
+
+<p>"Was I whistling?" said Shirley. "I forgot. I beg
+your pardon, ma'am. I had resolved to take care not to
+whistle before you."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I learned to whistle a long while ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Who taught you?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What gentleman was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"We have only one gentleman in this region, ma'am,
+and that is Mr. Moore&mdash;at least he is the only gentleman
+who is not gray-haired. My two venerable favourites, Mr.
+Helstone and Mr. Yorke, it is true, are fine old beaus, infinitely
+better than any of the stupid young ones."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not like Mr. Helstone, ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, Mr. Helstone's office secures him from criticism."</p>
+
+<p>"You generally contrive to leave the room when he is
+announced."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you walk out this morning, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall be minutely obeyed, Mrs. Pryor. Meantime,
+will you not accompany us yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my love; I should be a restraint upon you. I am
+stout, and cannot walk so quickly as you would wish to do."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley easily persuaded Caroline to go with her, and
+when they were fairly out on the quiet road, traversing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>183<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"I know how the heath would look on such a day," said
+Caroline; "purple-black&mdash;a deeper shade of the sky-tint,
+and that would be livid."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Did it thunder?"</p>
+
+<p>"It muttered distant peals, but the storm did not break
+till evening, after we had reached our inn&mdash;that inn being
+an isolated house at the foot of a range of mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you watch the clouds come down over the mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Keeldar, just stand still now, and look down at
+Nunnely dale and wood."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>184<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+smiled clear in sunlight; transparent emerald and amber
+gleams played over it. On Nunnwood&mdash;the sole remnant
+of antique British forest in a region whose lowlands were
+once all silvan chase, as its highlands were breast-deep
+heather&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Our England is a bonny island," said Shirley, "and
+Yorkshire is one of her bonniest nooks."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a Yorkshire girl too?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>Hereupon Caroline presented her hand, which was accordingly
+taken and shaken. "We are compatriots," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," agreed Shirley, with a grave nod.</p>
+
+<p>"And that," asked Miss Keeldar, pointing to the forest&mdash;"that
+is Nunnwood?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you ever there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Many a time."</p>
+
+<p>"In the heart of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it like?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Was it not one of Robin Hood's haunts?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and there are mementos 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, distinctly."</p>
+
+<p>"That break is a dell&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>185<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+the brink of this dell. In the bottom lie the ruins of a
+nunnery."</p>
+
+<p>"We will go&mdash;you and I alone, Caroline&mdash;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 <a name="housekeeper" id="housekeeper"></a><ins title="was houskeeper">housekeeper</ins>, might pack our provisions, and
+we could each carry our own. It would not tire you too
+much to walk so far?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 gray, some gem-green.
+I know groups of trees that ravish the eye with their perfect,
+picture-like effects&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"You would be dull with me alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should not. I think we should suit; and what
+third person is there whose presence would not spoil our
+pleasure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I know of none about our own ages&mdash;no lady
+at least; and as to gentlemen&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"An excursion becomes quite a different thing when
+there are gentlemen of the party," interrupted Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you&mdash;quite a different thing to what we
+were proposing."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;one easy to feel, difficult to describe."</p>
+
+<p>"We forget Nature, <em>imprimis</em>."</p>
+
+<p>"And then Nature forgets us, covers her vast calm brow
+with a dim veil, conceals her face, and withdraws the peaceful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>186<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+joy with which, if we had been content to worship her
+only, she would have filled our hearts."</p>
+
+<p>"What does she give us instead?"</p>
+
+<p>"More elation and more anxiety; an excitement that
+steals the hours away fast, and a trouble that ruffles their
+course."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;all the curates and some
+other gentry of these parts, together with sundry ladies&mdash;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
+goodwife, 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&mdash;two years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever go with your cousin, Robert Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; once."</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of a companion is he on these occasions?"</p>
+
+<p>"A cousin, you know, is different to a stranger."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;of
+gentlemen, I mean&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>187<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+fond of him. I would rather be out of his presence than
+in it."</p>
+
+<p>"Strange, when he has the art of making himself so
+agreeable."</p>
+
+<p>"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 fireside;
+the smile, the jest, the witty sally for society."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he tyrannical?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;if you can understand
+such superfine distinctions."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;fickle, soon petrifying, unsympathizing&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"But you could not if you were married."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;an
+inevitable burden, a ceaseless bore! Now, when I
+feel my company superfluous, I can comfortably fold my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>188<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+independence round me like a mantle, and drop my
+pride like a veil, and withdraw to solitude. If married,
+that could not be."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Caroline, men are not all like your uncle. Surely
+not. I hope not."</p>
+
+<p>She paused and mused.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose we each find an exception in the one we
+love, till we <em>are</em> married," suggested Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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 <em>we</em> like him&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle would affirm it unhesitatingly. 'He will be
+sick of you in a month,' he would say."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Pryor would seriously intimate the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Yorke and Miss Mann would darkly suggest ditto."</p>
+
+<p>"If they are true oracles, it is good never to fall in love."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, if you can avoid it."</p>
+
+<p>"I choose to doubt their truth."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid that proves you are already caught."</p>
+
+<p>"Not I. But if I were, do you know what soothsayers
+I would consult?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>189<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Let me hear."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see any one who was kind to such things?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see any one whom such things seemed
+instinctively to follow, like, rely on?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And what does that somebody do?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he? It is not Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"Handsome fellow!" said Shirley, with enthusiasm.
+Her eyes sparkled.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he not handsome? Has he not fine eyes and well-cut
+features, and a clear, princely forehead?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has all that, Caroline. Bless him! he is both
+graceful and good."</p>
+
+<p>"I was sure you would see that he was. When I first
+looked at your face I knew you would."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"When mind is added, Shirley?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who can resist it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Remember my uncle, Mesdames Pryor, Yorke, and
+Mann."</p>
+
+<p>"Remember the croaking of the frogs of Egypt. He is
+a noble being. I tell you when they <em>are</em> good they are the
+lords of the creation&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>190<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Above us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would scorn to contend for empire with him&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Men and women, husbands and wives, quarrel horribly,
+Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor things! Poor, fallen, degenerate things! God
+made them for another lot, for other feelings."</p>
+
+<p>"But are we men's equals, or are we not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing ever charms me more than when I meet my
+superior&mdash;one who makes me sincerely feel that he is my
+superior."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever meet him?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Keeldar, will you come in? We are here at the
+rectory gates."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;and
+good-bye."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;for
+Mrs. Pryor hastened to allege the fatigue of her walk, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>191<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 every one. 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>On the wall opposite the sofa where they sat hung three
+pictures&mdash;the centre one, above the mantelpiece, that of a
+lady; the two others, male portraits.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a portrait of Mrs. Helstone."</p>
+
+<p>"Of Mrs. Matthewson Helstone? Of your uncle's wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is, and is said to be a good likeness. Before her
+marriage she was accounted the beauty of the district."</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe she was a remarkably still, silent person."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"In company he is. But he always says he could never
+do with a talking wife. He must have quiet at home.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>192<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+You go out to gossip, he affirms; you come home to read
+and reflect."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Matthewson lived but a few years after her marriage,
+I think I have heard?"</p>
+
+<p>"About five years."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I am inured to it. I have grown up by myself. May
+I arrange your shawl for you?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor submitted to be assisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Should you chance to require help in your studies,"
+she said, "you may command me."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline expressed her sense of such kindness.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope to have frequent conversations with you. I
+should wish to be of use to you."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What difference?" inquired Caroline, accompanying
+her to the door. "James Helstone&mdash;that is, my father&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is much softer or finer featured than that of your
+uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"But where or what is the difference of character to
+which you alluded? Tell me. I wish to see if you guess
+right."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, your uncle is a man of principle. His forehead
+and his lips are firm, and his eye is steady."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and the other? Do not be afraid of offending
+me. I always like the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like the truth? It is well for you. Adhere<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>193<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+to that preference&mdash;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&mdash;taken in youth, I should think. My dear"
+(turning abruptly), "you acknowledge an inestimable value
+in principle?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure no character can have true worth without it."</p>
+
+<p>"You feel what you say? You have considered the
+subject?"</p>
+
+<p>"Often. Circumstances early forced it upon my attention."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>194<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>As to dependency or humiliation, Caroline did not feel it
+in her intercourse with Shirley, and why should Mrs. Pryor?
+The heiress was rich&mdash;very rich&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+reveille of a dry sally or two risked by herself; and more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>195<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>One evening they chanced to be alone in the oak-parlour.
+They had passed a long wet day together without <em>ennui</em>.
+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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>196<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+shine of the flameless fire, was pacing to and fro, muttering
+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:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Obscurest night involved the sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The Atlantic billows roared,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When such a destined wretch as I,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Washed headlong from on board,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">His floating home for ever left."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>Here the fragment stopped, because Shirley's song, erewhile
+somewhat full and thrilling, had become delicately
+faint.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you go on too. I was only repeating 'The Castaway.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I know. If you can remember it all, say it all."</p>
+
+<p>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 realized by her; and more
+vividly was realized 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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"No voice divine the storm allayed,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">No light propitious shone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When, snatched from all effectual aid,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We perished&mdash;each alone!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I beneath a rougher sea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"I hope William Cowper is safe and calm in heaven
+now," said Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you pity what he suffered on earth?" asked Miss
+Keeldar.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;I know he did; and that gift of poetry&mdash;the
+most divine bestowed on man&mdash;was, I believe, granted to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>197<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;who cares for fine
+words in poetry? And who does not care for feeling&mdash;real
+feeling&mdash;however simply, even rudely expressed?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"You never would have loved Cowper," rejoined Caroline
+promptly. "He was not made to be loved by woman."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"What I say. I know there is a kind of natures in
+the world&mdash;and very noble, elevated natures too&mdash;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.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You may be right. Who told you this?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you this, I ask? Did Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should anybody have told me? Have I not an
+instinct? Can I not divine by analogy? Moore never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>198<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+talked to me either about Cowper, or Rousseau, or love.
+The voice we hear in solitude told me all I know on these
+subjects."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like characters of the Rousseau order, Caroline?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, as a whole. I sympathize 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"And he must miss you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That he does not."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, then," observed Miss Keeldar, "you only
+just tolerated him in return?"</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>199<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;to
+see where he was, how occupied&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Caroline," demanded Miss Keeldar abruptly, "don't
+you wish you had a profession&mdash;a trade?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Can labour alone make a human being happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But hard labour and learned professions, they say,
+make women masculine, coarse, unwomanly."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You might be an old maid yourself, Caroline, you speak
+so earnestly."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Here fell a long pause. Shirley broke it. Again the
+name by which she seemed bewitched was almost the first
+on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Lina&mdash;did not Moore call you Lina sometimes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It is sometimes used as the abbreviation of Caroline
+in his native country."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>200<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Well, Lina, do you remember my one day noticing an
+inequality in your hair&mdash;a curl wanting on that right side&mdash;and
+your telling me that it was Robert's fault, as he had
+once cut therefrom a long lock?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"If he is, and always was, as indifferent to you as you
+say, why did he steal your hair?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;yes, I do. It was my doing, not his.
+Everything of that sort always was my doing. He was
+going from home&mdash;to London, as usual; and the night
+before he went, I had found in his sister's workbox a lock
+of black hair&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Caroline!"</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>do</em> think myself a fool, Shirley, in some respects;
+I <em>do</em> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"What a study of character you are&mdash;weak, certainly,
+but not in the sense you think!&mdash;Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Bring candles," said Miss Keeldar.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline sat expectant.</p>
+
+<p>"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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>201<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS ON BUSINESS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">In</span> Shirley's nature prevailed at times an easy indolence.
+There were periods when she took delight in perfect vacancy
+of hand and eye&mdash;moments when her thoughts, her simple
+existence, the fact of the world being around and heaven
+above her, seemed to yield her such fullness 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, why do <em>you</em> cry?" asked Caroline, involuntarily
+laying stress on <em>you</em>.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;why do you not bear me
+company? I only weep tears, delightful and soon wiped
+away; you might weep gall, if you choose."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I weep gall?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>202<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Mateless, solitary bird!" was the only answer.</p>
+
+<p>"And are not you too mateless, Shirley?"</p>
+
+<p>"At heart&mdash;no."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! who nestles there, Shirley?"</p>
+
+<p>But Shirley only laughed gaily at this question, and
+alertly started up.</p>
+
+<p>"I have dreamed," she said, "a mere day-dream&mdash;certainly
+bright, probably baseless!"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>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-style and the old thorn overlooking the
+Hollow.</p>
+
+<p>One night, the night after the incident of the note, she
+had been at her usual post, watching for her beacon&mdash;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 scrutinized them
+as they emerged from behind the trunk of the cedar. "Is
+it Mrs. Pryor and Shirley?"</p>
+
+<p>Certainly it is Shirley. Who else has a shape so lithe,
+and proud, and graceful? And her face, too, is visible&mdash;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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>203<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+large bright gem glitters on the white hand which confines
+it. Yes, that is Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>Her companion then is, of course, Mrs. Pryor?</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a
+tall, young, stately man; it is her tenant, Robert Moore.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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&mdash;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 silvered 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&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>204<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+how she shall at last encounter, and by whom be
+sustained through death.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot conceive why nature did not give you a bulldog's
+head, for you have all a bulldog's tenacity," said
+Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a flattering idea. Am I so ignoble?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"This is guess-work. You have witnessed no such feat
+on my part. In your presence I have been no bulldog."</p>
+
+<p>"Your very silence indicates your race. How little you
+talk in general, yet how deeply you scheme! You are far-seeing;
+you are calculating."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall stand by you so long as you remain on the
+defensive. Yes."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>205<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Good! Without any aid&mdash;even opposed or disapproved
+by you&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly feel it congenial."</p>
+
+<p>"So would old Helstone. It is true there is a shade
+of difference in your motives&mdash;many shades, perhaps.
+Shall I speak to Mr. Helstone? I will, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I am aware&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"I should be glad to have him; he is of true metal."</p>
+
+<p>"I think so also."</p>
+
+<p>"An old blade, and rusty somewhat, but the edge and
+temper still excellent."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you shall have him, Mr. Moore&mdash;that is, if I
+can win him."</p>
+
+<p>"Whom can you not win?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not the rector; but I will make the effort."</p>
+
+<p>"Effort! He will yield for a word&mdash;a smile."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I perceive you shiver. Am I acting wrongly to detain
+you here? Yet it is so calm&mdash;I even feel it warm&mdash;and
+society such as yours is a pleasure to me so rare. If you
+were wrapped in a thicker shawl&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but Hortense and I have an understanding the
+most convenient in the world, that we shall each do as we
+please."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>206<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"How do you please to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three nights in the week I sleep in the mill&mdash;but I
+require little rest&mdash;and when it is moonlight and mild I
+often haunt the Hollow till daybreak."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear it is done," said Moore, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"But there are worse things than fairies to be guarded
+against," pursued Miss Keeldar.</p>
+
+<p>"Things more perilous," he subjoined.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Liked it? I admire your taste! Michael is not sane.
+Where did you meet him?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"On politics?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, but I think you must have been nearly as
+mad as he, to sit listening to him."</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever seen him since?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>207<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you make light of these things?"</p>
+
+<p>"The poor man had been drinking for weeks, and was
+in a state bordering on delirium tremens."</p>
+
+<p>"What then? He is the more likely to attempt the
+fulfilment of his own prophecies."</p>
+
+<p>"It would not do to permit incidents of this sort to
+affect one's nerves."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore, go home!"</p>
+
+<p>"So soon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pass straight down the fields, not round by the lade
+and plantations."</p>
+
+<p>"It is early yet."</p>
+
+<p>"It is late. For my part, I am going in. Will you
+promise me not to wander in the Hollow to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish it."</p>
+
+<p>"I do wish it. May I ask whether you consider life
+valueless?"</p>
+
+<p>"By no means. On the contrary, of late I regard my
+life as invaluable."</p>
+
+<p>"Of late?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;such a delicate hand I scarcely dared
+trust it; its strength, however, has rescued me from ruin."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you really rescued?"</p>
+
+<p>"For the time. Your assistance has given me another
+chance."</p>
+
+<p>"Live to make the best of it. Don't offer yourself as
+a target to Michael Hartley; and good-night!"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Miss Helstone was under a promise to spend the evening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>208<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 inquiries from Fanny by telling her that
+she was busy altering a dress, and preferred sewing upstairs,
+to avoid interruption.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"In which you look as I like to see you," said Shirley.
+"You are a lady-like little person, Caroline.&mdash;Is she not,
+Mrs. Pryor?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>209<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+churchyard, and that there are graves under them. I
+rather long to leave the rectory."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, you are surely not superstitious?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Strange!" cried Shirley. "I never feel so." Mrs.
+Pryor said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You should take more exercise," said Mrs. Pryor.</p>
+
+<p>"Exercise! I exercise sufficiently. I exercise till I am
+ready to drop."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, you should go from home."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And I believe I want severe duties to occupy
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I do, Shirley; and I don't wish to leave you.
+I shall never find another friend so dear."</p>
+
+<p>At which words Miss Keeldar put her hand into Caroline's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>210<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+with an impulsively affectionate movement, which was
+well seconded by the expression of her face.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>do</em> like Shirley. I like her more and more
+every day. But that does not make me strong or
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>And Miss Keeldar paused, having uttered this prohibition
+very decidedly. Soon she recommenced, still
+looking somewhat <em>courrouc&eacute;e</em>, "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&mdash;I know
+it is&mdash;but it is the language which naturally rises to my
+lips, therefore I utter it."</p>
+
+<p>"I would write to you, Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are letters? Only a sort of <em>pis aller</em>. Drink
+some tea, Caroline. Eat something&mdash;you eat nothing.
+Laugh and be cheerful, and stay at home."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>211<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+eyes but her own, incomprehensible and fantastic, and
+was opposed accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, is your mind quieted?" inquired Shirley. "Will
+you consent to stay at home?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;that is, I
+shall go there provided you consent to accompany me. If
+you refuse, I shall not stir a foot."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very good, Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"I would be very good if you would let me. I have
+every disposition to be good. It is my misfortune and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>212<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;the Hebrides, the Shetland, the Orkney Islands.
+Would you not like that? I see you would.&mdash;Mrs. Pryor,
+I call you to witness. Her face is all sunshine at the bare
+mention of it."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.&mdash;Caroline is laughing, Mrs. Pryor.
+<em>I</em> made her laugh; <em>I</em> have done her good."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall like to go, Shirley," again said Miss Helstone.
+"I long to hear the sound of waves&mdash;ocean-waves&mdash;and
+to see them as I have imagined them in dreams, like tossing
+banks of green light, strewed with vanishing and reappearing
+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&mdash;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 <em>is</em> a
+delight."</p>
+
+<p>"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
+back-kitchen?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>213<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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 seaweed; of
+unscared birds covering white sands in happy flocks."</p>
+
+<p>"And what will become of that inexpressible weight
+you said you had on your mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">'Strong against tides, the enormous whale<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Emerges as he goes.'"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you expect to see mermaids, Shirley?"</p>
+
+<p>"One of them, at any rate&mdash;I do not bargain for less&mdash;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&mdash;a
+face in the style of yours&mdash;whose straight, pure (excuse
+the word, it is appropriate)&mdash;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&mdash;the cold billow would be dared for the sake of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>214<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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. Temptress-terror!
+monstrous likeness of ourselves! Are you not
+glad, Caroline, when at last, and with a wild shriek, she
+dives?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Shirley, she is not like us. We are neither temptresses,
+nor terrors, nor monsters."</p>
+
+<p>"Some of our kind, it is said, are all three. There are
+men who ascribe to 'woman,' in general, such attributes."</p>
+
+<p>"My dears," here interrupted Mrs. Pryor, "does it not
+strike you that your conversation for the last ten minutes
+has been rather fanciful?"</p>
+
+<p>"But there is no harm in our fancies; is there, ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>Shirley stepped to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You did right not to keep me in suspense," she said,
+"and your visit is well timed. Sit down. We have not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>215<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+finished tea. Are you English enough to relish tea, or do
+you faithfully adhere to coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>Moore accepted tea.</p>
+
+<p>"I am learning to be a naturalized Englishman," said
+he; "my foreign habits are leaving me one by one."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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 <em>seeming</em> but <em>real</em> mastery of the
+feelings which had started into insurrection at the first
+announcement of his name.</p>
+
+<p>He addressed his conversation to Miss Keeldar.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"And on their captain," interposed Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"No," returned Shirley, answering the smile; "Captain
+G&eacute;rard Moore, who trusts much to the prowess of his own
+right arm, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>216<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;I brought it for
+your perusal; and there is a batch of newspapers, containing
+further accounts of proceedings in Nottingham, Manchester,
+and elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the gilding
+of the west&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>He could not, by looking straight before him, see Caroline,
+as she was close at his side. It was necessary, therefore,
+to man&oelig;uvre 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>217<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>"How is Hortense?" asked Caroline softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; but she complains of being unemployed.
+She misses you."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her that I miss her, and that I write and read
+a portion of French every day."</p>
+
+<p>"She will ask if you sent your love; she is always particular
+on that point. You know she likes attention."</p>
+
+<p>"My best love&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"What if I forget? I am not the surest messenger of
+compliments."</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't forget, Robert. It is no compliment; it is
+in good earnest."</p>
+
+<p>"And must, therefore, be delivered punctually."</p>
+
+<p>"If you please."</p>
+
+<p>"Hortense will be ready to shed tears. She is tenderhearted
+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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>218<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 was of no use arguing, contending
+against the sense of present happiness; to be near
+Robert was to be revived.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar laid down the papers.</p>
+
+<p>"And are you glad or sad for all these menacing tidings?"
+she inquired of her tenant.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 fullness 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&mdash;a joy of the past and
+present, of memory and of hope.</p>
+
+<p>What I have just said are Caroline's ideas of the pair.
+She felt what has just been described. In thus feeling she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>219<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 good-night, receiving from that lady a warmer
+pressure of the hand than usual. She stepped up to Miss
+Keeldar.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Shirley!"</p>
+
+<p>Shirley started up. "What! so soon? Are you going
+already?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is past nine."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard the clock. You will come again to-morrow,
+and you will be happy to-night, will you not?
+Remember our plans."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Caroline; "I have not forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!" she said, shaking like a leaf, offering
+her thin hand hastily, anxious to part from him quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"You are going home?" he asked, not touching her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Fanny come for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;that manner which she ever felt
+to be so kind.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>220<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"You may run on, Fanny," he said to the housemaid;
+"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.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline replied that she liked Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose not, unless my uncle should change his
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you much alone now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a good deal. I have little pleasure in any society
+but Miss Keeldar's."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you been quite well lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite."</p>
+
+<p>"You must take care of yourself. Be sure not to neglect
+exercise. Do you know I fancied you somewhat altered&mdash;a
+little fallen away, and pale. Is your uncle kind to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he is just as he always is."</p>
+
+<p>"Not too tender, that is to say&mdash;not too protective and
+attentive. And what ails you, then? Tell me, Lina."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, Robert." But her voice faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know. Sometimes I almost fear it is."</p>
+
+<p>"But it ought not to have that effect. 'Should auld
+acquaintance be forgot, and days o' lang syne?'"</p>
+
+<p>"Robert, I don't forget."</p>
+
+<p>"It is two months, I should think, Caroline, since you
+were at the cottage."</p>
+
+<p>"Since I was <em>within</em> it&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever passed that way in your walk?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>221<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I wonder I never encountered you. I occasionally walk
+to the top of the Hollow's fields after sunset."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you do. I had almost spoken to you one night,
+you passed so near me."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I? I passed near you, and did not see you! Was
+I alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw you twice, and neither time were you alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was my companion? Probably nothing but Joe
+Scott, or my own shadow by moonlight."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You need fear no such infliction. I do not come near
+you; I only stand afar off, watching what may become of
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I will never be where you would not wish me to be,
+nor see nor hear what you would wish unseen and unheard."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>222<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I shall not follow you into your mill, Robert, unless you
+call me there."</p>
+
+<p>"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 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."</p>
+
+<p>"It was not my wraith, then? I almost thought it was."</p>
+
+<p>"No; only gauze, crockery, and pink blossom&mdash;a sample
+of earthly illusions."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder you have time for such illusions, occupied as
+your mind must be."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I. But I find in myself, Lina, two natures&mdash;one
+for the world and business, and one for home and leisure.
+G&eacute;rard 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Your two natures agree with you. I think you are
+looking in good spirits and health. You have quite lost
+that harassed air which it often pained one to see in your
+face a few months ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you observe that? Certainly I am disentangled
+of some difficulties. I have got clear of some shoals, and
+have more sea-room."</p>
+
+<p>"And, with a fair wind, you may now hope to make a
+prosperous voyage?"</p>
+
+<p>"I may <em>hope</em> it&mdash;yes&mdash;but hope is deceptive. There is
+no controlling wind or wave. Gusts and swells perpetually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>223<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+trouble the mariner's course; he dare not dismiss from
+his mind the expectation of tempest."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 that will. I wish you success. I wish you
+high fortune and true happiness."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But we cannot sit in the porch now, Robert."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline said this because Moore was turning her round
+towards it.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not. But tell Fanny to go in. Say we are
+coming. A few minutes will make no difference."</p>
+
+<p>The church clock struck ten.</p>
+
+<p>"My uncle will be coming out to take his usual sentinel
+round, and he always surveys the church and churchyard."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Robert, what good spirits you have! Go! go!" added
+Caroline hastily. "I hear the front door&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to go; on the contrary, I want to stay."</p>
+
+<p>"You know my uncle will be terribly angry. He forbade
+me to see you because you are a Jacobin."</p>
+
+<p>"A queer Jacobin!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go, Robert, he is coming; I hear him cough."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>224<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Diable! It is strange&mdash;what a pertinacious wish I
+feel to stay!"</p>
+
+<p>"You remember what he did to Fanny's&mdash;" 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&mdash;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 dare say, with
+pleasure. I should like to provoke the old Turk&mdash;not,
+however, against you. But he would make a distinction
+between a cousin and a lover, would he not?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a name="gaze" id="gaze"></a><ins title="was gave">gaze,</ins> said "Good-night!" and went.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>225<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 gray 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&mdash;an intruder for which she
+would never permit Fanny to lay a trap&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>With returning silence, with the lull of the chime, and
+the retreat of her small untamed and unknown <em>prot&eacute;g&eacute;</em>,
+she still resumed the dream, nestling to the vision's side&mdash;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 gray, confronted with the
+red of sunrise. It wasted. She was left solitary at last.
+She crept to her couch, chill and dejected.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>226<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>SHIRLEY SEEKS TO BE SAVED BY WORKS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Of</span> 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 <em>are</em> married," was the cruel
+succeeding thought. "Oh! I shall be wholly forgotten!
+And what&mdash;<em>what</em> shall I do when Robert is taken quite from
+me? Where shall I turn? <em>My</em> 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&mdash;not with inferior feelings. She loves, or <em>will</em> 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&mdash;in my eyes. I <em>have</em> loved, <em>do</em> love, and
+<em>must</em> 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&mdash;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.&mdash;Sunder
+me then, Providence. Part us speedily."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>227<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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 a unique flavour of sentiment, so
+that mirth from her never resembled "the crackling of
+thorns under a pot."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"I was not in the humour," replied Miss Helstone,
+very truly.</p>
+
+<p>Shirley had already fixed on her a penetrating eye.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to stay long, Shirley?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>And this she did, and then stood on the rug with her
+hands behind her.</p>
+
+<p>"A pretty expression you have in your countenance,"
+she went on, still gazing keenly, though not inimically&mdash;rather
+indeed pityingly&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never do fear Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"By ten."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! You took three-quarters of an hour to
+walk a mile. Was it you, or Moore, who lingered so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, you talk nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>He</em> talked nonsense&mdash;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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>228<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+I feel desperately irritated. I felt so last night, and have
+felt it all day."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Stuff, Shirley! Which would you have shot&mdash;me or
+Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"Neither, perhaps. Perhaps myself&mdash;more likely a
+bat or a tree-bough. He is a puppy, your cousin&mdash;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&mdash;I have no patience
+with him!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken," urged Caroline, in some anxiety.
+"Robert is no puppy or male flirt; I can vouch for
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>You</em> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"But not tell lies. And if I speak the truth, I must
+assure you that he was just civil to me last night&mdash;that
+was all."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"That is nothing. I am not a stranger, you know. I
+am an old acquaintance, and his cousin."</p>
+
+<p>"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 man&oelig;uvres.
+He keeps intruding between you and me. Without him
+we should be good friends; but that six feet of puppyhood
+makes a perpetually-recurring eclipse of our friendship.
+Again and again he crosses and obscures the disc I want
+always to see clear; ever and anon he renders me to you
+a mere bore and nuisance."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>229<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"No, Shirley, no."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, I can say anything you wish. Shirley, I like
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"You will wish me at Jericho to-morrow, Lina."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not. I am every day growing more accustomed
+to&mdash;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&mdash;you are so different to every-day
+young ladies&mdash;I esteem you, I value you; you are
+never a burden to me&mdash;never. Do you believe what I
+say?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And unhappy people are rarely good. Is that what
+you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. I mean rather that unhappy people are
+often preoccupied, 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, I never had a sister&mdash;you never had a sister;
+but it flashes on me at this moment how sisters feel towards
+each other&mdash;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&mdash;that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>230<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+is, <em>you only</em>&mdash;are near, Shirley. Do you believe me
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am always easy of belief when the creed pleases
+me. We really are friends, then, Lina, in spite of the black
+eclipse?"</p>
+
+<p>"We really are," returned the other, drawing Shirley
+towards her, and making her sit down, "chance what
+may."</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>private</em> 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 scandalized
+at my ignorance about clothing societies and such
+things."</p>
+
+<p>On the morrow Caroline found Shirley sitting gravely
+at her desk, with an account-book, a bundle of banknotes,
+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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>231<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;ten times&mdash;my strength of mind
+on certain subjects, Caroline. You, whom no persuasion
+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 dare say, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>232<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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, free-handed
+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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Some people say we shouldn't give alms to the poor,
+Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But you do help others, Shirley. You give a great
+deal as it is."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk like Robert."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>233<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, how your eyes flash!"</p>
+
+<p>"Because my soul burns. Would you, any more than
+me, let Robert be borne down by numbers?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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 <em>prevent</em> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;and
+this they knew by instinct&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bright day for Miss Ainley when she was summoned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>234<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+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&mdash;what was best of all&mdash;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 around her.</p>
+
+<p>Shirley placed at her disposal &pound;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, <em>must</em> 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 unauthorized
+by them.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;who,
+in their trivial arrogance, were hardly worthy to tie
+her patten-strings, or carry her cotton umbrella, or check
+woollen shawl&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>235<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+some sagacity, and Mr. Hall, at least, had sympathy
+and loving-kindness for his fellow-men; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;or rather, it was to Caroline's care Mr.
+Hall consigned himself.</p>
+
+<p>He generally sought Caroline in every party where
+she and he happened to be. He was not in general a lady's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>236<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+man, though all ladies liked him; something of a book-worm
+he was, near-sighted, spectacled, now and then
+abstracted. To old ladies he was kind as a son. To men
+of every occupation and grade he was acceptable. The
+truth, simplicity, frankness of his manners, the nobleness
+of his integrity, the reality and elevation of his piety, won
+him friends in every grade. His poor clerk and sexton delighted
+in him; the noble patron of his living esteemed
+him highly. It was only with young, handsome, fashionable,
+and stylish ladies he felt a little shy. Being himself a plain
+man&mdash;plain in aspect, plain in manners, plain in speech&mdash;he
+seemed to fear their dash, elegance, and airs. But
+Miss Helstone had neither dash nor airs, and her native
+elegance was of a very quiet order&mdash;quiet as the beauty of
+a ground-loving hedge-flower. He was a fluent, cheerful,
+agreeable talker. Caroline could talk too in a <em>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</em>. She
+liked Mr. Hall to come and take the seat next her in a party,
+and thus secure her from Peter Augustus Malone, Joseph
+Donne, or John Sykes; and Mr. Hall never failed to avail
+himself of this privilege when he possibly could. Such
+preference shown by a single gentleman to a single lady
+would certainly, in ordinary cases, have set in motion the
+tongues of the gossips; but Cyril Hall was forty-five years
+old, slightly bald, and slightly gray, and nobody ever said
+or thought he was likely to be married to Miss Helstone.
+Nor did he think so himself. He was wedded already to his
+books and his parish. His kind sister Margaret, spectacled
+and learned like himself, made him happy in his single state;
+he considered it too late to change. Besides, he had known
+Caroline as a pretty little girl. She had sat on his knee many a
+time; he had bought her toys and given her books; he felt
+that her friendship for him was mixed with a sort of filial
+respect; he could not have brought himself to attempt
+to give another colour to her sentiments, and his serene
+mind could glass a fair image without feeling its depths
+troubled by the reflection.</p>
+
+<p>When Miss Ainley arrived, she was made kindly welcome
+by every one. Mrs. Pryor and Margaret Hall made
+room for her on the sofa between them; and when the three
+were seated, they formed a trio which the gay and thoughtless
+would have scorned, indeed, as quite worthless and unattractive&mdash;a
+middle-aged widow and two plain, spectacled
+old maids&mdash;yet which had its own quiet value, as many a
+suffering and friendless human being knew.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>237<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Shirley opened the business and showed the plan.</p>
+
+<p>"I know the hand which drew up that," said Mr. Hall,
+glancing at Miss Ainley, and smiling benignantly. His
+approbation was won at once. Boultby heard and deliberated
+with bent brow and protruded under lip. His consent
+he considered too weighty to be given in a hurry.
+Helstone glanced sharply round with an alert, suspicious
+expression, as if he apprehended that female craft was at
+work, and that something in petticoats was somehow trying
+underhand to acquire too much influence, and make itself
+of too much importance. Shirley caught and comprehended
+the expression. "This scheme is nothing," said she carelessly.
+"It is only an outline&mdash;a mere suggestion. You,
+gentlemen, are requested to draw up rules of your own."</p>
+
+<p>And she directly fetched her writing-case, smiling queerly
+to herself as she bent over the table where it stood. She
+produced a sheet of paper, a new pen, drew an arm-chair to
+the table, and presenting her hand to old Helstone, begged
+permission to install him in it. For a minute he was a little
+stiff, and stood wrinkling his copper-coloured forehead
+strangely. At last he muttered, "Well, you are neither my
+wife nor my daughter, so I'll be led for once; but mind&mdash;I
+know I <em>am</em> led. Your little female man&oelig;uvres don't blind
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Shirley, dipping the pen in the ink, and
+putting it into his hand, "you must regard me as Captain
+Keeldar to-day. This is quite a gentleman's affair&mdash;yours
+and mine entirely, doctor" (so she had dubbed
+the rector). "The ladies there are only to be our aides-de-camp,
+and at their peril they speak, till we have settled
+the whole business."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled a little grimly, and began to write. He soon
+interrupted himself to ask questions, and consult his brethren,
+disdainfully lifting his glance over the curly heads of the
+two girls and the demure caps of the elder ladies, to meet
+the winking glasses and gray pates of the priests. In the discussion
+which ensued, all three gentlemen, to their infinite
+credit, showed a thorough acquaintance with the poor of
+their parishes&mdash;an even minute knowledge of their separate
+wants. Each rector knew where clothing was needed, where
+food would be most acceptable, where money could be
+bestowed with a probability of it being judiciously laid out.
+Wherever their memories fell short, Miss Ainley or Miss Hall,
+if applied to, could help them out; but both ladies took care<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>238<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+not to speak unless spoken to. Neither of them wanted to be
+foremost, but each sincerely desired to be useful; and useful
+the clergy consented to make them&mdash;with which boon they
+were content.</p>
+
+<p>Shirley stood behind the rectors, leaning over their
+shoulders now and then to glance at the rules drawn up and
+the list of cases making out, listening to all they said, and
+still at intervals smiling her queer smile&mdash;a smile not ill-natured,
+but significant&mdash;too significant to be generally
+thought amiable. Men rarely like such of their fellows as
+read their inward nature too clearly and truly. It is good for
+women, especially, to be endowed with a soft blindness;
+to have mild, dim eyes, that never penetrate below the
+surface of things&mdash;that take all for what it seems. Thousands,
+knowing this, keep their eyelids drooped on system;
+but the most downcast glance has its loophole, through which
+it can, on occasion, take its sentinel-survey of life. I remember
+once seeing a pair of blue eyes, that were usually thought
+sleepy, secretly on the alert, and I knew by their expression&mdash;an
+expression which chilled my blood, it was in that
+quarter so wondrously unexpected&mdash;that for years they
+had been accustomed to silent soul-reading. The world
+called the owner of these blue eyes <em>bonne petite femme</em> (she
+was not an Englishwoman). I learned her nature afterwards&mdash;got
+it off by heart&mdash;studied it in its farthest, most
+hidden recesses. She was the finest, deepest, subtlest
+schemer in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>When all was at length settled to Miss Keeldar's mind,
+and the clergy had entered so fully into the spirit of her
+plans as to head the subscription-list with their signatures
+for &pound;50 each, she ordered supper to be served, having
+previously directed Mrs. Gill to exercise her utmost skill in
+the preparation of this repast. Mr. Hall was no <em>bon vivant</em>&mdash;he
+was naturally an abstemious man, indifferent to luxury;
+but Boultby and Helstone both liked good cookery. The
+<em>recherch&eacute;</em> supper consequently put them into excellent
+humour. They did justice to it, though in a gentlemanly
+way&mdash;not in the mode Mr. Donne would have done had he
+been present. A glass of fine wine was likewise tasted, with
+discerning though most decorous relish. Captain Keeldar
+was complimented on his taste; the compliment charmed
+him. It had been his aim to gratify and satisfy his priestly
+guests. He had succeeded, and was radiant with glee.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>239<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MR. DONNE'S EXODUS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> next day Shirley expressed to Caroline how delighted
+she felt that the little party had gone off so well.</p>
+
+<p>"I rather like to entertain a circle of gentlemen," said
+she. "It is amusing to observe how they enjoy a judiciously
+concocted repast. For ourselves, you see, these
+choice wines and these scientific dishes are of no importance
+to us; but gentlemen seem to retain something of the
+<em>na&iuml;vet&eacute;</em> of children about food, and one likes to please them&mdash;that
+is, when they show the becoming, decent self-government
+of our admirable rectors. I watch Moore sometimes,
+to try and discover how he can be pleased; but he has not
+that child's simplicity about him. Did you ever find out
+his accessible point, Caroline? you have seen more of him
+than I."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not, at any rate, that of my uncle and Dr. Boultby,"
+returned Caroline, smiling. She always felt a sort of shy
+pleasure in following Miss Keeldar's lead respecting the discussion
+of her cousin's character. Left to herself, she would
+never have touched on the subject; but when invited, the
+temptation of talking about him of whom she was ever
+thinking was irresistible. "But," she added, "I really don't
+know what it is, for I never watched Robert in my life but
+my scrutiny was presently baffled by finding he was watching
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"There it is!" exclaimed Shirley. "You can't fix your
+eyes on him but his presently flash on you. He is never off
+his guard. He won't give you an advantage. Even when he
+does not look at you, his thoughts seem to be busy amongst
+your own thoughts, tracing your words and actions to their
+source, contemplating your motives at his ease. Oh! I
+know that sort of character, or something in the same style.
+It is one that piques me singularly. How does it affect
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>This question was a specimen of one of Shirley's sharp,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>240<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+sudden turns. Caroline used to be fluttered by them at
+first, but she had now got into the way of parrying these
+home-thrusts like a little Quakeress.</p>
+
+<p>"Pique you? In what way does it pique you?" she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Here he comes!" suddenly exclaimed Shirley, breaking
+off, starting up and running to the window. "Here comes
+a diversion. I never told you of a superb conquest I have
+made lately&mdash;made at those parties to which I can never
+persuade you to accompany me; and the thing has been
+done without effort or intention on my part&mdash;that I aver.
+There is the bell&mdash;and, by all that's delicious! there are two
+of them. Do they never hunt, then, except in couples?
+You may have one, Lina, and you may take your choice.
+I hope I am generous enough. Listen to Tartar!"</p>
+
+<p>The black-muzzled, tawny dog, a glimpse of which was
+seen in the chapter which first introduced its mistress to
+the reader, here gave tongue in the hall, amidst whose hollow
+space the deep bark resounded formidably. A growl more
+terrible than the bark, menacing as muttered thunder, succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" again cried Shirley, laughing. "You would
+think that the prelude to a bloody onslaught. They will be
+frightened. They don't know old Tartar as I do. They are
+not aware his uproars are all sound and fury, signifying
+nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>Some bustle was heard. "Down, sir, down!" exclaimed
+a high-toned, imperious voice, and then came a crack of a
+cane or whip. Immediately there was a yell&mdash;a scutter&mdash;a
+run&mdash;a positive tumult.</p>
+
+<p>"O Malone, Malone!"</p>
+
+<p>"Down! down! down!" cried the high voice.</p>
+
+<p>"He really is worrying them!" exclaimed Shirley.
+"They have struck him. A blow is what he is not used to,
+and will not take."</p>
+
+<p>Out she ran. A gentleman was fleeing up the oak staircase,
+making for refuge in the gallery or chambers in hot
+haste; another was backing fast to the stairfoot, wildly
+flourishing a knotty stick, at the same time reiterating,
+"Down! down! down!" while the tawny dog bayed,
+bellowed, howled at him, and a group of servants came
+bundling from the kitchen. The dog made a spring; the
+second gentleman turned tail and rushed after his comrade.
+The first was already safe in a bedroom; he held the door<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>241<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+against his fellow&mdash;nothing so merciless as terror. But the
+other fugitive struggled hard; the door was about to yield
+to his strength.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," was uttered in Miss Keeldar's silvery but
+vibrating tones, "spare my locks, if you please. Calm yourselves!
+Come down! Look at Tartar; he won't harm a
+cat."</p>
+
+<p>She was caressing the said Tartar. He lay crouched at
+her feet, his fore paws stretched out, his tail still in threatening
+agitation, his nostrils snorting, his bulldog eyes conscious
+of a dull fire. He was an honest, phlegmatic, stupid,
+but stubborn canine character. He loved his mistress and
+John&mdash;the man who fed him&mdash;but was mostly indifferent to
+the rest of the world. Quiet enough he was, unless struck
+or threatened with a stick, and that put a demon into him
+at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Malone, how do you do?" continued Shirley,
+lifting up her mirth-lit face to the gallery. "That is not
+the way to the oak parlour; that is Mrs. Pryor's apartment.
+Request your friend Mr. Donne to evacuate. I shall have
+the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" cried Malone, in hollow laughter, quitting
+the door, and leaning over the massive balustrade. "Really
+that animal alarmed Donne. He is a little timid," he
+proceeded, stiffening himself, and walking trimly to the
+stairhead. "I thought it better to follow, in order to reassure
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"It appears you did. Well, come down, if you please.&mdash;John"
+(turning to her manservant), "go upstairs and
+liberate Mr. Donne.&mdash;Take care, Mr. Malone; the stairs
+are slippery."</p>
+
+<p>In truth they were, being of polished oak. The caution
+came a little late for Malone. He had slipped already in
+his stately descent, and was only saved from falling by a
+clutch at the banisters, which made the whole structure
+creak again.</p>
+
+<p>Tartar seemed to think the visitor's descent effected
+with unwarranted <em>&eacute;clat</em>, and accordingly he growled once
+more. Malone, however, was no coward. The spring of the
+dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed him now in
+suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have
+strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting
+politeness in his sullen rage, Malone pushed into the
+parlour before Miss Keeldar. He glanced at Miss Helstone;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>242<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+he could scarcely bring himself to bend to her. He glared on
+both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them been his
+wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment.
+In each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch
+one and gripe her to death.</p>
+
+<p>However, Shirley took pity. She ceased to laugh; and
+Caroline was too true a lady to smile even at any one under
+mortification. Tartar was dismissed; Peter Augustus
+was soothed&mdash;for Shirley had looks and tones that might
+soothe a very bull. He had sense to feel that, since he could
+not challenge the owner of the dog, he had better be civil.
+And civil he tried to be; and his attempts being well
+received, he grew presently <em>very</em> civil and quite himself
+again. He had come, indeed, for the express purpose of
+making himself charming and fascinating. Rough portents
+had met him on his first admission to Fieldhead; but that
+passage got over, charming and fascinating he resolved
+to be. Like March, having come in like a lion, he purposed
+to go out like a lamb.</p>
+
+<p>For the sake of air, as it appeared, or perhaps for that
+of ready exit in case of some new emergency arising, he took
+his seat,&mdash;not on the sofa, where Miss Keeldar offered him
+enthronization, nor yet near the fireside, to which Caroline,
+by a friendly sign, gently <a name="invited" id="invited"></a><ins title="was invired">invited</ins> him, but on a chair close
+to the door. Being no longer sullen or furious, he grew,
+after his fashion, constrained and embarrassed. He talked
+to the ladies by fits and starts, choosing for topics whatever
+was most intensely commonplace. He sighed deeply,
+significantly, at the close of every sentence; he sighed in
+each pause; he sighed ere he opened his mouth. At last,
+finding it desirable to add ease to his other charms, he drew
+forth to aid him an ample silk pocket-handkerchief. This
+was to be the graceful toy with which his unoccupied hands
+were to trifle. He went to work with a certain energy. He
+folded the red-and-yellow square cornerwise; he whipped
+it open with a waft; again he folded it in narrower compass;
+he made of it a handsome band. To what purpose would
+he proceed to apply the ligature? Would he wrap it about
+his throat&mdash;his head? Should it be a comforter or a turban?
+Neither. Peter Augustus had an inventive, an original
+genius. He was about to show the ladies graces of action
+possessing at least the charm of novelty. He sat on the chair
+with his athletic Irish legs crossed, and these legs, in that
+attitude, he circled with the bandana and bound firmly together.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>243<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+It was evident he felt this device to be worth an
+encore; he repeated it more than once. The second performance
+sent Shirley to the window, to laugh her silent
+but irrepressible laugh unseen; it turned Caroline's head
+aside, that her long curls might screen the smile mantling
+on her features. Miss Helstone, indeed, was amused
+by more than one point in Peter's demeanour. She was
+edified at the complete though abrupt diversion of his
+homage from herself to the heiress. The &pound;5,000 he supposed
+her likely one day to inherit were not to be weighed in the
+balance against Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no
+pains to conceal his calculations and tactics. He pretended
+to no gradual change of views; he wheeled about
+at once. The pursuit of the lesser fortune was openly relinquished
+for that of the greater. On what grounds he
+expected to succeed in his chase himself best knew; certainly
+not by skilful management.</p>
+
+<p>From the length of time that elapsed, it appeared that
+John had some difficulty in persuading Mr. Donne to
+descend. At length, however, that gentleman appeared;
+nor, as he presented himself at the oak-parlour door, did
+he seem in the slightest degree ashamed or confused&mdash;not
+a whit. Donne, indeed, was of that coldly phlegmatic,
+immovably complacent, densely self-satisfied nature which
+is insensible to shame. He had never blushed in his life;
+no humiliation could abash him; his nerves were not capable
+of sensation enough to stir his life and make colour
+mount to his cheek; he had no fire in his blood and no
+modesty in his soul; he was a frontless, arrogant, decorous
+slip of the commonplace&mdash;conceited, inane, insipid; and
+this gentleman had a notion of wooing Miss Keeldar! He
+knew no more, however, how to set about the business than
+if he had been an image carved in wood. He had no idea
+of a taste to be pleased, a heart to be reached in courtship.
+His notion was, when he should have formally visited her a
+few times, to write a letter proposing marriage. Then he
+calculated she would accept him for love of his office; then
+they would be married; then he should be master of Fieldhead;
+and he should live very comfortably, have servants
+at his command, eat and drink of the best, and be a great
+man. You would not have suspected his intentions when he
+addressed his intended bride in an impertinent, injured
+tone&mdash;"A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I wonder
+you should keep such an animal."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>244<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Do you, Mr. Donne? Perhaps you will wonder more
+when I tell you I am very fond of him."</p>
+
+<p>"I should say you are not serious in the assertion. Can't
+fancy a lady fond of that brute&mdash;'tis so ugly&mdash;a mere carter's
+dog. Pray hang him."</p>
+
+<p>"Hang what I am fond of!"</p>
+
+<p>"And purchase in his stead some sweetly pooty pug or
+poodle&mdash;something appropriate to the fair sex. Ladies
+generally like lap-dogs."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I am an exception."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in
+those matters. That is universally allowed."</p>
+
+<p>"Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr. Donne. I hope
+you won't take any harm."</p>
+
+<p>"That I shall, no doubt. He gave me a turn I shall
+not soon forget. When I <em>sor</em> him" (such was Mr. Donne's
+pronunciation) "about to spring, I thought I should have
+fainted."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you did faint in the bedroom; you were a
+long time there."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I bore up that I might hold the door fast. I
+was determined not to let any one enter. I thought I
+would keep a barrier between me and the enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"But what if your friend Mr. Malone had been worried?"</p>
+
+<p>"Malone must take care of himself. Your man persuaded
+me to come out at last by saying the dog was chained
+up in his kennel. If I had not been assured of this, I would
+have remained all day in the chamber. But what is that?
+I declare the man has told a falsehood! The dog is there!"</p>
+
+<p>And indeed Tartar walked past the glass door opening
+to the garden, stiff, tawny, and black-muzzled as ever.
+He still seemed in bad humour. He was growling again,
+and whistling a half-strangled whistle, being an inheritance
+from the bulldog side of his ancestry.</p>
+
+<p>"There are other visitors coming," observed Shirley,
+with that provoking coolness which the owners of formidable-looking
+dogs are apt to show while their animals
+are all bristle and bay. Tartar sprang down the pavement
+towards the gate, bellowing <em>avec explosion</em>. His mistress
+quietly opened the glass door, and stepped out chirruping
+to him. His bellow was already silenced, and he was lifting
+up his huge, blunt, stupid head to the new callers to be
+patted.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>245<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"What! Tartar, Tartar!" said a cheery, rather boyish
+voice, "don't you know us? Good-morning, old boy!"</p>
+
+<p>And little Mr. Sweeting, whose conscious good nature
+made him comparatively fearless of man, woman, child,
+or brute, came through the gate, caressing the guardian.
+His vicar, Mr. Hall, followed. He had no fear of Tartar
+either, and Tartar had no ill-will to him. He snuffed both
+the gentlemen round, and then, as if concluding that they
+were harmless, and might be allowed to pass, he withdrew
+to the sunny front of the hall, leaving the archway free.
+Mr. Sweeting followed, and would have played with him;
+but Tartar took no notice of his caresses. It was only his
+mistress's hand whose touch gave him pleasure; to all
+others he showed himself obstinately insensible.</p>
+
+<p>Shirley advanced to meet Messrs. Hall and Sweeting,
+shaking hands with them cordially. They were come to
+tell her of certain successes they had achieved that morning
+in applications for subscriptions to the fund. Mr. Hall's
+eyes beamed benignantly through his spectacles, his plain
+face looked positively handsome with goodness; and when
+Caroline, seeing who was come, ran out to meet him, and
+put both her hands into his, he gazed down on her with a
+gentle, serene, affectionate expression that gave him the
+aspect of a smiling <a name="Melanchthon" id="Melanchthon"></a><ins title="was Melancthon">Melanchthon</ins>.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of re-entering the house, they strayed through
+the garden, the ladies walking one on each side of Mr.
+Hall. It was a breezy sunny day; the air freshened the
+girls' cheeks and gracefully dishevelled their ringlets.
+Both of them looked pretty&mdash;one gay. Mr. Hall spoke
+oftenest to his brilliant companion, looked most frequently
+at the quiet one. Miss Keeldar gathered handfuls of the
+profusely blooming flowers whose perfume filled the enclosure.
+She gave some to Caroline, telling her to choose a
+nosegay for Mr. Hall; and with her lap filled with delicate
+and splendid blossoms, Caroline sat down on the steps
+of a summer-house. The vicar stood near her, leaning on
+his cane.</p>
+
+<p>Shirley, who could not be inhospitable, now called out
+the neglected pair in the oak parlour. She convoyed Donne
+past his dread enemy Tartar, who, with his nose on his fore
+paws, lay snoring under the meridian sun. Donne was not
+grateful&mdash;he never <em>was</em> grateful for kindness and attention&mdash;but
+he was glad of the safeguard. Miss Keeldar, desirous
+of being impartial, offered the curates flowers. They accepted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>246<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+them with native awkwardness. Malone seemed
+specially at a loss, when a bouquet filled one hand, while
+his shillelah occupied the other. Donne's "Thank you!"
+was rich to hear. It was the most fatuous and arrogant of
+sounds, implying that he considered this offering a homage
+to his merits, and an attempt on the part of the heiress to
+ingratiate herself into his priceless affections. Sweeting
+alone received the posy like a smart, sensible little man,
+as he was, putting it gallantly and nattily into his buttonhole.</p>
+
+<p>As a reward for his good manners, Miss Keeldar, beckoning
+him apart, gave him some commission, which made his
+eyes sparkle with glee. Away he flew, round by the courtyard
+to the kitchen. No need to give him directions; he
+was always at home everywhere. Ere long he reappeared,
+carrying a round table, which he placed under the cedar;
+then he collected six garden-chairs from various nooks and
+bowers in the grounds, and placed them in a circle. The
+parlour-maid&mdash;Miss Keeldar kept no footman&mdash;came out,
+bearing a napkin-covered tray. Sweeting's nimble fingers
+aided in disposing glasses, plates, knives, and forks; he
+assisted her too in setting forth a neat luncheon, consisting
+of cold chicken, ham, and tarts.</p>
+
+<p>This sort of impromptu regale it was Shirley's delight
+to offer any chance guests; and nothing pleased her better
+than to have an alert, obliging little friend, like Sweeting,
+to run about her hand, cheerily receive and briskly execute
+her hospitable hints. David and she were on the best terms
+in the world; and his devotion to the heiress was quite
+disinterested, since it prejudiced in nothing his faithful
+allegiance to the magnificent Dora Sykes.</p>
+
+<p>The repast turned out a very merry one. Donne and
+Malone, indeed, contributed but little to its vivacity, the
+chief part they played in it being what concerned the
+knife, fork, and wine-glass; but where four such natures
+as Mr. Hall, David Sweeting, Shirley, and Caroline were
+assembled in health and amity, on a green lawn, under a
+sunny sky, amidst a wilderness of flowers, there could not
+be ungenial dullness.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of conversation Mr. Hall reminded the ladies
+that Whitsuntide was approaching, when the grand united
+Sunday-school tea-drinking and procession of the three
+parishes of Briarfield, Whinbury, and Nunnely were to take
+place. Caroline, he knew, would be at her post as teacher,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>247<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+he said, and he hoped Miss Keeldar would not be wanting.
+He hoped she would make her first public appearance amongst
+them at that time. Shirley was not the person to miss an
+occasion of this sort. She liked festive excitement, a gathering
+of happiness, a concentration and combination of pleasant
+details, a throng of glad faces, a muster of elated hearts.
+She told Mr. Hall they might count on her with security.
+She did not know what she would have to do, but they
+might dispose of her as they pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"And," said Caroline, "you will promise to come to
+my table, and to sit near me, Mr. Hall?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not fail, <em>Deo volente</em>," said he.&mdash;"I have occupied
+the place on her right hand at these monster tea-drinkings
+for the last six years," he proceeded, turning to
+Miss Keeldar. "They made her a Sunday-school teacher
+when she was a little girl of twelve. She is not particularly
+self-confident by nature, as you may have observed; and
+the first time she had to 'take a tray,' as the phrase is,
+and make tea in public, there was some piteous trembling
+and flushing. I observed the speechless panic, the cups
+shaking in the little hand, and the overflowing teapot filled
+too full from the urn. I came to her aid, took a seat near
+her, managed the urn and the slop-basin, and in fact made
+the tea for her like any old woman."</p>
+
+<p>"I was very grateful to you," interposed Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"You were. You told me so with an earnest sincerity
+that repaid me well, inasmuch as it was not like the majority
+of little ladies of twelve, whom you may help and caress
+for ever without their evincing any quicker sense of the
+kindness done and meant than if they were made of wax
+and wood instead of flesh and nerves.&mdash;She kept close to
+me, Miss Keeldar, the rest of the evening, walking with me
+over the grounds where the children were playing; she
+followed me into the vestry when all were summoned into
+church; she would, I believe, have mounted with me to
+the pulpit, had I not taken the previous precaution of conducting
+her to the rectory pew."</p>
+
+<p>"And he has been my friend ever since," said Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"And always sat at her table, near her tray, and handed
+the cups&mdash;that is the extent of my services. The next
+thing I do for her will be to marry her some day to some
+curate or mill-owner.&mdash;But mind, Caroline, I shall inquire
+about the bridegroom's character; and if he is not a gentleman
+likely to render happy the little girl who walked with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>248<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+me hand in hand over Nunnely Common, I will not officiate.
+So take care."</p>
+
+<p>"The caution is useless. I am not going to be married.
+I shall live single, like your sister Margaret, Mr. Hall."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. You might do worse. Margaret is not unhappy.
+She has her books for a pleasure, and her brother
+for a care, and is content. If ever you want a home, if
+the day should come when Briarfield rectory is yours no
+longer, come to Nunnely vicarage. Should the old maid
+and bachelor be still living, they will make you tenderly
+welcome."</p>
+
+<p>"There are your flowers. Now," said Caroline, who had
+kept the nosegay she had selected for him till this moment,
+"<em>you</em> don't care for a bouquet, but you must give it to
+Margaret; only&mdash;to be sentimental for once&mdash;keep that
+little forget-me-not, which is a wild flower I gathered from
+the grass; and&mdash;to be still more sentimental&mdash;let me take
+two or three of the blue blossoms and put them in my
+souvenir."</p>
+
+<p>And she took out a small book with enamelled cover and
+silver clasp, wherein, having opened it, she inserted the
+flowers, writing round them in pencil, "To be kept for the
+sake of the Rev. Cyril Hall, my friend. May &mdash;, 18&mdash;."</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Cyril Hall, on his part, also placed a sprig in
+safety between the leaves of a pocket Testament. He only
+wrote on the margin, "Caroline."</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said he, smiling, "I trust we are romantic
+enough. Miss Keeldar," he continued (the curates, by-the-bye,
+during this conversation, were too much occupied with
+their own jokes to notice what passed at the other end of
+the table), "I hope you are laughing at this trait of '<em>exaltation</em>'
+in the old gray-headed vicar; but the fact is, I am so
+used to comply with the requests of this young friend of
+yours, I don't know how to refuse her when she tells me
+to do anything. You would say it is not much in my way
+to traffic with flowers and forget-me-nots; but, you see,
+when requested to be sentimental, I am obedient."</p>
+
+<p>"He is naturally rather sentimental," remarked Caroline.
+"Margaret told me so, and I know what pleases him."</p>
+
+<p>"That you should be good and happy? Yes; that is
+one of my greatest pleasures. May God long preserve to
+you the blessings of peace and innocence! By which phrase
+I mean <em>comparative</em> innocence; for in His sight, I am well
+aware, <em>none</em> are pure. What to our human perceptions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>249<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+looks spotless as we fancy angels, is to Him but frailty,
+needing the blood of His Son to cleanse, and the strength
+of His Spirit to sustain. Let us each and all cherish humility&mdash;I,
+as you, my young friends; and we may well do it
+when we look into our own hearts, and see there temptations,
+inconsistencies, propensities, even we blush to recognize.
+And it is not youth, nor good looks, nor grace, nor
+any gentle outside charm which makes either beauty or
+goodness in God's eyes.&mdash;Young ladies, when your mirror
+or men's tongues flatter you, remember that, in the sight
+of her Maker, Mary Ann Ainley&mdash;a woman whom neither
+glass nor lips have ever panegyrized&mdash;is fairer and better
+than either of you. She is indeed," he added, after a pause&mdash;"she
+is indeed. You young things, wrapt up in yourselves
+and in earthly hopes, scarcely live as Christ lived.
+Perhaps you cannot do it yet, while existence is so sweet
+and earth so smiling to you; it would be too much to
+expect. She, with meek heart and due reverence, treads
+close in her Redeemer's steps."</p>
+
+<p>Here the harsh voice of Donne broke in on the mild tones
+of Mr. Hall. "Ahem!" he began, clearing his throat
+evidently for a speech of some importance&mdash;"ahem! Miss
+Keeldar, your attention an instant, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Shirley nonchalantly, "what is it? I
+listen. All of me is ear that is not eye."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope part of you is hand also," returned Donne, in
+his vulgarly presumptuous and familiar style, "and part
+purse. It is to the hand and purse I propose to appeal. I
+came here this morning with a view to beg of you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You should have gone to Mrs. Gill; she is my almoner."</p>
+
+<p>"To beg of you a subscription to a school. I and Dr.
+Boultby intend to erect one in the hamlet of Ecclefigg,
+which is under our vicarage of Whinbury. The Baptists
+have got possession of it. They have a chapel there, and
+we want to dispute the ground."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have nothing to do with Ecclefigg. I possess no
+property there."</p>
+
+<p>"What does that signify? You're a churchwoman, ain't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Admirable creature!" muttered Shirley, under her
+breath. "Exquisite address! Fine style! What raptures
+he excites in me!" Then aloud, "I am a churchwoman,
+certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you can't refuse to contribute in this case. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>250<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+population of Ecclefigg are a parcel of brutes; we want to
+civilize them."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is to be the missionary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Myself, probably."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't fail through lack of sympathy with your
+flock."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not&mdash;I expect success; but we must have money.
+There is the paper. Pray give a handsome sum."</p>
+
+<p>When asked for money, Shirley rarely held back. She
+put down her name for &pound;5. After the &pound;300 she had lately
+given, and the many smaller sums she was giving constantly,
+it was as much as she could at present afford. Donne looked
+at it, declared the subscription "shabby," and clamorously
+demanded more. Miss Keeldar flushed up with some indignation
+and more astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"At present I shall give no more," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Not give more! Why, I expected you to head the list
+with a cool hundred. With your property, you should
+never put down a signature for less."</p>
+
+<p>She was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"In the south," went on Donne, "a lady with a thousand
+a year would be ashamed to give five pounds for a public
+object."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley, so rarely haughty, looked so now. Her slight
+frame became nerved; her distinguished face quickened
+with scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"Strange remarks?" said she&mdash;"most inconsiderate!
+Reproach in return for bounty is misplaced."</p>
+
+<p>"Bounty! Do you call five pounds bounty?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do; and bounty which, had I not given it to Dr.
+Boultby's intended school, of the erection of which I approve,
+and in no sort to his curate, who seems ill-advised
+in his manner of applying for, or rather extorting, subscriptions&mdash;bounty,
+I repeat, which, but for this consideration,
+I should instantly reclaim."</p>
+
+<p>Donne was thick-skinned. He did not feel all or half
+that the tone, air, glance of the speaker expressed. He
+knew not on what ground he stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Wretched place this Yorkshire," he went on. "I could
+never have formed an idea<em>r</em> of the country had I not seen
+it. And the people&mdash;rich and poor&mdash;what a set! How
+<em>corse</em> and uncultivated! They would be scouted in the
+south."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley leaned forwards on the table, her nostrils dilating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>251<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+a little, her taper fingers interlaced and compressing each
+other hard.</p>
+
+<p>"The rich," pursued the infatuated and unconscious
+Donne, "are a parcel of misers, never living as persons
+with their incomes ought to live. You scarsley"&mdash;(you
+must excuse Mr. Donne's pronunciation, reader; it was
+very choice; he considered it genteel, and prided himself
+on his southern accent; northern ears received with singular
+sensations his utterance of certain words)&mdash;"you scarsley
+ever see a fam'ly where a propa carriage or a reg'la butla
+is kep; and as to the poor&mdash;just look at them when they
+come crowding about the church doors on the occasion of
+a marriage or a funeral, clattering in clogs; the men in
+their shirt-sleeves and wool-combers' aprons, the women in
+mob-caps and bed-gowns. They positively deserve that
+one should turn a mad cow in amongst them to rout their
+rabble-ranks. He-he! what fun it would be!"</p>
+
+<p>"There! you have reached the climax," said Shirley
+quietly. "You have reached the climax," she repeated,
+turning her glowing glance towards him. "You cannot
+go beyond it, and," she added with emphasis, "you <em>shall</em>
+not, in my house."</p>
+
+<p>Up she rose&mdash;nobody could control her now, for she was
+exasperated&mdash;straight she walked to her garden gates, wide
+she flung them open.</p>
+
+<p>"Walk through," she said austerely, "and pretty quickly,
+and set foot on this pavement no more."</p>
+
+<p>Donne was astounded. He had thought all the time he
+was showing himself off to high advantage, as a lofty-souled
+person of the first "ton;" he imagined he was producing
+a crushing impression. Had he not expressed disdain of
+everything in Yorkshire? What more conclusive proof
+could be given that he was better than anything there?
+And yet here was he about to be turned like a dog out of
+a Yorkshire garden! Where, under such circumstances,
+was the "concatenation accordingly"?</p>
+
+<p>"Rid me of you instantly&mdash;instantly!" reiterated Shirley,
+as he lingered.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam&mdash;a clergyman! turn out a clergyman!"</p>
+
+<p>"Off! Were you an archbishop you have proved yourself
+no gentleman, and must go. Quick!"</p>
+
+<p>She was quite resolved. There was no trifling with her.
+Besides, Tartar was again rising; he perceived symptoms
+of a commotion; he manifested a disposition to join in.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>252<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+There was evidently nothing for it but to go, and Donne
+made his exodus, the heiress sweeping him a deep curtsy
+as she closed the gates on him.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare the pompous priest abuse his flock! How
+dare the lisping cockney revile Yorkshire!" was her sole
+observation on the circumstance, as she returned to the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>Ere long the little party broke up; Miss Keeldar's ruffled
+and darkened brow, curled lip, and incensed eye gave no
+invitation to further social enjoyment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>253<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>WHITSUNTIDE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> fund prospered. By dint of Miss Keeldar's example,
+the three rectors' vigorous exertions, and the efficient though
+quiet aid of their spinster and spectacled lieutenants, Mary
+Ann Ainley and Margaret Hall, a handsome sum was raised;
+and this being judiciously managed, served for the present
+greatly to alleviate the distress of the unemployed poor.
+The neighbourhood seemed to grow calmer. For a fortnight
+past no cloth had been destroyed; no outrage on mill
+or mansion had been committed in the three parishes.
+Shirley was sanguine that the evil she wished to avert was
+almost escaped, that the threatened storm was passing over.
+With the approach of summer she felt certain that trade
+would improve&mdash;it always did; and then this weary war
+could not last for ever; peace must return one day. With
+peace, what an impulse would be given to commerce!</p>
+
+<p>Such was the usual tenor of her observations to her
+tenant, G&eacute;rard Moore, whenever she met him where they
+could converse; and Moore would listen very quietly&mdash;too
+quietly to satisfy her. She would then by her impatient
+glance demand something more from him&mdash;some explanation,
+or at least some additional remark. Smiling in his
+way, with that expression which gave a remarkable cast
+of sweetness to his mouth, while his brow remained grave,
+he would answer to the effect that himself too trusted in
+the finite nature of the war; that it was indeed on that
+ground the anchor of his hopes was fixed; thereon his
+speculations depended. "For you are aware," he would
+continue, "that I now work Hollow's Mill entirely on
+speculation. I sell nothing; there is no market for my
+goods. I manufacture for a future day. I make myself
+ready to take advantage of the first opening that shall
+occur. Three months ago this was impossible to me; I
+had exhausted both credit and capital. You well know
+who came to my rescue, from what hand I received the loan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>254<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+which saved me. It is on the strength of that loan I am
+enabled to continue the bold game which, a while since, I
+feared I should never play more. Total ruin I know will
+follow loss, and I am aware that gain is doubtful; but I
+am quite cheerful. So long as I can be active, so long as I
+can strive, so long, in short, as my hands are not tied,
+it is impossible for me to be depressed. One year&mdash;nay,
+but six months&mdash;of the reign of the olive, and I am safe;
+for, as you say, peace will give an impulse to commerce.
+In this you are right; but as to the restored tranquillity
+of the neighbourhood, as to the permanent good effect of
+your charitable fund, I doubt. Eleemosynary relief never
+yet tranquillized the working-classes&mdash;it never made them
+grateful; it is not in human nature that it should. I
+suppose, were all things ordered aright, they ought not to
+be in a position to need that humiliating relief; and this
+they feel. We should feel it were we so placed. Besides,
+to whom should they be grateful? To you, to the clergy
+perhaps, but not to us mill-owners. They hate us worse
+than ever. Then the disaffected here are in correspondence
+with the disaffected elsewhere. Nottingham is one of
+their headquarters, Manchester another, Birmingham a
+third. The subalterns receive orders from their chiefs;
+they are in a good state of discipline; no blow is struck
+without mature deliberation. In sultry weather you have
+seen the sky threaten thunder day by day, and yet night
+after night the clouds have cleared, and the sun has set
+quietly; but the danger was not gone&mdash;it was only delayed.
+The long-threatening storm is sure to break at last. There
+is analogy between the moral and physical atmosphere."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Moore" (so these conferences always ended),
+"take care of yourself. If you think that I have ever
+done you any good, reward me by promising to take care
+of yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I do; I will take close and watchful care. I wish to
+live, not to die. The future opens like Eden before me;
+and still, when I look deep into the shades of my paradise,
+I see a vision that I like better than seraph or cherub glide
+across remote vistas."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you? Pray, what vision?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The maid came bustling in with the tea-things.</p>
+
+<p>The early part of that May, as we have seen, was fine;
+the middle was wet; but in the last week, at change of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>255<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+moon, it cleared again. A fresh wind swept off the silver-white,
+deep-piled rain-clouds, bearing them, mass on mass,
+to the eastern horizon, on whose verge they dwindled, and
+behind whose rim they disappeared, leaving the vault behind
+all pure blue space, ready for the reign of the summer
+sun. That sun rose broad on Whitsuntide. The gathering
+of the schools was signalized by splendid weather.</p>
+
+<p>Whit-Tuesday was the great day, in preparation for
+which the two large schoolrooms of Briarfield, built by
+the present rector, chiefly at his own expense, were cleaned
+out, whitewashed, repainted, and decorated with flowers
+and evergreens&mdash;some from the rectory garden, two cartloads
+from Fieldhead, and a wheel-barrowful from the more
+stingy domain of De Walden, the residence of Mr. Wynne.
+In these schoolrooms twenty tables, each calculated to
+accommodate twenty guests, were laid out, surrounded with
+benches, and covered with white cloths. Above them were
+suspended at least some twenty cages, containing as many
+canaries, according to a fancy of the district, specially
+cherished by Mr. Helstone's clerk, who delighted in the
+piercing song of these birds, and knew that amidst confusion
+of tongues they always carolled loudest. These
+tables, be it understood, were not spread for the twelve
+hundred scholars to be assembled from the three parishes,
+but only for the patrons and teachers of the schools. The
+children's feast was to be spread in the open air. At one
+o'clock the troops were to come in; at two they were to
+be marshalled; till four they were to parade the parish;
+then came the feast, and afterwards the meeting, with music
+and speechifying in the church.</p>
+
+<p>Why Briarfield was chosen for the point of rendezvous&mdash;the
+scene of the <em>f&ecirc;te</em>&mdash;should be explained. It was not
+because it was the largest or most populous parish&mdash;Whinbury
+far outdid it in that respect; nor because it was the
+oldest, antique as were the hoary church and rectory&mdash;Nunnely's
+low-roofed temple and mossy parsonage, buried
+both in coeval oaks, outstanding sentinels of <a name="Nunnwood" id="Nunnwood"></a><ins title="was Nunwood">Nunnwood</ins>,
+were older still. It was simply because Mr. Helstone willed
+it so, and Mr. Helstone's will was stronger than that of
+Boultby or Hall; the former <em>could</em> not, the latter <em>would</em>
+not, dispute a point of precedence with their resolute and
+imperious brother. They let him lead and rule.</p>
+
+<p>This notable anniversary had always hitherto been a
+trying day to Caroline Helstone, because it dragged her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>256<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+perforce into public, compelling her to face all that was
+wealthy, respectable, influential in the neighbourhood; in
+whose presence, but for the kind countenance of Mr. Hall,
+she would have appeared unsupported. Obliged to be conspicuous;
+obliged to walk at the head of her regiment as
+the rector's niece, and first teacher of the first class; obliged
+to make tea at the first table for a mixed multitude of ladies
+and gentlemen, and to do all this without the countenance
+of mother, aunt, or other chaperon&mdash;she, meantime, being a
+nervous person, who mortally feared publicity&mdash;it will be
+comprehended that, under these circumstances, she trembled
+at the approach of Whitsuntide.</p>
+
+<p>But this year Shirley was to be with her, and that changed
+the aspect of the trial singularly&mdash;it changed it utterly.
+It was a trial no longer&mdash;it was almost an enjoyment. Miss
+Keeldar was better in her single self than a host of ordinary
+friends. Quite self-possessed, and always spirited and easy;
+conscious of her social importance, yet never presuming
+upon it&mdash;it would be enough to give one courage only to
+look at her. The only fear was lest the heiress should not
+be punctual to tryst. She often had a careless way of
+lingering behind time, and Caroline knew her uncle would
+not wait a second for any one. At the moment of the
+church clock tolling two, the bells would clash out and the
+march begin. She must look after Shirley, then, in this
+matter, or her expected companion would fail her.</p>
+
+<p>Whit-Tuesday saw her rise almost with the sun. She,
+Fanny, and Eliza were busy the whole morning arranging
+the rectory parlours in first-rate company order, and setting
+out a collation of cooling refreshments&mdash;wine, fruit,
+cakes&mdash;on the dining-room sideboard. Then she had to
+dress in her freshest and fairest attire of white muslin:
+the perfect fineness of the day and the solemnity of the
+occasion warranted, and even exacted, such costume. Her
+new sash&mdash;a birthday present from Margaret Hall, which
+she had reason to believe Cyril himself had bought, and in
+return for which she had indeed given him a set of cambric
+bands in a handsome case&mdash;was tied by the dexterous fingers
+of Fanny, who took no little pleasure in arraying her fair
+young mistress for the occasion. Her simple bonnet had
+been trimmed to correspond with her sash; her pretty but
+inexpensive scarf of white crape suited her dress. When
+ready she formed a picture, not bright enough to dazzle,
+but fair enough to interest; not brilliantly striking, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>257<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+very delicately pleasing&mdash;a picture in which sweetness of
+tint, purity of air, and grace of mien atoned for the absence
+of rich colouring and magnificent contour. What her brown
+eye and clear forehead showed of her mind was in keeping
+with her dress and face&mdash;modest, gentle, and, though pensive,
+harmonious. It appeared that neither lamb nor dove
+need fear her, but would welcome rather, in her look of
+simplicity and softness, a sympathy with their own natures,
+or with the natures we ascribe to them.</p>
+
+<p>After all, she was an imperfect, faulty human being, fair
+enough of form, hue, and array, but, as Cyril Hall said,
+neither so good nor so great as the withered Miss Ainley,
+now putting on her best black gown and Quaker drab shawl
+and bonnet in her own narrow cottage chamber.</p>
+
+<p>Away Caroline went, across some very sequestered fields
+and through some quite hidden lanes, to Fieldhead. She
+glided quickly under the green hedges and across the greener
+leas. There was no dust, no moisture, to soil the hem of
+her stainless garment, or to damp her slender sandal. After
+the late rains all was clean, and under the present glowing
+sun all was dry. She walked fearlessly, then, on daisy and
+turf, and through thick plantations; she reached Fieldhead,
+and penetrated to Miss Keeldar's dressing-room.</p>
+
+<p>It was well she had come, or Shirley would have been
+too late. Instead of making ready with all speed, she lay
+stretched on a couch, absorbed in reading. Mrs. Pryor
+stood near, vainly urging her to rise and dress. Caroline
+wasted no words. She immediately took the book from
+her, and with her own hands commenced the business of
+disrobing and rerobing her. Shirley, indolent with the
+heat, and gay with her youth and pleasurable nature,
+wanted to talk, laugh, and linger; but Caroline, intent on
+being in time, persevered in dressing her as fast as fingers
+could fasten strings or insert pins. At length, as she united
+a final row of hooks and eyes, she found leisure to chide
+her, saying she was very naughty to be so unpunctual, that
+she looked even now the picture of incorrigible carelessness;
+and so Shirley did, but a very lovely picture of that
+tiresome quality.</p>
+
+<p>She presented quite a contrast to Caroline. There was
+style in every fold of her dress and every line of her figure.
+The rich silk suited her better than a simpler costume;
+the deep embroidered scarf became her. She wore it negligently
+but gracefully. The wreath on her bonnet crowned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>258<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+her well. The attention to fashion, the tasteful appliance
+of ornament in each portion of her dress, were quite in place
+with her. All this suited her, like the frank light in her
+eyes, the rallying smile about her lips, like her shaft-straight
+carriage and lightsome step. Caroline took her hand when
+she was dressed, hurried her downstairs, out of doors; and
+thus they sped through the fields, laughing as they went,
+and looking very much like a snow-white dove and gem-tinted
+bird of paradise joined in social flight.</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to Miss Helstone's promptitude, they arrived in
+good time. While yet trees hid the church, they heard the
+bell tolling a measured but urgent summons for all to
+assemble. The trooping in of numbers, the trampling of
+many steps and murmuring of many voices, were likewise
+audible. From a rising ground, they presently saw, on the
+Whinbury road, the Whinbury school approaching. It
+numbered five hundred souls. The rector and curate,
+Boultby and Donne, headed it&mdash;the former looming large
+in full canonicals, walking as became a beneficed priest,
+under the canopy of a shovel-hat, with the dignity of an
+ample corporation, the embellishment of the squarest and
+vastest of black coats, and the support of the stoutest of
+gold-headed canes. As the doctor walked, he now and then
+slightly flourished his cane, and inclined his shovel-hat with
+a dogmatical wag towards his aide-de-camp. That aide-de-camp&mdash;Donne,
+to wit&mdash;narrow as the line of his shape
+was, compared to the broad bulk of his principal, contrived,
+notwithstanding, to look every inch a curate. All about
+him was pragmatical and self-complacent, from his turned-up
+nose and elevated chin to his clerical black gaiters, his
+somewhat short, strapless trousers, and his square-toed
+shoes.</p>
+
+<p>Walk on, Mr. Donne! You have undergone scrutiny.
+You think you look well. Whether the white and purple
+figures watching you from yonder hill think so is another
+question.</p>
+
+<p>These figures come running down when the regiment has
+marched by. The churchyard is full of children and teachers,
+all in their very best holiday attire; and, distressed as is
+the district, bad as are the times, it is wonderful to see
+how respectably, how handsomely even, they have contrived
+to clothe themselves. That British love of decency
+will work miracles. The poverty which reduces an Irish
+girl to rags is impotent to rob the English girl of the neat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>259<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+wardrobe she knows necessary to her self-respect. Besides,
+the lady of the manor&mdash;that Shirley, now gazing with
+pleasure on this well-dressed and happy-looking crowd&mdash;has
+really done them good. Her seasonable bounty consoled
+many a poor family against the coming holiday, and
+supplied many a child with a new frock or bonnet for the
+occasion. She knows it, and is elate with the consciousness&mdash;glad
+that her money, example, and influence have
+really, substantially, benefited those around her. She
+cannot be charitable like Miss Ainley: it is not in her
+nature. It relieves her to feel that there is another way of
+being charitable, practicable for other characters, and under
+other circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline, too, is pleased, for she also has done good in
+her small way&mdash;robbed herself of more than one dress,
+ribbon, or collar she could ill spare, to aid in fitting out the
+scholars of her class; and as she could not give money, she
+has followed Miss Ainley's example in giving her time and
+her industry to sew for the children.</p>
+
+<p>Not only is the churchyard full, but the rectory garden
+is also thronged. Pairs and parties of ladies and gentlemen
+are seen walking amongst the waving lilacs and laburnums.
+The house also is occupied: at the wide-open parlour
+windows gay groups are standing. These are the patrons
+and teachers, who are to swell the procession. In the
+parson's croft, behind the rectory, are the musicians of
+the three parish bands, with their instruments. Fanny and
+Eliza, in the smartest of caps and gowns, and the whitest
+of aprons, move amongst them, serving out quarts of ale,
+whereof a stock was brewed very sound and strong some
+weeks since by the rector's orders, and under his special
+superintendence. Whatever he had a hand in must be
+managed handsomely. "Shabby doings" of any description
+were not endured under his sanction. From the
+erection of a public building, a church, school, or court-house,
+to the cooking of a dinner, he still advocated the
+lordly, liberal, and effective. Miss Keeldar was like him in
+this respect, and they mutually approved each other's
+arrangements.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline and Shirley were soon in the midst of the company.
+The former met them very easily for her. Instead
+of sitting down in a retired corner, or stealing away to her
+own room till the procession should be marshalled, according
+to her wont, she moved through the three parlours,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>260<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+conversed and smiled, absolutely spoke once or twice ere
+she was spoken to, and, in short, seemed a new creature.
+It was Shirley's presence which thus transformed her;
+the view of Miss Keeldar's air and manner did her a world
+of good. Shirley had no fear of her kind, no tendency to
+shrink from, to avoid it. All human beings&mdash;men, women,
+or children&mdash;whom low breeding or coarse presumption did
+not render positively offensive, were welcome enough to
+her&mdash;some much more so than others, of course; but,
+generally speaking, till a man had indisputably proved
+himself bad and a nuisance, Shirley was willing to think
+him good and an acquisition, and to treat him accordingly.
+This disposition made her a general favourite, for it robbed
+her very raillery of its sting, and gave her serious or smiling
+conversation a happy charm; nor did it diminish the value
+of her intimate friendship, which was a distinct thing
+from this social benevolence&mdash;depending, indeed, on quite
+a different part of her character. Miss Helstone was the
+choice of her affection and intellect; the Misses Pearson,
+Sykes, Wynne, etc., etc., only the <a name="profiteers" id="profiteers"></a><ins title="was profiters">profiteers</ins> by her good-nature
+and vivacity.</p>
+
+<p>Donne happened to come into the drawing-room while
+Shirley, sitting on the sofa, formed the centre of a tolerably
+wide circle. She had already forgotten her exasperation
+against him, and she bowed and smiled good-humouredly.
+The disposition of the man was then seen. He knew
+neither how to decline the advance with dignity, as one
+whose just pride has been wounded, nor how to meet it
+with frankness, as one who is glad to forget and forgive.
+His punishment had impressed him with no sense of shame,
+and he did not experience that feeling on encountering
+his chastiser. He was not vigorous enough in evil to be
+actively malignant&mdash;he merely passed by sheepishly with
+a rated, scowling look. Nothing could ever again reconcile
+him to his enemy; while no passion of resentment, for
+even sharper and more ignominious inflictions, could his
+lymphatic nature know.</p>
+
+<p>"He was not worth a scene!" said Shirley to Caroline.
+"What a fool I was! To revenge on poor Donne his silly
+spite at Yorkshire is something like crushing a gnat for
+attacking the hide of a rhinoceros. Had I been a gentleman,
+I believe I should have helped him off the premises
+by dint of physical force. I am glad now I only employed
+the moral weapon. But he must come near me no more.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>261<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+I don't like him. He irritates me. There is not even
+amusement to be had out of him. Malone is better
+sport."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if Malone wished to justify the preference,
+for the words were scarcely out of the speaker's mouth
+when Peter Augustus came up, all in <em>grande tenue</em>, gloved
+and scented, with his hair oiled and brushed to perfection,
+and bearing in one hand a huge bunch of cabbage-roses,
+five or six in full blow. These he presented to the heiress
+with a grace to which the most cunning pencil could do
+but defective justice. And who, after this, could dare to
+say that Peter was not a lady's man? He had gathered
+and he had given flowers; he had offered a sentimental, a
+poetic tribute at the shrine of Love or Mammon. Hercules
+holding the distaff was but a faint type of Peter bearing
+the roses. He must have thought this himself, for he
+seemed amazed at what he had done. He backed without
+a word; he was going away with a husky chuckle of self-satisfaction;
+then he bethought himself to stop and turn,
+to ascertain by ocular testimony that he really had presented
+a bouquet. Yes, there were the six red cabbages
+on the purple satin lap, a very white hand, with some gold
+rings on the fingers, slightly holding them together, and
+streaming ringlets, half hiding a laughing face, drooped
+over them. Only <em>half</em> hiding! Peter saw the laugh; it
+was unmistakable. He was made a joke of; his gallantry,
+his chivalry, were the subject of a jest for a petticoat&mdash;for
+two petticoats: Miss Helstone too was smiling. Moreover,
+he felt he was seen through, and Peter grew black as
+a thunder-cloud. When Shirley looked up, a fell eye was
+fastened on her. Malone, at least, had energy enough in
+hate. She saw it in his glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Peter <em>is</em> worth a scene, and shall have it, if he likes,
+one day," she whispered to her friend.</p>
+
+<p>And now&mdash;solemn and sombre as to their colour, though
+bland enough as to their faces&mdash;appeared at the dining-room
+door the three rectors. They had hitherto been busy
+in the church, and were now coming to take some little
+refreshment for the body, ere the march commenced. The
+large morocco-covered easy-chair had been left vacant for
+Dr. Boultby. He was put into it, and Caroline, obeying the
+instigations of Shirley, who told her now was the time to
+play the hostess, hastened to hand to her uncle's vast,
+revered, and, on the whole, worthy friend, a glass of wine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>262<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and a plate of macaroons. Boultby's churchwardens,
+patrons of the Sunday school both, as he insisted on their
+being, were already beside him; Mrs. Sykes and the other
+ladies of his congregation were on his right hand and on his
+left, expressing their hopes that he was not fatigued, their
+fears that the day would be too warm for him. Mrs.
+Boultby, who held an opinion that when her lord dropped
+asleep after a good dinner his face became as the face of
+an angel, was bending over him, tenderly wiping some perspiration,
+real or imaginary, from his brow. Boultby, in
+short, was in his glory, and in a round, sound <em>voix de
+poitrine</em> he rumbled out thanks for attentions and assurances
+of his tolerable health. Of Caroline he took no
+manner of notice as she came near, save to accept what she
+offered. He did not see her&mdash;he never did see her; he
+hardly knew that such a person existed. He saw the
+macaroons, however, and being fond of sweets, possessed
+himself of a small handful thereof. The wine Mrs. Boultby
+insisted on mingling with hot water, and qualifying with
+sugar and nutmeg.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hall stood near an open window, breathing the
+fresh air and scent of flowers, and talking like a brother
+to Miss Ainley. To him Caroline turned her attention
+with pleasure. "What should she bring him? He must
+not help himself&mdash;he must be served by her." And she
+provided herself with a little salver, that she might offer
+him variety. Margaret Hall joined them; so did Miss
+Keeldar. The four ladies stood round their favourite
+pastor. They also had an idea that they looked on the
+face of an earthly angel. Cyril Hall was their pope, infallible
+to them as Dr. Thomas Boultby to his admirers.
+A throng, too, enclosed the rector of Briarfield&mdash;twenty or
+more pressed round him; and no parson was ever more
+potent in a circle than old Helstone. The curates, herding
+together after their manner, made a constellation of three
+lesser planets. Divers young ladies watched them afar off,
+but ventured not nigh.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helstone produced his watch. "Ten minutes to
+two," he announced aloud. "Time for all to fall into
+line. Come." He seized his shovel-hat and marched
+away. All rose and followed <em>en masse</em>.</p>
+
+<p>The twelve hundred children were drawn up in three
+bodies of four hundred souls each; in the rear of each
+regiment was stationed a band; between every twenty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>263<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+there was an interval, wherein Helstone posted the teachers
+in pairs. To the van of the armies he summoned,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Grace Boultby and Mary Sykes lead out Whinbury.</p>
+
+<p>"Margaret Hall and Mary Ann Ainley conduct Nunnely.</p>
+
+<p>"Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar head Briarfield."</p>
+
+<p>Then again he gave command,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Donne to Whinbury; Mr. Sweeting to Nunnely;
+Mr. Malone to Briarfield."</p>
+
+<p>And these gentlemen stepped up before the lady-generals.</p>
+
+<p>The rectors passed to the full front; the parish clerks
+fell to the extreme rear. Helstone lifted his shovel-hat.
+In an instant out clashed the eight bells in the tower, loud
+swelled the sounding bands, flute spoke and clarion answered,
+deep rolled the drums, and away they marched.</p>
+
+<p>The broad white road unrolled before the long procession,
+the sun and sky surveyed it cloudless, the wind tossed the
+tree boughs above it, and the twelve hundred children and
+one hundred and forty adults of which it was composed trod
+on in time and tune, with gay faces and glad hearts. It
+was a joyous scene, and a scene to do good. It was a day
+of happiness for rich and poor&mdash;the work, first of God,
+and then of the clergy. Let England's priests have their
+due. They are a faulty set in some respects, being only
+of common flesh and blood like us all; but the land would
+be badly off without them. Britain would miss her church,
+if that church fell. God save it! God also reform it!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>264<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE SCHOOL FEAST.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Not</span> on combat bent, nor of foemen in search, was this
+priest-led and woman-officered company; yet their music
+played martial tunes, and, to judge by the eyes and carriage
+of some&mdash;Miss Keeldar, for instance&mdash;these sounds
+awoke, if not a martial, yet a longing spirit. Old Helstone,
+turning by chance, looked into her face; and he laughed,
+and she laughed at him.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no battle in prospect," he said; "our country
+does not want us to fight for it. No foe or tyrant is questioning
+or threatening our liberty. There is nothing to be
+done. We are only taking a walk. Keep your hand on
+the reins, captain, and slack the fire of that spirit. It is
+not wanted, the more's the pity."</p>
+
+<p>"Take your own advice, doctor," was Shirley's response.
+To Caroline she murmured, "I'll borrow of imagination
+what reality will not give me. We are not soldiers&mdash;bloodshed
+is not my desire&mdash;or if we are, we are soldiers of the
+Cross. Time has rolled back some hundreds of years, and
+we are bound on a pilgrimage to Palestine. But no;
+that is too visionary. I need a sterner dream. We are
+Lowlanders of Scotland, following a Covenanting captain
+up into the hills to hold a meeting out of the reach of
+persecuting troopers. We know that battle may follow
+prayer; and as we believe that in the worst issue of battle
+heaven must be our reward, we are ready and willing to
+redden the peat-moss with our blood. That music stirs
+my soul; it wakens all my life; it makes my heart beat&mdash;not
+with its temperate daily pulse, but with a new, thrilling
+vigour. I almost long for danger&mdash;for a faith, a land, or
+at least a lover to defend."</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Shirley!" interrupted Caroline. "What is that
+red speck above Stilbro' Brow? You have keener sight
+than I. Just turn your eagle eye to it."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar looked. "I see," she said; then added<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>265<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+presently, "there is a line of red. They are soldiers&mdash;cavalry
+soldiers," she subjoined quickly. "They ride fast.
+There are six of them. They will pass us. No; they have
+turned off to the right. They saw our procession, and
+avoid it by making a circuit. Where are they going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps they are only exercising their horses."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so. We see them no more now."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helstone here spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall pass through Royd Lane, to reach Nunnely
+Common by a short cut," said he.</p>
+
+<p>And into the straits of Royd Lane they accordingly
+defiled. It was very narrow&mdash;so narrow that only two
+could walk abreast without falling into the ditch which
+ran along each side. They had gained the middle of it,
+when excitement became obvious in the clerical commanders.
+Boultby's spectacles and Helstone's Rehoboam
+were agitated; the curates nudged each other;
+Mr. Hall turned to the ladies and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" was the demand.</p>
+
+<p>He pointed with his staff to the end of the lane before
+them. Lo and behold! another, an opposition, procession
+was there entering, headed also by men in black,
+and followed also, as they could now hear, by music.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it our double?" asked Shirley, "our manifold
+wraith? Here is a card turned up."</p>
+
+<p>"If you wanted a battle, you are likely to get one&mdash;at
+least of looks," whispered Caroline, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"They shall not pass us!" cried the curates unanimously;
+"we'll not give way!"</p>
+
+<p>"Give way!" retorted Helstone sternly, turning round;
+"who talks of giving way? You, boys, mind what you
+are about. The ladies, I know, will be firm. I can trust
+them. There is not a churchwoman here but will stand
+her ground against these folks, for the honour of the Establishment.&mdash;What
+does Miss Keeldar say?"</p>
+
+<p>"She asks what is it."</p>
+
+<p>"The Dissenting and Methodist schools, the Baptists,
+Independents, and Wesleyans, joined in unholy alliance,
+and turning purposely into this lane with the intention of
+obstructing our march and driving us back."</p>
+
+<p>"Bad manners!" said Shirley, "and I hate bad manners.
+Of course, they must have a lesson."</p>
+
+<p>"A lesson in politeness," suggested Mr. Hall, who was
+ever for peace; "not an example of rudeness."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>266<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Old Helstone moved on. Quickening his step, he
+marched some yards in advance of his company. He had
+nearly reached the other sable leaders, when he who appeared
+to act as the hostile commander-in-chief&mdash;a large,
+greasy man, with black hair combed flat on his forehead&mdash;called
+a halt. The procession paused. He drew forth
+a hymn book, gave out a verse, set a tune, and they all
+struck up the most dolorous of canticles.</p>
+
+<p>Helstone signed to his bands. They clashed out with
+all the power of brass. He desired them to play "Rule,
+Britannia!" and ordered the children to join in vocally,
+which they did with enthusiastic spirit. The enemy was
+sung and stormed down, his psalm quelled. As far as noise
+went, he was conquered.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, follow me!" exclaimed Helstone; "not at a
+run, but at a firm, smart pace. Be steady, every child
+and woman of you. Keep together. Hold on by each
+other's skirts, if necessary."</p>
+
+<p>And he strode on with such a determined and deliberate
+gait, and was, besides, so well seconded by his scholars
+and teachers, who did exactly as he told them, neither
+running nor faltering, but marching with cool, solid impetus&mdash;the
+curates, too, being compelled to do the same, as they
+were between two fires, Helstone and Miss Keeldar, both
+of whom watched any deviation with lynx-eyed vigilance,
+and were ready, the one with his cane, the other with her
+parasol, to rebuke the slightest breach of orders, the least
+independent or irregular demonstration&mdash;that the body of
+Dissenters were first amazed, then alarmed, then borne
+down and pressed back, and at last forced to turn tail and
+leave the outlet from Royd Lane free. Boultby suffered
+in the onslaught, but Helstone and Malone, between them,
+held him up, and brought him through the business, whole
+in limb, though sorely tried in wind.</p>
+
+<p>The fat Dissenter who had given out the hymn was left
+sitting in the ditch. He was a spirit merchant by trade,
+a leader of the Nonconformists, and, it was said, drank
+more water in that one afternoon than he had swallowed
+for a twelvemonth before. Mr. Hall had taken care of
+Caroline, and Caroline of him. He and Miss Ainley made
+their own quiet comments to each other afterwards on the
+incident. Miss Keeldar and Mr. Helstone shook hands
+heartily when they had fairly got the whole party through
+the lane. The curates began to exult, but Mr. Helstone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>267<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+presently put the curb on their innocent spirits. He remarked
+that they never had sense to know what to say,
+and had better hold their tongues; and he reminded them
+that the business was none of their managing.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past three the procession turned back, and
+at four once more regained the starting-place. Long lines
+of benches were arranged in the close-shorn fields round
+the school. There the children were seated, and huge
+baskets, covered up with white cloths, and great smoking
+tin vessels were brought out. Ere the distribution of good
+things commenced, a brief grace was pronounced by Mr.
+Hall and sung by the children. Their young voices sounded
+melodious, even touching, in the open air. Large currant
+buns and hot, well-sweetened tea were then administered
+in the proper spirit of liberality. No stinting was permitted
+on this day, at least; the rule for each child's
+allowance being that it was to have about twice as much
+as it could possibly eat, thus leaving a reserve to be carried
+home for such as age, sickness, or other impediment prevented
+from coming to the feast. Buns and beer circulated,
+meantime, amongst the musicians and church-singers;
+afterwards the benches were removed, and they
+were left to unbend their spirits in licensed play.</p>
+
+<p>A bell summoned the teachers, patrons, and patronesses
+to the schoolroom. Miss Keeldar, Miss Helstone, and
+many other ladies were already there, glancing over the
+arrangement of their separate trays and tables. Most of
+the female servants of the neighbourhood, together with
+the clerks', the singers', and the musicians' wives, had been
+pressed into the service of the day as waiters. Each vied
+with the other in smartness and daintiness of dress, and
+many handsome forms were seen amongst the younger
+ones. About half a score were cutting bread and butter,
+another half-score supplying hot water, brought from the
+coppers of the rector's kitchen. The profusion of flowers
+and evergreens decorating the white walls, the show of
+silver teapots and bright porcelain on the tables, the active
+figures, blithe faces, gay dresses flitting about everywhere,
+formed altogether a refreshing and lively spectacle. Everybody
+talked, not very loudly, but merrily, and the canary
+birds sang shrill in their high-hung cages.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline, as the rector's niece, took her place at one of
+the three first tables; Mrs. Boultby and Margaret Hall
+officiated at the others. At these tables the <em>&eacute;lite</em> of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>268<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+company were to be entertained, strict rules of equality
+not being more in fashion at Briarfield than elsewhere.
+Miss Helstone removed her bonnet and scarf, that she
+might be less oppressed with the heat. Her long curls,
+falling on her neck, served almost in place of a veil; and
+for the rest, her muslin dress was fashioned modestly as a
+nun's robe, enabling her thus to dispense with the encumbrance
+of a shawl.</p>
+
+<p>The room was filling. Mr. Hall had taken his post beside
+Caroline, who now, as she rearranged the cups and
+spoons before her, whispered to him in a low voice remarks
+on the events of the day. He looked a little grave about
+what had taken place in Royd Lane, and she tried to smile
+him out of his seriousness. Miss Keeldar sat near&mdash;for a
+wonder, neither laughing nor talking; on the contrary,
+very still, and gazing round her vigilantly. She seemed
+afraid lest some intruder should take a seat she apparently
+wished to reserve next her own. Ever and anon she spread
+her satin dress over an undue portion of the bench, or laid
+her gloves or her embroidered handkerchief upon it. Caroline
+noticed this <em>man&egrave;ge</em> at last, and asked her what friend
+she expected. Shirley bent towards her, almost touched
+her ear with her rosy lips, and whispered with a musical
+softness that often characterized her tones when what she
+said tended even remotely to stir some sweet secret source
+of feeling in her heart, "I expect Mr. Moore. I saw him
+last night, and I made him promise to come with his sister,
+and to sit at our table. He won't fail me, I feel certain;
+but I apprehend his coming too late, and being separated
+from us. Here is a fresh batch arriving; every place will
+be taken. Provoking!"</p>
+
+<p>In fact, Mr. Wynne the magistrate, his wife, his son,
+and his two daughters now entered in high state. They
+were Briarfield gentry. Of course their place was at the
+first table, and being conducted thither, they filled up the
+whole remaining space. For Miss Keeldar's comfort, Mr.
+Sam Wynne inducted himself into the very vacancy she
+had kept for Moore, planting himself solidly on her gown,
+her gloves, and her handkerchief. Mr. Sam was one of the
+objects of her aversion, and the more so because he showed
+serious symptoms of an aim at her hand. The old gentleman,
+too, had publicly declared that the Fieldhead estate and
+the De Walden estate were delightfully <em>contagious</em>&mdash;a malapropism
+which rumour had not failed to repeat to Shirley.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>269<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Caroline's ears yet rung with that thrilling whisper, "I
+expect Mr. Moore," her heart yet beat and her cheek yet
+glowed with it, when a note from the organ pealed above
+the confused hum of the place. Dr. Boultby, Mr. Helstone,
+and Mr. Hall rose, so did all present, and grace was sung
+to the accompaniment of the music; and then tea began.
+She was kept too busy with her office for a while to have
+leisure for looking round, but the last cup being filled, she
+threw a restless glance over the room. There were some
+ladies and several gentlemen standing about yet unaccommodated
+with seats. Amidst a group she recognized her
+spinster friend, Miss Mann, whom the fine weather had
+tempted, or some urgent friend had persuaded, to leave
+her drear solitude for one hour of social enjoyment. Miss
+Mann looked tired of standing; a lady in a yellow bonnet
+brought her a chair. Caroline knew well that <em>chapeau en
+satin jaune</em>; she knew the black hair, and the kindly
+though rather opinionated and froward-looking face under
+it; she knew that <em>robe de soie noire</em>, she knew even that
+<em>schall gris de lin</em>; she knew, in short, Hortense Moore, and
+she wanted to jump up and run to her and kiss her&mdash;to
+give her one embrace for her own sake and two for her
+brother's. She half rose, indeed, with a smothered exclamation,
+and perhaps&mdash;for the impulse was very strong&mdash;she
+would have run across the room and actually saluted
+her; but a hand replaced her in her seat, and a voice behind
+her whispered, "Wait till after tea, Lina, and then
+I'll bring her to you."</p>
+
+<p>And when she <em>could</em> look up she did, and there was
+Robert himself close behind, smiling at her eagerness,
+looking better than she had ever seen him look&mdash;looking,
+indeed, to her partial eyes, so very handsome that she
+dared not trust herself to hazard a second glance; for his
+image struck on her vision with painful brightness, and
+pictured itself on her memory as vividly as if there daguerreotyped
+by a pencil of keen lightning.</p>
+
+<p>He moved on, and spoke to Miss Keeldar. Shirley, irritated
+by some unwelcome attentions from Sam Wynne,
+and by the fact of that gentleman being still seated on
+her gloves and handkerchief&mdash;and probably, also, by Moore's
+want of punctuality&mdash;was by no means in good humour.
+She first shrugged her shoulders at him, and then she said
+a bitter word or two about his "insupportable tardiness."
+Moore neither apologized nor retorted. He stood near her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>270<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+quietly, as if waiting to see whether she would recover her
+temper; which she did in little more than three minutes,
+indicating the change by offering him her hand. Moore took
+it with a smile, half-corrective, half-grateful. The slightest
+possible shake of the head delicately marked the former
+quality; it is probable a gentle pressure indicated the latter.</p>
+
+<p>"You may sit where you can now, Mr. Moore," said
+Shirley, also smiling. "You see there is not an inch of
+room for you here; but I discern plenty of space at Mrs.
+Boultby's table, between Miss Armitage and Miss Birtwhistle.
+Go! John Sykes will be your <em>vis-&agrave;-vis</em>, and you
+will sit with your back towards us."</p>
+
+<p>Moore, however, preferred lingering about where he was.
+He now and then took a turn down the long room, pausing
+in his walk to interchange greetings with other gentlemen
+in his own placeless predicament; but still he came back
+to the magnet, Shirley, bringing with him, each time he
+returned, observations it was necessary to whisper in her ear.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime poor Sam Wynne looked far from comfortable.
+His fair neighbour, judging from her movements, appeared
+in a mood the most unquiet and unaccommodating. She
+would not sit still two seconds. She was hot; she fanned
+herself; complained of want of air and space. She remarked
+that, in her opinion, when people had finished their
+tea they ought to leave the tables, and announced distinctly
+that she expected to faint if the present state of things continued.
+Mr. Sam offered to accompany her into the open
+air; just the way to give her her death of cold, she alleged.
+In short, his post became untenable; and having swallowed
+his quantum of tea, he judged it expedient to evacuate.</p>
+
+<p>Moore should have been at hand, whereas he was quite
+at the other extremity of the room, deep in conference
+with Christopher Sykes. A large corn-factor, Timothy
+Ramsden, Esq., happened to be nearer; and feeling himself
+tired of standing, he advanced to fill the vacant seat.
+Shirley's expedients did not fail her. A sweep of her scarf
+upset her teacup: its contents were shared between the
+bench and her own satin dress. Of course, it became
+necessary to call a waiter to remedy the mischief. Mr.
+Ramsden, a stout, puffy gentleman, as large in person as
+he was in property, held aloof from the consequent commotion.
+Shirley, usually almost culpably indifferent to slight
+accidents affecting dress, etc., now made a commotion that
+might have become the most delicate and nervous of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>271<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+sex. Mr. Ramsden opened his mouth, withdrew slowly,
+and, as Miss Keeldar again intimated her intention to
+"give way" and swoon on the spot, he turned on his heel,
+and beat a heavy retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Moore at last returned. Calmly surveying the bustle,
+and somewhat quizzically scanning Shirley's enigmatical-looking
+countenance, he remarked that in truth this was
+the hottest end of the room, that he found a climate there
+calculated to agree with none but cool temperaments like
+his own; and putting the waiters, the napkins, the satin
+robe&mdash;the whole turmoil, in short&mdash;to one side, he installed
+himself where destiny evidently decreed he should sit.
+Shirley subsided; her features altered their lines; the
+raised knit brow and inexplicable curve of the mouth became
+straight again; wilfulness and roguery gave place to
+other expressions; and all the angular movements with
+which she had vexed the soul of Sam Wynne were conjured
+to rest as by a charm. Still no gracious glance was cast on
+Moore. On the contrary, he was accused of giving her a
+world of trouble, and roundly charged with being the cause
+of depriving her of the esteem of Mr. Ramsden and the
+invaluable friendship of Mr. Samuel Wynne.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't have offended either gentleman for the world,"
+she averred. "I have always been accustomed to treat
+both with the most respectful consideration, and there,
+owing to you, how they have been used! I shall not be
+happy till I have made it up. I never am happy till I am
+friends with my neighbours. So to-morrow I must make
+a pilgrimage to Royd corn-mill, soothe the miller, and praise
+the grain; and next day I must call at De Walden&mdash;where
+I hate to go&mdash;and carry in my reticule half an oatcake to
+give to Mr. Sam's favourite pointers."</p>
+
+<p>"You know the surest path to the heart of each swain,
+I doubt not," said Moore quietly. He looked very content
+to have at last secured his present place; but he made no
+fine speech expressive of gratification, and offered no apology
+for the trouble he had given. His phlegm became him
+wonderfully. It made him look handsomer, he was so composed;
+it made his vicinage pleasant, it was so peace-restoring.
+You would not have thought, to look at him,
+that he was a poor, struggling man seated beside a rich
+woman; the calm of equality stilled his aspect; perhaps
+that calm, too, reigned in his soul. Now and then, from the
+way in which he looked down on Miss Keeldar as he addressed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>272<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+her, you would have fancied his station towered
+above hers as much as his stature did. Almost stern lights
+sometimes crossed his brow and gleamed in his eyes. Their
+conversation had become animated, though it was confined
+to a low key; she was urging him with questions&mdash;evidently
+he refused to her curiosity all the gratification it demanded.
+She sought his eye once with hers. You read, in its soft
+yet eager expression, that it solicited clearer replies. Moore
+smiled pleasantly, but his lips continued sealed. Then she
+was piqued, and turned away; but he recalled her attention
+in two minutes. He seemed making promises, which
+he soothed her into accepting in lieu of information.</p>
+
+<p>It appeared that the heat of the room did not suit Miss
+Helstone. She grew paler and paler as the process of tea-making
+was protracted. The moment thanks were returned
+she quitted the table, and hastened to follow her cousin
+Hortense, who, with Miss Mann, had already sought the
+open air. Robert Moore had risen when she did&mdash;perhaps
+he meant to speak to her; but there was yet a parting word
+to exchange with Miss Keeldar, and while it was being uttered
+Caroline had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Hortense received her former pupil with a demeanour of
+more dignity than warmth. She had been seriously offended
+by Mr. Helstone's proceedings, and had all along considered
+Caroline to blame in obeying her uncle too literally.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a very great stranger," she said austerely, as
+her pupil held and pressed her hand. The pupil knew her
+too well to remonstrate or complain of coldness. She let
+the punctilious whim pass, sure that her natural <em>bont&eacute;</em> (I
+use this French word because it expresses just what I mean&mdash;neither
+goodness nor good-nature, but something between
+the two) would presently get the upper hand. It did.
+Hortense had no sooner examined her face well, and observed
+the change its somewhat wasted features betrayed,
+than her mien softened. Kissing her on both cheeks, she
+asked anxiously after her health. Caroline answered gaily.
+It would, however, have been her lot to undergo a long
+cross-examination, followed by an endless lecture on this
+head, had not Miss Mann called off the attention of the
+questioner by requesting to be conducted home. The poor
+invalid was already fatigued. Her weariness made her
+cross&mdash;too cross almost to speak to Caroline; and besides,
+that young person's white dress and lively look were displeasing
+in the eyes of Miss Mann. The everyday garb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>273<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+of brown stuff or gray gingham, and the everyday air of
+melancholy, suited the solitary spinster better; she would
+hardly know her young friend to-night, and quitted her
+with a cool nod. Hortense having promised to accompany
+her home, they departed together.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline now looked round for Shirley. She saw the rainbow
+scarf and purple dress in the centre of a throng of
+ladies, all well known to herself, but all of the order whom
+she systematically avoided whenever avoidance was possible.
+Shyer at some moments than at others, she felt
+just now no courage at all to join this company. She could
+not, however, stand alone where all others went in pairs
+or parties; so she approached a group of her own scholars,
+great girls, or rather young women, who were standing
+watching some hundreds of the younger children playing
+at blind-man's buff.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Helstone knew these girls liked her, yet she was
+shy even with them out of school. They were not more
+in awe of her than she of them. She drew near them now,
+rather to find protection in their company than to patronize
+them with her presence. By some instinct they knew her
+weakness, and with natural politeness they respected it.
+Her knowledge commanded their esteem when she taught
+them; her gentleness attracted their regard; and because
+she was what they considered wise and good when <em>on</em> duty,
+they kindly overlooked her evident timidity when off.
+They did not take advantage of it. Peasant girls as they
+were, they had too much of our own English sensibility to
+be guilty of the coarse error. They stood round her still,
+civil, friendly, receiving her slight smiles and rather hurried
+efforts to converse with a good feeling and good breeding&mdash;the
+last quality being the result of the first&mdash;which soon
+set her at her ease.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sam Wynne coming up with great haste, to insist
+on the elder girls joining in the game as well as the younger
+ones, Caroline was again left alone. She was meditating a
+quiet retreat to the house, when Shirley, perceiving from
+afar her isolation, hastened to her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go to the top of the fields," she said. "I know
+you don't like crowds, Caroline."</p>
+
+<p>"But it will be depriving you of a pleasure, Shirley, to
+take you from all these fine people, who court your society
+so assiduously, and to whom you can, without art or effort,
+make yourself so pleasant."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>274<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Not quite without effort; I am already tired of the
+exertion. It is but insipid, barren work, talking and laughing
+with the good gentlefolks of Briarfield. I have been
+looking out for your white dress for the last ten minutes.
+I like to watch those I love in a crowd, and to compare them
+with others. I have thus compared you. You resemble
+none of the rest, Lina. There are some prettier faces than
+yours here. You are not a model beauty like Harriet Sykes,
+for instance&mdash;beside her your person appears almost insignificant&mdash;but
+you look agreeable, you look reflective, you
+look what I call interesting."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, Shirley! you flatter me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wonder that your scholars like you."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Shirley! Talk of something else."</p>
+
+<p>"We will talk of Moore, then, and we will watch him.
+I see him even now."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" And as Caroline asked the question she
+looked not over the fields, but into Miss Keeldar's eyes, as
+was her wont whenever Shirley mentioned any object she
+descried afar. Her friend had quicker vision than herself,
+and Caroline seemed to think that the secret of her eagle
+acuteness might be read in her dark gray <a name="irides" id="irides"></a><ins title="was irids">irides</ins>, or rather,
+perhaps, she only sought guidance by the direction of those
+discriminating and brilliant spheres.</p>
+
+<p>"There is Moore," said Shirley, pointing right across
+the wide field where a thousand children were playing, and
+now nearly a thousand adult spectators walking about.
+"There&mdash;can you miss the tall stature and straight port?
+He looks amidst the set that surround him like Eliab amongst
+humbler shepherds&mdash;like Saul in a war-council; and a war-council
+it is, if I am not mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so, Shirley?" asked Caroline, whose eye had at
+last caught the object it sought. "Robert is just now
+speaking to my uncle, and they are shaking hands. They
+are then reconciled."</p>
+
+<p>"Reconciled not without good reason, depend on it&mdash;making
+common cause against some common foe. And
+why, think you, are Messrs. Wynne and Sykes, and
+Armitage and Ramsden, gathered in such a close circle
+round them? And why is Malone beckoned to join them?
+Where <em>he</em> is summoned, be sure a strong arm is needed."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley, as she watched, grew restless; her eyes flashed.</p>
+
+<p>"They won't trust me," she said. "That is always the
+way when it comes to the point."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>275<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"What about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot you feel? There is some mystery afloat; some
+event is expected; some preparation is to be made, I am
+certain. I saw it all in Mr. Moore's manner this evening.
+He was excited, yet hard."</p>
+
+<p>"Hard to <em>you</em>, Shirley?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, to <em>me</em>. He often is hard to me. We seldom converse
+<em>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</em> but I am made to feel that the basis of his
+character is not of eider down."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet he seemed to talk to you softly."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he not? Very gentle tones and quiet manner.
+Yet the man is peremptory and secret: his secrecy vexes
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Robert is secret."</p>
+
+<p>"Which he has scarcely a right to be with me, especially
+as he commenced by giving me his confidence. Having
+done nothing to forfeit that confidence, it ought not to be
+withdrawn; but I suppose I am not considered iron-souled
+enough to be trusted in a crisis."</p>
+
+<p>"He fears, probably, to occasion you uneasiness."</p>
+
+<p>"An unnecessary precaution. I am of elastic materials,
+not soon crushed. He ought to know that. But the man
+is proud. He has his faults, say what you will, Lina.
+Observe how engaged that group appear. They do not
+know we are watching them."</p>
+
+<p>"If we keep on the alert, Shirley, we shall perhaps find
+the clue to their secret."</p>
+
+<p>"There will be some unusual movements ere long&mdash;perhaps
+to-morrow, possibly to-night. But my eyes and ears
+are wide open. Mr. Moore, you shall be under surveillance.
+Be you vigilant also, Lina."</p>
+
+<p>"I will. Robert is going; I saw him turn. I believe
+he noticed us. They are shaking hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Shaking hands, with emphasis," added Shirley, "as if
+they were ratifying some solemn league and covenant."</p>
+
+<p>They saw Robert quit the group, pass through a gate,
+and disappear.</p>
+
+<p>"And he has not bid us good-bye," murmured Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had the words escaped her lips when she tried
+by a smile to deny the confession of disappointment they
+seemed to imply. An unbidden suffusion for one moment
+both softened and brightened her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is soon remedied!" exclaimed Shirley: "we'll
+<em>make</em> him bid us good-bye."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>276<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"<em>Make</em> him! That is not the same thing," was the
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>"It <em>shall</em> be the same thing."</p>
+
+<p>"But he is gone; you can't overtake him."</p>
+
+<p>"I know a shorter way than that he has taken. We
+will intercept him."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Shirley, I would rather not go."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline said this as Miss Keeldar seized her arm and
+hurried her down the fields. It was vain to contend.
+Nothing was so wilful as Shirley when she took a whim
+into her head. Caroline found herself out of sight of the
+crowd almost before she was aware, and ushered into a
+narrow shady spot, embowered above with hawthorns, and
+enamelled under foot with daisies. She took no notice of
+the evening sun chequering the turf, nor was she sensible
+of the pure incense exhaling at this hour from tree and
+plant; she only heard the wicket opening at one end, and
+knew Robert was approaching. The long sprays of the
+hawthorns, shooting out before them, served as a screen.
+They saw him before he observed them. At a glance Caroline
+perceived that his social hilarity was gone; he had left
+it behind him in the joy-echoing fields round the school.
+What remained now was his dark, quiet, business countenance.
+As Shirley had said, a certain hardness characterized
+his air, while his eye was excited, but austere. So
+much the worse timed was the present freak of Shirley's.
+If he had looked disposed for holiday mirth, it would not
+have mattered much; but now&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I told you not to come," said Caroline, somewhat
+bitterly, to her friend. She seemed truly perturbed. To
+be intruded on Robert thus, against her will and his expectation,
+and when he evidently would rather not be delayed,
+keenly annoyed her. It did not annoy Miss Keeldar
+in the least. She stepped forward and faced her tenant,
+barring his way. "You omitted to bid us good-bye," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Omitted to bid you good-bye! Where did you come
+from? Are you fairies? I left two like you, one in purple
+and one in white, standing at the top of a bank, four fields
+off, but a minute ago."</p>
+
+<p>"You left us there and find us here. We have been
+watching you, and shall watch you still. You must be
+questioned one day, but not now. At present all you have
+to do is to say good-night, and then pass."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>277<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Moore glanced from one to the other without unbending
+his aspect. "Days of f&ecirc;te have their privileges, and so
+have days of hazard," observed he gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, don't moralize. Say good-night, and pass,"
+urged Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"Must I say good-night to you, Miss Keeldar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and to Caroline likewise. It is nothing new, I
+hope. You have bid us both good-night before."</p>
+
+<p>He took her hand, held it in one of his, and covered it
+with the other. He looked down at her gravely, kindly,
+yet commandingly. The heiress could not make this man
+her subject. In his gaze on her bright face there was no
+servility, hardly homage; but there were interest and affection,
+heightened by another feeling. Something in his tone
+when he spoke, as well as in his words, marked that last
+sentiment to be gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Your debtor bids you good-night! May you rest safely
+and serenely till morning."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Mr. Moore&mdash;what are you going to do?
+What have you been saying to Mr. Helstone, with whom
+I saw you shake hands? Why did all those gentlemen
+gather round you? Put away reserve for once. Be frank
+with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Who can resist you? I will be frank. To-morrow,
+if there is anything to relate, you shall hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Just now," pleaded Shirley; "don't procrastinate."</p>
+
+<p>"But I could only tell half a tale. And my time is
+limited; I have not a moment to spare. Hereafter I will
+make amends for delay by candour."</p>
+
+<p>"But are you going home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to leave it any more to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. At present, farewell to both of you."</p>
+
+<p>He would have taken Caroline's hand and joined it in
+the same clasp in which he held Shirley's, but somehow it
+was not ready for him. She had withdrawn a few steps
+apart. Her answer to Moore's adieu was only a slight
+bend of the head and a gentle, serious smile. He sought
+no more cordial token. Again he said "Farewell," and
+quitted them both.</p>
+
+<p>"There! it is over," said Shirley when he was gone.
+"We have made him bid us good-night, and yet not lost
+ground in his esteem, I think, Cary."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not," was the brief reply.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>278<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I consider you very timid and undemonstrative," remarked
+Miss Keeldar. "Why did you not give Moore your
+hand when he offered you his? He is your cousin; you
+like him. Are you ashamed to let him perceive your affection?"</p>
+
+<p>"He perceives all of it that interests him. No need to
+make a display of feeling."</p>
+
+<p>"You are laconic; you would be stoical if you could.
+Is love, in your eyes, a crime, Caroline?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love a crime! No, Shirley; love is a divine virtue.
+But why drag that word into the conversation? It is
+singularly irrelevant."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" pronounced Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>The two girls paced the green lane in silence. Caroline
+first resumed.</p>
+
+<p>"Obtrusiveness is a crime, forwardness is a crime, and
+both disgust; but love! no purest angel need blush to
+love. And when I see or hear either man or woman couple
+shame with love, I know their minds are coarse, their
+associations debased. Many who think themselves refined
+ladies and gentlemen, and on whose lips the word 'vulgarity'
+is for ever hovering, cannot mention 'love' without
+betraying their own innate and imbecile degradation. It
+is a low feeling in their estimation, connected only with low
+ideas for them."</p>
+
+<p>"You describe three-fourths of the world, Caroline."</p>
+
+<p>"They are cold&mdash;they are cowardly&mdash;they are stupid on
+the subject, Shirley! They never loved&mdash;they never were
+loved!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou art right, Lina. And in their dense ignorance
+they blaspheme living fire, seraph-brought from a divine
+altar."</p>
+
+<p>"They confound it with sparks mounting from Tophet."</p>
+
+<p>The sudden and joyous clash of bells here stopped the
+dialogue by summoning all to the church.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>279<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>WHICH THE GENTEEL READER IS RECOMMENDED TO SKIP,
+LOW PERSONS BEING HERE INTRODUCED.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> evening was still and warm; close and sultry it even
+promised to become. Round the descending sun the clouds
+glowed purple; summer tints, rather Indian than English,
+suffused the horizon, and cast rosy reflections on hillside,
+house-front, tree-bole, on winding road and undulating
+pasture-ground. The two girls came down from the fields
+slowly. By the time they reached the churchyard the bells
+were hushed; the multitudes were gathered into the church.
+The whole scene was solitary.</p>
+
+<p>"How pleasant and calm it is!" said Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"And how hot it will be in the church!" responded
+Shirley. "And what a dreary long speech Dr. Boultby
+will make! And how the curates will hammer over their
+prepared orations! For my part, I would rather not enter."</p>
+
+<p>"But my uncle will be angry if he observes our absence."</p>
+
+<p>"I will bear the brunt of his wrath; he will not devour
+me. I shall be sorry to miss his pungent speech. I know
+it will be all sense for the church, and all causticity for
+schism. He'll not forget the battle of Royd Lane. I shall
+be sorry also to deprive you of Mr. Hall's sincere friendly
+homily, with all its racy Yorkshireisms; but here I must
+stay. The gray church and grayer tombs look divine with
+this crimson gleam on them. Nature is now at her evening
+prayers; she is kneeling before those red hills. I see her
+prostrate on the great steps of her altar, praying for a fair
+night for mariners at sea, for travellers in deserts, for lambs
+on moors, and unfledged birds in woods. Caroline, I see
+her, and I will tell you what she is like. She is like what
+Eve was when she and Adam stood alone on earth."</p>
+
+<p>"And that is not Milton's Eve, Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"Milton's Eve! Milton's Eve! I repeat. No, by the
+pure Mother of God, she is not! Cary, we are alone; we
+may speak what we think. Milton was great; but was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>280<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+he good? His brain was right; how was his heart? He
+saw heaven; he looked down on hell. He saw Satan, and
+Sin his daughter, and Death their horrible offspring. Angels
+serried before him their battalions; the long lines of adamantine
+shields flashed back on his blind eyeballs the unutterable
+splendour of heaven. Devils gathered their legions
+in his sight; their dim, discrowned, and tarnished armies
+passed rank and file before him. Milton tried to see the first
+woman; but, Cary, he saw her not."</p>
+
+<p>"You are bold to say so, Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"Not more bold than faithful. It was his cook that he
+saw; or it was Mrs. Gill, as I have seen her, making custards,
+in the heat of summer, in the cool dairy, with rose-trees and
+nasturtiums about the latticed window, preparing a cold
+collation for the rectors&mdash;preserves and 'dulcet creams;'
+puzzled 'what choice to choose for delicacy best; what
+order so contrived as not to mix tastes, not well-joined,
+inelegant, but bring taste after taste, upheld with kindliest
+change.'"</p>
+
+<p>"All very well too, Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"I would beg to remind him that the first men of the
+earth were Titans, and that Eve was their mother; from
+her sprang Saturn, Hyperion, Oceanus; she bore Prometheus&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pagan that you are! what does that signify?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say, there were giants on the earth in those days&mdash;giants
+that strove to scale heaven. The first woman's
+breast that heaved with life on this world yielded the daring
+which could contend with Omnipotence, the strength which
+could bear a thousand years of bondage, the vitality which
+could feed that vulture death through uncounted ages, the
+unexhausted life and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality,
+which, after millenniums of crimes, struggles,
+and woes, could conceive and bring forth a Messiah. The
+first woman was heaven-born. Vast was the heart whence
+gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations, and grand
+the undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of
+creation."</p>
+
+<p>"She coveted an apple, and was cheated by a snake;
+but you have got such a hash of Scripture and mythology
+into your head that there is no making any sense of you.
+You have not yet told me what you saw kneeling on those
+hills."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw&mdash;I now see&mdash;a woman-Titan. Her robe of blue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>281<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+air spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder
+flock is grazing; a veil white as an avalanche sweeps from
+her head to her feet, and arabesques of lightning flame on
+its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like
+that horizon; through its blush shines the star of evening.
+Her steady eyes I cannot picture. They are clear, they
+are deep as lakes, they are lifted and full of worship, they
+tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer.
+Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than
+the early moon, risen long before dark gathers. She reclines
+her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty hands
+are joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks
+with God. That Eve is Jehovah's daughter, as Adam was
+His son."</p>
+
+<p>"She is very vague and visionary. Come, Shirley, we
+ought to go into church."</p>
+
+<p>"Caroline, I will not; I will stay out here with my
+mother Eve, in these days called Nature. I love her&mdash;undying,
+mighty being! Heaven may have faded from
+her brow when she fell in paradise, but all that is glorious
+on earth shines there still. She is taking me to her bosom,
+and showing me her heart. Hush, Caroline! You will see
+her and feel as I do, if we are both silent."</p>
+
+<p>"I will humour your whim; but you will begin talking
+again ere ten minutes are over."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar, on whom the soft excitement of the warm
+summer evening seemed working with unwonted power,
+leaned against an upright headstone; she fixed her eyes
+on the deep-burning west, and sank into a pleasurable
+trance. Caroline, going a little apart, paced to and fro
+beneath the rectory garden wall, dreaming too in her way.
+Shirley had mentioned the word "mother." That word
+suggested to Caroline's imagination not the mighty and
+mystical parent of Shirley's visions, but a gentle human
+form&mdash;the form she ascribed to her own mother, unknown,
+unloved, but not unlonged for.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh that the day would come when she would remember
+her child! Oh that I might know her, and knowing, love
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>Such was her aspiration.</p>
+
+<p>The longing of her childhood filled her soul again. The
+desire which many a night had kept her awake in her crib,
+and which fear of its fallacy had of late years almost extinguished,
+relit suddenly, and glowed warm in her heart,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>282<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+that her mother might come some happy day, and send for
+her to her presence, look upon her fondly with loving eyes,
+and say to her tenderly, in a sweet voice, "Caroline, my
+child, I have a home for you; you shall live with me. All
+the love you have needed, and not tasted, from infancy,
+I have saved for you carefully. Come; it shall cherish you
+now."</p>
+
+<p>A noise on the road roused Caroline from her filial hopes,
+and Shirley from her Titan visions. They listened, and
+heard the tramp of horses. They looked, and saw a glitter
+through the trees. They caught through the foliage glimpses
+of martial scarlet; helm shone, plume waved. Silent and
+orderly, six soldiers rode softly by.</p>
+
+<p>"The same we saw this afternoon," whispered Shirley.
+"They have been halting somewhere till now. They wish
+to be as little noticed as possible, and are seeking their
+rendezvous at this quiet hour, while the people are at
+church. Did I not say we should see unusual things ere
+long?"</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely were sight and sound of the soldiers lost, when
+another and somewhat different disturbance broke the
+night-hush&mdash;a child's impatient scream. They looked. A
+man issued from the church, carrying in his arms an infant&mdash;a
+robust, ruddy little boy of some two years old&mdash;roaring
+with all the power of his lungs. He had probably just
+awaked from a church-sleep. Two little girls, of nine and
+ten, followed. The influence of the fresh air, and the attraction
+of some flowers gathered from a grave, soon quieted
+the child. The man sat down with him, dandling him on
+his knee as tenderly as any woman; the two little girls
+took their places one on each side.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, William," said Shirley, after due scrutiny
+of the man. He had seen her before, and apparently was
+waiting to be recognized. He now took off his hat, and
+grinned a smile of pleasure. He was a rough-headed, hard-featured
+personage, not old, but very weather-beaten. His
+attire was decent and clean; that of his children singularly
+neat. It was our old friend Farren. The young ladies
+approached him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going into the church?" he inquired,
+gazing at them complacently, yet with a mixture of bashfulness
+in his look&mdash;a sentiment not by any means the result
+of awe of their station, but only of appreciation of their
+elegance and youth. Before gentlemen&mdash;such as Moore or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>283<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Helstone, for instance&mdash;William was often a little dogged;
+with proud or insolent ladies, too, he was quite unmanageable,
+sometimes very resentful; but he was most sensible
+of, most tractable to, good-humour and civility. His nature&mdash;a
+stubborn one&mdash;was repelled by inflexibility in other
+natures; for which reason he had never been able to like
+his former master, Moore; and unconscious of that gentleman's
+good opinion of himself, and of the service he had
+secretly rendered him in recommending him as gardener
+to Mr. Yorke, and by this means to other families in the
+neighbourhood, he continued to harbour a grudge against
+his austerity. Latterly he had often worked at Fieldhead.
+Miss Keeldar's frank, hospitable manners were perfectly
+charming to him. Caroline he had known from her childhood;
+unconsciously she was his ideal of a lady. Her
+gentle mien, step, gestures, her grace of person and attire,
+moved some artist-fibres about his peasant heart. He had
+a pleasure in looking at her, as he had in examining rare
+flowers or in seeing pleasant landscapes. Both the ladies
+liked William; it was their delight to lend him books, to
+give him plants; and they preferred his conversation far
+before that of many coarse, hard, pretentious people immeasurably
+higher in station.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was speaking, William, when you came out?"
+asked Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"A gentleman ye set a deal of store on, Miss Shirley&mdash;Mr.
+Donne."</p>
+
+<p>"You look knowing, William. How did you find out
+my regard for Mr. Donne?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, Miss Shirley, there's a gleg light i' your een sometimes
+which betrays you. You look raight down scornful
+sometimes when Mr. Donne is by."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like him yourself, William?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me? I'm stalled o' t' curates, and so is t' wife. They've
+no manners. They talk to poor folk fair as if they thought
+they were beneath them. They're allus magnifying their
+office. It is a pity but their office could magnify them;
+but it does nought o' t' soart. I fair hate pride."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are proud in your own way yourself," interposed
+Caroline. "You are what you call house-proud:
+you like to have everything handsome about you. Sometimes
+you look as if you were almost too proud to take
+your wages. When you were out of work, you were too
+proud to get anything on credit. But for your children,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>284<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+I believe you would rather have starved than gone to the
+shops without money; and when I wanted to give you
+something, what a difficulty I had in making you take it!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is partly true, Miss Caroline. Ony day I'd rather
+give than take, especially from sich as ye. Look at t'
+difference between us. Ye're a little, young, slender lass,
+and I'm a great strong man; I'm rather more nor twice
+your age. It is not <em>my</em> part, then, I think, to tak fro' <em>ye</em>&mdash;to
+be under obligations (as they say) to <em>ye</em>. And that day
+ye came to our house, and called me to t' door, and offered
+me five shillings, which I doubt ye could ill spare&mdash;for
+ye've no fortin', I know&mdash;that day I war fair a rebel, a
+radical, an insurrectionist; and <em>ye</em> made me so. I thought
+it shameful that, willing and able as I was to work, I suld
+be i' such a condition that a young cratur about the age
+o' my own eldest lass suld think it needful to come and offer
+me her bit o' brass."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you were angry with me, William?"</p>
+
+<p>"I almost was, in a way. But I forgave ye varry soon.
+Ye meant well. Ay, <em>I am</em> proud, and so are <em>ye</em>; but your
+pride and mine is t' raight mak&mdash;what we call i' Yorkshire
+clean pride&mdash;such as Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne knows
+nought about. Theirs is mucky pride. Now, I shall teach
+my lasses to be as proud as Miss Shirley there, and my lads
+to be as proud as myseln; but I dare ony o' 'em to be like
+t' curates. I'd lick little Michael if I seed him show any
+signs o' that feeling."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the difference, William?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye know t' difference weel enow, but ye want me to
+get a gate o' talking. Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne is almost
+too proud to do aught for theirseln; <em>we</em> are almost too
+proud to let anybody do aught for us. T' curates can hardly
+bide to speak a civil word to them they think beneath them;
+<em>we</em> can hardly bide to tak an uncivil word fro' them that
+thinks themseln aboon us."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, William, be humble enough to tell me truly how
+you are getting on in the world. Are you well off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Shirley, I am varry well off. Since I got into t'
+gardening line, wi' Mr. Yorke's help, and since Mr. Hall
+(another o' t' raight sort) helped my wife to set up a bit of
+a shop, I've nought to complain of. My family has plenty
+to eat and plenty to wear. My pride makes me find means
+to have an odd pound now and then against rainy days;
+for I think I'd die afore I'd come to t' parish; and me and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>285<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+mine is content. But t' neighbours is poor yet. I see a
+great deal of distress."</p>
+
+<p>"And, consequently, there is still discontent, I suppose?"
+inquired Miss Keeldar.</p>
+
+<p>"<em>Consequently</em>&mdash;ye say right&mdash;<em>consequently</em>. In course,
+starving folk cannot be satisfied or settled folk. The
+country's not in a safe condition&mdash;I'll say so mich!"</p>
+
+<p>"But what can be done? What more can I do, for
+instance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do? Ye can do not mich, poor young lass! Ye've
+gi'en your brass; ye've done well. If ye could transport
+your tenant, Mr. Moore, to Botany Bay, ye'd happen do
+better. Folks hate him."</p>
+
+<p>"William, for shame!" exclaimed Caroline warmly. "If
+folks <em>do</em> hate him, it is to their disgrace, not his. Mr. Moore
+himself hates nobody. He only wants to do his duty, and
+maintain his rights. You are wrong to talk so."</p>
+
+<p>"I talk as I think. He has a cold, unfeeling heart, yond'
+Moore."</p>
+
+<p>"But," interposed Shirley, "supposing Moore was driven
+from the country, and his mill razed to the ground, would
+people have more work?"</p>
+
+<p>"They'd have less. I know that, and they know that;
+and there is many an honest lad driven desperate by the
+certainty that whichever way he turns he cannot better
+himself; and there is dishonest men plenty to guide them
+to the devil, scoundrels that reckons to be the 'people's
+friends,' and that knows nought about the people, and is
+as insincere as Lucifer. I've lived aboon forty year in the
+world, and I believe that 'the people' will never have any
+true friends but theirseln and them two or three good folk
+i' different stations that is friends to all the world. Human
+natur', taking it i' th' lump, is nought but selfishness. It
+is but excessive few, it is but just an exception here and
+there, now and then, sich as ye two young uns and me, that,
+being in a different sphere, can understand t' one t' other,
+and be friends wi'out slavishness o' one hand or pride o' t'
+other. Them that reckons to be friends to a lower class
+than their own fro' political motives is never to be trusted;
+they always try to make their inferiors tools. For my
+own part, I will neither be patronized nor misled for no
+man's pleasure. I've had overtures made to me lately
+that I saw were treacherous, and I flung 'em back i' the
+faces o' them that offered 'em."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>286<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"You won't tell us what overtures?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not. It would do no good. It would mak no
+difference. Them they concerned can look after theirseln."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, we'se look after werseln," said another voice. Joe
+Scott had sauntered forth from the church to get a breath
+of fresh air, and there he stood.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll warrant <em>ye</em>, Joe," observed William, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll warrant my maister," was the answer.&mdash;"Young
+ladies," continued Joe, assuming a lordly air,
+"ye'd better go into th' house."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what for?" inquired Shirley, to whom the
+overlooker's somewhat pragmatical manners were familiar,
+and who was often at war with him; for Joe, holding supercilious
+theories about women in general, resented greatly,
+in his secret soul, the fact of his master and his master's
+mill being, in a manner, under petticoat government, and
+had felt as wormwood and gall certain business visits of the
+heiress to the Hollow's counting-house.</p>
+
+<p>"Because there is nought agate that fits women to be
+consarned in."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! There is prayer and preaching agate in that
+church. Are we not concerned in that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye have been present neither at the prayer nor preaching,
+ma'am, if I have observed aright. What I alluded to
+was politics. William Farren here was touching on that
+subject, if I'm not mista'en."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what then? Politics are our habitual study, Joe.
+Do you know I see a newspaper every day, and two of a
+Sunday?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you'll read the marriages, probably, miss,
+and the murders, and the accidents, and sich like?"</p>
+
+<p>"I read the leading articles, Joe, and the foreign intelligence,
+and I look over the market prices. In short, I read
+just what gentlemen read."</p>
+
+<p>Joe looked as if he thought this talk was like the chattering
+of a pie. He replied to it by a disdainful silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Joe," continued Miss Keeldar, "I never yet could
+ascertain properly whether you are a Whig or a Tory.
+Pray, which party has the honour of your alliance?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is rayther difficult to explain where you are sure not
+to be understood," was Joe's haughty response; "but as
+to being a Tory, I'd as soon be an old woman, or a young
+one, which is a more flimsier article still. It is the Tories
+that carries on the war and ruins trade; and if I be of any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>287<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+party&mdash;though political parties is all nonsense&mdash;I'm of that
+which is most favourable to peace, and, by consequence,
+to the mercantile interests of this here land."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I, Joe," replied Shirley, who had rather a pleasure
+in teasing the overlooker, by persisting in talking on subjects
+with which he opined she, as a woman, had no right to meddle&mdash;"partly,
+at least. I have rather a leaning to the agricultural
+interest, too; as good reason is, seeing that I don't
+desire England to be under the feet of France, and that if a
+share of my income comes from Hollow's Mill, a larger
+share comes from the landed estate around it. It would
+not do to take any measures injurious to the farmers, Joe,
+I think?"</p>
+
+<p>"The dews at this hour is unwholesome for females,"
+observed Joe.</p>
+
+<p>"If you make that remark out of interest in me, I have
+merely to assure you that I am impervious to cold. I
+should not mind taking my turn to watch the mill one
+of these summer nights, armed with your musket, Joe."</p>
+
+<p>Joe Scott's chin was always rather prominent. He poked
+it out, at this speech, some inches farther than usual.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;to go back to my sheep," she proceeded&mdash;"clothier
+and mill-owner as I am, besides farmer, I cannot get out
+of my head a certain idea that we manufacturers and persons
+of business are sometimes a little&mdash;a <em>very little</em>&mdash;selfish
+and short-sighted in our views, and rather <em>too</em> regardless
+of human suffering, rather heartless in our pursuit of gain.
+Don't you agree with me, Joe?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot argue where I cannot be comprehended," was
+again the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Man of mystery! Your master will argue with me
+sometimes, Joe. He is not so stiff as you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe not. We've all our own ways."</p>
+
+<p>"Joe, do you seriously think all the wisdom in the world
+is lodged in male skulls?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that women are a kittle and a froward generation;
+and I've a great respect for the doctrines delivered
+in the second chapter of St. Paul's first Epistle to Timothy."</p>
+
+<p>"What doctrines, Joe?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection.
+I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority
+over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first
+formed, then Eve.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What has that to do with the business?" interjected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>288<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Shirley. "That smacks of rights of primogeniture. I'll
+bring it up to Mr. Yorke the first time he inveighs against
+those rights."</p>
+
+<p>"And," continued Joe Scott, "Adam was not deceived,
+but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."</p>
+
+<p>"More shame to Adam to sin with his eyes open!" cried
+Miss Keeldar. "To confess the honest truth, Joe, I never
+was easy in my mind concerning that chapter. It puzzles
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very plain, miss. He that runs may read."</p>
+
+<p>"He may read it in his own fashion," remarked Caroline,
+now joining in the dialogue for the first time. "You allow
+the right of private judgment, I suppose, Joe?"</p>
+
+<p>"My certy, that I do! I allow and claim it for every
+line of the holy Book."</p>
+
+<p>"Women may exercise it as well as men?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay. Women is to take their husbands' opinion, both
+in politics and religion. It's wholesomest for them."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! oh!" exclaimed both Shirley and Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure; no doubt on't," persisted the stubborn
+overlooker.</p>
+
+<p>"Consider yourself groaned down, and cried shame over,
+for such a stupid observation," said Miss Keeldar. "You
+might as well say men are to take the opinions of their
+priests without examination. Of what value would a religion
+so adopted be? It would be mere blind, besotted
+superstition."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is <em>your</em> reading, Miss Helstone, o' these words
+o' St. Paul's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hem! I&mdash;I account for them in this way. He wrote
+that chapter for a particular congregation of Christians,
+under peculiar circumstances; and besides, I dare say, if
+I could read the original Greek, I should find that many of
+the words have been wrongly translated, perhaps misapprehended
+altogether. It would be possible, I doubt
+not, with a little ingenuity, to give the passage quite a contrary
+turn&mdash;to make it say, 'Let the woman speak out
+whenever she sees fit to make an objection.' 'It is permitted
+to a woman to teach and to exercise authority as
+much as may be. Man, meantime, cannot do better than
+hold his peace;' and so on."</p>
+
+<p>"That willn't wash, miss."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say it will. My notions are dyed in faster colours
+than yours, Joe. Mr. Scott, you are a thoroughly dogmatical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>289<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+person, and always were. I like William better
+than you."</p>
+
+<p>"Joe is well enough in his own house," said Shirley.
+"I have seen him as quiet as a lamb at home. There is
+not a better nor a kinder husband in Briarfield. He does
+not dogmatize to his wife."</p>
+
+<p>"My wife is a hard-working, plain woman; time and
+trouble has ta'en all the conceit out of her. But that is
+not the case with you, young misses. And then you reckon
+to have so much knowledge; and i' my thoughts it's only
+superficial sort o' vanities you're acquainted with. I can
+tell&mdash;happen a year sin'&mdash;one day Miss Caroline coming
+into our counting-house when I war packing up summat
+behind t' great desk, and she didn't see me, and she brought
+a slate wi' a sum on it to t' maister. It war only a bit of
+a sum in practice, that our Harry would have settled i' two
+minutes. She couldn't do it. Mr. Moore had to show her
+how. And when he did show her, she couldn't understand
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, Joe!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nay, it's no nonsense. And Miss Shirley there reckons
+to hearken to t' maister when he's talking ower trade, so
+attentive like, as if she followed him word for word, and all
+war as clear as a lady's looking-glass to her een; and all
+t' while she's peeping and peeping out o' t' window to see
+if t' mare stands quiet; and then looking at a bit of a
+splash on her riding-skirt; and then glancing glegly round
+at wer counting-house cobwebs and dust, and thinking
+what mucky folk we are, and what a grand ride she'll have
+just i' now ower Nunnely Common. She hears no more
+o' Mr. Moore's talk nor if he spake Hebrew."</p>
+
+<p>"Joe, you are a real slanderer. I would give you your
+answer, only the people are coming out of church. We
+must leave you. Man of prejudice, good-bye.&mdash;William,
+good-bye.&mdash;Children, come up to Fieldhead to-morrow, and
+you shall choose what you like best out of Mrs. Gill's store-room."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>290<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>A SUMMER NIGHT.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> hour was now that of dusk. A clear air favoured the
+kindling of the stars.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be just light enough to show me the way
+home," said Miss Keeldar, as she prepared to take leave
+of Caroline at the rectory garden door.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not go alone, Shirley; Fanny shall accompany
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"That she shall not. Of what need I be afraid in my
+own parish? I would walk from Fieldhead to the church
+any fine midsummer night, three hours later than this, for
+the mere pleasure of seeing the stars and the chance of
+meeting a fairy."</p>
+
+<p>"But just wait till the crowd is cleared away."</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed. There are the five Misses Armitage streaming
+by. Here comes Mrs. Sykes's phaeton, Mr. Wynne's close
+carriage, Mrs. Birtwhistle's car. I don't wish to go through
+the ceremony of bidding them all good-bye, so we will step
+into the garden and take shelter amongst the laburnums
+for an instant."</p>
+
+<p>The rectors, their curates, and their churchwardens now
+issued from the church porch. There was a great confabulation,
+shaking of hands, congratulation on speeches, recommendation
+to be careful of the night air, etc. By degrees
+the throng dispersed, the carriages drove off. Miss Keeldar
+was just emerging from her flowery refuge when Mr. Helstone
+entered the garden and met her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I want you!" he said. "I was afraid you were
+already gone.&mdash;Caroline, come here."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline came, expecting, as Shirley did, a lecture on not
+having been visible at church. Other subjects, however,
+occupied the rector's mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not sleep at home to-night," he continued. "I
+have just met with an old friend, and promised to accompany<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>291<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+him. I shall return probably about noon to-morrow.
+Thomas, the clerk, is engaged, and I cannot get him to
+sleep in the house, as I usually do when I am absent for a
+night. Now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now," interrupted Shirley, "you want me as a gentleman&mdash;the
+first gentleman in Briarfield, in short&mdash;to supply
+your place, be master of the rectory and guardian of your
+niece and maids while you are away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, captain. I thought the post would suit you.
+Will you favour Caroline so far as to be her guest for one
+night? Will you stay here instead of going back to Fieldhead?"</p>
+
+<p>"And what will Mrs. Pryor do? she expects me home."</p>
+
+<p>"I will send her word. Come, make up your mind to
+stay. It grows late; the dew falls heavily. You and
+Caroline will enjoy each other's society, I doubt not."</p>
+
+<p>"I promise you, then, to stay with Caroline," replied
+Shirley. "As you say, we shall enjoy each other's society.
+We will not be separated to-night. Now, rejoin your old
+friend, and fear nothing for us."</p>
+
+<p>"If there should chance to be any disturbance in the
+night, captain; if you should hear the picking of a lock,
+the cutting out of a pane of glass, a stealthy tread of steps
+about the house (and I need not fear to tell <em>you</em>, who bear
+a well-tempered, mettlesome heart under your girl's ribbon
+sash, that such little incidents are very possible in the
+present time), what would you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know; faint, perhaps&mdash;fall down, and have to
+be picked up again. But, doctor, if you assign me the post
+of honour, you must give me arms. What weapons are
+there in your stronghold?"</p>
+
+<p>"You could not wield a sword?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I could manage the carving-knife better."</p>
+
+<p>"You will find a good one in the dining-room sideboard&mdash;a
+lady's knife, light to handle, and as sharp-pointed as a
+poniard."</p>
+
+<p>"It will suit Caroline. But you must give me a brace
+of pistols. I know you have pistols."</p>
+
+<p>"I have two pairs. One pair I can place at your disposal.
+You will find them suspended over the mantelpiece
+of my study in cloth cases."</p>
+
+<p>"Loaded?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but not on the cock. Cock them before you go
+to bed. It is paying you a great compliment, captain, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>292<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+lend you these. Were you one of the awkward squad you
+should not have them."</p>
+
+<p>"I will take care. You need delay no longer, Mr. Helstone.
+You may go now.&mdash;He is gracious to me to lend
+me his pistols," she remarked, as the rector passed out at
+the garden gate. "But come, Lina," she continued, "let
+us go in and have some supper. I was too much vexed at
+tea with the vicinage of Mr. Sam Wynne to be able to
+eat, and now I am really hungry."</p>
+
+<p>Entering the house, they repaired to the darkened dining-room,
+through the open windows of which apartment stole
+the evening air, bearing the perfume of flowers from the
+garden, the very distant sound of far-retreating steps from
+the road, and a soft, vague murmur whose origin Caroline
+explained by the remark, uttered as she stood listening at
+the casement, "Shirley, I hear the beck in the Hollow."</p>
+
+<p>Then she rang the bell, asked for a candle and some
+bread and milk&mdash;Miss Keeldar's usual supper and her own.
+Fanny, when she brought in the tray, would have closed
+the windows and the shutters, but was requested to desist
+for the present. The twilight was too calm, its breath too
+balmy to be yet excluded. They took their meal in silence.
+Caroline rose once to remove to the window-sill a glass of
+flowers which stood on the sideboard, the exhalation from
+the blossoms being somewhat too powerful for the sultry
+room. In returning she half opened a drawer, and took
+from it something that glittered clear and keen in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"You assigned this to me, then, Shirley, did you? It
+is bright, keen-edged, finely tapered; it is dangerous-looking.
+I never yet felt the impulse which could move
+me to direct this against a fellow-creature. It is difficult
+to fancy that circumstances could nerve my arm to strike
+home with this long knife."</p>
+
+<p>"I should hate to do it," replied Shirley, "but I think
+I could do it, if goaded by certain exigencies which I can
+imagine." And Miss Keeldar quietly sipped her glass of
+new milk, looking somewhat thoughtful and a little pale;
+though, indeed, when did she not look pale? She was
+never florid.</p>
+
+<p>The milk sipped and the bread eaten, Fanny was again
+summoned. She and Eliza were recommended to go to
+bed, which they were quite willing to do, being weary of
+the day's exertions, of much cutting of currant-buns, and
+filling of urns and teapots, and running backwards and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>293<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+forwards with trays. Ere long the maids' chamber door
+was heard to close. Caroline took a candle and went
+quietly all over the house, seeing that every window was
+fast and every door barred. She did not even evade the
+haunted back kitchen nor the vault-like cellars. These
+visited, she returned.</p>
+
+<p>"There is neither spirit nor flesh in the house at present,"
+she said, "which should not be there. It is now near
+eleven o'clock, fully bedtime; yet I would rather sit up
+a little longer, if you do not object, Shirley. Here," she
+continued, "I have brought the brace of pistols from my
+uncle's study. You may examine them at your leisure."</p>
+
+<p>She placed them on the table before her friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Why would you rather sit up longer?" asked Miss
+Keeldar, taking up the firearms, examining them, and
+again laying them down.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I have a strange, excited feeling in my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"So have I."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this state of sleeplessness and restlessness caused by
+something electrical in the air, I wonder?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; the sky is clear, the stars numberless. It is a
+fine night."</p>
+
+<p>"But very still. I hear the water fret over its stony bed
+in Hollow's Copse as distinctly as if it ran below the churchyard
+wall."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad it is so still a night. A moaning wind or
+rushing rain would vex me to fever just now."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Shirley?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it would baffle my efforts to listen."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you listen towards the Hollow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it is the only quarter whence we can hear a sound
+just now."</p>
+
+<p>"The only one, Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>They both sat near the window, and both leaned their
+arms on the sill, and both inclined their heads towards the
+open lattice. They saw each other's young faces by the
+starlight and that dim June twilight which does not wholly
+fade from the west till dawn begins to break in the east.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Helstone thinks we have no idea which way he is
+gone," murmured Miss Keeldar, "nor on what errand,
+nor with what expectations, nor how prepared. But I
+guess much; do not you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess something."</p>
+
+<p>"All those gentlemen&mdash;your cousin Moore included&mdash;think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>294<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+that you and I are now asleep in our beds, unconscious."</p>
+
+<p>"Caring nothing about them&mdash;hoping and fearing nothing
+for them," added Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>Both kept silent for full half an hour. The night was
+silent too; only the church clock measured its course by
+quarters. Some words were interchanged about the chill
+of the air. They wrapped their scarves closer round them,
+resumed their bonnets, which they had removed, and again
+watched.</p>
+
+<p>Towards midnight the teasing, monotonous bark of the
+house-dog disturbed the quietude of their vigil. Caroline
+rose, and made her way noiselessly through the dark passages
+to the kitchen, intending to appease him with a piece
+of bread. She succeeded. On returning to the dining-room
+she found it all dark, Miss Keeldar having extinguished
+the candle. The outline of her shape was visible near the
+still open window, leaning out. Miss Helstone asked no
+questions; she stole to her side. The dog recommenced
+barking furiously. Suddenly he stopped, and seemed to
+listen. The occupants of the dining-room listened too,
+and not merely now to the flow of the mill-stream. There
+was a nearer, though a muffled, sound on the road below
+the churchyard&mdash;a measured, beating, approaching sound&mdash;a
+dull tramp of marching feet.</p>
+
+<p>It drew near. Those who listened by degrees comprehended
+its extent. It was not the tread of two, nor of a
+dozen, nor of a score of men; it was the tread of hundreds.
+They could see nothing; the high shrubs of the garden
+formed a leafy screen between them and the road. To
+hear, however, was not enough, and this they felt as the
+troop trod forwards, and seemed actually passing the
+rectory. They felt it more when a human voice&mdash;though
+that voice spoke but one word&mdash;broke the hush of the
+night.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!"</p>
+
+<p>A halt followed. The march was arrested. Then came
+a low conference, of which no word was distinguishable
+from the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>"We <em>must</em> hear this," said Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>She turned, took her pistols from the table, silently
+passed out through the middle window of the dining-room,
+which was, in fact, a glass door, stole down the walk to
+the garden wall, and stood listening under the lilacs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>295<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Caroline would not have quitted the house had she been
+alone, but where Shirley went she would go. She glanced
+at the weapon on the sideboard, but left it behind her,
+and presently stood at her friend's side. They dared not
+look over the wall, for fear of being seen; they were obliged
+to crouch behind it. They heard these words,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It looks a rambling old building. Who lives in it
+besides the damned parson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only three women&mdash;his niece and two servants."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know where they sleep?"</p>
+
+<p>"The lasses behind; the niece in a front room."</p>
+
+<p>"And Helstone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yonder is his chamber. He was burning a light, but
+I see none now."</p>
+
+<p>"Where would you get in?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I were ordered to do his job&mdash;and he desarves it&mdash;I'd
+try yond' long window; it opens to the dining-room.
+I could grope my way upstairs, and I know his chamber."</p>
+
+<p>"How would you manage about the women folk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let 'em alone except they shrieked, and then I'd soon
+quieten 'em. I could wish to find the old chap asleep.
+If he waked, he'd be dangerous."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he arms?"</p>
+
+<p>"Firearms, allus&mdash;and allus loadened."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you're a fool to stop us here. A shot would give
+the alarm. Moore would be on us before we could turn
+round. We should miss our main object."</p>
+
+<p>"You might go on, I tell you. I'd engage Helstone
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>A pause. One of the party dropped some weapon,
+which rang on the stone causeway. At this sound the
+rectory dog barked again furiously&mdash;fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"That spoils all!" said the voice. "He'll awake. A
+noise like that might rouse the dead. You did not say
+there was a dog. Damn you! Forward!"</p>
+
+<p>Forward they went&mdash;tramp, tramp&mdash;with mustering,
+manifold, slow-filing tread. They were gone.</p>
+
+<p>Shirley stood erect, looked over the wall, along the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a soul remains," she said.</p>
+
+<p>She stood and mused. "Thank God!" was the next
+observation.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline repeated the ejaculation&mdash;not in so steady a
+tone. She was trembling much. Her heart was beating
+fast and thick; her face was cold, her forehead damp.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>296<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Thank God for us!" she reiterated. "But what will
+happen elsewhere? They have passed us by that they
+may make sure of others."</p>
+
+<p>"They have done well," returned Shirley, with composure.
+"The others will defend themselves. They can
+do it. They are prepared for them. With us it is otherwise.
+My finger was on the trigger of this pistol. I was
+quite ready to give that man, if he had entered, such a
+greeting as he little calculated on; but behind him followed
+three hundred. I had neither three hundred hands nor three
+hundred weapons. I could not have effectually protected
+either you, myself, or the two poor women asleep under
+that roof. Therefore I again earnestly thank God for
+insult and peril escaped."</p>
+
+<p>After a second pause she continued: "What is it my
+duty and wisdom to do next? Not to stay here inactive,
+I am glad to say, but, of course, to walk over to the
+Hollow."</p>
+
+<p>"To the Hollow, Shirley?"</p>
+
+<p>"To the Hollow. Will you go with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where those men are gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have taken the highway; we should not encounter
+them. The road over the fields is as safe, silent,
+and solitary as a path through the air would be. Will you
+go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," was the answer, given mechanically, not because
+the speaker wished or was prepared to go, or, indeed, was
+otherwise than scared at the prospect of going, but because
+she felt she could not abandon Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we must fasten up these windows, and leave all
+as secure as we can behind us. Do you know what we are
+going for, Cary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;no&mdash;because you wish it."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all? And are you so obedient to a mere caprice
+of mine? What a docile wife you would make to a stern
+husband! The moon's face is not whiter than yours at
+this moment, and the aspen at the gate does not tremble
+more than your busy fingers; and so, tractable and terror-struck,
+and dismayed and devoted, you would follow me
+into the thick of real danger! Cary, let me give your
+fidelity a motive. We are going for Moore's sake&mdash;to see if
+we can be of use to him, to make an effort to warn him of
+what is coming."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure! I am a blind, weak fool, and you are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>297<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+acute and sensible, Shirley. I will go with you; I will
+gladly go with you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not doubt it. You would die blindly and meekly
+for me, but you would intelligently and gladly die for
+Moore. But, in truth, there is no question of death to-night;
+we run no risk at all."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline rapidly closed shutter and lattice. "Do not
+fear that I shall not have breath to run as fast as you can
+possibly run, Shirley. Take my hand. Let us go straight
+across the fields."</p>
+
+<p>"But you cannot climb walls?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-night I can."</p>
+
+<p>"You are afraid of hedges, and the beck which we shall
+be forced to cross?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can cross it."</p>
+
+<p>They started; they ran. Many a wall checked but did
+not baffle them. Shirley was surefooted and agile; she
+could spring like a deer when she chose. Caroline, more
+timid and less dexterous, fell once or twice, and bruised
+herself; but she rose again directly, saying she was not
+hurt. A quickset hedge bounded the last field; they lost
+time in seeking a gap in it. The aperture, when found,
+was narrow, but they worked their way through. The
+long hair, the tender skin, the silks and the muslins suffered;
+but what was chiefly regretted was the impediment this
+difficulty had caused to speed. On the other side they met
+the beck, flowing deep in a rough bed. At this point a
+narrow plank formed the only bridge across it. Shirley
+had trodden the plank successfully and fearlessly many a
+time before; Caroline had never yet dared to risk the
+transit.</p>
+
+<p>"I will carry you across," said Miss Keeldar. "You are
+light, and I am not weak. Let me try."</p>
+
+<p>"If I fall in, you may fish me out," was the answer, as a
+grateful squeeze compressed her hand. Caroline, without
+pausing, trod forward on the trembling plank as if it were
+a continuation of the firm turf. Shirley, who followed, did
+not cross it more resolutely or safely. In their present
+humour, on their present errand, a strong and foaming
+channel would have been a barrier to neither. At the
+moment they were above the control either of fire or water.
+All Stilbro' Moor, alight and <a name="aglow" id="aglow"></a><ins title="was alow">aglow</ins> with bonfires, would not
+have stopped them, nor would Calder or Aire thundering
+in flood. Yet one sound made them pause. Scarce had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>298<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+they set foot on the solid opposite bank when a shot split
+the air from the north. One second elapsed. Further off
+burst a like note in the south. Within the space of three
+minutes similar signals boomed in the east and west.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought we were dead at the first explosion," observed
+Shirley, drawing a long breath. "I felt myself
+hit in the temples, and I concluded your heart was pierced;
+but the reiterated voice was an explanation. Those are
+signals&mdash;it is their way&mdash;the attack must be near. We
+should have had wings. Our feet have not borne us swiftly
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>A portion of the copse was now to clear. When they
+emerged from it the mill lay just below them. They could
+look down upon the buildings, the yard; they could see
+the road beyond. And the first glance in that direction
+told Shirley she was right in her conjecture. They were
+already too late to give warning. It had taken more time
+than they calculated on to overcome the various obstacles
+which embarrassed the short cut across the fields.</p>
+
+<p>The road, which should have been white, was dark with
+a moving mass. The rioters were assembled in front of
+the closed yard gates, and a single figure stood within,
+apparently addressing them. The mill itself was perfectly
+black and still. There was neither life, light, nor motion
+around it.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely he is prepared. Surely that is not Moore meeting
+them alone?" whispered Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"It is. We must go to him. I <em>will</em> go to him."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>That</em> you will not."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did I come, then? I came only for him. I
+shall join him."</p>
+
+<p>"Fortunately it is out of your power. There is no
+entrance to the yard."</p>
+
+<p>"There <em>is</em> a small entrance at the back, besides the
+gates in front. It opens by a secret method which I know.
+I will try it."</p>
+
+<p>"Not with my leave."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar clasped her round the waist with both arms
+and held her back. "Not one step shall you stir," she
+went on authoritatively. "At this moment Moore would
+be both shocked and embarrassed if he saw either you or me.
+Men never want women near them in time of real danger."</p>
+
+<p>"I would not trouble&mdash;I would help him," was the
+reply.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>299<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"How?&mdash;by inspiring him with heroism? Pooh! these
+are not the days of chivalry. It is not a tilt at a tournament
+we are going to behold, but a struggle about money, and
+food, and life."</p>
+
+<p>"It is natural that I should be at his side."</p>
+
+<p>"As queen of his heart? His mill is his lady-love,
+Cary! Backed by his factory and his frames, he has all
+the encouragement he wants or can know. It is not for
+love or beauty, but for ledger and broadcloth, he is going to
+break a spear. Don't be sentimental; Robert is not so."</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>could</em> help him; I <em>will</em> seek him."</p>
+
+<p>"Off then&mdash;I let you go&mdash;seek Moore. You'll not find
+him."</p>
+
+<p>She loosened her hold. Caroline sped like levelled shaft
+from bent bow; after her rang a jesting, gibing laugh.
+"Look well there is no mistake!" was the warning given.</p>
+
+<p>But there <em>was</em> a mistake. Miss Helstone paused, hesitated,
+gazed. The figure had suddenly retreated from the
+gate, and was running back hastily to the mill.</p>
+
+<p>"Make haste, Lina!" cried Shirley; "meet him before
+he enters."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline slowly returned. "It is not Robert," she said.
+"It has neither his height, form, nor bearing."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw it was not Robert when I let you go. How
+could you imagine it? It is a shabby little figure of a
+private soldier; they had posted him as sentinel. He
+is safe in the mill now. I saw the door open and admit
+him. My mind grows easier. Robert is prepared. Our
+warning would have been superfluous; and now I am
+thankful we came too late to give it. It has saved us the
+trouble of a scene. How fine to have entered the counting-house
+<em>toute &eacute;perdue</em>, and to have found oneself in presence
+of Messrs. Armitage and Ramsden smoking, Malone swaggering,
+your uncle sneering, Mr. Sykes sipping a cordial,
+and Moore himself in his cold man-of-business vein! I am
+glad we missed it all."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if there are many in the mill, Shirley!"</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty to defend it. The soldiers we have twice seen
+to-day were going there, no doubt, and the group we noticed
+surrounding your cousin in the fields will be with him."</p>
+
+<p>"What are they doing now, Shirley? What is that
+noise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hatchets and crowbars against the yard gates. They
+are forcing them. Are you afraid?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>300<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"No; but my heart throbs fast. I have a difficulty
+in standing. I will sit down. Do you feel unmoved?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly that; but I am glad I came. We shall see
+what transpires with our own eyes. We are here on the
+spot, and none know it. Instead of amazing the curate,
+the clothier, and the corn-dealer with a romantic rush on
+the stage, we stand alone with the friendly night, its mute
+stars, and these whispering trees, whose report our friends
+will not come to gather."</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, Shirley, the gates are down! That crash was
+like the felling of great trees. Now they are pouring
+through. They will break down the mill doors as they
+have broken the gate. What can Robert do against
+so many? Would to God I were a little nearer him&mdash;could
+hear him speak&mdash;could speak to him! With my
+will&mdash;my longing to serve him&mdash;I could not be a useless
+burden in his way; I could be turned to some account."</p>
+
+<p>"They come on!" cried Shirley. "How steadily they
+march in! There is discipline in their ranks. I will not
+say there is courage&mdash;hundreds against tens are no proof
+of that quality&mdash;but" (she dropped her voice) "there is
+suffering and desperation enough amongst them. These
+goads will urge them forwards."</p>
+
+<p>"Forwards against Robert; and they hate him. Shirley,
+is there much danger they will win the day?"</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see. Moore and Helstone are of 'earth's
+first blood'&mdash;no bunglers&mdash;no cravens&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A crash&mdash;smash&mdash;shiver&mdash;stopped their whispers. A
+simultaneously hurled volley of stones had saluted the
+broad front of the mill, with all its windows; and now every
+pane of every lattice lay in shattered and pounded fragments.
+A yell followed this demonstration&mdash;a rioters' yell&mdash;a
+north-of-England, a Yorkshire, a West-Riding, a West-Riding-clothing-district-of-Yorkshire
+rioters' yell.</p>
+
+<p>You never heard that sound, perhaps, reader? So much
+the better for your ears&mdash;perhaps for your heart, since,
+if it rends the air in hate to yourself, or to the men or
+principles you approve, the interests to which you wish
+well, wrath wakens to the cry of hate; the lion shakes his
+mane, and rises to the howl of the hyena; caste stands up,
+ireful against caste; and the indignant, wronged spirit of
+the middle rank bears down in zeal and scorn on the famished
+and furious mass of the operative class. It is difficult to
+be tolerant, difficult to be just, in such moments.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>301<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Caroline rose; Shirley put her arm round her: they
+stood together as still as the straight stems of two trees.
+That yell was a long one, and when it ceased the night was
+yet full of the swaying and murmuring of a crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"What next?" was the question of the listeners. Nothing
+came yet. The mill remained mute as a mausoleum.</p>
+
+<p>"He <em>cannot</em> be alone!" whispered Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"I would stake all I have that he is as little alone as
+he is alarmed," responded Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>Shots were discharged by the rioters. Had the defenders
+waited for this signal? It seemed so. The hitherto
+inert and passive mill woke; fire flashed from its empty
+window-frames; a volley of musketry pealed sharp through
+the Hollow.</p>
+
+<p>"Moore speaks at last!" said Shirley, "and he seems
+to have the gift of tongues. That was not a single voice."</p>
+
+<p>"He has been forbearing. No one can accuse him of
+rashness," alleged Caroline. "Their discharge preceded his.
+They broke his gates and his windows. They fired at his
+garrison before he repelled them."</p>
+
+<p>What was going on now? It seemed difficult, in the
+darkness, to distinguish; but something terrible, a still-renewing
+tumult, was obvious&mdash;fierce attacks, desperate
+repulses. The mill-yard, the mill itself, was full of battle
+movement. There was scarcely any cessation now of the
+discharge of firearms; and there was struggling, rushing,
+trampling, and shouting between. The aim of the assailants
+seemed to be to enter the mill, that of the defenders
+to beat them off. They heard the rebel leader cry, "To
+the back, lads!" They heard a voice retort, "Come round;
+we will meet you."</p>
+
+<p>"To the counting-house!" was the order again.</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome! we shall have you there!" was the response.
+And accordingly the fiercest blaze that had yet
+glowed, the loudest rattle that had yet been heard, burst
+from the counting-house front when the mass of rioters
+rushed up to it.</p>
+
+<p>The voice that had spoken was Moore's own voice.
+They could tell by its tones that his soul was now warm
+with the conflict; they could guess that the fighting animal
+was roused in every one of those men there struggling
+together, and was for the time quite paramount above the
+rational human being.</p>
+
+<p>Both the girls felt their faces glow and their pulses throb;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>302<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+both knew they would do no good by rushing down into
+the <em>m&ecirc;l&eacute;e</em>. They desired neither to deal nor to receive
+blows; but they could not have run away&mdash;Caroline no
+more than Shirley; they could not have fainted; they
+could not have taken their eyes from the dim, terrible
+scene&mdash;from the mass of cloud, of smoke, the musket-lightning&mdash;for
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>"How and when would it end?" was the demand
+throbbing in their throbbing pulses. "Would a juncture
+arise in which they could be useful?" was what they
+waited to see; for though Shirley put off their too-late
+arrival with a jest, and was ever ready to satirize her own
+or any other person's enthusiasm, she would have given a
+farm of her best land for a chance of rendering good
+service.</p>
+
+<p>The chance was not vouchsafed her; the looked-for
+juncture never came. It was not likely. Moore had
+expected this attack for days, perhaps weeks; he was
+prepared for it at every point. He had fortified and garrisoned
+his mill, which in itself was a strong building. He
+was a cool, brave man; he stood to the defence with unflinching
+firmness. Those who were with him caught his
+spirit, and copied his demeanour. The rioters had never
+been so met before. At other mills they had attacked
+they had found no resistance; an organized, resolute
+defence was what they never dreamed of encountering.
+When their leaders saw the steady fire kept up from the
+mill, witnessed the composure and determination of its
+owner, heard themselves coolly defied and invited on to
+death, and beheld their men falling wounded round them,
+they felt that nothing was to be done here. In haste they
+mustered their forces, drew them away from the building.
+A roll was called over, in which the men answered to figures
+instead of names. They dispersed wide over the fields,
+leaving silence and ruin behind them. The attack, from
+its commencement to its termination, had not occupied
+an hour.</p>
+
+<p>Day was by this time approaching; the west was dim,
+the east beginning to gleam. It would have seemed that
+the girls who had watched this conflict would now wish to
+hasten to the victors, on whose side all their interest had
+been enlisted; but they only very cautiously approached
+the now battered mill, and when suddenly a number of
+soldiers and gentlemen appeared at the great door opening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>303<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+into the yard, they quickly stepped aside into a shed, the
+deposit of old iron and timber, whence they could see
+without being seen.</p>
+
+<p>It was no cheering spectacle. These premises were now
+a mere blot of desolation on the fresh front of the summer
+dawn. All the copse up the Hollow was shady and dewy,
+the hill at its head was green; but just here, in the centre
+of the sweet glen, Discord, broken loose in the night from
+control, had beaten the ground with his stamping hoofs,
+and left it waste and pulverized. The mill yawned all
+ruinous with unglazed frames; the yard was thickly bestrewn
+with stones and brickbats; and close under the mill,
+with the glittering fragments of the shattered windows,
+muskets and other weapons lay here and there. More than
+one deep crimson stain was visible on the gravel, a human
+body lay quiet on its face near the gates, and five or six
+wounded men writhed and moaned in the bloody dust.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar's countenance changed at this view. It
+was the after-taste of the battle, death and pain replacing
+excitement and exertion. It was the blackness the bright
+fire leaves when its blaze is sunk, its warmth failed, and
+its glow faded.</p>
+
+<p>"This is what I wished to prevent," she said, in a voice
+whose cadence betrayed the altered impulse of her heart.</p>
+
+<p>"But you could not prevent it; you did your best&mdash;it
+was in vain," said Caroline comfortingly. "Don't grieve,
+Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry for those poor fellows," was the answer,
+while the spark in her glance dissolved to dew. "Are any
+within the mill hurt, I wonder? Is that your uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is, and there is Mr. Malone; and, O Shirley, there is
+Robert!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well" (resuming her former tone), "don't squeeze your
+fingers quite into my hand. I see. There is nothing wonderful
+in that. We knew he, at least, was here, whoever
+might be absent."</p>
+
+<p>"He is coming here towards us, Shirley!"</p>
+
+<p>"Towards the pump, that is to say, for the purpose of
+washing his hands and his forehead, which has got a scratch,
+I perceive."</p>
+
+<p>"He bleeds, Shirley. Don't hold me. I must go."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a step."</p>
+
+<p>"He is hurt, Shirley!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fiddlestick!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>304<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"But I <em>must</em> go to him. I wish to go so much. I cannot
+bear to be restrained."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"To speak to him, to ask how he is, and what I can do
+for him."</p>
+
+<p>"To tease and annoy him; to make a spectacle of yourself
+and him before those soldiers, Mr. Malone, your uncle,
+et cetera. Would he like it, think you? Would you like
+to remember it a week hence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I always to be curbed and kept down?" demanded
+Caroline, a little passionately.</p>
+
+<p>"For his sake, yes; and still more for your own. I tell
+you, if you showed yourself now you would repent it an
+hour hence, and so would Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"You think he would not like it, Shirley?"</p>
+
+<p>"Far less than he would like our stopping him to say
+good-night, which you were so sore about."</p>
+
+<p>"But that was all play; there was no danger."</p>
+
+<p>"And this is serious work; he must be unmolested."</p>
+
+<p>"I only wish to go to him because he is my cousin&mdash;you
+understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"I quite understand. But now, watch him. He has
+bathed his forehead, and the blood has ceased trickling.
+His hurt is really a mere graze; I can see it from hence.
+He is going to look after the wounded men."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly Mr. Moore and Mr. Helstone went round
+the yard, examining each prostrate form. They then gave
+directions to have the wounded taken up and carried into
+the mill. This duty being performed, Joe Scott was ordered
+to saddle his master's horse and Mr. Helstone's pony, and
+the two gentlemen rode away full gallop, to seek surgical
+aid in different directions.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline was not yet pacified.</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, Shirley, I should have liked to speak one word
+to him before he went," she murmured, while the tears
+gathered glittering in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you cry, Lina?" asked Miss Keeldar a little
+sternly. "You ought to be glad instead of sorry. Robert
+has escaped any serious harm; he is victorious; he has
+been cool and brave in combat; he is now considerate in
+triumph. Is this a time&mdash;are these causes for weeping?"</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know what I have in my heart," pleaded
+the other&mdash;"what pain, what distraction&mdash;nor whence it
+arises. I can understand that you should exult in Robert's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>305<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+greatness and goodness; so do I, in one sense, but in another
+I feel <em>so</em> miserable. I am too far removed from him.
+I used to be nearer. Let me alone, Shirley. Do let me
+cry a few minutes; it relieves me."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar, feeling her tremble in every limb, ceased
+to expostulate with her. She went out of the shed, and
+left her to weep in peace. It was the best plan. In a few
+minutes Caroline rejoined her, much calmer. She said, with
+her natural, docile, gentle manner, "Come, Shirley, we will
+go home now. I promise not to try to see Robert again
+till he asks for me. I never will try to push myself on him.
+I thank you for restraining me just now."</p>
+
+<p>"I did it with a good intention," returned Miss Keeldar.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, dear Lina," she continued, "let us turn our faces
+to the cool morning breeze, and walk very quietly back to
+the rectory. We will steal in as we stole out. None shall
+know where we have been or what we have seen to-night;
+neither taunt nor misconstruction can consequently molest
+us. To-morrow we will see Robert, and be of good cheer;
+but I will say no more, lest I should begin to cry too. I
+seem hard towards you, but I am not so."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>306<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>TO-MORROW.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> two girls met no living soul on their way back to the
+rectory. They let themselves in noiselessly; they stole
+upstairs unheard&mdash;the breaking morning gave them what
+light they needed. Shirley sought her couch immediately;
+and though the room was strange&mdash;for she had never slept
+at the rectory before&mdash;and though the recent scene was
+one unparalleled for excitement and terror by any it had
+hitherto been her lot to witness, yet scarce was her head
+laid on the pillow ere a deep, refreshing sleep closed her
+eyes and calmed her senses.</p>
+
+<p>Perfect health was Shirley's enviable portion. Though
+warm-hearted and sympathetic, she was not nervous;
+powerful emotions could rouse and sway without exhausting
+her spirit. The tempest troubled and shook her while
+it lasted, but it left her elasticity unbent, and her freshness
+quite unblighted. As every day brought her stimulating
+emotion, so every night yielded her recreating rest. Caroline
+now watched her sleeping, and read the serenity of her
+mind in the beauty of her happy countenance.</p>
+
+<p>For herself, being of a different temperament, she could
+not sleep. The commonplace excitement of the tea-drinking
+and school-gathering would alone have sufficed to make
+her restless all night; the effect of the terrible drama which
+had just been enacted before her eyes was not likely to quit
+her for days. It was vain even to try to retain a recumbent
+posture; she sat up by Shirley's side, counting the slow
+minutes, and watching the June sun mount the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>Life wastes fast in such vigils as Caroline had of late
+but too often kept&mdash;vigils during which the mind, having
+no pleasant food to nourish it, no manna of hope, no hived-honey
+of joyous memories, tries to live on the meagre diet
+of wishes, and failing to derive thence either delight or
+support, and feeling itself ready to perish with craving
+want, turns to philosophy, to resolution, to resignation;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>307<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+calls on all these gods for aid, calls vainly&mdash;is unheard, unhelped,
+and languishes.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline was a Christian; therefore in trouble she framed
+many a prayer after the Christian creed, preferred it with
+deep earnestness, begged for patience, strength, relief. This
+world, however, we all know, is the scene of trial and probation;
+and, for any favourable result her petitions had yet
+wrought, it seemed to her that they were unheard and unaccepted.
+She believed, sometimes, that God had turned
+His face from her. At moments she was a Calvinist, and,
+sinking into the gulf of religious despair, she saw darkening
+over her the doom of reprobation.</p>
+
+<p>Most people have had a period or periods in their lives
+when they have felt thus forsaken&mdash;when, having long
+hoped against hope, and still seen the day of fruition deferred,
+their hearts have truly sickened within them. This
+is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which
+precedes the rise of day&mdash;that turn of the year when the
+icy January wind carries over the waste at once the dirge
+of departing winter and the prophecy of coming spring.
+The perishing birds, however, cannot thus understand the
+blast before which they shiver; and as little can the suffering
+soul recognize, in the climax of its affliction, the dawn
+of its deliverance. Yet, let whoever grieves still cling fast
+to love and faith in God. God will never deceive, never
+finally desert him. "Whom He loveth, He chasteneth."
+These words are true, and should not be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>The household was astir at last; the servants were up;
+the shutters were opened below. Caroline, as she quitted
+the couch, which had been but a thorny one to her, felt
+that revival of spirits which the return of day, of action,
+gives to all but the wholly despairing or actually dying.
+She dressed herself, as usual, carefully, trying so to arrange
+her hair and attire that nothing of the forlornness she felt
+at heart should be visible externally. She looked as fresh
+as Shirley when both were dressed, only that Miss Keeldar's
+eyes were lively, and Miss Helstone's languid.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day I shall have much to say to Moore," were
+Shirley's first words; and you could see in her face that
+life was full of interest, expectation, and occupation for
+her. "He will have to undergo cross-examination," she
+added. "I dare say he thinks he has outwitted me cleverly.
+And this is the way men deal with women&mdash;still concealing
+danger from them&mdash;thinking, I suppose, to spare them pain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>308<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+They imagined we little knew where they were to-night.
+We <em>know</em> they little conjectured where we were. Men, I
+believe, fancy women's minds something like those of children.
+Now, that is a mistake."</p>
+
+<p>This was said as she stood at the glass, training her
+naturally waved hair into curls, by twining it round her
+fingers. She took up the theme again five minutes after,
+as Caroline fastened her dress and clasped her girdle.</p>
+
+<p>"If men could see us as we really are, they would be a
+little amazed; but the cleverest, the acutest men are often
+under an illusion about women. They do not read them in
+a true light; they misapprehend them, both for good and
+evil. Their good woman is a queer thing, half doll, half
+angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend. Then to
+hear them fall into ecstasies with each other's creations&mdash;worshipping
+the heroine of such a poem, novel, drama&mdash;thinking
+it fine, divine! Fine and divine it may be, but
+often quite artificial&mdash;false as the rose in my best bonnet
+there. If I spoke all I think on this point, if I gave my real
+opinion of some first-rate female characters in first-rate
+works, where should I be? Dead under a cairn of avenging
+stones in half an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, you chatter so, I can't fasten you. Be still.
+And, after all, authors' heroines are almost as good as
+authoresses' heroes."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. Women read men more truly than men
+read women. I'll prove that in a magazine paper some
+day when I've time; only it will never be inserted. It
+will be 'declined with thanks,' and left for me at the publisher's."</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure. You could not write cleverly enough.
+You don't know enough. You are not learned, Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"God knows I can't contradict you, Cary; I'm as ignorant
+as a stone. There's one comfort, however: you are
+not much better."</p>
+
+<p>They descended to breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder how Mrs. Pryor and Hortense Moore have
+passed the night," said Caroline, as she made the coffee.
+"Selfish being that I am, I never thought of either of them
+till just now. They will have heard all the tumult, Fieldhead
+and the cottage are so near; and Hortense is timid
+in such matters&mdash;so, no doubt, is Mrs. Pryor."</p>
+
+<p>"Take my word for it, Lina, Moore will have contrived
+to get his sister out of the way. She went home with Miss<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>309<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Mann. He will have quartered her there for the night.
+As to Mrs. Pryor, I own I am uneasy about her; but in
+another half-hour we will be with her."</p>
+
+<p>By this time the news of what had happened at the
+Hollow was spread all over the neighbourhood. Fanny,
+who had been to Fieldhead to fetch the milk, returned in
+panting haste with tidings that there had been a battle in
+the night at Mr. Moore's mill, and that some said twenty
+men were killed. Eliza, during Fanny's absence, had been
+apprised by the butcher's boy that the mill was burnt to
+the ground. Both women rushed into the parlour to announce
+these terrible facts to the ladies, terminating their
+clear and accurate narrative by the assertion that they were
+sure master must have been in it all. He and Thomas, the
+clerk, they were confident, must have gone last night to
+join Mr. Moore and the soldiers. Mr. Malone, too, had not
+been heard of at his lodgings since yesterday afternoon;
+and Joe Scott's wife and family were in the greatest distress,
+wondering what had become of their head.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely was this information imparted when a knock at
+the kitchen door announced the Fieldhead errand-boy,
+arrived in hot haste, bearing a billet from Mrs. Pryor. It
+was hurriedly written, and urged Miss Keeldar to return
+directly, as the neighbourhood and the house seemed likely
+to be all in confusion, and orders would have to be given
+which the mistress of the hall alone could regulate. In a
+postscript it was entreated that Miss Helstone might not
+be left alone at the rectory. She had better, it was suggested,
+accompany Miss Keeldar.</p>
+
+<p>"There are not two opinions on that head," said Shirley, as
+she tied on her own bonnet, and then ran to fetch Caroline's.</p>
+
+<p>"But what will Fanny and Eliza do? And if my uncle
+returns?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle will not return yet; he has other fish to
+fry. He will be galloping backwards and forwards from
+Briarfield to Stilbro' all day, rousing the magistrates in
+the court-house and the officers at the barracks; and
+Fanny and Eliza can have in Joe Scott's and the clerk's
+wives to bear them company. Besides, of course, there is
+no real danger to be apprehended now. Weeks will elapse
+before the rioters can again rally, or plan any other attempt;
+and I am much mistaken if Moore and Mr. Helstone will
+not take advantage of last night's outbreak to quell them
+altogether. They will frighten the authorities of Stilbro'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>310<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+into energetic measures. I only hope they will not be too
+severe&mdash;not pursue the discomfited too relentlessly."</p>
+
+<p>"Robert will not be cruel. We saw that last night," said
+Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"But he will be hard," retorted Shirley; "and so will
+your uncle."</p>
+
+<p>As they hurried along the meadow and plantation path
+to Fieldhead, they saw the distant highway already alive
+with an unwonted flow of equestrians and pedestrians, tending
+in the direction of the usually solitary Hollow. On
+reaching the hall, they found the backyard gates open, and
+the court and kitchen seemed crowded with excited milk-fetchers&mdash;men,
+women, and children&mdash;whom Mrs. Gill, the
+housekeeper, appeared vainly persuading to take their milk-cans
+and depart. (It <em>is</em>, or <em>was</em>, by-the-bye, the custom in
+the north of England for the cottagers on a country squire's
+estate to receive their supplies of milk and butter from the
+dairy of the manor house, on whose pastures a herd of milch
+kine was usually fed for the convenience of the neighbourhood.
+Miss Keeldar owned such a herd&mdash;all deep-dewlapped,
+Craven cows, reared on the sweet herbage and clear waters
+of bonny Airedale; and very proud she was of their sleek
+aspect and high condition.) Seeing now the state of matters,
+and that it was desirable to effect a clearance of the
+premises, Shirley stepped in amongst the gossiping groups.
+She bade them good-morning with a certain frank, tranquil
+ease&mdash;the natural characteristic of her manner when she
+addressed numbers, especially if those numbers belonged to
+the working-class; she was cooler amongst her equals, and
+rather proud to those above her. She then asked them if
+they had all got their milk measured out; and understanding
+that they had, she further observed that she "wondered
+what they were waiting for, then."</p>
+
+<p>"We're just talking a bit over this battle there has been
+at your mill, mistress," replied a man.</p>
+
+<p>"Talking a bit! Just like you!" said Shirley. "It
+is a queer thing all the world is so fond of <em>talking</em> over
+events. You <em>talk</em> if anybody dies suddenly; you <em>talk</em> if
+a fire breaks out; you <em>talk</em> if a mill-owner fails; you <em>talk</em>
+if he's murdered. What good does your talking do?"</p>
+
+<p>There is nothing the lower orders like better than a little
+downright good-humoured rating. Flattery they scorn very
+much; honest abuse they enjoy. They call it speaking
+plainly, and take a sincere delight in being the objects<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>311<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+thereof. The homely harshness of Miss Keeldar's salutation
+won her the ear of the whole throng in a second.</p>
+
+<p>"We're no war nor some 'at is aboon us, are we?" asked
+a man, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor a whit better. You that should be models of
+industry are just as gossip-loving as the idle. Fine, rich
+people that have nothing to do may be partly excused for
+trifling their time away; you who have to earn your bread
+with the sweat of your brow are quite inexcusable."</p>
+
+<p>"That's queer, mistress. Suld we never have a holiday
+because we work hard?"</p>
+
+<p>"<em>Never</em>," was the prompt answer; "unless," added the
+"mistress," with a smile that half belied the severity of her
+speech&mdash;"unless you knew how to make a better use of it
+than to get together over rum and tea if you are women,
+or over beer and pipes if you are men, and <em>talk</em> scandal
+at your neighbours' expense. Come, friends," she added,
+changing at once from bluntness to courtesy, "oblige me
+by taking your cans and going home. I expect several
+persons to call to-day, and it will be inconvenient to have
+the avenues to the house crowded."</p>
+
+<p>Yorkshire people are as yielding to persuasion as they are
+stubborn against compulsion. The yard was clear in five
+minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, and good-bye to you, friends," said Shirley,
+as she closed the gates on a quiet court.</p>
+
+<p>Now, let me hear the most refined of cockneys presume
+to find fault with Yorkshire manners. Taken as they ought
+to be, the majority of the lads and lasses of the West Riding
+are gentlemen and ladies, every inch of them. It is only
+against the weak affectation and futile pomposity of a would-be
+aristocrat they turn mutinous.</p>
+
+<p>Entering by the back way, the young ladies passed through
+the kitchen (or <em>house</em>, as the inner kitchen is called) to the
+hall. Mrs. Pryor came running down the oak staircase to
+meet them. She was all unnerved; her naturally sanguine
+complexion was pale; her usually placid, though timid,
+blue eye was wandering, unsettled, alarmed. She did not,
+however, break out into any exclamations, or hurried narrative
+of what had happened. Her predominant feeling had
+been in the course of the night, and was now this morning,
+a sense of dissatisfaction with herself that she could not
+feel firmer, cooler, more equal to the demands of the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"You are aware," she began with a trembling voice,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>312<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and yet the most conscientious anxiety to avoid exaggeration
+in what she was about to say, "that a body of rioters
+has attacked Mr. Moore's mill to-night. We heard the firing
+and confusion very plainly here; we none of us slept.
+It was a sad night. The house has been in great bustle
+all the morning with people coming and going. The servants
+have applied to me for orders and directions, which I
+really did not feel warranted in giving. Mr. Moore has, I
+believe, sent up for refreshments for the soldiers and others
+engaged in the defence, for some conveniences also for the
+wounded. I could not undertake the responsibility of giving
+orders or taking measures. I fear delay may have been
+injurious in some instances; but this is not my house. You
+were absent, my dear Miss Keeldar. What could I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Were no refreshments sent?" asked Shirley, while her
+countenance, hitherto so clear, propitious, and quiet, even
+while she was rating the milk-fetchers, suddenly turned
+dark and warm.</p>
+
+<p>"I think not, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"And nothing for the wounded&mdash;no linen, no wine, no
+bedding?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think not. I cannot tell what Mrs. Gill did; but
+it seemed impossible to me, at the moment, to venture to
+dispose of your property by sending supplies to soldiers.
+Provisions for a company of soldiers sounds formidable.
+How many there are I did not ask; but I could not think
+of allowing them to pillage the house, as it were. I intended
+to do what was right, yet I did not see the case quite clearly,
+I own."</p>
+
+<p>"It lies in a nutshell, notwithstanding. These soldiers
+have risked their lives in defence of my property: I suppose
+they have a right to my gratitude. The wounded
+are our fellow-creatures: I suppose we should aid them.&mdash;Mrs.
+Gill!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned, and called in a voice more clear than soft.
+It rang through the thick oak of the hall and kitchen doors
+more effectually than a bell's summons. Mrs. Gill, who was
+deep in bread-making, came with hands and apron in culinary
+case, not having dared to stop to rub the dough from
+the one or to shake the flour from the other. Her mistress
+had never called a servant in that voice save once before,
+and that was when she had seen from the window Tartar
+in full tug with two carriers' dogs, each of them a match
+for him in size, if not in courage, and their masters standing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>313<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+by, encouraging their animals, while hers was unbefriended.
+Then indeed she had summoned John as if the
+Day of Judgment were at hand. Nor had she waited for
+the said John's coming, but had walked out into the lane
+bonnetless, and after informing the carriers that she held
+them far less of men than the three brutes whirling and
+worrying in the dust before them, had put her hands round
+the thick neck of the largest of the curs, and given her whole
+strength to the essay of choking it from Tartar's torn and
+bleeding eye, just above and below which organ the vengeful
+fangs were inserted. Five or six men were presently
+on the spot to help her, but she never thanked one of them.
+"They might have come before if their will had been good,"
+she said. She had not a word for anybody during the rest
+of the day, but sat near the hall fire till evening watching
+and tending Tartar, who lay all gory, stiff, and swelled on
+a mat at her feet. She wept furtively over him sometimes,
+and murmured the softest words of pity and endearment,
+in tones whose music the old, scarred, canine warrior acknowledged
+by licking her hand or her sandal alternately with
+his own red wounds. As to John, his lady turned a cold
+shoulder on him for a week afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gill, remembering this little episode, came "all of
+a tremble," as she said herself. In a firm, brief voice Miss
+Keeldar proceeded to put questions and give orders. That
+at such a time Fieldhead should have evinced the inhospitality
+of a miser's hovel stung her haughty spirit to the
+quick; and the revolt of its pride was seen in the heaving
+of her heart, stirred stormily under the lace and silk which
+veiled it.</p>
+
+<p>"How long is it since that message came from the mill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not an hour yet, ma'am," answered the housekeeper
+soothingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not an hour! You might almost as well have said
+not a day. They will have applied elsewhere by this time.
+Send a man instantly down to tell them that everything
+this house contains is at Mr. Moore's, Mr. Helstone's, and
+the soldiers' service. Do that first."</p>
+
+<p>While the order was being executed, Shirley moved away
+from her friends, and stood at the hall-window, silent, unapproachable.
+When Mrs. Gill came back, she turned.
+The purple flush which painful excitement kindles on a
+pale cheek glowed on hers; the spark which displeasure
+lights in a dark eye fired her glance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>314<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Let the contents of the larder and the wine-cellar be
+brought up, put into the hay-carts, and driven down to the
+Hollow. If there does not happen to be much bread or much
+meat in the house, go to the butcher and baker, and desire
+them to send what they have. But I will see for myself."</p>
+
+<p>She moved off.</p>
+
+<p>"All will be right soon; she will get over it in an hour,"
+whispered Caroline to Mrs. Pryor. "Go upstairs, dear
+madam," she added affectionately, "and try to be as calm
+and easy as you can. The truth is, Shirley will blame
+herself more than you before the day is over."</p>
+
+<p>By dint of a few more gentle assurances and persuasions,
+Miss Helstone contrived to soothe the agitated lady. Having
+accompanied her to her apartment, and promised to
+rejoin her there when things were settled, Caroline left her
+to see, as she said, "if she could be useful." She presently
+found that she could be very useful; for the retinue of
+servants at Fieldhead was by no means numerous, and just
+now their mistress found plenty of occupation for all the
+hands at her command, and for her own also. The delicate
+good-nature and dexterous activity which Caroline brought
+to the aid of the housekeeper and maids&mdash;all somewhat
+scared by their lady's unwonted mood&mdash;did a world of good
+at once; it helped the assistants and appeased the directress.
+A chance glance and smile from Caroline moved Shirley
+to an answering smile directly. The former was carrying
+a heavy basket up the cellar stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a shame!" cried Shirley, running to her. "It
+will strain your arm."</p>
+
+<p>She took it from her, and herself bore it out into the yard.
+The cloud of temper was dispelled when she came back;
+the flash in her eye was melted; the shade on her forehead
+vanished. She resumed her usual cheerful and cordial
+manner to those about her, tempering her revived spirits
+with a little of the softness of shame at her previous unjust
+anger.</p>
+
+<p>She was still superintending the lading of the cart, when
+a gentleman entered the yard and approached her ere she
+was aware of his presence.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I see Miss Keeldar well this morning?" he said,
+examining with rather significant scrutiny her still flushed
+face.</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a look, and then again bent to her employment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>315<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+without reply. A pleasant enough smile played on
+her lips, but she hid it. The gentleman repeated his salutation,
+stooping, that it might reach her ear with more
+facility.</p>
+
+<p>"Well enough, if she be good enough," was the answer;
+"and so is Mr. Moore too, I dare say. To speak truth, I
+am not anxious about him; some slight mischance would
+be only his just due. His conduct has been&mdash;we will say
+<em>strange</em> just now, till we have time to characterize it by a
+more exact epithet. Meantime, may I ask what brings
+him here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Helstone and I have just received your message
+that everything at Fieldhead was at our service. We
+judged, by the unlimited wording of the gracious intimation,
+that you would be giving yourself too much trouble. I
+perceive our conjecture was correct. We are not a regiment,
+remember&mdash;only about half a dozen soldiers and as
+many civilians. Allow me to retrench something from these
+too abundant supplies."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar blushed, while she laughed at her own over-eager
+generosity and most disproportionate calculations.
+Moore laughed too, very quietly though; and as quietly
+he ordered basket after basket to be taken from the cart,
+and remanded vessel after vessel to the cellar.</p>
+
+<p>"The rector must hear of this," he said; "he will make
+a good story of it. What an excellent army contractor
+Miss Keeldar would have been!" Again he laughed, adding,
+"It is precisely as I conjectured."</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to be thankful," said Shirley, "and not
+mock me. What could I do? How could I gauge your
+appetites or number your band? For aught I knew, there
+might have been fifty of you at least to victual. You told
+me nothing; and then an application to provision soldiers
+naturally suggests large ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"It appears so," remarked Moore, levelling another of
+his keen, quiet glances at the discomfited Shirley.&mdash;"Now,"
+he continued, addressing the carter, "I think you may
+take what remains to the Hollow. Your load will be somewhat
+lighter than the one Miss Keeldar destined you to
+carry."</p>
+
+<p>As the vehicle rumbled out of the yard, Shirley, rallying
+her spirits, demanded what had become of the wounded.</p>
+
+<p>"There was not a single man hurt on our side," was the
+answer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>316<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"You were hurt yourself, on the temples," interposed
+a quick, low voice&mdash;that of Caroline, who, having withdrawn
+within the shade of the door, and behind the large person
+of Mrs. Gill, had till now escaped Moore's notice. When
+she spoke, his eye searched the obscurity of her retreat.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you much hurt?" she inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"As you might scratch your finger with a needle in
+sewing."</p>
+
+<p>"Lift your hair and let us see."</p>
+
+<p>He took his hat off, and did as he was bid, disclosing
+only a narrow slip of court-plaster. Caroline indicated,
+by a slight movement of the head, that she was satisfied,
+and disappeared within the clear obscure of the
+interior.</p>
+
+<p>"How did she know I was hurt?" asked Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"One of the rioters, or victims as you call them, was
+killed, and six were hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done with them?"</p>
+
+<p>"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'."</p>
+
+<p>"Straw! You must have beds and bedding. I will
+send my wagon directly, properly furnished; and Mr.
+Yorke, I am sure, will send his."</p>
+
+<p>"You guess correctly; he has volunteered already. And
+Mrs. Yorke&mdash;who, like you, seems disposed to regard the
+rioters as martyrs, and me, and especially Mr. Helstone, as
+murderers&mdash;is at this moment, I believe, most assiduously
+engaged in fitting it up with feather-beds, pillows, bolsters,
+blankets, etc. The <em>victims</em> 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 <em>very</em> plain old maid, sent in
+a stock of lint and linen, something in the proportion of
+another lady's allowance of beef and wine."</p>
+
+<p>"That will do. Where is your sister?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well cared for. I had her securely domiciled with
+Miss Mann. This very morning the two set out for Wormwood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>317<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Wells [a noted watering-place], and will stay there
+some weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"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 outman&oelig;uvring you would be unknown.
+Ah, friend, you may search my countenance, but you cannot
+read it."</p>
+
+<p>Moore, indeed, looked as if he could not.</p>
+
+<p>"You think me a dangerous specimen of my sex. Don't
+you now?"</p>
+
+<p>"A peculiar one, at least."</p>
+
+<p>"But Caroline&mdash;is she peculiar?"</p>
+
+<p>"In her way&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Her way! What is her way?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know her as well as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"And knowing her, I assert that she is neither eccentric
+nor difficult of control. Is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"That depends&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"However, there is nothing masculine about <em>her</em>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why lay such emphasis on <em>her</em>? Do you consider her
+a contrast, in that respect, to yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"You do, no doubt; but that does not signify. Caroline
+is neither masculine, nor of what they call the spirited order
+of women."</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen her flash out."</p>
+
+<p>"So have I, but not with manly fire. It was a short,
+vivid, trembling glow, that shot up, shone, vanished&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And left her scared at her own daring. You describe
+others besides Caroline."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you and she been doing?" asked Moore
+suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you had any breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is your mutual mystery?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you are hungry, Mrs. Gill will give you something
+to eat here. Step into the oak parlour, and ring the bell.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>318<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+You will be served as if at an inn; or, if you like better,
+go back to the Hollow."</p>
+
+<p>"The alternative is not open to me; I <em>must</em> go back.
+Good-morning. The first leisure I have I will see you
+again."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>319<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MRS. PRYOR.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">While</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>A gentle knock was here heard at the door. It was half
+opened.</p>
+
+<p>"Caroline, come here," said a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Helstone went out. There stood Shirley in the
+gallery, looking contrite, ashamed, sorry as any repentant
+child.</p>
+
+<p>"How is Mrs. Pryor?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather out of spirits," said Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline discharged the errand with heartfelt pleasure.
+Mrs. Pryor rose, came to the door. She did not like scenes;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>320<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+she dreaded them as all timid people do. She said falteringly,
+"Come in, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>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 <em>must</em> forgive me, Mrs.
+Pryor. I could not get on at all if there was a misunderstanding
+between you and me."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>And that was the painful feeling which <em>would</em> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>321<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+perceives the public disposed to acknowledge his merits,
+will show a more gracious mien than that with which he
+has hitherto favoured us."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;in short, our old acquaintance,
+and the rector's old enemy, Mr. Yorke&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;and real racy Yorkshire
+Doric adjectives they were&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What would Moore have done if nobody had helped
+him?" asked Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"Drunk as he'd brewed, eaten as he'd baked."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He had the soldiers, those poor slaves who hire out
+their own blood and spill other folk's for money."</p>
+
+<p>"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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>322<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+parish should have looked on, and seen the building razed
+and its owner slaughtered, and never stirred a finger to
+save either."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Easy for you to talk," exclaimed Miss Keeldar, who
+was beginning to wax warm in her tenant's cause&mdash;"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&mdash;easy,
+indeed, for <em>you</em> 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 one against two hundred?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come now, be cool," said Mr. Yorke, smiling at
+the earnestness with which Shirley multiplied her rapid
+questions.</p>
+
+<p>"Cool! Must I listen coolly to downright nonsense&mdash;to
+dangerous nonsense? No. I like you very well, Mr.
+Yorke, as you know, but I thoroughly dislike some of your
+principles. All that cant&mdash;excuse me, but I repeat the
+word&mdash;all that <em>cant</em> about soldiers and parsons is most
+offensive in my ears. All ridiculous, irrational crying up
+of one class, whether the same be aristocrat or democrat&mdash;all
+howling down of another class, whether clerical or
+military&mdash;all exacting injustice to individuals, whether
+monarch or mendicant&mdash;is really sickening to me; all
+arraying of ranks against ranks, all party hatreds, all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>323<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+tyrannies disguised as liberties, I reject and wash my hands
+of. <em>You</em> think you are a philanthropist; <em>you</em> think you
+are an advocate of liberty; but I will tell you this&mdash;Mr.
+Hall, the parson of Nunnely, is a better friend both
+of man and freedom than Hiram Yorke, the reformer of
+Briarfield."</p>
+
+<p>From a man Mr. Yorke would not have borne this language
+very patiently, nor would he have endured it from
+some women; but he accounted Shirley both honest and
+pretty, and her plain-spoken ire amused him. Besides, he
+took a secret pleasure in hearing her defend her tenant,
+for we have already intimated he had Robert Moore's
+interest very much at heart. Moreover, if he wished to
+avenge himself for her severity, he knew the means lay in
+his power: a word, he believed, would suffice to tame and
+silence her, to cover her frank forehead with the rosy shadow
+of shame, and veil the glow of her eye under down-drooped
+lid and lash.</p>
+
+<p>"What more hast thou to say?" he inquired, as she
+paused, rather, it appeared, to take breath than because
+her subject or her zeal was exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Mr. Yorke!" was the answer, the speaker meantime
+walking fast from wall to wall of the oak parlour&mdash;"say?
+I have a great deal to say, if I could get it out in
+lucid order, which I never <em>can</em> do. I have to say that your
+views, and those of most extreme politicians, are such as
+none but men in an irresponsible position <em>can</em> advocate;
+that they are purely opposition views, meant only to be
+talked about, and never intended to be acted on. Make
+you Prime Minister of England to-morrow, and you would
+have to abandon them. You abuse Moore for defending
+his mill. Had you been in Moore's place you could not
+with honour or sense have acted otherwise than he acted.
+You abuse Mr. Helstone for everything he does. Mr. Helstone
+has his faults; he sometimes does wrong, but oftener
+right. Were you ordained vicar of Briarfield, you would
+find it no easy task to sustain all the active schemes for the
+benefit of the parish planned and persevered in by your
+predecessor. I wonder people cannot judge more fairly
+of each other and themselves. When I hear Messrs. Malone
+and Donne chatter about the authority of the church, the
+dignity and claims of the priesthood, the deference due to
+them as clergymen; when I hear the outbreaks of their
+small spite against Dissenters; when I witness their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>324<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+silly, narrow jealousies and assumptions; when their palaver
+about forms, and traditions, and superstitions is sounding
+in my ear; when I behold their insolent carriage to the poor,
+their often base servility to the rich&mdash;I think the Establishment
+is indeed in a poor way, and both she and her sons
+appear in the utmost need of reformation. Turning away
+distressed from minster tower and village spire&mdash;ay, as distressed
+as a churchwarden who feels the exigence of white-wash
+and has not wherewithal to purchase lime&mdash;I recall
+your senseless sarcasms on the 'fat bishops,' the 'pampered
+parsons,' 'old mother church,' etc. I remember your strictures
+on all who differ from you, your sweeping condemnation
+of classes and individuals, without the slightest allowance
+made for circumstances or temptations; and then,
+Mr. Yorke, doubt clutches my inmost heart as to whether
+men exist clement, reasonable, and just enough to be entrusted
+with the task of reform. I don't believe <em>you</em> are
+of the number."</p>
+
+<p>"You have an ill opinion of me, Miss Shirley. You
+never told me so much of your mind before."</p>
+
+<p>"I never had an opening. But I have sat on Jessy's
+stool by your chair in the back-parlour at Briarmains, for
+evenings together, listening excitedly to your talk, half
+admiring what you said, and half rebelling against it. I
+think you a fine old Yorkshireman, sir. I am proud to have
+been born in the same county and parish as yourself. Truthful,
+upright, independent you are, as a rock based below
+seas; but also you are harsh, rude, narrow, and merciless."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to the poor, lass, nor to the meek of the earth;
+only to the proud and high-minded."</p>
+
+<p>"And what right have you, sir, to make such distinctions?
+A prouder, a higher-minded man than yourself
+does not exist. You find it easy to speak comfortably to
+your inferiors; you are too haughty, too ambitious, too
+jealous to be civil to those above you. But you are all
+alike. Helstone also is proud and prejudiced. Moore,
+though juster and more considerate than either you or the
+rector, is still haughty, stern, and, in a public sense, selfish.
+It is well there are such men as Mr. Hall to be found occasionally&mdash;men
+of large and kind hearts, who can love their
+whole race, who can forgive others for being richer, more
+prosperous, or more powerful than they are. Such men
+may have less originality, less force of character than you,
+but they are better friends to mankind."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>325<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"And when is it to be?" said Mr. Yorke, now rising.</p>
+
+<p>"When is what to be?"</p>
+
+<p>"The wedding."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose wedding?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only that of Robert G&eacute;rard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's
+Cottage, with Miss Keeldar, daughter and heiress of the
+late Charles Cave Keeldar of Fieldhead Hall."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley gazed at the questioner with rising colour. But
+the light in her eye was not faltering; it shone steadily&mdash;yes,
+it burned deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"That is your revenge," she said slowly; then added,
+"Would it be a bad match, unworthy of the late Charles
+Cave Keeldar's representative?"</p>
+
+<p>"My lass, Moore is a gentleman; his blood is pure and
+ancient as mine or thine."</p>
+
+<p>"And we two set store by ancient blood? We have
+family pride, though one of us at least is a republican?"</p>
+
+<p>Yorke bowed as he stood before her. His lips were mute,
+but his eye confessed the impeachment. Yes, he had family
+pride; you saw it in his whole bearing.</p>
+
+<p>"Moore <em>is</em> a gentleman," echoed Shirley, lifting her head
+with glad grace. She checked herself. Words seemed
+crowding to her tongue. She would not give them utterance;
+but her look spoke much at the moment. What,
+Yorke tried to read, but could not. The language was there,
+visible, but untranslatable&mdash;a poem, a fervid lyric, in an
+unknown tongue. It was not a plain story, however, no
+simple gush of feeling, no ordinary love-confession&mdash;that
+was obvious. It was something other, deeper, more intricate
+than he guessed at. He felt his revenge had not
+struck home. He felt that Shirley triumphed. She held
+him at fault, baffled, puzzled. <em>She</em> enjoyed the moment,
+not <em>he</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"And if Moore <em>is</em> a gentleman, you <em>can</em> be only a lady;
+therefore&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Therefore there would be no inequality in our union."</p>
+
+<p>"None."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for your approbation. Will you give me
+away when I relinquish the name of Keeldar for that of
+Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Yorke, instead of replying, gazed at her much puzzled.
+He could not divine what her look signified&mdash;whether she
+spoke in earnest or in jest. There were purpose and feeling,
+banter and scoff, playing, mingled, on her mobile lineaments.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>326<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I don't understand thee," he said, turning away.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed. "Take courage, sir; you are not singular
+in your ignorance. But I suppose if Moore understands me
+that will do, will it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Moore may settle his own matters henceforward for me;
+I'll neither meddle nor make with them further."</p>
+
+<p>A new thought crossed her. Her countenance changed
+magically. With a sudden darkening of the eye and austere
+fixing of the features she demanded, "Have you been
+asked to interfere? Are you questioning me as another's
+proxy?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord save us! Whoever weds thee must look
+about him! Keep all your questions for Robert; I'll
+answer no more on 'em. Good-day, lassie!"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>The day being fine, or at least fair&mdash;for soft clouds curtained
+the sun, and a dim but not chill or waterish haze
+slept blue on the hills&mdash;Caroline, while Shirley was engaged
+with her callers, had persuaded Mrs. Pryor to assume her
+bonnet and summer shawl, and to take a walk with her up
+towards the narrow end of the Hollow.</p>
+
+<p>Here the opposing sides of the glen, approaching each
+other and becoming clothed with brushwood and stunted
+oaks, formed a wooded ravine, at the bottom of which ran
+the mill-stream, in broken, unquiet course, struggling with
+many stones, chafing against rugged banks, fretting with
+gnarled tree-roots, foaming, gurgling, battling as it went.
+Here, when you had wandered half a mile from the mill,
+you found a sense of deep solitude&mdash;found it in the shade
+of unmolested trees, received it in the singing of many
+birds, for which that shade made a home. This was no
+trodden way. The freshness of the wood flowers attested
+that foot of man seldom pressed them; the abounding
+wild roses looked as if they budded, bloomed, and faded
+under the watch of solitude, as if in a sultan's harem. Here
+you saw the sweet azure of blue-bells, and recognized in
+pearl-white blossoms, spangling the grass, a humble type
+of some starlit spot in space.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor liked a quiet walk. She ever shunned high-roads,
+and sought byways and lonely lanes. One companion
+she preferred to total solitude, for in solitude she
+was nervous; a vague fear of annoying encounters broke
+the enjoyment of quite lonely rambles. But she feared
+nothing with Caroline. When once she got away from human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>327<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+habitations, and entered the still demesne of nature accompanied
+by this one youthful friend, a propitious change
+seemed to steal over her mind and beam in her countenance.
+When with Caroline&mdash;and Caroline only&mdash;her heart, you
+would have said, shook off a burden, her brow put aside
+a veil, her spirits too escaped from a restraint. With her
+she was cheerful; with her, at times, she was tender; to
+her she would impart her knowledge, reveal glimpses of her
+experience, give her opportunities for guessing what life
+she had lived, what cultivation her mind had received, of
+what calibre was her intelligence, how and where her feelings
+were vulnerable.</p>
+
+<p>To-day, for instance, as they walked along, Mrs. Pryor
+talked to her companion about the various birds singing
+in the trees, discriminated their species, and said something
+about their habits and peculiarities. English natural
+history seemed familiar to her. All the wild flowers round
+their path were recognized by her; tiny plants springing
+near stones and peeping out of chinks in old walls&mdash;plants
+such as Caroline had scarcely noticed before&mdash;received a
+name and an intimation of their properties. It appeared
+that she had minutely studied the botany of English fields
+and woods. Having reached the head of the ravine, they
+sat down together on a ledge of gray and mossy rock jutting
+from the base of a steep green hill which towered
+above them. She looked round her, and spoke of the
+neighbourhood as she had once before seen it long ago.
+She alluded to its changes, and compared its aspect with
+that of other parts of England, revealing in quiet, unconscious
+touches of description a sense of the picturesque,
+an appreciation of the beautiful or commonplace, a power
+of comparing the wild with the cultured, the grand with
+the tame, that gave to her discourse a graphic charm as
+pleasant as it was unpretending.</p>
+
+<p>The sort of reverent pleasure with which Caroline listened&mdash;so
+sincere, so quiet, yet so evident&mdash;stirred the elder
+lady's faculties to gentle animation. Rarely, probably,
+had she, with her chill, repellent outside, her diffident mien,
+and incommunicative habits, known what it was to excite
+in one whom she herself could love feelings of earnest affection
+and admiring esteem. Delightful, doubtless, was the
+consciousness that a young girl towards whom it seemed,
+judging by the moved expression of her eyes and features,
+her heart turned with almost a fond impulse, looked up to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>328<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+her as an instructor, and clung to her as a friend. With
+a somewhat more marked accent of interest than she often
+permitted herself to use, she said, as she bent towards her
+youthful companion, and put aside from her forehead a
+pale brown curl which had strayed from the confining
+comb, "I do hope this sweet air blowing from the hill will
+do you good, my dear Caroline. I wish I could see something
+more of colour in these cheeks; but perhaps you
+were never florid?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had red cheeks once," returned Miss Helstone, smiling.
+"I remember a year&mdash;two years ago&mdash;when I used to look in
+the glass, I saw a different face there to what I see now&mdash;rounder
+and rosier. But when we are young," added the
+girl of eighteen, "our minds are careless and our lives easy."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you," continued Mrs. Pryor, mastering by an effort
+that tyrant timidity which made it difficult for her, even
+under present circumstances, to attempt the scrutiny of
+another's heart&mdash;"do you, at your age, fret yourself with
+cares for the future? Believe me, you had better not.
+Let the morrow take thought for the things of itself."</p>
+
+<p>"True, dear madam. It is not over the future I pine.
+The evil of the day is sometimes oppressive&mdash;too oppressive&mdash;and
+I long to escape it."</p>
+
+<p>"That is&mdash;the evil of the day&mdash;that is&mdash;your uncle perhaps
+is not&mdash;you find it difficult to understand&mdash;he does
+not appreciate&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor could not complete her broken sentences;
+she could not manage to put the question whether Mr.
+Helstone was too harsh with his niece. But Caroline comprehended.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is nothing," she replied. "My uncle and I
+get on very well. We never quarrel&mdash;I don't call him
+harsh&mdash;he never scolds me. Sometimes I wish somebody
+in the world loved me, but I cannot say that I particularly
+wish him to have more affection for me than he has. As
+a child, I should perhaps have felt the want of attention,
+only the servants were very kind to me; but when people
+are long indifferent to us, we grow indifferent to their indifference.
+It is my uncle's way not to care for women
+and girls, unless they be ladies that he meets in company.
+He could not alter, and I have no wish that he should alter,
+as far as I am concerned. I believe it would merely annoy
+and frighten me were he to be affectionate towards me now.
+But you know, Mrs. Pryor, it is scarcely <em>living</em> to measure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>329<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+time as I do at the rectory. The hours pass, and I get
+them over somehow, but I do not <em>live</em>. I endure existence,
+but I rarely enjoy it. Since Miss Keeldar and you came
+I have been&mdash;I was going to say happier, but that would
+be untrue." She paused.</p>
+
+<p>"How untrue? You are fond of Miss Keeldar, are you
+not, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very fond of Shirley. I both like and admire her. But
+I am painfully circumstanced. For a reason I cannot
+explain I want to go away from this place, and to forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"You told me before you wished to be a governess;
+but, my dear, if you remember, I did not encourage the
+idea. I have been a governess myself great part of my
+life. In Miss Keeldar's acquaintance I esteem myself most
+fortunate. Her talents and her really sweet disposition
+have rendered my office easy to me; but when I was young,
+before I married, my trials were severe, poignant. I should
+not like a&mdash;&mdash; I should not like you to endure similar ones.
+It was my lot to enter a family of considerable pretensions
+to good birth and mental superiority, and the members
+of which also believed that 'on them was perceptible' an
+unusual endowment of the 'Christian graces;' that all
+their hearts were regenerate, and their spirits in a peculiar
+state of discipline. I was early given to understand that
+'as I was not their equal,' so I could not expect 'to have
+their sympathy.' It was in no sort concealed from me that
+I was held a 'burden and a restraint in society.' The
+gentlemen, I found, regarded me as a 'tabooed woman,'
+to whom 'they were interdicted from granting the usual
+privileges of the sex,' and yet 'who annoyed them by
+frequently crossing their path.' The ladies too made it
+plain that they thought me 'a bore.' The servants, it
+was signified, 'detested me;' <em>why</em>, I could never clearly
+comprehend. My pupils, I was told, 'however much they
+might love me, and how deep soever the interest I might take
+in them, could not be my friends.' It was intimated that
+I must 'live alone, and never transgress the invisible but
+rigid line which established the difference between me and
+my employers.' My life in this house was sedentary, solitary,
+constrained, joyless, toilsome. The dreadful crushing
+of the animal spirits, the ever-prevailing sense of friendlessness
+and homelessness consequent on this state of things began
+ere long to produce mortal effects on my constitution. I
+sickened. The lady of the house told me coolly I was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>330<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+victim of 'wounded vanity.' She hinted that if I did not
+make an effort to quell my 'ungodly discontent,' to cease
+'murmuring against God's appointment,' and to cultivate
+the profound humility befitting my station, my mind would
+very likely 'go to pieces' on the rock that wrecked most
+of my sisterhood&mdash;morbid self-esteem&mdash;and that I should
+die an inmate of a lunatic asylum.</p>
+
+<p>"I said nothing to Mrs. Hardman&mdash;it would have been
+useless; but to her eldest daughter I one day dropped a
+few observations, which were answered thus. There were
+hardships, she allowed, in the position of a governess.
+'Doubtless they had their trials; but,' she averred, with
+a manner it makes me smile now to recall&mdash;'but it must
+be so. <em>She</em>' (Miss H.) 'had neither view, hope, nor <em>wish</em>
+to see these things remedied; for in the inherent constitution
+of English habits, feelings, and prejudices there was no
+possibility that they should be. Governesses,' she observed,
+'must ever be kept in a sort of isolation. It is the only
+means of maintaining that distance which the reserve of
+English manners and the decorum of English families exact.'</p>
+
+<p>"I remember I sighed as Miss Hardman quitted my
+bedside. She caught the sound, and turning, said severely,
+'I fear, Miss Grey, you have inherited in fullest measure
+the worst sin of our fallen nature&mdash;the sin of pride. You
+are proud, and therefore you are ungrateful too. Mamma
+pays you a handsome salary, and if you had average sense
+you would thankfully put up with much that is fatiguing
+to do and irksome to bear, since it is so well made worth
+your while.'</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Hardman, my love, was a very strong-minded
+young lady, of most distinguished talents. The aristocracy
+are decidedly a very superior class, you know, both physically,
+and morally, and mentally; as a high Tory I acknowledge
+that. I could not describe the dignity of her voice
+and mien as she addressed me thus; still, I fear she was
+selfish, my dear. I would never wish to speak ill of my
+superiors in rank, but I think she was a little selfish."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," continued Mrs. Pryor, after a pause,
+"another of Miss H.'s observations, which she would utter
+with quite a grand air. '<span class="smcap">We</span>,' she would say&mdash;'<span class="smcap">we</span> need
+the imprudences, extravagances, mistakes, and crimes of
+a certain number of fathers to sow the seed from which <span class="smcap">we</span>
+reap the harvest of governesses. The daughters of trades-people,
+however well educated, must necessarily be underbred,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>331<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and as such unfit to be inmates of <span class="smcap">our</span> dwellings,
+or guardians of <span class="smcap">our</span> children's minds and persons. <span class="smcap">We</span>
+shall ever prefer to place those about <span class="smcap">OUR</span> offspring who
+have been born and bred with somewhat of the same refinement
+as <span class="smcap">ourselves</span>.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Hardman must have thought herself something
+better than her fellow-creatures, ma'am, since she held
+that their calamities, and even crimes, were necessary to
+minister to her convenience. You say she was religious.
+Her religion must have been that of the Pharisee who
+thanked God that he was not as other men are, nor even
+as that publican."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, we will not discuss the point. I should be
+the last person to wish to instil into your mind any feeling
+of dissatisfaction with your lot in life, or any sentiment of
+envy or insubordination towards your superiors. Implicit
+submission to authorities, scrupulous deference to our betters
+(under which term I, of course, include the higher classes
+of society), are, in my opinion, indispensable to the well-being
+of every community. All I mean to say, my dear,
+is that you had better not attempt to be a governess, as the
+duties of the position would be too severe for your constitution.
+Not one word of disrespect would I breathe
+towards either Mrs. or Miss Hardman; only, recalling my
+own experience, I cannot but feel that, were you to fall
+under auspices such as theirs, you would contend a while
+courageously with your doom, then you would pine and
+grow too weak for your work; you would come home&mdash;if
+you still had a home&mdash;broken down. Those languishing
+years would follow of which none but the invalid and her
+immediate friends feel the heart-sickness and know the
+burden. Consumption or decline would close the chapter.
+Such is the history of many a life. I would not have it
+yours. My dear, we will now walk about a little, if you
+please."</p>
+
+<p>They both rose, and slowly paced a green natural terrace
+bordering the chasm.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," ere long again began Mrs. Pryor, a sort of
+timid, embarrassed abruptness marking her manner as she
+spoke, "the young, especially those to whom nature has
+been favourable, often&mdash;frequently&mdash;anticipate&mdash;look forward
+to&mdash;to marriage as the end, the goal of their hopes."</p>
+
+<p>And she stopped. Caroline came to her relief with
+promptitude, showing a great deal more self-possession<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>332<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and courage than herself on the formidable topic now
+broached.</p>
+
+<p>"They do, and naturally," she replied, with a calm emphasis
+that startled Mrs. Pryor. "They look forward to
+marriage with some one they love as the brightest, the
+only bright destiny that can await them. Are they
+wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Pryor, clasping her
+hands; and again she paused. Caroline turned a searching,
+an eager eye on the face of her friend: that face was
+much agitated. "My dear," she murmured, "life is an
+illusion."</p>
+
+<p>"But not love! Love is real&mdash;the most real, the most
+lasting, the sweetest and yet the bitterest thing we know."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, it is very bitter. It is said to be strong&mdash;strong
+as death! Most of the cheats of existence are strong.
+As to their sweetness, nothing is so transitory; its date is
+a moment, the twinkling of an eye. The sting remains for
+ever. It may perish with the dawn of eternity, but it
+tortures through time into its deepest night."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it tortures through time," agreed Caroline, "except
+when it is mutual love."</p>
+
+<p>"Mutual love! My dear, romances are pernicious. You
+do not read them, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes&mdash;whenever I can get them, indeed. But
+romance-writers might know nothing of love, judging by
+the way in which they treat of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing whatever, my dear," assented Mrs. Pryor
+eagerly, "nor of marriage; and the false pictures they give
+of those subjects cannot be too strongly condemned. They
+are not like reality. They show you only the green, tempting
+surface of the marsh, and give not one faithful or truthful
+hint of the slough underneath."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is not always slough," objected Caroline. "There
+are happy marriages. Where affection is reciprocal and
+sincere, and minds are harmonious, marriage <em>must</em> be happy."</p>
+
+<p>"It is never wholly happy. Two people can never literally
+be as one. There is, perhaps, a possibility of content
+under peculiar circumstances, such as are seldom combined;
+but it is as well not to run the risk&mdash;you may make fatal
+mistakes. Be satisfied, my dear. Let all the single be
+satisfied with their freedom."</p>
+
+<p>"You echo my uncle's words!" exclaimed Caroline, in
+a tone of dismay. "You speak like Mrs. Yorke in her most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>333<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+gloomy moments, like Miss Mann when she is most sourly
+and hypochondriacally disposed. This is terrible!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is only true. O child, you have only lived the
+pleasant morning time of life; the hot, weary noon, the
+sad evening, the sunless night, are yet to come for you.
+Mr. Helstone, you say, talks as I talk; and I wonder how
+Mrs. Matthewson Helstone would have talked had she been
+living. She died! she died!"</p>
+
+<p>"And, alas! my own mother and father&mdash;&mdash;" exclaimed
+Caroline, struck by a sombre recollection.</p>
+
+<p>"What of them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I never tell you that they were separated?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard it."</p>
+
+<p>"They must, then, have been very miserable."</p>
+
+<p>"You see all <em>facts</em> go to prove what I say."</p>
+
+<p>"In this case there ought to be no such thing as marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"There ought, my dear, were it only to prove that this
+life is a mere state of probation, wherein neither rest nor
+recompense is to be vouchsafed."</p>
+
+<p>"But your own marriage, Mrs. Pryor?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor shrank and shuddered as if a rude finger had
+pressed a naked nerve. Caroline felt she had touched
+what would not bear the slightest contact.</p>
+
+<p>"My marriage was unhappy," said the lady, summoning
+courage at last; "but yet&mdash;&mdash;" She hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"But yet," suggested Caroline, "not immitigably
+wretched?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in its results, at least. No," she added, in a softer
+tone; "God mingles something of the balm of mercy even
+in vials of the most corrosive woe. He can so turn events
+that from the very same blind, rash act whence sprang the
+curse of half our life may flow the blessing of the remainder.
+Then I am of a peculiar disposition&mdash;I own that&mdash;far from
+facile, without address, in some points eccentric. I ought
+never to have married. Mine is not the nature easily to
+find a duplicate or likely to assimilate with a contrast. I
+was quite aware of my own ineligibility; and if I had not
+been so miserable as a governess, I never should have
+married; and then&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Caroline's eyes asked her to proceed. They entreated
+her to break the thick cloud of despair which her previous
+words had seemed to spread over life.</p>
+
+<p>"And then, my dear, Mr.&mdash;that is, the gentleman I
+married&mdash;was, perhaps, rather an exceptional than an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>334<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+average character. I hope, at least, the experience of few
+has been such as mine was, or that few have felt their
+sufferings as I felt mine. They nearly shook my mind;
+relief was so hopeless, redress so unattainable. But, my
+dear, I do not wish to dishearten; I only wish to warn
+you, and to prove that the single should not be too anxious
+to change their state, as they may change for the worse."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, my dear madam. I quite understand
+your kind intentions, but there is no fear of my falling
+into the error to which you allude. I, at least, have no
+thoughts of marriage, and for that reason I want to make
+myself a position by some other means."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, listen to me. On what I am going to say I
+have carefully deliberated, having, indeed, revolved the
+subject in my thoughts ever since you first mentioned your
+wish to obtain a situation. You know I at present reside
+with Miss Keeldar in the capacity of companion. Should
+she marry (and that she <em>will</em> marry ere long many circumstances
+induce me to conclude), I shall cease to be necessary
+to her in that capacity. I must tell you that I possess a
+small independency, arising partly from my own savings,
+and partly from a legacy left me some years since. Whenever
+I leave Fieldhead I shall take a house of my own.
+I could not endure to live in solitude. I have no relations
+whom I care to invite to close intimacy; for, as you must
+have observed, and as I have already avowed, my habits
+and tastes have their peculiarities. To you, my dear, I
+need not say I am attached; with you I am happier than
+I have ever been with any living thing" (this was said with
+marked emphasis). "Your society I should esteem a very
+dear privilege&mdash;an inestimable privilege, a comfort, a
+blessing. You shall come to me, then. Caroline, do you
+refuse me? I hope you can love me?"</p>
+
+<p>And with these two abrupt questions she stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I <em>do</em> love you," was the reply. "I should
+like to live with you. But you are too kind."</p>
+
+<p>"All I have," went on Mrs. Pryor, "I would leave to
+you. You should be provided for. But never again say
+I am <em>too kind</em>. You pierce my heart, child!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear madam&mdash;this generosity&mdash;I have no
+claim&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! you must not talk about it. There are some
+things we cannot bear to hear. Oh! it is late to begin, but
+I may yet live a few years. I can never wipe out the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>335<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+past, but perhaps a brief space in the future may yet be
+mine."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor seemed deeply agitated. Large tears trembled
+in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Caroline
+kissed her, in her gentle, caressing way, saying softly,
+"I love you dearly. Don't cry."</p>
+
+<p>But the lady's whole frame seemed shaken. She sat
+down, bent her head to her knee, and wept aloud. Nothing
+could console her till the inward storm had had its way.
+At last the agony subsided of itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor thing!" she murmured, returning Caroline's
+kiss, "poor lonely lamb! But come," she added abruptly&mdash;"come;
+we must go home."</p>
+
+<p>For a short distance Mrs. Pryor walked very fast. By
+degrees, however, she calmed down to her wonted manner,
+fell into her usual characteristic pace&mdash;a peculiar one, like
+all her movements&mdash;and by the time they reached Fieldhead
+she had re-entered into herself. The outside was, as usual,
+still and shy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>336<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>TWO LIVES.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Only</span> half of Moore's activity and resolution had been seen
+in his defence of the mill; he showed the other half (and
+a terrible half it was) in the indefatigable, the relentless
+assiduity with which he pursued the leaders of the riot.
+The mob, the mere followers, he let alone. Perhaps an
+innate sense of justice told him that men misled by false
+counsel and goaded by privations are not fit objects of
+vengeance, and that he who would visit an even violent act on
+the bent head of suffering is a tyrant, not a judge. At all
+events, though he knew many of the number, having recognized
+them during the latter part of the attack when day
+began to dawn, he let them daily pass him on street and
+road without notice or threat.</p>
+
+<p>The leaders he did not know. They were strangers&mdash;emissaries
+from the large towns. Most of these were not
+members of the operative class. They were chiefly "down-draughts,"
+bankrupts, men always in debt and often in
+drink, men who had nothing to lose, and much, in the way
+of character, cash, and cleanliness, to gain. These persons
+Moore hunted like any sleuth-hound, and well he liked the
+occupation. Its excitement was of a kind pleasant to his
+nature. He liked it better than making cloth.</p>
+
+<p>His horse must have hated these times, for it was ridden
+both hard and often. He almost lived on the road, and
+the fresh air was as welcome to his lungs as the policeman's
+quest to his mood; he preferred it to the steam of dye-houses.
+The magistrates of the district must have dreaded
+him. They were slow, timid men; he liked both to frighten
+and to rouse them. He liked to force them to betray a
+certain fear, which made them alike falter in resolve and
+recoil in action&mdash;the fear, simply, of assassination. This,
+indeed, was the dread which had hitherto hampered every
+manufacturer and almost every public man in the district.
+Helstone alone had ever repelled it. The old Cossack knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>337<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+well he might be shot. He knew there was risk; but such
+death had for his nerves no terrors. It would have been
+his chosen, might he have had a choice.</p>
+
+<p>Moore likewise knew his danger. The result was an unquenchable
+scorn of the quarter whence such danger was
+to be apprehended. The consciousness that he hunted
+assassins was the spur in his high-mettled temper's flank.
+As for fear, he was too proud, too hard-natured (if you will),
+too phlegmatic a man to fear. Many a time he rode belated
+over the moors, moonlit or moonless as the case might be,
+with feelings far more elate, faculties far better refreshed,
+than when safety and stagnation environed him in the
+counting-house. Four was the number of the leaders to be
+accounted for. Two, in the course of a fortnight, were
+brought to bay near Stilbro'; the remaining two it was
+necessary to seek farther off. Their haunts were supposed
+to lie near Birmingham.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime the clothier did not neglect his battered mill.
+Its reparation was esteemed a light task, carpenters' and
+glaziers' work alone being needed. The rioters not having
+succeeded in effecting an entrance, his grim metal darlings&mdash;the
+machines&mdash;had escaped damage.</p>
+
+<p>Whether during this busy life&mdash;whether while stern justice
+and exacting business claimed his energies and harassed his
+thoughts&mdash;he now and then gave one moment, dedicated
+one effort, to keep alive gentler fires than those which
+smoulder in the fane of Nemesis, it was not easy to discover.
+He seldom went near Fieldhead; if he did, his visits
+were brief. If he called at the rectory, it was only to hold
+conferences with the rector in his study. He maintained
+his rigid course very steadily. Meantime the history of
+the year continued troubled. There was no lull in the
+tempest of war; her long hurricane still swept the Continent.
+There was not the faintest sign of serene weather,
+no opening amid "the clouds of battle-dust and smoke,"
+no fall of pure dews genial to the olive, no cessation of the
+red rain which nourishes the baleful and glorious laurel.
+Meantime, Ruin had her sappers and miners at work under
+Moore's feet, and whether he rode or walked, whether he
+only crossed his counting-house hearth or galloped over
+sullen Rushedge, he was aware of a hollow echo, and felt
+the ground shake to his tread.</p>
+
+<p>While the summer thus passed with Moore, how did it
+lapse with Shirley and Caroline? Let us first visit the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>338<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+heiress. How does she look? Like a love-lorn maiden, pale
+and pining for a neglectful swain? Does she sit the day
+long bent over some sedentary task? Has she for ever a
+book in her hand, or sewing on her knee, and eyes only for
+that, and words for nothing, and thoughts unspoken?</p>
+
+<p>By no means. Shirley is all right. If her wistful cast
+of physiognomy is not gone, no more is her careless smile.
+She keeps her dark old manor-house light and bright with
+her cheery presence. The gallery and the low-ceiled
+chambers that open into it have learned lively echoes from
+her voice; the dim entrance-hall, with its one window,
+has grown pleasantly accustomed to the frequent rustle of
+a silk dress, as its wearer sweeps across from room to room,
+now carrying flowers to the barbarous peach-bloom salon,
+now entering the dining-room to open its casements and let
+in the scent of mignonette and sweet-briar, anon bringing
+plants from the staircase window to place in the sun at the
+open porch door.</p>
+
+<p>She takes her sewing occasionally; but, by some fatality,
+she is doomed never to sit steadily at it for above five
+minutes at a time. Her thimble is scarcely fitted on, her
+needle scarce threaded, when a sudden thought calls her
+upstairs. Perhaps she goes to seek some just-then-remembered
+old ivory-backed needle-book or older china-topped
+work-box, quite unneeded, but which seems at the
+moment indispensable; perhaps to arrange her hair, or
+a drawer which she recollects to have seen that morning
+in a state of curious confusion; perhaps only to take a
+peep from a particular window at a particular view, whence
+Briarfield church and rectory are visible, pleasantly bowered
+in trees. She has scarcely returned, and again taken up
+the slip of cambric or square of half-wrought canvas, when
+Tartar's bold scrape and strangled whistle are heard at
+the porch door, and she must run to open it for him. It is
+a hot day; he comes in panting; she must convoy him
+to the kitchen, and see with her own eyes that his water-bowl
+is replenished. Through the open kitchen door the court is
+visible, all sunny and gay, and peopled with turkeys and
+their poults, peahens and their chicks, pearl-flecked Guinea-fowls,
+and a bright variety of pure white, and purple-necked,
+and blue and cinnamon plumed pigeons. Irresistible
+spectacle to Shirley! She runs to the pantry for a roll,
+and she stands on the door step scattering crumbs. Around
+her throng her eager, plump, happy feathered vassals.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>339<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+John is about the stables, and John must be talked to, and
+her mare looked at. She is still petting and patting it when
+the cows come in to be milked. This is important; Shirley
+must stay and take a review of them all. There are perhaps
+some little calves, some little new-yeaned lambs&mdash;it
+may be twins, whose mothers have rejected them. Miss
+Keeldar must be introduced to them by John, must permit
+herself the treat of feeding them with her own hand, under
+the direction of her careful foreman. Meantime John
+moots doubtful questions about the farming of certain
+"crofts," and "ings," and "holmes," and his mistress is
+necessitated to fetch her garden-hat&mdash;a gipsy straw&mdash;and
+accompany him, over stile and along hedgerow, to hear
+the conclusion of the whole agricultural matter on the spot,
+and with the said "crofts," "ings," and "holms" under
+her eye. Bright afternoon thus wears into soft evening,
+and she comes home to a late tea, and after tea she never
+sews.</p>
+
+<p>After tea Shirley reads, and she is just about as tenacious
+of her book as she is lax of her needle. Her study
+is the rug, her seat a footstool, or perhaps only the carpet
+at Mrs. Pryor's feet: there she always learned her lessons
+when a child, and old habits have a strong power over her.
+The tawny and lionlike bulk of Tartar is ever stretched
+beside her, his negro muzzle laid on his fore paws&mdash;straight,
+strong, and shapely as the limbs of an Alpine wolf. One
+hand of the mistress generally reposes on the loving serf's
+rude head, because if she takes it away he groans and is
+discontented. Shirley's mind is given to her book. She
+lifts not her eyes; she neither stirs nor speaks&mdash;unless,
+indeed, it be to return a brief respectful answer to Mrs.
+Pryor, who addresses deprecatory phrases to her now and
+then.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, you had better not have that great dog so
+near you; he is crushing the border of your dress."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is only muslin. I can put a clean one on to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I wish you could acquire the habit of sitting
+to a table when you read."</p>
+
+<p>"I will try, ma'am, some time; but it is so comfortable
+to do as one has always been accustomed to do."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, let me beg of you to put that book down.
+You are trying your eyes by the doubtful firelight."</p>
+
+<p>"No, ma'am, not at all; my eyes are never tired."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>340<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>At last, however, a pale light falls on the page from
+the window. She looks; the moon is up. She closes the
+volume, rises, and walks through the room. Her book
+has perhaps been a good one; it has refreshed, refilled,
+rewarmed her heart; it has set her brain astir, furnished
+her mind with pictures. The still parlour, the clean hearth,
+the window opening on the twilight sky, and showing its
+"sweet regent," new throned and glorious, suffice to make
+earth an Eden, life a poem, for Shirley. A still, deep, inborn
+delight glows in her young veins, unmingled, untroubled,
+not to be reached or ravished by human agency,
+because by no human agency bestowed&mdash;the pure gift of
+God to His creature, the free dower of Nature to her child.
+This joy gives her experience of a genii-life. Buoyant, by
+green steps, by glad hills, all verdure and light, she reaches
+a station scarcely lower than that whence angels looked
+down on the dreamer of Bethel, and her eye seeks, and her
+soul possesses, the vision of life as she wishes it. No, not
+as she wishes it; she has not time to wish. The swift
+glory spreads out, sweeping and kindling, and multiplies
+its splendours faster than Thought can effect his combinations,
+faster than Aspiration can utter her longings. Shirley
+says nothing while the trance is upon her&mdash;she is quite
+mute; but if Mrs. Pryor speaks to her now, she goes out
+quietly, and continues her walk upstairs in the dim gallery.</p>
+
+<p>If Shirley were not an indolent, a reckless, an ignorant
+being, she would take a pen at such moments, or at least
+while the recollection of such moments was yet fresh on
+her spirit. She would seize, she would fix the apparition,
+tell the vision revealed. Had she a little more of the organ
+of acquisitiveness in her head, a little more of the love of
+property in her nature, she would take a good-sized sheet
+of paper and write plainly out, in her own queer but clear
+and legible hand, the story that has been narrated, the
+song that has been sung to her, and thus possess what she
+was enabled to create. But indolent she is, reckless she is,
+and most ignorant; for she does not know her dreams
+are rare, her feelings peculiar. She does not know, has
+never known, and will die without knowing, the full value
+of that spring whose bright fresh bubbling in her heart
+keeps it green.</p>
+
+<p>Shirley takes life easily. Is not that fact written in her
+eye? In her good-tempered moments is it not as full of
+lazy softness as in her brief fits of anger it is fulgent with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>341<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+quick-flashing fire? Her nature is in her eye. So long
+as she is calm, indolence, indulgence, humour, and tenderness
+possess that large gray sphere; incense her, a red ray
+pierces the dew, it quickens instantly to flame.</p>
+
+<p>Ere the month of July was past, Miss Keeldar would
+probably have started with Caroline on that northern tour
+they had planned; but just at that epoch an invasion
+befell Fieldhead. A genteel foraging party besieged Shirley
+in her castle, and compelled her to surrender at discretion.
+An uncle, an aunt, and two cousins from the south&mdash;a
+Mr., Mrs., and two Misses Sympson, of Sympson Grove,
+&mdash;&mdash;shire&mdash;came down upon her in state. The laws of hospitality
+obliged her to give in, which she did with a facility
+which somewhat surprised Caroline, who knew her to be
+prompt in action and fertile in expedient where a victory
+was to be gained for her will. Miss Helstone even asked her
+how it was she submitted so readily. She answered, old
+feelings had their power; she had passed two years of
+her early youth at Sympson Grove.</p>
+
+<p>"How did she like her relatives?"</p>
+
+<p>She had nothing in common with them, she replied.
+Little Harry Sympson, indeed, the sole son of the family,
+was very unlike his sisters, and of him she had formerly
+been fond; but he was not coming to Yorkshire&mdash;at least
+not yet.</p>
+
+<p>The next Sunday the Fieldhead pew in Briarfield Church
+appeared peopled with a prim, trim, fidgety, elderly gentleman,
+who shifted his spectacles, and changed his position
+every three minutes; a patient, placid-looking elderly lady
+in brown satin; and two pattern young ladies, in pattern
+attire, with pattern deportment. Shirley had the air of
+a black swan or a white crow in the midst of this party,
+and very forlorn was her aspect. Having brought her into
+respectable society, we will leave her there a while, and
+look after Miss Helstone.</p>
+
+<p>Separated from Miss Keeldar for the present, as she
+could not seek her in the midst of her fine relatives, scared
+away from Fieldhead by the visiting commotion which
+the new arrivals occasioned in the neighbourhood, Caroline
+was limited once more to the gray rectory, the solitary
+morning walk in remote by-paths, the long, lonely afternoon
+sitting in a quiet parlour which the sun forsook at noon, or
+in the garden alcove where it shone bright, yet sad, on the
+ripening red currants trained over the trellis, and on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>342<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+fair monthly roses entwined between, and through them fell
+chequered on Caroline sitting in her white summer dress,
+still as a garden statue. There she read old books, taken
+from her uncle's library. The Greek and Latin were of
+no use to her, and its collection of light literature was
+chiefly contained on a shelf which had belonged to her
+aunt Mary&mdash;some venerable Lady's Magazines, that had
+once performed a sea-voyage with their owner, and undergone
+a storm, and whose pages were stained with salt water;
+some mad Methodist Magazines, full of miracles and apparitions,
+of preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and
+frenzied fanaticism; the equally mad letters of Mrs.
+Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the Living; a few old
+English classics. From these faded flowers Caroline had
+in her childhood extracted the honey; they were tasteless
+to her now. By way of change, and also of doing good,
+she would sew&mdash;make garments for the poor, according to
+good Miss Ainley's direction. Sometimes, as she felt and
+saw her tears fall slowly on her work, she would wonder
+how the excellent woman who had cut it out and arranged
+it for her managed to be so equably serene in <em>her</em> solitude.</p>
+
+<p>"I never find Miss Ainley oppressed with despondency or
+lost in grief," she thought; "yet her cottage is a still, dim
+little place, and she is without a bright hope or near friend
+in the world. I remember, though, she told me once she
+had tutored her thoughts to tend upwards to heaven. She
+allowed there was, and ever had been, little enjoyment in
+this world for her, and she looks, I suppose, to the bliss of
+the world to come. So do nuns, with their close cell, their
+iron lamp, their robe strait as a shroud, their bed narrow
+as a coffin. She says often she has no fear of death&mdash;no
+dread of the grave; no more, doubtless, had St. Simeon
+Stylites, lifted up terrible on his wild column in the wilderness;
+no more has the Hindu votary stretched on his couch
+of iron spikes. Both these having violated nature, their
+natural likings and antipathies are reversed; they grow
+altogether morbid. I do fear death as yet, but I believe it
+is because I am young. Poor Miss Ainley would cling
+closer to life if life had more charms for her. God surely
+did not create us and cause us to live with the sole end of
+wishing always to die. I believe in my heart we were
+intended to prize life and enjoy it so long as we retain it.
+Existence never was originally meant to be that useless,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>343<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many,
+and is becoming to me among the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody," she went on&mdash;"nobody in particular is to
+blame, that I can see, for the state in which things are;
+and I cannot tell, however much I puzzle over it, how they
+are to be altered for the better; but I feel there is something
+wrong somewhere. I believe single women should
+have more to do&mdash;better chances of interesting and profitable
+occupation than they possess now. And when I speak
+thus I have no impression that I displease God by my
+words; that I am either impious or impatient, irreligious
+or sacrilegious. My consolation is, indeed, that God hears
+many a groan, and compassionates much grief which man
+stops his ears against, or frowns on with impotent contempt.
+I say <em>impotent</em>, for I observe that to such grievances
+as society cannot readily cure it usually forbids utterance,
+on pain of its scorn, this scorn being only a sort of tinselled
+cloak to its deformed weakness. People hate to be reminded
+of ills they are unable or unwilling to remedy. Such
+reminder, in forcing on them a sense of their own incapacity,
+or a more painful sense of an obligation to make some unpleasant
+effort, troubles their ease and shakes their self-complacency.
+Old maids, like the houseless and unemployed
+poor, should not ask for a place and an occupation
+in the world; the demand disturbs the happy and rich&mdash;it
+disturbs parents. Look at the numerous families of girls
+in this neighbourhood&mdash;the Armitages, the Birtwhistles, the
+Sykeses. The brothers of these girls are every one in
+business or in professions; they have something to do.
+Their sisters have no earthly employment but household
+work and sewing, no earthly pleasure but an unprofitable
+visiting, and no hope, in all their life to come, of anything
+better. This stagnant state of things makes them decline
+in health. They are never well, and their minds and views
+shrink to wondrous narrowness. The great wish, the sole aim
+of every one of them is to be married, but the majority will
+never marry; they will die as they now live. They scheme,
+they plot, they dress to ensnare husbands. The gentlemen
+turn them into ridicule; they don't want them; they
+hold them very cheap. They say&mdash;I have heard them say it
+with sneering laughs many a time&mdash;the matrimonial market
+is overstocked. Fathers say so likewise, and are angry
+with their daughters when they observe their man&oelig;uvres&mdash;they
+order them to stay at home. What do they expect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>344<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+them to do at home? If you ask, they would answer,
+sew and cook. They expect them to do this, and this only,
+contentedly, regularly, uncomplainingly, all their lives long,
+as if they had no germs of faculties for anything else&mdash;a
+doctrine as reasonable to hold as it would be that
+the fathers have no faculties but for eating what their
+daughters cook or for wearing what they sew. Could men
+live so themselves? Would they not be very weary?
+And when there came no relief to their weariness, but only
+reproaches at its slightest manifestation, would not their
+weariness ferment in time to frenzy? Lucretia, spinning
+at midnight in the midst of her maidens, and Solomon's
+virtuous woman are often quoted as patterns of what 'the
+sex,' as they say, ought to be. I don't know. Lucretia,
+I dare say, was a most worthy sort of person, much like
+my cousin Hortense Moore; but she kept her servants
+up very late. I should not have liked to be amongst the
+number of the maidens. Hortense would just work me
+and Sarah in that fashion, if she could, and neither of us
+would bear it. The 'virtuous woman,' again, had her
+household up in the very middle of the night; she 'got
+breakfast over,' as Mrs. Sykes says, before one o'clock a.m.;
+but <em>she</em> had something more to do than spin and give out
+portions. She was a manufacturer&mdash;she made fine linen
+and sold it; she was an agriculturist&mdash;she bought estates
+and planted vineyards. <em>That</em> woman was a manager.
+She was what the matrons hereabouts call 'a clever woman.'
+On the whole, I like her a good deal better than Lucretia;
+but I don't believe either Mr. Armitage or Mr. Sykes could
+have got the advantage of her in a bargain. Yet I like her.
+'Strength and honour were her clothing; the heart of her
+husband safely trusted in her. She opened her mouth
+with wisdom; in her tongue was the law of kindness; her
+children rose up and called her blessed; her husband also
+praised her.' King of Israel! your model of a woman is
+a worthy model! But are we, in these days, brought up
+to be like her? Men of Yorkshire! do your daughters
+reach this royal standard? Can they reach it? Can you
+help them to reach it? Can you give them a field in which
+their faculties may be exercised and grow? Men of England!
+look at your poor girls, many of them fading around
+you, dropping off in consumption or decline; or, what is
+worse, degenerating to sour old maids&mdash;envious, back-biting,
+wretched, because life is a desert to them; or, what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>345<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+is worst of all, reduced to strive, by scarce modest coquetry
+and debasing artifice, to gain that position and consideration
+by marriage which to celibacy is denied. Fathers!
+cannot you alter these things? Perhaps not all at once;
+but consider the matter well when it is brought before you,
+receive it as a theme worthy of thought; do not dismiss
+it with an idle jest or an unmanly insult. You would wish
+to be proud of your daughters, and not to blush for them;
+then seek for them an interest and an occupation which
+shall raise them above the flirt, the man&oelig;uvrer, the mischief-making
+tale-bearer. Keep your girls' minds narrow and
+fettered; they will still be a plague and a care, sometimes
+a disgrace to you. Cultivate them&mdash;give them scope and
+work; they will be your gayest companions in health,
+your tenderest nurses in sickness, your most faithful prop
+in age."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>346<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>AN EVENING OUT.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">One</span> fine summer day that Caroline had spent entirely alone
+(her uncle being at Whinbury), and whose long, bright,
+noiseless, breezeless, cloudless hours (how many they
+seemed since sunrise!) had been to her as desolate as if
+they had gone over her head in the shadowless and trackless
+wastes of Sahara, instead of in the blooming garden of an
+English home, she was sitting in the alcove&mdash;her task of
+work on her knee, her fingers assiduously plying the needle,
+her eyes following and regulating their movements, her
+brain working restlessly&mdash;when Fanny came to the door,
+looked round over the lawn and borders, and not seeing
+her whom she sought, called out, "Miss Caroline!"</p>
+
+<p>A low voice answered "Fanny!" It issued from the
+alcove, and thither Fanny hastened, a note in her hand,
+which she delivered to fingers that hardly seemed to have
+nerve to hold it. Miss Helstone did not ask whence it
+came, and she did not look at it; she let it drop amongst
+the folds of her work.</p>
+
+<p>"Joe Scott's son, Harry, brought it," said Fanny.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was no enchantress, and knew no magic spell;
+yet what she said took almost magical effect on her young
+mistress. She lifted her head with the quick motion of
+revived sensation; she shot, not a languid, but a lifelike,
+questioning glance at Fanny.</p>
+
+<p>"Harry Scott! who sent him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He came from the Hollow."</p>
+
+<p>The dropped note was snatched up eagerly, the seal was
+broken&mdash;it was read in two seconds. An affectionate billet
+from Hortense, informing her young cousin that she was
+returned from Wormwood Wells; that she was alone to-day,
+as Robert was gone to Whinbury market; that nothing
+would give her greater pleasure than to have Caroline's
+company to tea, and the good lady added, she was quite sure
+such a change would be most acceptable and beneficial to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>347<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Caroline, who must be sadly at a loss both for safe guidance
+and improving society since the misunderstanding between
+Robert and Mr. Helstone had occasioned a separation from
+her "meilleure amie, Hortense G&eacute;rard Moore." In a
+postscript she was urged to put on her bonnet and run down
+directly.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline did not need the injunction. Glad was she to
+lay by the brown holland child's slip she was trimming with
+braid for the Jew's basket, to hasten upstairs, cover her
+curls with her straw bonnet, and throw round her shoulders
+the black silk scarf, whose simple drapery suited as well her
+shape as its dark hue set off the purity of her dress and the
+fairness of her face; glad was she to escape for a few hours
+the solitude, the sadness, the nightmare of her life; glad
+to run down the green lane sloping to the Hollow, to scent
+the fragrance of hedge flowers sweeter than the perfume of
+moss-rose or lily. True, she knew Robert was not at the
+cottage; but it was delight to go where he had lately been.
+So long, so totally separated from him, merely to see his
+home, to enter the room where he had that morning sat,
+felt like a reunion. As such it revived her; and then
+Illusion was again following her in Peri mask. The soft
+agitation of wings caressed her cheek, and the air, breathing
+from the blue summer sky, bore a voice which whispered,
+"Robert may come home while you are in his house, and
+then, at least, you may look in his face&mdash;at least you may
+give him your hand; perhaps, for a minute, you may sit
+beside him."</p>
+
+<p>"Silence!" was her austere response; but she loved the
+comforter and the consolation.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Moore probably caught from the window the gleam
+and flutter of Caroline's white attire through the branchy
+garden shrubs, for she advanced from the cottage porch to
+meet her. Straight, unbending, phlegmatic as usual, she
+came on. No haste or ecstasy was ever permitted to disorder
+the dignity of <em>her</em> movements; but she smiled, well
+pleased to mark the delight of her pupil, to feel her kiss and
+the gentle, genial strain of her embrace. She led her
+tenderly in, half deceived and wholly flattered. Half
+deceived! had it not been so she would in all probability
+have put her to the wicket, and shut her out. Had she
+known clearly to whose account the chief share of this
+childlike joy was to be placed, Hortense would most likely
+have felt both shocked and incensed. Sisters do not like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>348<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+young ladies to fall in love with their brothers. It seems,
+if not presumptuous, silly, weak, a delusion, an absurd
+mistake. <em>They</em> do not love these gentlemen&mdash;whatever
+sisterly affection they may cherish towards them&mdash;and that
+others should, repels them with a sense of crude romance.
+The first movement, in short, excited by such discovery
+(as with many parents on finding their children to be in
+love) is one of mixed impatience and contempt. Reason&mdash;if
+they be rational people&mdash;corrects the false feeling in time;
+but if they be irrational, it is never corrected, and the
+daughter or sister-in-law is disliked to the end.</p>
+
+<p>"You would expect to find me alone, from what I said
+in my note," observed Miss Moore, as she conducted Caroline
+towards the parlour; "but it was written this morning:
+since dinner, company has come in."</p>
+
+<p>And opening the door she made visible an ample spread
+of crimson skirts overflowing the elbow-chair at the fireside,
+and above them, presiding with dignity, a cap more
+awful than a crown. That cap had never come to the
+cottage under a bonnet; no, it had been brought in a vast
+bag, or rather a middle-sized balloon of black silk, held
+wide with whalebone. The screed, or frill of the cap, stood
+a quarter of a yard broad round the face of the wearer. The
+ribbon, flourishing in puffs and bows about the head, was of
+the sort called love-ribbon. There was a good deal of it, I
+may say, a very great deal. Mrs. Yorke wore the cap&mdash;it
+became her; she wore the gown also&mdash;it suited her no less.</p>
+
+<p>That great lady was come in a friendly way to take tea
+with Miss Moore. It was almost as great and as rare a
+favour as if the queen were to go uninvited to share pot-luck
+with one of her subjects. A higher mark of distinction
+she could not show&mdash;she who in general scorned visiting and
+tea-drinking, and held cheap and stigmatized as "gossips"
+every maid and matron of the vicinage.</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistake, however; Miss Moore <em>was</em> a
+favourite with her. She had evinced the fact more than
+once&mdash;evinced it by stopping to speak to her in the churchyard
+on Sundays; by inviting her, almost hospitably, to
+come to Briarmains; evinced it to-day by the grand condescension
+of a personal visit. Her reasons for the preference,
+as assigned by herself, were that Miss Moore was a
+woman of steady deportment, without the least levity of
+conversation or carriage; also that, being a foreigner, she
+must feel the want of a friend to countenance her. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>349<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+might have added that her plain aspect, homely, precise
+dress, and phlegmatic, unattractive manner were to her so
+many additional recommendations. It is certain, at least,
+that ladies remarkable for the opposite qualities of beauty,
+lively bearing, and elegant taste in attire were not often
+favoured with her approbation. Whatever gentlemen are
+apt to admire in women, Mrs. Yorke condemned; and what
+they overlook or despise, she patronized.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline advanced to the mighty matron with some sense
+of diffidence. She knew little of Mrs. Yorke, and, as a
+parson's niece, was doubtful what sort of a reception she
+might get. She got a very cool one, and was glad to hide
+her discomfiture by turning away to take off her bonnet.
+Nor, upon sitting down, was she displeased to be immediately
+accosted by a little personage in a blue frock and sash,
+who started up like some fairy from the side of the great
+dame's chair, where she had been sitting on a footstool,
+screened from view by the folds of the wide red gown, and
+running to Miss Helstone, unceremoniously threw her arms
+round her neck and demanded a kiss.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother is not civil to you," said the petitioner,
+as she received and repaid a smiling salute, "and Rose
+there takes no notice of you; it is their way. If, instead
+of you, a white angel, with a crown of stars, had come into
+the room, mother would nod stiffly, and Rose never lift her
+head at all; but I will be your friend&mdash;I have always liked
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Jessie, curb that tongue of yours, and repress your
+forwardness!" said Mrs. Yorke.</p>
+
+<p>"But, mother, you are so frozen!" expostulated Jessie.
+"Miss Helstone has never done you any harm; why can't
+you be kind to her? You sit so stiff, and look so cold, and
+speak so dry&mdash;what for? That's just the fashion in which
+you treat Miss Shirley Keeldar and every other young lady
+who comes to our house. And Rose there is such an aut&mdash;aut&mdash;I
+have forgotten the word, but it means a machine
+in the shape of a human being. However, between you,
+you will drive every soul away from Briarmains; Martin
+often says so."</p>
+
+<p>"I am an automaton? Good! Let me alone, then," said
+Rose, speaking from a corner where she was sitting on the
+carpet at the foot of a bookcase, with a volume spread open
+on her knee.&mdash;"Miss Helstone, how do you do?" she
+added, directing a brief glance to the person addressed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>350<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and then again casting down her gray, remarkable eyes on
+the book and returning to the study of its pages.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline stole a quiet gaze towards her, dwelling on her
+young, absorbed countenance, and observing a certain
+unconscious movement of the mouth as she read&mdash;a movement
+full of character. Caroline had tact, and she had
+fine instinct. She felt that Rose Yorke was a peculiar child&mdash;one
+of the unique; she knew how to treat her. Approaching
+quietly, she knelt on the carpet at her side, and
+looked over her little shoulder at her book. It was a
+romance of Mrs. Radcliffe's&mdash;"The Italian."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline read on with her, making no remark. Presently
+Rose showed her the attention of asking, ere she
+turned the leaf, "Are you ready?"</p>
+
+<p>Caroline only nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like it?" inquired Rose ere long.</p>
+
+<p>"Long since, when I read it as a child, I was wonderfully
+taken with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seemed to open with such promise&mdash;such foreboding
+of a most strange tale to be unfolded."</p>
+
+<p>"And in reading it you feel as if you were far away from
+England&mdash;really in Italy&mdash;under another sort of sky&mdash;that
+blue sky of the south which travellers describe."</p>
+
+<p>"You are sensible of that, Rose?"</p>
+
+<p>"It makes me long to travel, Miss Helstone."</p>
+
+<p>"When you are a woman, perhaps, you may be able to
+gratify your wish."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to make a way to do so, if one is not made for
+me. I cannot live always in Briarfield. The whole world
+is not very large compared with creation. I must see the
+outside of our own round planet, at least."</p>
+
+<p>"How much of its outside?"</p>
+
+<p>"First this hemisphere where we live; then the other.
+I am resolved that my life shall be a life. Not a black
+trance like the toad's, buried in marble; nor a long, slow
+death like yours in Briarfield rectory."</p>
+
+<p>"Like mine! what can you mean, child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Might you not as well be tediously dying as for ever
+shut up in that glebe-house&mdash;a place that, when I pass it,
+always reminds me of a windowed grave? I never see any
+movement about the door. I never hear a sound from the
+wall. I believe smoke never issues from the chimneys.
+What do you do there?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>351<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I sew, I read, I learn lessons."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Should I be happy wandering alone in strange countries
+as you wish to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Much happier, even if you did nothing but wander.
+Remember, however, that I shall have an object in view;
+but if you only went on and on, like some enchanted lady
+in a fairy tale, you might be happier than now. In a day's
+wandering you would pass many a hill, wood, and watercourse,
+each perpetually altering in aspect as the sun shone
+out or was overcast; as the weather was wet or fair, dark
+or bright. Nothing changes in Briarfield rectory. The
+plaster of the parlour ceilings, the paper on the walls, the
+curtains, carpets, chairs, are still the same."</p>
+
+<p>"Is change necessary to happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it synonymous with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; but I feel monotony and death to be
+almost the same."</p>
+
+<p>Here Jessie spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't she mad?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Rose," pursued Caroline, "I fear a wanderer's
+life, for me at least, would end like that tale you are reading&mdash;in
+disappointment, vanity, and vexation of spirit."</p>
+
+<p>"Does 'The Italian' so end?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so when I read it."</p>
+
+<p>"Better to try all things and find all empty than to try
+nothing and leave your life a blank. To do this is to
+commit the sin of him who buried his talent in a napkin&mdash;despicable
+sluggard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Rose," observed Mrs. Yorke, "solid satisfaction is only
+to be realized by doing one's duty."</p>
+
+<p>"Right, mother! And if my Master has given me ten
+talents, my duty is to trade with them, and make them
+ten talents more. Not in the dust of household drawers
+shall the coin be interred. I will <em>not</em> deposit it in a broken-spouted
+teapot, and shut it up in a china closet among tea-things.
+I will <em>not</em> commit it to your work-table to be
+smothered in piles of woollen hose. I will <em>not</em> prison it in
+the linen press to find shrouds among the sheets. And
+least of all, mother" (she got up from the floor)&mdash;"least
+of all will I hide it in a tureen of cold potatoes, to be ranged
+with bread, butter, pastry, and ham on the shelves of the
+larder."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>352<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>She stopped, then went on, "Mother, the Lord who gave
+each of us our talents will come home some day, and will
+demand from all an account. The teapot, the old stocking-foot,
+the linen rag, the willow-pattern tureen will yield up
+their barren deposit in many a house. Suffer your daughters,
+at least, to put their money to the exchangers, that they
+may be enabled at the Master's coming to pay Him His own
+with usury."</p>
+
+<p>"Rose, did you bring your sampler with you, as I told
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down, and do a line of marking."</p>
+
+<p>Rose sat down promptly, and wrought according to orders.
+After a busy pause of ten minutes, her mother asked, "Do
+you think yourself oppressed now&mdash;a victim?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, as far as I understood your tirade, it was a protest
+against all womanly and domestic employment."</p>
+
+<p>"You misunderstood it, mother. I should be sorry not
+to learn to sew. You do right to teach me, and to make
+me work."</p>
+
+<p>"Even to the mending of your brothers' stockings and
+the making of sheets?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the use of ranting and spouting about it,
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I to do nothing but that? I will do that, and
+then I will do more. Now, mother, I have said my say.
+I am twelve years old at present, and not till I am sixteen
+will I speak again about talents. For four years I bind
+myself an industrious apprentice to all you can teach me."</p>
+
+<p>"You see what my daughters are, Miss Helstone,"
+observed Mrs. Yorke; "how precociously wise in their
+own conceits! 'I would rather this, I prefer that'&mdash;such
+is Jessie's cuckoo song; while Rose utters the bolder cry,
+'I <em>will</em>, and I will <em>not</em>!'"</p>
+
+<p>"I render a reason, mother; besides, if my cry is bold,
+it is only heard once in a twelvemonth. About each birthday
+the spirit moves me to deliver one oracle respecting
+my own instruction and management. I utter it and leave
+it; it is for you, mother, to listen or not."</p>
+
+<p>"I would advise all young ladies," pursued Mrs. Yorke,
+"to study the characters of such children as they chance
+to meet with before they marry and have any of their own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>353<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+to consider well how they would like the responsibility of
+guiding the careless, the labour of persuading the stubborn,
+the constant burden and task of training the best."</p>
+
+<p>"But with love it need not be so very difficult," interposed
+Caroline. "Mothers love their children most dearly&mdash;almost
+better than they love themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine talk! very sentimental! There is the rough,
+practical part of life yet to come for you, young miss."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mrs. Yorke, if I take a little baby into my arms&mdash;any
+poor woman's infant, for instance&mdash;I feel that I love
+that helpless thing quite peculiarly, though I am not its
+mother. I could do almost anything for it willingly, if it
+were delivered over entirely to my care&mdash;if it were quite
+dependent on me."</p>
+
+<p>"You <em>feel</em>! Yes, yes! I dare say, now. You are led
+a great deal by your <em>feelings</em>, and you think yourself a very
+sensitive personage, no doubt. Are you aware that, with
+all these romantic ideas, you have managed to train your
+features into an habitually lackadaisical expression, better
+suited to a novel-heroine than to a woman who is to make
+her way in the real world by dint of common sense?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I am not at all aware of that, Mrs. Yorke."</p>
+
+<p>"Look in the glass just behind you. Compare the face
+you see there with that of any early-rising, hard-working
+milkmaid."</p>
+
+<p>"My face is a pale one, but it is <em>not</em> sentimental; and
+most milkmaids, however red and robust they may be, are
+more stupid and less practically fitted to make their way
+in the world than I am. I think more, and more correctly,
+than milkmaids in general do; consequently, where they
+would often, for want of reflection, act weakly, I, by dint
+of reflection, should act judiciously."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no! you would be influenced by your feelings; you
+would be guided by impulse."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I should often be influenced by my feelings.
+They were given me to that end. Whom my feelings teach
+me to love I <em>must</em> and <em>shall</em> love; and I hope, if ever I
+have a husband and children, my feelings will induce me
+to love them. I hope, in that case, all my impulses will be
+strong in compelling me to love."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline had a pleasure in saying this with emphasis;
+she had a pleasure in daring to say it in Mrs. Yorke's presence.
+She did not care what unjust sarcasm might be
+hurled at her in reply. She flushed, not with anger but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>354<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+excitement, when the ungenial matron answered coolly,
+"Don't waste your dramatic effects. That was well said&mdash;it
+was quite fine; but it is lost on two women&mdash;an old wife
+and an old maid. There should have been a disengaged
+gentleman present.&mdash;Is Mr. Robert nowhere hid behind
+the curtains, do you think, Miss Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>Hortense, who during the chief part of the conversation
+had been in the kitchen superintending the preparations for
+tea, did not yet quite comprehend the drift of the discourse.
+She answered, with a puzzled air, that Robert was at Whinbury.
+Mrs. Yorke laughed her own peculiar short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Straightforward Miss Moore!" said she patronizingly.
+"It is like you to understand my question so literally and
+answer it so simply. <em>Your</em> mind comprehends nothing of
+intrigue. Strange things might go on around you without
+your being the wiser; you are not of the class the world
+calls sharp-witted."</p>
+
+<p>These equivocal compliments did not seem to please
+Hortense. She drew herself up, puckered her black eyebrows,
+but still looked puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"I have ever been noted for sagacity and discernment
+from childhood," she returned; for, indeed, on the possession
+of these qualities she peculiarly piqued herself.</p>
+
+<p>"You never plotted to win a husband, I'll be bound,"
+pursued Mrs. Yorke; "and you have not the benefit of
+previous experience to aid you in discovering when others
+plot."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline felt this kind language where the benevolent
+speaker intended she should feel it&mdash;in her very heart.
+She could not even parry the shafts; she was defenceless
+for the present. To answer would have been to avow that
+the cap fitted. Mrs. Yorke, looking at her as she sat with
+troubled, downcast eyes, and cheek burning painfully, and
+figure expressing in its bent attitude and unconscious tremor
+all the humiliation and chagrin she experienced, felt the
+sufferer was fair game. The strange woman had a natural
+antipathy to a shrinking, sensitive character&mdash;a nervous
+temperament; nor was a pretty, delicate, and youthful
+face a passport to her affections. It was seldom she met
+with all these obnoxious qualities combined in one individual;
+still more seldom she found that individual at her mercy,
+under circumstances in which she could crush her well.
+She happened this afternoon to be specially bilious and
+morose&mdash;as much disposed to gore as any vicious "mother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>355<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+of the herd." Lowering her large head she made a new
+charge.</p>
+
+<p>"Your cousin Hortense is an excellent sister, Miss Helstone.
+Such ladies as come to try their life's luck here
+at Hollow's Cottage may, by a very little clever female
+artifice, cajole the mistress of the house, and have the game
+all in their own hands. You are fond of your cousin's
+society, I dare say, miss?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of which cousin's?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of the lady's, <em>of course</em>."</p>
+
+<p>"Hortense is, and always has been, most kind to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Every sister with an eligible single brother is considered
+most kind by her spinster friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Yorke," said Caroline, lifting her eyes slowly,
+their blue orbs at the same time clearing from trouble,
+and shining steady and full, while the glow of shame left
+her cheek, and its hue turned pale and settled&mdash;"Mrs.
+Yorke, may I ask what you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"To give you a lesson on the cultivation of rectitude, to
+disgust you with craft and false sentiment."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I need this lesson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most young ladies of the present day need it. You are
+quite a modern young lady&mdash;morbid, delicate, professing
+to like retirement; which implies, I suppose, that you find
+little worthy of your sympathies in the ordinary world.
+The ordinary world&mdash;every-day honest folks&mdash;are better
+than you think them, much better than any bookish,
+romancing chit of a girl can be who hardly ever puts her
+nose over her uncle the parson's garden wall."</p>
+
+<p>"Consequently of whom you know nothing. Excuse
+me&mdash;indeed, it does not matter whether you excuse me or
+not&mdash;you have attacked me without provocation; I shall
+defend myself without apology. Of my relations with
+my two cousins you are ignorant. In a fit of ill-humour
+you have attempted to poison them by gratuitous insinuations,
+which are far more crafty and false than anything
+with which you can justly charge me. That I happen to
+be pale, and sometimes to look diffident, is no business of
+yours; that I am fond of books, and indisposed for common
+gossip, is still less your business; that I am a 'romancing
+chit of a girl' is a mere conjecture on your part. I never
+romanced to you nor to anybody you know. That I am
+the parson's niece is not a crime, though you may be narrow-minded
+enough to think it so. You dislike me. You have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>356<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+no just reason for disliking me; therefore keep the expression
+of your aversion to yourself. If at any time in
+future you evince it annoyingly, I shall answer even less
+scrupulously than I have done now."</p>
+
+<p>She ceased, and sat in white and still excitement. She
+had spoken in the clearest of tones, neither fast nor loud;
+but her silver accents thrilled the ear. The speed of the
+current in her veins was just then as swift as it was viewless.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Yorke was not irritated at the reproof, worded with
+a severity so simple, dictated by a pride so quiet. Turning
+coolly to Miss Moore, she said, nodding her cap approvingly,
+"She has spirit in her, after all.&mdash;Always speak as honestly
+as you have done just now," she continued, "and you'll
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"I repel a recommendation so offensive," was the answer,
+delivered in the same pure key, with the same clear look.
+"I reject counsel poisoned by insinuation. It is my right
+to speak as I think proper; nothing binds me to converse
+as you dictate. So far from always speaking as I have
+done just now, I shall never address any one in a tone so
+stern or in language so harsh, unless in answer to unprovoked
+insult."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, you have found your match," pronounced little
+Jessie, whom the scene appeared greatly to edify. Rose
+had heard the whole with an unmoved face. She now said,
+"No; Miss Helstone is not my mother's match, for she
+allows herself to be vexed. My mother would wear her out
+in a few weeks. Shirley Keeldar manages better.&mdash;Mother,
+you have never hurt Miss Keeldar's feelings yet. She
+wears armour under her silk dress that you cannot penetrate."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Yorke often complained that her children were
+mutinous. It was strange that with all her strictness, with
+all her "strong-mindedness," she could gain no command
+over them. A look from their father had more influence
+with them than a lecture from her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Moore&mdash;to whom the position of witness to an altercation
+in which she took no part was highly displeasing,
+as being an unimportant secondary post&mdash;now rallying her
+dignity, prepared to utter a discourse which was to prove
+both parties in the wrong, and to make it clear to each disputant
+that she had reason to be ashamed of herself, and
+ought to submit humbly to the superior sense of the individual
+then addressing her. Fortunately for her audience,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>357<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+she had not harangued above ten minutes when Sarah's
+entrance with the tea-tray called her attention, first to the
+fact of that damsel having a gilt comb in her hair and a red
+necklace round her throat, and secondly, and subsequently
+to a pointed remonstrance, to the duty of making tea.
+After the meal Rose restored her to good-humour by bringing
+her guitar and asking for a song, and afterwards engaging
+her in an intelligent and sharp cross-examination about
+guitar-playing and music in general.</p>
+
+<p>Jessie, meantime, directed her assiduities to Caroline.
+Sitting on a stool at her feet, she talked to her, first about
+religion and then about politics. Jessie was accustomed
+at home to drink in a great deal of what her father said on
+these subjects, and afterwards in company to retail, with
+more wit and fluency than consistency or discretion, his
+opinions, antipathies, and preferences. She rated Caroline
+soundly for being a member of the Established Church,
+and for having an uncle a clergyman. She informed her
+that she lived on the country, and ought to work for her
+living honestly, instead of passing a useless life, and eating
+the bread of idleness in the shape of tithes. Thence Jessie
+passed to a review of the ministry at that time in office,
+and a consideration of its deserts. She made familiar mention
+of the names of Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Perceval.
+Each of these personages she adorned with a character
+that might have separately suited Moloch and Belial. She
+denounced the war as wholesale murder, and Lord Wellington
+as a "hired butcher."</p>
+
+<p>Her auditress listened with exceeding edification. Jessie
+had something of the genius of humour in her nature. It
+was inexpressibly comic to hear her repeating her sire's
+denunciations in his nervous northern Doric; as hearty a
+little Jacobin as ever pent a free mutinous spirit in a muslin
+frock and sash. Not malignant by nature, her language
+was not so bitter as it was racy, and the expressive little
+face gave a piquancy to every phrase which held a beholder's
+interest captive.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline chid her when she abused Lord Wellington;
+but she listened delighted to a subsequent tirade against
+the Prince Regent. Jessie quickly read, in the sparkle of
+her hearer's eye and the laughter hovering round her lips,
+that at last she had hit on a topic that pleased. Many a
+time had she heard the fat "Adonis of fifty" discussed at
+her father's breakfast-table, and she now gave Mr. Yorke's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>358<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+comments on the theme&mdash;genuine as uttered by his Yorkshire
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>But, Jessie, I will write about you no more. This is an
+autumn evening, wet and wild. There is only one cloud
+in the sky, but it curtains it from pole to pole. The wind
+cannot rest; it hurries sobbing over hills of sullen outline,
+colourless with twilight and mist. Rain has beat all day
+on that church tower. It rises dark from the stony enclosure
+of its graveyard. The nettles, the long grass, and
+the tombs all drip with wet. This evening reminds me too
+forcibly of another evening some years ago&mdash;a howling,
+rainy autumn evening too&mdash;when certain who had that
+day performed a pilgrimage to a grave new-made in a heretic
+cemetery sat near a wood fire on the hearth of a foreign
+dwelling. They were merry and social, but they each knew
+that a gap, never to be filled, had been made in their circle.
+They knew they had lost something whose absence could
+never be quite atoned for so long as they lived; and they
+knew that heavy falling rain was soaking into the wet
+earth which covered their lost darling, and that the sad,
+sighing gale was mourning above her buried head. The
+fire warmed them; life and friendship yet blessed them;
+but Jessie lay cold, coffined, solitary&mdash;only the sod screening
+her from the storm.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Mrs. Yorke folded up her knitting, cut short the music
+lesson and the lecture on politics, and concluded her visit
+to the cottage, at an hour early enough to ensure her return
+to Briarmains before the blush of sunset should quite have
+faded in heaven, or the path up the fields have become
+thoroughly moist with evening dew.</p>
+
+<p>The lady and her daughters being gone, Caroline felt
+that she also ought to resume her scarf, kiss her cousin's
+cheek, and trip away homeward. If she lingered much
+later dusk would draw on, and Fanny would be put to the
+trouble of coming to fetch her. It was both baking and
+ironing day at the rectory, she remembered&mdash;Fanny would be
+busy. Still, she could not quit her seat at the little parlour
+window. From no point of view could the west look so
+lovely as from that lattice with the garland of jessamine
+round it, whose white stars and green leaves seemed now but
+gray pencil outlines&mdash;graceful in form, but colourless in
+tint&mdash;against the gold incarnadined of a summer evening&mdash;against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>359<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+the fire-tinged blue of an August sky at eight
+o'clock p.m.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline looked at the wicket-gate, beside which holly-oaks
+spired up tall. She looked at the close hedge of privet
+and laurel fencing in the garden; her eyes longed to see
+something more than the shrubs before they turned from
+that limited prospect. They longed to see a human figure,
+of a certain mould and height, pass the hedge and enter
+the gate. A human figure she at last saw&mdash;nay, two.
+Frederick Murgatroyd went by, carrying a pail of water;
+Joe Scott followed, dangling on his forefinger the keys of
+the mill. They were going to lock up mill and stables for
+the night, and then betake themselves home.</p>
+
+<p>"So must I," thought Caroline, as she half rose and
+sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"This is all folly&mdash;heart-breaking folly," she added. "In
+the first place, though I should stay till dark there will be
+no arrival; because I feel in my heart, Fate has written
+it down in to-day's page of her eternal book, that I am not
+to have the pleasure I long for. In the second place, if he
+stepped in this moment, my presence here would be a
+chagrin to him, and the consciousness that it must be so
+would turn half my blood to ice. His hand would, perhaps,
+be loose and chill if I put mine into it; his eye would be
+clouded if I sought its beam. I should look up for that
+kindling, something I have seen in past days, when my
+face, or my language, or my disposition had at some happy
+moment pleased him; I should discover only darkness.
+I had better go home."</p>
+
+<p>She took her bonnet from the table where it lay, and
+was just fastening the ribbon, when Hortense, directing
+her attention to a splendid bouquet of flowers in a glass
+on the same table, mentioned that Miss Keeldar had sent
+them that morning from Fieldhead; and went on to comment
+on the guests that lady was at present entertaining,
+on the bustling life she had lately been leading; adding
+divers conjectures that she did not very well like it, and
+much wonderment that a person who was so fond of her
+own way as the heiress did not find some means of sooner
+getting rid of this <em>cort&eacute;ge</em> of relatives.</p>
+
+<p>"But they say she actually will not let Mr. Sympson
+and his family go," she added. "They wanted much to
+return to the south last week, to be ready for the reception
+of the only son, who is expected home from a tour. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>360<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+insists that her cousin Henry shall come and join his friends
+here in Yorkshire. I dare say she partly does it to oblige
+Robert and myself."</p>
+
+<p>"How to oblige Robert and you?" inquired Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, my child, you are dull. Don't you know&mdash;you
+must often have heard&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, ma'am," said Sarah, opening the door, "the
+preserves that you told me to boil in treacle&mdash;the congfiters,
+as you call them&mdash;is all burnt to the pan."</p>
+
+<p>"Les confitures! Elles sont br&ucirc;l&eacute;es? Ah, quelle n&eacute;gligence
+coupable! Coquine de cuisini&egrave;re, fille insupportable!"</p>
+
+<p>And mademoiselle, hastily taking from a drawer a large
+linen apron, and tying it over her black apron, rushed
+<em>&eacute;perdue</em> into the kitchen, whence, to speak truth, exhaled
+an odour of calcined sweets rather strong than savoury.</p>
+
+<p>The mistress and maid had been in full feud the whole
+day, on the subject of preserving certain black cherries,
+hard as marbles, sour as sloes. Sarah held that sugar was
+the only orthodox condiment to be used in that process;
+mademoiselle maintained&mdash;and proved it by the practice
+and experience of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother&mdash;that
+treacle, "m&eacute;lasse," was infinitely preferable.
+She had committed an imprudence in leaving
+Sarah in charge of the preserving-pan, for her want of
+sympathy in the nature of its contents had induced a degree
+of carelessness in watching their confection, whereof the
+result was&mdash;dark and cindery ruin. Hubbub followed;
+high upbraiding, and sobs rather loud than deep or real.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline, once more turning to the little mirror, was
+shading her ringlets from her cheek to smooth them under
+her cottage bonnet, certain that it would not only be useless
+but unpleasant to stay longer, when, on the sudden opening
+of the back-door, there fell an abrupt calm in the kitchen.
+The tongues were checked, pulled up as with bit and bridle.
+"Was it&mdash;was it&mdash;Robert?" He often&mdash;almost always&mdash;entered
+by the kitchen way on his return from market.
+No; it was only Joe Scott, who, having hemmed significantly
+thrice&mdash;every hem being meant as a lofty rebuke
+to the squabbling womankind&mdash;said, "Now, I thowt I
+heerd a crack?"</p>
+
+<p>None answered.</p>
+
+<p>"And," he continued pragmatically, "as t' maister's
+comed, and as he'll enter through this hoyle, I <em>con</em>sidered
+it desirable to step in and let ye know. A household o'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>361<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+women is nivver fit to be comed on wi'out warning. Here
+he is.&mdash;Walk forrard, sir. They war playing up queerly,
+but I think I've quietened 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Another person, it was now audible, entered. Joe Scott
+proceeded with his rebukes.</p>
+
+<p>"What d'ye mean by being all i' darkness? Sarah,
+thou quean, canst t' not light a candle? It war sundown
+an hour syne. He'll brak his shins agean some o' yer pots,
+and tables, and stuff.&mdash;Tak tent o' this baking-bowl, sir;
+they've set it i' yer way, fair as if they did it i' malice."</p>
+
+<p>To Joe's observations succeeded a confused sort of pause,
+which Caroline, though she was listening with both her ears,
+could not understand. It was very brief. A cry broke it&mdash;a
+sound of surprise, followed by the sound of a kiss;
+ejaculations, but half articulate, succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>"Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Est-ce que je m'y attendais?"
+were the words chiefly to be distinguished.</p>
+
+<p>"Et tu te portes toujours bien, bonne s&oelig;ur?" inquired
+another voice&mdash;Robert's, certainly.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline was puzzled. Obeying an impulse the wisdom
+of which she had not time to question, she escaped from
+the little parlour, by way of leaving the coast clear, and
+running upstairs took up a position at the head of the
+banisters, whence she could make further observations ere
+presenting herself. It was considerably past sunset now;
+dusk filled the passage, yet not such deep dusk but that
+she could presently see Robert and Hortense traverse it.</p>
+
+<p>"Caroline! Caroline!" called Hortense, a moment afterwards,
+"venez voir mon fr&egrave;re!"</p>
+
+<p>"Strange," commented Miss Helstone, "passing strange!
+What does this unwonted excitement about such an every-day
+occurrence as a return from market portend? She has
+not lost her senses, has she? Surely the burnt treacle has
+not crazed her?"</p>
+
+<p>She descended in a subdued flutter. Yet more was she
+fluttered when Hortense seized her hand at the parlour door,
+and leading her to Robert, who stood in bodily presence,
+tall and dark against the one window, presented her with
+a mixture of agitation and formality, as though they had
+been utter strangers, and this was their first mutual introduction.</p>
+
+<p>Increasing puzzle! He bowed rather awkwardly, and
+turning from her with a stranger's embarrassment, he met
+the doubtful light from the window. It fell on his face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>362<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and the enigma of the dream (a dream it seemed) was at
+its height. She saw a visage like and unlike&mdash;Robert, and
+no Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" said Caroline. "Is my sight
+wrong? Is it my cousin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly it is your cousin," asserted Hortense.</p>
+
+<p>Then who was this now coming through the passage&mdash;now
+entering the room? Caroline, looking round, met a
+new Robert&mdash;the real Robert, as she felt at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said he, smiling at her questioning, astonished
+face, "which is which?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, this is <em>you</em>!" was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "I believe it is <em>me</em>. And do you know
+who <em>he</em> is? You never saw him before, but you have
+heard of him."</p>
+
+<p>She had gathered her senses now.</p>
+
+<p>"It <em>can</em> be only one person&mdash;your brother, since it is
+so like you; my other cousin, Louis."</p>
+
+<p>"Clever little &OElig;dipus! you would have baffled the
+Sphinx! But now, see us together.&mdash;Change places; change
+again, to confuse her, Louis.&mdash;Which is the old love now,
+Lina?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if it were possible to make a mistake when you
+speak! You should have told Hortense to ask. But you
+are not so much alike. It is only your height, your figure,
+and complexion that are so similar."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am Robert, am I not?" asked the newcomer,
+making a first effort to overcome what seemed his natural
+shyness.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline shook her head gently. A soft, expressive ray
+from her eye beamed on the real Robert. It said much.</p>
+
+<p>She was not permitted to quit her cousins soon. Robert
+himself was peremptory in obliging her to remain. Glad,
+simple, and affable in her demeanour (glad for this night,
+at least), in light, bright spirits for the time, she was too
+pleasant an addition to the cottage circle to be willingly
+parted with by any of them. Louis seemed naturally rather
+a grave, still, retiring man; but the Caroline of this evening,
+which was not (as you know, reader) the Caroline of
+every day, thawed his reserve, and cheered his gravity
+soon. He sat near her and talked to her. She already
+knew his vocation was that of tuition. She learned now he
+had for some years been the tutor of Mr. Sympson's son;
+that he had been travelling with him, and had accompanied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>363<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+him to the north. She inquired if he liked his post, but
+got a look in reply which did not invite or license further
+question. The look woke Caroline's ready sympathy. She
+thought it a very sad expression to pass over so sensible a
+face as Louis's; for he <em>had</em> a sensible face, though not handsome,
+she considered, when seen near Robert's. She turned
+to make the comparison. Robert was leaning against the
+wall, a little behind her, turning over the leaves of a book
+of engravings, and probably listening, at the same time,
+to the dialogue between her and Louis.</p>
+
+<p>"How could I think them alike?" she asked herself.
+"I see now it is Hortense Louis resembles, not Robert."</p>
+
+<p>And this was in part true. He had the shorter nose and
+longer upper lip of his sister rather than the fine traits of
+his brother. He had her mould of mouth and chin&mdash;all
+less decisive, accurate, and clear than those of the young
+mill-owner. His air, though deliberate and reflective, could
+scarcely be called prompt and acute. You felt, in sitting
+near and looking up at him, that a slower and probably a
+more benignant nature than that of the elder Moore shed
+calm on your impressions.</p>
+
+<p>Robert&mdash;perhaps aware that Caroline's glance had wandered
+towards and dwelt upon him, though he had neither
+met nor answered it&mdash;put down the book of engravings,
+and approaching, took a seat at her side. She resumed
+her conversation with Louis, but while she talked to him
+her thoughts were elsewhere. Her heart beat on the side
+from which her face was half averted. She acknowledged
+a steady, manly, kindly air in Louis; but she bent before
+the secret power of Robert. To be so near him&mdash;though
+he was silent, though he did not touch so much as her scarf-fringe
+or the white hem of her dress&mdash;affected her like a
+spell. Had she been obliged to speak to him <em>only</em>, it would
+have quelled, but, at liberty to address another, it excited
+her. Her discourse flowed freely; it was gay, playful,
+eloquent. The indulgent look and placid manner of her
+auditor encouraged her to ease; the sober pleasure expressed
+by his smile drew out all that was brilliant in her nature.
+She felt that this evening she appeared to advantage, and
+as Robert was a spectator, the consciousness contented her.
+Had he been called away, collapse would at once have succeeded
+stimulus.</p>
+
+<p>But her enjoyment was not long to shine full-orbed; a
+cloud soon crossed it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>364<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Hortense, who for some time had been on the move
+ordering supper, and was now clearing the little table of
+some books, etc., to make room for the tray, called Robert's
+attention to the glass of flowers, the carmine and snow and
+gold of whose petals looked radiant indeed by candlelight.</p>
+
+<p>"They came from Fieldhead," she said, "intended as a
+gift to you, no doubt. We know who is the favourite
+there; not I, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>It was a wonder to hear Hortense jest&mdash;a sign that her
+spirits were at high-water mark indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"We are to understand, then, that Robert is the favourite?"
+observed Louis.</p>
+
+<p>"Mon cher," replied Hortense, "Robert&mdash;c'est tout ce
+qu'il y a de plus pr&eacute;cieux au monde; &agrave; c&ocirc;t&eacute; de lui le reste
+du genre humain n'est que du rebut.&mdash;N'ai-je pas raison,
+mon enfant?" she added, appealing to Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline was obliged to reply, "Yes," and her beacon
+was quenched. Her star withdrew as she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Et toi, Robert?" inquired Louis.</p>
+
+<p>"When you shall have an opportunity, ask herself," was
+the quiet answer. Whether he reddened or paled Caroline
+did not examine. She discovered that it was late, and she
+must go home. Home she would go; not even Robert
+could detain her now.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>365<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> future sometimes seems to sob a low warning of the
+events it is bringing us, like some gathering though yet
+remote storm, which, in tones of the wind, in flushings of
+the firmament, in clouds strangely torn, announces a blast
+strong to strew the sea with wrecks; or commissioned to
+bring in fog the yellow taint of pestilence covering white
+Western isles with the poisoned exhalations of the East,
+dimming the lattices of English homes with the breath of
+Indian plague. At other times this future bursts suddenly,
+as if a rock had rent, and in it a grave had opened, whence
+issues the body of one that slept. Ere you are aware
+you stand face to face with a shrouded and unthought-of
+calamity&mdash;a new Lazarus.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline Helstone went home from Hollow's Cottage in
+good health, as she imagined. On waking the next morning
+she felt oppressed with unwonted languor. At breakfast,
+at each meal of the following day, she missed all sense
+of appetite. Palatable food was as ashes and sawdust to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I ill?" she asked, and looked at herself in the
+glass. Her eyes were bright, their pupils dilated, her cheeks
+seemed rosier, and fuller than usual. "I look well; why
+can I not eat?"</p>
+
+<p>She felt a pulse beat fast in her temples; she felt, too,
+her brain in strange activity. Her spirits were raised;
+hundreds of busy and broken but brilliant thoughts engaged
+her mind. A glow rested on them, such as tinged her
+complexion.</p>
+
+<p>Now followed a hot, parched, thirsty, restless night.
+Towards morning one terrible dream seized her like a tiger;
+when she woke, she felt and knew she was ill.</p>
+
+<p>How she had caught the fever (fever it was) she could
+not tell. Probably in her late walk home, some sweet,
+poisoned breeze, redolent of honey-dew and miasma, had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>366<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+passed into her lungs and veins, and finding there already a
+fever of mental excitement, and a languor of long conflict
+and habitual sadness, had fanned the spark to flame, and
+left a well-lit fire behind it.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed, however, but a gentle fire. After two hot
+days and worried nights, there was no violence in the
+symptoms, and neither her uncle, nor Fanny, nor the doctor,
+nor Miss Keeldar, when she called, had any fear for her.
+A few days would restore her, every one believed.</p>
+
+<p>The few days passed, and&mdash;though it was still thought
+it could not long delay&mdash;the revival had not begun. Mrs.
+Pryor, who had visited her daily&mdash;being present in her
+chamber one morning when she had been ill a fortnight&mdash;watched
+her very narrowly for some minutes. She took
+her hand and placed her finger on her wrist; then, quietly
+leaving the chamber, she went to Mr. Helstone's study.
+With him she remained closeted a long time&mdash;half the
+morning. On returning to her sick young friend, she laid
+aside shawl and bonnet. She stood awhile at the bedside,
+one hand placed in the other, gently rocking herself to and
+fro, in an attitude and with a movement habitual to her.
+At last she said, "I have sent Fanny to Fieldhead to fetch
+a few things for me, such as I shall want during a short stay
+here. It is my wish to remain with you till you are better.
+Your uncle kindly permits my attendance. Will it to yourself
+be acceptable, Caroline?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry you should take such needless trouble. I
+do not feel very ill, but I cannot refuse resolutely. It will
+be such comfort to know you are in the house, to see you
+sometimes in the room; but don't confine yourself on my
+account, dear Mrs. Pryor. Fanny nurses me very well."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor, bending over the pale little sufferer, was now
+smoothing the hair under her cap, and gently raising her
+pillow. As she performed these offices, Caroline, smiling,
+lifted her face to kiss her.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you free from pain? Are you tolerably at ease?"
+was inquired in a low, earnest voice, as the self-elected nurse
+yielded to the caress.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I am almost happy."</p>
+
+<p>"You wish to drink? Your lips are parched."</p>
+
+<p>She held a glass filled with some cooling beverage to her
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you eaten anything to-day, Caroline?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot eat."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>367<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"But soon your appetite will return; it <em>must</em> return&mdash;that
+is, I pray God it may."</p>
+
+<p>In laying her again on the couch, she encircled her in her
+arms; and while so doing, by a movement which seemed
+scarcely voluntary, she drew her to her heart, and held her
+close gathered an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall hardly wish to get well, that I may keep you
+always," said Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor did not smile at this speech. Over her features
+ran a tremor, which for some minutes she was absorbed
+in repressing.</p>
+
+<p>"You are more used to Fanny than to me," she remarked
+ere long. "I should think my attendance must seem
+strange, officious?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; quite natural, and very soothing. You must
+have been accustomed to wait on sick people, ma'am.
+You move about the room so softly, and you speak so
+quietly, and touch me so gently."</p>
+
+<p>"I am dexterous in nothing, my dear. You will often
+find me awkward, but never negligent."</p>
+
+<p>Negligent, indeed, she was not. From that hour Fanny
+and Eliza became ciphers in the sick-room. Mrs. Pryor
+made it her domain; she performed all its duties; she lived
+in it day and night. The patient remonstrated&mdash;faintly,
+however, from the first, and not at all ere long. Loneliness
+and gloom were now banished from her bedside; protection
+and solace sat there instead. She and her nurse coalesced
+in wondrous union. Caroline was usually pained to require
+or receive much attendance. Mrs. Pryor, under ordinary
+circumstances, had neither the habit nor the art of performing
+little offices of service; but all now passed with
+such ease, so naturally, that the patient was as willing to
+be cherished as the nurse was bent on cherishing; no sign
+of weariness in the latter ever reminded the former that
+she ought to be anxious. There was, in fact, no very hard
+duty to perform; but a hireling might have found it hard.</p>
+
+<p>With all this care it seemed strange the sick girl did not
+get well; yet such was the case. She wasted like any
+snow-wreath in thaw; she faded like any flower in drought.
+Miss Keeldar, on whose thoughts danger or death seldom
+intruded, had at first entertained no fears at all for her
+friend; but seeing her change and sink from time to time
+when she paid her visits, alarm clutched her heart. She
+went to Mr. Helstone and expressed herself with so much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>368<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+energy that that gentleman was at last obliged, however
+unwillingly, to admit the idea that his niece was ill of something
+more than a migraine; and when Mrs. Pryor came
+and quietly demanded a physician, he said she might send
+for two if she liked. One came, but that one was an oracle.
+He delivered a dark saying of which the future was to
+solve the mystery, wrote some prescriptions, gave some
+directions&mdash;the whole with an air of crushing authority&mdash;pocketed
+his fee, and went. Probably he knew well enough
+he could do no good, but didn't like to say so.</p>
+
+<p>Still, no rumour of serious illness got wind in the neighbourhood.
+At Hollow's Cottage it was thought that Caroline
+had only a severe cold, she having written a note to
+Hortense to that effect; and mademoiselle contented herself
+with sending two pots of currant jam, a recipe for a
+tisane, and a note of advice.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Yorke being told that a physician had been summoned,
+sneered at the hypochondriac fancies of the rich
+and idle, who, she said, having nothing but themselves to
+think about, must needs send for a doctor if only so much
+as their little finger ached.</p>
+
+<p>The "rich and idle," represented in the person of Caroline,
+were meantime falling fast into a condition of prostration,
+whose quickly consummated debility puzzled all who
+witnessed it except one; for that one alone reflected how
+liable is the undermined structure to sink in sudden ruin.</p>
+
+<p>Sick people often have fancies inscrutable to ordinary
+attendants, and Caroline had one which even her tender
+nurse could not at first explain. On a certain day in the
+week, at a certain hour, she would&mdash;whether worse or better&mdash;entreat
+to be taken up and dressed, and suffered to sit
+in her chair near the window. This station she would retain
+till noon was past. Whatever degree of exhaustion or
+debility her wan aspect betrayed, she still softly put off
+all persuasion to seek repose until the church clock had
+duly tolled midday. The twelve strokes sounded, she grew
+docile, and would meekly lie down. Returned to the couch,
+she usually buried her face deep in the pillow, and drew the
+coverlets close round her, as if to shut out the world and
+sun, of which she was tired. More than once, as she thus
+lay, a slight convulsion shook the sick-bed, and a faint sob
+broke the silence round it. These things were not unnoted
+by Mrs. Pryor.</p>
+
+<p>One Tuesday morning, as usual, she had asked leave to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>369<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+rise, and now she sat wrapped in her white dressing-gown,
+leaning forward in the easy-chair, gazing steadily and
+patiently from the lattice. Mrs. Pryor was seated a little
+behind, knitting as it seemed, but, in truth, watching her.
+A change crossed her pale, mournful brow, animating its
+languor; a light shot into her faded eyes, reviving their
+lustre; she half rose and looked earnestly out. Mrs. Pryor,
+drawing softly near, glanced over her shoulder. From this
+window was visible the churchyard, beyond it the road;
+and there, riding sharply by, appeared a horseman. The
+figure was not yet too remote for recognition. Mrs. Pryor
+had long sight; she knew Mr. Moore. Just as an intercepting
+rising ground concealed him from view, the clock
+struck twelve.</p>
+
+<p>"May I lie down again?" asked Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>Her nurse assisted her to bed. Having laid her down
+and drawn the curtain, she stood listening near. The little
+couch trembled, the suppressed sob stirred the air. A contraction
+as of anguish altered Mrs. Pryor's features; she
+wrung her hands; half a groan escaped her lips. She now
+remembered that Tuesday was Whinbury market day. Mr.
+Moore must always pass the rectory on his way thither,
+just ere noon of that day.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline wore continually round her neck a slender braid
+of silk, attached to which was some trinket. Mrs. Pryor
+had seen the bit of gold glisten, but had not yet obtained
+a fair view of it. Her patient never parted with it. When
+dressed it was hidden in her bosom; as she lay in bed she
+always held it in her hand. That Tuesday afternoon the
+transient doze&mdash;more like lethargy than sleep&mdash;which sometimes
+abridged the long days, had stolen over her. The
+weather was hot. While turning in febrile restlessness, she
+had pushed the coverlets a little aside. Mrs. Pryor bent
+to replace them. The small, wasted hand, lying nerveless
+on the sick girl's breast, clasped as usual her jealously-guarded
+treasure. Those fingers whose attenuation it gave
+pain to see were now relaxed in sleep. Mrs. Pryor gently
+disengaged the braid, drawing out a tiny locket&mdash;a slight
+thing it was, such as it suited her small purse to purchase.
+Under its crystal face appeared a curl of black hair, too
+short and crisp to have been severed from a female head.</p>
+
+<p>Some agitated movement occasioned a twitch of the
+silken chain. The sleeper started and woke. Her thoughts
+were usually now somewhat scattered on waking, her look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>370<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+generally wandering. Half rising, as if in terror, she exclaimed,
+"Don't take it from me, Robert! Don't! It is
+my last comfort; let me keep it. I never tell any one
+whose hair it is; I never show it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor had already disappeared behind the curtain.
+Reclining far back in a deep arm-chair by the bedside, she
+was withdrawn from view. Caroline looked abroad into
+the chamber; she thought it empty. As her stray ideas
+returned slowly, each folding its weak wings on the mind's
+sad shore, like birds exhausted, beholding void, and perceiving
+silence round her, she believed herself alone. Collected
+she was not yet; perhaps healthy self-possession and
+self-control were to be hers no more; perhaps that world
+the strong and prosperous live in had already rolled from
+beneath her feet for ever. So, at least, it often seemed to
+herself. In health she had never been accustomed to think
+aloud, but now words escaped her lips unawares.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I <em>should</em> see him once more before all is over!
+Heaven <em>might</em> favour me thus far!" she cried. "God
+grant me a little comfort before I die!" was her humble
+petition.</p>
+
+<p>"But he will not know I am ill till I am gone, and he
+will come when they have laid me out, and I am senseless,
+cold, and stiff.</p>
+
+<p>"What can my departed soul feel then? Can it see or
+know what happens to the clay? Can spirits, through any
+medium, communicate with living flesh? Can the dead
+at all revisit those they leave? Can they come in the
+elements? Will wind, water, fire, lend me a path to Moore?</p>
+
+<p>"Is it for nothing the wind sounds almost articulately
+sometimes&mdash;sings as I have lately heard it sing at night&mdash;or
+passes the casement sobbing, as if for sorrow to come?
+Does nothing, then, haunt it, nothing inspire it?</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it suggested to me words one night; it poured
+a strain which I could have written down, only I was appalled,
+and dared not rise to seek pencil and paper by the
+dim watch-light.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that electricity they speak of, whose changes
+make us well or ill, whose lack or excess blasts, whose even
+balance revives? What are all those influences that are
+about us in the atmosphere, that keep playing over our
+nerves like fingers on stringed instruments, and call forth
+now a sweet note, and now a wail&mdash;now an exultant swell,
+and anon the saddest cadence?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>371<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"<em>Where is</em> the other world? In <em>what</em> will another life
+consist? Why do I ask? Have I not cause to think that
+the hour is hasting but too fast when the veil must be rent
+for me? Do I not know the Grand Mystery is likely to
+burst prematurely on me? Great Spirit, in whose goodness
+I confide, whom, as my Father, I have petitioned night and
+morning from early infancy, help the weak creation of Thy
+hands! Sustain me through the ordeal I dread and must
+undergo! Give me strength! Give me patience! Give
+me&mdash;oh, <em>give me</em> <span class="smcap">faith</span>!"</p>
+
+<p>She fell back on her pillow. Mrs. Pryor found means to
+steal quietly from the room. She re-entered it soon after,
+apparently as composed as if she had really not overheard
+this strange soliloquy.</p>
+
+<p>The next day several callers came. It had become known
+that Miss Helstone was worse. Mr. Hall and his sister
+Margaret arrived. Both, after they had been in the sickroom,
+quitted it in tears; they had found the patient more
+altered than they expected. Hortense Moore came. Caroline
+seemed stimulated by her presence. She assured her,
+smiling, she was not dangerously ill; she talked to her in
+a low voice, but cheerfully. During her stay, excitement
+kept up the flush of her complexion; she looked better.</p>
+
+<p>"How is Mr. Robert?" asked Mrs. Pryor, as Hortense
+was preparing to take leave.</p>
+
+<p>"He was very well when he left."</p>
+
+<p>"Left! Is he gone from home?"</p>
+
+<p>It was then explained that some police intelligence about
+the rioters of whom he was in pursuit had, that morning,
+called him away to Birmingham, and probably a fortnight
+might elapse ere he returned.</p>
+
+<p>"He is not aware that Miss Helstone is very ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no! He thought, like me, that she had only a bad
+cold."</p>
+
+<p>After this visit, Mrs. Pryor took care not to approach
+Caroline's couch for above an hour. She heard her weep,
+and dared not look on her tears.</p>
+
+<p>As evening closed in, she brought her some tea. Caroline,
+opening her eyes from a moment's slumber, viewed her
+nurse with an unrecognizing glance.</p>
+
+<p>"I smelt the honeysuckles in the glen this summer morning,"
+she said, "as I stood at the counting-house window."</p>
+
+<p>Strange words like these from pallid lips pierce a loving
+listener's heart more poignantly than steel. They sound<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>372<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+romantic, perhaps, in books; in real life they are harrowing.</p>
+
+<p>"My darling, do you know me?" said Mrs. Pryor.</p>
+
+<p>"I went in to call Robert to breakfast. I have been
+with him in the garden. He asked me to go. A heavy dew
+has refreshed the flowers. The peaches are ripening."</p>
+
+<p>"My darling! my darling!" again and again repeated
+the nurse.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it was daylight&mdash;long after sunrise. It looks
+dark. Is the moon now set?"</p>
+
+<p>That moon, lately risen, was gazing full and mild upon
+her. Floating in deep blue space, it watched her unclouded.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is not morning? I am not at the cottage?
+Who is this? I see a shape at my bedside."</p>
+
+<p>"It is myself&mdash;it is your friend&mdash;your nurse&mdash;your&mdash;&mdash; Lean
+your head on my shoulder. Collect yourself." In a
+lower tone&mdash;"O God, take pity! Give <em>her</em> life, and <em>me</em>
+strength! Send me courage! Teach me words!"</p>
+
+<p>Some minutes passed in silence. The patient lay mute
+and passive in the trembling arms, on the throbbing bosom
+of the nurse.</p>
+
+<p>"I am better now," whispered Caroline at last, "much
+better. I feel where I am. This is Mrs. Pryor near me.
+I was dreaming. I talk when I wake up from dreams;
+people often do in illness. How fast your heart beats,
+ma'am! Do not be afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not fear, child&mdash;only a little anxiety, which will
+pass. I have brought you some tea, Cary. Your uncle
+made it himself. You know he says he can make a better
+cup of tea than any housewife can. Taste it. He is concerned
+to hear that you eat so little; he would be glad
+if you had a better appetite."</p>
+
+<p>"I am thirsty. Let me drink."</p>
+
+<p>She drank eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"What o'clock is it, ma'am?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Past nine."</p>
+
+<p>"Not later? Oh! I have yet a long night before me.
+But the tea has made me strong. I will sit up."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor raised her, and arranged her pillows.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank Heaven! I am not always equally miserable,
+and ill, and hopeless. The afternoon has been bad since
+Hortense went; perhaps the evening may be better. It is
+a fine night, I think? The moon shines clear."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>373<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Very fine&mdash;a perfect summer night. The old church-tower
+gleams white almost as silver."</p>
+
+<p>"And does the churchyard look peaceful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and the garden also. Dew glistens on the foliage."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you see many long weeds and nettles amongst the
+graves? or do they look turfy and flowery?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see closed daisy-heads gleaming like pearls on some
+mounds. Thomas has mown down the dock-leaves and
+rank grass, and cleared all away."</p>
+
+<p>"I always like that to be done; it soothes one's mind
+to see the place in order. And, I dare say, within the church
+just now that moonlight shines as softly as in my room.
+It will fall through the east window full on the Helstone
+monument. When I close my eyes I seem to see poor
+papa's epitaph in black letters on the white marble. There
+is plenty of room for other inscriptions underneath."</p>
+
+<p>"William Farren came to look after your flowers this
+morning. He was afraid, now you cannot tend them yourself,
+they would be neglected. He has taken two of your
+favourite plants home to nurse for you."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were to make a will, I would leave William all my
+plants; Shirley my trinkets&mdash;except one, which must not
+be taken off my neck; and you, ma'am, my books." After
+a pause&mdash;"Mrs. Pryor, I feel a longing wish for something."</p>
+
+<p>"For what, Caroline?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know I always delight to hear you sing. Sing
+me a hymn just now. Sing that hymn which begins,&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">'Our God, our help in ages past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our hope for years to come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Our shelter from the stormy blast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our refuge, haven, home!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor at once complied.</p>
+
+<p>No wonder Caroline liked to hear her sing. Her voice,
+even in speaking, was sweet and silver clear; in song it
+was almost divine. Neither flute nor dulcimer has tones
+so pure. But the tone was secondary, compared to the
+expression which trembled through&mdash;a tender vibration from
+a feeling heart.</p>
+
+<p>The servants in the kitchen, hearing the strain, stole to
+the stair-foot to listen. Even old Helstone, as he walked
+in the garden, pondering over the unaccountable and feeble
+nature of women, stood still amongst his borders to catch
+the mournful melody more distinctly. Why it reminded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>374<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+him of his forgotten dead wife, he could not tell; nor why
+it made him more concerned than he had hitherto been for
+Caroline's fading girlhood. He was glad to recollect that
+he had promised to pay Wynne, the magistrate, a visit that
+evening. Low spirits and gloomy thoughts were very much
+his aversion. When they attacked him he usually found
+means to make them march in double-quick time. The
+hymn followed him faintly as he crossed the fields. He
+hastened his customary sharp pace, that he might get beyond
+its reach.</p>
+
+<div class="block2">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Thy word commands our flesh to dust,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">'Return, ye sons of men;'<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All nations rose from earth at first,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And turn to earth again.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"A thousand ages in Thy sight<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Are like an evening gone&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Short as the watch that ends the night<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Before the rising sun.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Time, like an ever-rolling stream,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bears all its sons away;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They fly, forgotten, as a dream<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Dies at the opening day.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Like flowery fields, the nations stand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Fresh in the morning light;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The flowers beneath the mower's hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lie withering ere 'tis night.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Our God, our help in ages past,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our hope for years to come,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be Thou our guard while troubles last&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O Father, be our home!"<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>"Now sing a song&mdash;a Scottish song," suggested Caroline,
+when the hymn was over&mdash;"'Ye banks and braes o' bonnie
+Doon.'"</p>
+
+<p>Again Mrs. Pryor obeyed, or essayed to obey. At the
+close of the first stanza she stopped. She could get no
+further. Her full heart flowed over.</p>
+
+<p>"You are weeping at the pathos of the air. Come here,
+and I will comfort you," said Caroline, in a pitying accent.
+Mrs. Pryor came. She sat down on the edge of her patient's
+bed, and allowed the wasted arms to encircle her.</p>
+
+<p>"You often soothe me; let me soothe you," murmured
+the young girl, kissing her cheek. "I hope," she added,
+"it is not for me you weep?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>375<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>No answer followed.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I shall not get better? I do not feel
+<em>very</em> ill&mdash;only weak."</p>
+
+<p>"But your mind, Caroline&mdash;your mind is crushed. Your
+heart is almost broken; you have been so neglected, so
+repulsed, left so desolate."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe grief is, and always has been, my worst ailment.
+I sometimes think if an abundant gush of happiness came
+on me I could revive yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wish to live?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no object in life."</p>
+
+<p>"You love me, Caroline?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much&mdash;very truly&mdash;inexpressibly sometimes. Just
+now I feel as if I could almost grow to your heart."</p>
+
+<p>"I will return directly, dear," remarked Mrs. Pryor, as
+she laid Caroline down.</p>
+
+<p>Quitting her, she glided to the door, softly turned the key
+in the lock, ascertained that it was fast, and came back.
+She bent over her. She threw back the curtain to admit the
+moonlight more freely. She gazed intently on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if you love me," said she, speaking quickly, with
+an altered voice; "if you feel as if, to use your own words,
+you could 'grow to my heart,' it will be neither shock nor
+pain for you to know that <em>that</em> heart is the source whence
+yours was filled; that from <em>my</em> veins issued the tide which
+flows in <em>yours</em>; that you are <em>mine</em>&mdash;my daughter&mdash;my own
+child."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Pryor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My own child!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is&mdash;that means&mdash;you have adopted me?"</p>
+
+<p>"It means that, if I have given you nothing else, I at
+least gave you life; that I bore you, nursed you; that I
+am your true mother. No other woman can claim the
+title; it is <em>mine</em>."</p>
+
+<p>"But Mrs. James Helstone&mdash;but my father's wife, whom
+I do not remember ever to have seen, she is my mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"She <em>is</em> your mother. James Helstone was <em>my</em> husband.
+I say you are <em>mine</em>. I have proved it. I thought perhaps
+you were all his, which would have been a cruel dispensation
+for me. I find it is <em>not</em> so. God permitted me to be the
+parent of my child's mind. It belongs to me; it is my
+property&mdash;my <em>right</em>. These features are James's own. He
+had a fine face when he was young, and not altered by error.
+Papa, my darling, gave you your blue eyes and soft brown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>376<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+hair; he gave you the oval of your face and the regularity
+of your lineaments&mdash;the outside <em>he</em> conferred; but the
+heart and the brain are <em>mine</em>. The germs are from <em>me</em>,
+and they are improved, they are developed to excellence. I
+esteem and approve my child as highly as I do most fondly
+love her."</p>
+
+<p>"Is what I hear true? Is it no dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish it were as true that the substance and colour
+of health were restored to your cheek."</p>
+
+<p>"My own mother! is she one I can be so fond of as I
+can of you? People generally did not like her&mdash;so I have
+been given to understand."</p>
+
+<p>"They told you that? Well, your mother now tells
+you that, not having the gift to please people generally,
+for their approbation she does not care. Her thoughts are
+centred in her child. Does that child welcome or reject
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"But if you <em>are</em> my mother, the world is all changed to
+me. Surely I can live. I should like to recover&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You <em>must</em> recover. You drew life and strength from
+my breast when you were a tiny, fair infant, over whose
+blue eyes I used to weep, fearing I beheld in your very
+beauty the sign of qualities that had entered my heart like
+iron, and pierced through my soul like a sword. Daughter!
+we have been long parted; I return now to cherish you
+again."</p>
+
+<p>She held her to her bosom; she cradled her in her arms;
+she rocked her softly, as if lulling a young child to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother&mdash;my own mother!"</p>
+
+<p>The offspring nestled to the parent; that parent, feeling
+the endearment and hearing the appeal, gathered her closer
+still. She covered her with noiseless kisses; she murmured
+love over her, like a cushat fostering its young.</p>
+
+<p>There was silence in the room for a long while.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"Does my uncle know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your uncle knows. I told him when I first came to
+stay with you here."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you recognize me when we first met at Fieldhead?"</p>
+
+<p>"How could it be otherwise? Mr. and Miss Helstone
+being announced, I was prepared to see my child."</p>
+
+<p>"It was that, then, which moved you. I saw you disturbed."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw nothing, Caroline; I can cover my feelings.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>377<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+You can never tell what an age of strange sensation I
+lived, during the two minutes that elapsed between the
+report of your name and your entrance. You can never
+tell how your look, mien, carriage, shook me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Were you disappointed?"</p>
+
+<p>"What will she be like? I had asked myself; and
+when I saw what you were like, I could have dropped."</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I trembled in your presence. I said, I will never own
+her; she shall never know me."</p>
+
+<p>"But I said and did nothing remarkable. I felt a little
+diffident at the thought of an introduction to strangers&mdash;that
+was all."</p>
+
+<p>"I soon saw you were diffident. That was the first
+thing which reassured me. Had you been rustic, clownish,
+awkward, I should have been content."</p>
+
+<p>"You puzzle me."</p>
+
+<p>"I had reason to dread a fair outside, to mistrust a
+popular bearing, to shudder before distinction, grace, and
+courtesy. Beauty and affability had come in my way
+when I was recluse, desolate, young, and ignorant&mdash;a toil-worn
+governess perishing of uncheered labour, breaking
+down before her time. These, Caroline, when they smiled
+on me, I mistook for angels. I followed them home; and
+when into their hands I had given without reserve my whole
+chance of future happiness, it was my lot to witness a transfiguration
+on the domestic hearth&mdash;to see the white mask
+lifted, the bright disguise put away, and opposite me sat
+down&mdash;&mdash; O God, I <em>have</em> suffered!"</p>
+
+<p>She sank on the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>have</em> suffered! None saw&mdash;none knew. There was
+no sympathy, no redemption, no redress!"</p>
+
+<p>"Take comfort, mother. It is over now."</p>
+
+<p>"It is over, and not fruitlessly. I tried to keep the word
+of His patience. He kept me in the days of my anguish.
+I was afraid with terror&mdash;I was troubled. Through great
+tribulation He brought me through to a salvation revealed
+in this last time. My fear had torment; He has cast it
+out. He has given me in its stead perfect love. But,
+Caroline&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Thus she invoked her daughter after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>"I charge you, when you next look on your father's monument,
+to respect the name chiselled there. To you he did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>378<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+only good. On you he conferred his whole treasure of
+beauties, nor added to them one dark defect. All <em>you</em>
+derived from him is excellent. You owe him gratitude.
+Leave, between him and me, the settlement of our mutual
+account. Meddle not. God is the arbiter. This world's
+laws never came near us&mdash;never! They were powerless
+as a rotten bulrush to protect me&mdash;impotent as idiot babblings
+to restrain him! As you said, it is all over now;
+the grave lies between us. There he sleeps, in that church.
+To his dust I say this night, what I have never said before,
+'James, slumber peacefully! See! your terrible debt is
+cancelled! Look! I wipe out the long, black account
+with my own hand! James, your child atones. This living
+likeness of you&mdash;this thing with your perfect features&mdash;this
+one good gift you gave me has nestled affectionately
+to my heart, and tenderly called me "mother." Husband,
+rest forgiven!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest mother, that is right! Can papa's spirit hear
+us? Is he comforted to know that we still love him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said nothing of love. I spoke of forgiveness. Mind
+the truth, child; I said nothing of love! On the threshold
+of eternity, should he be there to see me enter, will I maintain
+that."</p>
+
+<p>"O mother, you must have suffered!"</p>
+
+<p>"O child, the human heart <em>can</em> suffer! It can hold
+more tears than the ocean holds waters. We never know
+how deep, how wide it is, till misery begins to unbind her
+clouds, and fill it with rushing blackness."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, forget."</p>
+
+<p>"Forget!" she said, with the strangest spectre of a
+laugh. "The north pole will rush to the south, and the
+headlands of Europe be locked into the bays of Australia
+ere I forget."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, mother! Rest! Be at peace!"</p>
+
+<p>And the child lulled the parent, as the parent had erst
+lulled the child. At last Mrs. Pryor wept. She then grew
+calmer. She resumed those tender cares agitation had
+for a moment suspended. Replacing her daughter on the
+couch, she smoothed the pillow and spread the sheet. The
+soft hair whose locks were loosened she rearranged, the
+damp brow she refreshed with a cool, fragrant essence.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, let them bring a candle, that I may see you;
+and tell my uncle to come into this room by-and-by. I
+want to hear him say that I am your daughter. And,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>379<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+mamma, take your supper here. Don't leave me for one
+minute to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"O Caroline, it is well you are gentle! You will say
+to me, Go, and I shall go; Come, and I shall come; Do
+this, and I shall do it. You inherit a certain manner as
+well as certain features. It will always be 'mamma'
+prefacing a mandate&mdash;softly spoken, though, from you, thank
+God! Well," she added, under her breath, "he spoke softly
+too, once, like a flute breathing tenderness; and then, when
+the world was not by to listen, discords that split the nerves
+and curdled the blood&mdash;sounds to inspire insanity."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems so natural, mamma, to ask you for this and
+that. I shall want nobody but you to be near me, or to
+do anything for me. But do not let me be troublesome.
+Check me if I encroach."</p>
+
+<p>"You must not depend on me to check you; you must
+keep guard over yourself. I have little moral courage;
+the want of it is my bane. It is that which has made me
+an unnatural parent&mdash;which has kept me apart from my
+child during the ten years which have elapsed since my
+husband's death left me at liberty to claim her. It was
+that which first unnerved my arms and permitted the
+infant I might have retained a while longer to be snatched
+prematurely from their embrace."</p>
+
+<p>"How, mamma?"</p>
+
+<p>"I let you go as a babe, because you were pretty, and
+I feared your loveliness, deeming it the stamp of perversity.
+They sent me your portrait, taken at eight years
+old; that portrait confirmed my fears. Had it shown
+me a sunburnt little rustic&mdash;a heavy, blunt-featured,
+commonplace child&mdash;I should have hastened to claim you;
+but there, under the silver paper, I saw blooming the
+delicacy of an aristocratic flower&mdash;'little lady' was written
+on every trait. I had too recently crawled from under the
+yoke of the fine gentleman&mdash;escaped galled, crushed,
+paralyzed, dying&mdash;to dare to encounter his still finer and
+most fairy-like representative. My sweet little lady overwhelmed
+me with dismay; her air of native elegance froze
+my very marrow. In my experience I had not met with
+truth, modesty, good principle as the concomitants of beauty.
+A form so straight and fine, I argued, must conceal a mind
+warped and cruel. I had little faith in the power of education
+to rectify such a mind; or rather, I entirely misdoubted
+my own ability to influence it. Caroline, I dared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>380<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+not undertake to rear you. I resolved to leave you in your
+uncle's hands. Matthewson Helstone I knew, if an austere,
+was an upright man. He and all the world thought hardly
+of me for my strange, unmotherly resolve, and I deserved
+to be misjudged."</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, why did you call yourself Mrs. Pryor?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was a name in my mother's family. I adopted it
+that I might live unmolested. My married name recalled
+too vividly my married life; I could not bear it. Besides,
+threats were uttered of forcing me to return to bondage.
+It could not be. Rather a bier for a bed, the grave for a
+home. My new name sheltered me. I resumed under its
+screen my old <a name="occupation" id="occupation"></a><ins title="was accupation">occupation</ins> of teaching. At first it scarcely
+procured me the means of sustaining life; but how savoury
+was hunger when I fasted in peace! How safe seemed
+the darkness and chill of an unkindled hearth when no
+lurid reflection from terror crimsoned its desolation! How
+serene was solitude, when I feared not the irruption of
+violence and vice!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, mamma, you have been in this neighbourhood
+before. How did it happen that when you reappeared
+here with Miss Keeldar you were not recognized?"</p>
+
+<p>"I only paid a short visit, as a bride, twenty years ago,
+and then I was very different to what I am now&mdash;slender,
+almost as slender as my daughter is at this day. My complexion,
+my very features are changed; my hair, my style
+of dress&mdash;everything is altered. You cannot fancy me a
+slim young person, attired in scanty drapery of white
+muslin, with bare arms, bracelets and necklace of beads,
+and hair disposed in round Grecian curls above my forehead?"</p>
+
+<p>"You must, indeed, have been different. Mamma, I
+heard the front door open. If it is my uncle coming in,
+just ask him to step upstairs, and let me hear his assurance
+that I am truly awake and collected, and not dreaming
+or delirious."</p>
+
+<p>The rector, of his own accord, was mounting the stairs,
+and Mrs. Pryor summoned him to his niece's apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"She's not worse, I hope?" he inquired hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"I think her better. She is disposed to converse; she
+seems stronger."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said he, brushing quickly into the room.&mdash;"Ha,
+Cary! how do? Did you drink my cup of tea?
+I made it for you just as I like it myself."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>381<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I drank it every drop, uncle. It did me good; it has
+made me quite alive. I have a wish for company, so I
+begged Mrs. Pryor to call you in."</p>
+
+<p>The respected ecclesiastic looked pleased, and yet embarrassed.
+He was willing enough to bestow his company
+on his sick niece for ten minutes, since it was her whim to
+wish it; but what means to employ for her entertainment
+he knew not. He hemmed&mdash;he fidgeted.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be up in a trice," he observed, by way of saying
+something. "The little weakness will soon pass off; and
+then you must drink port wine&mdash;a pipe, if you can&mdash;and
+eat game and oysters. I'll get them for you, if they are
+to be had anywhere. Bless me! we'll make you as strong
+as Samson before we're done with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that lady, uncle, standing beside you at the
+bed-foot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" he ejaculated. "She's not wandering,
+is she, ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"I am wandering in a pleasant world," said Caroline,
+in a soft, happy voice, "and I want you to tell me whether
+it is real or visionary. What lady is that? Give her a
+name, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"We must have Dr. Rile again, ma'am; or better still,
+MacTurk. He's less of a humbug. Thomas must saddle
+the pony and go for him."</p>
+
+<p>"No; I don't want a doctor. Mamma shall be my
+only physician. Now, do you understand, uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Helstone pushed up his spectacles from his nose to
+his forehead, handled his snuff-box, and administered to
+himself a portion of the contents. Thus fortified, he
+answered briefly, "I see daylight. You've told her then,
+ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>"And is it <em>true</em>?" demanded Caroline, rising on her
+pillow. "Is she <em>really</em> my mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"You won't cry, or make any scene, or turn hysterical,
+if I answer Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cry! I'd cry if you said <em>No</em>. It would be terrible
+to be disappointed now. But give her a name. How do
+you call her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I call this stout lady in a quaint black dress, who looks
+young enough to wear much smarter raiment, if she would&mdash;I
+call her Agnes Helstone. She married my brother
+James, and is his widow."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>382<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"And my mother?"</p>
+
+<p>"What a little sceptic it is! Look at her small face,
+Mrs. Pryor, scarcely larger than the palm of my hand, alive
+with acuteness and eagerness." To Caroline&mdash;"She had
+the trouble of bringing you into the world at any rate.
+Mind you show your duty to her by quickly getting well,
+and repairing the waste of these cheeks.&mdash;Heigh-ho! she
+used to be plump. What she has done with it all I can't,
+for the life of me, divine."</p>
+
+<p>"If <em>wishing</em> to get well will help me, I shall not be long
+sick. This morning I had no reason and no strength to
+wish it."</p>
+
+<p>Fanny here tapped at the door, and said that supper was
+ready.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle, if you please, you may send me a little bit of
+supper&mdash;anything you like, from your own plate. That
+is wiser than going into hysterics, is it not?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is spoken like a sage, Cary. See if I don't cater for
+you judiciously. When women are sensible, and, above
+all, intelligible, I can get on with them. It is only the
+vague, superfine sensations, and extremely wire-drawn
+notions, that put me about. Let a woman ask me to give
+her an edible or a wearable&mdash;be the same a roc's egg or the
+breastplate of Aaron, a share of St. John's locusts and
+honey or the leathern girdle about his loins&mdash;I can, at least,
+understand the demand; but when they pine for they
+know not what&mdash;sympathy, sentiment, some of these
+indefinite abstractions&mdash;I can't do it; I don't know it;
+I haven't got it.&mdash;Madam, accept my arm."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor signified that she should stay with her daughter
+that evening. Helstone, accordingly, left them together.
+He soon returned, bringing a plate in his own consecrated
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"This is chicken," he said, "but we'll have partridge to-morrow.&mdash;Lift
+her up, and put a shawl over her. On my
+word, I understand nursing.&mdash;Now, here is the very same
+little silver fork you used when you first came to the rectory.
+That strikes me as being what you may call a happy thought&mdash;a
+delicate attention. Take it, Cary, and munch away
+cleverly."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline did her best. Her uncle frowned to see that
+her powers were so limited. He prophesied, however, great
+things for the future; and as she praised the morsel he had
+brought, and smiled gratefully in his face, he stooped over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>383<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+her pillow, kissed her, and said, with a broken, rugged
+accent, "Good-night, bairnie! God bless thee!"</p>
+
+<p>Caroline enjoyed such peaceful rest that night, circled
+by her mother's arms, and pillowed on her breast, that she
+forgot to wish for any other stay; and though more than
+one feverish dream came to her in slumber, yet, when she
+woke up panting, so happy and contented a feeling returned
+with returning consciousness that her agitation was soothed
+almost as soon as felt.</p>
+
+<p>As to the mother, she spent the night like Jacob at Peniel.
+Till break of day she wrestled with God in earnest prayer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>384<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE WEST WIND BLOWS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Not</span> always do those who dare such divine conflict prevail.
+Night after night the sweat of agony may burst dark on the
+forehead; the supplicant may cry for mercy with that
+soundless voice the soul utters when its appeal is to the
+Invisible. "Spare my beloved," it may implore. "Heal
+my life's life. Rend not from me what long affection
+entwines with my whole nature. God of heaven, bend,
+hear, be clement!" And after this cry and strife the sun
+may rise and see him worsted. That opening morn, which
+used to salute him with the whisper of zephyrs, the carol
+of skylarks, may breathe, as its first accents, from the dear
+lips which colour and heat have quitted, "Oh! I have had
+a suffering night. This morning I am worse. I have tried
+to rise. I cannot. Dreams I am unused to have troubled
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Then the watcher approaches the patient's pillow, and
+sees a new and strange moulding of the familiar features,
+feels at once that the insufferable moment draws nigh,
+knows that it is God's will his idol shall be broken, and
+bends his head, and subdues his soul to the sentence he
+cannot avert and scarce can bear.</p>
+
+<p>Happy Mrs. Pryor! She was still praying, unconscious
+that the summer sun hung above the hills, when her child
+softly woke in her arms. No piteous, unconscious moaning&mdash;sound
+which so wastes our strength that, even if we have
+sworn to be firm, a rush of unconquerable tears sweeps
+away the oath&mdash;preceded her waking. No space of deaf
+apathy followed. The first words spoken were not those of
+one becoming estranged from this world, and already
+permitted to stray at times into realms foreign to the
+living. Caroline evidently remembered with clearness what
+had happened.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, I have slept <em>so</em> well. I only dreamed and
+woke twice."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>385<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Mrs. Pryor rose with a start, that her daughter might not
+see the joyful tears called into her eyes by that affectionate
+word "mamma," and the welcome assurance that followed
+it.</p>
+
+<p>For many days the mother dared rejoice only with
+trembling. That first revival seemed like the flicker of a
+dying lamp. If the flame streamed up bright one moment,
+the next it sank dim in the socket. Exhaustion followed
+close on excitement.</p>
+
+<p>There was always a touching endeavour to <em>appear</em> better,
+but too often ability refused to second will; too often the
+attempt to bear up failed. The effort to eat, to talk, to
+look cheerful, was unsuccessful. Many an hour passed
+during which Mrs. Pryor feared that the chords of life
+could never more be strengthened, though the time of their
+breaking might be deferred.</p>
+
+<p>During this space the mother and daughter seemed left
+almost alone in the neighbourhood. It was the close of
+August; the weather was fine&mdash;that is to say, it was very
+dry and very dusty, for an arid wind had been blowing
+from the east this month past; very cloudless, too, though
+a pale haze, stationary in the atmosphere, seemed to rob
+of all depth of tone the blue of heaven, of all freshness the
+verdure of earth, and of all glow the light of day. Almost
+every family in Briarfield was absent on an excursion.
+Miss Keeldar and her friends were at the seaside; so were
+Mrs. Yorke's household. Mr. Hall and Louis Moore, between
+whom a spontaneous intimacy seemed to have arisen&mdash;the
+result, probably, of harmony of views and temperament&mdash;were
+gone "up north" on a pedestrian excursion
+to the Lakes. Even Hortense, who would fain have stayed
+at home and aided Mrs. Pryor in nursing Caroline, had been
+so earnestly entreated by Miss Mann to accompany her
+once more to Wormwood Wells, in the hope of alleviating
+sufferings greatly aggravated by the insalubrious weather,
+that she felt obliged to comply; indeed, it was not in her
+nature to refuse a request that at once appealed to her
+goodness of heart, and, by a confession of dependency,
+flattered her <em>amour propre</em>. As for Robert, from Birmingham
+he had gone on to London, where he still sojourned.</p>
+
+<p>So long as the breath of Asiatic deserts parched Caroline's
+lips and fevered her veins, her physical convalescence
+could not keep pace with her returning mental tranquillity;
+but there came a day when the wind ceased to sob at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>386<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+eastern gable of the rectory, and at the oriel window of the
+church. A little cloud like a man's hand arose in the west;
+gusts from the same quarter drove it on and spread it wide;
+wet and tempest prevailed a while. When that was over
+the sun broke out genially, heaven regained its azure, and
+earth its green; the livid cholera-tint had vanished from
+the face of nature; the hills rose clear round the horizon,
+absolved from that pale malaria-haze.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline's youth could now be of some avail to her, and
+so could her mother's nurture. Both, crowned by God's
+blessing, sent in the pure west wind blowing soft as fresh
+through the ever-open chamber lattice, rekindled her long-languishing
+energies. At last Mrs. Pryor saw that it was
+permitted to hope: a genuine, material convalescence had
+commenced. It was not merely Caroline's smile which was
+brighter, or her spirits which were cheered, but a certain look
+had passed from her face and eye&mdash;a look dread and indescribable,
+but which will easily be recalled by those who
+have watched the couch of dangerous disease. Long before
+the emaciated outlines of her aspect began to fill, or its
+departed colour to return, a more subtle change took place;
+all grew softer and warmer. Instead of a marble mask and
+glassy eye, Mrs. Pryor saw laid on the pillow a face pale and
+wasted enough, perhaps more haggard than the other
+appearance, but less awful; for it was a sick, living girl,
+not a mere white mould or rigid piece of statuary.</p>
+
+<p>Now, too, she was not always petitioning to drink. The
+words, "I am <em>so</em> thirsty," ceased to be her plaint. Sometimes,
+when she had swallowed a morsel, she would say it
+had revived her. All descriptions of food were no longer
+equally distasteful; she could be induced, sometimes, to
+indicate a preference. With what trembling pleasure and
+anxious care did not her nurse prepare what was selected!
+How she watched her as she partook of it!</p>
+
+<p>Nourishment brought strength. She could sit up. Then
+she longed to breathe the fresh air, to revisit her flowers, to
+see how the fruit had ripened. Her uncle, always liberal,
+had bought a garden-chair for her express use. He carried
+her down in his own arms, and placed her in it himself, and
+William Farren was there to wheel her round the walks, to
+show her what he had done amongst her plants, to take her
+directions for further work.</p>
+
+<p>William and she found plenty to talk about. They had
+a dozen topics in common&mdash;interesting to them, unimportant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>387<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+to the rest of the world. They took a similar interest in
+animals, birds, insects, and plants; they held similar
+doctrines about humanity to the lower creation, and had a
+similar turn for minute observation on points of natural
+history. The nest and proceedings of some ground-bees,
+which had burrowed in the turf under an old cherry-tree,
+was one subject of interest; the haunts of certain hedge-sparrows,
+and the welfare of certain pearly eggs and callow
+fledglings, another.</p>
+
+<p>Had <em>Chambers's Journal</em> existed in those days, it would
+certainly have formed Miss Helstone's and Farren's favourite
+periodical. She would have subscribed for it, and to him
+each number would duly have been lent; both would have
+put implicit faith and found great savour in its marvellous
+anecdotes of animal sagacity.</p>
+
+<p>This is a digression, but it suffices to explain why Caroline
+would have no other hand than William's to guide her
+chair, and why his society and conversation sufficed to give
+interest to her garden-airings.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor, walking near, wondered how her daughter
+could be so much at ease with a "man of the people."
+<em>She</em> found it impossible to speak to him otherwise than
+stiffly. She felt as if a great gulf lay between her caste
+and his, and that to cross it or meet him half-way would
+be to degrade herself. She gently asked Caroline, "Are you
+not afraid, my dear, to converse with that person so unreservedly?
+He may presume, and become troublesomely
+garrulous."</p>
+
+<p>"William presume, mamma? You don't know him.
+He never presumes. He is altogether too proud and
+sensitive to do so. William has very fine feelings."</p>
+
+<p>And Mrs. Pryor smiled sceptically at the na&iuml;ve notion
+of that rough-handed, rough-headed, fustian-clad clown
+having "fine feelings."</p>
+
+<p>Farren, for his part, showed Mrs. Pryor only a very sulky
+brow. He knew when he was misjudged, and was apt to
+turn unmanageable with such as failed to give him his
+due.</p>
+
+<p>The evening restored Caroline entirely to her mother,
+and Mrs. Pryor liked the evening; for then, alone with
+her daughter, no human shadow came between her and
+what she loved. During the day she would have her stiff
+demeanour and cool moments, as was her wont. Between
+her and Mr. Helstone a very respectful but most rigidly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>388<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+ceremonious intercourse was kept up. Anything like
+familiarity would have bred contempt at once in one or
+both these personages; but by dint of strict civility and
+well-maintained distance they got on very smoothly.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the servants Mrs. Pryor's bearing was not uncourteous,
+but shy, freezing, ungenial. Perhaps it was
+diffidence rather than pride which made her appear so
+haughty; but, as was to be expected, Fanny and Eliza
+failed to make the distinction, and she was unpopular with
+them accordingly. She felt the effect produced; it rendered
+her at times dissatisfied with herself for faults she could
+not help, and with all else dejected, chill, and taciturn.</p>
+
+<p>This mood changed to Caroline's influence, and to that
+influence alone. The dependent fondness of her nursling,
+the natural affection of her child, came over her suavely.
+Her frost fell away, her rigidity unbent; she grew smiling
+and pliant. Not that Caroline made any wordy profession
+of love&mdash;that would ill have suited Mrs. Pryor; she would
+have read therein the proof of insincerity&mdash;but she hung on
+her with easy dependence; she confided in her with fearless
+reliance. These things contented the mother's heart.</p>
+
+<p>She liked to hear her daughter say, "Mamma, do this;"
+"Please, mamma, fetch me that;" "Mamma, read to me;"
+"Sing a little, mamma."</p>
+
+<p>Nobody else&mdash;not one living thing&mdash;had ever so claimed
+her services, so looked for help at her hand. Other people
+were always more or less reserved and stiff with her, as
+she was reserved and stiff with them; other people betrayed
+consciousness of and annoyance at her weak points.
+Caroline no more showed such wounding sagacity or reproachful
+sensitiveness now than she had done when a
+suckling of three months old.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Caroline could find fault. Blind to the constitutional
+defects that were incurable, she had her eyes wide
+open to the acquired habits that were susceptible of remedy.
+On certain points she would quite artlessly lecture her
+parent; and that parent, instead of being hurt, felt a
+sensation of pleasure in discovering that the girl <em>dared</em>
+lecture her, that she was so much at home with her.</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, I am determined you shall not wear that old
+gown any more. Its fashion is not becoming; it is too
+strait in the skirt. You shall put on your black silk every
+afternoon. In that you look nice; it suits you. And you
+shall have a black satin dress for Sundays&mdash;a real satin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>389<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+not a satinet or any of the shams. And, mamma, when
+you get the new one, mind you must wear it."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, I thought of the black silk serving me as a
+best dress for many years yet, and I wished to buy you
+several things."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, mamma. My uncle gives me cash to get
+what I want. You know he is generous enough; and I
+have set my heart on seeing you in a black satin. Get it
+soon, and let it be made by a dressmaker of my recommending.
+Let me choose the pattern. You always want
+to disguise yourself like a grandmother. You would persuade
+one that you are old and ugly. Not at all! On
+the contrary, when well dressed and cheerful you are very
+comely indeed; your smile is so pleasant, your teeth are
+so white, your hair is still such a pretty light colour. And
+then you speak like a young lady, with such a clear, fine
+tone, and you sing better than any young lady I ever heard.
+Why do you wear such dresses and bonnets, mamma, such
+as nobody else ever wears?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does it annoy you, Caroline?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much; it vexes me even. People say you are
+miserly; and yet you are not, for you give liberally to the
+poor and to religious societies&mdash;though your gifts are
+conveyed so secretly and quietly that they are known to
+few except the receivers. But I will be your lady's-maid
+myself. When I get a little stronger I will set to work,
+and you must be good, mamma, and do as I bid you."</p>
+
+<p>And Caroline, sitting near her mother, rearranged her
+muslin handkerchief and resmoothed her hair.</p>
+
+<p>"My own mamma," then she went on, as if pleasing
+herself with the thought of their relationship, "who belongs
+to me, and to whom I belong! I am a rich girl now. I
+have something I can love well, and not be afraid of loving.
+Mamma, who gave you this little brooch? Let me unpin
+it and look at it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Pryor, who usually shrank from meddling fingers
+and near approach, allowed the license complacently.</p>
+
+<p>"Did papa give you this, mamma?"</p>
+
+<p>"My sister gave it me&mdash;my only sister, Cary. Would
+that your Aunt Caroline had lived to see her niece!"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you nothing of papa's&mdash;no trinket, no gift of
+his?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have one thing."</p>
+
+<p>"That you prize?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>390<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"That I prize."</p>
+
+<p>"Valuable and pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Invaluable and sweet to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Show it, mamma. Is it here or at Fieldhead?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is talking to me now, leaning on me. Its arms are
+round me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, mamma, you mean your teasing daughter, who
+will never let you alone; who, when you go into your
+room, cannot help running to seek for you; who follows
+you upstairs and down, like a dog."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose features still give me such a strange thrill sometimes.
+I half fear your fair looks yet, child."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't; you can't. Mamma, I am sorry papa was
+not good. I do so wish he had been. Wickedness spoils and
+poisons all pleasant things. It kills love. If you and I
+thought each other wicked, we could not love each other,
+could we?"</p>
+
+<p>"And if we could not trust each other, Cary?"</p>
+
+<p>"How miserable we should be! Mother, before I knew
+you I had an apprehension that you were not good&mdash;that
+I could not esteem you. That dread damped my wish to
+see you. And now my heart is elate because I find you
+perfect&mdash;almost; kind, clever, nice. Your sole fault is
+that you are old-fashioned, and of that I shall cure you.
+Mamma, put your work down; read to me. I like your
+southern accent; it is so pure, so soft. It has no rugged
+burr, no nasal twang, such as almost every one's voice here
+in the north has. My uncle and Mr. Hall say that you are
+a fine reader, mamma. Mr. Hall said he never heard any
+lady read with such propriety of expression or purity of
+accent."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could reciprocate the compliment, Cary; but,
+really, the first time I heard your truly excellent friend read
+and preach I could not understand his broad northern
+tongue."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you understand me, mamma? Did I seem to
+speak roughly?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I almost wished you had, as I wished you had
+looked unpolished. Your father, Caroline, naturally spoke
+well, quite otherwise than your worthy uncle&mdash;correctly,
+gently, smoothly. You inherit the gift."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor papa! When he was so agreeable, why was he
+not good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why he was <em>as</em> he was&mdash;and happily of that you, child,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>391<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+can form no conception&mdash;I cannot tell. It is a deep mystery.
+The key is in the hands of his Maker. There I leave it."</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma, you will keep stitching, stitching away. Put
+down the sewing; I am an enemy to it. It cumbers your
+lap, and I want it for my head; it engages your eyes, and
+I want them for a book. Here is your favourite&mdash;Cowper."</p>
+
+<p>These importunities were the mother's pleasure. If ever
+she delayed compliance, it was only to hear them repeated,
+and to enjoy her child's soft, half-playful, half-petulant
+urgency. And then, when she yielded, Caroline would say
+archly, "You will spoil me, mamma. I always thought
+I should like to be spoiled, and I find it very sweet." So
+did Mrs. Pryor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>392<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>OLD COPY-BOOKS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">By</span> the time the Fieldhead party returned to Briarfield
+Caroline was nearly well. Miss Keeldar, who had received
+news by post of her friend's convalescence, hardly suffered
+an hour to elapse between her arrival at home and her
+first call at the rectory.</p>
+
+<p>A shower of rain was falling gently, yet fast, on the late
+flowers and russet autumn shrubs, when the garden wicket
+was heard to swing open, and Shirley's well-known form
+passed the window. On her entrance her feelings were
+evinced in her own peculiar fashion. When deeply moved
+by serious fears or joys she was not garrulous. The strong
+emotion was rarely suffered to influence her tongue, and
+even her eye refused it more than a furtive and fitful conquest.
+She took Caroline in her arms, gave her one look,
+one kiss, then said, "You are better."</p>
+
+<p>And a minute after, "I see you are safe now; but take
+care. God grant your health may be called on to sustain
+no more shocks!"</p>
+
+<p>She proceeded to talk fluently about the journey. In
+the midst of vivacious discourse her eye still wandered to
+Caroline. There spoke in its light a deep solicitude, some
+trouble, and some amaze.</p>
+
+<p>"She may be better," it said, "but how weak she still
+is! What peril she has come through!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly her glance reverted to Mrs. Pryor. It pierced
+her through.</p>
+
+<p>"When will my governess return to me?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"May I tell her all?" demanded Caroline of her mother.
+Leave being signified by a gesture, Shirley was presently
+enlightened on what had happened in her absence.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," was the cool comment&mdash;"very good!
+But it is no news to me."</p>
+
+<p>"What! did you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I guessed long since the whole business. I have heard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>393<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+somewhat of Mrs. Pryor's history&mdash;not from herself, but
+from others. With every detail of Mr. James Helstone's
+career and character I was acquainted. An afternoon's
+sitting and conversation with Miss Mann had rendered me
+familiar therewith; also he is one of Mrs. Yorke's warning
+examples&mdash;one of the blood-red lights she hangs out to
+scare young ladies from matrimony. I believe I should have
+been sceptical about the truth of the portrait traced by such
+fingers&mdash;both these ladies take a dark pleasure in offering
+to view the dark side of life&mdash;but I questioned Mr. Yorke
+on the subject, and he said, <a name="quote" id="quote"></a><ins title="was double quote">'Shirley</ins>, my woman, if you
+want to know aught about yond' James Helstone, I can
+only say he was a man-tiger. He was handsome, dissolute,
+soft, treacherous, courteous, cruel&mdash;&mdash;' Don't cry, Cary;
+we'll say no more about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not crying, Shirley; or if I am, it is nothing.
+Go on; you are no friend if you withhold from me the
+truth. I hate that false plan of disguising, mutilating the
+truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Fortunately I have said pretty nearly all that I have
+to say, except that your uncle himself confirmed Mr. Yorke's
+words; for he too scorns a lie, and deals in none of those
+conventional subterfuges that are shabbier than lies."</p>
+
+<p>"But papa is dead; they should let him alone now."</p>
+
+<p>"They should; and we <em>will</em> let him alone. Cry away,
+Cary; it will do you good. It is wrong to check natural
+tears. Besides, I choose to please myself by sharing an
+idea that at this moment beams in your mother's eye while
+she looks at you. Every drop blots out a sin. Weep!
+your tears have the virtue which the rivers of Damascus
+lacked. Like Jordan, they can cleanse a leprous memory."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," she continued, addressing Mrs. Pryor, "did
+you think I could be daily in the habit of seeing you and
+your daughter together&mdash;marking your marvellous similarity
+in many points, observing (pardon me) your irrepressible
+emotions in the presence and still more in the absence of
+your child&mdash;and not form my own conjectures? I formed
+them, and they are literally correct. I shall begin to think
+myself shrewd."</p>
+
+<p>"And you said nothing?" observed Caroline, who soon
+regained the quiet control of her feelings.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. I had no warrant to breathe a word on the
+subject. <em>My</em> business it was not; I abstained from making
+it such."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>394<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"You guessed so deep a secret, and did not hint that
+you guessed it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so difficult?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not like you."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are not reserved; you are frankly communicative."</p>
+
+<p>"I may be communicative, yet know where to stop.
+In showing my treasure I may withhold a gem or two&mdash;a
+curious, unbought graven stone&mdash;an amulet of whose mystic
+glitter I rarely permit even myself a glimpse. Good-day."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline thus seemed to get a view of Shirley's character
+under a novel aspect. Ere long the prospect was renewed;
+it opened upon her.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had she regained sufficient strength to bear a
+change of scene&mdash;the excitement of a little society&mdash;than
+Miss Keeldar sued daily for her presence at Fieldhead.
+Whether Shirley had become wearied of her honoured relatives
+is not known. She did not say she was; but she
+claimed and retained Caroline with an eagerness which
+proved that an addition to that worshipful company was
+not unwelcome.</p>
+
+<p>The Sympsons were church people. Of course the rector's
+niece was received by them with courtesy. Mr. Sympson
+proved to be a man of spotless respectability, worrying
+temper, pious principles, and worldly views; his lady was
+a very good woman&mdash;patient, kind, well-bred. She had
+been brought up on a narrow system of views, starved on
+a few prejudices&mdash;a mere handful of bitter herbs; a few
+preferences, soaked till their natural flavour was extracted,
+and with no seasoning added in the cooking; some excellent
+principles, made up in a stiff raised crust of bigotry difficult
+to digest. Far too submissive was she to complain of this
+diet or to ask for a crumb beyond it.</p>
+
+<p>The daughters were an example to their sex. They were
+tall, with a Roman nose apiece. They had been educated
+faultlessly. All they did was well done. History and the
+most solid books had cultivated their minds. Principles
+and opinions they possessed which could not be mended.
+More exactly-regulated lives, feelings, manners, habits, it
+would have been difficult to find anywhere. They knew by
+heart a certain young-ladies'-schoolroom code of laws on
+language, demeanour, etc.; themselves never deviated from
+its curious little pragmatical provisions, and they regarded
+with secret whispered horror all deviations in others. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>395<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Abomination of Desolation was no mystery to them; they
+had discovered that unutterable Thing in the characteristic
+others call Originality. Quick were they to recognize the
+signs of this evil; and wherever they saw its trace&mdash;whether
+in look, word, or deed; whether they read it in the fresh,
+vigorous style of a book, or listened to it in interesting,
+unhackneyed, pure, expressive language&mdash;they shuddered,
+they recoiled. Danger was above their heads, peril about
+their steps. What was this strange thing? Being unintelligible
+it must be bad. Let it be denounced and
+chained up.</p>
+
+<p>Henry Sympson, the only son and youngest child of
+the family, was a boy of fifteen. He generally kept with
+his tutor. When he left him, he sought his cousin Shirley.
+This boy differed from his sisters. He was little, lame,
+and pale; his large eyes shone somewhat languidly in a wan
+orbit. They were, indeed, usually rather dim, but they
+were capable of illumination. At times they could not
+only shine, but blaze. Inward emotion could likewise give
+colour to his cheek and decision to his crippled movements.
+Henry's mother loved him; she thought his peculiarities
+were a mark of election. He was not like other children,
+she allowed. She believed him regenerate&mdash;a new Samuel&mdash;called
+of God from his birth. He was to be a clergyman.
+Mr. and the Misses Sympson, not understanding the youth,
+let him much alone. Shirley made him her pet, and he
+made Shirley his playmate.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this family circle, or rather outside it,
+moved the tutor&mdash;the satellite.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Louis Moore was a satellite of the house of Sympson&mdash;connected,
+yet apart; ever attendant, ever distant. Each
+member of that correct family treated him with proper
+dignity. The father was austerely civil, sometimes irritable;
+the mother, being a kind woman, was attentive, but
+formal; the daughters saw in him an abstraction, not a
+man. It seemed, by their manner, that their brother's
+tutor did not live for them. They were learned; so was
+he&mdash;but not for them. They were accomplished; he had
+talents too, imperceptible to their senses. The most spirited
+sketch from his fingers was a blank to their eyes; the most
+original observation from his lips fell unheard on their ears.
+Nothing could exceed the propriety of their behaviour.</p>
+
+<p>I should have said nothing could have equalled it; but
+I remember a fact which strangely astonished Caroline<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>396<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Helstone. It was&mdash;to discover that her cousin had absolutely
+<em>no</em> sympathizing friend at Fieldhead; that to Miss
+Keeldar he was as much a mere teacher, as little a gentleman,
+as little a man, as to the estimable Misses Sympson.</p>
+
+<p>What had befallen the kind-hearted Shirley that she
+should be so indifferent to the dreary position of a fellow-creature
+thus isolated under her roof? She was not, perhaps,
+haughty to him, but she never noticed him&mdash;she let
+him alone. He came and went, spoke or was silent, and
+she rarely recognized his existence.</p>
+
+<p>As to Louis Moore himself, he had the air of a man used
+to this life, and who had made up his mind to bear it for a
+time. His faculties seemed walled up in him, and were
+unmurmuring in their captivity. He never laughed; he
+seldom smiled; he was uncomplaining. He fulfilled the
+round of his duties scrupulously. His pupil loved him; he
+asked nothing more than civility from the rest of the world.
+It even appeared that he would accept nothing more&mdash;in
+that abode at least; for when his cousin Caroline made
+gentle overtures of friendship, he did not encourage them&mdash;he
+rather avoided than sought her. One living thing alone,
+besides his pale, crippled scholar, he fondled in the house,
+and that was the ruffianly Tartar, who, sullen and impracticable
+to others, acquired a singular partiality for him&mdash;a
+partiality so marked that sometimes, when Moore,
+summoned to a meal, entered the room and sat down unwelcomed,
+Tartar would rise from his lair at Shirley's feet
+and betake himself to the taciturn tutor. Once&mdash;but once&mdash;she
+noticed the desertion, and holding out her white hand,
+and speaking softly, tried to coax him back. Tartar looked,
+slavered, and sighed, as his manner was, but yet disregarded
+the invitation, and coolly settled himself on his haunches
+at Louis Moore's side. That gentleman drew the dog's
+big, black-muzzled head on to his knee, patted him, and
+smiled one little smile to himself.</p>
+
+<p>An acute observer might have remarked, in the course
+of the same evening, that after Tartar had resumed his
+allegiance to Shirley, and was once more couched near her
+footstool, the audacious tutor by one word and gesture
+fascinated him again. He pricked up his ears at the word;
+he started erect at the gesture, and came, with head lovingly
+depressed, to receive the expected caress. As it was given,
+the significant smile again rippled across Moore's quiet face.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>397<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p><hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"Shirley," said Caroline one day, as they two were sitting
+alone in the summer-house, "did you know that my
+cousin Louis was tutor in your uncle's family before the
+Sympsons came down here?"</p>
+
+<p>Shirley's reply was not so prompt as her responses usually
+were, but at last she answered, "Yes&mdash;of course; I knew
+it well."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you must have been aware of the circumstance."</p>
+
+<p>"Well! what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"It puzzles me to guess how it chanced that you never
+mentioned it to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should it puzzle you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems odd. I cannot account for it. You talk a
+great deal&mdash;you talk freely. How was that circumstance
+never touched on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it never was," and Shirley laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a singular being!" observed her friend. "I
+thought I knew you quite well; I begin to find myself
+mistaken. You were silent as the grave about Mrs. Pryor,
+and now again here is another secret. But why you made
+it a secret is the mystery to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I never made it a secret; I had no reason for so doing.
+If you had asked me who Henry's tutor was, I would have
+told you. Besides, I thought you knew."</p>
+
+<p>"I am puzzled about more things than one in this matter.
+You don't like poor Louis. Why? Are you impatient at
+what you perhaps consider his <em>servile</em> position? Do you
+wish that Robert's brother were more highly placed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Robert's brother, indeed!" was the exclamation, uttered
+in a tone like the accents of scorn; and with a movement
+of proud impatience Shirley snatched a rose from a branch
+peeping through the open lattice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," repeated Caroline, with mild firmness, "Robert's
+brother. He <em>is</em> thus closely related to G&eacute;rard Moore of
+the Hollow, though nature has not given him features so
+handsome or an air so noble as his kinsman; but his
+blood is as good, and he is as much a gentleman were he
+free."</p>
+
+<p>"Wise, humble, pious Caroline!" exclaimed Shirley ironically.
+"Men and angels, hear her! We should not despise
+plain features, nor a laborious yet honest occupation, should
+we? Look at the subject of your panegyric. He is there
+in the garden," she continued, pointing through an aperture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>398<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+in the clustering creepers; and by that aperture Louis
+Moore was visible, coming slowly down the walk.</p>
+
+<p>"He is not ugly, Shirley," pleaded Caroline; "he is not
+ignoble. He is sad; silence seals his mind. But I believe
+him to be intelligent; and be certain, if he had not something
+very commendable in his disposition, Mr. Hall would
+never seek his society as he does."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley laughed; she laughed again, each time with a
+slightly sarcastic sound. "Well, well," was her comment.
+"On the plea of the man being Cyril Hall's friend and Robert
+Moore's brother, we'll just tolerate his existence; won't
+we, Cary? You believe him to be intelligent, do you?
+Not quite an idiot&mdash;eh? Something commendable in his
+disposition!&mdash;<em>id est</em>, not an absolute ruffian. Good! Your
+representations have weight with me; and to prove that
+they have, should he come this way I will speak to him."</p>
+
+<p>He approached the summer-house. Unconscious that it
+was tenanted, he sat down on the step. Tartar, now his
+customary companion, had followed him, and he couched
+across his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Old boy!" said Louis, pulling his tawny ear, or rather
+the mutilated remains of that organ, torn and chewed in
+a hundred battles, "the autumn sun shines as pleasantly
+on us as on the fairest and richest. This garden is none of
+ours, but we enjoy its greenness and perfume, don't we?"</p>
+
+<p>He sat silent, still caressing Tartar, who slobbered with
+exceeding affection. A faint twittering commenced among
+the trees round. Something fluttered down as light as leaves.
+They were little birds, which, lighting on the sward at shy
+distance, hopped as if expectant.</p>
+
+<p>"The small brown elves actually remember that I fed
+them the other day," again soliloquized Louis. "They
+want some more biscuit. To-day I forgot to save a fragment.
+Eager little sprites, I have not a crumb for you."</p>
+
+<p>He put his hand in his pocket and drew it out empty.</p>
+
+<p>"A want easily supplied," whispered the listening Miss
+Keeldar.</p>
+
+<p>She took from her reticule a morsel of sweet-cake; for
+that repository was never destitute of something available
+to throw to the chickens, young ducks, or sparrows. She
+crumbled it, and bending over his shoulder, put the crumbs
+into his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"There," said she&mdash;"there is a providence for the improvident."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>399<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"This September afternoon is pleasant," observed Louis
+Moore, as, not at all discomposed, he calmly cast the crumbs
+on to the grass.</p>
+
+<p>"Even for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"As pleasant for me as for any monarch."</p>
+
+<p>"You take a sort of harsh, solitary triumph in drawing
+pleasure out of the elements and the inanimate and lower
+animate creation."</p>
+
+<p>"Solitary, but not harsh. With animals I feel I am
+Adam's son, the heir of him to whom dominion was given
+over 'every living thing that moveth upon the earth.'
+Your dog likes and follows me. When I go into that yard,
+the pigeons from your dovecot flutter at my feet. Your
+mare in the stable knows me as well as it knows you, and
+obeys me better."</p>
+
+<p>"And my roses smell sweet to you, and my trees give
+you shade."</p>
+
+<p>"And," continued Louis, "no caprice can withdraw
+these pleasures from me; they are <em>mine</em>."</p>
+
+<p>He walked off. Tartar followed him, as if in duty and
+affection bound, and Shirley remained standing on the
+summer-house step. Caroline saw her face as she looked
+after the rude tutor. It was pale, as if her pride bled
+inwardly.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," remarked Caroline apologetically, "his feelings
+are so often hurt it makes him morose."</p>
+
+<p>"You see," retorted Shirley, with ire, "he is a topic
+on which you and I shall quarrel if we discuss it often;
+so drop it henceforward and for ever."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he has more than once behaved in this way,"
+thought Caroline to herself, "and that renders Shirley so
+distant to him. Yet I wonder she cannot make allowance
+for character and circumstances. I wonder the general
+modesty, manliness, sincerity of his nature do not plead
+with her in his behalf. She is not often so inconsiderate, so
+irritable."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>The verbal testimony of two friends of Caroline's to her
+cousin's character augmented her favourable opinion of
+him. William Farren, whose cottage he had visited in
+company with Mr. Hall, pronounced him a "real gentleman;"
+there was not such another in Briarfield. He&mdash;William&mdash;"could
+do aught for that man. And then to
+see how t' bairns liked him, and how t' wife took to him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>400<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+first minute she saw him. He never went into a house but
+t' childer wor about him directly. Them little things wor
+like as if they'd a keener sense nor grown-up folks i' finding
+our folk's natures."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hall, in answer to a question of Miss Helstone's as
+to what he thought of Louis Moore, replied promptly that
+he was the best fellow he had met with since he left Cambridge.</p>
+
+<p>"But he is so grave," objected Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"Grave! the finest company in the world! Full of
+odd, quiet, out-of-the-way humour. Never enjoyed an excursion
+so much in my life as the one I took with him to
+the Lakes. His understanding and tastes are so superior,
+it does a man good to be within their influence; and as to
+his temper and nature, I call them fine."</p>
+
+<p>"At Fieldhead he looks gloomy, and, I believe, has the
+character of being misanthropical."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I fancy he is rather out of place there&mdash;in a false
+position. The Sympsons are most estimable people, but
+not the folks to comprehend him. They think a great deal
+about form and ceremony, which are quite out of Louis's
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think Miss Keeldar likes him."</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't know him&mdash;she doesn't know him; otherwise
+she has sense enough to do justice to his merits."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I suppose she doesn't know him," mused Caroline
+to herself, and by this hypothesis she endeavoured to account
+for what seemed else unaccountable. But such simple solution
+of the difficulty was not left her long. She was obliged
+to refuse Miss Keeldar even this negative excuse for her
+prejudice.</p>
+
+<p>One day she chanced to be in the schoolroom with Henry
+Sympson, whose amiable and affectionate disposition had
+quickly recommended him to her regard. The boy was
+busied about some mechanical contrivance; his lameness
+made him fond of sedentary occupation. He began to ransack
+his tutor's desk for a piece of wax or twine necessary
+to his work. Moore happened to be absent. Mr. Hall,
+indeed, had called for him to take a long walk. Henry
+could not immediately find the object of his search. He
+rummaged compartment after compartment; and at last,
+opening an inner drawer, he came upon&mdash;not a ball of cord
+or a lump of beeswax, but a little bundle of small marble-coloured
+cahiers, tied with tape. Henry looked at them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>401<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+"What rubbish Mr. Moore stores up in his desk!" he said.
+"I hope he won't keep my old exercises so carefully."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Old copy-books."</p>
+
+<p>He threw the bundle to Caroline. The packet looked so
+neat externally her curiosity was excited to see its contents.</p>
+
+<p>"If they are only copy-books, I suppose I may open
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, quite freely. Mr. Moore's desk is half mine&mdash;for
+he lets me keep all sorts of things in it&mdash;and I give
+you leave."</p>
+
+<p>On scrutiny they proved to be French compositions,
+written in a hand peculiar but compact, and exquisitely
+clean and clear. The writing was recognizable. She scarcely
+needed the further evidence of the name signed at the
+close of each theme to tell her whose they were. Yet that
+name astonished her&mdash;"Shirley Keeldar, Sympson Grove,
+&mdash;&mdash;shire" (a southern county), and a date four years back.</p>
+
+<p>She tied up the packet, and held it in her hand, meditating
+over it. She half felt as if, in opening it, she had
+violated a confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"They are Shirley's, you see," said Henry carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Did <em>you</em> give them to Mr. Moore? She wrote them with
+Mrs. Pryor, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"She wrote them in my schoolroom at Sympson Grove,
+when she lived with us there. Mr. Moore taught her French;
+it is his native language."</p>
+
+<p>"I know. Was she a good pupil, Henry?"</p>
+
+<p>"She was a wild, laughing thing, but pleasant to have
+in the room. She made lesson-time charming. She learned
+fast&mdash;you could hardly tell when or how. French was
+nothing to her. She spoke it quick, quick&mdash;as quick as
+Mr. Moore himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Was she obedient? Did she give trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"She gave plenty of trouble, in a way. She was giddy,
+but I liked her. I'm desperately fond of Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>Desperately</em> fond&mdash;you small simpleton! You don't
+know what you say."</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>am desperately</em> fond of her. She is the light of my
+eyes. I said so to Mr. Moore last night."</p>
+
+<p>"He would reprove you for speaking with exaggeration."</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't. He never reproves and reproves, as girls'
+governesses do. He was reading, and he only smiled into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>402<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+his book, and said that if Miss Keeldar was no more than
+that, she was less than he took her to be; for I was but a
+dim-eyed, short-sighted little chap. I'm afraid I am a poor
+unfortunate, Miss Caroline Helstone. I am a cripple, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, Henry, you are a very nice little fellow;
+and if God has not given you health and strength, He
+has given you a good disposition and an excellent heart
+and brain."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be despised. I sometimes think both Shirley
+and you despise me."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Henry. Generally, I don't like schoolboys. I
+have a great horror of them. They seem to me little ruffians,
+who take an unnatural delight in killing and tormenting
+birds, and insects, and kittens, and whatever is weaker
+than themselves. But you are so different I am quite
+fond of you. You have almost as much sense as a man
+(far more, God wot," she muttered to herself, "than many
+men); you are fond of reading, and you can talk sensibly
+about what you read."</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>am</em> fond of reading. I know I have sense, and I know
+I have feeling."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar here entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Henry," she said, "I have brought your lunch here.
+I shall prepare it for you myself."</p>
+
+<p>She placed on the table a glass of new milk, a plate of
+something which looked not unlike leather, and a utensil
+which resembled a toasting-fork.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you two about," she continued, "ransacking
+Mr. Moore's desk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Looking at your old copy-books," returned Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"My old copy-books?"</p>
+
+<p>"French exercise-books. Look here! They must be
+held precious; they are kept carefully."</p>
+
+<p>She showed the bundle. Shirley snatched it up. "Did
+not know one was in existence," she said. "I thought
+the whole lot had long since lit the kitchen fire, or curled
+the maid's hair at Sympson Grove.&mdash;What made you keep
+them, Henry?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not my doing. I should not have thought of it.
+It never entered my head to suppose copy-books of value.
+Mr. Moore put them by in the inner drawer of his desk.
+Perhaps he forgot them."</p>
+
+<p>"C'est cela. He forgot them, no doubt," echoed Shirley.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>403<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+"They are extremely well written," she observed complacently.</p>
+
+<p>"What a giddy girl you were, Shirley, in those days!
+I remember you so well. A slim, light creature whom,
+though you were so tall, I could lift off the floor. I see
+you with your long, countless curls on your shoulders, and
+your streaming sash. You used to make Mr. Moore lively&mdash;that
+is, at first. I believe you grieved him after a while."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley turned the closely-written pages and said nothing.
+Presently she observed, "That was written one winter
+afternoon. It was a description of a snow scene."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," said Henry. "Mr. Moore, when he read
+it, cried, 'Voil&agrave; le Fran&ccedil;ais gagn&eacute;!' He said it was well
+done. Afterwards you made him draw, in sepia, the landscape
+you described."</p>
+
+<p>"You have not forgotten, then, Hal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. We were all scolded that day for not
+coming down to tea when called. I can remember my
+tutor sitting at his easel, and you standing behind him,
+holding the candle, and watching him draw the snowy cliff,
+the pine, the deer couched under it, and the half-moon
+hung above."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are his drawings, Harry? Caroline should see
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"In his portfolio. But it is padlocked; he has the key."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask him for it when he comes in."</p>
+
+<p>"You should ask him, Shirley. You are shy of him now.
+You are grown a proud lady to him; I notice that."</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, you are a real enigma," whispered Caroline in
+her ear. "What queer discoveries I make day by day
+now!&mdash;I who thought I had your confidence. Inexplicable
+creature! even this boy reproves you."</p>
+
+<p>"I have forgotten 'auld lang syne,' you see, Harry,"
+said Miss Keeldar, answering young Sympson, and not
+heeding Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"Which you never should have done. You don't deserve
+to be a man's morning star if you have so short a memory."</p>
+
+<p>"A man's morning star, indeed! and by 'a man' is
+meant your worshipful self, I suppose? Come, drink your
+new milk while it is warm."</p>
+
+<p>The young cripple rose and limped towards the fire; he
+had left his crutch near the mantelpiece.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor lame darling!" murmured Shirley, in her
+softest voice, aiding him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>404<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Whether do you like me or Mr. Sam Wynne best,
+Shirley?" inquired the boy, as she settled him in an arm-chair.</p>
+
+<p>"O Harry, Sam Wynne is my aversion; you are my pet."</p>
+
+<p>"Me or Mr. Malone?"</p>
+
+<p>"You again, a thousand times."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet they are great whiskered fellows, six feet high each."</p>
+
+<p>"Whereas, as long as you live, Harry, you will never be
+anything more than a little pale lameter."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not be sorrowful. Have I not often told you
+who was almost as little, as pale, as suffering as you, and
+yet potent as a giant and brave as a lion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Admiral Horatio?"</p>
+
+<p>"Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson, and Duke of Bronte;
+great at heart as a Titan; gallant and heroic as all the
+world and age of chivalry; leader of the might of England;
+commander of her strength on the deep; hurler of her
+thunder over the flood."</p>
+
+<p>"A great man. But I am not warlike, Shirley; and yet
+my mind is so restless I burn day and night&mdash;for what I
+can hardly tell&mdash;to be&mdash;to do&mdash;to suffer, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Harry, it is your mind, which is stronger and older
+than your frame, that troubles you. It is a captive; it
+lies in physical bondage. But it will work its own redemption
+yet. Study carefully not only books but the world.
+You love nature; love her without fear. Be patient&mdash;wait
+the course of time. You will not be a soldier or a
+sailor, Henry; but if you live you will be&mdash;listen to my
+prophecy&mdash;you will be an author, perhaps a poet."</p>
+
+<p>"An author! It is a flash&mdash;a flash of light to me! I
+will&mdash;I <em>will</em>! I'll write a book that I may dedicate it to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"You will write it that you may give your soul its natural
+release. Bless me! what am I saying? more than I understand,
+I believe, or can make good. Here, Hal&mdash;here is
+your toasted oatcake; eat and live!"</p>
+
+<p>"Willingly!" here cried a voice outside the open window.
+"I know that fragrance of meal bread. Miss Keeldar, may
+I come in and partake?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Hall"&mdash;it was Mr. Hall, and with him was Louis
+Moore, returned from their walk&mdash;"there is a proper luncheon
+laid out in the dining-room and there are proper
+people seated round it. You may join that society and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>405<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+share that fare if you please; but if your ill-regulated
+tastes lead you to prefer ill-regulated proceedings, step in
+here, and do as we do."</p>
+
+<p>"I approve the perfume, and therefore shall suffer myself
+to be led by the nose," returned Mr. Hall, who presently
+entered, accompanied by Louis Moore. That gentleman's
+eye fell on his desk, pillaged.</p>
+
+<p>"Burglars!" said he.&mdash;"Henry, you merit the ferule."</p>
+
+<p>"Give it to Shirley and Caroline; they did it," was
+alleged, with more attention to effect than truth.</p>
+
+<p>"Traitor and false witness!" cried both the girls. "We
+never laid hands on a thing, except in the spirit of laudable
+inquiry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly so," said Moore, with his rare smile. "And
+what have you ferreted out, in your 'spirit of laudable
+inquiry'?"</p>
+
+<p>He perceived the inner drawer open.</p>
+
+<p>"This is empty," said he. "Who has taken&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Here, here!" Caroline hastened to say, and she restored
+the little packet to its place. He shut it up; he
+locked it in with a small key attached to his watch-guard;
+he restored the other papers to order, closed the repository,
+and sat down without further remark.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you would have scolded much more, sir,"
+said Henry. "The girls deserve reprimand."</p>
+
+<p>"I leave them to their own consciences."</p>
+
+<p>"It accuses them of crimes intended as well as perpetrated,
+sir. If I had not been here, they would have treated
+your portfolio as they have done your desk; but I told them
+it was padlocked."</p>
+
+<p>"And will you have lunch with us?" here interposed
+Shirley, addressing Moore, and desirous, as it seemed, to
+turn the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, if I may."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be restricted to new milk and Yorkshire oatcake."</p>
+
+<p>"Va&mdash;pour le lait frais!" said Louis. "But for your
+oatcake!" and he made a grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"He cannot eat it," said Henry. "He thinks it is like
+bran, raised with sour yeast."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, then; by special dispensation we will allow him
+a few cracknels, but nothing less homely."</p>
+
+<p>The hostess rang the bell and gave her frugal orders,
+which were presently executed. She herself measured out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>406<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+the milk, and distributed the bread round the cosy circle
+now enclosing the bright little schoolroom fire. She then
+took the post of toaster-general; and kneeling on the rug,
+fork in hand, fulfilled her office with dexterity. Mr. Hall,
+who relished any homely innovation on ordinary usages,
+and to whom the husky oatcake was from custom suave as
+manna, seemed in his best spirits. He talked and laughed
+gleefully&mdash;now with Caroline, whom he had fixed by his
+side, now with Shirley, and again with Louis Moore. And
+Louis met him in congenial spirit. He did not laugh much,
+but he uttered in the quietest tone the wittiest things.
+Gravely spoken sentences, marked by unexpected turns
+and a quite fresh flavour and poignancy, fell easily from his
+lips. He proved himself to be&mdash;what Mr. Hall had said he
+was&mdash;excellent company. Caroline marvelled at his humour,
+but still more at his entire self-possession. Nobody there
+present seemed to impose on him a sensation of unpleasant
+restraint. Nobody seemed a bore&mdash;a check&mdash;a chill to
+him; and yet there was the cool and lofty Miss Keeldar
+kneeling before the fire, almost at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>But Shirley was cool and lofty no longer, at least not
+at this moment. She appeared unconscious of the humility
+of her present position; or if conscious, it was only to taste
+a charm in its lowliness. It did not revolt her pride that
+the group to whom she voluntarily officiated as handmaid
+should include her cousin's tutor. It did not scare
+her that while she handed the bread and milk to the
+rest, she had to offer it to him also; and Moore took his
+portion from her hand as calmly as if he had been her
+equal.</p>
+
+<p>"You are overheated now," he said, when she had retained
+the fork for some time; "let me relieve you."</p>
+
+<p>And he took it from her with a sort of quiet authority,
+to which she submitted passively, neither resisting him nor
+thanking him.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see your pictures, Louis," said Caroline,
+when the sumptuous luncheon was discussed.&mdash;"Would not
+you, Mr. Hall?"</p>
+
+<p>"To please you, I should; but, for my own part, I have
+cut him as an artist. I had enough of him in that capacity
+in Cumberland and Westmoreland. Many a wetting we
+got amongst the mountains because he would persist in
+sitting on a camp-stool, catching effects of rain-clouds,
+gathering mists, fitful sunbeams, and what not."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>407<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Here is the portfolio," said Henry, bringing it in one
+hand and leaning on his crutch with the other.</p>
+
+<p>Louis took it, but he still sat as if he wanted another to
+speak. It seemed as if he would not open it unless the
+proud Shirley deigned to show herself interested in the
+exhibition.</p>
+
+<p>"He makes us wait to whet our curiosity," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"You understand opening it," observed Louis, giving
+her the key. "You spoiled the lock for me once; try now."</p>
+
+<p>He held it. She opened it, and, monopolizing the contents,
+had the first view of every sketch herself. She enjoyed
+the treat&mdash;if treat it were&mdash;in silence, without a single
+comment. Moore stood behind her chair and looked over
+her shoulder, and when she had done and the others were
+still gazing, he left his post and paced through the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>A carriage was heard in the lane&mdash;the gate-bell rang.
+Shirley started.</p>
+
+<p>"There are callers," she said, "and I shall be summoned
+to the room. A pretty figure&mdash;as they say&mdash;I am to receive
+company. I and Henry have been in the garden gathering
+fruit half the morning. Oh for rest under my own vine
+and my own fig-tree! Happy is the slave-wife of the
+Indian chief, in that she has no drawing-room duty to perform,
+but can sit at ease weaving mats, and stringing beads,
+and peacefully flattening her pickaninny's head in an unmolested
+corner of her wigwam. I'll emigrate to the western
+woods."</p>
+
+<p>Louis Moore laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"To marry a White Cloud or a Big Buffalo, and after
+wedlock to devote yourself to the tender task of digging
+your lord's maize-field while he smokes his pipe or drinks
+fire-water."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley seemed about to reply, but here the schoolroom
+door unclosed, admitting Mr. Sympson. That personage
+stood aghast when he saw the group around the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you alone, Miss Keeldar," he said. "I find
+quite a party."</p>
+
+<p>And evidently from his shocked, scandalized air, had he
+not recognized in one of the party a clergyman, he would
+have delivered an extempore philippic on the extraordinary
+habits of his niece: respect for the cloth arrested him.</p>
+
+<p>"I merely wished to announce," he proceeded coldly,
+"that the family from De Walden Hall, Mr., Mrs., the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>408<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Misses, and Mr. Sam Wynne, are in the drawing-room."
+And he bowed and withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>"The family from De Walden Hall! Couldn't be a
+worse set," murmured Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>She sat still, looking a little contumacious, and very much
+indisposed to stir. She was flushed with the fire. Her
+dark hair had been more than once dishevelled by the
+morning wind that day. Her attire was a light, neatly
+fitting, but amply flowing dress of muslin; the shawl she
+had worn in the garden was still draped in a careless fold
+round her. Indolent, wilful, picturesque, and singularly
+pretty was her aspect&mdash;prettier than usual, as if some soft
+inward emotion, stirred who knows how, had given new
+bloom and expression to her features.</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, Shirley, you ought to go," whispered Caroline.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder why?"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her eyes, and saw in the glass over the fireplace
+both Mr. Hall and Louis Moore gazing at her gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"If," she said, with a yielding smile&mdash;"if a majority
+of the present company maintain that the De Walden Hall
+people have claims on my civility, I will subdue my inclinations
+to my duty. Let those who think I ought to go
+hold up their hands."</p>
+
+<p>Again consulting the mirror, it reflected an unanimous
+vote against her.</p>
+
+<p>"You must go," said Mr. Hall, "and behave courteously
+too. You owe many duties to society. It is not permitted
+you to please only yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Louis Moore assented with a low "Hear, hear!"</p>
+
+<p>Caroline, approaching her, smoothed her wavy curls, gave
+to her attire a less artistic and more domestic grace, and
+Shirley was put out of the room, protesting still, by a pouting
+lip, against her dismissal.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a curious charm about her," observed Mr.
+Hall, when she was gone. "And now," he added, "I must
+away; for Sweeting is off to see his mother, and there are
+two funerals."</p>
+
+<p>"Henry, get your books; it is lesson-time," said Moore,
+sitting down to his desk.</p>
+
+<p>"A curious charm!" repeated the pupil, when he and
+his master were left alone. "True. Is she not a kind of
+white witch?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Of whom are you speaking, sir?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>409<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Of my cousin Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"No irrelevant questions; study in silence."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore looked and spoke sternly&mdash;sourly. Henry
+knew this mood. It was a rare one with his tutor; but
+when it came he had an awe of it. He obeyed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>410<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE FIRST BLUESTOCKING.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Miss Keeldar</span> and her uncle had characters that would
+not harmonize, that never had harmonized. He was irritable,
+and she was spirited. He was despotic, and she liked
+freedom. He was worldly, and she, perhaps, romantic.</p>
+
+<p>Not without purpose had he come down to Yorkshire.
+His mission was clear, and he intended to discharge it conscientiously.
+He anxiously desired to have his niece
+married, to make for her a suitable match, give her in
+charge to a proper husband, and wash his hands of her
+for ever.</p>
+
+<p>The misfortune was, from infancy upwards, Shirley and
+he had disagreed on the meaning of the words "suitable"
+and "proper." She never yet had accepted his definition;
+and it was doubtful whether, in the most important step
+of her life, she would consent to accept it.</p>
+
+<p>The trial soon came.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wynne proposed in form for his son, Samuel Fawthrop
+Wynne.</p>
+
+<p>"Decidedly suitable! most proper!" pronounced Mr.
+Sympson. "A fine unencumbered estate, real substance,
+good connections. <em>It must be done!</em>"</p>
+
+<p>He sent for his niece to the oak parlour; he shut himself
+up there with her alone; he communicated the offer; he
+gave his opinion; he claimed her consent.</p>
+
+<p>It was withheld.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne."</p>
+
+<p>"I ask why. I must have a reason. In all respects he
+is more than worthy of you."</p>
+
+<p>She stood on the hearth. She was pale as the white
+marble slab and cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large,
+dilated, unsmiling.</p>
+
+<p>"And <em>I</em> ask in what sense that young man is worthy
+of <em>me</em>?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>411<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"He has twice your money, twice your common sense,
+equal connections, equal respectability."</p>
+
+<p>"Had he my money counted fivescore times I would take
+no vow to love him."</p>
+
+<p>"Please to state your objections."</p>
+
+<p>"He has run a course of despicable, commonplace profligacy.
+Accept that as the first reason why I spurn him."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Keeldar, you shock me!"</p>
+
+<p>"That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable
+inferiority. His intellect reaches no standard I can
+esteem: there is a second stumbling-block. His views are
+narrow, his feelings are blunt, his tastes are coarse, his
+manners vulgar."</p>
+
+<p>"The man is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him
+is presumption on your part."</p>
+
+<p>"I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the
+subject; I forbid it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer
+celibacy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I deny your right to claim an answer to that question."</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask if you expect some man of title&mdash;some peer
+of the realm&mdash;to demand your hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it."</p>
+
+<p>"Were there insanity in the family, I should believe you
+mad. Your eccentricity and conceit touch the verge of
+frenzy."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me over-leap
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"I anticipate no less. Frantic and impracticable girl!
+Take warning! I dare you to sully our name by a <em>m&eacute;salliance</em>!"</p>
+
+<p>"<em>Our</em> name! Am <em>I</em> called Sympson?"</p>
+
+<p>"God be thanked that you are not! But be on your
+guard; I will not be trifled with!"</p>
+
+<p>"What, in the name of common law and common sense,
+would you or could you do if my pleasure led me to a choice
+you disapproved?"</p>
+
+<p>"Take care! take care!" warning her with voice and
+hand that trembled alike.</p>
+
+<p>"Why? What shadow of power have <em>you</em> over me?
+Why should I fear you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Take care, madam!"</p>
+
+<p>"Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I
+marry I am resolved to esteem&mdash;to admire&mdash;to <em>love</em>."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>412<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Preposterous stuff! indecorous, unwomanly!"</p>
+
+<p>"To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an
+unknown tongue; but I feel indifferent whether I am comprehended
+or not."</p>
+
+<p>"And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?"</p>
+
+<p>"On a beggar it will never fall. Mendicancy is not
+estimable."</p>
+
+<p>"On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or&mdash;or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Any literary scrub, or shabby, whining artist."</p>
+
+<p>"For the scrubby, shabby, whining I have no taste; for
+literature and the arts I have. And there I wonder how
+your Fawthrop Wynne would suit me. He cannot write a
+note without orthographical errors; he reads only a sporting
+paper; he was the booby of Stilbro' grammar school!"</p>
+
+<p>"Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she
+come?" He lifted hands and eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Never to the altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne."</p>
+
+<p>"To what will she come? Why are not the laws more
+stringent, that I might compel her to hear reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom and
+you the Czar, you could not <em>compel</em> me to this step. <em>I</em>
+will write to Mr. Wynne. Give yourself no further trouble
+on the subject."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice
+often takes the form of repeating again and again a similar
+stroke of luck in the same quarter. It appeared that Miss
+Keeldar&mdash;or her fortune&mdash;had by this time made a sensation
+in the district, and produced an impression in quarters
+by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed
+Mr. Wynne's, all more or less eligible. All were in succession
+pressed on her by her uncle, and all in succession she
+refused. Yet amongst them was more than one gentleman
+of unexceptionable character as well as ample wealth.
+Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom
+she expected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious.</p>
+
+<p>At last the gossips thought they had found the key to
+her conduct, and her uncle was sure of it; and what is
+more, the discovery showed his niece to him in quite a new
+light, and he changed his whole deportment to her accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>Fieldhead had of late been fast growing too hot to hold
+them both. The suave aunt could not reconcile them; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>413<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+daughters froze at the view of their quarrels. Gertrude
+and Isabella whispered by the hour together in their dressing-room,
+and became chilled with decorous dread if they
+chanced to be left alone with their audacious cousin. But,
+as I have said, a change supervened. Mr. Sympson was
+appeased and his family tranquillized.</p>
+
+<p>The village of Nunnely has been alluded to&mdash;its old church,
+its forest, its monastic ruins. It had also its hall, called the
+priory&mdash;an older, a larger, a more lordly abode than any
+Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and what is more, it had
+its man of title&mdash;its baronet, which neither Briarfield nor
+Whinbury could boast. This possession&mdash;its proudest and
+most prized&mdash;had for years been nominal only. The present
+baronet, a young man hitherto resident in a distant province,
+was unknown on his Yorkshire estate.</p>
+
+<p>During Miss Keeldar's stay at the fashionable watering-place
+of Cliffbridge, she and her friends had met with and
+been introduced to Sir Philip Nunnely. They encountered
+him again and again on the sands, the cliffs, in the various
+walks, sometimes at the public balls of the place. He
+seemed solitary. His manner was very unpretending&mdash;too
+simple to be termed affable; rather timid than proud. He
+did not <em>condescend</em> to their society; he seemed <em>glad</em> of it.</p>
+
+<p>With any unaffected individual Shirley could easily and
+quickly cement an acquaintance. She walked and talked
+with Sir Philip; she, her aunt, and cousins sometimes took
+a sail in his yacht. She liked him because she found him
+kind and modest, and was charmed to feel she had the power
+to amuse him.</p>
+
+<p>One slight drawback there was&mdash;where is the friendship
+without it?&mdash;Sir Philip had a literary turn. He wrote
+poetry&mdash;sonnets, stanzas, ballads. Perhaps Miss Keeldar
+thought him a little too fond of reading and reciting these
+compositions; perhaps she wished the rhyme had possessed
+more accuracy, the measure more music, the tropes
+more freshness, the inspiration more fire. At any rate, she
+always winced when he recurred to the subject of his poems,
+and usually did her best to divert the conversation into
+another channel.</p>
+
+<p>He would beguile her to take moonlight walks with him
+on the bridge, for the sole purpose, as it seemed, of pouring
+into her ear the longest of his ballads. He would lead
+her away to sequestered rustic seats, whence the rush of
+the surf to the sands was heard soft and soothing; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>414<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+when he had her all to himself, and the sea lay before them,
+and the scented shade of gardens spread round, and the
+tall shelter of cliffs rose behind them, he would pull out his
+last batch of sonnets, and read them in a voice tremulous
+with emotion. He did not seem to know that though they
+might be rhyme they were not poetry. It appeared, by
+Shirley's downcast eye and disturbed face, that she knew
+it, and felt heartily mortified by the single foible of this
+good and amiable gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Often she tried, as gently as might be, to wean him from
+this fanatic worship of the Muses. It was his monomania;
+on all ordinary subjects he was sensible enough, and fain
+was she to engage him in ordinary topics. He questioned
+her sometimes about his place at Nunnely; she was but
+too happy to answer his interrogatories at length. She
+never wearied of describing the antique priory, the wild
+silvan park, the hoary church and hamlet; nor did she fail
+to counsel him to come down and gather his tenantry about
+him in his ancestral halls.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat to her surprise, Sir Philip followed her advice
+to the letter, and actually, towards the close of September,
+arrived at the priory.</p>
+
+<p>He soon made a call at Fieldhead, and his first visit was
+not his last. He said&mdash;when he had achieved the round
+of the neighbourhood&mdash;that under no roof had he found
+such pleasant shelter as beneath the massive oak beams
+of the gray manor-house of Briarfield; a cramped, modest
+dwelling enough compared with his own, but he liked it.</p>
+
+<p>Presently it did not suffice to sit with Shirley in her
+panelled parlour, where others came and went, and where
+he could rarely find a quiet moment to show her the latest
+production of his fertile muse; he must have her out amongst
+the pleasant pastures, and lead her by the still waters.
+<em>T&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</em> ramblings she shunned, so he made parties for
+her to his own grounds, his glorious forest; to remoter
+scenes&mdash;woods severed by the Wharfe, vales watered by the
+Aire.</p>
+
+<p>Such assiduity covered Miss Keeldar with distinction.
+Her uncle's prophetic soul anticipated a splendid future.
+He already scented the time afar off when, with nonchalant
+air, and left foot nursed on his right knee, he
+should be able to make dashingly-familiar allusion to his
+"nephew the baronet." Now his niece dawned upon him
+no longer "a mad girl," but a "most sensible woman."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>415<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+He termed her, in confidential dialogues with Mrs. Sympson,
+"a truly superior person; peculiar, but very clever."
+He treated her with exceeding deference; rose reverently
+to open and shut doors for her; reddened his face and gave
+himself headaches with stooping to pick up gloves, handkerchiefs,
+and other loose property, whereof Shirley usually
+held but insecure tenure. He would cut mysterious jokes
+about the superiority of woman's wit over man's wisdom;
+commence obscure apologies for the blundering mistake
+he had committed respecting the generalship, the tactics,
+of "a personage not a hundred miles from Fieldhead."
+In short, he seemed elate as any "midden-cock on pattens."</p>
+
+<p>His niece viewed his man&oelig;uvres and received his innuendoes
+with phlegm; apparently she did not above half
+comprehend to what aim they tended. When plainly
+charged with being the preferred of the baronet, she said
+she believed he did like her, and for her part she liked him.
+She had never thought a man of rank&mdash;the only son of a
+proud, fond mother, the only brother of doting sisters&mdash;could
+have so much goodness, and, on the whole, so much
+sense.</p>
+
+<p>Time proved, indeed, that Sir Philip liked her. Perhaps
+he had found in her that "curious charm" noticed by Mr.
+Hall. He sought her presence more and more, and at last
+with a frequency that attested it had become to him an
+indispensable stimulus. About this time strange feelings
+hovered round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard
+anxieties haunted some of its rooms. There was an unquiet
+wandering of some of the inmates among the still
+fields round the mansion; there was a sense of expectancy
+that kept the nerves strained.</p>
+
+<p>One thing seemed clear: Sir Philip was not a man to be
+despised. He was amiable; if not highly intellectual, he
+was intelligent. Miss Keeldar could not affirm of him,
+what she had so bitterly affirmed of Sam Wynne, that his
+feelings were blunt, his tastes coarse, and his manners
+vulgar. There was sensibility in his nature; there was a
+very real, if not a very discriminating, love of the arts;
+there was the English gentleman in all his deportment.
+As to his lineage and wealth, both were, of course, far beyond
+her claims.</p>
+
+<p>His appearance had at first elicited some laughing though
+not ill-natured remarks from the merry Shirley. It was
+boyish. His features were plain and slight, his hair sandy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>416<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+his stature insignificant. But she soon checked her sarcasm
+on this point; she would even fire up if any one else made
+uncomplimentary allusion thereto. He had "a pleasing
+countenance," she affirmed; "and there was that in his
+heart which was better than three Roman noses, than the
+locks of Absalom or the proportions of Saul." A spare and
+rare shaft she still reserved for his unfortunate poetic propensity;
+but even here she would tolerate no irony save
+her own.</p>
+
+<p>In short, matters had reached a point which seemed
+fully to warrant an observation made about this time by
+Mr. Yorke to the tutor, Louis.</p>
+
+<p>"Yond' brother Robert of yours seems to me to be
+either a fool or a madman. Two months ago I could have
+sworn he had the game all in his own hands; and there
+he runs the country, and quarters himself up in London
+for weeks together, and by the time he comes back he'll
+find himself checkmated. Louis, 'there is a tide in the
+affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,
+but, once let slip, never returns again.' I'd write to Robert,
+if I were you, and remind him of that."</p>
+
+<p>"Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?" inquired Louis,
+as if the idea was new to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Views I suggested to him myself, and views he might
+have realized, for she liked him."</p>
+
+<p>"As a neighbour?"</p>
+
+<p>"As more than that. I have seen her change countenance
+and colour at the mere mention of his name. Write
+to the lad, I say, and tell him to come home. He is a finer
+gentleman than this bit of a baronet, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a mere
+penniless adventurer to aspire to a rich woman's hand is
+presumptuous&mdash;contemptible?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if you are for high notions and double-refined
+sentiment, I've naught to say. I'm a plain, practical man
+myself, and if Robert is willing to give up that royal prize
+to a lad-rival&mdash;a puling slip of aristocracy&mdash;I am quite
+agreeable. At <em>his</em> age, in <em>his</em> place, with <em>his</em> inducements,
+I would have acted differently. Neither baronet, nor duke,
+nor prince should have snatched my sweetheart from me
+without a struggle. But you tutors are such solemn chaps;
+it is almost like speaking to a parson to consult with you."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Flattered and fawned upon as Shirley was just now, it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>417<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+appeared she was not absolutely spoiled&mdash;that her better
+nature did not quite leave her. Universal report had indeed
+ceased to couple her name with that of Moore, and this
+silence seemed sanctioned by her own apparent oblivion
+of the absentee; but that she had not <em>quite</em> forgotten him&mdash;that
+she still regarded him, if not with love, yet with
+interest&mdash;seemed proved by the increased attention which
+at this juncture of affairs a sudden attack of illness induced
+her to show that tutor-brother of Robert's, to whom she
+habitually bore herself with strange alternations of cool
+reserve and docile respect&mdash;now sweeping past him in all
+the dignity of the moneyed heiress and prospective Lady
+Nunnely, and anon accosting him as abashed school-girls
+are wont to accost their stern professors; bridling her neck
+of ivory and curling her lip of carmine, if he encountered
+her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the
+grave rebuke of his eye with as much contrition as if he had
+the power to inflict penalties in case of contumacy.</p>
+
+<p>Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever, which for
+a few days laid him low, in one of the poor cottages of
+the district, which he, his lame pupil, and Mr. Hall were
+in the habit of visiting together. At any rate he sickened,
+and after opposing to the malady a taciturn resistance for
+a day or two, was obliged to keep his chamber.</p>
+
+<p>He lay tossing on his thorny bed one evening, Henry,
+who would not quit him, watching faithfully beside him,
+when a tap&mdash;too light to be that of Mrs. Gill or the housemaid&mdash;summoned
+young Sympson to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"How is Mr. Moore to-night?" asked a low voice from
+the dark gallery.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in and see him yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he asleep?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish he could sleep. Come and speak to him, Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"He would not like it."</p>
+
+<p>But the speaker stepped in, and Henry, seeing her hesitate
+on the threshold, took her hand and drew her to the couch.</p>
+
+<p>The shaded light showed Miss Keeldar's form but imperfectly;
+yet it revealed her in elegant attire. There was
+a party assembled below, including Sir Philip Nunnely;
+the ladies were now in the drawing-room, and their hostess
+had stolen from them to visit Henry's tutor. Her pure
+white dress, her fair arms and neck, the trembling chainlet
+of gold circling her throat and quivering on her breast,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>418<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+glistened strangely amid the obscurity of the sickroom.
+Her mien was chastened and pensive. She spoke gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore, how are you to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not been very ill, and am now better."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard that you complained of thirst. I have brought
+you some grapes; can you taste one?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but I thank you for remembering me."</p>
+
+<p>"Just one."</p>
+
+<p>From the rich cluster that filled a small basket held in
+her hand she severed a berry and offered it to his lips.
+He shook his head, and turned aside his flushed face.</p>
+
+<p>"But what, then, can I bring you instead? You have
+no wish for fruit; yet I see that your lips are parched.
+What beverage do you prefer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Gill supplies me with toast-and-water. I like it
+best."</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell for some minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suffer?&mdash;have you pain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very little."</p>
+
+<p>"What made you ill?"</p>
+
+<p>Silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what caused this fever? To what do you
+attribute it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miasma, perhaps&mdash;malaria. This is autumn, a season
+fertile in fevers."</p>
+
+<p>"I hear you often visit the sick in Briarfield, and Nunnely
+too, with Mr. Hall. You should be on your guard; temerity
+is not wise."</p>
+
+<p>"That reminds me, Miss Keeldar, that perhaps you had
+better not enter this chamber or come near this couch.
+I do not believe my illness is infectious. I scarcely fear"&mdash;with
+a sort of smile&mdash;"<em>you</em> will take it; but why should
+you run even the shadow of a risk? Leave me."</p>
+
+<p>"Patience, I will go soon; but I should like to do something
+for you before I depart&mdash;any little service&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"They will miss you below."</p>
+
+<p>"No; the gentlemen are still at table."</p>
+
+<p>"They will not linger long. Sir Philip Nunnely is no
+wine-bibber, and I hear him just now pass from the dining-room
+to the drawing-room."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a servant."</p>
+
+<p>"It is Sir Philip; I know his step."</p>
+
+<p>"Your hearing is acute."</p>
+
+<p>"It is never dull, and the sense seems sharpened at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>419<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+present. Sir Philip was here to tea last night. I heard
+you sing to him some song which he had brought you.
+I heard him, when he took his departure at eleven o'clock,
+call you out on to the pavement, to look at the evening
+star."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be nervously sensitive."</p>
+
+<p>"I heard him kiss your hand."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"No: my chamber is over the hall, the window just
+above the front door; the sash was a little raised, for I
+felt feverish. You stood ten minutes with him on the steps.
+I heard your discourse, every word, and I heard the salute.&mdash;Henry,
+give me some water."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me give it him."</p>
+
+<p>But he half rose to take the glass from young Sympson,
+and declined her attendance.</p>
+
+<p>"And can I do nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing; for you cannot guarantee me a night's
+peaceful rest, and it is all I at present want."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not sleep well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep has left me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet you said you were not very ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am often sleepless when in high health."</p>
+
+<p>"If I had power, I would lap you in the most placid
+slumber&mdash;quite deep and hushed, without a dream."</p>
+
+<p>"Blank annihilation! I do not ask that."</p>
+
+<p>"With dreams of all you most desire."</p>
+
+<p>"Monstrous delusions! The sleep would be delirium,
+the waking death."</p>
+
+<p>"Your wishes are not so chimerical; you are no visionary."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Keeldar, I suppose you think so; but my character
+is not, perhaps, quite as legible to you as a page of the last
+new novel might be."</p>
+
+<p>"That is possible. But this sleep&mdash;I <em>should</em> like to woo
+it to your pillow, to win for you its favour. If I took a
+book and sat down and read some pages? I can well spare
+half an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, but I will not detain you."</p>
+
+<p>"I would read softly."</p>
+
+<p>"It would not do. I am too feverish and excitable
+to bear a soft, cooing, vibrating voice close at my ear.
+You had better leave me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will go."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>420<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"And no good-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, yes. Mr. Moore, good-night." (Exit Shirley.)</p>
+
+<p>"Henry, my boy, go to bed now; it is time you had
+some repose."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, it would please me to watch at your bedside all
+night."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing less called for. I am getting better. There,
+go."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me your blessing, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, my best pupil!"</p>
+
+<p>"You never call me your dearest pupil!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, nor ever shall."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Possibly Miss Keeldar resented her former teacher's
+rejection of her courtesy. It is certain she did not repeat
+the offer of it. Often as her light step traversed the gallery
+in the course of a day, it did not again pause at his door;
+nor did her "cooing, vibrating voice" disturb a second
+time the hush of the sickroom. A sickroom, indeed, it
+soon ceased to be; Mr. Moore's good constitution quickly
+triumphed over his indisposition. In a few days he shook
+it off, and resumed his duties as tutor.</p>
+
+<p>That "auld lang syne" had still its authority both with
+preceptor and scholar was proved by the manner in which
+he sometimes promptly passed the distance she usually
+maintained between them, and put down her high reserve
+with a firm, quiet hand.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon the Sympson family were gone out to
+take a carriage airing. Shirley, never sorry to snatch a
+reprieve from their society, had remained behind, detained
+by business, as she said. The business&mdash;a little letter-writing&mdash;was
+soon dispatched after the yard gates had
+closed on the carriage; Miss Keeldar betook herself to the
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>It was a peaceful autumn day. The gilding of the
+Indian summer mellowed the pastures far and wide. The
+russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full
+of leaf. The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not
+withered, tinged the hills. The beck wandered down to
+the Hollow, through a silent district; no wind followed
+its course or haunted its woody borders. Fieldhead gardens
+bore the seal of gentle decay. On the walks, swept that
+morning, yellow leaves had fluttered down again. Its time
+of flowers, and even of fruits, was over; but a scantling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>421<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+of apples enriched the trees. Only a blossom here and there
+expanded pale and delicate amidst a knot of faded leaves.</p>
+
+<p>These single flowers&mdash;the last of their race&mdash;Shirley
+culled as she wandered thoughtfully amongst the beds.
+She was fastening into her girdle a hueless and scentless
+nosegay, when Henry Sympson called to her as he came
+limping from the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley, Mr. Moore would be glad to see you in the
+schoolroom and to hear you read a little French, if you
+have no more urgent occupation."</p>
+
+<p>The messenger delivered his commission very simply, as
+if it were a mere matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Mr. Moore tell you to say that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; why not? And now, do come, and let
+us once more be as we were at Sympson Grove. We used
+to have pleasant school-hours in those days."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar perhaps thought that circumstances were
+changed since then; however, she made no remark, but
+after a little reflection quietly followed Henry.</p>
+
+<p>Entering the schoolroom, she inclined her head with
+a decent obeisance, as had been her wont in former times.
+She removed her bonnet, and hung it up beside Henry's
+cap. Louis Moore sat at his desk, turning the leaves of
+a book, open before him, and marking passages with his
+pencil. He just moved, in acknowledgment of her curtsy,
+but did not rise.</p>
+
+<p>"You proposed to read to me a few nights ago," said he.
+"I could not hear you then. My attention is now at your
+service. A little renewed practice in French may not be unprofitable.
+Your accent, I have observed, begins to rust."</p>
+
+<p>"What book shall I take?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here are the posthumous works of St. Pierre. Read
+a few pages of the 'Fragments de l'Amazone.'"</p>
+
+<p>She accepted the chair which he had placed in readiness
+near his own; the volume lay on his desk&mdash;there was but
+one between them; her sweeping curls dropped so low as
+to hide the page from him.</p>
+
+<p>"Put back your hair," he said.</p>
+
+<p>For one moment Shirley looked not quite certain whether
+she would obey the request or disregard it. A flicker of
+her eye beamed furtive on the professor's face. Perhaps if
+he had been looking at her harshly or timidly, or if one
+undecided line had marked his countenance, she would have
+rebelled, and the lesson had ended there and then; but he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>422<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+was only awaiting her compliance&mdash;as calm as marble, and
+as cool. She threw the veil of tresses behind her ear. It
+was well her face owned an agreeable outline, and that her
+cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of early youth,
+or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might
+have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the
+present society? Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to
+fascinate Mentor.</p>
+
+<p>She began to read. The language had become strange
+to her tongue; it faltered; the lecture flowed unevenly,
+impeded by hurried breath, broken by Anglicized tones.
+She stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do it. Read me a paragraph, if you please,
+Mr. Moore."</p>
+
+<p>What <em>he</em> read <em>she</em> repeated. She caught his accent in
+three minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Tr&egrave;s bien," was the approving comment at the close
+of the piece.</p>
+
+<p>"C'est presque le Fran&ccedil;ais rattrap&eacute;, n'est-ce pas?"</p>
+
+<p>"You could not write French as you once could, I dare
+say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no! I should make strange work of my concords
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"You could not compose the <em>devoir</em> of 'La Premi&egrave;re
+Femme Savante'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you still remember that rubbish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every line."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt you."</p>
+
+<p>"I will engage to repeat it word for word."</p>
+
+<p>"You would stop short at the first line."</p>
+
+<p>"Challenge me to the experiment."</p>
+
+<p>"I challenge you."</p>
+
+<p>He proceeded to recite the following. He gave it in
+French, but we must translate, on pain of being unintelligible
+to some readers.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<blockquote><p class="hang">"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of
+the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons
+of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they
+took them wives of all which they chose."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This was in the dawn of time, before the morning stars
+were set, and while they yet sang together.</p>
+
+<p>The epoch is so remote, the mists and dewy gray of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>423<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+matin twilight veil it with so vague an obscurity, that all
+distinct feature of custom, all clear line of locality, evade
+perception and baffle research. It must suffice to know
+that the world then existed; that men peopled it; that
+man's nature, with its passions, sympathies, pains, and
+pleasures, informed the planet and gave it soul.</p>
+
+<p>A certain tribe colonized a certain spot on the globe;
+of what race this tribe&mdash;unknown; in what region that
+spot&mdash;untold. We usually think of the East when we
+refer to transactions of that date; but who shall declare
+that there was no life in the West, the South, the North?
+What is to disprove that this tribe, instead of camping
+under palm groves in Asia, wandered beneath island oak
+woods rooted in our own seas of Europe?</p>
+
+<p>It is no sandy plain, nor any circumscribed and scant
+oasis I seem to realize. A forest valley, with rocky sides
+and brown profundity of shade, formed by tree crowding
+on tree, descends deep before me. Here, indeed, dwell
+human beings, but so few, and in alleys so thick branched
+and overarched, they are neither heard nor seen. Are they
+savage? Doubtless. They live by the crook and the bow;
+half shepherds, half hunters, their flocks wander wild as
+their prey. Are they happy? No, not more happy than
+we are at this day. Are they good? No, not better than
+ourselves. Their nature is our nature&mdash;human both. There
+is one in this tribe too often miserable&mdash;a child bereaved
+of both parents. None cares for this child. She is fed
+sometimes, but oftener forgotten. A hut rarely receives
+her; the hollow tree and chill cavern are her home. Forsaken,
+lost, and wandering, she lives more with the wild
+beast and bird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold
+are her comrades; sadness hovers over, and solitude besets
+her round. Unheeded and unvalued, she should die; but
+she both lives and grows. The green wilderness nurses her,
+and becomes to her a mother; feeds her on juicy berry, on
+saccharine root and nut.</p>
+
+<p>There is something in the air of this clime which fosters
+life kindly. There must be something, too, in its dews
+which heals with sovereign balm. Its gentle seasons
+exaggerate no passion, no sense; its temperature tends
+to harmony; its breezes, you would say, bring down from
+heaven the germ of pure thought and purer feeling. Not
+grotesquely fantastic are the forms of cliff and foliage, not
+violently vivid the colouring of flower and bird. In all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>424<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+grandeur of these forests there is repose; in all their freshness
+there is tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, bestowed
+on deer and dove, has not been denied to the human nursling.
+All solitary, she has sprung up straight and graceful.
+Nature cast her features in a fine mould; they have matured
+in their pure, accurate first lines, unaltered by the shocks
+of disease. No fierce dry blast has dealt rudely with the
+surface of her frame; no burning sun has crisped or withered
+her tresses. Her form gleams ivory-white through the
+trees; her hair flows plenteous, long, and glossy; her eyes,
+not dazzled by vertical fires, beam in the shade large and
+open, and full and dewy. Above those eyes, when the
+breeze bares her forehead, shines an expanse fair and ample&mdash;a
+clear, candid page, whereon knowledge, should knowledge
+ever come, might write a golden record. You see in
+the desolate young savage nothing vicious or vacant. She
+haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful, though of what
+one so untaught can think it is not easy to divine.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood,
+being utterly alone&mdash;for she had lost all trace of her tribe,
+who had wandered leagues away, she knew not where&mdash;she
+went up from the vale, to watch Day take leave and
+Night arrive. A crag overspread by a tree was her station.
+The oak roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat; the oak
+boughs, thick-leaved, wove a canopy.</p>
+
+<p>Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple
+fire, and parting to the farewell of a wild, low chorus from
+the woodlands. Then Night entered, quiet as death.
+The wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Now every nest
+held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully
+safe in their lair.</p>
+
+<p>The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; occupied,
+however, rather in feeling than in thinking, in wishing
+than hoping, in imagining than projecting. She felt the
+world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty. Of all
+things herself seemed to herself the centre&mdash;a small, forgotten
+atom of life, a spark of soul, emitted inadvertent
+from the great creative source, and now burning unmarked
+to waste in the heart of a black hollow. She asked, was
+she thus to burn out and perish, her living light doing no good,
+never seen, never needed&mdash;a star in an else starless firmament,
+which nor shepherd, nor wanderer, nor sage, nor
+priest tracked as a guide or read as a prophecy? Could this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>425<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+be, she demanded, when the flame of her intelligence burned
+so vivid; when her life beat so true, and real, and potent;
+when something within her stirred disquieted, and restlessly
+asserted a God-given strength, for which it insisted she
+should find exercise?</p>
+
+<p>She gazed abroad on Heaven and Evening. Heaven
+and Evening gazed back on her. She bent down, searching
+bank, hill, river, spread dim below. All she questioned
+responded by oracles. She heard&mdash;she was impressed;
+but she could not understand. Above her head she raised
+her hands joined together.</p>
+
+<p>"Guidance&mdash;help&mdash;comfort&mdash;come!" was her cry.</p>
+
+<p>There was no voice, nor any that answered.</p>
+
+<p>She waited, kneeling, steadfastly looking up. Yonder
+sky was sealed; the solemn stars shone alien and remote.</p>
+
+<p>At last one overstretched chord of her agony slacked;
+she thought Something above relented; she felt as if Something
+far round drew nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke.
+There was no language, no word, only a tone.</p>
+
+<p>Again&mdash;a fine, full, lofty tone, a deep, soft sound, like
+a storm whispering, made twilight undulate.</p>
+
+<p>Once more, profounder, nearer, clearer, it rolled harmonious.</p>
+
+<p>Yet again&mdash;a distinct voice passed between Heaven
+and Earth.</p>
+
+<p>"Eva!"</p>
+
+<p>If Eva were not this woman's name, she had none. She
+rose. "Here am I."</p>
+
+<p>"Eva!"</p>
+
+<p>"O Night (it can be but Night that speaks), I am here!"</p>
+
+<p>The voice, descending, reached Earth.</p>
+
+<p>"Eva!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord," she cried, "behold thine handmaid!"</p>
+
+<p>She had her religion&mdash;all tribes held some creed.</p>
+
+<p>"I come&mdash;a Comforter!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, come quickly!"</p>
+
+<p>The Evening flushed full of hope; the Air panted;
+the Moon&mdash;rising before&mdash;ascended large, but her light
+showed no shape.</p>
+
+<p>"Lean towards me, Eva. Enter my arms; repose
+thus."</p>
+
+<p>"Thus I lean, O Invisible but felt! And what art thou?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eva, I have brought a living draught from heaven.
+Daughter of Man, drink of my cup!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>426<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I drink: it is as if sweetest dew visited my lips in
+a full current. My arid heart revives; my affliction is
+lightened; my strait and struggle are gone. And the
+night changes! the wood, the hill, the moon, the wide
+sky&mdash;all change!"</p>
+
+<p>"All change, and for ever. I take from thy vision
+darkness; I loosen from thy faculties fetters! I level
+in thy path obstacles; I with my presence fill vacancy.
+I claim as mine the lost atom of life. I take to myself
+the spark of soul&mdash;burning heretofore forgotten!"</p>
+
+<p>"O take me! O claim me! This is a god."</p>
+
+<p>"This is a son of God&mdash;one who feels himself in the
+portion of life that stirs you. He is suffered to reclaim his
+own, and so to foster and aid that it shall not perish hopeless."</p>
+
+<p>"A son of God! Am I indeed chosen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thou only in this land. I saw thee that thou wert
+fair; I knew thee that thou wert mine. To me it is given
+to rescue, to sustain, to cherish mine own. Acknowledge
+in me that Seraph on earth named Genius."</p>
+
+<p>"My glorious Bridegroom! true Dayspring from on high!
+All I would have at last I possess. I receive a revelation.
+The dark hint, the obscure whisper, which have haunted me
+from childhood, are interpreted. Thou art He I sought.
+Godborn, take me, thy bride!"</p>
+
+<p>"Unhumbled, I can take what is mine. Did I not
+give from the altar the very flame which lit Eva's being?
+Come again into the heaven whence thou wert
+sent."</p>
+
+<p>That Presence, invisible but mighty, gathered her in
+like a lamb to the fold; that voice, soft but all-pervading,
+vibrated through her heart like music. Her eye received
+no image; and yet a sense visited her vision and her brain
+as of the serenity of stainless air, the power of sovereign
+seas, the majesty of marching stars, the energy of colliding
+elements, the rooted endurance of hills wide based, and,
+above all, as of the lustre of heroic beauty rushing victorious
+on the Night, vanquishing its shadows like a diviner
+sun.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who
+shall rehearse the tale of their after-union? Who shall
+depict its bliss and bale? Who shall tell how He between
+whom and the Woman God put enmity forged deadly plots
+to break the bond or defile its purity? Who shall record<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>427<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+the long strife between Serpent and Seraph:&mdash;How still the
+Father of Lies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom,
+grossness into glory, pain into bliss, poison into passion?
+How the "dreadless Angel" defied, resisted, and repelled?
+How again and again he refined the polluted cup, exalted
+the debased emotion, rectified the perverted impulse, detected
+the lurking venom, baffled the frontless temptation&mdash;purified,
+justified, watched, and withstood? How, by his
+patience, by his strength, by that unutterable excellence
+he held from God&mdash;his Origin&mdash;this faithful Seraph fought
+for Humanity a good fight through time; and, when Time's
+course closed, and Death was encountered at the end,
+barring with fleshless arm the portals of Eternity, how
+Genius still held close his dying bride, sustained her through
+the agony of the passage, bore her triumphant into his
+own home, Heaven; restored her, redeemed, to Jehovah,
+her Maker; and at last, before Angel and Archangel, crowned
+her with the crown of Immortality?</p>
+
+<p>Who shall of these things write the chronicle?</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"I never could correct that composition," observed
+Shirley, as Moore concluded. "Your censor-pencil scored
+it with condemnatory lines, whose signification I strove
+vainly to fathom."</p>
+
+<p>She had taken a crayon from the tutor's desk, and was
+drawing little leaves, fragments of pillars, broken crosses,
+on the margin of the book.</p>
+
+<p>"French may be half forgotten, but the habits of the
+French lesson are retained, I see," said Louis. "My
+books would now, as erst, be unsafe with you. My newly-bound
+St. Pierre would soon be like my Racine&mdash;Miss
+Keeldar, her mark, traced on every page."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley dropped her crayon as if it burned her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what were the faults of that <em>devoir</em>?" she asked.
+"Were they grammatical errors, or did you object to the
+substance?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never said that the lines I drew were indications
+of faults at all. You would have it that such was the case,
+and I refrained from contradiction."</p>
+
+<p>"What else did they denote?"</p>
+
+<p>"No matter now."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore," cried Henry, "make Shirley repeat some
+of the pieces she used to say so well by heart."</p>
+
+<p>"If I ask for any, it will be 'Le Cheval Dompt&eacute;,'"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>428<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+said Moore, trimming with his penknife the pencil Miss
+Keeldar had worn to a stump.</p>
+
+<p>She turned aside her head; the neck, the clear cheek,
+forsaken by their natural veil, were seen to flush warm.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! she has not forgotten, you see, sir," said Henry,
+exultant. "She knows how naughty she was."</p>
+
+<p>A smile, which Shirley would not permit to expand,
+made her lip tremble; she bent her face, and hid it half
+with her arms, half in her curls, which, as she stooped,
+fell loose again. "Certainly I was a rebel," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"A rebel!" repeated Henry. "Yes; you and papa
+had quarrelled terribly, and you set both him and mamma,
+and Mrs. Pryor, and everybody, at defiance. You said he
+had insulted you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He <em>had</em> insulted me," interposed Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"And you wanted to leave Sympson Grove directly.
+You packed your things up, and papa threw them out
+of your trunk; mamma cried, Mrs. Pryor cried; they
+both stood wringing their hands begging you to be patient;
+and you knelt on the floor with your things and your up-turned
+box before you, looking, Shirley, looking&mdash;why, in
+one of <em>your</em> passions. Your features, in such passions, are
+not distorted; they are fixed, but quite beautiful. You
+scarcely look angry, only resolute, and in a certain haste;
+yet one feels that at such times an obstacle cast across your
+path would be split as with lightning. Papa lost heart, and
+called Mr. Moore."</p>
+
+<p>"Enough, Henry."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is not enough. I hardly know how Mr. Moore
+managed, except that I recollect he suggested to papa that
+agitation would bring on his gout; and then he spoke
+quietly to the ladies, and got them away; and afterwards
+he said to you, Miss Shirley, that it was of no use talking or
+lecturing now, but that the tea-things were just brought into
+the schoolroom, and he was very thirsty, and he would be
+glad if you would leave your packing for the present and
+come and make a cup of tea for him and me. You came;
+you would not talk at first, but soon you softened and grew
+cheerful. Mr. Moore began to tell us about the Continent,
+the war, and Bonaparte&mdash;subjects we were both fond of
+listening to. After tea he said we should neither of us leave
+him that evening; he would not let us stray out of his sight,
+lest we should again get into mischief. We sat one on each
+side of him. We were so happy. I never passed so pleasant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>429<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+an evening. The next day he gave you, missy, a lecture of
+an hour, and wound it up by marking you a piece to learn
+in Bossuet as a punishment-lesson&mdash;'Le Cheval Dompt&eacute;.'
+You learned it instead of packing up, Shirley. We heard
+no more of your running away. Mr. Moore used to tease you
+on the subject for a year afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"She never said a lesson with greater spirit," subjoined
+Moore. "She then, for the first time, gave me the treat
+of hearing my native tongue spoken without accent by an
+English girl."</p>
+
+<p>"She was as sweet as summer cherries for a month
+afterwards," struck in Henry: "a good hearty quarrel
+always left Shirley's temper better than it found
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk of me as if I were not present," observed
+Miss Keeldar, who had not yet lifted her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure you <em>are</em> present?" asked Moore. "There
+have been moments since my arrival here when I have been
+tempted to inquire of the lady of Fieldhead if she knew
+what had become of my former pupil."</p>
+
+<p>"She is here now."</p>
+
+<p>"I see her, and humble enough; but I would neither
+advise Harry nor others to believe too implicitly in the
+humility which one moment can hide its blushing face like
+a modest little child, and the next lift it pale and lofty as a
+marble Juno."</p>
+
+<p>"One man in times of old, it is said, imparted vitality
+to the statue he had chiselled; others may have the contrary
+gift of turning life to stone."</p>
+
+<p>Moore paused on this observation before he replied to
+it. His look, at once struck and meditative, said, "A
+strange phrase; what may it mean?" He turned it over
+in his mind, with thought deep and slow, as some German
+pondering metaphysics.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean," he said at last, "that some men inspire
+repugnance, and so chill the kind heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Ingenious!" responded Shirley. "If the interpretation
+pleases you, you are welcome to hold it valid. <em>I</em>
+don't care."</p>
+
+<p>And with that she raised her head, lofty in look and statue-like
+in hue, as Louis had described it.</p>
+
+<p>"Behold the metamorphosis!" he said; "scarce imagined
+ere it is realized: a lowly nymph develops to an inaccessible
+goddess. But Henry must not be disappointed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>430<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+of his recitation, and Olympia will deign to oblige him.
+Let us begin."</p>
+
+<p>"I have forgotten the very first line."</p>
+
+<p>"Which I have not. <em>My</em> memory, if a slow, is a retentive
+one. I acquire deliberately both knowledge and liking.
+The acquisition grows into my brain, and the sentiment
+into my breast; and it is not as the rapid-springing
+produce which, having no root in itself, flourishes verdurous
+enough for a time, but too soon falls withered away.
+Attention, Henry! Miss Keeldar consents to favour
+you. 'Voyez ce cheval ardent et imp&eacute;tueux,' so it commences."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar did consent to make the effort; but she
+soon stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I heard the whole repeated I cannot continue
+it," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet it was quickly learned&mdash;'soon gained, soon gone,'"
+moralized the tutor. He recited the passage deliberately,
+accurately, with slow, impressive emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>Shirley, by degrees, inclined her ear as he went on. Her
+face, before turned from him, <em>re</em>turned towards him. When
+he ceased, she took the word up as if from his lips; she
+took his very tone; she seized his very accent; she delivered
+the periods as he had delivered them; she reproduced
+his manner, his pronunciation, his expression.</p>
+
+<p>It was now her turn to petition.</p>
+
+<p>"Recall 'Le Songe d'Athalie,'" she entreated, "and
+say it."</p>
+
+<p>He said it for her. She took it from him; she found
+lively excitement in the pleasure of making his language
+her own. She asked for further indulgence; all the old
+school pieces were revived, and with them Shirley's old
+school days.</p>
+
+<p>He had gone through some of the best passages of Racine
+and Corneille, and then had heard the echo of his own
+deep tones in the girl's voice, that modulated itself faithfully
+on his. "Le ch&ecirc;ne et le Roseau," that most beautiful
+of La Fontaine's fables, had been recited, well recited, by
+the tutor, and the pupil had animatedly availed herself
+of the lesson. Perhaps a simultaneous feeling seized them
+now, that their enthusiasm had kindled to a glow, which
+the slight fuel of French poetry no longer sufficed to feed;
+perhaps they longed for a trunk of English oak to be thrown
+as a Yule log to the devouring flame. Moore observed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>431<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+"And these are our best pieces! And we have nothing
+more dramatic, nervous, natural!"</p>
+
+<p>And then he smiled and was silent. His whole nature
+seemed serenely alight. He stood on the hearth, leaning
+his elbow on the mantelpiece, musing not unblissfully.</p>
+
+<p>Twilight was closing on the diminished autumn day.
+The schoolroom windows&mdash;darkened with creeping plants,
+from which no high October winds had as yet swept the
+sere foliage&mdash;admitted scarce a gleam of sky; but the fire
+gave light enough to talk by.</p>
+
+<p>And now Louis Moore addressed his pupil in French,
+and she answered at first with laughing hesitation and in
+broken phrase. Moore encouraged while he corrected
+her. Henry joined in the lesson; the two scholars stood
+opposite the master, their arms round each other's waists.
+Tartar, who long since had craved and obtained admission,
+sat sagely in the centre of the rug, staring at the blaze which
+burst fitful from morsels of coal among the red cinders.
+The group were happy enough, but&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="block">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="io">"Pleasures are like poppies spread;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You seize the flower&mdash;its bloom is shed."<br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">The dull, rumbling sound of wheels was heard on the pavement
+in the yard.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the carriage returned," said Shirley; "and dinner
+must be just ready, and I am not dressed."</p>
+
+<p>A servant came in with Mr. Moore's candle and tea;
+for the tutor and his pupil usually dined at luncheon
+time.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Sympson and the ladies are returned," she said,
+"and Sir Philip Nunnely is with them."</p>
+
+<p>"How you did start, and how your hand trembled,
+Shirley!" said Henry, when the maid had closed the shutter
+and was gone. "But I know why&mdash;don't you, Mr.
+Moore? I know what papa intends. He is a little ugly
+man, that Sir Philip. I wish he had not come. I wish
+sisters and all of them had stayed at De Walden Hall
+to dine.&mdash;Shirley should once more have made tea for
+you and me, Mr. Moore, and we would have had a happy
+evening of it."</p>
+
+<p>Moore was locking up his desk and putting away his
+St. Pierre. "That was <em>your</em> plan, was it, my boy?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>432<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Don't you approve it, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I approve nothing utopian. Look Life in its iron
+face; stare Reality out of its brassy countenance. Make
+the tea, Henry; I shall be back in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>He left the room; so did Shirley, by another door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>433<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>PH&OElig;BE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Shirley</span> probably got on pleasantly with Sir Philip that
+evening, for the next morning she came down in one of
+her best moods.</p>
+
+<p>"Who will take a walk with me?" she asked, after
+breakfast. "Isabella and Gertrude, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>So rare was such an invitation from Miss Keeldar to
+her female cousins that they hesitated before they accepted
+it. Their mamma, however, signifying acquiescence
+in the project, they fetched their bonnets, and the
+trio set out.</p>
+
+<p>It did not suit these three young persons to be thrown
+much together. Miss Keeldar liked the society of few
+ladies; indeed, she had a cordial pleasure in that of none
+except Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone. She was civil,
+kind, attentive even to her cousins; but still she usually
+had little to say to them. In the sunny mood of this particular
+morning, she contrived to entertain even the Misses
+Sympson. Without deviating from her wonted rule of
+discussing with them only ordinary themes, she imparted
+to these themes an extraordinary interest; the sparkle of
+her spirit glanced along her phrases.</p>
+
+<p>What made her so joyous? All the cause must have
+been in herself. The day was not bright. It was dim&mdash;a
+pale, waning autumn day. The walks through the
+dun woods were damp; the atmosphere was heavy, the
+sky overcast; and yet it seemed that in Shirley's heart lived
+all the light and azure of Italy, as all its fervour laughed
+in her gray English eye.</p>
+
+<p>Some directions necessary to be given to her foreman,
+John, delayed her behind her cousins as they neared Fieldhead
+on their return. Perhaps an interval of twenty
+minutes elapsed between her separation from them and her
+re-entrance into the house. In the meantime she had
+spoken to John, and then she had lingered in the lane at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>434<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+gate. A summons to luncheon called her in. She excused
+herself from the meal, and went upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Is not Shirley coming to luncheon?" asked Isabella.
+"She said she was hungry."</p>
+
+<p>An hour after, as she did not quit her chamber, one of
+her cousins went to seek her there. She was found sitting
+at the foot of the bed, her head resting on her hand; she
+looked quite pale, very thoughtful, almost sad.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not ill?" was the question put.</p>
+
+<p>"A little sick," replied Miss Keeldar.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly she was not a little changed from what she
+had been two hours before.</p>
+
+<p>This change, accounted for only by those three words, explained
+no otherwise; this change&mdash;whencesoever springing,
+effected in a brief ten minutes&mdash;passed like no light summer
+cloud. She talked when she joined her friends at dinner,
+talked as usual. She remained with them during the evening.
+When again questioned respecting her health, she
+declared herself perfectly recovered. It had been a mere
+passing faintness, a momentary sensation, not worth a
+thought; yet it was felt there was a difference in Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>The next day&mdash;the day, the week, the fortnight after&mdash;this
+new and peculiar shadow lingered on the countenance,
+in the manner of Miss Keeldar. A strange quietude
+settled over her look, her movements, her very voice. The
+alteration was not so marked as to court or permit frequent
+questioning, yet it <em>was</em> there, and it would not pass away.
+It hung over her like a cloud which no breeze could stir or
+disperse. Soon it became evident that to notice this change
+was to annoy her. First she shrank from remark; and, if
+persisted in, she, with her own peculiar <em>hauteur</em>, repelled it.
+"Was she ill?" The reply came with decision.</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>am not</em>."</p>
+
+<p>"Did anything weigh on her mind? Had anything
+happened to affect her spirits?"</p>
+
+<p>She scornfully ridiculed the idea. "What did they
+mean by spirits? She had no spirits, black or white,
+blue or gray, to affect."</p>
+
+<p>"Something must be the matter&mdash;she was so altered."</p>
+
+<p>"She supposed she had a right to alter at her ease.
+She knew she was plainer. If it suited her to grow ugly,
+why need others fret themselves on the subject?"</p>
+
+<p>"There must be a cause for the change. What was
+it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>435<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>She peremptorily requested to be let alone.</p>
+
+<p>Then she would make every effort to appear quite gay,
+and she seemed indignant at herself that she could not
+perfectly succeed. Brief self-spurning epithets burst from
+her lips when alone. "Fool! coward!" she would term
+herself. "Poltroon!" she would say, "if you must tremble,
+tremble in secret! Quail where no eye sees you!"</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you," she would ask herself&mdash;"how dare
+you show your weakness and betray your imbecile anxieties?
+Shake them off; rise above them. If you cannot do this,
+hide them."</p>
+
+<p>And to hide them she did her best. She once more
+became resolutely lively in company. When weary of
+effort and forced to relax, she sought solitude&mdash;not the
+solitude of her chamber (she refused to mope, shut up
+between four walls), but that wilder solitude which lies
+out of doors, and which she could chase, mounted on Zo&euml;,
+her mare. She took long rides of half a day. Her uncle
+disapproved, but he dared not remonstrate. It was never
+pleasant to face Shirley's anger, even when she was healthy
+and gay; but now that her face showed thin, and her large
+eye looked hollow, there was something in the darkening
+of that face and kindling of that eye which touched as well
+as alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>To all comparative strangers who, unconscious of the
+alterations in her spirits, commented on the alteration
+in her looks, she had one reply,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am perfectly well; I have not an ailment."</p>
+
+<p>And health, indeed, she must have had, to be able to
+bear the exposure to the weather she now encountered.
+Wet or fair, calm or storm, she took her daily ride over
+Stilbro' Moor, Tartar keeping up at her side, with his wolf-like
+gallop, long and untiring.</p>
+
+<p>Twice, three times, the eyes of gossips&mdash;those eyes which
+are everywhere, in the closet and on the hill-top&mdash;noticed
+that instead of turning on Rushedge, the top ridge of Stilbro'
+Moor, she rode forwards all the way to the town. Scouts
+were not wanting to mark her destination there. It was
+ascertained that she alighted at the door of one Mr. Pearson
+Hall, a solicitor, related to the vicar of Nunnely. This
+gentleman and his ancestors had been the agents of the
+Keeldar family for generations back. Some people affirmed
+that Miss Keeldar was become involved in business speculations
+connected with Hollow's Mill&mdash;that she had lost money,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>436<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and was constrained to mortgage her land. Others conjectured
+that she was going to be married, and that the
+settlements were preparing.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Mr. Moore and Henry Sympson were together in the
+schoolroom. The tutor was waiting for a lesson which the
+pupil seemed busy in preparing.</p>
+
+<p>"Henry, make haste. The afternoon is getting on."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly. Are you nearly ready with that lesson?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Not <em>nearly</em> ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not construed a line."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore looked up. The boy's tone was rather peculiar.</p>
+
+<p>"The task presents no difficulties, Henry; or, if it does,
+bring them to me. We will work together."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore, I can do no work."</p>
+
+<p>"My boy, you are ill."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, I am not worse in bodily health than usual, but
+my heart is full."</p>
+
+<p>"Shut the book. Come hither, Harry. Come to the
+fireside."</p>
+
+<p>Harry limped forward. His tutor placed him in a chair;
+his lips were quivering, his eyes brimming. He laid his
+crutch on the floor, bent down his head, and wept.</p>
+
+<p>"This distress is not occasioned by physical pain, you
+say, Harry? You have a grief; tell it me."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, I have such a grief as I never had before. I wish
+it could be relieved in some way; I can hardly bear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows but, if we talk it over, we may relieve it?
+What is the cause? Whom does it concern?"</p>
+
+<p>"The cause, sir, is Shirley; it concerns Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it? You think her changed?"</p>
+
+<p>"All who know her think her changed&mdash;you too, Mr.
+Moore."</p>
+
+<p>"Not seriously&mdash;no. I see no alteration but such as
+a favourable turn might repair in a few weeks; besides,
+her own word must go for something: she says she is well."</p>
+
+<p>"There it is, sir. As long as she maintained she was
+well, I believed her. When I was sad out of her sight, I
+soon recovered spirits in her presence. Now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Harry, now. Has she said anything to you?
+You and she were together in the garden two hours this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>437<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+morning. I saw her talking, and you listening. Now,
+my dear Harry, if Miss Keeldar has said she is ill, and
+enjoined you to keep her secret, do not obey her. For her
+life's sake, avow everything. Speak, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>She</em> say she is ill! I believe, sir, if she were dying, she
+would smile, and aver, 'Nothing ails me.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What have you learned then? What new circumstance?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have learned that she has just made her will."</p>
+
+<p>"Made her will?"</p>
+
+<p>The tutor and pupil were silent.</p>
+
+<p>"She told you that?" asked Moore, when some minutes
+had elapsed.</p>
+
+<p>"She told me quite cheerfully, not as an ominous circumstance,
+which I felt it to be. She said I was the only person
+besides her solicitor, Pearson Hall, and Mr. Helstone and
+Mr. Yorke, who knew anything about it; and to me, she
+intimated, she wished specially to explain its provisions."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Harry."</p>
+
+<p>"'Because,' she said, looking down on me with her
+beautiful eyes&mdash;oh! they <em>are</em> beautiful, Mr. Moore! I
+love them! I love her! She is my star! Heaven must
+not claim her! She is lovely in this world, and fitted
+for this world. Shirley is not an angel; she is a woman,
+and she shall live with men. Seraphs shall not have her!
+Mr. Moore, if one of the 'sons of God,' with wings wide and
+bright as the sky, blue and sounding as the sea, having
+seen that she was fair, descended to claim her, his claim
+should be withstood&mdash;withstood by me&mdash;boy and cripple
+as I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Henry Sympson, go on, when I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"'Because,' she said, 'if I made no will, and died before
+you, Harry, all my property would go to you; and I do not
+intend that it should be so, though your father would like
+it. But you,' she said, 'will have his whole estate, which
+is large&mdash;larger than Fieldhead. Your sisters will have
+nothing; so I have left them some money, though I do not
+love them, both together, half so much as I love one lock
+of your fair hair.' She said these words, and she called me
+her 'darling,' and let me kiss her. She went on to tell me
+that she had left Caroline Helstone some money too; that
+this manor house, with its furniture and books, she had
+bequeathed to me, as she did not choose to take the old
+family place from her own blood; and that all the rest of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>438<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+her property, amounting to about twelve thousand pounds,
+exclusive of the legacies to my sisters and Miss Helstone,
+she had willed, not to me, seeing I was already rich, but to
+a good man, who would make the best use of it that any
+human being could do&mdash;a man, she said, that was both gentle
+and brave, strong and merciful&mdash;a man that might not
+profess to be pious, but she knew he had the secret of
+religion pure and undefiled before God. The spirit of love
+and peace was with him. He visited the fatherless and
+widows in their affliction, and kept himself unspotted from
+the world. Then she asked, 'Do you approve what I have
+done, Harry?' I could not answer. My tears choked me,
+as they do now."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore allowed his pupil a moment to contend with
+and master his emotion. He then demanded, "What else
+did she say?"</p>
+
+<p>"When I had signified my full consent to the conditions
+of her will, she told me I was a generous boy, and she was
+proud of me. 'And now,' she added, 'in case anything
+should happen, you will know what to say to Malice when
+she comes whispering hard things in your ear, insinuating
+that Shirley has wronged you, that she did not love you.
+You will know that I <em>did</em> love you, Harry; that no sister
+could have loved you better&mdash;my own treasure.' Mr.
+Moore, sir, when I remember her voice, and recall her look,
+my heart beats as if it would break its strings. She
+<em>may</em> go to heaven before me&mdash;if God commands it, she
+<em>must</em>; but the rest of my life&mdash;and my life will not be long,
+I am glad of that now&mdash;shall be a straight, quick, thoughtful
+journey in the path her step has pressed. I thought to
+enter the vault of the Keeldars before her. Should it be
+otherwise, lay my coffin by Shirley's side."</p>
+
+<p>Moore answered him with a weighty calm, that offered
+a strange contrast to the boy's perturbed enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"You are wrong, both of you&mdash;you harm each other.
+If youth once falls under the influence of a shadowy terror,
+it imagines there will never be full sunlight again; its
+first calamity it fancies will last a lifetime. What more
+did she say? Anything more?"</p>
+
+<p>"We settled one or two family points between ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"I should rather like to know what&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Moore, you smile. <em>I</em> could not smile to see
+Shirley in such a mood."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>439<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"My boy, I am neither nervous, nor poetic, nor inexperienced.
+I see things as they are; you don't as yet.
+Tell me these family points."</p>
+
+<p>"Only, sir, she asked me whether I considered myself
+most of a Keeldar or a Sympson; and I answered I was
+Keeldar to the core of the heart and to the marrow of the
+bones. She said she was glad of it; for, besides her, I was
+the only Keeldar left in England. And then we agreed
+on some matters."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, that if I lived to inherit my father's estate,
+and her house, I was to take the name of Keeldar, and to
+make Fieldhead my residence. Henry Shirley Keeldar I
+said I would be called; and I will. Her name and her
+manor house are ages old, and Sympson and Sympson
+Grove are of yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, you are neither of you going to heaven yet. I
+have the best hopes of you both, with your proud distinctions&mdash;a
+pair of half-fledged eaglets. Now, what is your
+inference from all you have told me? Put it into words."</p>
+
+<p>"That Shirley thinks she is going to die."</p>
+
+<p>"She referred to her health?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not once; but I assure you she is wasting. Her
+hands are grown quite thin, and so is her cheek."</p>
+
+<p>"Does she ever complain to your mother or sisters?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never. She laughs at them when they question her.
+Mr. Moore, she is a strange being, so fair and girlish&mdash;not
+a man-like woman at all, not an Amazon, and yet
+lifting her head above both help and sympathy."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know where she is now, Henry? Is she in
+the house, or riding out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely not out, sir. It rains fast."</p>
+
+<p>"True; which, however, is no guarantee that she is not
+at this moment cantering over Rushedge. Of late she has
+never permitted weather to be a hindrance to her rides."</p>
+
+<p>"You remember, Mr. Moore, how wet and stormy it was
+last Wednesday&mdash;so wild, indeed, that she would not permit
+Zo&euml; to be saddled? Yet the blast she thought too tempestuous
+for her mare she herself faced on foot; that afternoon
+she walked nearly as far as Nunnely. I asked her,
+when she came in, if she was not afraid of taking cold.
+'Not I,' she said. 'It would be too much good luck for
+me. I don't know, Harry, but the best thing that could
+happen to me would be to take a good cold and fever, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>440<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+so pass off like other Christians.' She is reckless, you see,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Reckless indeed! Go and find out where she is, and if
+you can get an opportunity of speaking to her without
+attracting attention, request her to come here a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He snatched his crutch, and started up to go.</p>
+
+<p>"Harry!"</p>
+
+<p>He returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not deliver the message formally. Word it as, in
+former days, you would have worded an ordinary summons
+to the schoolroom."</p>
+
+<p>"I see, sir. She will be more likely to obey."</p>
+
+<p>"And, Harry&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will call you when I want you. Till then, you are
+dispensed from lessons."</p>
+
+<p>He departed. Mr. Moore, left alone, rose from his
+desk.</p>
+
+<p>"I can be very cool and very supercilious with Henry,"
+he said. "I can seem to make light of his apprehensions,
+and look down <em>du haut de ma grandeur</em> on his youthful ardour.
+To <em>him</em> I can speak as if, in my eyes, they were both children.
+Let me see if I can keep up the same r&ocirc;le with her. I have
+known the moment when I seemed about to forget it,
+when Confusion and Submission seemed about to crush me
+with their soft tyranny, when my tongue faltered, and I
+have almost let the mantle drop, and stood in her presence,
+not master&mdash;no&mdash;but something else. I trust I shall never
+so play the fool. It is well for a Sir Philip Nunnely to redden
+when he meets her eye. He may permit himself the indulgence
+of submission. He may even, without disgrace,
+suffer his hand to tremble when it touches hers; but if
+one of her farmers were to show himself susceptible and
+sentimental, he would merely prove his need of a strait
+waistcoat. So far I have always done very well. She has
+sat near me, and I have not shaken&mdash;more than my desk.
+I have encountered her looks and smiles like&mdash;why, like a
+tutor, as I am. Her hand I never yet touched&mdash;never
+underwent that test. Her farmer or her footman I am not&mdash;no
+serf nor servant of hers have I ever been; but I am
+poor, and it behoves me to look to my self-respect&mdash;not to
+compromise an inch of it. What did she mean by that
+allusion to the cold people who petrify flesh to marble?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>441<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+It pleased me&mdash;I hardly know why; I would not permit
+myself to inquire. I never do indulge in scrutiny either of
+her language or countenance; for if I did, I should sometimes
+forget common sense and believe in romance. A
+strange, secret ecstasy steals through my veins at moments.
+I'll not encourage&mdash;I'll not remember it. I am resolved, as
+long as may be, to retain the right to say with Paul, 'I am
+not mad, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness.'"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, listening.</p>
+
+<p>"Will she come, or will she not come?" he inquired.
+"How will she take the message? Na&iuml;vely or disdainfully?
+Like a child or like a queen? Both characters
+are in her nature.</p>
+
+<p>"If she comes, what shall I say to her? How account,
+firstly, for the freedom of the request? Shall I apologize
+to her? I could in all humility; but would an apology
+tend to place us in the positions we ought relatively to
+occupy in this matter? I <em>must</em> keep up the professor,
+otherwise&mdash;&mdash; I hear a door."</p>
+
+<p>He waited. Many minutes passed.</p>
+
+<p>"She will refuse me. Henry is entreating her to come;
+she declines. My petition is presumption in her eyes.
+Let her <em>only</em> come, I can teach her to the contrary. I
+would rather she were a little perverse; it will steel me.
+I prefer her cuirassed in pride, armed with a taunt. Her
+scorn startles me from my dreams; I stand up myself.
+A sarcasm from her eyes or lips puts strength into every
+nerve and sinew I have. Some step approaches, and not
+Henry's."</p>
+
+<p>The door unclosed; Miss Keeldar came in. The message,
+it appeared, had found her at her needle; she brought
+her work in her hand. That day she had not been riding
+out; she had evidently passed it quietly. She wore her
+neat indoor dress and silk apron. This was no Thalestris
+from the fields, but a quiet domestic character from the
+fireside. Mr. Moore had her at advantage. He should
+have addressed her at once in solemn accents, and with
+rigid mien. Perhaps he would, had she looked saucy;
+but her air never showed less of <em>cr&acirc;nerie</em>. A soft kind of
+youthful shyness depressed her eyelid and mantled on her
+cheek. The tutor stood silent.</p>
+
+<p>She made a full stop between the door and his desk.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you want me, sir?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>442<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I ventured, Miss Keeldar, to send for you&mdash;that is,
+to ask an interview of a few minutes."</p>
+
+<p>She waited; she plied her needle.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir" (not lifting her eyes), "what about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Be seated first. The subject I would broach is one of
+some moment. Perhaps I have hardly a right to approach
+it. It is possible I ought to frame an apology; it is possible
+no apology can excuse me. The liberty I have taken
+arises from a conversation with Henry. The boy is unhappy
+about your health; all your friends are unhappy
+on that subject. It is of your health I would speak."</p>
+
+<p>"I am quite well," she said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet changed."</p>
+
+<p>"That matters to none but myself. We all change."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you sit down? Formerly, Miss Keeldar, I had
+some influence with you: have I any now? May I feel
+that what I am saying is not accounted positive presumption?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me read some French, Mr. Moore, or I will even
+take a spell at the Latin grammar, and let us proclaim a
+truce to all sanitary discussions."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no. It is time there were discussions."</p>
+
+<p>"Discuss away, then, but do not choose me for your
+text. I am a healthy subject."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not think it wrong to affirm and reaffirm what
+is substantially untrue?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say I am well. I have neither cough, pain, nor fever."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there no equivocation in that assertion? Is it the
+direct truth?"</p>
+
+<p>"The direct truth."</p>
+
+<p>Louis Moore looked at her earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"I can myself," he said, "trace no indications of actual
+disease. But why, then, are you altered?"</p>
+
+<p>"<em>Am</em> I altered?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will try. We will seek a proof."</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ask, in the first place, do you sleep as you used to?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not; but it is not because I am ill."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you the appetite you once had?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but it is not because I am ill."</p>
+
+<p>"You remember this little ring fastened to my watch-chain?
+It was my mother's, and is too small to pass the
+joint of my little finger. You have many a time sportively
+purloined it. It fitted your fore-finger. Try now."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>443<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>She permitted the test. The ring dropped from the
+wasted little hand. Louis picked it up, and reattached it
+to the chain. An uneasy flush coloured his brow. Shirley
+again said, "It is not because I am ill."</p>
+
+<p>"Not only have you lost sleep, appetite, and flesh,"
+proceeded Moore, "but your spirits are always at ebb.
+Besides, there is a nervous alarm in your eye, a nervous
+disquiet in your manner. These peculiarities were not
+formerly yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore, we will pause here. You have exactly
+hit it. I am nervous. Now, talk of something else. What
+wet weather we have&mdash;steady, pouring rain!"</p>
+
+<p>"<em>You</em> nervous? Yes; and if Miss Keeldar is nervous,
+it is not without a cause. Let me reach it. Let me look
+nearer. The ailment is not physical. I have suspected
+that. It came in one moment. I know the day. I noticed
+the change. Your pain is mental."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. It is nothing so dignified&mdash;merely nervous.
+Oh! dismiss the topic."</p>
+
+<p>"When it is exhausted; not till then. Nervous alarms
+should always be communicated, that they may be dissipated.
+I wish I had the gift of persuasion, and could
+incline you to speak willingly. I believe confession, in your
+case, would be half equivalent to cure."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Shirley abruptly. "I wish that were at all
+probable; but I am afraid it is not."</p>
+
+<p>She suspended her work a moment. She was now seated.
+Resting her elbow on the table, she leaned her head on her
+hand. Mr. Moore looked as if he felt he had at last gained
+some footing in this difficult path. She was serious, and
+in her wish was implied an important admission; after
+that she could no longer affirm that <em>nothing</em> ailed
+her.</p>
+
+<p>The tutor allowed her some minutes for repose and
+reflection ere he returned to the charge. Once his lips
+moved to speak, but he thought better of it, and prolonged
+the pause. Shirley lifted her eye to his. Had he
+betrayed injudicious emotion, perhaps obstinate persistence
+in silence would have been the result; but he
+looked calm, strong, trustworthy.</p>
+
+<p>"I had better tell <em>you</em> than my aunt," she said, "or
+than my cousins, or my uncle. They would all make such
+a bustle, and it is that very bustle I dread&mdash;the alarm, the
+flurry, the <em>&eacute;clat</em>. In short, I never liked to be the centre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>444<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+of a small domestic whirlpool. You can bear a little
+shock&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"A great one, if necessary."</p>
+
+<p>Not a muscle of the man's frame moved, and yet his
+large heart beat fast in his deep chest. What was she
+going to tell him? Was irremediable mischief done?</p>
+
+<p>"Had I thought it right to go to you, I would never have
+made a secret of the matter one moment," she continued.
+"I would have told you at once, and asked advice."</p>
+
+<p>"Why was it not right to come to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might be <em>right</em>&mdash;I do not mean that; but I could
+not do it. I seemed to have no title to trouble you. The
+mishap concerned me only. I wanted to keep it to myself,
+and people will not let me. I tell you, I hate to be an
+object of worrying attention, or a theme for village gossip.
+Besides, it may pass away without result&mdash;God knows!"</p>
+
+<p>Moore, though tortured with suspense, did not demand
+a quick explanation. He suffered neither gesture, glance,
+nor word to betray impatience. His tranquillity tranquillized
+Shirley; his confidence reassured her.</p>
+
+<p>"Great effects may spring from trivial causes," she
+remarked, as she loosened a bracelet from her wrist. Then,
+unfastening her sleeve, and partially turning it up, "Look
+here, Mr. Moore."</p>
+
+<p>She showed a mark in her white arm&mdash;rather a deep
+though healed-up indentation&mdash;something between a burn
+and a cut.</p>
+
+<p>"I would not show that to any one in Briarfield but you,
+because you can take it quietly."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly there is nothing in the little mark to shock.
+Its history will explain."</p>
+
+<p>"Small as it is, it has taken my sleep away, and made
+me nervous, thin, and foolish; because, on account of that
+little mark, I am obliged to look forward to a possibility
+that has its terrors."</p>
+
+<p>The sleeve was readjusted, the bracelet replaced.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know that you try me?" he said, smiling. "I
+am a patient sort of man, but my pulse is quickening."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever happens, you will befriend me, Mr. Moore?
+You will give me the benefit of your self-possession, and
+not leave me at the mercy of agitated cowards?"</p>
+
+<p>"I make no promise now. Tell me the tale, and then
+exact what pledge you will."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a very short tale. I took a walk with Isabella<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>445<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and Gertrude one day, about three weeks ago. They
+reached home before me; I stayed behind to speak to John.
+After leaving him, I pleased myself with lingering in the
+lane, where all was very still and shady. I was tired of
+chattering to the girls, and in no hurry to rejoin them.
+As I stood leaning against the gate-pillar, thinking some
+very happy thoughts about my future life&mdash;for that morning
+I imagined that events were beginning to turn as I had
+long wished them to turn&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Nunnely had been with her the evening before!"
+thought Moore parenthetically.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard a panting sound; a dog came running up the
+lane. I know most of the dogs in this neighbourhood.
+It was Ph&oelig;be, one of Mr. Sam Wynne's pointers. The
+poor creature ran with her head down, her tongue hanging
+out; she looked as if bruised and beaten all over. I called
+her. I meant to coax her into the house and give her some
+water and dinner. I felt sure she had been ill-used. Mr.
+Sam often flogs his pointers cruelly. She was too flurried
+to know me; and when I attempted to pat her head, she
+turned and snatched at my arm. She bit it so as to draw
+blood, then ran panting on. Directly after, Mr. Wynne's
+keeper came up, carrying a gun. He asked if I had seen
+a dog. I told him I had seen Ph&oelig;be.</p>
+
+<p>"'You had better chain up Tartar, ma'am,' he said,
+'and tell your people to keep within the house. I am
+after Ph&oelig;be to shoot her, and the groom is gone another
+way. She is raging mad.'"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore leaned back in his chair and folded his arms
+across his chest. Miss Keeldar resumed her square of silk
+canvas, and continued the creation of a wreath of Parmese
+violets.</p>
+
+<p>"And you told no one, sought no help, no cure? You
+would not come to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I got as far as the schoolroom door; there my courage
+failed. I preferred to cushion the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? What can I demand better in this world than
+to be of use to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had no claim."</p>
+
+<p>"Monstrous! And you did nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I walked straight into the laundry, where they
+are ironing most of the week, now that I have so many
+guests in the house. While the maid was busy crimping
+or starching, I took an Italian iron from the fire, and applied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>446<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+the light scarlet glowing tip to my arm. I bored it well
+in. It cauterized the little wound. Then I went upstairs."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say you never once groaned?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure I don't know. I was very miserable&mdash;not
+firm or tranquil at all, I think. There was no calm in my
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>"There was calm in your person. I remember listening
+the whole time we sat at luncheon, to hear if you moved
+in the room above. All was quiet."</p>
+
+<p>"I was sitting at the foot of the bed, wishing Ph&oelig;be
+had not bitten me."</p>
+
+<p>"And alone. You like solitude."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me."</p>
+
+<p>"You disdain sympathy."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I, Mr. Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>"With your powerful mind you must feel independent
+of help, of advice, of society."</p>
+
+<p>"So be it, since it pleases you."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled. She pursued her embroidery carefully and
+quickly, but her eyelash twinkled, and then it glittered,
+and then a drop fell.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore leaned forward on his desk, moved his chair,
+altered his attitude.</p>
+
+<p>"If it is not so," he asked, with a peculiar, mellow
+change in his voice, "how is it, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"You do know, but you won't speak. All must be
+locked up in yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is not worth sharing."</p>
+
+<p>"Because nobody can give the high price you require
+for your confidence. Nobody is rich enough to purchase
+it. Nobody has the honour, the intellect, the power you
+demand in your adviser. There is not a shoulder in England
+on which you would rest your hand for support, far less a
+bosom which you would permit to pillow your head. Of
+course you must live alone."</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>can</em> live alone, if need be. But the question is not
+how to live, but how to die alone. That strikes me in a
+more grisly light."</p>
+
+<p>"You apprehend the effects of the virus? You anticipate
+an indefinitely threatening, dreadful doom?"</p>
+
+<p>She bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very nervous and womanish."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>447<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"You complimented me two minutes since on my
+powerful mind."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very womanish. If the whole affair were
+coolly examined and discussed, I feel assured it would
+turn out that there is no danger of your dying at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Amen! I am very willing to live, if it please God.
+I have felt life sweet."</p>
+
+<p>"How can it be otherwise than sweet with your endowments
+and nature? Do you truly expect that you will
+be seized with hydrophobia, and die raving mad?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>expect</em> it, and have <em>feared</em> it. Just now I fear nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor do I, on your account. I doubt whether the
+smallest particle of virus mingled with your blood; and
+if it did, let me assure you that, young, healthy, faultlessly
+sound as you are, no harm will ensue. For the
+rest, I shall inquire whether the dog was really mad. I
+hold she was not mad."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell nobody that she bit me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I, when I believe the bite innocuous as a
+cut of this penknife? Make yourself easy. <em>I</em> am easy,
+though I value your life as much as I do my own chance
+of happiness in eternity. Look up."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Mr. Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to see if you are cheered. Put your work down;
+raise your head."</p>
+
+<p>"There&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Look at me. Thank you. And is the cloud broken?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fear nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Is your mind restored to its own natural sunny clime?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am very content; but I want your promise."</p>
+
+<p>"Dictate."</p>
+
+<p>"You know, in case the worst I <em>have</em> feared should happen,
+they will smother me. You need not smile. They will;
+they always do. My uncle will be full of horror, weakness,
+precipitation; and that is the only expedient which will
+suggest itself to him. Nobody in the house will be self-possessed
+but you. Now promise to befriend me&mdash;to keep
+Mr. Sympson away from me, not to let Henry come near,
+lest I should hurt him. Mind&mdash;<em>mind</em> that you take care
+of yourself too. But I shall not injure you; I know I shall
+not. Lock the chamber door against the surgeons; turn
+them out if they get in. Let neither the young nor the old
+MacTurk lay a finger on me; nor Mr. Greaves, their colleague;
+and lastly, if I give trouble, with your own hand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>448<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+administer to me a strong narcotic&mdash;such a sure dose of
+laudanum as shall leave no mistake. <em>Promise to do this.</em>"</p>
+
+<p>Moore left his desk, and permitted himself the recreation
+of one or two turns through the room. Stopping
+behind Shirley's chair, he bent over her, and said, in a low,
+emphatic voice, "I promise all you ask&mdash;without comment,
+without reservation."</p>
+
+<p>"If female help is needed, call in my housekeeper,
+Mrs. Gill. Let her lay me out if I die. She is attached
+to me. She wronged me again and again, and again and
+again I forgave her. She now loves me, and would not
+defraud me of a pin. Confidence has made her honest; forbearance
+has made her kind-hearted. At this day I can
+trust both her integrity, her courage, and her affection.
+Call her; but keep my good aunt and my timid cousins
+away. Once more, promise."</p>
+
+<p>"I promise."</p>
+
+<p>"That is good in you," she said, looking up at him as
+he bent over her, and smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it good? Does it comfort?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much."</p>
+
+<p>"I will be with you&mdash;I and Mrs. Gill only&mdash;in any,
+in every extremity where calm and fidelity are needed.
+No rash or coward hand shall meddle."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet you think me childish?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you despise me."</p>
+
+<p>"Do we despise children?"</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, I am neither so strong, nor have I such pride
+in my strength, as people think, Mr. Moore; nor am I
+so regardless of sympathy. But when I have any grief,
+I fear to impart it to those I love, lest it should pain them;
+and to those whom I view with indifference I cannot condescend
+to complain. After all, you should not taunt me
+with being childish, for if you were as unhappy as I have been
+for the last three weeks, you too would want some friend."</p>
+
+<p>"We all want a friend, do we not?"</p>
+
+<p>"All of us that have anything good in our natures."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you have Caroline Helstone."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And you have Mr. Hall."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Mrs. Pryor is a wise, good woman. She can
+counsel you when you need counsel."</p>
+
+<p>"For your part, you have your brother Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"For any right-hand defections, there is the Rev. Matthewson<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>449<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Helstone, M.A., to lean upon; for any left-hand
+fallings-off there is Hiram Yorke, Esq. Both elders pay you
+homage."</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw Mrs. Yorke so motherly to any young
+man as she is to you. I don't know how you have won
+her heart, but she is more tender to you than she is to her
+own sons. You have, besides, your sister Hortense."</p>
+
+<p>"It appears we are both well provided."</p>
+
+<p>"It appears so."</p>
+
+<p>"How thankful we ought to be!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"How contented!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"For my part, I am almost contented just now, and
+very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion. It fills
+the heart, but not to bursting; it warms it, but not to
+fever. I like to taste leisurely of bliss. Devoured in haste,
+I do not know its flavour."</p>
+
+<p>Still leaning on the back of Miss Keeldar's chair, Moore
+watched the rapid motion of her fingers, as the green and
+purple garland grew beneath them. After a prolonged
+pause, he again asked, "Is the shadow <em>quite</em> gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wholly. As I <em>was</em> two hours since, and as I <em>am</em> now,
+are two different states of existence. I believe, Mr. Moore,
+griefs and fears nursed in silence grow like Titan infants."</p>
+
+<p>"You will cherish such feelings no more in silence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not if I dare speak."</p>
+
+<p>"In using the word '<em>dare</em>,' to whom do you allude?"</p>
+
+<p>"To you."</p>
+
+<p>"How is it applicable to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"On account of your austerity and shyness."</p>
+
+<p>"Why am I austere and shy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are proud."</p>
+
+<p>"Why am I proud?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to know. Will you be good enough to
+tell me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, because I am poor, for one reason. Poverty
+and pride often go together."</p>
+
+<p>"That is such a nice reason. I should be charmed to
+discover another that would pair with it. Mate that
+turtle, Mr. Moore."</p>
+
+<p>"Immediately. What do you think of marrying to sober
+Poverty many-tinted Caprice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you capricious?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>450<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"<em>You</em> are."</p>
+
+<p>"A libel. I am steady as a rock, fixed as the polar
+star."</p>
+
+<p>"I look out at some early hour of the day, and see a fine,
+perfect rainbow, bright with promise, gloriously spanning
+the beclouded welkin of life. An hour afterwards I look
+again: half the arch is gone, and the rest is faded. Still
+later, the stern sky denies that it ever wore so benign a
+symbol of hope."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Moore, you should contend against these
+changeful humours. They are your besetting sin. One
+never knows where to have you."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Keeldar, I had once, for two years, a pupil who
+grew very dear to me. Henry is dear, but she was dearer.
+Henry never gives me trouble; she&mdash;well, she did. I
+think she vexed me twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She was never with you above three hours, or at the
+most six at a time."</p>
+
+<p>"She sometimes spilled the draught from my cup, and
+stole the food from my plate; and when she had kept
+me unfed for a day (and that did not suit me, for I am a
+man accustomed to take my meals with reasonable relish,
+and to ascribe due importance to the rational enjoyment of
+creature comforts)&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know you do. I can tell what sort of dinners you
+like best&mdash;perfectly well. I know precisely the dishes
+you prefer&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She robbed these dishes of flavour, and made a fool
+of me besides. I like to sleep well. In my quiet days,
+when I was my own man, I never quarrelled with the night
+for being long, nor cursed my bed for its thorns. She
+changed all this."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And having taken from me peace of mind and ease
+of life, she took from me herself&mdash;quite coolly, just as
+if, when she was gone, the world would be all the same to
+me. I knew I should see her again at some time. At the
+end of two years, it fell out that we encountered again
+under her own roof, where she was mistress. How do you
+think she bore herself towards me, Miss Keeldar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like one who had profited well by lessons learned from
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"She received me haughtily. She meted out a wide<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>451<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+space between us, and kept me aloof by the reserved gesture,
+the rare and alienated glance, the word calmly civil."</p>
+
+<p>"She was an excellent pupil! Having seen you distant,
+she at once learned to withdraw. Pray, sir, admire in her
+<em>hauteur</em> a careful improvement on your own coolness."</p>
+
+<p>"Conscience, and honour, and the most despotic necessity
+dragged me apart from her, and kept me sundered
+with ponderous fetters. She was free: she might have been
+clement."</p>
+
+<p>"Never free to compromise her self-respect, to seek
+where she had been shunned."</p>
+
+<p>"Then she was inconsistent; she tantalized as before.
+When I thought I had made up my mind to seeing in her
+only a lofty stranger, she would suddenly show me such
+a glimpse of loving simplicity&mdash;she would warm me with
+such a beam of reviving sympathy, she would gladden an
+hour with converse so gentle, gay, and kindly&mdash;that I could
+no more shut my heart on her image than I could close
+that door against her presence. Explain why she distressed
+me so."</p>
+
+<p>"She could not bear to be quite outcast; and then she
+would sometimes get a notion into her head, on a cold,
+wet day, that the schoolroom was no cheerful place, and
+feel it incumbent on her to go and see if you and Henry kept
+up a good fire; and once there, she liked to stay."</p>
+
+<p>"But she should not be changeful. If she came at
+all, she should come oftener."</p>
+
+<p>"There is such a thing as intrusion."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow you will not be as you are to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not mad, most noble Berenice! We may give
+one day to dreaming, but the next we must awake; and
+I shall awake to purpose the morning you are married
+to Sir Philip Nunnely. The fire shines on you and me,
+and shows us very clearly in the glass, Miss Keeldar; and
+I have been gazing on the picture all the time I have been
+talking. Look up! What a difference between your head
+and mine! I look old for thirty!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are so grave; you have such a square brow;
+and your face is sallow. I never regard you as a young man,
+nor as Robert's junior."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you? I thought not. Imagine Robert's clear-cut,
+handsome face looking over my shoulder. Does not
+the apparition make vividly manifest the obtuse mould<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>452<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+of my heavy traits? There!" (he started), "I have been
+expecting that wire to vibrate this last half-hour."</p>
+
+<p>The dinner-bell rang, and Shirley rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore," she said, as she gathered up her silks,
+"have you heard from your brother lately? Do you
+know what he means by staying in town so long? Does
+he talk of returning?"</p>
+
+<p>"He talks of returning; but what has caused his long
+absence I cannot tell. To speak the truth, I thought
+none in Yorkshire knew better than yourself why he was
+reluctant to come home."</p>
+
+<p>A crimson shadow passed across Miss Keeldar's cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Write to him and urge him to come," she said. "I
+know there has been no impolicy in protracting his absence
+thus far. It is good to let the mill stand, while trade is so
+bad; but he must not abandon the county."</p>
+
+<p>"I am aware," said Louis, "that he had an interview
+with you the evening before he left, and I saw him quit
+Fieldhead afterwards. I read his countenance, or <em>tried</em>
+to read it. He turned from me. I divined that he would
+be long away. Some fine, slight fingers have a wondrous
+knack at pulverizing a man's brittle pride. I suppose
+Robert put too much trust in his manly beauty and native
+gentlemanhood. Those are better off who, being destitute
+of advantage, cannot cherish delusion. But I will write,
+and say you advise his return."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not say <em>I</em> advise his return, but that his return
+is advisable."</p>
+
+<p>The second bell rang, and Miss Keeldar obeyed its call.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>453<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>LOUIS MOORE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Louis Moore</span> was used to a quiet life. Being a quiet
+man, he endured it better than most men would. Having
+a large world of his own in his own head and heart, he
+tolerated confinement to a small, still corner of the real
+world very patiently.</p>
+
+<p>How hushed is Fieldhead this evening! All but Moore&mdash;Miss
+Keeldar, the whole family of the Sympsons, even
+Henry&mdash;are gone to Nunnely. Sir Philip would have them
+come; he wished to make them acquainted with his mother
+and sisters, who are now at the priory. Kind gentleman as
+the baronet is, he asked the tutor too; but the tutor would
+much sooner have made an appointment with the ghost of
+the Earl of Huntingdon to meet him, and a shadowy ring
+of his merry men, under the canopy of the thickest, blackest,
+oldest oak in Nunnely Forest. Yes, he would rather have
+appointed tryst with a phantom abbess, or mist-pale nun,
+among the wet and weedy relics of that ruined sanctuary
+of theirs, mouldering in the core of the wood. Louis Moore
+longs to have something near him to-night; but not the
+boy-baronet, nor his benevolent but stern mother, nor his
+patrician sisters, nor one soul of the Sympsons.</p>
+
+<p>This night is not calm; the equinox still struggles in
+its storms. The wild rains of the day are abated; the great
+single cloud disparts and rolls away from heaven, not passing
+and leaving a sea all sapphire, but tossed buoyant before a
+continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight tempest.
+The moon reigns glorious, glad of the gale, as glad as if she
+gave herself to his fierce caress with love. No Endymion
+will watch for his goddess to-night. There are no flocks
+out on the mountains; and it is well, for to-night she welcomes
+&AElig;olus.</p>
+
+<p>Moore, sitting in the schoolroom, heard the storm roar
+round the other gable and along the hall-front. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>454<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+end was sheltered. He wanted no shelter; he desired
+no subdued sounds or screened position.</p>
+
+<p>"All the parlours are empty," said he. "I am sick
+at heart of this cell."</p>
+
+<p>He left it, and went where the casements, larger and
+freer than the branch-screened lattice of his own apartment,
+admitted unimpeded the dark-blue, the silver-fleeced,
+the stirring and sweeping vision of the autumn
+night-sky. He carried no candle; unneeded was lamp or
+fire. The broad and clear though cloud-crossed and fluctuating
+beam of the moon shone on every floor and wall.</p>
+
+<p>Moore wanders through all the rooms. He seems following
+a phantom from parlour to parlour. In the oak
+room he stops. This is not chill, and polished, and fireless
+like the <em>salon</em>. The hearth is hot and ruddy; the
+cinders tinkle in the intense heat of their clear glow;
+near the rug is a little work-table, a desk upon it, a chair
+near it.</p>
+
+<p>Does the vision Moore has tracked occupy that chair?
+You would think so, could you see him standing before
+it. There is as much interest now in his eye, and as much
+significance in his face, as if in this household solitude
+he had found a living companion, and was going to speak
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>He makes discoveries. A bag&mdash;a small satin bag&mdash;hangs
+on the chair-back. The desk is open, the keys are
+in the lock. A pretty seal, a silver pen, a crimson berry or
+two of ripe fruit on a green leaf, a small, clean, delicate
+glove&mdash;these trifles at once decorate and disarrange the
+stand they strew. Order forbids details in a picture&mdash;she
+puts them tidily away; but details give charm.</p>
+
+<p>Moore spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Her mark," he said. "Here she has been&mdash;careless,
+attractive thing!&mdash;called away in haste, doubtless, and
+forgetting to return and put all to rights. Why does she
+leave fascination in her footprints? Whence did she
+acquire the gift to be heedless and never offend? There
+is always something to chide in her, and the reprimand
+never settles in displeasure on the heart, but, for her lover
+or her husband, when it had trickled a while in words,
+would naturally melt from his lips in a kiss. Better pass
+half an hour in remonstrating with her than a day in admiring
+or praising any other woman alive. Am I muttering?
+soliloquizing? Stop that."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>455<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>He did stop it. He stood thinking, and then he made
+an arrangement for his evening's comfort.</p>
+
+<p>He dropped the curtains over the broad window and
+regal moon. He shut out sovereign and court and starry
+armies; he added fuel to the hot but fast-wasting fire;
+he lit a candle, of which there were a pair on the table;
+he placed another chair opposite that near the workstand;
+and then he sat down. His next movement was to take from
+his pocket a small, thick book of blank paper, to produce
+a pencil, and to begin to write in a cramp, compact hand.
+Come near, by all means, reader. Do not be shy. Stoop
+over his shoulder fearlessly, and read as he scribbles.</p>
+
+<p>"It is nine o'clock; the carriage will not return before
+eleven, I am certain. Freedom is mine till then; till
+then I may occupy her room, sit opposite her chair, rest
+my elbow on her table, have her little mementoes about
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"I used rather to like Solitude&mdash;to fancy her a somewhat
+quiet and serious, yet fair nymph; an Oread, descending
+to me from lone mountain-passes, something of
+the blue mist of hills in her array and of their chill breeze
+in her breath, but much also of their solemn beauty in her
+mien. I once could court her serenely, and imagine my
+heart easier when I held her to it&mdash;all mute, but majestic.</p>
+
+<p>"Since that day I called S. to me in the schoolroom,
+and she came and sat so near my side; since she opened
+the trouble of her mind to me, asked my protection, appealed
+to my strength&mdash;since that hour I abhor Solitude. Cold
+abstraction, fleshless skeleton, daughter, mother, and mate
+of Death!</p>
+
+<p>"It is pleasant to write about what is near and dear
+as the core of my heart. None can deprive me of this little
+book, and through this pencil I can say to it what I will&mdash;say
+what I dare utter to nothing living&mdash;say what I dare
+not <em>think</em> aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"We have scarcely encountered each other since that
+evening. Once, when I was alone in the drawing-room,
+seeking a book of Henry's, she entered, dressed for a concert
+at Stilbro'. Shyness&mdash;<em>her</em> shyness, not mine&mdash;drew a silver
+veil between us. Much cant have I heard and read about
+'maiden modesty,' but, properly used, and not hackneyed,
+the words are good and appropriate words. As she passed
+to the window, after tacitly but gracefully recognizing me,
+I could call her nothing in my own mind save 'stainless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>456<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+virgin.' To my perception, a delicate splendour robed her,
+and the modesty of girlhood was her halo. I may be the
+most fatuous, as I am one of the plainest, of men, but in
+truth that shyness of hers touched me exquisitely; it
+flattered my finest sensations. I looked a stupid block, I
+dare say. I was alive with a life of Paradise, as she turned
+<em>her</em> glance from <em>my</em> glance, and softly averted her head to
+hide the suffusion of her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"I know this is the talk of a dreamer&mdash;of a rapt, romantic
+lunatic. I <em>do</em> dream. I <em>will</em> dream now and then; and if
+she has inspired romance into my prosaic composition, how
+can I help it?</p>
+
+<p>"What a child she is sometimes! What an unsophisticated,
+untaught thing! I see her now looking up into
+my face, and entreating me to prevent them from smothering
+her, and to be sure and give her a strong narcotic. I
+see her confessing that she was not so self-sufficing, so independent
+of sympathy, as people thought. I see the secret
+tear drop quietly from her eyelash. She said I thought her
+childish, and I did. She imagined I despised her. Despised
+her! It was unutterably sweet to feel myself at once near
+her and above her&mdash;to be conscious of a natural right and
+power to sustain her, as a husband should sustain his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"I worship her perfections; but it is her faults, or at
+least her foibles, that bring her near to me, that nestle
+her to my heart, that fold her about with my love, and
+that for a most selfish but deeply-natural reason. These
+faults are the steps by which I mount to ascendency over
+her. If she rose a trimmed, artificial mound, without
+inequality, what vantage would she offer the foot? It is
+the natural hill, with its mossy breaks and hollows, whose
+slope invites ascent, whose summit it is pleasure to gain.</p>
+
+<p>"To leave metaphor. It delights my eye to look on
+her. She suits me. If I were a king and she the housemaid
+that swept my palace-stairs, across all that space
+between us my eye would recognize her qualities; a true
+pulse would beat for her in my heart, though an unspanned
+gulf made acquaintance impossible. If I were a gentleman,
+and she waited on me as a servant, I could not help liking
+that Shirley. Take from her her education; take her
+ornaments, her sumptuous dress, all extrinsic advantages;
+take all grace, but such as the symmetry of her form renders
+inevitable; present her to me at a cottage door, in a stuff
+gown; let her offer me there a draught of water, with that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>457<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+smile, with that warm good-will with which she now dispenses
+manorial hospitality&mdash;I should like her. I should
+wish to stay an hour; I should linger to talk with that rustic.
+I should not feel as I <em>now</em> do; I should find in her nothing
+divine; but whenever I met the young peasant, it would be
+with pleasure; whenever I left her, it would be with regret.</p>
+
+<p>"How culpably careless in her to leave her desk open,
+where I know she has money! In the lock hang the keys
+of all her repositories, of her very jewel-casket. There
+is a purse in that little satin bag; I see the tassel of silver
+beads hanging out. That spectacle would provoke my
+brother Robert. All her little failings would, I know, be a
+source of irritation to him. If they vex me it is a most
+pleasurable vexation. I delight to find her at fault; and
+were I always resident with her, I am aware she would be
+no niggard in thus ministering to my enjoyment. She
+would just give me something to do, to rectify&mdash;a theme
+for my tutor lectures. I never lecture Henry, never feel
+disposed to do so. If he does wrong&mdash;and that is very seldom,
+dear, excellent lad!&mdash;a word suffices. Often I do no
+more than shake my head. But the moment her <em>minois
+mutin</em> meets my eye, expostulatory words crowd to my
+lips. From a taciturn man I believe she would transform
+me into a talker. Whence comes the delight I take in that
+talk? It puzzles myself sometimes. The more <em>cr&acirc;ne, malin,
+taquin</em> is her mood, consequently the clearer occasion she
+gives me for disapprobation, the more I seek her, the better
+I like her. She is never wilder than when equipped in her
+habit and hat, never less manageable than when she and
+Zo&euml; come in fiery from a race with the wind on the hills;
+and I confess it&mdash;to this mute page I may confess it&mdash;I have
+waited an hour in the court for the chance of witnessing her
+return, and for the dearer chance of receiving her in my
+arms from the saddle. I have noticed (again it is to this
+page only I would make the remark) that she will never
+permit any man but myself to render her that assistance.
+I have seen her politely decline Sir Philip Nunnely's aid.
+She is always mighty gentle with her young baronet, mighty
+tender for his feelings, forsooth, and of his very thin-skinned
+<em>amour propre</em>. I have marked her haughtily reject Sam
+Wynne's. Now I know&mdash;my heart knows it, for it has felt
+it&mdash;that she resigns herself to me unreluctantly. Is she
+conscious how my strength rejoices to serve her? I myself
+am not her slave&mdash;I declare it&mdash;but my faculties gather to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>458<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+her beauty, like the genii to the glisten of the lamp. All
+my knowledge, all my prudence, all my calm, and all my
+power stand in her presence humbly waiting a task. How
+glad they are when a mandate comes! What joy they
+take in the toils she assigns! Does she know it?</p>
+
+<p>"I have called her careless. It is remarkable that her
+carelessness never compromises her refinement. Indeed,
+through this very loophole of character, the reality, depth,
+genuineness of that refinement may be ascertained. A
+whole garment sometimes covers meagreness and malformation;
+through a rent sleeve a fair round arm may be
+revealed. I have seen and handled many of her possessions,
+because they are frequently astray. I never saw anything
+that did not proclaim the lady&mdash;nothing sordid, nothing
+soiled. In one sense she is as scrupulous as, in another, she
+is unthinking. As a peasant girl, she would go ever trim
+and cleanly. Look at the pure kid of this little glove, at
+the fresh, unsullied satin of the bag.</p>
+
+<p>"What a difference there is between S. and that pearl
+C. H.! Caroline, I fancy, is the soul of conscientious punctuality
+and nice exactitude. She would precisely suit the
+domestic habits of a certain fastidious kinsman of mine&mdash;so
+delicate, dexterous, quaint, quick, quiet&mdash;all done to a
+minute, all arranged to a strawbreadth. She would suit
+Robert. But what could <em>I</em> do with anything so nearly
+faultless? <em>She</em> is my equal, poor as myself. She is certainly
+pretty: a little Raffaelle head hers&mdash;Raffaelle in
+feature, quite English in expression, all insular grace and
+purity; but where is there anything to alter, anything to
+endure, anything to reprimand, to be anxious about? There
+she is, a lily of the valley, untinted, needing no tint. What
+change could improve her? What pencil dare to paint?
+<em>My</em> sweetheart, if I ever have one, must bear nearer affinity
+to the rose&mdash;a sweet, lively delight guarded with prickly
+peril. <em>My</em> wife, if I ever marry, must stir my great
+frame with a sting now and then; she must furnish use
+to her husband's vast mass of patience. I was not made
+so enduring to be mated with a lamb; I should find more
+congenial responsibility in the charge of a young lioness
+or leopardess. I like few things sweet but what are likewise
+pungent&mdash;few things bright but what are likewise hot.
+I like the summer day, whose sun makes fruit blush and corn
+blanch. Beauty is never so beautiful as when, if I tease
+it, it wreathes back on me with spirit. Fascination is never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>459<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+so imperial as when, roused and half ireful, she threatens
+transformation to fierceness. I fear I should tire of the
+mute, monotonous innocence of the lamb; I should ere long
+feel as burdensome the nestling dove which never stirred
+in my bosom; but my patience would exult in stilling the
+flutterings and training the energies of the restless merlin.
+In managing the wild instincts of the scarce manageable
+<em>b&ecirc;te fauve</em> my powers would revel.</p>
+
+<p>"O my pupil! O Peri! too mutinous for heaven, too
+innocent for hell, never shall I do more than see, and worship,
+and wish for thee. Alas! knowing I could make thee
+happy, will it be my doom to see thee possessed by those
+who have not that power?</p>
+
+<p>"However kindly the hand, if it is feeble, it cannot bend
+Shirley; and she must be bent. It cannot curb her;
+and she must be curbed.</p>
+
+<p>"Beware, Sir Philip Nunnely! I never see you walking
+or sitting at her side, and observe her lips compressed,
+or her brow knit, in resolute endurance of some trait of
+your character which she neither admires nor likes, in
+determined toleration of some weakness she believes atoned
+for by a virtue, but which annoys her despite that belief; I
+never mark the grave glow of her face, the unsmiling sparkle
+of her eye, the slight recoil of her whole frame when you
+draw a little too near, and gaze a little too expressively,
+and whisper a little too warmly&mdash;I never witness these
+things but I think of the fable of Semele reversed.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not the daughter of Cadmus I see, nor do I realize
+her fatal longing to look on Jove in the majesty of his god-head.
+It is a priest of Juno that stands before me, watching
+late and lone at a shrine in an Argive temple. For years
+of solitary ministry he has lived on dreams. There is
+divine madness upon him. He loves the idol he serves,
+and prays day and night that his frenzy may be fed, and
+that the Ox-eyed may smile on her votary. She has heard;
+she will be propitious. All Argos slumbers. The doors
+of the temple are shut; the priest waits at the altar.</p>
+
+<p>"A shock of heaven and earth is felt&mdash;not by the slumbering
+city, only by that lonely watcher, brave and unshaken
+in his fanaticism. In the midst of silence, with no
+preluding sound, he is wrapped in sudden light. Through
+the roof, through the rent, wide-yawning, vast, white-blazing
+blue of heaven above, pours a wondrous descent,
+dread as the downrushing of stars. He has what he asked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>460<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Withdraw&mdash;forbear to look&mdash;I am blinded. I hear in that
+fane an unspeakable sound. Would that I could not hear
+it! I see an insufferable glory burning terribly between the
+pillars. Gods be merciful and quench it!</p>
+
+<p>"A pious Argive enters to make an early offering in the
+cool dawn of morning. There was thunder in the night;
+the bolt fell here. The shrine is shivered, the marble
+pavement round split and blackened. Saturnia's statue
+rises chaste, grand, untouched; at her feet piled ashes lie
+pale. No priest remains; he who watched will be seen no
+more.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"There is the carriage! Let me lock up the desk and
+pocket the keys. She will be seeking them to-morrow;
+she will have to come to me. I hear her: 'Mr. Moore, have
+you seen my keys?'</p>
+
+<p>"So she will say, in her clear voice, speaking with reluctance,
+looking ashamed, conscious that this is the twentieth
+time of asking. I will tantalize her, keep her with me,
+expecting, doubting; and when I <em>do</em> restore them, it shall
+not be without a lecture. Here is the bag, too, and the purse;
+the glove&mdash;pen&mdash;seal. She shall wring them all out of me
+slowly and separately&mdash;only by confession, penitence, entreaty.
+I never can touch her hand, or a ringlet of her
+head, or a ribbon of her dress, but I will make privileges
+for myself. Every feature of her face, her bright eyes, her
+lips, shall go through each change they know, for my pleasure&mdash;display
+each exquisite variety of glance and curve, to
+delight, thrill, perhaps more hopelessly to enchain me. If
+I must be her slave, I will not lose my freedom for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>He locked the desk, pocketed all the property, and went.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>461<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.<br />
+<br />
+<small>RUSHEDGE&mdash;A CONFESSIONAL.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Everybody</span> said it was high time for Mr. Moore to return
+home. All Briarfield wondered at his strange absence,
+and Whinbury and Nunnely brought each its separate
+contribution of amazement.</p>
+
+<p>Was it known why he stayed away? Yes. It was
+known twenty&mdash;forty times over, there being at least
+forty plausible reasons adduced to account for the unaccountable
+circumstance. Business it was not&mdash;<em>that</em> the
+gossips agreed. He had achieved the business on which
+he departed long ago. His four ringleaders he had soon
+scented out and run down. He had attended their trial,
+heard their conviction and sentence, and seen them safely
+shipped prior to transportation.</p>
+
+<p>This was known at Briarfield. The newspapers had
+reported it. The <em>Stilbro' Courier</em> had given every particular,
+with amplifications. None applauded his perseverance
+or hailed his success, though the mill-owners were
+glad of it, trusting that the terrors of law vindicated would
+henceforward paralyze the sinister valour of disaffection.
+Disaffection, however, was still heard muttering to himself.
+He swore ominous oaths over the drugged beer of alehouses,
+and drank strange toasts in fiery British gin.</p>
+
+<p>One report affirmed that Moore <em>dared</em> not come to Yorkshire;
+he knew his life was not worth an hour's purchase
+if he did.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell him that," said Mr. Yorke, when his foreman
+mentioned the rumour; "and if <em>that</em> does not bring him
+home full gallop, nothing will."</p>
+
+<p>Either that or some other motive prevailed at last to
+recall him. He announced to Joe Scott the day he should
+arrive at Stilbro', desiring his hackney to be sent to the
+George for his accommodation; and Joe Scott having
+informed Mr. Yorke, that gentleman made it in his way to
+meet him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>462<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>It was market-day. Moore arrived in time to take his
+usual place at the market dinner. As something of a stranger,
+and as a man of note and action, the assembled manufacturers
+received him with a certain distinction. Some, who
+in public would scarcely have dared to acknowledge his
+acquaintance, lest a little of the hate and vengeance laid up
+in store for him should perchance have fallen on them, in
+private hailed him as in some sort their champion. When
+the wine had circulated, their respect would have kindled to
+enthusiasm had not Moore's unshaken nonchalance held it in
+a damp, low, smouldering state.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Yorke, the permanent president of these dinners,
+witnessed his young friend's bearing with exceeding complacency.
+If one thing could stir his temper or excite his
+contempt more than another, it was to see a man befooled
+by flattery or elate with popularity. If one thing smoothed,
+soothed, and charmed him especially, it was the spectacle
+of a public character incapable of relishing his publicity&mdash;<em>incapable</em>,
+I say. Disdain would but have incensed; it
+was indifference that appeased his rough spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Robert, leaning back in his chair, quiet and almost surly,
+while the clothiers and blanket-makers vaunted his prowess
+and rehearsed his deeds&mdash;many of them interspersing
+their flatteries with coarse invectives against the operative
+class&mdash;was a delectable sight for Mr. Yorke. His heart
+tingled with the pleasing conviction that these gross eulogiums
+shamed Moore deeply, and made him half scorn
+himself and his work. On abuse, on reproach, on calumny,
+it is easy to smile; but painful indeed is the panegyric of
+those we contemn. Often had Moore gazed with a brilliant
+countenance over howling crowds from a hostile
+hustings. He had breasted the storm of unpopularity with
+gallant bearing and soul elate; but he drooped his head
+under the half-bred tradesmen's praise, and shrank chagrined
+before their congratulations.</p>
+
+<p>Yorke could not help asking him how he liked his supporters,
+and whether he did not think they did honour
+to his cause. "But it is a pity, lad," he added, "that
+you did not hang these four samples of the unwashed.
+If you had managed <em>that</em> feat, the gentry here would have
+riven the horses out of the coach, yoked to a score of
+asses, and drawn you into Stilbro' like a conquering
+general."</p>
+
+<p>Moore soon forsook the wine, broke from the party,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>463<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and took the road. In less than five minutes Mr. Yorke
+followed him. They rode out of Stilbro' together.</p>
+
+<p>It was early to go home, but yet it was late in the day.
+The last ray of the sun had already faded from the cloud-edges,
+and the October night was casting over the moorlands
+the shadow of her approach.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Yorke, moderately exhilarated with his moderate
+libations, and not displeased to see young Moore again
+in Yorkshire, and to have him for his comrade during the
+long ride home, took the discourse much to himself. He
+touched briefly, but scoffingly, on the trials and the conviction;
+he passed thence to the gossip of the neighbourhood, and ere
+long he attacked Moore on his own personal concerns.</p>
+
+<p>"Bob, I believe you are worsted, and you deserve it.
+All was smooth. Fortune had fallen in love with you.
+She had decreed you the first prize in her wheel&mdash;twenty
+thousand pounds; she only required that you should hold
+your hand out and take it. And what did you do? You
+called for a horse and rode a-hunting to Warwickshire.
+Your sweetheart&mdash;Fortune, I mean&mdash;was perfectly indulgent.
+She said, 'I'll excuse him; he's young.' She
+waited, like 'Patience on a monument,' till the chase was
+over and the vermin-prey run down. She expected you
+would come back then, and be a good lad. You might
+still have had her first prize.</p>
+
+<p>"It capped her beyond expression, and me too, to find
+that, instead of thundering home in a breakneck gallop
+and laying your assize laurels at her feet, you coolly took
+coach up to London. What you have done there Satan
+knows; nothing in this world, I believe, but sat and sulked.
+Your face was never lily fair, but it is olive green now.
+You're not as bonny as you were, man."</p>
+
+<p>"And who is to have this prize you talk so much about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only a baronet; that is all. I have not a doubt in
+my own mind you've lost her. She will be Lady Nunnely
+before Christmas."</p>
+
+<p>"Hem! Quite probable."</p>
+
+<p>"But she need not to have been. Fool of a lad! I
+swear you might have had her."</p>
+
+<p>"By what token, Mr. Yorke?"</p>
+
+<p>"By every token&mdash;by the light of her eyes, the red of
+her cheeks. Red they grew when your name was mentioned,
+though of custom they are pale."</p>
+
+<p>"My chance is quite over, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>464<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"It ought to be. But try; it is worth trying. I call this
+Sir Philip milk and water. And then he writes verses, they
+say&mdash;tags rhymes. <em>You</em> are above that, Bob, at all events."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you advise me to propose, late as it is, Mr.
+Yorke&mdash;at the eleventh hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can but make the experiment, Robert. If she
+has a fancy for you&mdash;and, on my conscience, I believe she
+has or had&mdash;she will forgive much. But, my lad, you are
+laughing. Is it at me? You had better grin at your own
+perverseness. I see, however, you laugh at the wrong side
+of your mouth. You have as sour a look at this moment as
+one need wish to see."</p>
+
+<p>"I have so quarrelled with myself, Yorke. I have so
+kicked against the pricks, and struggled in a strait waistcoat,
+and dislocated my wrists with wrenching them in
+handcuffs, and battered my hard head by driving it against
+a harder wall."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! I'm glad to hear that. Sharp exercise yon!
+I hope it has done you good&mdash;ta'en some of the self-conceit
+out of you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Self-conceit? What is it? Self-respect, self-tolerance
+even, what are they? Do you sell the articles?
+Do you know anybody who does? Give an indication.
+They would find in me a liberal chapman. I would part
+with my last guinea this minute to buy."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it so with you, Robert? I find that spicy. I like
+a man to speak his mind. What has gone wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"The machinery of all my nature; the whole enginery
+of this human mill; the boiler, which I take to be the heart,
+is fit to burst."</p>
+
+<p>"That suld be putten i' print; it's striking. It's almost
+blank verse. Ye'll be jingling into poetry just e'now. If
+the afflatus comes, give way, Robert. Never heed me;
+I'll bear it this whet [time]."</p>
+
+<p>"Hideous, abhorrent, base blunder! You may commit
+in a moment what you will rue for years&mdash;what life
+cannot cancel."</p>
+
+<p>"Lad, go on. I call it pie, nuts, sugar-candy. I like
+the taste uncommonly. Go on. It will do you good to
+talk. The moor is before us now, and there is no life for
+many a mile round."</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>will</em> talk. I am not ashamed to tell. There is a sort
+of wild cat in my breast, and I choose that you shall hear
+how it can yell."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>465<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"To me it is music. What grand voices you and Louis
+have! When Louis sings&mdash;tones off like a soft, deep bell&mdash;I've
+felt myself tremble again. The night is still. It
+listens. It is just leaning down to you, like a black priest
+to a blacker penitent. Confess, lad. Smooth naught
+down. Be candid as a convicted, justified, sanctified Methody
+at an experience meeting. Make yourself as wicked as
+Beelzebub. It will ease your mind."</p>
+
+<p>"As mean as Mammon, you would say. Yorke, if I
+got off horseback and laid myself down across the road,
+would you have the goodness to gallop over me, backwards
+and forwards, about twenty times?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wi' all the pleasure in life, if there were no such thing
+as a coroner's inquest."</p>
+
+<p>"Hiram Yorke, I certainly believed she loved me. I
+have seen her eyes sparkle radiantly when she has found
+me out in a crowd; she has flushed up crimson when she
+has offered me her hand, and said, 'How do you do, Mr.
+Moore?'</p>
+
+<p>"My name had a magical influence over her. When
+others uttered it she changed countenance&mdash;I know she
+did. She pronounced it herself in the most musical of
+her many musical tones. She was cordial to me; she took
+an interest in me; she was anxious about me; she wished
+me well; she sought, she seized every opportunity to benefit
+me. I considered, paused, watched, weighed, wondered.
+I could come to but one conclusion&mdash;this is love.</p>
+
+<p>"I looked at her, Yorke. I saw in her youth and a
+species of beauty. I saw power in her. Her wealth offered
+me the redemption of my honour and my standing. I
+owed her gratitude. She had aided me substantially and
+effectually by a loan of five thousand pounds. Could I
+remember these things? Could I believe she loved me?
+Could I hear wisdom urge me to marry her, and disregard
+every dear advantage, disbelieve every flattering suggestion,
+disdain every well-weighed counsel, turn and leave her?
+Young, graceful, gracious&mdash;my benefactress, attached to
+me, enamoured of me. I used to say so to myself; dwell
+on the word; mouth it over and over again; swell over it
+with a pleasant, pompous complacency, with an admiration
+dedicated entirely to myself, and unimpaired even by
+esteem for her; indeed I smiled in deep secrecy at her
+<em>na&iuml;vet&eacute;</em> and simplicity in being the first to love, and to
+show it. That whip of yours seems to have a good heavy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>466<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+handle, Yorke; you can swing it about your head and
+knock me out of the saddle, if you choose. I should rather
+relish a loundering whack."</p>
+
+<p>"Tak patience, Robert, till the moon rises and I can
+see you. Speak plain out&mdash;did you love her or not? I
+could like to know. I feel curious."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir&mdash;sir&mdash;I say&mdash;she is very pretty, in her own style,
+and very attractive. She has a look, at times, of a thing
+made out of fire and air, at which I stand and marvel,
+without a thought of clasping and kissing it. I felt in her
+a powerful magnet to my interest and vanity. I never felt
+as if nature meant her to be my other and better self.
+When a question on that head rushed upon me, I flung it off,
+saying brutally I should be rich with her and ruined without
+her&mdash;vowing I would be practical, and not romantic."</p>
+
+<p>"A very sensible resolve. What mischief came of it,
+Bob?"</p>
+
+<p>"With this sensible resolve I walked up to Fieldhead
+one night last August. It was the very eve of my departure
+for Birmingham; for, you see, I wanted to secure
+Fortune's splendid prize. I had previously dispatched a
+note requesting a private interview. I found her at home,
+and alone.</p>
+
+<p>"She received me without embarrassment, for she
+thought I came on business. <em>I</em> was embarrassed enough,
+but determined. I hardly know how I got the operation
+over; but I went to work in a hard, firm fashion&mdash;frightful
+enough, I dare say. I sternly offered myself&mdash;my fine
+person&mdash;with my debts, of course, as a settlement.</p>
+
+<p>"It vexed me, it kindled my ire, to find that she neither
+blushed, trembled, nor looked down. She responded, 'I
+doubt whether I have understood you, Mr. Moore.'</p>
+
+<p>"And I had to go over the whole proposal twice, and
+word it as plainly as A B C, before she would fully take
+it in. And then, what did she do? Instead of faltering
+a sweet Yes, or maintaining a soft, confused silence (which
+would have been as good), she started up, walked twice fast
+through the room, in the way that <em>she</em> only does, and no other
+woman, and ejaculated, 'God bless me!'</p>
+
+<p>"Yorke, I stood on the hearth, backed by the mantelpiece;
+against it I leaned, and prepared for anything&mdash;everything.
+I knew my doom, and I knew myself. There
+was no misunderstanding her aspect and voice. She
+stopped and looked at me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>467<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"'God bless me!' she piteously repeated, in that shocked,
+indignant, yet saddened accent. 'You have made a strange
+proposal&mdash;strange from <em>you</em>; and if you knew how strangely
+you worded it and looked it, you would be startled at yourself.
+You spoke like a brigand who demanded my purse
+rather than like a lover who asked my heart.'</p>
+
+<p>"A queer sentence, was it not, Yorke? And I knew,
+as she uttered it, it was true as queer. Her words were
+a mirror in which I saw myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I looked at her, dumb and wolfish. She at once enraged
+and shamed me.</p>
+
+<p>"'G&eacute;rard Moore, you know you don't love Shirley
+Keeldar.' I might have broken out into false swearing&mdash;vowed
+that I did love her; but I could not lie in her pure
+face. I could not perjure myself in her truthful presence.
+Besides, such hollow oaths would have been vain as void.
+She would no more have believed me than she would have
+believed the ghost of Judas, had he broken from the night and
+stood before her. Her female heart had finer perceptions
+than to be cheated into mistaking my half-coarse, half-cold
+admiration for true-throbbing, manly love.</p>
+
+<p>"What next happened? you will say, Mr. Yorke.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, she sat down in the window-seat and cried.
+She cried passionately. Her eyes not only rained but
+lightened. They flashed, open, large, dark, haughty, upon
+me. They said, 'You have pained me; you have outraged
+me; you have deceived me.'</p>
+
+<p>"She added words soon to looks.</p>
+
+<p>"'I <em>did</em> respect&mdash;I <em>did</em> admire&mdash;I <em>did</em> like you,' she
+said&mdash;'yes, as much as if you were my brother; and <em>you&mdash;you</em>
+want to make a speculation of me. You would immolate
+me to that mill, your Moloch!'</p>
+
+<p>"I had the common sense to abstain from any word
+of excuse, any attempt at palliation. I stood to be scorned.</p>
+
+<p>"Sold to the devil for the time being, I was certainly
+infatuated. When I did speak, what do you think I said?</p>
+
+<p>"'Whatever my own feelings were, I was persuaded
+<em>you</em> loved <em>me</em>, Miss Keeldar.'</p>
+
+<p>"Beautiful, was it not? She sat quite confounded.
+'Is it Robert Moore that speaks?' I heard her mutter.
+'Is it a man&mdash;or something lower?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you mean,' she asked aloud&mdash;'do you mean you
+thought I loved you as we love those we wish to marry?'</p>
+
+<p>"It <em>was</em> my meaning, and I said so.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>468<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"'You conceived an idea obnoxious to a woman's feelings,'
+was her answer. 'You have announced it in a fashion
+revolting to a woman's soul. You insinuate that all the
+frank kindness I have shown you has been a complicated,
+a bold, and an immodest man&oelig;uvre to ensnare a husband.
+You imply that at last you come here out of pity to offer
+me your hand, because I have courted you. Let me say
+this: Your sight is jaundiced; you have seen wrong.
+Your mind is warped; you have judged wrong. Your
+tongue betrays you; you now speak wrong. I never loved
+you. Be at rest there. My heart is as pure of passion for
+you as yours is barren of affection for me.'</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I was answered, Yorke?</p>
+
+<p>"'I seem to be a blind, besotted sort of person,' was
+my remark.</p>
+
+<p>"'<em>Loved</em> you!' she cried. 'Why, I have been as frank
+with you as a sister&mdash;never shunned you, never feared you.
+You cannot,' she affirmed triumphantly&mdash;'you cannot make
+me tremble with your coming, nor accelerate my pulse by
+your influence.'</p>
+
+<p>"I alleged that often, when she spoke to me, she blushed,
+and that the sound of my name moved her.</p>
+
+<p>"'Not for <em>your</em> sake!' she declared briefly. I urged
+explanation, but could get none.</p>
+
+<p>"'When I sat beside you at the school feast, did you
+think I loved you then? When I stopped you in Maythorn
+Lane, did you think I loved you then? When I
+called on you in the counting-house, when I walked with
+you on the pavement, did you think I loved you then?'</p>
+
+<p>"So she questioned me; and I said I did.</p>
+
+<p>"By the Lord! Yorke, she rose, she grew tall, she expanded
+and refined almost to flame. There was a trembling
+all through her, as in live coal when its vivid vermilion is
+hottest.</p>
+
+<p>"'That is to say that you have the worst opinion of
+me; that you deny me the possession of all I value most.
+That is to say that I am a traitor to all my sisters; that
+I have acted as no woman can act without degrading herself
+and her sex; that I have sought where the incorrupt of
+my kind naturally scorn and abhor to seek.' She and I were
+silent for many a minute. 'Lucifer, Star of the Morning,'
+she went on, 'thou art fallen! You, once high in my esteem,
+are hurled down; you, once intimate in my friendship, are
+cast out. Go!'</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>469<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I went not. I had heard her voice tremble, seen her
+lip quiver. I knew another storm of tears would fall,
+and then I believed some calm and some sunshine must
+come, and I would wait for it.</p>
+
+<p>"As fast, but more quietly than before, the warm rain
+streamed down. There was another sound in her weeping&mdash;a
+softer, more regretful sound. While I watched,
+her eyes lifted to me a gaze more reproachful than haughty,
+more mournful than incensed.</p>
+
+<p>"'O Moore!' said she. It was worse than 'Et tu,
+Brute!'</p>
+
+<p>"I relieved myself by what should have been a sigh,
+but it became a groan. A sense of Cain-like desolation
+made my breast ache.</p>
+
+<p>"'There has been error in what I have done,' I said,
+'and it has won me bitter wages, which I will go and spend
+far from her who gave them.'</p>
+
+<p>"I took my hat. All the time I could not have borne
+to depart so, and I believed she would not let me. Nor
+would she but for the mortal pang I had given her pride,
+that cowed her compassion and kept her silent.</p>
+
+<p>"I was obliged to turn back of my own accord when
+I reached the door, to approach her, and to say, 'Forgive
+me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I could, if there was not myself to forgive too,' was
+her reply; 'but to mislead a sagacious man so far I must
+have done wrong.'</p>
+
+<p>"I broke out suddenly with some declamation I do not
+remember. I know that it was sincere, and that my wish
+and aim were to absolve her to herself. In fact, in her
+case self-accusation was a chimera.</p>
+
+<p>"At last she extended her hand. For the first time
+I wished to take her in my arms and kiss her. I <em>did</em> kiss
+her hand many times.</p>
+
+<p>"'Some day we shall be friends again,' she said, 'when
+you have had time to read my actions and motives in
+a true light, and not so horribly to misinterpret them. Time
+may give you the right key to all. Then, perhaps, you
+will comprehend me, and then we shall be reconciled.'</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell drops rolled slow down her cheeks. She
+wiped them away.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am sorry for what has happened&mdash;deeply sorry,' she
+sobbed. So was I, God knows! Thus were we severed."</p>
+
+<p>"A queer tale!" commented Mr. Yorke.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>470<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I'll do it no more," vowed his companion; "never
+more will I mention marriage to a woman unless I feel
+love. Henceforth credit and commerce may take care of
+themselves. Bankruptcy may come when it lists. I have
+done with slavish fear of disaster. I mean to work diligently,
+wait patiently, bear steadily. Let the worst come, I will
+take my axe and an emigrant's berth, and go out with
+Louis to the West; he and I have settled it. No woman
+shall ever again look at me as Miss Keeldar looked, ever
+again feel towards me as Miss Keeldar felt. In no woman's
+presence will I ever again stand at once such a fool and
+such a knave, such a brute and such a puppy."</p>
+
+<p>"Tut!" said the imperturbable Yorke, "you make too
+much of it; but still, I say, I am capped. Firstly, that
+she did not love you; and secondly, that you did not love
+her. You are both young; you are both handsome; you
+are both well enough for wit and even for temper&mdash;take
+you on the right side. What ailed you that you could not
+agree?"</p>
+
+<p>"We never <em>have</em> been, never <em>could</em> be <em>at home</em> with each
+other, Yorke. Admire each other as we might at a distance,
+still we jarred when we came very near. I have sat at
+one side of a room and observed her at the other, perhaps
+in an excited, genial moment, when she had some of her
+favourites round her&mdash;her old beaux, for instance, yourself
+and Helstone, with whom she is so playful, pleasant, and
+eloquent. I have watched her when she was most natural,
+most lively, and most lovely; my judgment has pronounced
+her beautiful. Beautiful she is at times, when her mood
+and her array partake of the splendid. I have drawn a
+little nearer, feeling that our terms of acquaintance gave
+me the right of approach. I have joined the circle round
+her seat, caught her eye, and mastered her attention; then
+we have conversed; and others, thinking me, perhaps,
+peculiarly privileged, have withdrawn by degrees, and left
+us alone. Were we happy thus left? For myself, I must
+say No. Always a feeling of constraint came over me;
+always I was disposed to be stern and strange. We talked
+politics and business. No soft sense of domestic intimacy
+ever opened our hearts, or thawed our language and made
+it flow easy and limpid. If we had confidences, they were
+confidences of the counting-house, not of the heart. Nothing
+in her cherished affection in me, made me better,
+gentler; she only stirred my brain and whetted my acuteness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>471<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+She never crept into my heart or influenced its
+pulse; and for this good reason, no doubt, because I had
+not the secret of making her love me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, lad, it is a queer thing. I might laugh at thee,
+and reckon to despise thy refinements; but as it is dark
+night and we are by ourselves, I don't mind telling thee
+that thy talk brings back a glimpse of my own past life.
+Twenty-five years ago I tried to persuade a beautiful woman
+to love me, and she would not. I had not the key to her
+nature; she was a stone wall to me, doorless and windowless."</p>
+
+<p>"But you loved <em>her</em>, Yorke; you worshipped Mary
+Cave. Your conduct, after all, was that of a man&mdash;never
+of a fortune-hunter."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, I <em>did</em> love her; but then she was beautiful as the
+moon we do <em>not</em> see to-night. There is naught like her in
+these days. Miss Helstone, maybe, has a look of her, but
+nobody else."</p>
+
+<p>"Who has a look of her?"</p>
+
+<p>"That black-coated tyrant's niece&mdash;that quiet, delicate
+Miss Helstone. Many a time I have put on my spectacles
+to look at the lassie in church, because she has gentle blue
+een, wi' long lashes; and when she sits in shadow, and is
+very still and very pale, and is, happen, about to fall asleep
+wi' the length of the sermon and the heat of the biggin',
+she is as like one of Canova's marbles as aught else."</p>
+
+<p>"Was Mary Cave in that style?"</p>
+
+<p>"Far grander!&mdash;less lass-like and flesh-like. You
+wondered why she hadn't wings and a crown. She was a
+stately, peaceful angel was my Mary."</p>
+
+<p>"And you could not persuade her to love you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not with all I could do, though I prayed Heaven many
+a time, on my bended knees, to help me."</p>
+
+<p>"Mary Cave was not what you think her, Yorke. I
+have seen her picture at the rectory. She is no angel, but
+a fair, regular-featured, taciturn-looking woman&mdash;rather
+too white and lifeless for my taste. But, supposing she
+had been something better than she was&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Robert," interrupted Yorke, "I could fell you off your
+horse at this moment. However, I'll hold my hand.
+Reason tells me you are right and I am wrong. I know
+well enough that the passion I still have is only the remnant
+of an illusion. If Miss Cave had possessed either feeling
+or sense, she could not have been so perfectly impassible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>472<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+to my regard as she showed herself; she must have preferred
+me to that copper-faced despot."</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing, Yorke, she had been educated (no women
+were educated in those days); supposing she had possessed
+a thoughtful, original mind, a love of knowledge, a wish for
+information, which she took an artless delight in receiving
+from your lips, and having measured out to her by your
+hand; supposing her conversation, when she sat at your
+side, was fertile, varied, imbued with a picturesque grace
+and genial interest, quiet flowing but clear and bounteous;
+supposing that when you stood near her by chance, or when
+you sat near her by design, comfort at once became your
+atmosphere, and content your element; supposing that
+whenever her face was under your gaze, or her idea filled
+your thoughts, you gradually ceased to be hard and anxious,
+and pure affection, love of home, thirst for sweet discourse,
+unselfish longing to protect and cherish, replaced the
+sordid, cankering calculations of your trade; supposing,
+with all this, that many a time, when you had been so
+happy as to possess your Mary's little hand, you had felt it
+tremble as you held it, just as a warm little bird trembles
+when you take it from its nest; supposing you had noticed
+her shrink into the background on your entrance into a
+room, yet if you sought her in her retreat she welcomed you
+with the sweetest smile that ever lit a fair virgin face, and
+only turned her eyes from the encounter of your own lest
+their clearness should reveal too much; supposing, in
+short, your Mary had been not cold, but modest; not
+vacant, but reflective; not obtuse, but sensitive; not
+inane, but innocent; not prudish, but pure,&mdash;would you
+have left her to court another woman for her wealth?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Yorke raised his hat, wiped his forehead with his
+handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"The moon is up," was his first not quite relevant remark,
+pointing with his whip across the moor. "There she is,
+rising into the haze, staring at us wi' a strange red glower.
+She is no more silver than old Helstone's brow is ivory.
+What does she mean by leaning her cheek on Rushedge
+i' that way, and looking at us wi' a scowl and a menace?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yorke, if Mary had loved you silently yet faithfully,
+chastely yet fervently, as you would wish your wife to love,
+would you have left her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Robert!"&mdash;he lifted his arm, he held it suspended,
+and paused&mdash;"Robert! this is a queer world, and men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>473<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+are made of the queerest dregs that Chaos churned up
+in her ferment. I might swear sounding oaths&mdash;oaths
+that would make the poachers think there was a bittern
+booming in Bilberry Moss&mdash;that, in the case you put,
+death only should have parted me from Mary. But I
+have lived in the world fifty-five years; I have been forced
+to study human nature; and, to speak a dark truth, the
+odds are, if Mary had loved and not scorned me, if I had
+been secure of her affection, certain of her constancy,
+been irritated by no doubts, stung by no humiliations&mdash;the
+odds are" (he let his hand fall heavy on the saddle)&mdash;"the
+odds are I should have left her!"</p>
+
+<p>They rode side by side in silence. Ere either spoke again
+they were on the other side of Rushedge. Briarfield lights
+starred the purple skirt of the moor. Robert, being the
+youngest, and having less of the past to absorb him than
+his comrade, recommenced first.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe&mdash;I daily find it proved&mdash;that we can get
+nothing in this world worth keeping, not so much as a
+principle or a conviction, except out of purifying flame
+or through strengthening peril. We err, we fall, we are
+humbled; then we walk more carefully. We greedily
+eat and drink poison out of the gilded cup of vice or from
+the beggar's wallet of avarice. We are sickened, degraded;
+everything good in us rebels against us; our souls rise
+bitterly indignant against our bodies; there is a period
+of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rules
+thereafter."</p>
+
+<p>"What art thou going to do now, Robert? What are
+thy plans?"</p>
+
+<p>"For my private plans, I'll keep them to myself&mdash;which
+is very easy, as at present I have none. No private
+life is permitted a man in my position&mdash;a man in debt.
+For my public plans, my views are a little altered. While
+I was in Birmingham I looked a little into reality, considered
+closely and at their source the causes of the present
+troubles of this country. I did the same in London. Unknown,
+I could go where I pleased, mix with whom I would.
+I went where there was want of food, of fuel, of clothing;
+where there was no occupation and no hope. I saw some,
+with naturally elevated tendencies and good feelings, kept
+down amongst sordid privations and harassing griefs. I
+saw many originally low, and to whom lack of education
+left scarcely anything but animal wants, disappointed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>474<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+those wants, ahungered, athirst, and desperate as famished
+animals. I saw what taught my brain a new lesson, and
+filled my breast with fresh feelings. I have no intention to
+profess more softness or sentiment than I have hitherto
+professed; mutiny and ambition I regard as I have always
+regarded them. I should resist a riotous mob just as heretofore;
+I should open on the scent of a runaway ringleader
+as eagerly as ever, and run him down as relentlessly, and
+follow him up to condign punishment as rigorously; but
+I should do it now chiefly for the sake and the security of
+those he misled. Something there is to look to, Yorke,
+beyond a man's personal interest, beyond the advancement
+of well-laid schemes, beyond even the discharge of dishonouring
+debts. To respect himself, a man must believe
+he renders justice to his fellow-men. Unless I am more
+considerate to ignorance, more forbearing to suffering, than
+I have hitherto been, I shall scorn myself as grossly unjust.&mdash;What
+now?" he said, addressing his horse, which, hearing
+the ripple of water, and feeling thirsty, turned to a wayside
+trough, where the moonbeam was playing in a crystal eddy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yorke," pursued Moore, "ride on; I must let him
+drink."</p>
+
+<p>Yorke accordingly rode slowly forwards, occupying himself
+as he advanced in discriminating, amongst the many
+lights now spangling the distance, those of Briarmains.
+Stilbro' Moor was left behind; plantations rose dusk on
+either hand; they were descending the hill; below them
+lay the valley with its populous parish: they felt already
+at home.</p>
+
+<p>Surrounded no longer by heath, it was not startling to
+Mr. Yorke to see a hat rise, and to hear a voice speak behind
+the wall. The words, however, were peculiar.</p>
+
+<p>"When the wicked perisheth there is shouting," it said;
+and added, "As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no
+more" (with a deeper growl): "terrors take hold of him
+as waters; hell is naked before him. He shall die without
+knowledge."</p>
+
+<p>A fierce flash and sharp crack violated the calm of night.
+Yorke, ere he turned, knew the four convicts of Birmingham
+were avenged.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>475<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>UNCLE AND NIECE.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">The</span> die was cast. Sir Philip Nunnely knew it; Shirley
+knew it; Mr. Sympson knew it. That evening, when
+all the Fieldhead family dined at Nunnely Priory, decided
+the business.</p>
+
+<p>Two or three things conduced to bring the baronet to
+a point. He had observed that Miss Keeldar looked
+pensive and delicate. This new phase in her demeanour
+smote him on his weak or poetic side. A spontaneous
+sonnet brewed in his brain; and while it was still working
+there, one of his sisters persuaded his lady-love to sit
+down to the piano and sing a ballad&mdash;one of Sir Philip's
+own ballads. It was the least elaborate, the least
+affected&mdash;out of all comparison the best of his numerous
+efforts.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced that Shirley, the moment before, had been
+gazing from a window down on the park. She had seen
+that stormy moonlight which "le Professeur Louis" was
+perhaps at the same instant contemplating from her own
+oak-parlour lattice; she had seen the isolated trees of the
+domain&mdash;broad, strong, spreading oaks, and high-towering
+heroic beeches&mdash;wrestling with the gale. Her ear had
+caught the full roar of the forest lower down; the swift
+rushing of clouds, the moon, to the eye, hasting swifter
+still, had crossed her vision. She turned from sight and
+sound&mdash;touched, if not rapt; wakened, if not inspired.</p>
+
+<p>She sang, as requested. There was much about love
+in the ballad&mdash;faithful love that refused to abandon its
+object; love that disaster could not shake; love that
+in calamity waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The
+words were set to a fine old air; in themselves they were
+simple and sweet. Perhaps, when read, they wanted
+force; when <em>well</em> sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley
+sang them well. She breathed into the feeling softness;
+she poured round the passion force. Her voice was fine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>476<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+that evening, its expression dramatic. She impressed all,
+and charmed one.</p>
+
+<p>On leaving the instrument she went to the fire, and sat
+down on a seat&mdash;semi-stool, semi-cushion. The ladies
+were round her; none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson
+and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her as quiet poultry
+might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl.
+What made her sing so? <em>They</em> never sang so. Was it
+<em>proper</em> to sing with such expression, with such originality&mdash;so
+unlike a school-girl? Decidedly not. It was strange,
+it was unusual. What was <em>strange</em> must be <em>wrong</em>; what
+was <em>unusual</em> must be <em>improper</em>. Shirley was judged.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, old Lady Nunnely eyed her stonily from her
+great chair by the fireside. Her gaze said, "This woman
+is not of mine or my daughters' kind. I object to her as
+my son's wife."</p>
+
+<p>Her son, catching the look, read its meaning. He grew
+alarmed. What he so wished to win there was danger
+he might lose. He must make haste.</p>
+
+<p>The room they were in had once been a picture-gallery.
+Sir Philip's father&mdash;Sir Monckton&mdash;had converted it into
+a saloon; but still it had a shadowy, long-withdrawing
+look. A deep recess with a window&mdash;a recess that held
+one couch, one table, and a fairy cabinet&mdash;formed a room
+within a room. Two persons standing there might interchange
+a dialogue, and, so it were neither long nor loud,
+none be the wiser.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Philip induced two of his sisters to perpetrate a duet.
+He gave occupation to the Misses Sympson. The elder
+ladies were conversing together. He was pleased to remark
+that meantime Shirley rose to look at the pictures.
+He had a tale to tell about one ancestress, whose dark
+beauty seemed as that of a flower of the south. He joined
+her, and began to tell it.</p>
+
+<p>There were mementoes of the same lady in the cabinet
+adorning the recess; and while Shirley was stooping to
+examine the missal and the rosary on the inlaid shelf, and
+while the Misses Nunnely indulged in a prolonged screech,
+guiltless of expression, pure of originality, perfectly conventional
+and absolutely unmeaning, Sir Philip stooped
+too, and whispered a few hurried sentences. At first
+Miss Keeldar was struck so still you might have fancied
+that whisper a charm which had changed her to a statue;
+but she presently looked up and answered. They parted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>477<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Miss Keeldar returned to the fire, and resumed her seat.
+The baronet gazed after her, then went and stood behind
+his sisters. Mr. Sympson&mdash;Mr. Sympson only&mdash;had marked
+the pantomime.</p>
+
+<p>That gentleman drew his own conclusions. Had he been
+as acute as he was meddling, as profound as he was prying,
+he might have found that in Sir Philip's face whereby to
+correct his inference. Ever shallow, hasty, and positive,
+he went home quite cock-a-hoop.</p>
+
+<p>He was not a man that kept secrets well. When elate
+on a subject, he could not avoid talking about it. The
+next morning, having occasion to employ his son's tutor
+as his secretary, he must needs announce to him, in mouthing
+accents, and with much flimsy pomp of manner, that
+he had better hold himself prepared for a return to the
+south at an early day, as the important business which had
+detained him (Mr. Sympson) so long in Yorkshire was now
+on the eve of fortunate completion. His anxious and laborious
+efforts were likely, at last, to be crowned with the
+happiest success. A truly eligible addition was about to
+be made to the family connections.</p>
+
+<p>"In Sir Philip Nunnely?" Louis Moore conjectured.</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon Mr. Sympson treated himself simultaneously
+to a pinch of snuff and a chuckling laugh, checked
+only by a sudden choke of dignity, and an order to the tutor
+to proceed with business.</p>
+
+<p>For a day or two Mr. Sympson continued as bland as
+oil, but also he seemed to sit on pins, and his gait, when
+he walked, emulated that of a hen treading a hot girdle.
+He was for ever looking out of the window and listening
+for chariot-wheels. Bluebeard's wife&mdash;Sisera's mother&mdash;were
+nothing to him. He waited when the matter should
+be opened in form, when himself should be consulted,
+when lawyers should be summoned, when settlement
+discussions and all the delicious worldly fuss should pompously
+begin.</p>
+
+<p>At last there came a letter. He himself handed it to
+Miss Keeldar out of the bag. He knew the handwriting;
+he knew the crest on the seal. He did not see it opened
+and read, for Shirley took it to her own room; nor did
+he see it answered, for she wrote her reply shut up, and
+was very long about it&mdash;the best part of a day. He questioned
+her whether it was answered; she responded,
+"Yes."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>478<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Again he waited&mdash;waited in silence, absolutely not
+daring to speak, kept mute by something in Shirley's face&mdash;a
+very awful something&mdash;inscrutable to him as the
+writing on the wall to Belshazzar. He was moved more
+than once to call Daniel, in the person of Louis Moore,
+and to ask an interpretation; but his dignity forbade the
+familiarity. Daniel himself, perhaps, had his own private
+difficulties connected with that baffling bit of translation;
+he looked like a student for whom grammars are blank and
+dictionaries dumb.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Mr. Sympson had been out, to while away an anxious
+hour in the society of his friends at De Walden Hall. He
+returned a little sooner than was expected. His family
+and Miss Keeldar were assembled in the oak parlour.
+Addressing the latter, he requested her to step with him
+into another room. He wished to have with her a "<em>strictly</em>
+private interview."</p>
+
+<p>She rose, asking no questions and professing no surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir," she said, in the tone of a determined
+person who is informed that the dentist is come to extract
+that large double tooth of his, from which he has suffered
+such a purgatory this month past. She left her sewing
+and her thimble in the window-seat, and followed her
+uncle where he led.</p>
+
+<p>Shut into the drawing-room, the pair took seats, each
+in an arm-chair, placed opposite, a few yards between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been to De Walden Hall," said Mr. Sympson.
+He paused. Miss Keeldar's eyes were on the pretty white-and-green
+carpet. <em>That</em> information required no response.
+She gave none.</p>
+
+<p>"I have learned," he went on slowly&mdash;"I have learned
+a circumstance which surprises me."</p>
+
+<p>Resting her cheek on her forefinger, she waited to be
+told <em>what</em> circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems that Nunnely Priory is shut up&mdash;that the
+family are gone back to their place in &mdash;&mdash;shire. It seems
+that the baronet&mdash;that the baronet&mdash;that Sir Philip himself
+has accompanied his mother and sisters."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" said Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask if you share the amazement with which I
+received this news?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>479<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"<em>Is</em> it news to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean&mdash;I mean," pursued Mr. Sympson, now fidgeting
+in his chair, quitting his hitherto brief and tolerably
+clear phraseology, and returning to his customary wordy,
+confused, irritable style&mdash;"I mean to have a <em>thorough</em> explanation.
+I will <em>not</em> be put off. I&mdash;I&mdash;shall <em>insist</em> on
+being heard, and on&mdash;on having my own way. My questions
+<em>must</em> be answered. I will have clear, satisfactory replies.
+I am not to be trifled with. (Silence.)</p>
+
+<p>"It is a strange and an extraordinary thing&mdash;a very
+singular&mdash;a most odd thing! I thought all was right,
+knew no other; and there&mdash;the family are gone!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, sir, they had a right to go."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>Sir Philip is gone!</em>" (with emphasis).</p>
+
+<p>Shirley raised her brows. "<em>Bon voyage!</em>" said she.</p>
+
+<p>"This will not do; this must be altered, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he
+looked perfectly incensed, and perfectly helpless.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come now, uncle," expostulated Shirley, "do
+not begin to fret and fume, or we shall make no sense of
+the business. Ask me what you want to know. I am
+as willing to come to an explanation as you. I promise
+you truthful replies."</p>
+
+<p>"I want&mdash;I demand to know, Miss Keeldar, whether
+Sir Philip has made you an offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has."</p>
+
+<p>"You avow it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I avow it. But now, go on. Consider that point
+settled."</p>
+
+<p>"He made you an offer that night we dined at the
+priory?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is enough to say that he made it. Go on."</p>
+
+<p>"He proposed in the recess&mdash;in the room that used to
+be a picture-gallery&mdash;that Sir Monckton converted into it
+saloon?"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You were both examining a cabinet. I saw it all.
+My sagacity was not at fault&mdash;it never is. Subsequently
+you received a letter from him. On what subject&mdash;of
+what nature were the contents?"</p>
+
+<p>"No matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Ma'am, is that the way in which you speak to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Shirley's foot tapped quick on the carpet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>480<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"There you sit, silent and sullen&mdash;<em>you</em> who promised
+truthful replies."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, I have answered you thus far. Proceed."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see that letter."</p>
+
+<p>"You <em>cannot</em> see it."</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>must</em> and <em>shall</em>, ma'am; I am your guardian."</p>
+
+<p>"Having ceased to be a ward, I have no guardian."</p>
+
+<p>"Ungrateful being! Reared by me as my own
+daughter&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Once more, uncle, have the kindness to keep to the
+point. Let us both remain cool. For my part, I do not
+wish to get into a passion; but, you know, once drive
+me beyond certain bounds, I care little what I say&mdash;I
+am not then soon checked. Listen! You have asked me
+whether Sir Philip made me an offer. That question is
+answered. What do you wish to know next?"</p>
+
+<p>"I desire to know whether you accepted or refused him,
+and know it I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, you ought to know it. I refused him."</p>
+
+<p>"Refused him! You&mdash;<em>you</em>, Shirley Keeldar, <em>refused</em>
+Sir Philip Nunnely?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did."</p>
+
+<p>The poor gentleman bounced from his chair, and first
+rushed and then trotted through the room.</p>
+
+<p>"There it is! There it is! There it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sincerely speaking, I am sorry, uncle, you are so
+disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>Concession, contrition, never do any good with some
+people. Instead of softening and conciliating, they but
+embolden and harden them. Of that number was Mr.
+Sympson.</p>
+
+<p>"<em>I</em> disappointed? What is it to me? Have <em>I</em> an
+interest in it? You would insinuate, perhaps, that I
+have motives?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most people have motives of some sort for their
+actions."</p>
+
+<p>"She accuses me to my face! I, that have been a
+parent to her, she charges with bad motives!"</p>
+
+<p>"<em>Bad</em> motives I did not say."</p>
+
+<p>"And now you prevaricate; you have no principles!"</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle, you tire me. I want to go away."</p>
+
+<p>"Go you shall not! I will be answered. What are
+your intentions, Miss Keeldar?"</p>
+
+<p>"In what respect?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>481<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"In respect of matrimony?"</p>
+
+<p>"To be quiet, and to do just as I please."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as you please! The words are to the last degree
+indecorous."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Sympson, I advise you not to become insulting.
+You know I will not bear that."</p>
+
+<p>"You read French. Your mind is poisoned with French
+novels. You have imbibed French principles."</p>
+
+<p>"The ground you are treading now returns a mighty
+hollow sound under your feet. Beware!"</p>
+
+<p>"It will end in infamy, sooner or later. I have foreseen
+it all along."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you assert, sir, that something in which <em>I</em> am concerned
+will end in infamy?"</p>
+
+<p>"That it will&mdash;that it will. You said just now you would
+act as you please. You acknowledge no rules&mdash;no limitations."</p>
+
+<p>"Silly stuff, and vulgar as silly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Regardless of decorum, you are prepared to fly in the
+face of propriety."</p>
+
+<p>"You tire me, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"What, madam&mdash;<em>what</em> could be your reasons for refusing
+Sir Philip?"</p>
+
+<p>"At last there is another sensible question; I shall be
+glad to reply to it. Sir Philip is too young for me. I regard
+him as a boy. All his relations&mdash;his mother especially&mdash;would
+be annoyed if he married me. Such a step would
+embroil him with them. I am not his equal in the world's
+estimation."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our dispositions are not compatible."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, a more amiable gentleman never breathed."</p>
+
+<p>"He is very amiable&mdash;very excellent&mdash;truly estimable;
+but <em>not my master</em>&mdash;not in one point. I could not trust
+myself with his happiness. I would not undertake the
+keeping of it for thousands. I will accept no hand which
+cannot hold me in check."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you liked to do as you please. You are
+vastly inconsistent."</p>
+
+<p>"When I promise to obey, it shall be under the conviction
+that I can keep that promise. I could not obey a youth
+like Sir Philip. Besides, he would never command me. He
+would expect me always to rule&mdash;to guide&mdash;and I have no
+taste whatever for the office."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>482<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"<em>You</em> no taste for swaggering, and subduing, and ordering,
+and ruling?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not my husband; only my uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the difference?"</p>
+
+<p>"There <em>is</em> a slight difference&mdash;that is certain. And I
+know full well any man who wishes to live in decent comfort
+with me as a husband must be able to control me."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you had a real tyrant."</p>
+
+<p>"A tyrant would not hold me for a day, not for an hour.
+I would rebel&mdash;break from him&mdash;defy him."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not enough to bewilder one's brain with your
+self-contradiction?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is evident I bewilder your brain."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk of Sir Philip being young. He is two-and-twenty."</p>
+
+<p>"My husband must be thirty, with the sense of forty."</p>
+
+<p>"You had better pick out some old man&mdash;some white-headed
+or bald-headed swain."</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"You could lead some doting fool; you might pin him
+to your apron."</p>
+
+<p>"I might do that with a boy; but it is not my vocation.
+Did I not say I prefer a <em>master</em>&mdash;one in whose presence I
+shall feel obliged and disposed to be good; one whose
+control my impatient temper must acknowledge; a man
+whose approbation can reward, whose displeasure punish
+me; a man I shall feel it impossible not to love, and very
+possible to fear?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is there to hinder you from doing all this with
+Sir Philip? He is a baronet&mdash;a man of rank, property,
+connections far above yours. If you talk of intellect,
+he is a poet&mdash;he writes verses; which you, I take it, cannot
+do, with all your cleverness."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither his title, wealth, pedigree, nor poetry avail
+to invest him with the power I describe. These are feather-weights;
+they want ballast. A measure of sound, solid,
+practical sense would have stood him in better stead with
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"You and Henry rave about poetry! You used to
+catch fire like tinder on the subject when you were a girl."</p>
+
+<p>"O uncle, there is nothing really valuable in this world,
+there is nothing glorious in the world to come that is not
+poetry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Marry a poet, then, in God's name!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>483<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Show him me, and I will."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Philip."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. You are almost as good a poet as he."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam, you are wandering from the point."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, uncle, I wanted to do so, and I shall be glad
+to lead you away with me. Do not let us get out of temper
+with each other; it is not worth while."</p>
+
+<p>"Out of temper, Miss Keeldar! I should be glad to know
+who is out of temper."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>I</em> am not, yet."</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean to insinuate that <em>I</em> am, I consider that
+you are guilty of impertinence."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be soon, if you go on at that rate."</p>
+
+<p>"There it is! With your pert tongue you would try
+the patience of a Job."</p>
+
+<p>"I know I should."</p>
+
+<p>"No levity, miss! This is not a laughing matter. It
+is an affair I am resolved to probe thoroughly, convinced
+that there is mischief at the bottom. You described just
+now, with far too much freedom for your years and sex,
+the sort of individual you would prefer as a husband. Pray,
+did you paint from the life?"</p>
+
+<p>Shirley opened her lips, but instead of speaking she only
+glowed rose-red.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have an answer to that question," affirmed
+Mr. Sympson, assuming vast courage and consequence on
+the strength of this symptom of confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"It was an historical picture, uncle, from several originals."</p>
+
+<p>"Several originals! Bless my heart!"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been in love several times."</p>
+
+<p>"This is cynical."</p>
+
+<p>"With heroes of many nations."</p>
+
+<p>"What next&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And philosophers."</p>
+
+<p>"She is mad&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ring the bell, uncle; you will alarm my aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Your poor dear aunt, what a niece has she!"</p>
+
+<p>"Once I loved Socrates."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! no trifling, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"I admired Themistocles, Leonidas, Epaminondas."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Keeldar&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To pass over a few centuries, Washington was a
+plain man, but I liked him; but to speak of the actual
+present&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>484<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Ah! the actual present."</p>
+
+<p>"To quit crude schoolgirl fancies, and come to realities."</p>
+
+<p>"Realities! That is the test to which you shall be
+brought, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"To avow before what altar I now kneel&mdash;to reveal the
+present idol of my soul&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You will make haste about it, if you please. It is
+near luncheon time, and confess <em>you shall</em>."</p>
+
+<p>"Confess I must. My heart is full of the secret. It must
+be spoken. I only wish you were Mr. Helstone instead of
+Mr. Sympson; you would sympathize with me better."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam, it is a question of common sense and common
+prudence, not of sympathy and sentiment, and so on. Did
+you say it was Mr. Helstone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not precisely, but as near as may be; they are rather
+alike."</p>
+
+<p>"I will know the name; I will have particulars."</p>
+
+<p>"They positively <em>are</em> rather alike. Their very faces
+are not dissimilar&mdash;a pair of human falcons&mdash;and dry,
+direct, decided both. But my hero is the mightier of the
+two. His mind has the clearness of the deep sea, the
+patience of its rocks, the force of its billows."</p>
+
+<p>"Rant and fustian!"</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say he can be harsh as a saw-edge and gruff as a
+hungry raven."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Keeldar, does the person reside in Briarfield?
+Answer me that."</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle, I am going to tell you; his name is trembling
+on my tongue."</p>
+
+<p>"Speak, girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"That was well said, uncle. 'Speak, girl!' It is
+quite tragic. England has howled savagely against this
+man, uncle, and she will one day roar exultingly over him.
+He has been unscared by the howl, and he will be unelated
+by the shout."</p>
+
+<p>"I said she was mad. She is."</p>
+
+<p>"This country will change and change again in her
+demeanour to him; he will never change in his duty to
+her. Come, cease to chafe, uncle, I'll tell you his name."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall tell me, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen! Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sympson rose up furious. He bounced out of the
+room, but immediately bounced back again, shut the door,
+and resumed his seat.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>485<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Ma'am, you <em>shall</em> tell me <em>this</em>. Will your principles
+permit you to marry a man without money&mdash;a man below
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never a man below me."</p>
+
+<p>(In a high voice.) "Will you, Miss Keeldar, marry a
+poor man?"</p>
+
+<p>"What right have you, Mr. Sympson, to ask me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I insist upon knowing."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't go the way to know."</p>
+
+<p>"My family respectability shall not be compromised."</p>
+
+<p>"A good resolution; keep it."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam, it is <em>you</em> who shall keep it."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible, sir, since I form no part of your family."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you disown us?"</p>
+
+<p>"I disdain your dictatorship."</p>
+
+<p>"Whom <em>will</em> you marry, Miss Keeldar?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not Mr. Sam Wynne, because I scorn him; not Sir
+Philip Nunnely, because I <em>only</em> esteem him."</p>
+
+<p>"Whom have you in your eye?"</p>
+
+<p>"Four rejected candidates."</p>
+
+<p>"Such obstinacy could not be unless you were under
+improper influence."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? There are certain phrases potent
+to make my blood boil. Improper influence! What old
+woman's cackle is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you a young lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman,
+and as such I will be treated."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know" (leaning mysteriously forward, and
+speaking with ghastly solemnity)&mdash;"do you know the
+whole neighbourhood teems with rumours respecting you and
+a bankrupt tenant of yours, the foreigner Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It does. Your name is in every mouth."</p>
+
+<p>"It honours the lips it crosses, and I wish to the gods it
+may purify them."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it <em>that</em> person who has power to influence you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Beyond any whose cause you have advocated."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it he you will marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is handsome, and manly, and commanding."</p>
+
+<p>"You declare it to my face! The Flemish knave!
+the low trader!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is talented, and venturous, and resolute. Prince
+is on his brow, and ruler in his bearing."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>486<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"She glories in it! She conceals nothing! No shame,
+no fear!"</p>
+
+<p>"When we speak the name of Moore, shame should
+be forgotten and fear discarded. The Moores know only
+honour and courage."</p>
+
+<p>"I say she is mad."</p>
+
+<p>"You have taunted me till my blood is up; you have
+worried me till I turn again."</p>
+
+<p>"That Moore is the brother of my son's tutor. Would
+you let the usher call you sister?"</p>
+
+<p>Bright and broad shone Shirley's eye as she fixed it on
+her questioner now.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; not for a province of possession, not for a
+century of life."</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot separate the husband from his family."</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Louis Moore's sister you will be."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Sympson, I am sick at heart with all this weak
+trash; I will bear no more. Your thoughts are not my
+thoughts, your aims are not my aims, your gods are not
+my gods. We do not view things in the same light; we
+do not measure them by the same standard; we hardly
+speak in the same tongue. Let us part."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not," she resumed, much excited&mdash;"it is not that
+I hate you; you are a good sort of man. Perhaps you
+mean well in your way. But we cannot suit; we are ever
+at variance. You annoy me with small meddling, with
+petty tyranny; you exasperate my temper, and make and
+keep me passionate. As to your small maxims, your narrow
+rules, your little prejudices, aversions, dogmas, bundle them
+off. Mr. Sympson, go, offer them a sacrifice to the deity
+you worship; I'll none of them. I wash my hands of the
+lot. I walk by another creed, light, faith, and hope than
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Another creed! I believe she is an infidel."</p>
+
+<p>"An infidel to <em>your</em> religion, an atheist to <em>your</em> god."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>An&mdash;atheist!!!</em>"</p>
+
+<p>"Your god, sir, is the world. In my eyes you too, if not
+an infidel, are an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly
+worship; in all things you appear to me too superstitious.
+Sir, your god, your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon, rises
+before me as a demon. You, and such as you, have raised
+him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre.
+Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>487<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+work he likes best&mdash;making marriages. He binds the young
+to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the
+arm of Mezentius, and fetters the dead to the living. In his
+realm there is hatred&mdash;secret hatred; there is disgust&mdash;unspoken
+disgust; there is treachery&mdash;family treachery;
+there is vice&mdash;deep, deadly domestic vice. In his dominions
+children grow unloving between parents who have never
+loved; infants are nursed on deception from their very
+birth; they are reared in an atmosphere corrupt with lies.
+Your god rules at the bridal of kings; look at your royal
+dynasties! Your deity is the deity of foreign aristocracies;
+analyze the blue blood of Spain! Your god is the Hymen
+of France; what is French domestic life? All that surrounds
+him hastens to decay; all declines and degenerates
+under his sceptre. <em>Your</em> god is a masked Death."</p>
+
+<p>"This language is terrible! My daughters and you
+must associate no longer, Miss Keeldar; there is danger
+in such companionship. Had I known you a little earlier&mdash;but,
+extraordinary as I thought you, I could not have
+believed&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, sir, do you begin to be aware that it is useless
+to scheme for me; that in doing so you but sow the wind
+to reap the whirlwind? I sweep your cobweb projects
+from my path, that I may pass on unsullied. I am anchored
+on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience
+shall dispose of my hand&mdash;<em>they only</em>. Know this at last."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Sympson was becoming a little bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>"Never heard such language!" he muttered again and
+again; "never was so addressed in my life&mdash;never was
+so used!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite confused, sir. You had better withdraw,
+or I will."</p>
+
+<p>He rose hastily. "We must leave this place; they
+must pack up at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not hurry my aunt and cousins; give them time."</p>
+
+<p>"No more intercourse; she's not proper."</p>
+
+<p>He made his way to the door. He came back for his
+handkerchief. He dropped his snuff-box, leaving the contents
+scattered on the carpet; he stumbled out. Tartar
+lay outside across the mat; Mr. Sympson almost fell over
+him. In the climax of his exasperation he hurled an oath
+at the dog and a coarse epithet at his mistress.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Mr. Sympson! he is both feeble and vulgar,"
+said Shirley to herself. "My head aches, and I am tired,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>488<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+she added; and leaning her head upon a cushion, she softly
+subsided from excitement to repose. One, entering the
+room a quarter of an hour afterwards, found her asleep.
+When Shirley had been agitated, she generally took this
+natural refreshment; it would come at her call.</p>
+
+<p>The intruder paused in her unconscious presence, and
+said, "Miss Keeldar."</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps his voice harmonized with some dream into
+which she was passing. It did not startle, it hardly roused
+her. Without opening her eyes, she but turned her head
+a little, so that her cheek and profile, before hidden by her
+arm, became visible. She looked rosy, happy, half smiling,
+but her eyelashes were wet. She had wept in slumber; or
+perhaps, before dropping asleep, a few natural tears had
+fallen after she had heard that epithet. No man&mdash;no
+woman&mdash;is always strong, always able to bear up against
+the unjust opinion, the vilifying word. Calumny, even
+from the mouth of a fool, will sometimes cut into unguarded
+feelings. Shirley looked like a child that had been naughty
+and punished, but was now forgiven and at rest.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Keeldar," again said the voice. This time it
+woke her. She looked up, and saw at her side Louis Moore&mdash;not
+close at her side, but standing, with arrested step, two
+or three yards from her.</p>
+
+<p>"O Mr. Moore!" she said. "I was afraid it was my
+uncle again: he and I have quarrelled."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Sympson should let you alone," was the reply.
+"Can he not see that you are as yet far from strong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you he did not find me weak. I did not cry
+when he was here."</p>
+
+<p>"He is about to evacuate Fieldhead&mdash;so he says. He
+is now giving orders to his family. He has been in the
+schoolroom issuing commands in a manner which, I suppose,
+was a continuation of that with which he has harassed
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you and Henry to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe, as far as Henry is concerned, that was the
+tenor of his scarcely intelligible directions; but he may
+change all to-morrow. He is just in that mood when you
+cannot depend on his consistency for two consecutive hours.
+I doubt whether he will leave you for weeks yet. To myself
+he addressed some words which will require a little attention
+and comment by-and-by, when I have time to bestow
+on them. At the moment he came in I was busied with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>489<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+note I had got from Mr. Yorke&mdash;so fully busied that I cut
+short the interview with him somewhat abruptly. I left
+him raving. Here is the note. I wish you to see it. It
+refers to my brother Robert." And he looked at Shirley.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be glad to hear news of him. Is he coming
+home?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is come. He is in Yorkshire. Mr. Yorke went
+yesterday to Stilbro' to meet him."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore, something is wrong&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Did my voice tremble? He is now at Briarmains,
+and I am going to see him."</p>
+
+<p>"What has occurred?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you turn so pale I shall be sorry I have spoken.
+It might have been worse. Robert is not dead, but much
+hurt."</p>
+
+<p>"O sir, it is you who are pale. Sit down near me."</p>
+
+<p>"Read the note. Let me open it."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Keeldar read the note. It briefly signified that
+last night Robert Moore had been shot at from behind
+the wall of Milldean plantation, at the foot of the Brow;
+that he was wounded severely, but it was hoped not fatally.
+Of the assassin, or assassins, nothing was known; they
+had escaped. "No doubt," Mr. Yorke observed, "it was
+done in revenge. It was a pity ill-will had ever been raised;
+but that could not be helped now."</p>
+
+<p>"He is my only brother," said Louis, as Shirley returned
+the note. "I cannot hear unmoved that ruffians
+have laid in wait for him, and shot him down, like some
+wild beast from behind a wall."</p>
+
+<p>"Be comforted; be hopeful. He will get better&mdash;I
+know he will."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley, solicitous to soothe, held her hand over Mr.
+Moore's as it lay on the arm of the chair. She just touched
+it lightly, scarce palpably.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, give me your hand," he said. "It will be for
+the first time; it is in a moment of calamity. Give it me."</p>
+
+<p>Awaiting neither consent nor refusal, he took what he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to Briarmains now," he went on. "I
+want you to step over to the rectory and tell Caroline
+Helstone what has happened. Will you do this? She
+will hear it best from you."</p>
+
+<p>"Immediately," said Shirley, with docile promptitude.
+"Ought I to say that there is no danger?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>490<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Say so."</p>
+
+<p>"You will come back soon, and let me know more?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will either come or write."</p>
+
+<p>"Trust me for watching over Caroline. I will communicate
+with your sister too; but doubtless she is already
+with Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless, or will be soon. Good-morning now."</p>
+
+<p>"You will bear up, come what may."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see that."</p>
+
+<p>Shirley's fingers were obliged to withdraw from the
+tutor's. Louis was obliged to relinquish that hand folded,
+clasped, hidden in his own.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I should have had to support her," he said,
+as he walked towards Briarmains, "and it is she who has
+made me strong. That look of pity, that gentle touch!
+No down was ever softer, no elixir more potent! It lay
+like a snowflake; it thrilled like lightning. A thousand
+times I have longed to possess that hand&mdash;to have it in
+mine. I <em>have</em> possessed it; for five minutes I held it. Her
+fingers and mine can never be strangers more. Having met
+once they must meet again."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>491<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE SCHOOLBOY AND THE WOOD-NYMPH.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Briarmains</span> being nearer than the Hollow, Mr. Yorke
+had conveyed his young comrade there. He had seen him
+laid in the best bed of the house, as carefully as if he had
+been one of his own sons. The sight of his blood, welling
+from the treacherously inflicted wound, made him indeed
+the son of the Yorkshire gentleman's heart. The spectacle
+of the sudden event, of the tall, straight shape prostrated
+in its pride across the road, of the fine southern head laid
+low in the dust, of that youth in prime flung at once before
+him pallid, lifeless, helpless&mdash;this was the very combination
+of circumstances to win for the victim Mr. Yorke's liveliest
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>No other hand was there to raise&mdash;to aid, no other voice
+to question kindly, no other brain to concert measures;
+he had to do it all himself. This utter dependence of the
+speechless, bleeding youth (as a youth he regarded him)
+on his benevolence secured that benevolence most effectually.
+Well did Mr. Yorke like to have power, and to use it. He
+had now between his hands power over a fellow-creature's
+life. It suited him.</p>
+
+<p>No less perfectly did it suit his saturnine better half.
+The incident was quite in her way and to her taste. Some
+women would have been terror-struck to see a gory man
+brought in over their threshold, and laid down in their hall
+in the "howe of the night." There, you would suppose, was
+subject-matter for hysterics. No. Mrs. Yorke went into
+hysterics when Jessie would not leave the garden to come to
+her knitting, or when Martin proposed starting for Australia,
+with a view to realize freedom and escape the tyranny
+of Matthew; but an attempted murder near her door&mdash;a
+half-murdered man in her best bed&mdash;set her straight, cheered
+her spirits, gave her cap the dash of a turban.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Yorke was just the woman who, while rendering
+miserable the drudging life of a simple maid-servant, would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>492<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+nurse like a heroine a hospital full of plague patients. She
+almost loved Moore. Her tough heart almost yearned
+towards him when she found him committed to her charge&mdash;left
+in her arms, as dependent on her as her youngest-born
+in the cradle. Had she seen a domestic or one of her daughters
+give him a draught of water or smooth his pillow, she
+would have boxed the intruder's ears. She chased Jessie
+and Rose from the upper realm of the house; she forbade
+the housemaids to set their foot in it.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if the accident had happened at the rectory gates,
+and old Helstone had taken in the martyr, neither Yorke
+nor his wife would have pitied him. They would have
+adjudged him right served for his tyranny and meddling.
+As it was, he became, for the present, the apple of their eye.</p>
+
+<p>Strange! Louis Moore was permitted to come&mdash;to sit
+down on the edge of the bed and lean over the pillow;
+to hold his brother's hand, and press his pale forehead
+with his fraternal lips; and Mrs. Yorke bore it well. She
+suffered him to stay half the day there; she once suffered
+him to sit up all night in the chamber; she rose herself
+at five o'clock of a wet November morning, and with her
+own hands lit the kitchen fire, and made the brothers a
+breakfast, and served it to them herself. Majestically
+arrayed in a boundless flannel wrapper, a shawl, and her
+nightcap, she sat and watched them eat, as complacently as
+a hen beholds her chickens feed. Yet she gave the cook
+warning that day for venturing to make and carry up to
+Mr. Moore a basin of sago-gruel; and the housemaid lost
+her favour because, when Mr. Louis was departing, she
+brought him his surtout aired from the kitchen, and, like
+a "forward piece" as she was, helped him on with it, and
+accepted in return a smile, a "Thank you, my girl," and a
+shilling. Two ladies called one day, pale and anxious, and
+begged earnestly, humbly, to be allowed to see Mr. Moore one
+instant. Mrs. Yorke hardened her heart, and sent them
+packing&mdash;not without <a name="opprobrium" id="opprobrium"></a><ins title="was approbrium">opprobrium</ins>.</p>
+
+<p>But how was it when Hortense Moore came? Not so
+bad as might have been expected. The whole family of
+the Moores really seemed to suit Mrs. Yorke so as no other
+family had ever suited her. Hortense and she possessed
+an exhaustless mutual theme of conversation in the corrupt
+propensities of servants. Their views of this class were
+similar; they watched them with the same suspicion, and
+judged them with the same severity. Hortense, too, from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>493<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+the very first showed no manner of jealousy of Mrs. Yorke's
+attentions to Robert&mdash;she let her keep the post of nurse with
+little interference; and, for herself, found ceaseless occupation
+in fidgeting about the house, holding the kitchen under
+surveillance, reporting what passed there, and, in short,
+making herself generally useful. Visitors they both of them
+agreed in excluding sedulously from the sickroom. They
+held the young mill-owner captive, and hardly let the air
+breathe or the sun shine on him.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. MacTurk, the surgeon to whom Moore's case had
+been committed, pronounced his wound of a dangerous,
+but, he trusted, not of a hopeless character. At first he
+wished to place with him a nurse of his own selection;
+but this neither Mrs. Yorke nor Hortense would hear of.
+They promised faithful observance of directions. He was
+left, therefore, for the present in their hands.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless they executed the trust to the best of their
+ability; but something got wrong. The bandages were
+displaced or tampered with; great loss of blood followed.
+MacTurk, being summoned, came with steed afoam. He
+was one of those surgeons whom it is dangerous to vex&mdash;abrupt
+in his best moods, in his worst savage. On seeing
+Moore's state he relieved his feelings by a little flowery
+language, with which it is not necessary to strew the present
+page. A bouquet or two of the choicest blossoms fell on the
+unperturbed head of one Mr. Graves, a stony young assistant
+he usually carried about with him; with a second nosegay he
+gifted another young gentleman in his train&mdash;an interesting
+fac-simile of himself, being indeed his own son; but the
+full <em>corbeille</em> of blushing bloom fell to the lot of meddling
+womankind, <em>en masse</em>.</p>
+
+<p>For the best part of one winter night himself and satellites
+were busied about Moore. There at his bedside,
+shut up alone with him in his chamber, they wrought and
+wrangled over his exhausted frame. They three were on one
+side of the bed, and Death on the other. The conflict was
+sharp; it lasted till day broke, when the balance between
+the belligerents seemed so equal that both parties might
+have claimed the victory.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn Graves and young MacTurk were left in charge
+of the patient, while the senior went himself in search of
+additional strength, and secured it in the person of Mrs.
+Horsfall, the best nurse on his staff. To this woman he
+gave Moore in charge, with the sternest injunctions respecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>494<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+the responsibility laid on her shoulders. She took this
+responsibility stolidly, as she did also the easy-chair at the
+bedhead. That moment she began her reign.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Horsfall had one virtue&mdash;orders received from
+MacTurk she obeyed to the letter. The ten commandments
+were less binding in her eyes than her surgeon's
+dictum. In other respects she was no woman, but a dragon.
+Hortense Moore fell effaced before her; Mrs. Yorke withdrew&mdash;crushed;
+yet both these women were personages
+of some dignity in their own estimation, and of some bulk
+in the estimation of others. Perfectly cowed by the breadth,
+the height, the bone, and the brawn of Mrs. Horsfall, they
+retreated to the back parlour. She, for her part, sat upstairs
+when she liked, and downstairs when she preferred
+it. She took her dram three times a day, and her pipe of
+tobacco four times.</p>
+
+<p>As to Moore, no one now ventured to inquire about him.
+Mrs. Horsfall had him at dry-nurse. It was she who was to
+do for him, and the general conjecture now ran that she
+did for him accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>Morning and evening MacTurk came to see him. His
+case, thus complicated by a new mischance, was become
+one of interest in the surgeon's eyes. He regarded him
+as a damaged piece of clockwork, which it would be creditable
+to his skill to set agoing again. Graves and young
+MacTurk&mdash;Moore's sole other visitors&mdash;contemplated him
+in the light in which they were wont to contemplate the
+occupant for the time being of the dissecting-room at
+Stilbro' Infirmary.</p>
+
+<p>Robert Moore had a pleasant time of it&mdash;in pain, in
+danger, too weak to move, almost too weak to speak, a
+sort of giantess his keeper, the three surgeons his sole society.
+Thus he lay through the diminishing days and lengthening
+nights of the whole drear month of November.</p>
+
+<p>In the commencement of his captivity Moore used feebly
+to resist Mrs. Horsfall. He hated the sight of her rough
+bulk, and dreaded the contact of her hard hands; but she
+taught him docility in a trice. She made no account whatever
+of his six feet, his manly thews and sinews; she turned
+him in his bed as another woman would have turned a babe
+in its cradle. When he was good she addressed him as
+"my dear" and "honey," and when he was bad she sometimes
+shook him. Did he attempt to speak when MacTurk
+was there, she lifted her hand and bade him "Hush!" like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>495<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+a nurse checking a forward child. If she had not smoked,
+if she had not taken gin, it would have been better, he
+thought; but she did both. Once, in her absence, he intimated
+to MacTurk that "that woman was a dram-drinker."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! my dear sir, they are all so," was the reply
+he got for his pains. "But Horsfall has this virtue,"
+added the surgeon&mdash;"drunk or sober, she always remembers
+to obey <em>me</em>."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>At length the latter autumn passed; its fogs, its rains
+withdrew from England their mourning and their tears;
+its winds swept on to sigh over lands far away. Behind
+November came deep winter&mdash;clearness, stillness, frost
+accompanying.</p>
+
+<p>A calm day had settled into a crystalline evening. The
+world wore a North Pole colouring; all its lights and tints
+looked like the <em>reflets</em><a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> of white, or violet, or pale green gems.
+The hills wore a lilac blue; the setting sun had purple in
+its red; the sky was ice, all silvered azure; when the stars
+rose, they were of white crystal, not gold; gray, or cerulean,
+or faint emerald hues&mdash;cool, pure, and transparent&mdash;tinged
+the mass of the landscape.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Find me an English word as good, reader, and I will gladly dispense
+with the French word. "Reflections" won't do.</p></div>
+
+<p>What is this by itself in a wood no longer green, no longer
+even russet, a wood neutral tint&mdash;this dark blue moving
+object? Why, it is a schoolboy&mdash;a Briarfield grammar-school
+boy&mdash;who has left his companions, now trudging
+home by the highroad, and is seeking a certain tree, with
+a certain mossy mound at its root, convenient as a seat.
+Why is he lingering here? The air is cold and the time
+wears late. He sits down. What is he thinking about?
+Does he feel the chaste charm Nature wears to-night? A
+pearl-white moon smiles through the gray trees; does he
+care for her smile?</p>
+
+<p>Impossible to say; for he is silent, and his countenance
+does not speak. As yet it is no mirror to reflect sensation,
+but rather a mask to conceal it. This boy is a stripling
+of fifteen&mdash;slight, and tall of his years. In his face there
+is as little of amenity as of servility, his eye seems prepared
+to note any incipient attempt to control or overreach him,
+and the rest of his features indicate faculties alert for resistance.
+Wise ushers avoid unnecessary interference with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>496<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+that lad. To break him in by severity would be a useless
+attempt; to win him by flattery would be an effort worse
+than useless. He is best let alone. Time will educate
+and experience train him.</p>
+
+<p>Professedly Martin Yorke (it is a young Yorke, of course)
+tramples on the name of poetry. Talk sentiment to him,
+and you would be answered by sarcasm. Here he is, wandering
+alone, waiting duteously on Nature, while she unfolds
+a page of stern, of silent, and of solemn poetry beneath his
+attentive gaze.</p>
+
+<p>Being seated, he takes from his satchel a book&mdash;not
+the Latin grammar, but a contraband volume of fairy
+tales. There will be light enough yet for an hour to serve
+his keen young vision. Besides, the moon waits on him; her
+beam, dim and vague as yet, fills the glade where he sits.</p>
+
+<p>He reads. He is led into a solitary mountain region;
+all round him is rude and desolate, shapeless, and almost
+colourless. He hears bells tinkle on the wind. Forth-riding
+from the formless folds of the mist dawns on him
+the brightest vision&mdash;a green-robed lady, on a snow-white
+palfrey. He sees her dress, her gems, and her steed. She
+arrests him with some mysterious question. He is spell-bound,
+and must follow her into fairyland.</p>
+
+<p>A second legend bears him to the sea-shore. There
+tumbles in a strong tide, boiling at the base of dizzy cliffs.
+It rains and blows. A reef of rocks, black and rough,
+stretches far into the sea. All along, and among, and above
+these crags dash and flash, sweep and leap, swells, wreaths,
+drifts of snowy spray. Some lone wanderer is out on these
+rocks, treading with cautious step the wet, wild seaweed;
+glancing down into hollows where the brine lies fathoms deep
+and emerald clear, and seeing there wilder and stranger
+and huger vegetation than is found on land, with treasure
+of shells&mdash;some green, some purple, some pearly&mdash;clustered
+in the curls of the snaky plants. He hears a cry. Looking
+up and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a tall,
+pale thing&mdash;shaped like man, but made of spray&mdash;transparent,
+tremulous, awful. It stands not alone. They are
+all human figures that wanton in the rocks&mdash;a crowd of
+foam-women&mdash;a band of white, evanescent Nereids.</p>
+
+<p>Hush! Shut the book; hide it in the satchel. Martin
+hears a tread. He listens. No&mdash;yes. Once more the
+dead leaves, lightly crushed, rustle on the wood path.
+Martin watches; the trees part, and a woman issues forth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>497<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>She is a lady dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face.
+Martin never met a lady in this wood before&mdash;nor any female,
+save, now and then, a village girl come to gather nuts. To-night
+the apparition does not displease him. He observes,
+as she approaches, that she is neither old nor plain, but, on
+the contrary, very youthful; and, but that he now recognizes
+her for one whom he has often wilfully pronounced ugly,
+he would deem that he discovered traits of beauty behind
+the thin gauze of that veil.</p>
+
+<p>She passes him and says nothing. He knew she would.
+All women are proud monkeys, and he knows no more
+conceited doll than that Caroline Helstone. The thought
+is hardly hatched in his mind when the lady retraces those
+two steps she had got beyond him, and raising her veil,
+reposes her glance on his face, while she softly asks, "Are
+you one of Mr. Yorke's sons?"</p>
+
+<p>No human evidence would ever have been able to persuade
+Martin Yorke that he blushed when thus addressed; yet
+blush he did, to the ears.</p>
+
+<p>"I am," he said bluntly, and encouraged himself to
+wonder, superciliously, what would come next.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Martin, I think?" was the observation that
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>It could not have been more felicitous. It was a simple
+sentence&mdash;very artlessly, a little timidly, pronounced;
+but it chimed in harmony to the youth's nature. It stilled
+him like a note of music.</p>
+
+<p>Martin had a keen sense of his personality; he felt it
+right and sensible that the girl should discriminate him
+from his brothers. Like his father, he hated ceremony.
+It was acceptable to hear a lady address him as "Martin,"
+and not Mr. Martin or Master Martin, which form would
+have lost her his good graces for ever. Worse, if possible,
+than ceremony was the other extreme of slipshod familiarity.
+The slight tone of bashfulness, the scarcely perceptible
+hesitation, was considered perfectly in place.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Martin," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Are your father and mother well?" (it was lucky she
+did not say <em>papa</em> and <em>mamma</em>; that would have undone
+all); "and Rose and Jessie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so."</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin Hortense is still at Briarmains?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes."</p>
+
+<p>Martin gave a comic half-smile and demi-groan. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>498<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+half-smile was responded to by the lady, who could guess
+in what sort of odour Hortense was likely to be held by the
+young Yorkes.</p>
+
+<p>"Does your mother like her?"</p>
+
+<p>"They suit so well about the servants they can't help
+liking each other."</p>
+
+<p>"It is cold to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you out so late?"</p>
+
+<p>"I lost my way in this wood."</p>
+
+<p>Now, indeed, Martin allowed himself a refreshing laugh
+of scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"Lost your way in the mighty forest of Briarmains!
+You deserve never more to find it."</p>
+
+<p>"I never was here before, and I believe I am trespassing
+now. You might inform against me if you chose, Martin,
+and have me fined. It is your father's wood."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think I knew that. But since you are so
+simple as to lose your way, I will guide you out."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not. I have got into the track now. I shall
+be right. Martin" (a little quickly), "how is Mr. Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>Martin had heard certain rumours; it struck him that
+it might be amusing to make an experiment.</p>
+
+<p>"Going to die. Nothing can save him. All hope flung
+overboard!"</p>
+
+<p>She put her veil aside. She looked into his eyes, and
+said, "To die!"</p>
+
+<p>"To die. All along of the women, my mother and
+the rest. They did something about his bandages that
+finished everything. He would have got better but for
+them. I am sure they should be arrested, cribbed, tried,
+and brought in for Botany Bay, at the very least."</p>
+
+<p>The questioner, perhaps, did nor hear this judgment.
+She stood motionless. In two minutes, without another
+word, she moved forwards; no good-night, no further
+inquiry. This was not amusing, nor what Martin had calculated
+on. He expected something dramatic and demonstrative.
+It was hardly worth while to frighten the girl
+if she would not entertain him in return. He called, "Miss
+Helstone!"</p>
+
+<p>She did not hear or turn. He hastened after and overtook
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Come; are you uneasy about what I said?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know nothing about death, Martin; you are
+too young for me to talk to concerning such a thing."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>499<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Did you believe me? It's all flummery! Moore
+eats like three men. They are always making sago or
+tapioca or something good for him. I never go into the
+kitchen but there is a saucepan on the fire, cooking him
+some dainty. I think I will play the old soldier, and be
+fed on the fat of the land like him."</p>
+
+<p>"Martin! Martin!" Here her voice trembled, and
+she stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"It is exceedingly wrong of you, Martin. You have
+almost killed me."</p>
+
+<p>Again she stopped. She leaned against a tree, trembling,
+shuddering, and as pale as death.</p>
+
+<p>Martin contemplated her with inexpressible curiosity.
+In one sense it was, as he would have expressed it, "nuts"
+to him to see this. It told him so much, and he was beginning
+to have a great relish for discovering secrets. In
+another sense it reminded him of what he had once felt
+when he had heard a blackbird lamenting for her nestlings,
+which Matthew had crushed with a stone, and that was not
+a pleasant feeling. Unable to find anything very appropriate
+to <em>say</em> in order to comfort her, he began to cast about in his
+mind what he could <em>do</em>. He smiled. The lad's smile gave
+wondrous transparency to his physiognomy.</p>
+
+<p>"Eureka!" he cried. "I'll set all straight by-and-by.
+You are better now, Miss Caroline. Walk forward,"
+he urged.</p>
+
+<p>Not reflecting that it would be more difficult for Miss
+Helstone than for himself to climb a wall or penetrate a
+hedge, he piloted her by a short cut which led to no gate.
+The consequence was he had to help her over some formidable
+obstacles, and while he railed at her for helplessness,
+he perfectly liked to feel himself of use.</p>
+
+<p>"Martin, before we separate, assure me seriously, and
+on your word of honour, that Mr. Moore is better."</p>
+
+<p>"How very much you think of that Moore!"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;but&mdash;many of his friends may ask me, and I
+wish to be able to give an authentic answer."</p>
+
+<p>"You may tell them he is well enough, only idle. You
+may tell them that he takes mutton chops for dinner, and
+the best of arrowroot for supper. I intercepted a basin myself
+one night on its way upstairs, and ate half of it."</p>
+
+<p>"And who waits on him, Martin? who nurses him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nurses him? The great baby! Why, a woman as
+round and big as our largest water-butt&mdash;a rough, hard-favoured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>500<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+old girl. I make no doubt she leads him a rich
+life. Nobody else is let near him. He is chiefly in the
+dark. It is my belief she knocks him about terribly in
+that chamber. I listen at the wall sometimes when I am
+in bed, and I think I hear her thumping him. You should
+see her fist. She could hold half a dozen hands like yours
+in her one palm. After all, notwithstanding the chops and
+jellies he gets, I would not be in his shoes. In fact, it is
+my private opinion that she eats most of what goes up on
+the tray to Mr. Moore. I wish she may not be starving
+him."</p>
+
+<p>Profound silence and meditation on Caroline's part, and a
+sly watchfulness on Martin's.</p>
+
+<p>"You never see him, I suppose, Martin?"</p>
+
+<p>"I? No. I don't care to see him, for my own part."</p>
+
+<p>Silence again.</p>
+
+<p>"Did not you come to our house once with Mrs. Pryor,
+about five weeks since, to ask after him?" again inquired
+Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say you wished to be shown upstairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"We <em>did</em> wish it. We entreated it; but your mother
+declined."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! she declined. I heard it all. She treated you
+as it is her pleasure to treat visitors now and then. She
+behaved to you rudely and harshly."</p>
+
+<p>"She was not kind; for you know, Martin, we are relations,
+and it is natural we should take an interest in Mr.
+Moore. But here we must part; we are at your father's
+gate."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, what of that? I shall walk home with
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"They will miss you, and wonder where you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Let them. I can take care of myself, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>Martin knew that he had already incurred the penalty
+of a lecture, and dry bread for his tea. No matter; the
+evening had furnished him with an adventure. It was
+better than muffins and toast.</p>
+
+<p>He walked home with Caroline. On the way he promised
+to see Mr. Moore, in spite of the dragon who guarded
+his chamber, and appointed an hour on the next day when
+Caroline was to come to Briarmains Wood and get tidings
+of him. He would meet her at a certain tree. The scheme
+led to nothing; still he liked it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>501<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Having reached home, the dry bread and the lecture were
+duly administered to him, and he was dismissed to bed at
+an early hour. He accepted his punishment with the toughest
+stoicism.</p>
+
+<p>Ere ascending to his chamber he paid a secret visit to
+the dining-room, a still, cold, stately apartment, seldom
+used, for the family customarily dined in the back parlour.
+He stood before the mantelpiece, and lifted his candle to
+two pictures hung above&mdash;female heads: one, a type of
+serene beauty, happy and innocent; the other, more lovely,
+but forlorn and desperate.</p>
+
+<p>"She looked like <em>that</em>," he said, gazing on the latter
+sketch, "when she sobbed, turned white, and leaned against
+the tree."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose," he pursued, when he was in his room,
+and seated on the edge of his pallet-bed&mdash;"I suppose she
+is what they call '<em>in love</em>'&mdash;yes, <em>in love</em> with that long thing
+in the next chamber. Whisht! is that Horsfall clattering
+him? I wonder he does not yell out. It really sounds as if
+she had fallen on him tooth and nail; but I suppose she is
+making the bed. I saw her at it once. She hit into the
+mattresses as if she was boxing. It is queer, Zillah (they
+call her Zillah)&mdash;Zillah Horsfall is a woman, and Caroline
+Helstone is a woman; they are two individuals of the same
+species&mdash;not much alike though. Is she a pretty girl,
+that Caroline? I suspect she is; very nice to look at&mdash;something
+so clear in her face, so soft in her eyes. I approve
+of her looking at me; it does me good. She has long eyelashes.
+Their shadow seems to rest where she gazes, and to
+instil peace and thought. If she behaves well, and continues
+to suit me as she has suited me to-day, I may do her
+a good turn. I rather relish the notion of circumventing
+my mother and that ogress old Horsfall. Not that I like
+humouring Moore; but whatever I do I'll be paid for, and in
+coin of my own choosing. I know what reward I will claim&mdash;one
+displeasing to Moore, and agreeable to myself."</p>
+
+<p>He turned into bed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>502<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>MARTIN'S TACTICS.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">It</span> was necessary to the arrangement of Martin's plan
+that he should stay at home that day. Accordingly, he
+found no appetite for breakfast, and just about school-time
+took a severe pain about his heart, which rendered
+it advisable that, instead of setting out to the grammar
+school with Mark, he should succeed to his father's arm-chair
+by the fireside, and also to his morning paper. This point
+being satisfactorily settled, and Mark being gone to Mr.
+Summer's class, and Matthew and Mr. Yorke withdrawn
+to the counting-house, three other exploits&mdash;nay, four&mdash;remained
+to be achieved.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these was to realize the breakfast he had not
+yet tasted, and with which his appetite of fifteen could ill
+afford to dispense; the second, third, fourth, to get his
+mother, Miss Moore, and Mrs. Horsfall successfully out
+of the way before four o'clock that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>The first was, for the present, the most pressing, since
+the work before him demanded an amount of energy which
+the present empty condition of his youthful stomach did not
+seem likely to supply.</p>
+
+<p>Martin knew the way to the larder, and knowing this
+way he took it. The servants were in the kitchen, breakfasting
+solemnly with closed doors; his mother and Miss
+Moore were airing themselves on the lawn, and discussing
+the closed doors aforesaid. Martin, safe in the larder,
+made fastidious selection from its stores. His breakfast
+had been delayed; he was determined it should be <em>recherch&eacute;</em>.
+It appeared to him that a variety on his usual
+somewhat insipid fare of bread and milk was both desirable
+and advisable; the savoury and the salutary he thought
+might be combined. There was store of rosy apples laid
+in straw upon a shelf; he picked out three. There was
+pastry upon a dish; he selected an apricot puff and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>503<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+damson tart. On the plain household bread his eye did
+not dwell; but he surveyed with favour some currant tea-cakes,
+and condescended to make choice of one. Thanks
+to his clasp-knife, he was able to appropriate a wing of fowl
+and a slice of ham; a cantlet of cold custard-pudding he
+thought would harmonize with these articles; and having
+made this final addition to his booty, he at length sallied
+forth into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>He was already half-way across&mdash;three steps more would
+have anchored him in the harbour of the back parlour&mdash;when
+the front door opened, and there stood Matthew.
+Better far had it been the Old Gentleman, in full equipage
+of horns, hoofs, and tail.</p>
+
+<p>Matthew, sceptic and scoffer, had already failed to
+subscribe a prompt belief in that pain about the heart.
+He had muttered some words, amongst which the phrase
+"shamming Abraham" had been very distinctly audible,
+and the succession to the armchair and newspaper had
+appeared to affect him with mental spasms. The spectacle
+now before him&mdash;the apples, the tarts, the tea-cakes,
+the fowl, ham, and pudding&mdash;offered evidence but too
+well calculated to inflate his opinion of his own sagacity.</p>
+
+<p>Martin paused <em>interdit</em> one minute, one instant; the
+next he knew his ground, and pronounced all well. With
+the true perspicacity <em>des &acirc;mes &eacute;lites</em>, he at once saw how
+this at first sight untoward event might be turned to excellent
+account. He saw how it might be so handled as to
+secure the accomplishment of his second task&mdash;namely,
+the disposal of his mother. He knew that a collision between
+him and Matthew always suggested to Mrs. Yorke
+the propriety of a fit of hysterics. He further knew that,
+on the principle of calm succeeding to storm, after a morning
+of hysterics his mother was sure to indulge in an afternoon
+of bed. This would accommodate him perfectly.</p>
+
+<p>The collision duly took place in the hall. A dry laugh,
+an insulting sneer, a contemptuous taunt, met by a nonchalant
+but most cutting reply, were the signals. They
+rushed at it. Martin, who usually made little noise on
+these occasions, made a great deal now. In flew the
+servants, Mrs. Yorke, Miss Moore. No female hand could
+separate them. Mr. Yorke was summoned.</p>
+
+<p>"Sons," said he, "one of you must leave my roof if
+this occurs again. I will have no Cain and Abel strife
+here."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>504<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Martin now allowed himself to be taken off. He had
+been hurt; he was the youngest and slightest. He was
+quite cool, in no passion; he even smiled, content that
+the most difficult part of the labour he had set himself
+was over.</p>
+
+<p>Once he seemed to flag in the course of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not worth while to bother myself for that Caroline,"
+he remarked. But a quarter of an hour afterwards
+he was again in the dining-room, looking at the head with
+dishevelled tresses, and eyes turbid with despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "I made her sob, shudder, almost faint.
+I'll see her smile before I've done with her; besides, I
+want to outwit all these womenites."</p>
+
+<p>Directly after dinner Mrs. Yorke fulfilled her son's calculation
+by withdrawing to her chamber. Now for Hortense.</p>
+
+<p>That lady was just comfortably settled to stocking-mending
+in the back parlour, when Martin&mdash;laying down
+a book which, stretched on the sofa (he was still indisposed,
+according to his own account), he had been perusing in all
+the voluptuous ease of a yet callow pacha&mdash;lazily introduced
+some discourse about Sarah, the maid at the Hollow. In
+the course of much verbal meandering he insinuated information
+that this damsel was said to have three suitors&mdash;Frederic
+Murgatroyd, Jeremiah Pighills, and John-of-Mally's-of-Hannah's-of-Deb's;
+and that Miss Mann had
+affirmed she knew for a fact that, now the girl was left in
+sole charge of the cottage, she often had her swains to meals,
+and entertained them with the best the house afforded.</p>
+
+<p>It needed no more. Hortense could not have lived
+another hour without betaking herself to the scene of these
+nefarious transactions, and inspecting the state of matters
+in person. Mrs. Horsfall remained.</p>
+
+<p>Martin, master of the field now, extracted from his
+mother's work-basket a bunch of keys; with these he
+opened the sideboard cupboard, produced thence a black
+bottle and a small glass, placed them on the table, nimbly
+mounted the stairs, made for Mr. Moore's door, tapped;
+the nurse opened.</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, ma'am, you are invited to step into
+the back parlour and take some refreshment. You will
+not be disturbed; the family are out."</p>
+
+<p>He watched her down; he watched her in; himself
+shut the door. He knew she was safe.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>505<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>The hard work was done; now for the pleasure. He
+snatched his cap, and away for the wood.</p>
+
+<p>It was yet but half-past three. It had been a fine morning,
+but the sky looked dark now. It was beginning to
+snow; the wind blew cold; the wood looked dismal, the
+old tree grim. Yet Martin approved the shadow on his
+path. He found a charm in the spectral aspect of the
+doddered oak.</p>
+
+<p>He had to wait. To and fro he walked, while the flakes
+fell faster; and the wind, which at first had but moaned,
+pitifully howled.</p>
+
+<p>"She is long in coming," he muttered, as he glanced
+along the narrow track. "I wonder," he subjoined,
+"what I wish to see her so much for? She is not coming
+for me. But I have power over her, and I want her to
+come that I may use that power."</p>
+
+<p>He continued his walk.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he resumed, when a further period had elapsed,
+"if she fails to come, I shall hate and scorn her."</p>
+
+<p>It struck four. He heard the church clock far away.
+A step so quick, so light, that, but for the rustling of leaves,
+it would scarcely have sounded on the wood-walk, checked
+his impatience. The wind blew fiercely now, and the
+thickening white storm waxed bewildering; but on she
+came, and not dismayed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Martin," she said eagerly, "how is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is queer how she thinks of <em>him</em>," reflected Martin.
+"The blinding snow and bitter cold are nothing to her,
+I believe; yet she is but a 'chitty-faced creature,' as my
+mother would say. I could find in my heart to wish I had
+a cloak to wrap her in."</p>
+
+<p>Thus meditating to himself, he neglected to answer Miss
+Helstone.</p>
+
+<p>"You have seen him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you promised you would."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to do better by you than that. Didn't I say
+<em>I</em> don't care to see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"But now it will be so long before I get to know any
+thing certain about him, and I am sick of waiting. Martin,
+<em>do</em> see him, and give him Caroline Helstone's regards, and
+say she wished to know how he was, and if anything could
+be done for his comfort."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>506<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"You are changed. You were so friendly last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, we must not stand in this wood; it is too cold."</p>
+
+<p>"But before I go promise me to come again to-morrow
+with news."</p>
+
+<p>"No such thing. I am much too delicate to make and
+keep such appointments in the winter season. If you
+knew what a pain I had in my chest this morning, and
+how I went without breakfast, and was knocked down
+besides, you'd feel the impropriety of bringing me here in
+the snow. Come, I say."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you really delicate, Martin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I look so?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have rosy cheeks."</p>
+
+<p>"That's hectic. Will you come&mdash;or you won't?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"With me. I was a fool not to bring a cloak. I would
+have made you cosy."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going home; my nearest road lies in the
+opposite direction."</p>
+
+<p>"Put your arm through mine; I'll take care of you."</p>
+
+<p>"But the wall&mdash;the hedge&mdash;it is such hard work climbing,
+and you are too slender and young to help me without
+hurting yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall go through the gate."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But, but&mdash;will you trust me or not?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked into his face.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will. Anything rather than return as anxious
+as I came."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't answer for that. This, however, I promise
+you: be ruled by me, and you shall see Moore yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"See him myself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"But, dear Martin, does he know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I'm dear now. No, he doesn't know."</p>
+
+<p>"And your mother and the others?"</p>
+
+<p>"All is right."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline fell into a long, silent fit of musing, but still she
+walked on with her guide. They came in sight of Briarmains.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you made up your mind?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Decide; we are just on the spot. I <em>won't</em> see him&mdash;that
+I tell you&mdash;except to announce your arrival."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>507<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Martin, you are a strange boy, and this is a strange step;
+but all I feel <em>is</em> and <em>has</em> been, for a long time, strange. I
+will see him."</p>
+
+<p>"Having said that, you will neither hesitate nor retract?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Here we are, then. Do not be afraid of passing the
+parlour window; no one will see you. My father and
+Matthew are at the mill, Mark is at school, the servants
+are in the back kitchen, Miss Moore is at the cottage, my
+mother in her bed, and Mrs. Horsfall in paradise. Observe&mdash;I
+need not ring. I open the door; the hall is empty, the
+staircase quiet; so is the gallery. The whole house and
+all its inhabitants are under a spell, which I will not break
+till you are gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Martin, I trust you."</p>
+
+<p>"You never said a better word. Let me take your
+shawl. I will shake off the snow and dry it for you. You
+are cold and wet. Never mind; there is a fire upstairs.
+Are you ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Follow me."</p>
+
+<p>He left his shoes on the mat, mounted the stair unshod.
+Caroline stole after, with noiseless step. There was a
+gallery, and there was a passage; at the end of that passage
+Martin paused before a door and tapped. He had to tap
+twice&mdash;thrice. A voice, known to one listener, at last said,
+"Come in."</p>
+
+<p>The boy entered briskly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore, a lady called to inquire after you. None
+of the women were about. It is washing-day, and the
+maids are over the crown of the head in soap-suds in the
+back kitchen, so I asked her to step up."</p>
+
+<p>"Up here, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Up here, sir; but if you object, she shall go down
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this a place or am I a person to bring a lady to,
+you absurd lad?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; so I'll take her off."</p>
+
+<p>"Martin, you will stay here. Who is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your grandmother from that ch&acirc;teau on the Scheldt
+Miss Moore talks about."</p>
+
+<p>"Martin," said the softest whisper at the door, "don't
+be foolish."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>508<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Is she there?" inquired Moore hastily. He had
+caught an imperfect sound.</p>
+
+<p>"She is there, fit to faint. She is standing on the mat,
+shocked at your want of filial affection."</p>
+
+<p>"Martin, you are an evil cross between an imp and a
+page. What is she like?"</p>
+
+<p>"More like me than you; for she is young and beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"You are to show her forward. Do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Miss Caroline."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Caroline!" repeated Moore.</p>
+
+<p>And when Miss Caroline entered she was encountered
+in the middle of the chamber by a tall, thin, wasted figure,
+who took both her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I give you a quarter of an hour," said Martin, as he
+withdrew, "no more. Say what you have to say in that
+time. Till it is past I will wait in the gallery; nothing shall
+approach; I'll see you safe away. Should you persist in
+staying longer, I leave you to your fate."</p>
+
+<p>He shut the door. In the gallery he was as elate as a
+king. He had never been engaged in an adventure he liked
+so well, for no adventure had ever invested him with so
+much importance or inspired him with so much interest.</p>
+
+<p>"You are come at last," said the meagre man, gazing on
+his visitress with hollow eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you expect me before?"</p>
+
+<p>"For a month, near two months, we have been very
+near; and I have been in sad pain, and danger, and misery,
+Cary."</p>
+
+<p>"I could not come."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't you? But the rectory and Briarmains are
+very near&mdash;not two miles apart."</p>
+
+<p>There was pain and there was pleasure in the girl's face as
+she listened to these implied reproaches. It was sweet, it
+was bitter to defend herself.</p>
+
+<p>"When I say I could not come, I mean I could not see
+you; for I came with mamma the very day we heard
+what had happened. Mr. MacTurk then told us it was
+impossible to admit any stranger."</p>
+
+<p>"But afterwards&mdash;every fine afternoon these many weeks
+past I have waited and listened. Something here, Cary"&mdash;laying
+his hand on his breast&mdash;"told me it was impossible
+but that you should think of me. Not that I merit
+thought; but we are old acquaintance&mdash;we are cousins."</p>
+
+<p>"I came again, Robert; mamma and I came again."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>509<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Did you? Come, that is worth hearing. Since you
+came again, we will sit down and talk about it."</p>
+
+<p>They sat down. Caroline drew her chair up to his.
+The air was now dark with snow; an Iceland blast was
+driving it wildly. This pair neither heard the long
+"wuthering" rush, nor saw the white burden it drifted.
+Each seemed conscious but of one thing&mdash;the presence of
+the other.</p>
+
+<p>"So mamma and you came again?"</p>
+
+<p>"And Mrs. Yorke did treat us strangely. We asked to
+see you. 'No,' said she, 'not in my house. I am at
+present responsible for his life; it shall not be forfeited
+for half an hour's idle gossip.' But I must not tell you all
+she said; it was very disagreeable. However, we came
+yet again&mdash;mamma, Miss Keeldar, and I. This time we
+thought we should conquer, as we were three against one,
+and Shirley was on our side. But Mrs. Yorke opened such
+a battery."</p>
+
+<p>Moore smiled. "What did she say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Things that astonished us. Shirley laughed at last;
+I cried; mamma was seriously annoyed. We were all
+three driven from the field. Since that time I have only
+walked once a day past the house, just for the satisfaction
+of looking up at your window, which I could distinguish
+by the drawn curtains. I really dared not come
+in."</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>have</em> wished for you, Caroline."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know that; I never dreamt one instant that
+you thought of me. If I had but most distantly imagined
+such a possibility&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Yorke would still have beaten you."</p>
+
+<p>"She would not. Stratagem should have been tried,
+if persuasion failed. I would have come to the kitchen
+door; the servants should have let me in, and I would
+have walked straight upstairs. In fact, it was far more
+the fear of intrusion&mdash;the fear of yourself&mdash;that baffled
+me than the fear of Mrs. Yorke."</p>
+
+<p>"Only last night I despaired of ever seeing you again.
+Weakness has wrought terrible depression in me&mdash;terrible
+depression."</p>
+
+<p>"And you sit alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Worse than alone."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must be getting better, since you can leave
+your bed?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>510<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I doubt whether I shall live. I see nothing for it, after
+such exhaustion, but decline."</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you shall go home to the Hollow."</p>
+
+<p>"Dreariness would accompany, nothing cheerful come
+near me."</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>will</em> alter this. This <em>shall</em> be altered, were there ten
+Mrs. Yorkes to do battle with."</p>
+
+<p>"Cary, you make me smile."</p>
+
+<p>"Do smile; smile again. Shall I tell you what I should
+like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me anything&mdash;only keep talking. I am Saul;
+but for music I should perish."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like you to be brought to the rectory, and
+given to me and mamma."</p>
+
+<p>"A precious gift! I have not laughed since they shot
+me till now."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suffer pain, Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so much pain now; but I am hopelessly weak, and
+the state of my mind is inexpressible&mdash;dark, barren, impotent.
+Do you not read it all in my face? I look a mere
+ghost."</p>
+
+<p>"Altered; yet I should have known you anywhere.
+But I understand your feelings; I experienced something
+like it. Since we met, I too have been very ill."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>Very</em> ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I should die. The tale of my life seemed
+told. Every night, just at midnight, I used to wake from
+awful dreams; and the book lay open before me at the
+last page, where was written 'Finis.' I had strange feelings."</p>
+
+<p>"You speak my experience."</p>
+
+<p>"I believed I should never see you again; and I grew
+so thin&mdash;as thin as you are now. I could do nothing for
+myself&mdash;neither rise nor lie down; and I could not eat.
+Yet you see I am better."</p>
+
+<p>"Comforter&mdash;sad as sweet. I am too feeble to say
+what I feel; but while you speak I <em>do</em> feel."</p>
+
+<p>"Here I am at your side, where I thought never more
+to be. Here I speak to you. I see you listen to me willingly&mdash;look
+at me kindly. Did I count on that? I
+despaired."</p>
+
+<p>Moore sighed&mdash;a sigh so deep it was nearly a groan.
+He covered his eyes with his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"May I be spared to make some atonement."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>511<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>Such was his prayer.</p>
+
+<p>"And for what?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will not touch on it now, Cary; unmanned as I
+am, I have not the power to cope with such a topic. Was
+Mrs. Pryor with you during your illness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes"&mdash;Caroline smiled brightly&mdash;"you know she is
+mamma?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard&mdash;Hortense told me; but that tale too
+I will receive from yourself. Does she add to your happiness?"</p>
+
+<p>"What! mamma? She is <em>dear</em> to me; <em>how</em> dear I
+cannot say. I was altogether weary, and she held me
+up."</p>
+
+<p>"I deserve to hear that in a moment when I can scarce
+lift my hand to my head. I deserve it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is no reproach against you."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a coal of fire heaped on my head; and so is every
+word you address to me, and every look that lights your
+sweet face. Come still nearer, Lina; and give me your
+hand&mdash;if my thin fingers do not scare you."</p>
+
+<p>She took those thin fingers between her two little hands;
+she bent her head <em>et les effleura de ses l&egrave;vres</em>. (I put that
+in French because the word <em>effleurer</em> is an exquisite word.)
+Moore was much moved. A large tear or two coursed
+down his hollow cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll keep these things in my heart, Cary; that kiss I
+will put by, and you shall hear of it again one day."</p>
+
+<p>"Come out!" cried Martin, opening the door&mdash;"come
+away; you have had twenty minutes instead of a quarter
+of an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"She will not stir yet, you hempseed."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare not stay longer, Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you promise to return?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, she can't," responded Martin. "The thing mustn't
+become customary. I can't be troubled. It's very well
+for once; I'll not have it repeated."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>You</em>'ll not have it repeated."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! don't vex him; we could not have met to-day
+but for him. But I will come again, if it is your wish
+that I should come."</p>
+
+<p>"It <em>is</em> my wish&mdash;my <em>one</em> wish&mdash;almost the only wish I
+can feel."</p>
+
+<p>"Come this minute. My mother has coughed, got up,
+set her feet on the floor. Let her only catch you on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>512<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+stairs, Miss Caroline. You're not to bid him good-bye"&mdash;stepping
+between her and Moore&mdash;"you are to march."</p>
+
+<p>"My shawl, Martin."</p>
+
+<p>"I have it. I'll put it on for you when you are in the
+hall."</p>
+
+<p>He made them part. He would suffer no farewell but
+what could be expressed in looks. He half carried Caroline
+down the stairs. In the hall he wrapped her shawl
+round her, and, but that his mother's tread then creaked
+in the gallery, and but that a sentiment of diffidence&mdash;the
+proper, natural, therefore the noble impulse of his
+boy's heart&mdash;held him back, he would have claimed his
+reward; he would have said, "Now, Miss Caroline, for
+all this give me one kiss." But ere the words had passed
+his lips she was across the snowy road, rather skimming
+than wading the drifts.</p>
+
+<p>"She is my debtor, and I <em>will</em> be paid."</p>
+
+<p>He flattered himself that it was opportunity, not audacity,
+which had failed him. He misjudged the quality of his
+own nature, and held it for something lower than it was.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>513<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>CASE OF DOMESTIC PERSECUTION&mdash;REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF PIOUS PERSEVERANCE
+IN THE DISCHARGE OF RELIGIOUS
+DUTIES.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Martin</span>, having known the taste of excitement, wanted
+a second draught; having felt the dignity of power, he
+loathed to relinquish it. Miss Helstone&mdash;that girl he had
+always called ugly, and whose face was now perpetually
+before his eyes, by day and by night, in dark and in sunshine&mdash;had
+once come within his sphere. It fretted him
+to think the visit might never be repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Though a schoolboy he was no ordinary schoolboy;
+he was destined to grow up an original. At a few years'
+later date he took great pains to pare and polish himself
+down to the pattern of the rest of the world, but he never
+succeeded; an unique stamp marked him always. He
+now sat idle at his desk in the grammar school, casting
+about in his mind for the means of adding another chapter
+to his commenced romance. He did not yet know how
+many commenced life-romances are doomed never to get
+beyond the first, or at most the second chapter. His
+Saturday half-holiday he spent in the wood with his book
+of fairy legends, and that other unwritten book of his
+imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Martin harboured an irreligious reluctance to see the
+approach of Sunday. His father and mother, while disclaiming
+community with the Establishment, failed not
+duly, once on the sacred day, to fill their large pew in
+Briarfield Church with the whole of their blooming family.
+Theoretically, Mr. Yorke placed all sects and churches on
+a level. Mrs. Yorke awarded the palm to Moravians and
+Quakers, on account of that crown of humility by these
+worthies worn. Neither of them were ever known, however,
+to set foot in a conventicle.</p>
+
+<p>Martin, I say, disliked Sunday, because the morning
+service was long, and the sermon usually little to his taste.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>514<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+This Saturday afternoon, however, his woodland musings
+disclosed to him a new-found charm in the coming day.</p>
+
+<p>It proved a day of deep snow&mdash;so deep that Mrs. Yorke
+during breakfast announced her conviction that the children,
+both boys and girls, would be better at home; and her
+decision that, instead of going to church, they should sit
+silent for two hours in the back parlour, while Rose and
+Martin alternately read a succession of sermons&mdash;John
+Wesley's "Sermons." John Wesley, being a reformer and
+an agitator, had a place both in her own and her husband's
+favour.</p>
+
+<p>"Rose will do as she pleases," said Martin, not looking
+up from the book which, according to his custom then and
+in after-life, he was studying over his bread and milk.</p>
+
+<p>"Rose will do as she is told, and Martin too," observed
+the mother.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to church."</p>
+
+<p>So her son replied, with the ineffable quietude of a true
+Yorke, who knows his will and means to have it, and who,
+if pushed to the wall, will let himself be crushed to death,
+provided no way of escape can be found, but will never
+capitulate.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not fit weather," said the father.</p>
+
+<p>No answer. The youth read studiously; he slowly
+broke his bread and sipped his milk.</p>
+
+<p>"Martin hates to go to church, but he hates still more
+to obey," said Mrs. Yorke.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I am influenced by pure perverseness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, <em>I am not</em>."</p>
+
+<p>"By what, then, are you influenced?"</p>
+
+<p>"By a complication of motives, the intricacies of which
+I should as soon think of explaining to you as I should of
+turning myself inside out to exhibit the internal machinery
+of my frame."</p>
+
+<p>"Hear Martin! hear him!" cried Mr. Yorke. "I must
+see and have this lad of mine brought up to the bar. Nature
+meant him to live by his tongue. Hesther, your third son
+must certainly be a lawyer; he has the stock-in-trade&mdash;brass,
+self-conceit, and words&mdash;words&mdash;words."</p>
+
+<p>"Some bread, Rose, if you please," requested Martin,
+with intense gravity, serenity, phlegm. The boy had
+naturally a low, plaintive voice, which in his "dour moods"
+rose scarcely above a lady's whisper. The more inflexibly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>515<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+stubborn the humour, the softer, the sadder the tone. He
+rang the bell, and gently asked for his walking-shoes.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Martin," urged his sire, "there is drift all the
+way; a man could hardly wade through it. However,
+lad," he continued, seeing that the boy rose as the church
+bell began to toll, "this is a case wherein I would by no
+means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by
+all means. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen
+sleet, besides the depth under foot. Go out into it, since
+thou prefers it to a warm fireside."</p>
+
+<p>Martin quietly assumed his cloak, comforter, and cap,
+and deliberately went out.</p>
+
+<p>"My father has more sense than my mother," he pronounced.
+"How women miss it! They drive the nail
+into the flesh, thinking they are hammering away at insensate
+stone."</p>
+
+<p>He reached church early.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, if the weather frightens her (and it is a real December
+tempest), or if that Mrs. Pryor objects to her going out,
+and I should miss her after all, it will vex me; but, tempest
+or tornado, hail or ice, she <em>ought</em> to come, and if she has
+a mind worthy of her eyes and features she <em>will</em> come. She
+will be here for the chance of seeing me, as I am here for
+the chance of seeing her. She will want to get a word
+respecting her confounded sweetheart, as I want to get
+another flavour of what I think the essence of life&mdash;a taste
+of existence, with the spirit preserved in it, and not evaporated.
+Adventure is to stagnation what champagne is
+to flat porter."</p>
+
+<p>He looked round. The church was cold, silent, empty,
+but for one old woman. As the chimes subsided and
+the single bell tolled slowly, another and another elderly
+parishioner came dropping in, and took a humble station
+in the free sittings. It is always the frailest, the oldest,
+and the poorest that brave the worst weather, to prove
+and maintain their constancy to dear old mother church.
+This wild morning not one affluent family attended, not one
+carriage party appeared&mdash;all the lined and cushioned pews
+were empty; only on the bare oaken seats sat ranged the
+gray-haired elders and feeble paupers.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll scorn her if she doesn't come," muttered Martin,
+shortly and savagely, to himself. The rector's shovel-hat
+had passed the porch. Mr. Helstone and his clerk
+were in the vestry.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>516<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>The bells ceased&mdash;the reading-desk was filled&mdash;the doors
+were closed&mdash;the service commenced. Void stood the
+rectory pew&mdash;she was not there. Martin scorned her.</p>
+
+<p>"Worthless thing! vapid thing! commonplace humbug!
+Like all other girls&mdash;weakly, selfish, shallow!"</p>
+
+<p>Such was Martin's liturgy.</p>
+
+<p>"She is not like our picture. Her eyes are not large and
+expressive; her nose is not straight, delicate, Hellenic;
+her mouth has not that charm I thought it had, which I
+imagined could beguile me of sullenness in my worst moods.
+What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy, a <em>girl</em>, in
+short."</p>
+
+<p>So absorbed was the young cynic he forgot to rise from
+his knees at the proper place, and was still in an exemplary
+attitude of devotion when, the litany over, the first hymn
+was given out. To be so caught did not contribute to
+soothe him. He started up red (for he was as sensitive to
+ridicule as any girl). To make the matter worse, the church
+door had reopened, and the aisles were filling: patter,
+patter, patter, a hundred little feet trotted in. It was the
+Sunday scholars. According to Briarfield winter custom,
+these children had till now been kept where there was a
+warm stove, and only led into church just before the communion
+and sermon.</p>
+
+<p>The little ones were settled first, and at last, when the
+boys and the younger girls were all arranged&mdash;when the
+organ was swelling high, and the choir and congregation
+were rising to uplift a spiritual song&mdash;a tall class of young
+women came quietly in, closing the procession. Their
+teacher, having seen them seated, passed into the rectory
+pew. The French-gray cloak and small beaver bonnet were
+known to Martin; it was the very costume his eyes had
+ached to catch. Miss Helstone had not suffered the storm
+to prove an impediment. After all, she was come to church.
+Martin probably whispered his satisfaction to his hymn
+book; at any rate, he therewith hid his face two minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Satisfied or not, he had time to get very angry with her
+again before the sermon was over. She had never once
+looked his way; at least he had not been so lucky as to
+encounter a glance.</p>
+
+<p>"If," he said&mdash;"if she takes no notice of me, if she
+shows I am not in her thoughts, I shall have a worse, a
+meaner opinion of her than ever. Most despicable would
+it be to come for the sake of those sheep-faced Sunday<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>517<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+scholars, and not for my sake or that long skeleton
+Moore's."</p>
+
+<p>The sermon found an end; the benediction was pronounced;
+the congregation dispersed. She had not been
+near him.</p>
+
+<p>Now, indeed, as Martin set his face homeward, he felt
+that the sleet was sharp and the east wind cold.</p>
+
+<p>His nearest way lay through some fields. It was a
+dangerous, because an untrodden way. He did not care;
+he would take it. Near the second stile rose a clump of
+trees. Was that an umbrella waiting there? Yes, an
+umbrella, held with evident difficulty against the blast;
+behind it fluttered a French-gray cloak. Martin grinned
+as he toiled up the steep, encumbered field, difficult to the
+foot as a slope in the upper realms of Etna. There was an
+inimitable look in his face when, having gained the stile, he
+seated himself coolly thereupon, and thus opened a conference
+which, for his own part, he was willing to prolong
+indefinitely.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you had better strike a bargain. Exchange
+me for Mrs. Pryor."</p>
+
+<p>"I was not sure whether you would come this way,
+Martin, but I thought I would run the chance. There is no
+such thing as getting a quiet word spoken in the church or
+churchyard."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you agree?&mdash;make over Mrs. Pryor to my mother,
+and put me in her skirts?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if I could understand you! What puts Mrs. Pryor
+into your head?"</p>
+
+<p>"You call her 'mamma,' don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"She <em>is</em> my mamma."</p>
+
+<p>"Not possible&mdash;or so inefficient, so careless a mamma;
+I should make a five times better one. You <em>may</em> laugh. I
+have no objection to see you laugh. Your teeth&mdash;I hate
+ugly teeth; but yours are as pretty as a pearl necklace,
+and a necklace of which the pearls are very fair, even, and
+well matched too."</p>
+
+<p>"Martin, what now? I thought the Yorkes never paid
+compliments?"</p>
+
+<p>"They have not done till this generation; but I feel
+as if it were my vocation to turn out a new variety of the
+Yorke species. I am rather tired of my own ancestors.
+We have traditions going back for four ages&mdash;tales of
+Hiram, which was the son of Hiram, which was the son of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>518<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Samuel, which was the son of John, which was the son of
+Zerubbabel Yorke. All, from Zerubbabel down to the last
+Hiram, were such as you see my father. Before that there
+was a Godfrey. We have his picture; it hangs in Moore's
+bedroom; it is like me. Of his character we know nothing;
+but I am sure it was different to his descendants. He has
+long, curling dark hair; he is carefully and cavalierly
+dressed. Having said that he is like me, I need not add
+that he is handsome."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not handsome, Martin."</p>
+
+<p>"No; but wait awhile&mdash;just let me take my time.
+I mean to begin from this day to cultivate, to polish, and
+we shall see."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a very strange, a very unaccountable boy,
+Martin. But don't imagine you ever will be handsome;
+you cannot."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to try. But we were talking about Mrs. Pryor.
+She must be the most unnatural mamma in existence, coolly
+to let her daughter come out in this weather. Mine was in
+such a rage because I would go to church; she was fit to
+fling the kitchen brush after me."</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma was very much concerned about me; but
+I am afraid I was obstinate. I <em>would</em> go."</p>
+
+<p>"To see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly; I thought of nothing else. I greatly feared
+the snow would hinder you from coming. You don't know
+how pleased I was to see you all by yourself in the pew."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>I</em> came to fulfil my duty, and set the parish a good
+example. And so you were obstinate, were you? I should
+like to see you obstinate, I should. Wouldn't I have you
+in good discipline if I owned you? Let me take the umbrella."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't stay two minutes; our dinner will be ready."</p>
+
+<p>"And so will ours; and we have always a hot dinner on
+Sundays. Roast goose to-day, with apple-pie and rice-pudding.
+I always contrive to know the bill of fare. Well,
+I like these things uncommonly; but I'll make the sacrifice,
+if you will."</p>
+
+<p>"We have a cold dinner. My uncle will allow no unnecessary
+cooking on the Sabbath. But I must return;
+the house would be in commotion if I failed to appear."</p>
+
+<p>"So will Briarmains, bless you! I think I hear my
+father sending out the overlooker and five of the dyers, to
+look in six directions for the body of his prodigal son in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>519<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+snow; and my mother repenting her of her many misdeeds
+towards me, now I am gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Martin, how is Mr. Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>"<em>That</em> is what you came for, just to say that word."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, tell me quickly."</p>
+
+<p>"Hang him! he is no worse; but as ill-used as ever&mdash;mewed
+up, kept in solitary confinement. They mean
+to make either an idiot or a maniac of him, and take out a
+commission of lunacy. Horsfall starves him; you saw how
+thin he was."</p>
+
+<p>"You were very good the other day, Martin."</p>
+
+<p>"What day? I am always good&mdash;a model."</p>
+
+<p>"When will you be so good again?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see what you are after; but you'll not wheedle me&mdash;I
+am no cat's-paw."</p>
+
+<p>"But it must be done. It is quite a right thing, and a
+necessary thing."</p>
+
+<p>"How you encroach! Remember, I managed the
+matter of my own free will before."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will again."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't. The business gave me far too much trouble.
+I like my ease."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Moore wishes to see me, Martin, and I wish to see
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say" (coolly).</p>
+
+<p>"It is too bad of your mother to exclude his friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her so."</p>
+
+<p>"His own relations."</p>
+
+<p>"Come and blow her up."</p>
+
+<p>"You know that would advance nothing. Well, I
+shall stick to my point. See him I will. If you won't
+help me, I'll manage without help."</p>
+
+<p>"Do; there is nothing like self-reliance, self-dependence."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no time to reason with you now; but I consider
+you provoking. Good-morning."</p>
+
+<p>Away she went, the umbrella shut, for she could not
+carry it against the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"She is not vapid; she is not shallow," said Martin.
+"I shall like to watch, and mark how she will work her
+way without help. If the storm were not of snow, but of
+fire&mdash;such as came refreshingly down on the cities of the
+plain&mdash;she would go through it to procure five minutes'
+speech of that Moore. Now, I consider I have had a pleasant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>520<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+morning. The disappointments got time on; the fears
+and fits of anger only made that short discourse pleasanter,
+when it came at last. She expected to coax me at once.
+She'll not manage that in one effort. She shall come again,
+again, and yet again. It would please me to put her in a
+passion&mdash;to make her cry. I want to discover how far she
+will go&mdash;what she will do and dare&mdash;to get her will. It
+seems strange and new to find one human being thinking
+so much about another as she thinks about Moore. But it is
+time to go home; my appetite tells me the hour. Won't I
+walk into that goose? and we'll try whether Matthew or
+I shall get the largest cut of the apple-pie to-day."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>521<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.<br />
+<br />
+<small>WHEREIN MATTERS MAKE SOME PROGRESS, BUT NOT MUCH.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Martin</span> had planned well. He had laid out a dexterously
+concerted scheme for his private amusement. But older
+and wiser schemers than he are often doomed to see their
+finest-spun projects swept to annihilation by the sudden
+broom of Fate, that fell housewife whose red arm none can
+control. In the present instance this broom was manufactured
+out of the tough fibres of Moore's own stubborn
+purpose, bound tight with his will. He was now resuming
+his strength, and making strange head against Mrs. Horsfall.
+Each morning he amazed that matron with a fresh astonishment.
+First he discharged her from her valet duties; he
+would dress himself. Then he refused the coffee she brought
+him; he would breakfast with the family. Lastly, he
+forbade her his chamber. On the same day, amidst the
+outcries of all the women in the place, he put his head out
+of doors. The morning after, he followed Mr. Yorke to his
+counting-house, and requested an envoy to fetch a chaise
+from the Red House Inn. He was resolved, he said, to
+return home to the Hollow that very afternoon. Mr.
+Yorke, instead of opposing, aided and abetted him. The
+chaise was sent for, though Mrs. Yorke declared the step
+would be his death. It came. Moore, little disposed to
+speak, made his purse do duty for his tongue. He expressed
+his gratitude to the servants and to Mrs. Horsfall by the
+chink of his coin. The latter personage approved and
+understood this language perfectly; it made amends for all
+previous contumacy. She and her patient parted the best
+friends in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen visited and soothed, Moore betook himself
+to the parlour. He had Mrs. Yorke to appease; not quite
+so easy a task as the pacification of her housemaids. There
+she sat plunged in sullen dudgeon, the gloomiest speculations
+on the depths of man's ingratitude absorbing her thoughts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>522<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+He drew near and bent over her; she was obliged to look
+up, if it were only to bid him "avaunt." There was beauty
+still in his pale, wasted features; there was earnestness and
+a sort of sweetness&mdash;for he was smiling&mdash;in his hollow eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye!" he said, and as he spoke the smile glittered
+and melted. He had no iron mastery of his sensations
+now; a trifling emotion made itself apparent in his
+present weak state.</p>
+
+<p>"And what are you going to leave us for?" she asked.
+"We will keep you, and do anything in the world for you,
+if you will only stay till you are stronger."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye!" he again said; and added, "You have
+been a mother to me; give your wilful son one embrace."</p>
+
+<p>Like a foreigner, as he was, he offered her first one cheek,
+then the other. She kissed him.</p>
+
+<p>"What a trouble&mdash;what a burden I have been to you!"
+he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"You are the worst trouble now, headstrong youth!"
+was the answer. "I wonder who is to nurse you at Hollow's
+Cottage? Your sister Hortense knows no more about such
+matters than a child."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God! for I have had nursing enough to last me
+my life."</p>
+
+<p>Here the little girls came in&mdash;Jessie crying, Rose quiet
+but grave. Moore took them out into the hall to soothe,
+pet, and kiss them. He knew it was not in their mother's
+nature to bear to see any living thing caressed but herself.
+She would have felt annoyed had he fondled a kitten in her
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>The boys were standing about the chaise as Moore entered
+it; but for them he had no farewell. To Mr. Yorke
+he only said, "You have a good riddance of me. That was
+an unlucky shot for you, Yorke; it turned Briarmains
+into an hospital. Come and see me at the cottage soon."</p>
+
+<p>He drew up the glass; the chaise rolled away. In
+half an hour he alighted at his own garden wicket. Having
+paid the driver and dismissed the vehicle, he leaned on
+that wicket an instant, at once to rest and to muse.</p>
+
+<p>"Six months ago I passed out at this gate," said he,
+"a proud, angry, disappointed man. I come back sadder
+and wiser; weakly enough, but not worried. A cold, gray,
+yet quiet world lies round&mdash;a world where, if I hope little,
+I fear nothing. All slavish terrors of embarrassment have
+left me. Let the worst come, I can work, as Joe Scott<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>523<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+does, for an honourable living; in such doom I yet see
+some hardship but no degradation. Formerly, pecuniary
+ruin was equivalent in my eyes to personal dishonour. It
+is not so now; I know the difference. Ruin <em>is</em> an evil,
+but one for which I am prepared; the day of whose coming
+I know, for I have calculated. I can yet put it off six
+months&mdash;not an hour longer. If things by that time alter,
+which is not probable; if fetters, which now seem indissoluble,
+should be loosened from our trade (of all things the
+most unlikely to happen), I might conquer in this long
+struggle yet&mdash;I might&mdash;good God! what might I not do?
+But the thought is a brief madness; let me see things with
+sane eyes. Ruin will come, lay her axe to my fortune's
+roots, and hew them down. I shall snatch a sapling, I shall
+cross the sea, and plant it in American woods. Louis will
+go with me. Will none but Louis go? I cannot tell&mdash;I
+have no right to ask."</p>
+
+<p>He entered the house.</p>
+
+<p>It was afternoon, twilight yet out of doors&mdash;starless
+and moonless twilight; for though keenly freezing with
+a dry, black frost, heaven wore a mask of clouds congealed
+and fast locked. The mill-dam too was frozen. The
+Hollow was very still. Indoors it was already dark. Sarah
+had lit a good fire in the parlour; she was preparing tea
+in the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"Hortense," said Moore, as his sister bustled up to
+help him off with his cloak, "I am pleased to come home."</p>
+
+<p>Hortense did not feel the peculiar novelty of this expression
+coming from her brother, who had never before
+called the cottage his home, and to whom its narrow limits
+had always heretofore seemed rather restrictive than protective.
+Still, whatever contributed to his happiness
+pleased her, and she expressed herself to that effect.</p>
+
+<p>He sat down, but soon rose again. He went to the
+window; he came back to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Hortense!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mon fr&egrave;re?"</p>
+
+<p>"This little parlour looks very clean and pleasant&mdash;unusually
+bright, somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"It is true, brother; I have had the whole house thoroughly
+and scrupulously cleaned in your absence."</p>
+
+<p>"Sister, I think on this first day of your return home
+you ought to have a friend or so to tea, if it were only to
+see how fresh and spruce you have made the little place."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>524<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"True, brother. If it were not late I might send for Miss
+Mann."</p>
+
+<p>"So you might; but it really is too late to disturb that
+good lady, and the evening is much too cold for her to
+come out."</p>
+
+<p>"How thoughtful in you, dear G&eacute;rard! We must put
+it off till another day."</p>
+
+<p>"I want some one to-day, dear sister&mdash;some quiet guest,
+who would tire neither of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Ainley?"</p>
+
+<p>"An excellent person, they say; but she lives too far
+off. Tell Harry Scott to step up to the rectory with a
+request from you that Caroline Helstone should come and
+spend the evening with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Would it not be better to-morrow, dear brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should like her to see the place as it is just now;
+its brilliant cleanliness and perfect neatness are so much to
+your credit."</p>
+
+<p>"It might benefit her in the way of example."</p>
+
+<p>"It might and must; she ought to come."</p>
+
+<p>He went into the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>"Sarah, delay tea half an hour." He then commissioned
+her to dispatch Harry Scott to the rectory, giving
+her a twisted note hastily scribbled in pencil by himself,
+and addressed "Miss Helstone."</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had Sarah time to get impatient under the
+fear of damage to her toast already prepared when the
+messenger returned, and with him the invited guest.</p>
+
+<p>She entered through the kitchen, quietly tripped up
+Sarah's stairs to take off her bonnet and furs, and came
+down as quietly, with her beautiful curls nicely smoothed,
+her graceful merino dress and delicate collar all trim and
+spotless, her gay little work-bag in her hand. She lingered
+to exchange a few kindly words with Sarah, and to look
+at the new tortoise-shell kitten basking on the kitchen
+hearth, and to speak to the canary-bird, which a sudden
+blaze from the fire had startled on its perch; and then she
+betook herself to the parlour.</p>
+
+<p>The gentle salutation, the friendly welcome, were interchanged
+in such tranquil sort as befitted cousins meeting;
+a sense of pleasure, subtle and quiet as a perfume,
+diffused itself through the room; the newly-kindled lamp
+burnt up bright; the tray and the singing urn were brought
+in.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>525<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"I am pleased to come home," repeated Mr. Moore.</p>
+
+<p>They assembled round the table. Hortense chiefly
+talked. She congratulated Caroline on the evident improvement
+in her health. Her colour and her plump cheeks
+were returning, she remarked. It was true. There was an
+obvious change in Miss Helstone. All about her seemed
+elastic; depression, fear, forlornness, were withdrawn.
+No longer crushed, and saddened, and slow, and drooping,
+she looked like one who had tasted the cordial of heart's
+ease, and been lifted on the wing of hope.</p>
+
+<p>After tea Hortense went upstairs. She had not rummaged
+her drawers for a month past, and the impulse
+to perform that operation was now become resistless.
+During her absence the talk passed into Caroline's hands.
+She took it up with ease; she fell into her best tone of
+conversation. A pleasing facility and elegance of language
+gave fresh charm to familiar topics; a new music in the
+always soft voice gently surprised and pleasingly captivated
+the listener; unwonted shades and lights of expression
+elevated the young countenance with character, and kindled
+it with animation.</p>
+
+<p>"Caroline, you look as if you had heard good tidings,"
+said Moore, after earnestly gazing at her for some minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I?"</p>
+
+<p>"I sent for you this evening that I might be cheered;
+but you cheer me more than I had calculated."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad of that. And I <em>really</em> cheer you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You look brightly, move buoyantly, speak musically."</p>
+
+<p>"It is pleasant to be here again."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly it is pleasant; I feel it so. And to see health
+on your cheek and hope in your eye is pleasant, Cary; but
+what is this hope, and what is the source of this sunshine
+I perceive about you?"</p>
+
+<p>"For one thing, I am happy in mamma. I love her
+so much, and she loves me. Long and tenderly she nursed
+me. Now, when her care has made me well, I can occupy
+myself for and with her all the day. I say it is my turn to
+attend to her; and I <em>do</em> attend to her. I am her waiting-woman
+as well as her child. I like&mdash;you would laugh if you
+knew what pleasure I have in making dresses and sewing for
+her. She looks so nice now, Robert; I will not let her be
+old-fashioned. And then, she is charming to talk to&mdash;full
+of wisdom, ripe in judgment, rich in information, exhaustless
+in stores her observant faculties have quietly amassed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>526<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Every day that I live with her I like her better, I esteem
+her more highly, I love her more tenderly."</p>
+
+<p>"<em>That</em> for one thing, then, Cary. You talk in such a
+way about 'mamma' it is enough to make one jealous of
+the old lady."</p>
+
+<p>"She is not old, Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"Of the young lady, then."</p>
+
+<p>"She does not pretend to be young."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of the matron. But you said 'mamma's' affection
+was <em>one</em> thing that made you happy; now for the other
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you are better."</p>
+
+<p>"What besides?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad we are friends."</p>
+
+<p>"You and I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I once thought we never should be."</p>
+
+<p>"Cary, some day I mean to tell you a thing about myself
+that is not to my credit, and consequently will not
+please you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, don't! I cannot bear to think ill of you."</p>
+
+<p>"And I cannot bear that you should think better of me
+than I deserve."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but I half know your 'thing;' indeed, I believe
+I know all about it."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Whom does it concern besides me?"</p>
+
+<p>She coloured; she hesitated; she was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak, Cary! Whom does it concern?"</p>
+
+<p>She tried to utter a name, and could not.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me; there is none present but ourselves. Be frank."</p>
+
+<p>"But if I guess wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will forgive. Whisper, Cary."</p>
+
+<p>He bent his ear to her lips. Still she would not, or
+could not, speak clearly to the point. Seeing that Moore
+waited and was resolved to hear something, she at last
+said, "Miss Keeldar spent a day at the rectory about a
+week since. The evening came on very wintry, and we
+persuaded her to stay all night."</p>
+
+<p>"And you and she curled your hair together?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"And then you chattered, and she told you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was not at curling-hair time, so you are not as wise
+as you think; and, besides, she didn't tell me."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>527<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"You slept together afterwards?"</p>
+
+<p>"We occupied the same room and bed. We did not
+sleep much; we talked the whole night through."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be sworn you did! And then it all came out&mdash;<em>tant
+pis</em>. I would rather you had heard it from myself."</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite wrong. She did not tell me what you
+suspect&mdash;she is not the person to proclaim such things;
+but yet I inferred something from parts of her discourse.
+I gathered more from rumour, and I made out the rest by
+instinct."</p>
+
+<p>"But if she did not tell you that I wanted to marry her
+for the sake of her money, and that she refused me indignantly
+and scornfully (you need neither start nor blush;
+nor yet need you prick your trembling fingers with your
+needle. That is the plain truth, whether you like it or not)&mdash;if
+such was not the subject of her august confidences, on
+what point did they turn? You say you talked the whole
+night through; what about?"</p>
+
+<p>"About things we never thoroughly discussed before,
+intimate friends as we have been; but you hardly expect
+I should tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, Cary; you will tell me. You said we were
+friends, and friends should always confide in each other."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are sure you won't repeat it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to Louis?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not even to Louis. What does Louis care for young
+ladies' secrets?"</p>
+
+<p>"Robert, Shirley is a curious, magnanimous being."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say. I can imagine there are both odd points
+and grand points about her."</p>
+
+<p>"I have found her chary in showing her feelings; but
+when they rush out, river-like, and pass full and powerful
+before you&mdash;almost without leave from her&mdash;you gaze,
+wonder; you admire, and&mdash;I think&mdash;love her."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw this spectacle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; at dead of night, when all the house was silent,
+and starlight and the cold reflection from the snow glimmered
+in our chamber, then I saw Shirley's heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Her heart's core? Do you think she showed you
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her heart's core."</p>
+
+<p>"And how was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like a shrine, for it was holy; like snow, for it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>528<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+pure; like flame, for it was warm; like death, for it was
+strong."</p>
+
+<p>"Can she love? tell me that."</p>
+
+<p>"What think you?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has loved none that have loved her yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are those that have loved her?"</p>
+
+<p>He named a list of gentlemen, closing with Sir Philip
+Nunnely.</p>
+
+<p>"She has loved none of these."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet some of them were worthy of a woman's affection."</p>
+
+<p>"Of some women's, but not of Shirley's."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she better than others of her sex?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is peculiar, and more dangerous to take as a wife&mdash;rashly."</p>
+
+<p>"I can imagine that."</p>
+
+<p>"She spoke of you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she did! I thought you denied it."</p>
+
+<p>"She did not speak in the way you fancy; but I asked
+her, and I would make her tell me what she thought of you,
+or rather how she felt towards you. I wanted to know;
+I had long wanted to know."</p>
+
+<p>"So had I; but let us hear. She thinks meanly, she
+feels contemptuously, doubtless?"</p>
+
+<p>"She thinks of you almost as highly as a woman can
+think of a man. You know she can be eloquent. I yet
+feel in fancy the glow of the language in which her opinion
+was conveyed."</p>
+
+<p>"But how does she feel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Till you shocked her (she said you had shocked her,
+but she would not tell me how) she felt as a sister feels
+towards a brother of whom she is at once fond and proud."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll shock her no more, Cary, for the shock rebounded
+on myself till I staggered again. But that comparison
+about sister and brother is all nonsense. She is too rich
+and proud to entertain fraternal sentiments for me."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know her, Robert; and, somehow, I fancy
+now (I had other ideas formerly) that you cannot know
+her. You and she are not so constructed as to be able
+thoroughly to understand each other."</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so. I esteem her, I admire her; and yet
+my impressions concerning her are harsh&mdash;perhaps uncharitable.
+I believe, for instance, that she is incapable
+of love&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley incapable of love!"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>529<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"That she will never marry. I imagine her jealous
+of compromising her pride, of relinquishing her power, of
+sharing her property."</p>
+
+<p>"Shirley has hurt your <em>amour propre</em>."</p>
+
+<p>"She did hurt it; though I had not an emotion of
+tenderness, nor a spark of passion for her."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Robert, it was very wicked in you to want to
+marry her."</p>
+
+<p>"And very mean, my little pastor, my pretty priestess.
+I never wanted to kiss Miss Keeldar in my life, though
+she has fine lips, scarlet and round as ripe cherries; or,
+if I did wish it, it was the mere desire of the eye."</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt, now, whether you are speaking the truth.
+The grapes or the cherries are sour&mdash;'hung too high.'"</p>
+
+<p>"She has a pretty figure, a pretty face, beautiful hair.
+I acknowledge all her charms and feel none of them, or
+only feel them in a way she would disdain. I suppose
+I was truly tempted by the mere gilding of the bait.
+Caroline, what a noble fellow your Robert is&mdash;great, good,
+disinterested, and then so pure!"</p>
+
+<p>"But not perfect. He made a great blunder once, and
+we will hear no more about it."</p>
+
+<p>"And shall we think no more about it, Cary? Shall
+we not despise him in our heart&mdash;gentle but just, compassionate
+but upright?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never! We will remember that with what measure
+we mete it shall be measured unto us, and so we will give
+no scorn, only affection."</p>
+
+<p>"Which won't satisfy, I warn you of that. Something
+besides affection&mdash;something far stronger, sweeter, warmer&mdash;will
+be demanded one day. Is it there to give?"</p>
+
+<p>Caroline was moved, much moved.</p>
+
+<p>"Be calm, Lina," said Moore soothingly. "I have no
+intention, because I have no right, to perturb your mind
+now, nor for months to come. Don't look as if you would
+leave me. We will make no more agitating allusions;
+we will resume our gossip. Do not tremble; look me in
+the face. See what a poor, pale, grim phantom I am&mdash;more
+pitiable than formidable."</p>
+
+<p>She looked shyly. "There is something formidable still,
+pale as you are," she said, as her eye fell under his.</p>
+
+<p>"To return to Shirley," pursued Moore: "is it your
+opinion that she is ever likely to marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"She loves."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>530<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Platonically&mdash;theoretically&mdash;all humbug!"</p>
+
+<p>"She loves what I call sincerely."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she say so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot affirm that she said so. No such confession
+as 'I love this man or that' passed her lips."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought not."</p>
+
+<p>"But the feeling made its way in spite of her, and I saw
+it. She spoke of one man in a strain not to be misunderstood.
+Her voice alone was sufficient testimony. Having
+wrung from her an opinion on your character, I demanded
+a second opinion of&mdash;another person about whom I had
+my conjectures, though they were the most tangled and
+puzzled conjectures in the world. I would <em>make</em> her speak.
+I shook her, I chid her, I pinched her fingers when she
+tried to put me off with gibes and jests in her queer provoking
+way, and at last out it came. The voice, I say,
+was enough; hardly raised above a whisper, and yet such
+a soft vehemence in its tones. There was no confession,
+no confidence, in the matter. To these things she cannot
+condescend; but I am sure that man's happiness is dear
+to her as her own life."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I charged her with the fact. She did not deny, she
+did not avow, but looked at me. I saw her eyes by the
+snow-gleam. It was quite enough. I triumphed over her
+mercilessly."</p>
+
+<p>"What right had <em>you</em> to triumph? Do you mean to
+say <em>you</em> are fancy free?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever <em>I</em> am, Shirley is a bondswoman. Lioness,
+she has found her captor. Mistress she may be of all
+round her, but her own mistress she is not."</p>
+
+<p>"So you exulted at recognizing a fellow-slave in one so
+fair and imperial?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did; Robert, you say right, in one so fair and imperial."</p>
+
+<p>"You confess it&mdash;a <em>fellow</em>-slave?"</p>
+
+<p>"I confess nothing; but I say that haughty Shirley is
+no more free than was Hagar."</p>
+
+<p>"And who, pray, is the Abraham, the hero of a patriarch
+who has achieved such a conquest?"</p>
+
+<p>"You still speak scornfully, and cynically, and sorely;
+but I will make you change your note before I have done
+with you."</p>
+
+<p>"We will see that. Can she marry this Cupidon?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>531<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"Cupidon! he is just about as much a Cupidon as you
+are a Cyclops."</p>
+
+<p>"Can she marry him?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will see."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to know his name, Cary."</p>
+
+<p>"Guess it."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it any one in this neighbourhood?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in Briarfield parish."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is some person unworthy of her. I don't know
+a soul in Briarfield parish her equal."</p>
+
+<p>"Guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible. I suppose she is under a delusion, and
+will plunge into some absurdity, after all."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Do <em>you</em> approve the choice?" asked Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite, <em>quite</em>."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I <em>am</em> puzzled; for the head which owns this
+bounteous fall of hazel curls is an excellent little thinking
+machine, most accurate in its working. It boasts a
+correct, steady judgment, inherited from 'mamma,' I
+suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"And I <em>quite</em> approve, and mamma was charmed."</p>
+
+<p>"'Mamma' charmed&mdash;Mrs. Pryor! It can't be romantic,
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>"It <em>is</em> romantic, but it is also right."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Cary&mdash;tell me out of pity; I am too weak to
+be tantalized."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall be tantalized&mdash;it will do you no harm; you
+are not so weak as you pretend."</p>
+
+<p>"I have twice this evening had some thoughts of falling
+on the floor at your feet."</p>
+
+<p>"You had better not. I shall decline to help you
+up."</p>
+
+<p>"And worshipping you downright. My mother was a
+Roman Catholic. You look like the loveliest of her pictures
+of the Virgin. I think I will embrace her faith and kneel
+and adore."</p>
+
+<p>"Robert, Robert, sit still; don't be absurd. I will go
+to Hortense if you commit extravagances."</p>
+
+<p>"You have stolen my senses. Just now nothing will
+come into my mind but <em>les litanies de la sainte Vi&egrave;rge.
+Rose c&eacute;leste, reine des anges</em>!"</p>
+
+<p>"<em>Tour d'ivoire, maison d'or</em>&mdash;is not that the jargon?
+Well, sit down quietly, and guess your riddle."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>532<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"But 'mamma' charmed&mdash;there's the puzzle."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what mamma said when I told her. 'Depend
+upon it, my dear, such a choice will make the happiness of
+Miss Keeldar's life.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll guess once, and no more. It is old Helstone.
+She is going to be your aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell my uncle; I'll tell Shirley!" cried Caroline,
+laughing gleefully. "Guess again, Robert; your blunders
+are charming."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the parson&mdash;Hall."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, no; he is mine, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>"Yours! Ay, the whole generation of women in Briarfield
+seem to have made an idol of that priest. I wonder
+why; he is bald, sand-blind, gray-haired."</p>
+
+<p>"Fanny will be here to fetch me before you have solved
+the riddle, if you don't make haste."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll guess no more&mdash;I am tired; and then I don't care.
+Miss Keeldar may marry <em>le grand Turc</em> for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Must I whisper?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you must, and quickly. Here comes Hortense;
+come near, a little nearer, my own Lina. I care for the
+whisper more than the words."</p>
+
+<p>She whispered. Robert gave a start, a flash of the eye,
+a brief laugh. Miss Moore entered, and Sarah followed
+behind, with information that Fanny was come. The hour
+of converse was over.</p>
+
+<p>Robert found a moment to exchange a few more whispered
+sentences. He was waiting at the foot of the staircase
+as Caroline descended after putting on her shawl.</p>
+
+<p>"Must I call Shirley a noble creature now?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wish to speak the truth, certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Must I forgive her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive her? Naughty Robert! Was she in the
+wrong, or were you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Must I at length love her downright, Cary?"</p>
+
+<p>Caroline looked keenly up, and made a movement towards
+him, something between the loving and the petulant.</p>
+
+<p>"Only give the word, and I'll try to obey you."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, you must not love her; the bare idea is perverse."</p>
+
+<p>"But then she is handsome, peculiarly handsome. Hers
+is a beauty that grows on you. You think her but graceful
+when you first see her; you discover her to be beautiful
+when you have known her for a year."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>533<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"It is not you who are to say these things. Now,
+Robert, be good."</p>
+
+<p>"O Cary, I have no love to give. Were the goddess of
+beauty to woo me, I could not meet her advances. There
+is no heart which I can call mine in this breast."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better; you are a great deal safer without.
+Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Why must you always go, Lina, at the very instant
+when I most want you to stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you most wish to retain when you are most
+certain to lose."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen; one other word. Take care of your own heart&mdash;do
+you hear me?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no danger."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not convinced of that. The Platonic parson,
+for instance."</p>
+
+<p>"Who&mdash;Malone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cyril Hall. I owe more than one twinge of jealousy to
+that quarter."</p>
+
+<p>"As to you, you have been flirting with Miss Mann.
+She showed me the other day a plant you had given her.&mdash;Fanny,
+I am ready."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>534<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.<br />
+<br />
+<small>WRITTEN IN THE SCHOOLROOM.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Louis Moore's</span> doubts respecting the immediate evacuation
+of Fieldhead by Mr. Sympson turned out to be perfectly
+well founded. The very next day after the grand
+quarrel about Sir Philip Nunnely a sort of reconciliation
+was patched up between uncle and niece. Shirley, who
+could never find it in her heart to be or to seem inhospitable
+(except in the single instance of Mr. Donne), begged
+the whole party to stay a little longer. She begged in
+such earnest it was evident she wished it for some reason.
+They took her at her word. Indeed, the uncle could not
+bring himself to leave her quite unwatched&mdash;at full liberty
+to marry Robert Moore as soon as that gentleman should
+be able (Mr. Sympson piously prayed this might never be
+the case) to reassert his supposed pretensions to her hand.
+They all stayed.</p>
+
+<p>In his first rage against all the house of Moore, Mr.
+Sympson had so conducted himself towards Mr. Louis
+that that gentleman&mdash;patient of labour or suffering, but
+intolerant of coarse insolence&mdash;had promptly resigned his
+post, and could now be induced to resume and retain it only
+till such time as the family should quit Yorkshire. Mrs.
+Sympson's entreaties prevailed with him thus far; his own
+attachment to his pupil constituted an additional motive
+for concession; and probably he had a third motive,
+stronger than either of the other two. Probably he would
+have found it very hard indeed to leave Fieldhead just now.</p>
+
+<p>Things went on for some time pretty smoothly. Miss
+Keeldar's health was re-established; her spirits resumed
+their flow. Moore had found means to relieve her from
+every nervous apprehension; and, indeed, from the moment
+of giving him her confidence, every fear seemed to have taken
+wing. Her heart became as lightsome, her manner as careless,
+as those of a little child, that, thoughtless of its own
+life or death, trusts all responsibility to its parents. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>535<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+and William Farren&mdash;through whose medium he made
+inquiries concerning the state of Ph&oelig;be&mdash;agreed in asserting
+that the dog was not mad, that it was only ill-usage
+which had driven her from home; for it was proved that
+her master was in the frequent habit of chastising her
+violently. Their assertion might or might not be true.
+The groom and gamekeeper affirmed to the contrary&mdash;both
+asserting that, if hers was not a clear case of hydrophobia,
+there was no such disease. But to this evidence
+Louis Moore turned an incredulous ear. He reported to
+Shirley only what was encouraging. She believed him;
+and, right or wrong, it is certain that in her case the bite
+proved innocuous.</p>
+
+<p>November passed; December came. The Sympsons were
+now really departing. It was incumbent on them to be
+at home by Christmas. Their packages were preparing;
+they were to leave in a few days. One winter evening,
+during the last week of their stay, Louis Moore again took
+out his little blank book, and discoursed with it as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>"She is lovelier than ever. Since that little cloud was
+dispelled all the temporary waste and wanness have vanished.
+It was marvellous to see how soon the magical energy of
+youth raised her elastic and revived her blooming.</p>
+
+<p>"After breakfast this morning, when I had seen her,
+and listened to her, and, so to speak, felt her, in every
+sentient atom of my frame, I passed from her sunny presence
+into the chill drawing-room. Taking up a little gilt
+volume, I found it to contain a selection of lyrics. I read
+a poem or two; whether the spell was in me or in the verse
+I know not, but my heart filled genially, my pulse rose.
+I glowed, notwithstanding the frost air. I, too, am young
+as yet. Though she said she never considered me young,
+I am barely thirty. There are moments when life, for no
+other reason than my own youth, beams with sweet hues
+upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"It was time to go to the schoolroom. I went. That
+same schoolroom is rather pleasant in a morning. The
+sun then shines through the low lattice; the books are in
+order; there are no papers strewn about; the fire is clear
+and clean; no cinders have fallen, no ashes accumulated.
+I found Henry there, and he had brought with him Miss
+Keeldar. They were together.</p>
+
+<p>"I said she was lovelier than ever. She is. A fine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>536<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+rose, not deep but delicate, opens on her cheek. Her eye,
+always dark, clear, and speaking, utters now a language
+I cannot render; it is the utterance, seen not heard,
+through which angels must have communed when there
+was 'silence in heaven.' Her hair was always dusk as
+night and fine as silk, her neck was always fair, flexible,
+polished; but both have now a new charm. The tresses
+are soft as shadow, the shoulders they fall on wear a goddess
+grace. Once I only <em>saw</em> her beauty, now I <em>feel</em> it.</p>
+
+<p>"Henry was repeating his lesson to her before bringing
+it to me. One of her hands was occupied with the book;
+he held the other. That boy gets more than his share
+of privileges; he dares caress and is caressed. What
+indulgence and compassion she shows him! Too much.
+If this went on, Henry in a few years, when his soul was
+formed, would offer it on her altar, as I have offered mine.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw her eyelid flitter when I came in, but she did
+not look up; <em>now</em> she hardly ever gives me a glance. She
+seems to grow silent too; to <em>me</em> she rarely speaks, and
+when I am present, she says little to others. In my gloomy
+moments I attribute this change to indifference, aversion,
+what not? In my sunny intervals I give it another meaning.
+I say, were I her equal, I could find in this shyness
+coyness, and in that coyness love. As it is, dare I look
+for it? What could I do with it if found?</p>
+
+<p>"This morning I dared at least contrive an hour's communion
+for her and me; I dared not only <em>wish</em> but <em>will</em>
+an interview with her. I dared summon solitude to guard
+us. Very decidedly I called Henry to the door. Without
+hesitation I said, 'Go where you will, my boy; but, till
+I call you, return not here.'</p>
+
+<p>"Henry, I could see, did not like his dismissal. That
+boy is young, but a thinker; his meditative eye shines
+on me strangely sometimes. He half feels what links me
+to Shirley; he half guesses that there is a dearer delight
+in the reserve with which I am treated than in all the
+endearments he is allowed. The young, lame, half-grown
+lion would growl at me now and then, because I have tamed
+his lioness and am her keeper, did not the habit of discipline
+and the instinct of affection hold him subdued.
+Go, Henry; you must learn to take your share of the bitter
+of life with all of Adam's race that have gone before or
+will come after you. Your destiny can be no exception
+to the common lot; be grateful that your love is overlooked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>537<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+thus early, before it can claim any affinity to passion. An
+hour's fret, a pang of envy, suffice to express what you feel.
+Jealousy hot as the sun above the line, rage destructive
+as the tropic storm, the clime of your sensations ignores&mdash;as
+yet.</p>
+
+<p>"I took my usual seat at the desk, quite in my usual
+way. I am blessed in that power to cover all inward
+ebullition with outward calm. No one who looks at my
+slow face can guess the vortex sometimes whirling in my
+heart, and engulfing thought and wrecking prudence.
+Pleasant is it to have the gift to proceed peacefully and
+powerfully in your course without alarming by one eccentric
+movement. It was not my present intention to utter one
+word of love to her, or to reveal one glimpse of the fire in
+which I wasted. Presumptuous I never have been; presumptuous
+I never will be. Rather than even <em>seem</em> selfish
+and interested, I would resolutely rise, gird my loins, part
+and leave her, and seek, on the other side of the globe, a
+new life, cold and barren as the rock the salt tide daily
+washes. My design this morning was to take of her a near
+scrutiny&mdash;to read a line in the page of her heart. Before
+I left I determined to know <em>what</em> I was leaving.</p>
+
+<p>"I had some quills to make into pens. Most men's
+hands would have trembled when their hearts were so
+stirred; mine went to work steadily, and my voice, when
+I called it into exercise, was firm.</p>
+
+<p>"'This day week you will be alone at Fieldhead, Miss
+Keeldar.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes: I rather think my uncle's intention to go is a
+settled one now.'</p>
+
+<p>"'He leaves you dissatisfied.'</p>
+
+<p>"'He is not pleased with me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'He departs as he came&mdash;no better for his journey.
+This is mortifying.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I trust the failure of his plans will take from him all
+inclination to lay new ones.'</p>
+
+<p>"'In his way Mr. Sympson honestly wished you well.
+All he has done or intended to do he believed to be for the
+best.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You are kind to undertake the defence of a man
+who has permitted himself to treat you with so much insolence.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I never feel shocked at, or bear malice for, what
+is spoken in character; and most perfectly in character<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>538<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+was that vulgar and violent onset against me, when he had
+quitted you worsted.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You cease now to be Henry's tutor?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I shall be parted from Henry for a while (if he and
+I live we shall meet again somehow, for we love each other)
+and be ousted from the bosom of the Sympson family for
+ever. Happily this change does not leave me stranded;
+it but hurries into premature execution designs long formed.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No change finds you off your guard. I was sure,
+in your calm way, you would be prepared for sudden mutation.
+I always think you stand in the world like a solitary
+but watchful, thoughtful archer in a wood. And the quiver
+on your shoulder holds more arrows than one; your bow is
+provided with a second string. Such too is your brother's
+wont. You two might go forth homeless hunters to the
+loneliest western wilds; all would be well with you. The
+hewn tree would make you a hut, the cleared forest yield
+you fields from its stripped bosom, the buffalo would feel
+your rifle-shot, and with lowered horns and hump pay
+homage at your feet.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And any Indian tribe of Blackfeet or Flatheads would
+afford us a bride, perhaps?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No' (hesitating), 'I think not. The savage is sordid.
+I think&mdash;that is, I <em>hope</em>&mdash;you would neither of you share
+your hearth with that to which you could not give your
+heart.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What suggested the wild West to your mind, Miss
+Keeldar? Have you been with me in spirit when I did
+not see you? Have you entered into my day-dreams,
+and beheld my brain labouring at its scheme of a future?'</p>
+
+<p>"She had separated a slip of paper for lighting tapers&mdash;a
+spill, as it is called&mdash;into fragments. She threw morsel
+by morsel into the fire, and stood pensively watching them
+consume. She did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"'How did you learn what you seem to know about
+my intentions?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I know nothing. I am only discovering them now.
+I spoke at hazard.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Your hazard sounds like divination. A tutor I will
+never be again; never take a pupil after Henry and yourself;
+not again will I sit habitually at another man's table&mdash;no
+more be the appendage of a family. I am now a man
+of thirty; I have never been free since I was a boy of ten.
+I have such a thirst for freedom, such a deep passion to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>539<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+know her and call her mine, such a day-desire and night-longing
+to win her and possess her, I will not refuse to cross
+the Atlantic for her sake; her I will follow deep into virgin
+woods. Mine it shall not be to accept a savage girl as a
+slave&mdash;she could not be a wife. I know no white woman
+whom I love that would accompany me; but I am certain
+Liberty will await me, sitting under a pine. When I call
+her she will come to my loghouse, and she shall fill my arms.'</p>
+
+<p>"She could not hear me speak so unmoved, and she
+<em>was</em> moved. It was right&mdash;I meant to move her. She
+could not answer me, nor could she look at me. I should
+have been sorry if she could have done either. Her cheek
+glowed as if a crimson flower through whose petals the sun
+shone had cast its light upon it. On the white lid and dark
+lashes of her downcast eye trembled all that is graceful in
+the sense of half-painful, half-pleasing shame.</p>
+
+<p>"Soon she controlled her emotion, and took all her
+feelings under command. I saw she had felt insurrection,
+and was waking to empire. She sat down. There
+was that in her face which I could read. It said, I see the
+line which is my limit; nothing shall make me pass it.
+I feel&mdash;I know how far I may reveal my feelings, and when
+I must clasp the volume. I have advanced to a certain
+distance, as far as the true and sovereign and undegraded
+nature of my kind permits; now here I stand rooted. My
+heart may break if it is baffled; let it break. It shall never
+dishonour me; it shall never dishonour my sisterhood in
+me. Suffering before degradation! death before treachery!</p>
+
+<p>"I, for my part, said, 'If she were poor, I would be
+at her feet; if she were lowly, I would take her in my arms.
+Her gold and her station are two griffins that guard her
+on each side. Love looks and longs, and dares not; Passion
+hovers round, and is kept at bay; Truth and Devotion
+are scared. There is nothing to lose in winning her, no
+sacrifice to make. It is all clear gain, and therefore unimaginably
+difficult.'</p>
+
+<p>"Difficult or not, something must be done, something
+must be said. I could not, and would not, sit silent with
+all that beauty modestly mute in my presence. I spoke
+thus, and still I spoke with calm. Quiet as my words were,
+I could hear they fell in a tone distinct, round, and deep.</p>
+
+<p>"'Still, I know I shall be strangely placed with that
+mountain nymph Liberty. She is, I suspect, akin to that
+Solitude which I once wooed, and from which I now seek<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>540<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+a divorce. These Oreads are peculiar. They come upon
+you with an unearthly charm, like some starlight evening;
+they inspire a wild but not warm delight; their beauty
+is the beauty of spirits; their grace is not the grace of life,
+but of seasons or scenes in nature. Theirs is the dewy bloom
+of morning, the languid flush of evening, the peace of the
+moon, the changefulness of clouds. I want and will have
+something different. This elfish splendour looks chill to
+my vision, and feels frozen to my touch. I am not a poet;
+I cannot live with abstractions. You, Miss Keeldar, have
+sometimes, in your laughing satire, called me a material
+philosopher, and implied that I live sufficiently for the
+substantial. Certainly I feel material from head to foot;
+and glorious as Nature is, and deeply as I worship her with
+the solid powers of a solid heart, I would rather behold her
+through the soft human eyes of a loved and lovely wife than
+through the wild orbs of the highest goddess of Olympus.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Juno could not cook a buffalo steak as you like it,'
+said she.</p>
+
+<p>"'She could not; but I will tell you who could&mdash;some
+young, penniless, friendless orphan girl. I wish I could
+find such a one&mdash;pretty enough for me to love, with something
+of the mind and heart suited to my taste; not uneducated&mdash;honest
+and modest. I care nothing for attainments,
+but I would fain have the germ of those sweet natural
+powers which nothing acquired can rival; any temper
+Fate wills&mdash;I can manage the hottest. To such a creature
+as this I should like to be first tutor and then husband. I
+would teach her my language, my habits and my principles,
+and then I would reward her with my love.'</p>
+
+<p>"'<em>Reward</em> her, lord of the creation&mdash;<em>reward</em>
+<a name="quote2" id="quote2"></a><ins title="single close quote omitted">her!'</ins>"
+ejaculated she, with a curled lip.</p>
+
+<p>"'And be repaid a thousandfold.'</p>
+
+<p>"'If she willed it, monseigneur.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And she <em>should</em> will it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You have stipulated for any temper Fate wills. Compulsion
+is flint and a blow to the metal of some souls.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And love the spark it elicits.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Who cares for the love that is but a spark&mdash;seen,
+flown upward, and gone?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I must find my orphan girl. Tell me how, Miss
+Keeldar.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Advertise; and be sure you add, when you describe
+the qualifications, she must be a good plain cook.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>541<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"'I must find her; and when I do find her I shall marry
+her.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Not you!' and her voice took a sudden accent of
+peculiar scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"I liked this. I had roused her from the pensive mood
+in which I had first found her. I would stir her further.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why doubt it?'</p>
+
+<p>"'<em>You</em> marry!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, of course; nothing more evident than that I can
+and shall.'</p>
+
+<p>"'The contrary is evident, Mr. Moore.'</p>
+
+<p>"She charmed me in this mood&mdash;waxing disdainful,
+half insulting; pride, temper, derision, blent in her large
+fine eye, that had just now the look of a merlin's.</p>
+
+<p>"'Favour me with your reasons for such an opinion,
+Miss Keeldar.'</p>
+
+<p>"'How will <em>you</em> manage to marry, I wonder?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I shall manage it with ease and speed when I find
+the proper person.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Accept celibacy!' (and she made a gesture with
+her hand as if she gave me something) 'take it as your
+doom!'</p>
+
+<p>"'No; you cannot give what I already have. Celibacy
+has been mine for thirty years. If you wish to offer
+me a gift, a parting present, a keepsake, you must change
+the boon.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Take worse, then!'</p>
+
+<p>"'How&mdash;what?'</p>
+
+<p>"I now felt, and looked, and spoke eagerly. I was
+unwise to quit my sheet-anchor of calm even for an instant;
+it deprived me of an advantage and transferred it to her.
+The little spark of temper dissolved in sarcasm, and eddied
+over her countenance in the ripples of a mocking smile.</p>
+
+<p>"'Take a wife that has paid you court to save your
+modesty, and thrust herself upon you to spare your scruples.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Only show me where.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Any stout widow that has had a few husbands already,
+and can manage these things.'</p>
+
+<p>"'She must not be rich, then. Oh these riches!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Never would you have gathered the produce of the
+gold-bearing garden. You have not courage to confront
+the sleepless dragon; you have not craft to borrow the
+aid of Atlas.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You look hot and haughty.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>542<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"'And you far haughtier. Yours is the monstrous pride
+which counterfeits humility.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am a dependant; I know my place.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am a woman; I know mine.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am poor; I must be proud.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I have received ordinances, and own obligations
+stringent as yours.'</p>
+
+<p>"We had reached a critical point now, and we halted
+and looked at each other. <em>She</em> would not give in, I felt.
+Beyond this I neither felt nor saw. A few moments yet
+were mine. The end was coming&mdash;I heard its rush&mdash;but
+not come. I would dally, wait, talk, and when impulse
+urged I would act. I am never in a hurry; I never was in
+a hurry in my whole life. Hasty people drink the nectar
+of existence scalding hot; I taste it cool as dew. I proceeded:
+'Apparently, Miss Keeldar, you are as little
+likely to marry as myself. I know you have refused three&mdash;nay,
+four&mdash;advantageous offers, and, I believe, a fifth.
+Have you rejected Sir Philip Nunnely?'</p>
+
+<p>"I put this question suddenly and promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Did you think I should take him?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I thought you might.'</p>
+
+<p>"'On what grounds, may I ask?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Conformity of rank, age, pleasing contrast of temper&mdash;for
+<em>he</em> is mild and amiable&mdash;harmony of intellectual
+tastes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'A beautiful sentence! Let us take it to pieces.
+"Conformity of rank." He is quite above me. Compare
+my grange with his palace, if you please. I am disdained
+by his kith and kin. "Suitability of age." We were
+born in the same year; consequently he is still a boy, while
+I am a woman&mdash;ten years his senior to all intents and purposes.
+"Contrast of temper." Mild and amiable, is he;
+I&mdash;what? Tell me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Sister of the spotted, bright, quick, fiery leopard.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And you would mate me with a kid&mdash;the millennium
+being yet millions of centuries from mankind; being
+yet, indeed, an archangel high in the seventh heaven, uncommissioned
+to descend? Unjust barbarian! "Harmony
+of intellectual tastes." He is fond of poetry, and
+I hate it&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you? That is news.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I absolutely shudder at the sight of metre or at the
+sound of rhyme whenever I am at the priory or Sir Philip<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>543<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+at Fieldhead. Harmony, indeed! When did I whip up
+syllabub sonnets or string stanzas fragile as fragments
+of glass? and when did I betray a belief that those penny-beads
+were genuine brilliants?'</p>
+
+<p>"'You might have the satisfaction of leading him to
+a higher standard, of improving his tastes.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Leading and improving! teaching and tutoring!
+bearing and forbearing! Pah! my husband is not to be
+my baby. I am not to set him his daily lesson and see that
+he learns it, and give him a sugar-plum if he is good, and a
+patient, pensive, pathetic lecture if he is bad. But it is
+like a tutor to talk of the "satisfaction of teaching." I
+suppose <em>you</em> think it the finest employment in the world.
+I don't. I reject it. Improving a husband! No. I
+shall insist upon my husband improving me, or else we
+part.'</p>
+
+<p>"'God knows it is needed!'</p>
+
+<p>"'What do you mean by that, Mr. Moore?'</p>
+
+<p>"'What I say. Improvement is imperatively needed.'</p>
+
+<p>"'If you were a woman you would school <em>monsieur,
+votre mari</em>, charmingly. It would just suit you; schooling
+is your vocation.'</p>
+
+<p>"'May I ask whether, in your present just and gentle
+mood, you mean to taunt me with being a tutor?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, bitterly; and with anything else you please&mdash;any
+defect of which you are painfully conscious.'</p>
+
+<p>"'With being poor, for instance?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Of course; that will sting you. You are sore about
+your poverty; you brood over that.'</p>
+
+<p>"'With having nothing but a very plain person to
+offer the woman who may master my heart?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Exactly. You have a habit of calling yourself plain.
+You are sensitive about the cut of your features because
+they are not quite on an Apollo pattern. You abase them
+more than is needful, in the faint hope that others may say
+a word in their behalf&mdash;which won't happen. Your face
+is nothing to boast of, certainly&mdash;not a pretty line nor a
+pretty tint to be found therein.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Compare it with your own.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It looks like a god of Egypt&mdash;a great sand-buried
+stone head; or rather I will compare it to nothing so lofty.
+It looks like Tartar. You are my mastiff's cousin. I think
+you as much like him as a man can be like a dog.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Tartar is your dear companion. In summer, when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>544<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+you rise early, and run out into the fields to wet your feet
+with the dew, and freshen your cheek and uncurl your hair
+with the breeze, you always call him to follow you. You
+call him sometimes with a whistle that you learned from
+me. In the solitude of your wood, when you think nobody
+but Tartar is listening, you whistle the very tunes you imitated
+from my lips, or sing the very songs you have caught
+up by ear from my voice. I do not ask whence flows the
+feeling which you pour into these songs, for I know it flows
+out of your heart, Miss Keeldar. In the winter evenings
+Tartar lies at your feet. You suffer him to rest his head
+on your perfumed lap; you let him couch on the borders
+of your satin raiment. His rough hide is familiar with the
+contact of your hand. I once saw you kiss him on that
+snow-white beauty spot which stars his broad forehead.
+It is dangerous to say I am like Tartar; it suggests to me
+a claim to be treated like Tartar.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Perhaps, sir, you can extort as much from your penniless
+and friendless young orphan girl, when you find her.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh could I find her such as I image her! Something
+to tame first, and teach afterwards; to break in,
+and then to fondle. To lift the destitute proud thing out
+of poverty; to establish power over and then to be indulgent
+to the capricious moods that never were influenced and
+never indulged before; to see her alternately irritated and
+subdued about twelve times in the twenty-four hours; and
+perhaps, eventually, when her training was accomplished,
+to behold her the exemplary and patient mother of about
+a dozen children, only now and then lending little Louis a
+cordial cuff by way of paying the interest of the vast debt she
+owes his father. Oh' (I went on), 'my orphan girl would
+give me many a kiss; she would watch on the threshold
+for my coming home of an evening; she would run into
+my arms; she would keep my hearth as bright as she
+would make it warm. God bless the sweet idea! Find her
+I must.'</p>
+
+<p>"Her eyes emitted an eager flash, her lips opened;
+but she reclosed them, and impetuously turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tell me, tell me where she is, Miss Keeldar!'</p>
+
+<p>"Another movement, all haughtiness and fire and impulse.</p>
+
+<p>"'I must know. You <em>can</em> tell me; you <em>shall</em> tell me.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I <em>never will</em>.'</p>
+
+<p>"She turned to leave me. Could I now let her part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>545<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+as she had always parted from me? No. I had gone
+too far not to finish; I had come too near the end not to
+drive home to it. All the encumbrance of doubt, all the
+rubbish of indecision, must be removed at once, and the
+plain truth must be ascertained. She must take her part,
+and tell me what it was; I must take mine and adhere
+to it.</p>
+
+<p>"'A minute, madam,' I said, keeping my hand on the
+door-handle before I opened it. 'We have had a long
+conversation this morning, but the last word has not been
+spoken yet. It is yours to speak it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'May I pass?'</p>
+
+<p>"'No; I guard the door. I would almost rather die
+than let you leave me just now, without speaking the word
+I demand.'</p>
+
+<p>"'What dare you expect me to say?'</p>
+
+<p>"'What I am dying and perishing to hear; what I <em>must</em>
+and <em>will</em> hear; what you dare not now suppress.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. Moore, I hardly know what you mean. You
+are not like yourself.'</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I hardly was like my usual self, for I scared
+her&mdash;that I could see. It was right: she must be scared
+to be won.</p>
+
+<p>"'You <em>do</em> know what I mean, and for the first time I
+stand before you <em>myself</em>. I have flung off the tutor, and beg
+to introduce you to the man. And remember, he is a gentleman.'</p>
+
+<p>"She trembled. She put her hand to mine as if to
+remove it from the lock. She might as well have tried
+to loosen, by her soft touch, metal welded to metal. She
+felt she was powerless, and receded; and again she trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"What change I underwent I cannot explain, but out
+of her emotion passed into me a new spirit. I neither was
+crushed nor elated by her lands and gold; I thought not
+of them, cared not for them. They were nothing&mdash;dross
+that could not dismay me. I saw only herself&mdash;her young
+beautiful form, the grace, the majesty, the modesty of her
+girlhood.</p>
+
+<p>"'My pupil,' I said.</p>
+
+<p>"'My master,' was the low answer.</p>
+
+<p>"'I have a thing to tell you.'</p>
+
+<p>"She waited with declined brow and ringlets drooped.</p>
+
+<p>"'I have to tell you that for four years you have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>546<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+growing into your tutor's heart, and that you are rooted
+there now. I have to declare that you have bewitched
+me, in spite of sense, and experience, and difference of
+station and estate. You have so looked, and spoken,
+and moved; so shown me your faults and your virtues&mdash;beauties
+rather, they are hardly so stern as virtues&mdash;that I
+love you&mdash;love you with my life and strength. It is out
+now.'</p>
+
+<p>"She sought what to say, but could not find a word.
+She tried to rally, but vainly. I passionately repeated
+that I loved her.</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, Mr. Moore, what then?' was the answer I
+got, uttered in a tone that would have been petulant if it
+had not faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you nothing to say to me? Have you no love
+for me?'</p>
+
+<p>"'A little bit.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am not to be tortured. I will not even play at
+present.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't want to play; I want to go.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I wonder you dare speak of going at this moment.
+<em>You</em> go! What! with my heart in your hand, to lay it
+on your toilet and pierce it with your pins? From my
+presence you do not stir, out of my reach you do not stray,
+till I receive a hostage&mdash;pledge for pledge&mdash;your heart for
+mine.'</p>
+
+<p>"'The thing you want is mislaid&mdash;lost some time since.
+Let me go and seek it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Declare that it is where your keys often are&mdash;in
+my possession.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You ought to know. And where are my keys, Mr.
+Moore? Indeed and truly I have lost them again; and
+Mrs. Gill wants some money, and I have none, except this
+sixpence.'</p>
+
+<p>"She took the coin out of her apron pocket, and showed
+it in her palm. I could have trifled with her, but it would
+not do; life and death were at stake. Mastering at once the
+sixpence and the hand that held it, I demanded, 'Am I to
+die without you, or am I to live for you?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do as you please. Far be it from me to dictate your
+choice.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You shall tell me with your own lips whether you doom
+me to exile or call me to hope.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Go; I can bear to be left.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>547<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"'Perhaps I too <em>can</em> bear to leave you. But reply,
+Shirley, my pupil, my sovereign&mdash;reply.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Die without me if you will; live for me if you dare.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am not afraid of you, my leopardess. I <em>dare</em> live
+for and with you, from this hour till my death. Now, then,
+I have you. You are mine. I will never let you go. Wherever
+my home be, I have chosen my wife. If I stay in England,
+in England you will stay; if I cross the Atlantic, you
+will cross it also. Our lives are riveted, our lots intertwined.'</p>
+
+<p>"'And are we equal, then, sir? are we equal at last?'</p>
+
+<p>"'You are younger, frailer, feebler, more ignorant
+than I.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Will you be good to me, and never tyrannize?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Will you let me breathe, and not bewilder me? You
+must not smile at present. The world swims and changes
+round me. The sun is a dizzying scarlet blaze, the sky a
+violet vortex whirling over me.'</p>
+
+<p>"I am a strong man, but I staggered as I spoke. All
+creation was exaggerated. Colour grew more vivid, motion
+more rapid, life itself more vital. I hardly saw her for a
+moment, but I heard her voice&mdash;pitilessly sweet. She
+would not subdue one of her charms in compassion. Perhaps
+she did not know what I felt.</p>
+
+<p>"'You name me leopardess. Remember, the leopardess
+is tameless,' said she.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tame or fierce, wild or subdued, you are <em>mine</em>.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I am glad I know my keeper and am used to him.
+Only his voice will I follow; only his hand shall manage
+me; only at his feet will I repose.'</p>
+
+<p>"I took her back to her seat, and sat down by her side.
+I wanted to hear her speak again. I could never have
+enough of her voice and her words.</p>
+
+<p>"'How much do you love me?' I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah! you know. I will not gratify you&mdash;I will not
+flatter.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I don't know half enough; my heart craves to be
+fed. If you knew how hungry and ferocious it is, you
+would hasten to stay it with a kind word or two.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Poor Tartar!' said she, touching and patting my
+hand&mdash;'poor fellow, stalwart friend, Shirley's pet and
+favourite, lie down!'</p>
+
+<p>"'But I will not lie down till I am fed with one sweet
+word.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>548<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"And at last she gave it.</p>
+
+<p>"'Dear Louis, be faithful to me; never leave me. I
+don't care for life unless I may pass it at your side.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Something more.'</p>
+
+<p>"She gave me a change; it was not her way to offer
+the same dish twice.</p>
+
+<p>"'Sir,' she said, starting up, 'at your peril you ever again
+name such sordid things as money, or poverty, or inequality.
+It will be absolutely dangerous to torment me with these
+maddening scruples. I defy you to do it.'</p>
+
+<p>"My face grew hot. I did once more wish I were not
+so poor or she were not so rich. She saw the transient
+misery; and then, indeed, she caressed me. Blent with
+torment, I experienced rapture.</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. Moore,' said she, looking up with a sweet, open,
+earnest countenance, 'teach me and help me to be good.
+I do not ask you to take off my shoulders all the cares and
+duties of property, but I ask you to share the burden, and
+to show me how to sustain my part well. Your judgment
+is well balanced, your heart is kind, your principles are sound.
+I know you are wise; I feel you are benevolent; I believe
+you are conscientious. Be my companion through life;
+be my guide where I am ignorant; be my master where I
+am faulty; be my friend always!'</p>
+
+<p>"'So help me God, I will!'"</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>Yet again a passage from the blank book if you like,
+reader; if you don't like it, pass it over:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Sympsons are gone, but not before discovery
+and explanation. My manner must have betrayed something,
+or my looks. I was quiet, but I forgot to be guarded
+sometimes. I stayed longer in the room than usual; I
+could not bear to be out of her presence; I returned to it,
+and basked in it, like Tartar in the sun. If she left the oak
+parlour, instinctively I rose and left it too. She chid me
+for this procedure more than once. I did it with a vague,
+blundering idea of getting a word with her in the hall or
+elsewhere. Yesterday towards dusk I had her to myself
+for five minutes by the hall fire. We stood side by side;
+she was railing at me, and I was enjoying the sound of her
+voice. The young ladies passed, and looked at us; we
+did not separate. Ere long they repassed, and again looked.
+Mrs. Sympson came; we did not move. Mr. Sympson
+opened the dining-room door. Shirley flashed him back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>549<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+full payment for his spying gaze. She curled her lip and
+tossed her tresses. The glance she gave was at once explanatory
+and defiant. It said: 'I like Mr. Moore's society,
+and I dare you to find fault with my taste.'</p>
+
+<p>"I asked, 'Do you mean him to understand how matters
+are?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I do,' said she; 'but I leave the development to
+chance. There will be a scene. I neither invite it nor
+fear it; only, you must be present, for I am inexpressibly
+tired of facing him solus. I don't like to see him in a rage.
+He then puts off all his fine proprieties and conventional
+disguises, and the real human being below is what you
+would call <em>commun, plat, bas&mdash;vilain et un peu m&eacute;chant</em>. His
+ideas are not clean, Mr. Moore; they want scouring with
+soft soap and fuller's earth. I think, if he could add his
+imagination to the contents of Mrs. Gill's bucking-basket,
+and let her boil it in her copper, with rain-water and bleaching-powder
+(I hope you think me a tolerable laundress),
+it would do him incalculable good.'</p>
+
+<p>"This morning, fancying I heard her descend somewhat
+early, I was down instantly. I had not been deceived.
+There she was, busy at work in the breakfast-parlour, of
+which the housemaid was completing the arrangement and
+dusting. She had risen betimes to finish some little keepsake
+she intended for Henry. I got only a cool reception,
+which I accepted till the girl was gone, taking my book to
+the window-seat very quietly. Even when we were alone I
+was slow to disturb her. To sit with her in sight was happiness,
+and the proper happiness, for early morning&mdash;serene,
+incomplete, but progressive. Had I been obtrusive, I
+knew I should have encountered rebuff. 'Not at home to
+suitors' was written on her brow. Therefore I read on,
+stole now and then a look, watched her countenance soften
+and open as she felt I respected her mood, and enjoyed the
+gentle content of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>"The distance between us shrank, and the light hoar-frost
+thawed insensibly. Ere an hour elapsed I was at
+her side, watching her sew, gathering her sweet smiles
+and her merry words, which fell for me abundantly. We
+sat, as we had a right to sit, side by side; my arm rested
+on her chair; I was near enough to count the stitches of
+her work, and to discern the eye of her needle. The door
+suddenly opened.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe, if I had just then started from her, she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>550<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+have despised me. Thanks to the phlegm of my nature,
+I rarely start. When I am well-off, <em>bien</em>, comfortable,
+I am not soon stirred. <em>Bien</em> I was&mdash;<em>tr&egrave;s bien</em>&mdash;consequently
+immutable. No muscle moved. I hardly looked to the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good-morning, uncle,' said she, addressing that personage,
+who paused on the threshold in a state of petrifaction.</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you been long downstairs, Miss Keeldar, and
+alone with Mr. Moore?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, a very long time. We both came down early;
+it was scarcely light.'</p>
+
+<p>"'The proceeding is improper&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>"'It was at first, I was rather cross, and not civil;
+but you will perceive that we are now friends.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I perceive more than you would wish me to perceive.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Hardly, sir,' said I; 'we have no disguises. Will
+you permit me to intimate that any further observations
+you have to make may as well be addressed to me? Henceforward
+I stand between Miss Keeldar and all annoyance.'</p>
+
+<p>"'<em>You!</em> What have <em>you</em> to do with Miss Keeldar?'</p>
+
+<p>"'To protect, watch over, serve her.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You, sir&mdash;you, the tutor?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Not one word of insult, sir,' interposed she; 'not
+one syllable of disrespect to Mr. Moore in this house.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Do you take his part?'</p>
+
+<p>"'<em>His</em> part? oh yes!'</p>
+
+<p>"She turned to me with a sudden fond movement,
+which I met by circling her with my arm. She and I both
+rose.</p>
+
+<p>"'Good Ged!' was the cry from the morning-gown
+standing quivering at the door. <em>Ged</em>, I think, must be the
+cognomen of Mr. Sympson's Lares. When hard pressed
+he always invokes this idol.</p>
+
+<p>"'Come forward, uncle; you shall hear all.&mdash;Tell him
+all, Louis.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I dare him to speak&mdash;the beggar! the knave! the
+specious hypocrite! the vile, insinuating, infamous menial!&mdash;Stand
+apart from my niece, sir. Let her go!'</p>
+
+<p>"She clung to me with energy. 'I am near my future
+husband,' she said. 'Who dares touch him or me?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Her husband!' He raised and spread his hands.
+He dropped into a seat.</p>
+
+<p>"'A while ago you wanted much to know whom I meant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>551<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+to marry. My intention was then formed, but not mature
+for communication. Now it is ripe, sun-mellowed, perfect.
+Take the crimson peach&mdash;take Louis Moore!'</p>
+
+<p>"'But' (savagely) 'you <em>shall not</em> have him; he <em>shall
+not</em> have you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I would die before I would have another. I would
+die if I might not have him.'</p>
+
+<p>"He uttered words with which this page shall never be
+polluted.</p>
+
+<p>"She turned white as death; she shook all over; she
+lost her strength. I laid her down on the sofa; just looked
+to ascertain that she had not fainted&mdash;of which, with a divine
+smile, she assured me. I kissed her; and then, if I were to
+perish, I cannot give a clear account of what happened in
+the course of the next five minutes. She has since&mdash;through
+tears, laughter, and trembling&mdash;told me that I turned terrible,
+and gave myself to the demon. She says I left her,
+made one bound across the room; that Mr. Sympson
+vanished through the door as if shot from a cannon. I also
+vanished, and she heard Mrs. Gill scream.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Gill was still screaming when I came to my senses.
+I was then in another apartment&mdash;the oak parlour, I think.
+I held Sympson before me crushed into a chair, and my hand
+was on his cravat. His eyes rolled in his head; I was
+strangling him, I think. The housekeeper stood wringing
+her hands, entreating me to desist. I desisted that moment,
+and felt at once as cool as stone. But I told Mrs. Gill to
+fetch the Red-House Inn chaise instantly, and informed
+Mr. Sympson he must depart from Fieldhead the instant it
+came. Though half frightened out of his wits, he declared
+he would not. Repeating the former order, I added a
+commission to fetch a constable. I said, 'You <em>shall</em> go,
+by fair means or foul.'</p>
+
+<p>"He threatened prosecution; I cared for nothing. I
+had stood over him once before, not quite so fiercely as
+now, but full as austerely. It was one night when burglars
+attempted the house at Sympson Grove, and in his wretched
+cowardice he would have given a vain alarm, without daring
+to offer defence. I had then been obliged to protect his
+family and his abode by mastering himself&mdash;and I had
+succeeded. I now remained with him till the chaise came.
+I marshalled him to it, he scolding all the way. He was
+terribly bewildered, as well as enraged. He would have
+resisted me, but knew not how. He called for his wife and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>552<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+daughters to come. I said they should follow him as soon
+as they could prepare. The smoke, the fume, the fret of
+his demeanour was inexpressible, but it was a fury incapable
+of producing a deed. That man, properly handled, must
+ever remain impotent. I know he will never touch me
+with the law. I know his wife, over whom he tyrannizes
+in trifles, guides him in matters of importance. I have
+long since earned her undying mother's gratitude by my
+devotion to her boy. In some of Henry's ailments I have
+nursed him&mdash;better, she said, than any woman could nurse.
+She will never forget that. She and her daughters quitted
+me to-day, in mute wrath and consternation; but she
+respects me. When Henry clung to my neck as I lifted
+him into the carriage and placed him by her side, when I
+arranged her own wrapping to make her warm, though she
+turned her head from me, I saw the tears start to her eyes.
+She will but the more zealously advocate my cause because
+she has left me in anger. I am glad of this&mdash;not for my
+own sake, but for that of my life and idol&mdash;my Shirley."</p>
+
+<p>Once again he writes, a week after:&mdash;"I am now at
+Stilbro'. I have taken up my temporary abode with a
+friend&mdash;a professional man, in whose business I can be
+useful. Every day I ride over to Fieldhead. How long
+will it be before I can call that place my home, and its
+mistress mine? I am not easy, not tranquil; I am tantalized,
+sometimes tortured. To see her now, one would
+think she had never pressed her cheek to my shoulder, or
+clung to me with tenderness or trust. I feel unsafe; she
+renders me miserable. I am shunned when I visit her;
+she withdraws from my reach. Once this day I lifted her
+face, resolved to get a full look down her deep, dark eyes.
+Difficult to describe what I read there! Pantheress!
+beautiful forest-born! wily, tameless, peerless nature!
+She gnaws her chain; I see the white teeth working at
+the steel! She has dreams of her wild woods and pinings
+after virgin freedom. I wish Sympson would come again,
+and oblige her again to entwine her arms about me. I wish
+there was danger she should lose me, as there is risk I shall
+lose her. No; final loss I do not fear, but long delay&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It is now night&mdash;midnight. I have spent the afternoon
+and evening at Fieldhead. Some hours ago she
+passed me, coming down the oak staircase to the hall.
+She did not know I was standing in the twilight, near the
+staircase window, looking at the frost-bright constellations.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>553<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+How closely she glided against the banisters! How shyly
+shone her large eyes upon me! How evanescent, fugitive,
+fitful she looked&mdash;slim and swift as a northern streamer!</p>
+
+<p>"I followed her into the drawing-room. Mrs. Pryor
+and Caroline Helstone were both there; she has summoned
+them to bear her company awhile. In her white
+evening dress, with her long hair flowing full and wavy,
+with her noiseless step, her pale cheek, her eye full of night
+and lightning, she looked, I thought, spirit-like&mdash;a thing
+made of an element, the child of a breeze and a flame, the
+daughter of ray and raindrop&mdash;a thing never to be overtaken,
+arrested, fixed. I wished I could avoid following her with
+my gaze as she moved here and there, but it was impossible.
+I talked with the other ladies as well as I could, but still I
+looked at her. She was very silent; I think she never
+spoke to me&mdash;not even when she offered me tea. It happened
+that she was called out a minute by Mrs. Gill. I
+passed into the moonlit hall, with the design of getting a
+word as she returned; nor in this did I fail.</p>
+
+<p>"'Miss Keeldar, stay one instant,' said I, meeting her.</p>
+
+<p>"'Why? the hall is too cold.'</p>
+
+<p>"'It is not cold for me; at my side it should not be cold
+for you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But I shiver.'</p>
+
+<p>"'With fear, I believe. What makes you fear me?
+You are quiet and distant. Why?'</p>
+
+<p>"'I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin
+meeting me in the moonlight.'</p>
+
+<p>"'<em>Do not&mdash;do not</em> pass! Stay with me awhile. Let
+us exchange a few quiet words. It is three days since I
+spoke to you alone. Such changes are cruel.'</p>
+
+<p>"'I have no wish to be cruel,' she responded, softly
+enough. Indeed there was softness in her whole deportment&mdash;in
+her face, in her voice; but there was also reserve,
+and an air fleeting, evanishing, intangible.</p>
+
+<p>"'You certainly give me pain,' said I. 'It is hardly
+a week since you called me your future husband and treated
+me as such. Now I am once more the tutor for you. I am
+addressed as Mr. Moore and sir. Your lips have forgotten
+Louis.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No, Louis, no. It is an easy, liquid name&mdash;not soon
+forgotten.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Be cordial to Louis, then; approach him&mdash;let him
+approach.'</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>554<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"'I <em>am</em> cordial,' said she, hovering aloof like a white
+shadow.</p>
+
+<p>"'Your voice is very sweet and very low,' I answered,
+quietly advancing. 'You seem subdued, but still startled.'</p>
+
+<p>"'No&mdash;quite calm, and afraid of nothing,' she assured
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Of nothing but your votary.'</p>
+
+<p>"I bent a knee to the flags at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"'You see I am in a new world, Mr. Moore. I don't
+know myself; I don't know you. But rise. When you
+do so I feel troubled and disturbed.'</p>
+
+<p>"I obeyed. It would not have suited me to retain that
+attitude long. I courted serenity and confidence for her,
+and not vainly. She trusted and clung to me again.</p>
+
+<p>"'Now, Shirley,' I said, 'you can conceive I am far
+from happy in my present uncertain, unsettled state.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh yes, you <em>are</em> happy!' she cried hastily. 'You
+don't know how happy you are. Any change will be for
+the worse.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Happy or not, I cannot bear to go on so much longer.
+You are too generous to require it.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Be reasonable, Louis; be patient! I like you because
+you are patient.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Like me no longer, then; love me instead. Fix
+our marriage day; think of it to-night, and decide.'</p>
+
+<p>"She breathed a murmur, inarticulate yet expressive;
+darted, or melted, from my arms&mdash;and I lost her."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>555<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.<br />
+<br />
+<small>THE WINDING-UP.</small></h2>
+
+
+<p class="noi"><span class="smcap">Yes</span>, reader, we must settle accounts now. I have only
+briefly to narrate the final fates of some of the personages
+whose acquaintance we have made in this narrative, and
+then you and I must shake hands, and for the present
+separate.</p>
+
+<p>Let us turn to the curates&mdash;to the much-loved, though
+long-neglected. Come forward, modest merit! Malone,
+I see, promptly answers the invocation. He knows his
+own description when he hears it.</p>
+
+<p>No, Peter Augustus; we can have nothing to say to you.
+It won't do. Impossible to trust ourselves with the touching
+tale of your deeds and destinies. Are you not aware,
+Peter, that a discriminating public has its crotchets; that the
+unvarnished truth does not answer; that plain facts will not
+digest? Do you not know that the squeak of the real pig
+is no more relished now than it was in days of yore? Were
+I to give the catastrophe of your life and conversation, the
+public would sweep off in shrieking hysterics, and there would
+be a wild cry for sal-volatile and burnt feathers. "Impossible!"
+would be pronounced here; "untrue!" would
+be responded there; "inartistic!" would be solemnly decided.
+Note well. Whenever you present the actual,
+simple truth, it is, somehow, always denounced as a lie&mdash;they
+disown it, cast it off, throw it on the parish; whereas
+the product of your own imagination, the mere figment, the
+sheer fiction, is adopted, petted, termed pretty, proper,
+sweetly natural&mdash;the little, spurious wretch gets all the
+comfits, the honest, lawful bantling all the cuffs. Such is
+the way of the world, Peter; and as you are the legitimate
+urchin, rude, unwashed, and naughty, you must stand
+down.</p>
+
+<p>Make way for Mr. Sweeting.</p>
+
+<p>Here he comes, with his lady on his arm&mdash;the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>556<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+splendid and the weightiest woman in Yorkshire&mdash;Mrs.
+Sweeting, formerly Miss Dora Sykes. They were married
+under the happiest auspices, Mr. Sweeting having
+been just inducted to a comfortable living, and Mr. Sykes
+being in circumstances to give Dora a handsome portion.
+They lived long and happily together, beloved by their
+parishioners and by a numerous circle of friends.</p>
+
+<p>There! I think the varnish has been put on very nicely.</p>
+
+<p>Advance, Mr. Donne.</p>
+
+<p>This gentleman turned out admirably&mdash;far better than
+either you or I could possibly have expected, reader. He,
+too, married a most sensible, quiet, lady-like little woman.
+The match was the making of him. He became an exemplary
+domestic character, and a truly active parish
+priest (as a pastor he, to his dying day, conscientiously
+refused to act). The outside of the cup and platter he
+burnished up with the best polishing-powder; the furniture
+of the altar and temple he looked after with the zeal
+of an upholsterer, the care of a cabinet-maker. His little
+school, his little church, his little parsonage, all owed their
+erection to him; and they did him credit. Each was a
+model in its way. If uniformity and taste in architecture
+had been the same thing as consistency and earnestness in
+religion, what a shepherd of a Christian flock Mr. Donne
+would have made! There was one art in the mastery of
+which nothing mortal ever surpassed Mr. Donne: it was
+that of begging. By his own unassisted efforts he begged
+all the money for all his erections. In this matter he had a
+grasp of plan, a scope of action quite unique. He begged of
+high and low&mdash;of the shoeless cottage brat and the coroneted
+duke. He sent out begging-letters far and wide&mdash;to
+old Queen Charlotte, to the princesses her daughters,
+to her sons the royal dukes, to the Prince Regent, to Lord
+Castlereagh, to every member of the ministry then in office;
+and, what is more remarkable, he screwed something out
+of every one of these personages. It is on record that he got
+five pounds from the close-fisted old lady Queen Charlotte,
+and two guineas from the royal profligate her eldest son.
+When Mr. Donne set out on begging expeditions, he armed
+himself in a complete suit of brazen mail. That you had
+given a hundred pounds yesterday was with him no reason
+why you should not give two hundred to-day. He would tell
+you so to your face, and, ten to one, get the money out of
+you. People gave to get rid of him. After all, he did some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>557<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+good with the cash. He was useful in his day and generation.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps I ought to remark that on the premature and
+sudden vanishing of Mr. Malone from the stage of Briarfield
+parish (you cannot know how it happened, reader;
+your curiosity must be robbed to pay your elegant love
+of the pretty and pleasing), there came as his successor
+another Irish curate, Mr. Macarthey. I am happy to be
+able to inform you, <em>with truth</em>, that this gentleman did as
+much credit to his country as Malone had done it discredit.
+He proved himself as decent, decorous, and conscientious
+as Peter was rampant, boisterous, and&mdash;&mdash; This last epithet
+I choose to suppress, because it would let the cat out of the
+bag. He laboured faithfully in the parish. The schools,
+both Sunday and day schools, flourished under his sway
+like green bay trees. Being human, of course he had his
+faults. These, however, were proper, steady-going, clerical
+faults&mdash;what many would call virtues. The circumstance
+of finding himself invited to tea with a Dissenter would
+unhinge him for a week. The spectacle of a Quaker wearing
+his hat in the church, the thought of an unbaptized fellow-creature
+being interred with Christian rites&mdash;these things
+could make strange havoc in Mr. Macarthey's physical and
+mental economy. Otherwise he was sane and rational,
+diligent and charitable.</p>
+
+<p>I doubt not a justice-loving public will have remarked,
+ere this, that I have thus far shown a criminal remissness
+in pursuing, catching, and bringing to condign punishment
+the would-be assassin of Mr. Robert Moore. Here
+was a fine opening to lead my willing readers a dance, at
+once decorous and exciting&mdash;a dance of law and gospel,
+of the dungeon, the dock, and the "dead-thraw." You
+might have liked it, reader, but <em>I</em> should not. I and my
+subject would presently have quarrelled, and then I should
+have broken down. I was happy to find that facts perfectly
+exonerated me from the attempt. The murderer
+was never punished, for the good reason that he was never
+caught&mdash;the result of the further circumstance that he was
+never pursued. The magistrates made a shuffling, as if
+they were going to rise and do valiant things; but since
+Moore himself, instead of urging and leading them as heretofore,
+lay still on his little cottage-couch, laughing in his
+sleeve, and sneering with every feature of his pale, foreign
+face, they considered better of it, and after fulfilling certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>558<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+indispensable forms, prudently resolved to let the matter
+quietly drop, which they did.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore knew who had shot him, and all Briarfield
+knew. It was no other than Michael Hartley, the half-crazed
+weaver once before alluded to, a frantic Antinomian
+in religion, and a mad leveller in politics. The poor soul
+died of delirium tremens a year after the attempt on Moore,
+and Robert gave his wretched widow a guinea to bury
+him.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>The winter is over and gone; spring has followed with
+beamy and shadowy, with flowery and showery flight.
+We are now in the heart of summer&mdash;in mid-June&mdash;the
+June of 1812.</p>
+
+<p>It is burning weather. The air is deep azure and red
+gold. It fits the time; it fits the age; it fits the present
+spirit of the nations. The nineteenth century wantons
+in its giant adolescence; the Titan boy uproots mountains
+in his game, and hurls rocks in his wild sport. This
+summer Bonaparte is in the saddle; he and his host scour
+Russian deserts. He has with him Frenchmen and Poles,
+Italians and children of the Rhine, six hundred thousand
+strong. He marches on old Moscow. Under old Moscow's
+walls the rude Cossack waits him. Barbarian stoic! he
+waits without fear of the boundless ruin rolling on. He puts
+his trust in a snow-cloud; the wilderness, the wind, and the
+hail-storm are his refuge; his allies are the elements&mdash;air,
+fire, water. And what are these? Three terrible
+archangels ever stationed before the throne of Jehovah.
+They stand clothed in white, girdled with golden girdles;
+they uplift vials, brimming with the wrath of God. Their
+time is the day of vengeance; their signal, the word of the
+Lord of hosts, "thundering with the voice of His excellency."</p>
+
+<p>"Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?
+or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, which I have
+reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle
+and war?</p>
+
+<p>"Go your ways. Pour out the vials of the wrath of
+God upon the earth."</p>
+
+<p>It is done. The earth is scorched with fire; the sea
+becomes "as the blood of a dead man;" the islands flee
+away; the mountains are not found.</p>
+
+<p>In this year, Lord Wellington assumed the reins in Spain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>559<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+They made him generalissimo, for their own salvation's
+sake. In this year he took Badajos, he fought the field of
+Vittoria, he captured Pampeluna, he stormed San Sebastian;
+in this year he won Salamanca.</p>
+
+<p>Men of Manchester, I beg your pardon for this slight
+<em>r&eacute;sum&eacute;</em> of warlike facts, but it is of no consequence. Lord
+Wellington is, for you, only a decayed old gentleman now.
+I rather think some of you have called him a "dotard;"
+you have taunted him with his age and the loss of his physical
+vigour. What fine heroes you are yourselves! Men
+like you have a right to trample on what is mortal in a demigod.
+Scoff at your ease; your scorn can never break his
+grand old heart.</p>
+
+<p>But come, friends, whether Quakers or cotton-printers,
+let us hold a peace-congress, and let out our venom quietly.
+We have been talking with unseemly zeal about bloody
+battles and butchering generals; we arrive now at a
+triumph in your line. On the 18th of June 1812 the Orders
+in Council were repealed, and the blockaded ports thrown
+open. You know very well&mdash;such of you as are old enough
+to remember&mdash;you made Yorkshire and Lancashire shake
+with your shout on that occasion. The ringers cracked
+a bell in Briarfield belfry; it is dissonant to this day. The
+Association of Merchants and Manufacturers dined together
+at Stilbro', and one and all went home in such a plight as
+their wives would never wish to witness more. Liverpool
+started and snorted like a river-horse roused amongst his
+reeds by thunder. Some of the American merchants felt
+threatenings of apoplexy, and had themselves bled&mdash;all,
+like wise men, at this first moment of prosperity, prepared to
+rush into the bowels of speculation, and to delve new difficulties,
+in whose depths they might lose themselves at some
+future day. Stocks which had been accumulating for
+years now went off in a moment, in the twinkling of an
+eye. Warehouses were lightened, ships were laden; work
+abounded, wages rose; the good time seemed come. These
+prospects might be delusive, but they were brilliant&mdash;to
+some they were even true. At that epoch, in that single
+month of June, many a solid fortune was realized.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>When a whole province rejoices, the humblest of its
+inhabitants tastes a festal feeling; the sound of public
+bells rouses the most secluded abode, as if with a call to
+be gay. And so Caroline Helstone thought, when she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>560<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+dressed herself more carefully than usual on the day of
+this trading triumph, and went, attired in her neatest
+muslin, to spend the afternoon at Fieldhead, there to
+superintend certain millinery preparations for a great
+event, the last appeal in these matters being reserved for
+her unimpeachable taste. She decided on the wreath, the
+veil, the dress to be worn at the altar. She chose various
+robes and fashions for more ordinary occasions, without
+much reference to the bride's opinion&mdash;that lady, indeed,
+being in a somewhat impracticable mood.</p>
+
+<p>Louis had presaged difficulties, and he had found them&mdash;in
+fact, his mistress had shown herself exquisitely provoking,
+putting off her marriage day by day, week by
+week, month by month, at first coaxing him with soft
+pretences of procrastination, and in the end rousing
+his whole deliberate but determined nature to revolt
+against her tyranny, at once so sweet and so intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>It had needed a sort of tempest-shock to bring her to
+the point; but there she was at last, fettered to a fixed
+day. There she lay, conquered by love, and bound with
+a vow.</p>
+
+<p>Thus vanquished and restricted, she pined, like any
+other chained denizen of deserts. Her captor alone could
+cheer her; his society only could make amends for the
+lost privilege of liberty. In his absence she sat or wandered
+alone, spoke little, and ate less.</p>
+
+<p>She furthered no preparations for her nuptials; Louis
+was himself obliged to direct all arrangements. He was
+virtually master of Fieldhead weeks before he became
+so nominally&mdash;the least presumptuous, the kindest master
+that ever was, but with his lady absolute. She abdicated
+without a word or a struggle. "Go to Mr. Moore, ask Mr.
+Moore," was her answer when applied to for orders. Never
+was wooer of wealthy bride so thoroughly absolved from
+the subaltern part, so inevitably compelled to assume a
+paramount character.</p>
+
+<p>In all this Miss Keeldar partly yielded to her disposition;
+but a remark she made a year afterwards proved
+that she partly also acted on system. "Louis," she said,
+"would never have learned to rule if she had not ceased
+to govern. The incapacity of the sovereign had developed
+the powers of the premier."</p>
+
+<p>It had been intended that Miss Helstone should act as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>561<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+bridesmaid at the approaching nuptials, but Fortune had
+destined her another part.</p>
+
+<p>She came home in time to water her plants. She had
+performed this little task. The last flower attended to
+was a rose-tree, which bloomed in a quiet green nook at the
+back of the house. This plant had received the refreshing
+shower; she was now resting a minute. Near the wall
+stood a fragment of sculptured stone&mdash;a monkish relic&mdash;once,
+perhaps, the base of a cross. She mounted it, that
+she might better command the view. She had still the
+watering pot in one hand; with the other her pretty dress
+was held lightly aside, to avoid trickling drops. She gazed
+over the wall, along some lonely fields; beyond three dusk
+trees, rising side by side against the sky; beyond a solitary
+thorn at the head of a solitary lane far off. She surveyed
+the dusk moors, where bonfires were kindling. The summer
+evening was warm; the bell-music was joyous; the blue
+smoke of the fires looked soft, their red flame bright. Above
+them, in the sky whence the sun had vanished, twinkled a
+silver point&mdash;the star of love.</p>
+
+<p>Caroline was not unhappy that evening&mdash;far otherwise;
+but as she gazed she sighed, and as she sighed a
+hand circled her, and rested quietly on her waist. Caroline
+thought she knew who had drawn near; she received the
+touch unstartled.</p>
+
+<p>"I am looking at Venus, mamma. See, she is beautiful.
+How white her lustre is, compared with the deep
+red of the bonfires!"</p>
+
+<p>The answer was a closer caress; and Caroline turned,
+and looked, not into Mrs. Pryor's matron face, but up at
+a dark manly visage. She dropped her watering-pot and
+stepped down from the pedestal.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been sitting with 'mamma' an hour," said
+the intruder. "I have had a long conversation with her.
+Where, meantime, have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Fieldhead. Shirley is as naughty as ever, Robert.
+She will neither say Yes nor No to any question put. She
+sits alone. I cannot tell whether she is melancholy or
+nonchalant. If you rouse her or scold her, she gives you
+a look, half wistful, half reckless, which sends you away
+as queer and crazed as herself. What Louis will make of
+her, I cannot tell. For my part, if I were a gentleman,
+I think I would not dare undertake her."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind them. They were cut out for each other.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>562<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Louis, strange to say, likes her all the better for these
+freaks. He will manage her, if any one can. She tries
+him, however. He has had a stormy courtship for such
+a calm character; but you see it all ends in victory for him.
+Caroline, I have sought you to ask an audience. Why are
+those bells ringing?"</p>
+
+<p>"For the repeal of your terrible law&mdash;the Orders you
+hate so much. You are pleased, are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yesterday evening at this time I was packing some
+books for a sea-voyage. They were the only possessions,
+except some clothes, seeds, roots, and tools, which I felt
+free to take with me to Canada. I was going to leave you."</p>
+
+<p>"To leave me? To leave <em>me</em>?"</p>
+
+<p>Her little fingers fastened on his arm; she spoke and
+looked affrighted.</p>
+
+<p>"Not now&mdash;not now. Examine my face&mdash;yes, look at
+me well. Is the despair of parting legible thereon?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked into an illuminated countenance, whose
+characters were all beaming, though the page itself was
+dusk. This face, potent in the majesty of its traits, shed
+down on her hope, fondness, delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Will the repeal do you good&mdash;<em>much</em> good, <em>immediate</em>
+good?" she inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"The repeal of the Orders in Council saves me. Now I
+shall not turn bankrupt; now I shall not give up business;
+now I shall not leave England; now I shall be no longer
+poor; now I can pay my debts; now all the cloth I have
+in my warehouses will be taken off my hands, and commissions
+given me for much more. This day lays for my
+fortunes a broad, firm foundation, on which, for the first
+time in my life, I can securely build."</p>
+
+<p>Caroline devoured his words; she held his hand in hers;
+she drew a long breath.</p>
+
+<p>"You are saved? Your heavy difficulties are lifted?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are lifted. I breathe. I can act."</p>
+
+<p>"At last! Oh, Providence is kind! Thank Him,
+Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"I do thank Providence."</p>
+
+<p>"And I also, for your sake!" She looked up devoutly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I can take more workmen, give better wages,
+lay wiser and more liberal plans, do some good, be less
+selfish. <em>Now</em>, Caroline, I can have a house&mdash;a home which
+I can truly call mine&mdash;and <em>now</em>&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He paused, for his deep voice was checked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>563<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"And <em>now</em>," he resumed&mdash;"now I can think of marriage,
+<em>now</em> I can seek a wife."</p>
+
+<p>This was no moment for her to speak. She did not
+speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Will Caroline, who meekly hopes to be forgiven as
+she forgives&mdash;will she pardon all I have made her suffer,
+all that long pain I have wickedly caused her, all that
+sickness of body and mind she owed to me? Will she
+forget what she knows of my poor ambition, my sordid
+schemes? Will she let me expiate these things? Will
+she suffer me to prove that, as I once deserted cruelly,
+trifled wantonly, injured basely, I can now love faithfully,
+cherish fondly, treasure tenderly?"</p>
+
+<p>His hand was in Caroline's still; a gentle pressure
+answered him.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Caroline mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Caroline is yours."</p>
+
+<p>"I will prize her. The sense of her value is here, in my
+heart; the necessity for her society is blended with my
+life. Not more jealous shall I be of the blood whose flow
+moves my pulses than of her happiness and well-being."</p>
+
+<p>"I love you, too, Robert, and will take faithful care
+of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you take faithful care of me? Faithful care!
+As if that rose should promise to shelter from tempest
+this hard gray stone! But she <em>will</em> care for me, in her
+way. These hands will be the gentle ministrants of every
+comfort I can taste. I know the being I seek to entwine
+with my own will bring me a solace, a charity, a purity, to
+which, of myself, I am a stranger."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Caroline was troubled; her lip quivered.</p>
+
+<p>"What flutters my dove?" asked Moore, as she nestled
+to and then uneasily shrank from him.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor mamma! I am all mamma has. Must I leave
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, I thought of that difficulty. I and
+'mamma' have discussed it."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what you wish, what you would like, and I
+will consider if it is possible to consent. But I cannot
+desert her, even for you. I cannot break her heart, even
+for your sake."</p>
+
+<p>"She was faithful when I was false&mdash;was she not? I
+never came near your sick-bed, and she watched it ceaselessly."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>564<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"What must I do? Anything but leave her."</p>
+
+<p>"At my wish you never shall leave her."</p>
+
+<p>"She may live very near us?"</p>
+
+<p>"With us&mdash;only she will have her own rooms and servant.
+For this she stipulates herself."</p>
+
+<p>"You know she has an income, that, with her habits,
+makes her quite independent?"</p>
+
+<p>"She told me that, with a gentle pride that reminded
+me of somebody else."</p>
+
+<p>"She is not at all interfering, and incapable of gossip."</p>
+
+<p>"I know her, Cary. But if, instead of being the personification
+of reserve and discretion, she were something
+quite opposite, I should not fear her."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet she will be your mother-in-law?" The speaker
+gave an arch little nod. Moore smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Louis and I are not of the order of men who fear their
+mothers-in-law, Cary. Our foes never have been, nor will
+be, those of our own household. I doubt not my mother-in-law
+will make much of me."</p>
+
+<p>"That she will&mdash;in her quiet way, you know. She is
+not demonstrative; and when you see her silent, or even
+cool, you must not fancy her displeased; it is only a manner
+she has. Be sure to let me interpret for her whenever she
+puzzles you; always believe my account of the matter,
+Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, implicitly! Jesting apart, I feel that she and I
+will suit&mdash;<em>on ne peut mieux</em>. Hortense, you know, is exquisitely
+susceptible&mdash;in our French sense of the word&mdash;and
+not, perhaps, always reasonable in her requirements;
+yet, dear, honest girl, I never painfully wounded her feelings
+or had a serious quarrel with her in my life."</p>
+
+<p>"No; you are most generously considerate, indeed,
+most tenderly indulgent to her; and you will be considerate
+with mamma. You are a gentleman all through,
+Robert, to the bone, and nowhere so perfect a gentleman
+as at your own fireside."</p>
+
+<p>"A eulogium I like; it is very sweet. I am well pleased
+my Caroline should view me in this light."</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma just thinks of you as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"She does not want to marry you&mdash;don't be vain; but
+she said to me the other day, 'My dear, Mr. Moore has
+pleasing manners; he is one of the few gentlemen I have
+seen who combine politeness with an air of sincerity.'"</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>565<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"'Mamma' is rather a misanthropist, is she not? Not
+the best opinion of the sterner sex?"</p>
+
+<p>"She forbears to judge them as a whole, but she has
+her exceptions whom she admires&mdash;Louis and Mr. Hall,
+and, of late, yourself. She did not like you once; I knew
+that, because she would never speak of you. But,
+Robert&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what now? What is the new thought?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have not seen my uncle yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have. 'Mamma' called him into the room. He
+consents conditionally. If I prove that I can keep a
+wife, I may have her; and I <em>can</em> keep her better than he
+thinks&mdash;better than I choose to boast."</p>
+
+<p>"If you get rich you will do good with your money,
+Robert?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <em>will</em> do good; you shall tell me how. Indeed, I
+have some schemes of my own, which you and I will
+talk about on our own hearth one day. I have seen the
+necessity of doing good; I have learned the downright
+folly of being selfish. Caroline, I foresee what I will now
+foretell. This war <em>must</em> ere long draw to a close. Trade
+is likely to prosper for some years to come. There may
+be a brief misunderstanding between England and America,
+but that will not last. What would you think if, one day&mdash;perhaps
+ere another ten years elapse&mdash;Louis and I divide
+Briarfield parish betwixt us? Louis, at any rate, is certain
+of power and property. He will not bury his talents. He
+is a benevolent fellow, and has, besides, an intellect of his
+own of no trifling calibre. His mind is slow but strong.
+It must work. It may work deliberately, but it will work
+well. He will be made magistrate of the district&mdash;Shirley
+says he shall. She would proceed impetuously and prematurely
+to obtain for him this dignity, if he would let her,
+but he will not. As usual, he will be in no haste. Ere
+he has been master of Fieldhead a year all the district will
+feel his quiet influence, and acknowledge his unassuming
+superiority. A magistrate is wanted; they will, in time,
+invest him with the office voluntarily and unreluctantly.
+Everybody admires his future wife, and everybody will,
+in time, like him. He is of the <em>p&acirc;te</em> generally approved,
+<em>bon comme le pain</em>&mdash;daily bread for the most fastidious,
+good for the infant and the aged, nourishing for the poor,
+wholesome for the rich. Shirley, in spite of her whims and
+oddities, her dodges and delays, has an infatuated fondness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>566<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+for him. She will one day see him as universally
+beloved as even <em>she</em> could wish. He will also be universally
+esteemed, considered, consulted, depended on&mdash;too much
+so. His advice will be always judicious, his help always
+good-natured. Ere long both will be in inconvenient
+request. He will have to impose restrictions. As for me,
+if I succeed as I intend to do, my success will add to his
+and Shirley's income. I can double the value of their
+mill property. I can line yonder barren Hollow with
+lines of cottages and rows of cottage-gardens&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Robert! And root up the copse?"</p>
+
+<p>"The copse shall be firewood ere five years elapse. The
+beautiful wild ravine shall be a smooth descent; the green
+natural terrace shall be a paved street. There shall be
+cottages in the dark ravine, and cottages on the lonely
+slopes. The rough pebbled track shall be an even, firm,
+broad, black, sooty road, bedded with the cinders from
+my mill; and my mill, Caroline&mdash;my mill shall fill its
+present yard."</p>
+
+<p>"Horrible! You will change our blue hill-country air
+into the Stilbro' smoke atmosphere."</p>
+
+<p>"I will pour the waters of Pactolus through the valley
+of Briarfield."</p>
+
+<p>"I like the beck a thousand times better."</p>
+
+<p>"I will get an Act for enclosing Nunnely Common,
+and parcelling it out into farms."</p>
+
+<p>"Stilbro' Moor, however, defies you, thank Heaven!
+What can you grow in Bilberry Moss? What will flourish
+on Rushedge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Caroline, the houseless, the starving, the unemployed
+shall come to Hollow's Mill from far and near; and Joe
+Scott shall give them work, and Louis Moore, Esq., shall
+let them a tenement, and Mrs. Gill shall mete them a portion
+till the first pay-day."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled up in his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Such a Sunday school as you will have, Cary! such
+collections as you will get! such a day school as you and
+Shirley and Miss Ainley will have to manage between you!
+The mill shall find salaries for a master and mistress, and
+the squire or the clothier shall give a treat once a quarter."</p>
+
+<p>She mutely offered a kiss&mdash;an offer taken unfair advantage
+of, to the extortion of about a hundred kisses.</p>
+
+<p>"Extravagant day-dreams," said Moore, with a sigh
+and smile, "yet perhaps we may realize some of them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>567<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+Meantime, the dew is falling. Mrs. Moore, I shall take
+you in."</p>
+
+<hr class="hr2" />
+
+<p>It is August. The bells clash out again, not only through
+Yorkshire, but through England. From Spain the voice
+of a trumpet has sounded long; it now waxes louder and
+louder; it proclaims Salamanca won. This night is Briarfield
+to be illuminated. On this day the Fieldhead tenantry
+dine together; the Hollow's Mill workpeople will be assembled
+for a like festal purpose; the schools have a
+grand treat. This morning there were two marriages
+solemnized in Briarfield church&mdash;Louis G&eacute;rard Moore, Esq.,
+late of Antwerp, to Shirley, daughter of the late Charles
+Cave Keeldar, Esq., of Fieldhead; Robert G&eacute;rard Moore,
+Esq., of Hollow's Mill, to Caroline, niece of the Rev. Matthewson
+Helstone, M.A., rector of Briarfield.</p>
+
+<p>The ceremony, in the first instance, was performed by
+Mr. Helstone, Hiram Yorke, Esq., of Briarmains, giving
+the bride away. In the second instance, Mr. Hall, vicar
+of Nunnely, officiated. Amongst the bridal train the two
+most noticeable personages were the youthful bridesmen,
+Henry Sympson and Martin Yorke.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose Robert Moore's prophecies were, partially at
+least, fulfilled. The other day I passed up the Hollow,
+which tradition says was once green, and lone, and wild;
+and there I saw the manufacturer's day-dreams embodied
+in substantial stone and brick and ashes&mdash;the cinder-black
+highway, the cottages, and the cottage gardens;
+there I saw a mighty mill, and a chimney ambitious as the
+tower of Babel. I told my old housekeeper when I came
+home where I had been.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," said she, "this world has queer changes. I can
+remember the old mill being built&mdash;the very first it was
+in all the district; and then I can remember it being pulled
+down, and going with my lake-lasses [companions] to see
+the foundation-stone of the new one laid. The two Mr.
+Moores made a great stir about it. They were there, and
+a deal of fine folk besides, and both their ladies; very
+bonny and grand they looked. But Mrs. Louis was the
+grandest; she always wore such handsome dresses. Mrs.
+Robert was quieter like. Mrs. Louis smiled when she talked.
+She had a real, happy, glad, good-natured look; but she
+had een that pierced a body through. There is no such
+ladies nowadays."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>568<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>"What was the Hollow like then, Martha?"</p>
+
+<p>"Different to what it is now; but I can tell of it clean
+different again, when there was neither mill, nor cot, nor
+hall, except Fieldhead, within two miles of it. I can tell,
+one summer evening, fifty years syne, my mother coming
+running in just at the edge of dark, almost fleyed out of
+her wits, saying she had seen a fairish [fairy] in Fieldhead
+Hollow; and that was the last fairish that ever was seen
+on this countryside (though they've been heard within
+these forty years). A lonesome spot it was, and a bonny
+spot, full of oak trees and nut trees. It is altered now."</p>
+
+<p>The story is told. I think I now see the judicious reader
+putting on his spectacles to look for the moral. It would
+be an insult to his sagacity to offer directions. I only say,
+God speed him in the quest!</p>
+
+<hr class="white" />
+
+<h4>THE END.</h4>
+
+<p class="link"><a href="#CONTENTS">Back to contents</a></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<hr class="white" />
+
+
+<p class="noi title center"><span class="smcap">Established 1798</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter2" style="width: 136px;">
+<img src="images/logo.jpg" width="136" height="180" alt="Logo" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<h2>T. NELSON<br />
+AND SONS<br />
+<span class="by">PRINTERS AND<br />
+PUBLISHERS</span></h2>
+
+
+<hr class="white" />
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_III" id="Page_III"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>III<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+THE<br />
+NELSON CLASSICS.</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><em>Uniform with this Volume and Same Price.</em></p>
+
+<hr class="hr4" />
+
+<table class="books" summary="Publications">
+
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Jack Sheppard.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"><span class="smcap">Harrison Ainsworth.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Masterman Ready.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"><span class="smcap">Captain Marryat.</span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<table class="books" summary="Publications">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Michael Strogoff.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"><span class="smcap">Jules Verne.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">The Wide Wide World.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"><span class="smcap">Eliz. Wetherell.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This famous American novel has for many years been
+a classic in every home. It is a masterpiece of the best
+type of domestic fiction.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Hereward the Wake.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Charles Kingsley.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This brilliant romance tells of the last stand of the great
+English leader, Hereward, against the advance of the
+Normans. The scene is largely laid in the Fen country,
+and every page is a record of fierce strife. The fall of Hereward
+is one of the greatest death scenes in literature.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_IV" id="Page_IV"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>IV<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+<span class="title">David Copperfield&mdash;I.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Charles Dickens.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">David Copperfield&mdash;II.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Charles Dickens.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">"David Copperfield" is, by general consent, Dickens's masterpiece,
+showing, as it does, all his peculiar merits in their highest form. It
+is the most autobiographical of his novels, and the one into which he
+put most of his philosophy of life.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Jane Eyre.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Charlotte Bront&euml;.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">"Jane Eyre" is Charlotte Bront&euml;'s first and most famous work. It
+was the first realistic novel, in the modern sense of the word, in English
+literature, and its influence has been beyond reckoning. It ranks as
+one of the great novels of the nineteenth century.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Verdant Green.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Cuthbert Bede.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This is the humorous classic of Oxford life. Published more than
+half a century ago, its humour is as fresh to-day as ever.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Pickwick Papers&mdash;I.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Charles Dickens.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Pickwick Papers&mdash;II.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Charles Dickens.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">Every year sees a new edition of "Pickwick," and the world still
+asks for more. It is one of the world's greatest romances of the road,
+where adventures fall to those who seek them. It is also a faithful
+and loving picture of an older England, from which we have travelled
+far to-day. We may become a wiser people, but we shall never again
+be so humorous.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Windsor Castle.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Harrison Ainsworth.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">The romances of Harrison Ainsworth need no advertisement. In
+this, as in his "Tower of London" and "Old St. Paul's," he has taken
+one of England's great historical sites, and woven around it an appropriate
+romance.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Peg Woffington.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Charles Reade.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">"Peg Woffington" was the first of Charles Reade's romances, and
+was founded upon his comedy, "Masks and Faces." The story of the
+famous Irish actress who dazzled London in the eighteenth century, and
+with whom Garrick was in love, has been made the foundation of a
+charming romance.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_V" id="Page_V"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>V<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+<span class="title">Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"><span class="smcap">Dean Ramsay.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">The only book of jests that has ever attained an honourable place in
+literature. Its wealth of genuine humour is a perpetual refutation of
+the old slander that Scots joke "wi' deeficulty."</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Parables from Nature.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> Mrs. <span class="smcap">Gatty.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This is one of the great children's books of the world. It was a classic
+in our grandmothers' time, and possesses that imperishable charm which
+makes it as attractive to-day as when it was first written.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Lavengro.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">George Borrow.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">The greatest romance of the road in English literature, telling of all
+the byways and humours of that older England which is fast disappearing.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Little Women.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Louisa M. Alcott.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This delightful book has become a possession of childhood and youth.
+It has captured the affections of millions of young people in two continents,
+and is certainly the finest piece of work in the whole range of
+Miss Alcott's breezy, hopeful, genial, and tender writings.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Pride and Prejudice.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Jane Austen.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Sense and Sensibility.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Jane Austen.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">Sir Walter Scott was among the earliest to detect the merits of Miss
+Austen's work, and of recent years her humour and her keen insight
+into human nature have been abundantly recognized, so that to-day she
+is probably the most read novelist of her period. In Sir Walter Scott's
+phrase she possesses "the exquisite touch which renders ordinary commonplace
+things and characters interesting."</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Toilers of the Sea.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Victor Hugo.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">The Laughing Man.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Victor Hugo.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Les Mis&eacute;rables&mdash;I.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Victor Hugo.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Les Mis&eacute;rables&mdash;II.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Victor Hugo.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_VI" id="Page_VI"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>VI<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">'Ninety-Three.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Victor Hugo.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">Victor Hugo took the romantic novel as invented by Sir Walter Scott
+and gave it a new and philosophic interest. All his great romances
+have a purpose. "Les Mis&eacute;rables" exposes the tyranny of human
+laws; "The Toilers of the Sea" shows the conflict of man with nature;
+"The Laughing Man" expounds the tyranny of the aristocratic ideal
+as exemplified in England. But being a great artist as well as a great
+thinker, he never turned his romances into pamphlets. Drama is always
+his aim, and no novelist has attained more often the supreme dramatic
+moment.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">The Heir of Redclyffe.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> C. M. <span class="smcap">Yonge.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This is a reprint of Miss Yonge's most famous tale. It has been
+said of her that she domesticated the historical romance, which owed
+its origin to Sir Walter Scott, and her characters were for long the
+ideal figures of most English households.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Wild Wales.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">George Borrow.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This book was the result of Borrow's wanderings after the publication
+of "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye." He tramped on foot
+throughout the country, and the work is a classic of description, both
+of the scenery and people.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">The Cloister and the Hearth.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Charles Reade.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">There are many who think this the greatest of all historical novels,
+and it is certain that there are few better. It is not a story so much as
+a vast and varied transcript of life. It is also a delightful romance, and
+Gerard and Margaret are among the immortals of fiction.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Romola.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">George Eliot.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This is the only novel of George Eliot's in which the scene is laid
+outside her own country. It is a story of Florence during the time of
+the Renaissance, a marvellous picture of the intellectual and moral
+ferment which the New Learning created. With amazing learning and
+insight the author portrays the souls of men and women, and her study
+of a weak man and a strong woman has rarely been surpassed in English
+literature for dramatic power and moral truth.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Silas Marner.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">George Eliot.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This, the shortest and the most exquisite of George Eliot's tales,
+represents her great powers at their best. In the picture of the hero she
+shows a profound understanding of human nature, and the feelings which
+were then moving rural and industrial England.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_VII" id="Page_VII"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>VII<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+<span class="title">The Abbot.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> Sir <span class="smcap">Walter Scott.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">One of the Waverley novels which has always been deservedly
+popular.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Bride of Lammermoor.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> Sir <span class="smcap">Walter Scott.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">The story is a tragedy on the lines of Greek drama, and the ending
+has been pronounced by great critics to be the most moving in prose
+literature. In the Master of Ravenswood, Scott has drawn perhaps his
+greatest tragic figure, and in Caleb Balderstone one of his most humorous
+creations.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">The Black Tulip.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Alexandre Dumas.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This was the last of Dumas' great stories. It is a veritable <em>tour de
+force</em>, for in it the reader follows with consuming interest the vicissitudes
+of a tulip, and the human element in the story is quite subsidiary.
+Nevertheless, it contains such strongly-drawn characters as Cornelius
+van Baerle, the guardian of the tulip, and Rosa, the jailer's daughter.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Tom Cringle's Log.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Michael Scott.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">A brilliant story of West Indian life by an author who combined
+abundant personal experience with keen observation, sprightly temper,
+and delightful humour. "Tom Cringle's Log" has been many times
+reprinted, and has lost nothing of its popularity and power to please.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">Tens of thousands of readers have been led to Shakespeare by the
+charmingly told stories which Charles and Mary Lamb, about a hundred
+years ago, extracted from the plays of the greatest dramatist of all time.
+Though produced by Lamb at the very outset of his literary career,
+these stories betray that unique and finished art, that delightful freshness
+and rare sympathy, which are the characteristics of his mature
+work.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdtitle"><span class="title">The Scarlet Letter.</span></td>
+<td class="tdauthor"> <span class="smcap">Nathaniel Hawthorne.</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdj" colspan="2">This is one of the most powerful and affecting stories ever conceived.
+On its first appearance, in 1850, it immediately leaped high into public
+favour, and attained the distinction of an unmistakable classic. The
+tragedy of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale is wrought out in the
+midst of an austere Puritan community, which exacts the bitterest expiation
+for sin.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<div class="box">
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_VIII" id="Page_VIII"><span class="hidden">[Pg </span>VIII<span class="hidden">]</span></a></span>
+THE NELSON CLASSICS.</h2>
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+
+<p class="center"><em>Uniform with this Volume and Same Price</em>.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr4" />
+
+<h3>CONDENSED LIST.</h3>
+
+<table summary="List of books">
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">1. A Tale of Two Cities.</td>
+<td class="rlist">44. Great Expectations.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">2. Tom Brown's Schooldays.</td>
+<td class="rlist">45. Guy Mannering.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">3. The Deerslayer.</td>
+<td class="rlist">46. Modern Painters (Selections.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">4. Henry Esmond.</td>
+<td class="rlist">47. Les Mis&eacute;rables&mdash;I.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">5. Hypatia.</td>
+<td class="rlist">48. Les Mis&eacute;rables&mdash;II.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">6. The Mill on the Floss.</td>
+<td class="rlist">49. The Monastery.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">7. Uncle Tom's Cabin.</td>
+<td class="rlist">50. Romola.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">8. The Last of the Mohicans.</td>
+<td class="rlist">51. The Vicar of Wakefield.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">9. Adam Bede.</td>
+<td class="rlist">52. Emma.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">10. The Old Curiosity Shop.</td>
+<td class="rlist">53. Lavengro.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">11. Oliver Twist.</td>
+<td class="rlist">54. Emerson's Essays.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">12. Kenilworth.</td>
+<td class="rlist">55. The Bride of Lammermoor.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">13. Robinson Crusoe.</td>
+<td class="rlist">56. The Abbot.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">14. The Last Days of Pompeii.</td>
+<td class="rlist">57. Tom Cringle's Log.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">15. Cloister and the Hearth.</td>
+<td class="rlist">58. Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">16. Ivanhoe.</td>
+<td class="rlist">59. The Scarlet Letter.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">17. East Lynne.</td>
+<td class="rlist">60. Old Mortality.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">18. Cranford.</td>
+<td class="rlist">61. The Romany Rye.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">19. John Halifax, Gentleman.</td>
+<td class="rlist">62. Hans Andersen.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">20. The Pathfinder.</td>
+<td class="rlist">63. The Black Tulip.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">21. Westward Ho.</td>
+<td class="rlist">64. Little Women.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">22. The Three Musketeers.</td>
+<td class="rlist">65. The Talisman.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">23. The Channings.</td>
+<td class="rlist">66. Scottish Life and Character.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">24. The Pilgrim's Progress.</td>
+<td class="rlist">67. The Woman in White.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">25. Pride and Prejudice.</td>
+<td class="rlist">68. Tales of Mystery.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">26. Quentin Durward.</td>
+<td class="rlist">69. Fair Maid of Perth.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">27. Villette.</td>
+<td class="rlist">70. Parables from Nature.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">28. Hard Times.</td>
+<td class="rlist">71. Peg Woffington.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">29. Child's History of England.</td>
+<td class="rlist">72. Windsor Castle.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">30. The Bible in Spain.</td>
+<td class="rlist">73. Edmund Burke.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">31. Gulliver's Travels.</td>
+<td class="rlist">74. Ingoldsby Legends.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">32. Sense and Sensibility.</td>
+<td class="rlist">75. Pickwick Papers.&mdash;I.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">33. Kate Coventry.</td>
+<td class="rlist">76. Pickwick Papers.&mdash;II.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">34. Silas Marner.</td>
+<td class="rlist">77. Verdant Green.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">35. Notre Dame.</td>
+<td class="rlist">78. The Heir of Redclyffe.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">36. Old St. Paul's.</td>
+<td class="rlist">79. Wild Wales.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">37. Waverley.</td>
+<td class="rlist">80. Two Years Before the Mast.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">38. 'Ninety-Three.</td>
+<td class="rlist">81. Jane Eyre.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">39. Eothen.</td>
+<td class="rlist">82. David Copperfield.&mdash;I.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">40. Toilers of the Sea.</td>
+<td class="rlist">83. David Copperfield.&mdash;II.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">41. Children of the New Forest.</td>
+<td class="rlist">84. Hereward the Wake.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">42. The Laughing Man.</td>
+<td class="rlist">85. Wide Wide World.  </td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="llist">43. A Book of Golden Deeds.</td>
+<td class="rlist">86. Michael Strogoff.  </td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="hr3" />
+<h3>THOMAS NELSON AND SONS.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="tn">
+<h4>Transcriber's Note:</h4>
+
+<p class="tntext">Variations in hyphenated words have been retained as
+they appear in the original publication. Changes to the original have
+been made as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page &nbsp; 30 with some <a href="#impatience">inpatience</a> <em>changed to</em>
+with some impatience</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page &nbsp; 48 very bravely <a href="#maintained">mantained</a> <em>changed to</em>
+very bravely maintained</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 120 <a href="#Sugden1">Sudgen</a>,  his staff; and <a href="#Sugden2">Sudgen</a> arrest him <em>changed to</em>
+Sugden, his staff; and Sugden arrest him</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 166 The old <a href="#latticed">atticed</a> <em>changed to</em>
+The old latticed</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 175 Let <a href="#us">as</a> have <em>changed to</em>
+Let us have</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 185 Mrs. Gill, my <a href="#housekeeper">houskeeper</a> <em>changed to</em>
+Mrs. Gill, my housekeeper</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 224 by a downward <a href="#gaze">gave</a> <em>changed to</em>
+by a downward gaze</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 242 gently <a href="#invited">invired</a> him <em>changed to</em>
+gently invited him</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 245 a smiling <a href="#Melanchthon">Melancthon</a> <em>changed to</em>
+a smiling Melanchthon</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 255 Sentinels of <a href="#Nunnwood">Nunwood</a> <em>changed to</em>
+Sentinels of Nunnwood</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 260 only the <a href="#profiteers">profiters</a> <em>changed to</em>
+only the profiteers</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 274 dark gray <a href="#irides">irids</a> <em>changed to</em>
+dark gray irides</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 297 alight and <a href="#aglow">alow</a> <em>changed to</em>
+alight and aglow</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 380 my old <a href="#occupation">accupation</a> <em>changed to</em>
+my old occupation</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 492 not without <a href="#opprobrium">approbrium</a> <em>changed to</em>
+not without opprobrium</p>
+
+<p class="tntext">Punctuation has been changed as follows:</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 119 <a href="#Mr">Mr</a> Moore, we lived <em>changed to</em>
+Mr. Moore, we lived</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 145 stones on the <a href="#road">road?</a> <em>changed to</em>
+stones on the road.</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 393 <a href="#quote">"Shirley</a>, my woman <em>changed to</em>
+'Shirley, my woman</p>
+
+<p class="tnhang">Page 540 <em>reward</em> <a href="#quote2">her!"</a> <em>changed to</em>
+<em>reward</em> her!'"</p>
+</div>
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,25925 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Shirley
+
+Author: Charlotte Brontë
+
+Release Date: November 16, 2009 [EBook #30486]
+[Last updated: September 8, 2020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHIRLEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brenda Lewis, Fox in the Stars and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at
+http://www.pgdpcanada.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Moore placed his hand on his cousin's shoulder, stooped,
+and left a kiss on her forehead.]
+
+
+
+
+SHIRLEY
+
+BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË
+
+T. Nelson & Sons
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+         I. LEVITICAL                                                  3
+
+        II. THE WAGONS                                                16
+
+       III. MR. YORKE                                                 31
+
+        IV. MR. YORKE (CONTINUED)                                     40
+
+         V. HOLLOW'S COTTAGE                                          51
+
+        VI. CORIOLANUS                                                66
+
+       VII. THE CURATES AT TEA                                        85
+
+      VIII. NOAH AND MOSES                                           110
+
+        IX. BRIARMAINS                                               125
+
+         X. OLD MAIDS                                                147
+
+        XI. FIELDHEAD                                                164
+
+       XII. SHIRLEY AND CAROLINE                                     181
+
+      XIII. FURTHER COMMUNICATIONS ON BUSINESS                       201
+
+       XIV. SHIRLEY SEEKS TO BE SAVED BY WORKS                       226
+
+        XV. MR. DONNE'S EXODUS                                       239
+
+       XVI. WHITSUNTIDE                                              253
+
+      XVII. THE SCHOOL FEAST                                         264
+
+     XVIII. WHICH THE GENTEEL READER IS RECOMMENDED TO SKIP, LOW
+            PERSONS BEING HERE INTRODUCED                            279
+
+       XIX. A SUMMER NIGHT                                           290
+
+        XX. TO-MORROW                                                306
+
+       XXI. MRS. PRYOR                                               319
+
+      XXII. TWO LIVES                                                336
+
+     XXIII. AN EVENING OUT                                           346
+
+      XXIV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH                        365
+
+       XXV. THE WEST WIND BLOWS                                      384
+
+      XXVI. OLD COPY-BOOKS                                           392
+
+     XXVII. THE FIRST BLUESTOCKING                                   410
+
+    XXVIII. PHOEBE                                                   433
+
+      XXIX. LOUIS MOORE                                              453
+
+       XXX. RUSHEDGE--A CONFESSIONAL                                 461
+
+      XXXI. UNCLE AND NIECE                                          475
+
+     XXXII. THE SCHOOLBOY AND THE WOOD-NYMPH                         491
+
+    XXXIII. MARTIN'S TACTICS                                         502
+
+     XXXIV. CASE OF DOMESTIC PERSECUTION--REMARKABLE INSTANCE
+            OF PIOUS PERSEVERANCE IN THE DISCHARGE OF RELIGIOUS
+            DUTIES                                                   513
+
+      XXXV. WHEREIN MATTERS MAKE SOME PROGRESS, BUT NOT MUCH         521
+
+     XXXVI. WRITTEN IN THE SCHOOLROOM                                534
+
+    XXXVII. THE WINDING-UP                                           555
+
+
+
+
+SHIRLEY.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+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
+night-gown 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 varying 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 he 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 rolled, 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 II.
+
+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 realized 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 specially 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 nowhere; 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
+love-making, 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 paralyzed 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 feminity 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 face 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 charm, 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 firm; 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 by-past 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-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
+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 organize 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 civilization 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' wagons 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 telled '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 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 Mill."
+
+"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 écho, 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 à 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 IV.
+
+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, unaristocratic 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
+realize 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. An 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, of 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 sympathizer 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 raton'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
+analyze 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
+cafés 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 scandalized 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 Cave 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 Cave, 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 grievances had
+been heaped on 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 their 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 vainglorious 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 worldly 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 blackballed 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 V.
+
+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 dahn, 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 Flamand! Have I a Flemish face--the
+clumsy nose standing out, the mean forehead falling back, the pale blue
+eyes 'à 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 civilized, 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 realized
+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 snow-storms,
+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 dye-house, 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 idée! to destroy them. Quelle action honteuse! On voyait bien
+que les ouvriers de ce pays étaient à la fois betes 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! 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 clearly
+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 sympathize with us? Your uncle sympathizes
+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 am 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 purée 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 be 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 smell 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 Skyes'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 his 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 VI.
+
+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 needle-work.
+Mdlle. 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
+determinative," 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
+Mdlle. 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 purée 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 wearifu' process, but considered by
+Hortense Gérard, and by her ancestresses before her for long generations
+back, as one of the first "duties of a 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 every
+day, 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 are 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 time 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 in your 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, than 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 unruly 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 vulgarizes; family union
+elevates. Hortense, pleased with her brother, and grateful to him,
+looked, as she touched her guitar, almost graceful, almost handsome; her
+everyday 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 will 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 lamp-light; 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 sympathize with
+that proud patrician who does not sympathize with his famished
+fellow-men, 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 sympathized; he was not
+scandalized 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 le premiers à peine.
+     Au banquet de la vie à peine commencé,
+     Un instant seulement mes lèvres ont pressé
+       La coupe en mes mains encore pleine.
+
+    "Je ne suis qu'au printemps--je veux voir la moisson;
+     Et 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 it 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 VII.
+
+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, overspread 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 convoyed 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 check 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 soberizing 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
+yokefellow is not a companion; he or she is a fellow-sufferer."
+
+It was by no means naïve 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 earthly--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 raving 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 school-time. 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; bonny 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 martyrized; 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 ingle-nook 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 n'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 is 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 arm-chair, 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 will
+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 but 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
+pin-cushion.
+
+It ought perhaps 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
+pin-cushions, needle-books, card-racks, 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 up 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 off its contents on a shrinking male public. An exciting time it
+is when that turn comes round. Some active-minded woman, 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 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 civilization 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 lovingkindness 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, drawing 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 close 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 clear 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 limbs, 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, coming 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 clearly.
+
+"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 VIII.
+
+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 in state 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 Rev. 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 blackened."
+
+"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 made him at least _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_--Christie 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 season of
+the 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 a 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 amidst 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 undegraded, 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 weel 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 cat like, 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 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
+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 'at 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 IX.
+
+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 paired.
+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 windows 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 of 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, agonized 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 overwhelming, 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 if 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, an 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 recognize 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 will 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
+solemnized 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 was 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. Don't let
+_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 tantalization, 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_ Miss Pearson would like 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 clear 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?"
+
+"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 the 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'll make me use language 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 showed
+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 am 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 maks no
+difference to me. Go home, now. It has stricken ten. Miss Hortense will
+be wondering where ye are."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+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--that
+is, 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 bulldogs, 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 civilized--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 shop-keepers!
+
+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 dispatches 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 he had to care for, his hopes he had to pursue;
+and he would fulfil his destiny.
+
+He fulfilled 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 his mind.
+Having but an indifferent opinion of women, he always suspected them. He
+thought they needed constant watching. It was in a tone dryly
+significant he desired her to cease her daily visits to the Hollow. He
+expected a start, a look of depreciation. 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, he 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 awhile 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 sympathize. Nothing
+that they had ever talked of together was now in his mind: he was wrapt
+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 realize the state of mind 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 rain-drop 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 step-mother 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 wooes 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
+sympathizing words, but with a sympathizing 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
+confidante 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 gray 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 XI.
+
+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 conclusion 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 hillcrests. 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 bearing;
+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 regular architecture, and the gray 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
+be 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 her 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, where 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?"
+
+Sympathizing 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 coming 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
+beeswaxed 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 silvan 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, sympathized 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 felt 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 be 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
+freethinker, 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 bulldog, 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 gray (no
+green lights in them--transparent, pure, neutral gray), 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 patronizing 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 tantalized, 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 a 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 gentlemanlike. 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 XII.
+
+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 fraternized 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; ere long 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 gray-haired. My two
+venerable favourites, Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, it is true, are fine
+old beaus, 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 silvan 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 bonny 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 mementos 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 gray, 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 goodwife, 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
+fireside; 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, unsympathizing--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."
+
+"Mrs. 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 every one. 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 mantelpiece, 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 inestimable
+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
+reveille 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, muttering 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 roared,
+     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 realized by her;
+and more vividly was realized 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, snatched from all effectual aid,
+       We perished--each alone!
+     But I beneath a rougher sea,
+     And whelmed 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 sympathize 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 XIII.
+
+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
+fullness 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-style 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 scrutinized 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 silvered 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 rusty 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 lade 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 inquiries 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
+reappearing 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 back-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
+seaweed; 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. Temptress-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 naturalized 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 tenderhearted 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 was 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 fullness 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 good-night, 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 housemaid; "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 be, 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
+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 that 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 that 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 dare
+say, 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 gray 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 gray, confronted with the red of
+sunrise. It wasted. She was left solitary at last. She crept to her
+couch, chill and dejected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+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 a 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 puppyhood
+makes a perpetually-recurring eclipse of our friendship. Again and again
+he crosses and obscures the disc 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
+every-day 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 preoccupied,
+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 scandalized 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 banknotes, 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 persuasion 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 dare say, 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, free-handed 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 around 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 unauthorized 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 fellow-men; 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 to Caroline's care Mr. Hall consigned himself.
+
+He generally sought Caroline in every party where she and he happened to
+be. He was not in general a lady's man, though all ladies liked him;
+something of a book-worm he was, near-sighted, spectacled, now and then
+abstracted. To old ladies he was kind as a son. To men of every
+occupation and grade he was acceptable. The truth, simplicity, frankness
+of his manners, the nobleness of his integrity, the reality and
+elevation of his piety, won him friends in every grade. His poor clerk
+and sexton delighted in him; the noble patron of his living esteemed him
+highly. It was only with young, handsome, fashionable, and stylish
+ladies he felt a little shy. Being himself a plain man--plain in aspect,
+plain in manners, plain in speech--he seemed to fear their dash,
+elegance, and airs. But Miss Helstone had neither dash nor airs, and her
+native elegance was of a very quiet order--quiet as the beauty of a
+ground-loving hedge-flower. He was a fluent, cheerful, agreeable talker.
+Caroline could talk too in a _tête-à-tête_. She liked Mr. Hall to come
+and take the seat next her in a party, and thus secure her from Peter
+Augustus Malone, Joseph Donne, or John Sykes; and Mr. Hall never failed
+to avail himself of this privilege when he possibly could. Such
+preference shown by a single gentleman to a single lady would certainly,
+in ordinary cases, have set in motion the tongues of the gossips; but
+Cyril Hall was forty-five years old, slightly bald, and slightly gray,
+and nobody ever said or thought he was likely to be married to Miss
+Helstone. Nor did he think so himself. He was wedded already to his
+books and his parish. His kind sister Margaret, spectacled and learned
+like himself, made him happy in his single state; he considered it too
+late to change. Besides, he had known Caroline as a pretty little girl.
+She had sat on his knee many a time; he had bought her toys and given
+her books; he felt that her friendship for him was mixed with a sort of
+filial respect; he could not have brought himself to attempt to give
+another colour to her sentiments, and his serene mind could glass a fair
+image without feeling its depths troubled by the reflection.
+
+When Miss Ainley arrived, she was made kindly welcome by every one. Mrs.
+Pryor and Margaret Hall made room for her on the sofa between them; and
+when the three were seated, they formed a trio which the gay and
+thoughtless would have scorned, indeed, as quite worthless and
+unattractive--a middle-aged widow and two plain, spectacled old
+maids--yet which had its own quiet value, as many a suffering and
+friendless human being knew.
+
+Shirley opened the business and showed the plan.
+
+"I know the hand which drew up that," said Mr. Hall, glancing at Miss
+Ainley, and smiling benignantly. His approbation was won at once.
+Boultby heard and deliberated with bent brow and protruded under lip.
+His consent he considered too weighty to be given in a hurry. Helstone
+glanced sharply round with an alert, suspicious expression, as if he
+apprehended that female craft was at work, and that something in
+petticoats was somehow trying underhand to acquire too much influence,
+and make itself of too much importance. Shirley caught and comprehended
+the expression. "This scheme is nothing," said she carelessly. "It is
+only an outline--a mere suggestion. You, gentlemen, are requested to
+draw up rules of your own."
+
+And she directly fetched her writing-case, smiling queerly to herself as
+she bent over the table where it stood. She produced a sheet of paper, a
+new pen, drew an arm-chair to the table, and presenting her hand to old
+Helstone, begged permission to install him in it. For a minute he was a
+little stiff, and stood wrinkling his copper-coloured forehead
+strangely. At last he muttered, "Well, you are neither my wife nor my
+daughter, so I'll be led for once; but mind--I know I _am_ led. Your
+little female manoeuvres don't blind me."
+
+"Oh!" said Shirley, dipping the pen in the ink, and putting it into his
+hand, "you must regard me as Captain Keeldar to-day. This is quite a
+gentleman's affair--yours and mine entirely, doctor" (so she had dubbed
+the rector). "The ladies there are only to be our aides-de-camp, and at
+their peril they speak, till we have settled the whole business."
+
+He smiled a little grimly, and began to write. He soon interrupted
+himself to ask questions, and consult his brethren, disdainfully lifting
+his glance over the curly heads of the two girls and the demure caps of
+the elder ladies, to meet the winking glasses and gray pates of the
+priests. In the discussion which ensued, all three gentlemen, to their
+infinite credit, showed a thorough acquaintance with the poor of their
+parishes--an even minute knowledge of their separate wants. Each rector
+knew where clothing was needed, where food would be most acceptable,
+where money could be bestowed with a probability of it being judiciously
+laid out. Wherever their memories fell short, Miss Ainley or Miss Hall,
+if applied to, could help them out; but both ladies took care not to
+speak unless spoken to. Neither of them wanted to be foremost, but each
+sincerely desired to be useful; and useful the clergy consented to make
+them--with which boon they were content.
+
+Shirley stood behind the rectors, leaning over their shoulders now and
+then to glance at the rules drawn up and the list of cases making out,
+listening to all they said, and still at intervals smiling her queer
+smile--a smile not ill-natured, but significant--too significant to be
+generally thought amiable. Men rarely like such of their fellows as read
+their inward nature too clearly and truly. It is good for women,
+especially, to be endowed with a soft blindness; to have mild, dim eyes,
+that never penetrate below the surface of things--that take all for what
+it seems. Thousands, knowing this, keep their eyelids drooped on system;
+but the most downcast glance has its loophole, through which it can, on
+occasion, take its sentinel-survey of life. I remember once seeing a
+pair of blue eyes, that were usually thought sleepy, secretly on the
+alert, and I knew by their expression--an expression which chilled my
+blood, it was in that quarter so wondrously unexpected--that for years
+they had been accustomed to silent soul-reading. The world called the
+owner of these blue eyes _bonne petite femme_ (she was not an
+Englishwoman). I learned her nature afterwards--got it off by
+heart--studied it in its farthest, most hidden recesses. She was the
+finest, deepest, subtlest schemer in Europe.
+
+When all was at length settled to Miss Keeldar's mind, and the clergy
+had entered so fully into the spirit of her plans as to head the
+subscription-list with their signatures for £50 each, she ordered supper
+to be served, having previously directed Mrs. Gill to exercise her
+utmost skill in the preparation of this repast. Mr. Hall was no _bon
+vivant_--he was naturally an abstemious man, indifferent to luxury; but
+Boultby and Helstone both liked good cookery. The _recherché_ supper
+consequently put them into excellent humour. They did justice to it,
+though in a gentlemanly way--not in the mode Mr. Donne would have done
+had he been present. A glass of fine wine was likewise tasted, with
+discerning though most decorous relish. Captain Keeldar was complimented
+on his taste; the compliment charmed him. It had been his aim to gratify
+and satisfy his priestly guests. He had succeeded, and was radiant with
+glee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MR. DONNE'S EXODUS.
+
+
+The next day Shirley expressed to Caroline how delighted she felt that
+the little party had gone off so well.
+
+"I rather like to entertain a circle of gentlemen," said she. "It is
+amusing to observe how they enjoy a judiciously concocted repast. For
+ourselves, you see, these choice wines and these scientific dishes are
+of no importance to us; but gentlemen seem to retain something of the
+_naïveté_ of children about food, and one likes to please them--that is,
+when they show the becoming, decent self-government of our admirable
+rectors. I watch Moore sometimes, to try and discover how he can be
+pleased; but he has not that child's simplicity about him. Did you ever
+find out his accessible point, Caroline? you have seen more of him than
+I."
+
+"It is not, at any rate, that of my uncle and Dr. Boultby," returned
+Caroline, smiling. She always felt a sort of shy pleasure in following
+Miss Keeldar's lead respecting the discussion of her cousin's character.
+Left to herself, she would never have touched on the subject; but when
+invited, the temptation of talking about him of whom she was ever
+thinking was irresistible. "But," she added, "I really don't know what
+it is, for I never watched Robert in my life but my scrutiny was
+presently baffled by finding he was watching me."
+
+"There it is!" exclaimed Shirley. "You can't fix your eyes on him but
+his presently flash on you. He is never off his guard. He won't give you
+an advantage. Even when he does not look at you, his thoughts seem to be
+busy amongst your own thoughts, tracing your words and actions to their
+source, contemplating your motives at his ease. Oh! I know that sort of
+character, or something in the same style. It is one that piques me
+singularly. How does it affect you?"
+
+This question was a specimen of one of Shirley's sharp, sudden turns.
+Caroline used to be fluttered by them at first, but she had now got into
+the way of parrying these home-thrusts like a little Quakeress.
+
+"Pique you? In what way does it pique you?" she said.
+
+"Here he comes!" suddenly exclaimed Shirley, breaking off, starting up
+and running to the window. "Here comes a diversion. I never told you of
+a superb conquest I have made lately--made at those parties to which I
+can never persuade you to accompany me; and the thing has been done
+without effort or intention on my part--that I aver. There is the
+bell--and, by all that's delicious! there are two of them. Do they never
+hunt, then, except in couples? You may have one, Lina, and you may take
+your choice. I hope I am generous enough. Listen to Tartar!"
+
+The black-muzzled, tawny dog, a glimpse of which was seen in the chapter
+which first introduced its mistress to the reader, here gave tongue in
+the hall, amidst whose hollow space the deep bark resounded formidably.
+A growl more terrible than the bark, menacing as muttered thunder,
+succeeded.
+
+"Listen!" again cried Shirley, laughing. "You would think that the
+prelude to a bloody onslaught. They will be frightened. They don't know
+old Tartar as I do. They are not aware his uproars are all sound and
+fury, signifying nothing!"
+
+Some bustle was heard. "Down, sir, down!" exclaimed a high-toned,
+imperious voice, and then came a crack of a cane or whip. Immediately
+there was a yell--a scutter--a run--a positive tumult.
+
+"O Malone, Malone!"
+
+"Down! down! down!" cried the high voice.
+
+"He really is worrying them!" exclaimed Shirley. "They have struck him.
+A blow is what he is not used to, and will not take."
+
+Out she ran. A gentleman was fleeing up the oak staircase, making for
+refuge in the gallery or chambers in hot haste; another was backing fast
+to the stairfoot, wildly flourishing a knotty stick, at the same time
+reiterating, "Down! down! down!" while the tawny dog bayed, bellowed,
+howled at him, and a group of servants came bundling from the kitchen.
+The dog made a spring; the second gentleman turned tail and rushed after
+his comrade. The first was already safe in a bedroom; he held the door
+against his fellow--nothing so merciless as terror. But the other
+fugitive struggled hard; the door was about to yield to his strength.
+
+"Gentlemen," was uttered in Miss Keeldar's silvery but vibrating tones,
+"spare my locks, if you please. Calm yourselves! Come down! Look at
+Tartar; he won't harm a cat."
+
+She was caressing the said Tartar. He lay crouched at her feet, his fore
+paws stretched out, his tail still in threatening agitation, his
+nostrils snorting, his bulldog eyes conscious of a dull fire. He was an
+honest, phlegmatic, stupid, but stubborn canine character. He loved his
+mistress and John--the man who fed him--but was mostly indifferent to
+the rest of the world. Quiet enough he was, unless struck or threatened
+with a stick, and that put a demon into him at once.
+
+"Mr. Malone, how do you do?" continued Shirley, lifting up her mirth-lit
+face to the gallery. "That is not the way to the oak parlour; that is
+Mrs. Pryor's apartment. Request your friend Mr. Donne to evacuate. I
+shall have the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room."
+
+"Ha! ha!" cried Malone, in hollow laughter, quitting the door, and
+leaning over the massive balustrade. "Really that animal alarmed Donne.
+He is a little timid," he proceeded, stiffening himself, and walking
+trimly to the stairhead. "I thought it better to follow, in order to
+reassure him."
+
+"It appears you did. Well, come down, if you please.--John" (turning to
+her manservant), "go upstairs and liberate Mr. Donne.--Take care, Mr.
+Malone; the stairs are slippery."
+
+In truth they were, being of polished oak. The caution came a little
+late for Malone. He had slipped already in his stately descent, and was
+only saved from falling by a clutch at the banisters, which made the
+whole structure creak again.
+
+Tartar seemed to think the visitor's descent effected with unwarranted
+_éclat_, and accordingly he growled once more. Malone, however, was no
+coward. The spring of the dog had taken him by surprise, but he passed
+him now in suppressed fury rather than fear. If a look could have
+strangled Tartar, he would have breathed no more. Forgetting politeness
+in his sullen rage, Malone pushed into the parlour before Miss Keeldar.
+He glanced at Miss Helstone; he could scarcely bring himself to bend to
+her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them
+been his wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment. In
+each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and gripe
+her to death.
+
+However, Shirley took pity. She ceased to laugh; and Caroline was too
+true a lady to smile even at any one under mortification. Tartar was
+dismissed; Peter Augustus was soothed--for Shirley had looks and tones
+that might soothe a very bull. He had sense to feel that, since he could
+not challenge the owner of the dog, he had better be civil. And civil he
+tried to be; and his attempts being well received, he grew presently
+_very_ civil and quite himself again. He had come, indeed, for the
+express purpose of making himself charming and fascinating. Rough
+portents had met him on his first admission to Fieldhead; but that
+passage got over, charming and fascinating he resolved to be. Like
+March, having come in like a lion, he purposed to go out like a lamb.
+
+For the sake of air, as it appeared, or perhaps for that of ready exit
+in case of some new emergency arising, he took his seat,--not on the
+sofa, where Miss Keeldar offered him enthronization, nor yet near the
+fireside, to which Caroline, by a friendly sign, gently invited him, but
+on a chair close to the door. Being no longer sullen or furious, he
+grew, after his fashion, constrained and embarrassed. He talked to the
+ladies by fits and starts, choosing for topics whatever was most
+intensely commonplace. He sighed deeply, significantly, at the close of
+every sentence; he sighed in each pause; he sighed ere he opened his
+mouth. At last, finding it desirable to add ease to his other charms, he
+drew forth to aid him an ample silk pocket-handkerchief. This was to be
+the graceful toy with which his unoccupied hands were to trifle. He went
+to work with a certain energy. He folded the red-and-yellow square
+cornerwise; he whipped it open with a waft; again he folded it in
+narrower compass; he made of it a handsome band. To what purpose would
+he proceed to apply the ligature? Would he wrap it about his throat--his
+head? Should it be a comforter or a turban? Neither. Peter Augustus had
+an inventive, an original genius. He was about to show the ladies graces
+of action possessing at least the charm of novelty. He sat on the chair
+with his athletic Irish legs crossed, and these legs, in that attitude,
+he circled with the bandana and bound firmly together. It was evident
+he felt this device to be worth an encore; he repeated it more than
+once. The second performance sent Shirley to the window, to laugh her
+silent but irrepressible laugh unseen; it turned Caroline's head aside,
+that her long curls might screen the smile mantling on her features.
+Miss Helstone, indeed, was amused by more than one point in Peter's
+demeanour. She was edified at the complete though abrupt diversion of
+his homage from herself to the heiress. The £5,000 he supposed her
+likely one day to inherit were not to be weighed in the balance against
+Miss Keeldar's estate and hall. He took no pains to conceal his
+calculations and tactics. He pretended to no gradual change of views; he
+wheeled about at once. The pursuit of the lesser fortune was openly
+relinquished for that of the greater. On what grounds he expected to
+succeed in his chase himself best knew; certainly not by skilful
+management.
+
+From the length of time that elapsed, it appeared that John had some
+difficulty in persuading Mr. Donne to descend. At length, however, that
+gentleman appeared; nor, as he presented himself at the oak-parlour
+door, did he seem in the slightest degree ashamed or confused--not a
+whit. Donne, indeed, was of that coldly phlegmatic, immovably
+complacent, densely self-satisfied nature which is insensible to shame.
+He had never blushed in his life; no humiliation could abash him; his
+nerves were not capable of sensation enough to stir his life and make
+colour mount to his cheek; he had no fire in his blood and no modesty in
+his soul; he was a frontless, arrogant, decorous slip of the
+commonplace--conceited, inane, insipid; and this gentleman had a notion
+of wooing Miss Keeldar! He knew no more, however, how to set about the
+business than if he had been an image carved in wood. He had no idea of
+a taste to be pleased, a heart to be reached in courtship. His notion
+was, when he should have formally visited her a few times, to write a
+letter proposing marriage. Then he calculated she would accept him for
+love of his office; then they would be married; then he should be master
+of Fieldhead; and he should live very comfortably, have servants at his
+command, eat and drink of the best, and be a great man. You would not
+have suspected his intentions when he addressed his intended bride in an
+impertinent, injured tone--"A very dangerous dog that, Miss Keeldar. I
+wonder you should keep such an animal."
+
+"Do you, Mr. Donne? Perhaps you will wonder more when I tell you I am
+very fond of him."
+
+"I should say you are not serious in the assertion. Can't fancy a lady
+fond of that brute--'tis so ugly--a mere carter's dog. Pray hang him."
+
+"Hang what I am fond of!"
+
+"And purchase in his stead some sweetly pooty pug or poodle--something
+appropriate to the fair sex. Ladies generally like lap-dogs."
+
+"Perhaps I am an exception."
+
+"Oh, you can't be, you know. All ladies are alike in those matters. That
+is universally allowed."
+
+"Tartar frightened you terribly, Mr. Donne. I hope you won't take any
+harm."
+
+"That I shall, no doubt. He gave me a turn I shall not soon forget. When
+I _sor_ him" (such was Mr. Donne's pronunciation) "about to spring, I
+thought I should have fainted."
+
+"Perhaps you did faint in the bedroom; you were a long time there."
+
+"No; I bore up that I might hold the door fast. I was determined not to
+let any one enter. I thought I would keep a barrier between me and the
+enemy."
+
+"But what if your friend Mr. Malone had been worried?"
+
+"Malone must take care of himself. Your man persuaded me to come out at
+last by saying the dog was chained up in his kennel. If I had not been
+assured of this, I would have remained all day in the chamber. But what
+is that? I declare the man has told a falsehood! The dog is there!"
+
+And indeed Tartar walked past the glass door opening to the garden,
+stiff, tawny, and black-muzzled as ever. He still seemed in bad humour.
+He was growling again, and whistling a half-strangled whistle, being an
+inheritance from the bulldog side of his ancestry.
+
+"There are other visitors coming," observed Shirley, with that provoking
+coolness which the owners of formidable-looking dogs are apt to show
+while their animals are all bristle and bay. Tartar sprang down the
+pavement towards the gate, bellowing _avec explosion_. His mistress
+quietly opened the glass door, and stepped out chirruping to him. His
+bellow was already silenced, and he was lifting up his huge, blunt,
+stupid head to the new callers to be patted.
+
+"What! Tartar, Tartar!" said a cheery, rather boyish voice, "don't you
+know us? Good-morning, old boy!"
+
+And little Mr. Sweeting, whose conscious good nature made him
+comparatively fearless of man, woman, child, or brute, came through the
+gate, caressing the guardian. His vicar, Mr. Hall, followed. He had no
+fear of Tartar either, and Tartar had no ill-will to him. He snuffed
+both the gentlemen round, and then, as if concluding that they were
+harmless, and might be allowed to pass, he withdrew to the sunny front
+of the hall, leaving the archway free. Mr. Sweeting followed, and would
+have played with him; but Tartar took no notice of his caresses. It was
+only his mistress's hand whose touch gave him pleasure; to all others he
+showed himself obstinately insensible.
+
+Shirley advanced to meet Messrs. Hall and Sweeting, shaking hands with
+them cordially. They were come to tell her of certain successes they had
+achieved that morning in applications for subscriptions to the fund. Mr.
+Hall's eyes beamed benignantly through his spectacles, his plain face
+looked positively handsome with goodness; and when Caroline, seeing who
+was come, ran out to meet him, and put both her hands into his, he gazed
+down on her with a gentle, serene, affectionate expression that gave him
+the aspect of a smiling Melanchthon.
+
+Instead of re-entering the house, they strayed through the garden, the
+ladies walking one on each side of Mr. Hall. It was a breezy sunny day;
+the air freshened the girls' cheeks and gracefully dishevelled their
+ringlets. Both of them looked pretty--one gay. Mr. Hall spoke oftenest
+to his brilliant companion, looked most frequently at the quiet one.
+Miss Keeldar gathered handfuls of the profusely blooming flowers whose
+perfume filled the enclosure. She gave some to Caroline, telling her to
+choose a nosegay for Mr. Hall; and with her lap filled with delicate and
+splendid blossoms, Caroline sat down on the steps of a summer-house. The
+vicar stood near her, leaning on his cane.
+
+Shirley, who could not be inhospitable, now called out the neglected
+pair in the oak parlour. She convoyed Donne past his dread enemy Tartar,
+who, with his nose on his fore paws, lay snoring under the meridian sun.
+Donne was not grateful--he never _was_ grateful for kindness and
+attention--but he was glad of the safeguard. Miss Keeldar, desirous of
+being impartial, offered the curates flowers. They accepted them with
+native awkwardness. Malone seemed specially at a loss, when a bouquet
+filled one hand, while his shillelah occupied the other. Donne's "Thank
+you!" was rich to hear. It was the most fatuous and arrogant of sounds,
+implying that he considered this offering a homage to his merits, and an
+attempt on the part of the heiress to ingratiate herself into his
+priceless affections. Sweeting alone received the posy like a smart,
+sensible little man, as he was, putting it gallantly and nattily into
+his buttonhole.
+
+As a reward for his good manners, Miss Keeldar, beckoning him apart,
+gave him some commission, which made his eyes sparkle with glee. Away he
+flew, round by the courtyard to the kitchen. No need to give him
+directions; he was always at home everywhere. Ere long he reappeared,
+carrying a round table, which he placed under the cedar; then he
+collected six garden-chairs from various nooks and bowers in the
+grounds, and placed them in a circle. The parlour-maid--Miss Keeldar
+kept no footman--came out, bearing a napkin-covered tray. Sweeting's
+nimble fingers aided in disposing glasses, plates, knives, and forks; he
+assisted her too in setting forth a neat luncheon, consisting of cold
+chicken, ham, and tarts.
+
+This sort of impromptu regale it was Shirley's delight to offer any
+chance guests; and nothing pleased her better than to have an alert,
+obliging little friend, like Sweeting, to run about her hand, cheerily
+receive and briskly execute her hospitable hints. David and she were on
+the best terms in the world; and his devotion to the heiress was quite
+disinterested, since it prejudiced in nothing his faithful allegiance to
+the magnificent Dora Sykes.
+
+The repast turned out a very merry one. Donne and Malone, indeed,
+contributed but little to its vivacity, the chief part they played in it
+being what concerned the knife, fork, and wine-glass; but where four
+such natures as Mr. Hall, David Sweeting, Shirley, and Caroline were
+assembled in health and amity, on a green lawn, under a sunny sky,
+amidst a wilderness of flowers, there could not be ungenial dullness.
+
+In the course of conversation Mr. Hall reminded the ladies that
+Whitsuntide was approaching, when the grand united Sunday-school
+tea-drinking and procession of the three parishes of Briarfield,
+Whinbury, and Nunnely were to take place. Caroline, he knew, would be at
+her post as teacher, he said, and he hoped Miss Keeldar would not be
+wanting. He hoped she would make her first public appearance amongst
+them at that time. Shirley was not the person to miss an occasion of
+this sort. She liked festive excitement, a gathering of happiness, a
+concentration and combination of pleasant details, a throng of glad
+faces, a muster of elated hearts. She told Mr. Hall they might count on
+her with security. She did not know what she would have to do, but they
+might dispose of her as they pleased.
+
+"And," said Caroline, "you will promise to come to my table, and to sit
+near me, Mr. Hall?"
+
+"I shall not fail, _Deo volente_," said he.--"I have occupied the place
+on her right hand at these monster tea-drinkings for the last six
+years," he proceeded, turning to Miss Keeldar. "They made her a
+Sunday-school teacher when she was a little girl of twelve. She is not
+particularly self-confident by nature, as you may have observed; and the
+first time she had to 'take a tray,' as the phrase is, and make tea in
+public, there was some piteous trembling and flushing. I observed the
+speechless panic, the cups shaking in the little hand, and the
+overflowing teapot filled too full from the urn. I came to her aid, took
+a seat near her, managed the urn and the slop-basin, and in fact made
+the tea for her like any old woman."
+
+"I was very grateful to you," interposed Caroline.
+
+"You were. You told me so with an earnest sincerity that repaid me well,
+inasmuch as it was not like the majority of little ladies of twelve,
+whom you may help and caress for ever without their evincing any quicker
+sense of the kindness done and meant than if they were made of wax and
+wood instead of flesh and nerves.--She kept close to me, Miss Keeldar,
+the rest of the evening, walking with me over the grounds where the
+children were playing; she followed me into the vestry when all were
+summoned into church; she would, I believe, have mounted with me to the
+pulpit, had I not taken the previous precaution of conducting her to the
+rectory pew."
+
+"And he has been my friend ever since," said Caroline.
+
+"And always sat at her table, near her tray, and handed the cups--that
+is the extent of my services. The next thing I do for her will be to
+marry her some day to some curate or mill-owner.--But mind, Caroline, I
+shall inquire about the bridegroom's character; and if he is not a
+gentleman likely to render happy the little girl who walked with me
+hand in hand over Nunnely Common, I will not officiate. So take care."
+
+"The caution is useless. I am not going to be married. I shall live
+single, like your sister Margaret, Mr. Hall."
+
+"Very well. You might do worse. Margaret is not unhappy. She has her
+books for a pleasure, and her brother for a care, and is content. If
+ever you want a home, if the day should come when Briarfield rectory is
+yours no longer, come to Nunnely vicarage. Should the old maid and
+bachelor be still living, they will make you tenderly welcome."
+
+"There are your flowers. Now," said Caroline, who had kept the nosegay
+she had selected for him till this moment, "_you_ don't care for a
+bouquet, but you must give it to Margaret; only--to be sentimental for
+once--keep that little forget-me-not, which is a wild flower I gathered
+from the grass; and--to be still more sentimental--let me take two or
+three of the blue blossoms and put them in my souvenir."
+
+And she took out a small book with enamelled cover and silver clasp,
+wherein, having opened it, she inserted the flowers, writing round them
+in pencil, "To be kept for the sake of the Rev. Cyril Hall, my friend.
+May --, 18--."
+
+The Rev. Cyril Hall, on his part, also placed a sprig in safety between
+the leaves of a pocket Testament. He only wrote on the margin,
+"Caroline."
+
+"Now," said he, smiling, "I trust we are romantic enough. Miss Keeldar,"
+he continued (the curates, by-the-bye, during this conversation, were
+too much occupied with their own jokes to notice what passed at the
+other end of the table), "I hope you are laughing at this trait of
+'_exaltation_' in the old gray-headed vicar; but the fact is, I am so
+used to comply with the requests of this young friend of yours, I don't
+know how to refuse her when she tells me to do anything. You would say
+it is not much in my way to traffic with flowers and forget-me-nots;
+but, you see, when requested to be sentimental, I am obedient."
+
+"He is naturally rather sentimental," remarked Caroline. "Margaret told
+me so, and I know what pleases him."
+
+"That you should be good and happy? Yes; that is one of my greatest
+pleasures. May God long preserve to you the blessings of peace and
+innocence! By which phrase I mean _comparative_ innocence; for in His
+sight, I am well aware, _none_ are pure. What to our human perceptions
+looks spotless as we fancy angels, is to Him but frailty, needing the
+blood of His Son to cleanse, and the strength of His Spirit to sustain.
+Let us each and all cherish humility--I, as you, my young friends; and
+we may well do it when we look into our own hearts, and see there
+temptations, inconsistencies, propensities, even we blush to recognize.
+And it is not youth, nor good looks, nor grace, nor any gentle outside
+charm which makes either beauty or goodness in God's eyes.--Young
+ladies, when your mirror or men's tongues flatter you, remember that, in
+the sight of her Maker, Mary Ann Ainley--a woman whom neither glass nor
+lips have ever panegyrized--is fairer and better than either of you. She
+is indeed," he added, after a pause--"she is indeed. You young things,
+wrapt up in yourselves and in earthly hopes, scarcely live as Christ
+lived. Perhaps you cannot do it yet, while existence is so sweet and
+earth so smiling to you; it would be too much to expect. She, with meek
+heart and due reverence, treads close in her Redeemer's steps."
+
+Here the harsh voice of Donne broke in on the mild tones of Mr. Hall.
+"Ahem!" he began, clearing his throat evidently for a speech of some
+importance--"ahem! Miss Keeldar, your attention an instant, if you
+please."
+
+"Well," said Shirley nonchalantly, "what is it? I listen. All of me is
+ear that is not eye."
+
+"I hope part of you is hand also," returned Donne, in his vulgarly
+presumptuous and familiar style, "and part purse. It is to the hand and
+purse I propose to appeal. I came here this morning with a view to beg
+of you----"
+
+"You should have gone to Mrs. Gill; she is my almoner."
+
+"To beg of you a subscription to a school. I and Dr. Boultby intend to
+erect one in the hamlet of Ecclefigg, which is under our vicarage of
+Whinbury. The Baptists have got possession of it. They have a chapel
+there, and we want to dispute the ground."
+
+"But I have nothing to do with Ecclefigg. I possess no property there."
+
+"What does that signify? You're a churchwoman, ain't you?"
+
+"Admirable creature!" muttered Shirley, under her breath. "Exquisite
+address! Fine style! What raptures he excites in me!" Then aloud, "I am
+a churchwoman, certainly."
+
+"Then you can't refuse to contribute in this case. The population of
+Ecclefigg are a parcel of brutes; we want to civilize them."
+
+"Who is to be the missionary?"
+
+"Myself, probably."
+
+"You won't fail through lack of sympathy with your flock."
+
+"I hope not--I expect success; but we must have money. There is the
+paper. Pray give a handsome sum."
+
+When asked for money, Shirley rarely held back. She put down her name
+for £5. After the £300 she had lately given, and the many smaller sums
+she was giving constantly, it was as much as she could at present
+afford. Donne looked at it, declared the subscription "shabby," and
+clamorously demanded more. Miss Keeldar flushed up with some indignation
+and more astonishment.
+
+"At present I shall give no more," said she.
+
+"Not give more! Why, I expected you to head the list with a cool
+hundred. With your property, you should never put down a signature for
+less."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"In the south," went on Donne, "a lady with a thousand a year would be
+ashamed to give five pounds for a public object."
+
+Shirley, so rarely haughty, looked so now. Her slight frame became
+nerved; her distinguished face quickened with scorn.
+
+"Strange remarks?" said she--"most inconsiderate! Reproach in return for
+bounty is misplaced."
+
+"Bounty! Do you call five pounds bounty?"
+
+"I do; and bounty which, had I not given it to Dr. Boultby's intended
+school, of the erection of which I approve, and in no sort to his
+curate, who seems ill-advised in his manner of applying for, or rather
+extorting, subscriptions--bounty, I repeat, which, but for this
+consideration, I should instantly reclaim."
+
+Donne was thick-skinned. He did not feel all or half that the tone, air,
+glance of the speaker expressed. He knew not on what ground he stood.
+
+"Wretched place this Yorkshire," he went on. "I could never have formed
+an idea_r_ of the country had I not seen it. And the people--rich and
+poor--what a set! How _corse_ and uncultivated! They would be scouted in
+the south."
+
+Shirley leaned forwards on the table, her nostrils dilating a little,
+her taper fingers interlaced and compressing each other hard.
+
+"The rich," pursued the infatuated and unconscious Donne, "are a parcel
+of misers, never living as persons with their incomes ought to live. You
+scarsley"--(you must excuse Mr. Donne's pronunciation, reader; it was
+very choice; he considered it genteel, and prided himself on his
+southern accent; northern ears received with singular sensations his
+utterance of certain words)--"you scarsley ever see a fam'ly where a
+propa carriage or a reg'la butla is kep; and as to the poor--just look
+at them when they come crowding about the church doors on the occasion
+of a marriage or a funeral, clattering in clogs; the men in their
+shirt-sleeves and wool-combers' aprons, the women in mob-caps and
+bed-gowns. They positively deserve that one should turn a mad cow in
+amongst them to rout their rabble-ranks. He-he! what fun it would be!"
+
+"There! you have reached the climax," said Shirley quietly. "You have
+reached the climax," she repeated, turning her glowing glance towards
+him. "You cannot go beyond it, and," she added with emphasis, "you
+_shall_ not, in my house."
+
+Up she rose--nobody could control her now, for she was
+exasperated--straight she walked to her garden gates, wide she flung
+them open.
+
+"Walk through," she said austerely, "and pretty quickly, and set foot on
+this pavement no more."
+
+Donne was astounded. He had thought all the time he was showing himself
+off to high advantage, as a lofty-souled person of the first "ton;" he
+imagined he was producing a crushing impression. Had he not expressed
+disdain of everything in Yorkshire? What more conclusive proof could be
+given that he was better than anything there? And yet here was he about
+to be turned like a dog out of a Yorkshire garden! Where, under such
+circumstances, was the "concatenation accordingly"?
+
+"Rid me of you instantly--instantly!" reiterated Shirley, as he
+lingered.
+
+"Madam--a clergyman! turn out a clergyman!"
+
+"Off! Were you an archbishop you have proved yourself no gentleman, and
+must go. Quick!"
+
+She was quite resolved. There was no trifling with her. Besides, Tartar
+was again rising; he perceived symptoms of a commotion; he manifested a
+disposition to join in. There was evidently nothing for it but to go,
+and Donne made his exodus, the heiress sweeping him a deep curtsy as she
+closed the gates on him.
+
+"How dare the pompous priest abuse his flock! How dare the lisping
+cockney revile Yorkshire!" was her sole observation on the circumstance,
+as she returned to the table.
+
+Ere long the little party broke up; Miss Keeldar's ruffled and darkened
+brow, curled lip, and incensed eye gave no invitation to further social
+enjoyment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+WHITSUNTIDE.
+
+
+The fund prospered. By dint of Miss Keeldar's example, the three
+rectors' vigorous exertions, and the efficient though quiet aid of their
+spinster and spectacled lieutenants, Mary Ann Ainley and Margaret Hall,
+a handsome sum was raised; and this being judiciously managed, served
+for the present greatly to alleviate the distress of the unemployed
+poor. The neighbourhood seemed to grow calmer. For a fortnight past no
+cloth had been destroyed; no outrage on mill or mansion had been
+committed in the three parishes. Shirley was sanguine that the evil she
+wished to avert was almost escaped, that the threatened storm was
+passing over. With the approach of summer she felt certain that trade
+would improve--it always did; and then this weary war could not last for
+ever; peace must return one day. With peace, what an impulse would be
+given to commerce!
+
+Such was the usual tenor of her observations to her tenant, Gérard
+Moore, whenever she met him where they could converse; and Moore would
+listen very quietly--too quietly to satisfy her. She would then by her
+impatient glance demand something more from him--some explanation, or at
+least some additional remark. Smiling in his way, with that expression
+which gave a remarkable cast of sweetness to his mouth, while his brow
+remained grave, he would answer to the effect that himself too trusted
+in the finite nature of the war; that it was indeed on that ground the
+anchor of his hopes was fixed; thereon his speculations depended. "For
+you are aware," he would continue, "that I now work Hollow's Mill
+entirely on speculation. I sell nothing; there is no market for my
+goods. I manufacture for a future day. I make myself ready to take
+advantage of the first opening that shall occur. Three months ago this
+was impossible to me; I had exhausted both credit and capital. You well
+know who came to my rescue, from what hand I received the loan which
+saved me. It is on the strength of that loan I am enabled to continue
+the bold game which, a while since, I feared I should never play more.
+Total ruin I know will follow loss, and I am aware that gain is
+doubtful; but I am quite cheerful. So long as I can be active, so long
+as I can strive, so long, in short, as my hands are not tied, it is
+impossible for me to be depressed. One year--nay, but six months--of the
+reign of the olive, and I am safe; for, as you say, peace will give an
+impulse to commerce. In this you are right; but as to the restored
+tranquillity of the neighbourhood, as to the permanent good effect of
+your charitable fund, I doubt. Eleemosynary relief never yet
+tranquillized the working-classes--it never made them grateful; it is
+not in human nature that it should. I suppose, were all things ordered
+aright, they ought not to be in a position to need that humiliating
+relief; and this they feel. We should feel it were we so placed.
+Besides, to whom should they be grateful? To you, to the clergy perhaps,
+but not to us mill-owners. They hate us worse than ever. Then the
+disaffected here are in correspondence with the disaffected elsewhere.
+Nottingham is one of their headquarters, Manchester another, Birmingham
+a third. The subalterns receive orders from their chiefs; they are in a
+good state of discipline; no blow is struck without mature deliberation.
+In sultry weather you have seen the sky threaten thunder day by day, and
+yet night after night the clouds have cleared, and the sun has set
+quietly; but the danger was not gone--it was only delayed. The
+long-threatening storm is sure to break at last. There is analogy
+between the moral and physical atmosphere."
+
+"Well, Mr. Moore" (so these conferences always ended), "take care of
+yourself. If you think that I have ever done you any good, reward me by
+promising to take care of yourself."
+
+"I do; I will take close and watchful care. I wish to live, not to die.
+The future opens like Eden before me; and still, when I look deep into
+the shades of my paradise, I see a vision that I like better than seraph
+or cherub glide across remote vistas."
+
+"Do you? Pray, what vision?"
+
+"I see----"
+
+The maid came bustling in with the tea-things.
+
+The early part of that May, as we have seen, was fine; the middle was
+wet; but in the last week, at change of moon, it cleared again. A fresh
+wind swept off the silver-white, deep-piled rain-clouds, bearing them,
+mass on mass, to the eastern horizon, on whose verge they dwindled, and
+behind whose rim they disappeared, leaving the vault behind all pure
+blue space, ready for the reign of the summer sun. That sun rose broad
+on Whitsuntide. The gathering of the schools was signalized by splendid
+weather.
+
+Whit-Tuesday was the great day, in preparation for which the two large
+schoolrooms of Briarfield, built by the present rector, chiefly at his
+own expense, were cleaned out, whitewashed, repainted, and decorated
+with flowers and evergreens--some from the rectory garden, two cartloads
+from Fieldhead, and a wheel-barrowful from the more stingy domain of De
+Walden, the residence of Mr. Wynne. In these schoolrooms twenty tables,
+each calculated to accommodate twenty guests, were laid out, surrounded
+with benches, and covered with white cloths. Above them were suspended
+at least some twenty cages, containing as many canaries, according to a
+fancy of the district, specially cherished by Mr. Helstone's clerk, who
+delighted in the piercing song of these birds, and knew that amidst
+confusion of tongues they always carolled loudest. These tables, be it
+understood, were not spread for the twelve hundred scholars to be
+assembled from the three parishes, but only for the patrons and teachers
+of the schools. The children's feast was to be spread in the open air.
+At one o'clock the troops were to come in; at two they were to be
+marshalled; till four they were to parade the parish; then came the
+feast, and afterwards the meeting, with music and speechifying in the
+church.
+
+Why Briarfield was chosen for the point of rendezvous--the scene of the
+_fête_--should be explained. It was not because it was the largest or
+most populous parish--Whinbury far outdid it in that respect; nor
+because it was the oldest, antique as were the hoary church and
+rectory--Nunnely's low-roofed temple and mossy parsonage, buried both in
+coeval oaks, outstanding sentinels of Nunnwood, were older still. It was
+simply because Mr. Helstone willed it so, and Mr. Helstone's will was
+stronger than that of Boultby or Hall; the former _could_ not, the
+latter _would_ not, dispute a point of precedence with their resolute
+and imperious brother. They let him lead and rule.
+
+This notable anniversary had always hitherto been a trying day to
+Caroline Helstone, because it dragged her perforce into public,
+compelling her to face all that was wealthy, respectable, influential in
+the neighbourhood; in whose presence, but for the kind countenance of
+Mr. Hall, she would have appeared unsupported. Obliged to be
+conspicuous; obliged to walk at the head of her regiment as the rector's
+niece, and first teacher of the first class; obliged to make tea at the
+first table for a mixed multitude of ladies and gentlemen, and to do all
+this without the countenance of mother, aunt, or other chaperon--she,
+meantime, being a nervous person, who mortally feared publicity--it will
+be comprehended that, under these circumstances, she trembled at the
+approach of Whitsuntide.
+
+But this year Shirley was to be with her, and that changed the aspect of
+the trial singularly--it changed it utterly. It was a trial no
+longer--it was almost an enjoyment. Miss Keeldar was better in her
+single self than a host of ordinary friends. Quite self-possessed, and
+always spirited and easy; conscious of her social importance, yet never
+presuming upon it--it would be enough to give one courage only to look
+at her. The only fear was lest the heiress should not be punctual to
+tryst. She often had a careless way of lingering behind time, and
+Caroline knew her uncle would not wait a second for any one. At the
+moment of the church clock tolling two, the bells would clash out and
+the march begin. She must look after Shirley, then, in this matter, or
+her expected companion would fail her.
+
+Whit-Tuesday saw her rise almost with the sun. She, Fanny, and Eliza
+were busy the whole morning arranging the rectory parlours in first-rate
+company order, and setting out a collation of cooling
+refreshments--wine, fruit, cakes--on the dining-room sideboard. Then she
+had to dress in her freshest and fairest attire of white muslin: the
+perfect fineness of the day and the solemnity of the occasion warranted,
+and even exacted, such costume. Her new sash--a birthday present from
+Margaret Hall, which she had reason to believe Cyril himself had bought,
+and in return for which she had indeed given him a set of cambric bands
+in a handsome case--was tied by the dexterous fingers of Fanny, who took
+no little pleasure in arraying her fair young mistress for the occasion.
+Her simple bonnet had been trimmed to correspond with her sash; her
+pretty but inexpensive scarf of white crape suited her dress. When ready
+she formed a picture, not bright enough to dazzle, but fair enough to
+interest; not brilliantly striking, but very delicately pleasing--a
+picture in which sweetness of tint, purity of air, and grace of mien
+atoned for the absence of rich colouring and magnificent contour. What
+her brown eye and clear forehead showed of her mind was in keeping with
+her dress and face--modest, gentle, and, though pensive, harmonious. It
+appeared that neither lamb nor dove need fear her, but would welcome
+rather, in her look of simplicity and softness, a sympathy with their
+own natures, or with the natures we ascribe to them.
+
+After all, she was an imperfect, faulty human being, fair enough of
+form, hue, and array, but, as Cyril Hall said, neither so good nor so
+great as the withered Miss Ainley, now putting on her best black gown
+and Quaker drab shawl and bonnet in her own narrow cottage chamber.
+
+Away Caroline went, across some very sequestered fields and through some
+quite hidden lanes, to Fieldhead. She glided quickly under the green
+hedges and across the greener leas. There was no dust, no moisture, to
+soil the hem of her stainless garment, or to damp her slender sandal.
+After the late rains all was clean, and under the present glowing sun
+all was dry. She walked fearlessly, then, on daisy and turf, and through
+thick plantations; she reached Fieldhead, and penetrated to Miss
+Keeldar's dressing-room.
+
+It was well she had come, or Shirley would have been too late. Instead
+of making ready with all speed, she lay stretched on a couch, absorbed
+in reading. Mrs. Pryor stood near, vainly urging her to rise and dress.
+Caroline wasted no words. She immediately took the book from her, and
+with her own hands commenced the business of disrobing and rerobing her.
+Shirley, indolent with the heat, and gay with her youth and pleasurable
+nature, wanted to talk, laugh, and linger; but Caroline, intent on being
+in time, persevered in dressing her as fast as fingers could fasten
+strings or insert pins. At length, as she united a final row of hooks
+and eyes, she found leisure to chide her, saying she was very naughty to
+be so unpunctual, that she looked even now the picture of incorrigible
+carelessness; and so Shirley did, but a very lovely picture of that
+tiresome quality.
+
+She presented quite a contrast to Caroline. There was style in every
+fold of her dress and every line of her figure. The rich silk suited her
+better than a simpler costume; the deep embroidered scarf became her.
+She wore it negligently but gracefully. The wreath on her bonnet
+crowned her well. The attention to fashion, the tasteful appliance of
+ornament in each portion of her dress, were quite in place with her. All
+this suited her, like the frank light in her eyes, the rallying smile
+about her lips, like her shaft-straight carriage and lightsome step.
+Caroline took her hand when she was dressed, hurried her downstairs, out
+of doors; and thus they sped through the fields, laughing as they went,
+and looking very much like a snow-white dove and gem-tinted bird of
+paradise joined in social flight.
+
+Thanks to Miss Helstone's promptitude, they arrived in good time. While
+yet trees hid the church, they heard the bell tolling a measured but
+urgent summons for all to assemble. The trooping in of numbers, the
+trampling of many steps and murmuring of many voices, were likewise
+audible. From a rising ground, they presently saw, on the Whinbury road,
+the Whinbury school approaching. It numbered five hundred souls. The
+rector and curate, Boultby and Donne, headed it--the former looming
+large in full canonicals, walking as became a beneficed priest, under
+the canopy of a shovel-hat, with the dignity of an ample corporation,
+the embellishment of the squarest and vastest of black coats, and the
+support of the stoutest of gold-headed canes. As the doctor walked, he
+now and then slightly flourished his cane, and inclined his shovel-hat
+with a dogmatical wag towards his aide-de-camp. That
+aide-de-camp--Donne, to wit--narrow as the line of his shape was,
+compared to the broad bulk of his principal, contrived, notwithstanding,
+to look every inch a curate. All about him was pragmatical and
+self-complacent, from his turned-up nose and elevated chin to his
+clerical black gaiters, his somewhat short, strapless trousers, and his
+square-toed shoes.
+
+Walk on, Mr. Donne! You have undergone scrutiny. You think you look
+well. Whether the white and purple figures watching you from yonder hill
+think so is another question.
+
+These figures come running down when the regiment has marched by. The
+churchyard is full of children and teachers, all in their very best
+holiday attire; and, distressed as is the district, bad as are the
+times, it is wonderful to see how respectably, how handsomely even, they
+have contrived to clothe themselves. That British love of decency will
+work miracles. The poverty which reduces an Irish girl to rags is
+impotent to rob the English girl of the neat wardrobe she knows
+necessary to her self-respect. Besides, the lady of the manor--that
+Shirley, now gazing with pleasure on this well-dressed and happy-looking
+crowd--has really done them good. Her seasonable bounty consoled many a
+poor family against the coming holiday, and supplied many a child with a
+new frock or bonnet for the occasion. She knows it, and is elate with
+the consciousness--glad that her money, example, and influence have
+really, substantially, benefited those around her. She cannot be
+charitable like Miss Ainley: it is not in her nature. It relieves her to
+feel that there is another way of being charitable, practicable for
+other characters, and under other circumstances.
+
+Caroline, too, is pleased, for she also has done good in her small
+way--robbed herself of more than one dress, ribbon, or collar she could
+ill spare, to aid in fitting out the scholars of her class; and as she
+could not give money, she has followed Miss Ainley's example in giving
+her time and her industry to sew for the children.
+
+Not only is the churchyard full, but the rectory garden is also
+thronged. Pairs and parties of ladies and gentlemen are seen walking
+amongst the waving lilacs and laburnums. The house also is occupied: at
+the wide-open parlour windows gay groups are standing. These are the
+patrons and teachers, who are to swell the procession. In the parson's
+croft, behind the rectory, are the musicians of the three parish bands,
+with their instruments. Fanny and Eliza, in the smartest of caps and
+gowns, and the whitest of aprons, move amongst them, serving out quarts
+of ale, whereof a stock was brewed very sound and strong some weeks
+since by the rector's orders, and under his special superintendence.
+Whatever he had a hand in must be managed handsomely. "Shabby doings" of
+any description were not endured under his sanction. From the erection
+of a public building, a church, school, or court-house, to the cooking
+of a dinner, he still advocated the lordly, liberal, and effective. Miss
+Keeldar was like him in this respect, and they mutually approved each
+other's arrangements.
+
+Caroline and Shirley were soon in the midst of the company. The former
+met them very easily for her. Instead of sitting down in a retired
+corner, or stealing away to her own room till the procession should be
+marshalled, according to her wont, she moved through the three
+parlours, conversed and smiled, absolutely spoke once or twice ere she
+was spoken to, and, in short, seemed a new creature. It was Shirley's
+presence which thus transformed her; the view of Miss Keeldar's air and
+manner did her a world of good. Shirley had no fear of her kind, no
+tendency to shrink from, to avoid it. All human beings--men, women, or
+children--whom low breeding or coarse presumption did not render
+positively offensive, were welcome enough to her--some much more so than
+others, of course; but, generally speaking, till a man had indisputably
+proved himself bad and a nuisance, Shirley was willing to think him good
+and an acquisition, and to treat him accordingly. This disposition made
+her a general favourite, for it robbed her very raillery of its sting,
+and gave her serious or smiling conversation a happy charm; nor did it
+diminish the value of her intimate friendship, which was a distinct
+thing from this social benevolence--depending, indeed, on quite a
+different part of her character. Miss Helstone was the choice of her
+affection and intellect; the Misses Pearson, Sykes, Wynne, etc., etc.,
+only the profiteers by her good-nature and vivacity.
+
+Donne happened to come into the drawing-room while Shirley, sitting on
+the sofa, formed the centre of a tolerably wide circle. She had already
+forgotten her exasperation against him, and she bowed and smiled
+good-humouredly. The disposition of the man was then seen. He knew
+neither how to decline the advance with dignity, as one whose just pride
+has been wounded, nor how to meet it with frankness, as one who is glad
+to forget and forgive. His punishment had impressed him with no sense of
+shame, and he did not experience that feeling on encountering his
+chastiser. He was not vigorous enough in evil to be actively
+malignant--he merely passed by sheepishly with a rated, scowling look.
+Nothing could ever again reconcile him to his enemy; while no passion of
+resentment, for even sharper and more ignominious inflictions, could his
+lymphatic nature know.
+
+"He was not worth a scene!" said Shirley to Caroline. "What a fool I
+was! To revenge on poor Donne his silly spite at Yorkshire is something
+like crushing a gnat for attacking the hide of a rhinoceros. Had I been
+a gentleman, I believe I should have helped him off the premises by dint
+of physical force. I am glad now I only employed the moral weapon. But
+he must come near me no more. I don't like him. He irritates me. There
+is not even amusement to be had out of him. Malone is better sport."
+
+It seemed as if Malone wished to justify the preference, for the words
+were scarcely out of the speaker's mouth when Peter Augustus came up,
+all in _grande tenue_, gloved and scented, with his hair oiled and
+brushed to perfection, and bearing in one hand a huge bunch of
+cabbage-roses, five or six in full blow. These he presented to the
+heiress with a grace to which the most cunning pencil could do but
+defective justice. And who, after this, could dare to say that Peter was
+not a lady's man? He had gathered and he had given flowers; he had
+offered a sentimental, a poetic tribute at the shrine of Love or Mammon.
+Hercules holding the distaff was but a faint type of Peter bearing the
+roses. He must have thought this himself, for he seemed amazed at what
+he had done. He backed without a word; he was going away with a husky
+chuckle of self-satisfaction; then he bethought himself to stop and
+turn, to ascertain by ocular testimony that he really had presented a
+bouquet. Yes, there were the six red cabbages on the purple satin lap, a
+very white hand, with some gold rings on the fingers, slightly holding
+them together, and streaming ringlets, half hiding a laughing face,
+drooped over them. Only _half_ hiding! Peter saw the laugh; it was
+unmistakable. He was made a joke of; his gallantry, his chivalry, were
+the subject of a jest for a petticoat--for two petticoats: Miss Helstone
+too was smiling. Moreover, he felt he was seen through, and Peter grew
+black as a thunder-cloud. When Shirley looked up, a fell eye was
+fastened on her. Malone, at least, had energy enough in hate. She saw it
+in his glance.
+
+"Peter _is_ worth a scene, and shall have it, if he likes, one day," she
+whispered to her friend.
+
+And now--solemn and sombre as to their colour, though bland enough as to
+their faces--appeared at the dining-room door the three rectors. They
+had hitherto been busy in the church, and were now coming to take some
+little refreshment for the body, ere the march commenced. The large
+morocco-covered easy-chair had been left vacant for Dr. Boultby. He was
+put into it, and Caroline, obeying the instigations of Shirley, who told
+her now was the time to play the hostess, hastened to hand to her
+uncle's vast, revered, and, on the whole, worthy friend, a glass of
+wine and a plate of macaroons. Boultby's churchwardens, patrons of the
+Sunday school both, as he insisted on their being, were already beside
+him; Mrs. Sykes and the other ladies of his congregation were on his
+right hand and on his left, expressing their hopes that he was not
+fatigued, their fears that the day would be too warm for him. Mrs.
+Boultby, who held an opinion that when her lord dropped asleep after a
+good dinner his face became as the face of an angel, was bending over
+him, tenderly wiping some perspiration, real or imaginary, from his
+brow. Boultby, in short, was in his glory, and in a round, sound _voix
+de poitrine_ he rumbled out thanks for attentions and assurances of his
+tolerable health. Of Caroline he took no manner of notice as she came
+near, save to accept what she offered. He did not see her--he never did
+see her; he hardly knew that such a person existed. He saw the
+macaroons, however, and being fond of sweets, possessed himself of a
+small handful thereof. The wine Mrs. Boultby insisted on mingling with
+hot water, and qualifying with sugar and nutmeg.
+
+Mr. Hall stood near an open window, breathing the fresh air and scent of
+flowers, and talking like a brother to Miss Ainley. To him Caroline
+turned her attention with pleasure. "What should she bring him? He must
+not help himself--he must be served by her." And she provided herself
+with a little salver, that she might offer him variety. Margaret Hall
+joined them; so did Miss Keeldar. The four ladies stood round their
+favourite pastor. They also had an idea that they looked on the face of
+an earthly angel. Cyril Hall was their pope, infallible to them as Dr.
+Thomas Boultby to his admirers. A throng, too, enclosed the rector of
+Briarfield--twenty or more pressed round him; and no parson was ever
+more potent in a circle than old Helstone. The curates, herding together
+after their manner, made a constellation of three lesser planets. Divers
+young ladies watched them afar off, but ventured not nigh.
+
+Mr. Helstone produced his watch. "Ten minutes to two," he announced
+aloud. "Time for all to fall into line. Come." He seized his shovel-hat
+and marched away. All rose and followed _en masse_.
+
+The twelve hundred children were drawn up in three bodies of four
+hundred souls each; in the rear of each regiment was stationed a band;
+between every twenty there was an interval, wherein Helstone posted the
+teachers in pairs. To the van of the armies he summoned,--
+
+"Grace Boultby and Mary Sykes lead out Whinbury.
+
+"Margaret Hall and Mary Ann Ainley conduct Nunnely.
+
+"Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar head Briarfield."
+
+Then again he gave command,--
+
+"Mr. Donne to Whinbury; Mr. Sweeting to Nunnely; Mr. Malone to
+Briarfield."
+
+And these gentlemen stepped up before the lady-generals.
+
+The rectors passed to the full front; the parish clerks fell to the
+extreme rear. Helstone lifted his shovel-hat. In an instant out clashed
+the eight bells in the tower, loud swelled the sounding bands, flute
+spoke and clarion answered, deep rolled the drums, and away they
+marched.
+
+The broad white road unrolled before the long procession, the sun and
+sky surveyed it cloudless, the wind tossed the tree boughs above it, and
+the twelve hundred children and one hundred and forty adults of which it
+was composed trod on in time and tune, with gay faces and glad hearts.
+It was a joyous scene, and a scene to do good. It was a day of happiness
+for rich and poor--the work, first of God, and then of the clergy. Let
+England's priests have their due. They are a faulty set in some
+respects, being only of common flesh and blood like us all; but the land
+would be badly off without them. Britain would miss her church, if that
+church fell. God save it! God also reform it!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE SCHOOL FEAST.
+
+
+Not on combat bent, nor of foemen in search, was this priest-led and
+woman-officered company; yet their music played martial tunes, and, to
+judge by the eyes and carriage of some--Miss Keeldar, for
+instance--these sounds awoke, if not a martial, yet a longing spirit.
+Old Helstone, turning by chance, looked into her face; and he laughed,
+and she laughed at him.
+
+"There is no battle in prospect," he said; "our country does not want us
+to fight for it. No foe or tyrant is questioning or threatening our
+liberty. There is nothing to be done. We are only taking a walk. Keep
+your hand on the reins, captain, and slack the fire of that spirit. It
+is not wanted, the more's the pity."
+
+"Take your own advice, doctor," was Shirley's response. To Caroline she
+murmured, "I'll borrow of imagination what reality will not give me. We
+are not soldiers--bloodshed is not my desire--or if we are, we are
+soldiers of the Cross. Time has rolled back some hundreds of years, and
+we are bound on a pilgrimage to Palestine. But no; that is too
+visionary. I need a sterner dream. We are Lowlanders of Scotland,
+following a Covenanting captain up into the hills to hold a meeting out
+of the reach of persecuting troopers. We know that battle may follow
+prayer; and as we believe that in the worst issue of battle heaven must
+be our reward, we are ready and willing to redden the peat-moss with our
+blood. That music stirs my soul; it wakens all my life; it makes my
+heart beat--not with its temperate daily pulse, but with a new,
+thrilling vigour. I almost long for danger--for a faith, a land, or at
+least a lover to defend."
+
+"Look, Shirley!" interrupted Caroline. "What is that red speck above
+Stilbro' Brow? You have keener sight than I. Just turn your eagle eye to
+it."
+
+Miss Keeldar looked. "I see," she said; then added presently, "there is
+a line of red. They are soldiers--cavalry soldiers," she subjoined
+quickly. "They ride fast. There are six of them. They will pass us. No;
+they have turned off to the right. They saw our procession, and avoid it
+by making a circuit. Where are they going?"
+
+"Perhaps they are only exercising their horses."
+
+"Perhaps so. We see them no more now."
+
+Mr. Helstone here spoke.
+
+"We shall pass through Royd Lane, to reach Nunnely Common by a short
+cut," said he.
+
+And into the straits of Royd Lane they accordingly defiled. It was very
+narrow--so narrow that only two could walk abreast without falling into
+the ditch which ran along each side. They had gained the middle of it,
+when excitement became obvious in the clerical commanders. Boultby's
+spectacles and Helstone's Rehoboam were agitated; the curates nudged
+each other; Mr. Hall turned to the ladies and smiled.
+
+"What is the matter?" was the demand.
+
+He pointed with his staff to the end of the lane before them. Lo and
+behold! another, an opposition, procession was there entering, headed
+also by men in black, and followed also, as they could now hear, by
+music.
+
+"Is it our double?" asked Shirley, "our manifold wraith? Here is a card
+turned up."
+
+"If you wanted a battle, you are likely to get one--at least of looks,"
+whispered Caroline, laughing.
+
+"They shall not pass us!" cried the curates unanimously; "we'll not give
+way!"
+
+"Give way!" retorted Helstone sternly, turning round; "who talks of
+giving way? You, boys, mind what you are about. The ladies, I know, will
+be firm. I can trust them. There is not a churchwoman here but will
+stand her ground against these folks, for the honour of the
+Establishment.--What does Miss Keeldar say?"
+
+"She asks what is it."
+
+"The Dissenting and Methodist schools, the Baptists, Independents, and
+Wesleyans, joined in unholy alliance, and turning purposely into this
+lane with the intention of obstructing our march and driving us back."
+
+"Bad manners!" said Shirley, "and I hate bad manners. Of course, they
+must have a lesson."
+
+"A lesson in politeness," suggested Mr. Hall, who was ever for peace;
+"not an example of rudeness."
+
+Old Helstone moved on. Quickening his step, he marched some yards in
+advance of his company. He had nearly reached the other sable leaders,
+when he who appeared to act as the hostile commander-in-chief--a large,
+greasy man, with black hair combed flat on his forehead--called a halt.
+The procession paused. He drew forth a hymn book, gave out a verse, set
+a tune, and they all struck up the most dolorous of canticles.
+
+Helstone signed to his bands. They clashed out with all the power of
+brass. He desired them to play "Rule, Britannia!" and ordered the
+children to join in vocally, which they did with enthusiastic spirit.
+The enemy was sung and stormed down, his psalm quelled. As far as noise
+went, he was conquered.
+
+"Now, follow me!" exclaimed Helstone; "not at a run, but at a firm,
+smart pace. Be steady, every child and woman of you. Keep together. Hold
+on by each other's skirts, if necessary."
+
+And he strode on with such a determined and deliberate gait, and was,
+besides, so well seconded by his scholars and teachers, who did exactly
+as he told them, neither running nor faltering, but marching with cool,
+solid impetus--the curates, too, being compelled to do the same, as they
+were between two fires, Helstone and Miss Keeldar, both of whom watched
+any deviation with lynx-eyed vigilance, and were ready, the one with his
+cane, the other with her parasol, to rebuke the slightest breach of
+orders, the least independent or irregular demonstration--that the body
+of Dissenters were first amazed, then alarmed, then borne down and
+pressed back, and at last forced to turn tail and leave the outlet from
+Royd Lane free. Boultby suffered in the onslaught, but Helstone and
+Malone, between them, held him up, and brought him through the business,
+whole in limb, though sorely tried in wind.
+
+The fat Dissenter who had given out the hymn was left sitting in the
+ditch. He was a spirit merchant by trade, a leader of the
+Nonconformists, and, it was said, drank more water in that one afternoon
+than he had swallowed for a twelvemonth before. Mr. Hall had taken care
+of Caroline, and Caroline of him. He and Miss Ainley made their own
+quiet comments to each other afterwards on the incident. Miss Keeldar
+and Mr. Helstone shook hands heartily when they had fairly got the whole
+party through the lane. The curates began to exult, but Mr. Helstone
+presently put the curb on their innocent spirits. He remarked that they
+never had sense to know what to say, and had better hold their tongues;
+and he reminded them that the business was none of their managing.
+
+About half-past three the procession turned back, and at four once more
+regained the starting-place. Long lines of benches were arranged in the
+close-shorn fields round the school. There the children were seated, and
+huge baskets, covered up with white cloths, and great smoking tin
+vessels were brought out. Ere the distribution of good things commenced,
+a brief grace was pronounced by Mr. Hall and sung by the children. Their
+young voices sounded melodious, even touching, in the open air. Large
+currant buns and hot, well-sweetened tea were then administered in the
+proper spirit of liberality. No stinting was permitted on this day, at
+least; the rule for each child's allowance being that it was to have
+about twice as much as it could possibly eat, thus leaving a reserve to
+be carried home for such as age, sickness, or other impediment prevented
+from coming to the feast. Buns and beer circulated, meantime, amongst
+the musicians and church-singers; afterwards the benches were removed,
+and they were left to unbend their spirits in licensed play.
+
+A bell summoned the teachers, patrons, and patronesses to the
+schoolroom. Miss Keeldar, Miss Helstone, and many other ladies were
+already there, glancing over the arrangement of their separate trays and
+tables. Most of the female servants of the neighbourhood, together with
+the clerks', the singers', and the musicians' wives, had been pressed
+into the service of the day as waiters. Each vied with the other in
+smartness and daintiness of dress, and many handsome forms were seen
+amongst the younger ones. About half a score were cutting bread and
+butter, another half-score supplying hot water, brought from the coppers
+of the rector's kitchen. The profusion of flowers and evergreens
+decorating the white walls, the show of silver teapots and bright
+porcelain on the tables, the active figures, blithe faces, gay dresses
+flitting about everywhere, formed altogether a refreshing and lively
+spectacle. Everybody talked, not very loudly, but merrily, and the
+canary birds sang shrill in their high-hung cages.
+
+Caroline, as the rector's niece, took her place at one of the three
+first tables; Mrs. Boultby and Margaret Hall officiated at the others.
+At these tables the _élite_ of the company were to be entertained,
+strict rules of equality not being more in fashion at Briarfield than
+elsewhere. Miss Helstone removed her bonnet and scarf, that she might be
+less oppressed with the heat. Her long curls, falling on her neck,
+served almost in place of a veil; and for the rest, her muslin dress was
+fashioned modestly as a nun's robe, enabling her thus to dispense with
+the encumbrance of a shawl.
+
+The room was filling. Mr. Hall had taken his post beside Caroline, who
+now, as she rearranged the cups and spoons before her, whispered to him
+in a low voice remarks on the events of the day. He looked a little
+grave about what had taken place in Royd Lane, and she tried to smile
+him out of his seriousness. Miss Keeldar sat near--for a wonder, neither
+laughing nor talking; on the contrary, very still, and gazing round her
+vigilantly. She seemed afraid lest some intruder should take a seat she
+apparently wished to reserve next her own. Ever and anon she spread her
+satin dress over an undue portion of the bench, or laid her gloves or
+her embroidered handkerchief upon it. Caroline noticed this _manège_ at
+last, and asked her what friend she expected. Shirley bent towards her,
+almost touched her ear with her rosy lips, and whispered with a musical
+softness that often characterized her tones when what she said tended
+even remotely to stir some sweet secret source of feeling in her heart,
+"I expect Mr. Moore. I saw him last night, and I made him promise to
+come with his sister, and to sit at our table. He won't fail me, I feel
+certain; but I apprehend his coming too late, and being separated from
+us. Here is a fresh batch arriving; every place will be taken.
+Provoking!"
+
+In fact, Mr. Wynne the magistrate, his wife, his son, and his two
+daughters now entered in high state. They were Briarfield gentry. Of
+course their place was at the first table, and being conducted thither,
+they filled up the whole remaining space. For Miss Keeldar's comfort,
+Mr. Sam Wynne inducted himself into the very vacancy she had kept for
+Moore, planting himself solidly on her gown, her gloves, and her
+handkerchief. Mr. Sam was one of the objects of her aversion, and the
+more so because he showed serious symptoms of an aim at her hand. The
+old gentleman, too, had publicly declared that the Fieldhead estate and
+the De Walden estate were delightfully _contagious_--a malapropism which
+rumour had not failed to repeat to Shirley.
+
+Caroline's ears yet rung with that thrilling whisper, "I expect Mr.
+Moore," her heart yet beat and her cheek yet glowed with it, when a note
+from the organ pealed above the confused hum of the place. Dr. Boultby,
+Mr. Helstone, and Mr. Hall rose, so did all present, and grace was sung
+to the accompaniment of the music; and then tea began. She was kept too
+busy with her office for a while to have leisure for looking round, but
+the last cup being filled, she threw a restless glance over the room.
+There were some ladies and several gentlemen standing about yet
+unaccommodated with seats. Amidst a group she recognized her spinster
+friend, Miss Mann, whom the fine weather had tempted, or some urgent
+friend had persuaded, to leave her drear solitude for one hour of social
+enjoyment. Miss Mann looked tired of standing; a lady in a yellow bonnet
+brought her a chair. Caroline knew well that _chapeau en satin jaune_;
+she knew the black hair, and the kindly though rather opinionated and
+froward-looking face under it; she knew that _robe de soie noire_, she
+knew even that _schall gris de lin_; she knew, in short, Hortense Moore,
+and she wanted to jump up and run to her and kiss her--to give her one
+embrace for her own sake and two for her brother's. She half rose,
+indeed, with a smothered exclamation, and perhaps--for the impulse was
+very strong--she would have run across the room and actually saluted
+her; but a hand replaced her in her seat, and a voice behind her
+whispered, "Wait till after tea, Lina, and then I'll bring her to you."
+
+And when she _could_ look up she did, and there was Robert himself close
+behind, smiling at her eagerness, looking better than she had ever seen
+him look--looking, indeed, to her partial eyes, so very handsome that
+she dared not trust herself to hazard a second glance; for his image
+struck on her vision with painful brightness, and pictured itself on her
+memory as vividly as if there daguerreotyped by a pencil of keen
+lightning.
+
+He moved on, and spoke to Miss Keeldar. Shirley, irritated by some
+unwelcome attentions from Sam Wynne, and by the fact of that gentleman
+being still seated on her gloves and handkerchief--and probably, also,
+by Moore's want of punctuality--was by no means in good humour. She
+first shrugged her shoulders at him, and then she said a bitter word or
+two about his "insupportable tardiness." Moore neither apologized nor
+retorted. He stood near her quietly, as if waiting to see whether she
+would recover her temper; which she did in little more than three
+minutes, indicating the change by offering him her hand. Moore took it
+with a smile, half-corrective, half-grateful. The slightest possible
+shake of the head delicately marked the former quality; it is probable a
+gentle pressure indicated the latter.
+
+"You may sit where you can now, Mr. Moore," said Shirley, also smiling.
+"You see there is not an inch of room for you here; but I discern plenty
+of space at Mrs. Boultby's table, between Miss Armitage and Miss
+Birtwhistle. Go! John Sykes will be your _vis-à-vis_, and you will sit
+with your back towards us."
+
+Moore, however, preferred lingering about where he was. He now and then
+took a turn down the long room, pausing in his walk to interchange
+greetings with other gentlemen in his own placeless predicament; but
+still he came back to the magnet, Shirley, bringing with him, each time
+he returned, observations it was necessary to whisper in her ear.
+
+Meantime poor Sam Wynne looked far from comfortable. His fair neighbour,
+judging from her movements, appeared in a mood the most unquiet and
+unaccommodating. She would not sit still two seconds. She was hot; she
+fanned herself; complained of want of air and space. She remarked that,
+in her opinion, when people had finished their tea they ought to leave
+the tables, and announced distinctly that she expected to faint if the
+present state of things continued. Mr. Sam offered to accompany her into
+the open air; just the way to give her her death of cold, she alleged.
+In short, his post became untenable; and having swallowed his quantum of
+tea, he judged it expedient to evacuate.
+
+Moore should have been at hand, whereas he was quite at the other
+extremity of the room, deep in conference with Christopher Sykes. A
+large corn-factor, Timothy Ramsden, Esq., happened to be nearer; and
+feeling himself tired of standing, he advanced to fill the vacant seat.
+Shirley's expedients did not fail her. A sweep of her scarf upset her
+teacup: its contents were shared between the bench and her own satin
+dress. Of course, it became necessary to call a waiter to remedy the
+mischief. Mr. Ramsden, a stout, puffy gentleman, as large in person as
+he was in property, held aloof from the consequent commotion. Shirley,
+usually almost culpably indifferent to slight accidents affecting dress,
+etc., now made a commotion that might have become the most delicate and
+nervous of her sex. Mr. Ramsden opened his mouth, withdrew slowly, and,
+as Miss Keeldar again intimated her intention to "give way" and swoon on
+the spot, he turned on his heel, and beat a heavy retreat.
+
+Moore at last returned. Calmly surveying the bustle, and somewhat
+quizzically scanning Shirley's enigmatical-looking countenance, he
+remarked that in truth this was the hottest end of the room, that he
+found a climate there calculated to agree with none but cool
+temperaments like his own; and putting the waiters, the napkins, the
+satin robe--the whole turmoil, in short--to one side, he installed
+himself where destiny evidently decreed he should sit. Shirley subsided;
+her features altered their lines; the raised knit brow and inexplicable
+curve of the mouth became straight again; wilfulness and roguery gave
+place to other expressions; and all the angular movements with which she
+had vexed the soul of Sam Wynne were conjured to rest as by a charm.
+Still no gracious glance was cast on Moore. On the contrary, he was
+accused of giving her a world of trouble, and roundly charged with being
+the cause of depriving her of the esteem of Mr. Ramsden and the
+invaluable friendship of Mr. Samuel Wynne.
+
+"Wouldn't have offended either gentleman for the world," she averred. "I
+have always been accustomed to treat both with the most respectful
+consideration, and there, owing to you, how they have been used! I shall
+not be happy till I have made it up. I never am happy till I am friends
+with my neighbours. So to-morrow I must make a pilgrimage to Royd
+corn-mill, soothe the miller, and praise the grain; and next day I must
+call at De Walden--where I hate to go--and carry in my reticule half an
+oatcake to give to Mr. Sam's favourite pointers."
+
+"You know the surest path to the heart of each swain, I doubt not," said
+Moore quietly. He looked very content to have at last secured his
+present place; but he made no fine speech expressive of gratification,
+and offered no apology for the trouble he had given. His phlegm became
+him wonderfully. It made him look handsomer, he was so composed; it made
+his vicinage pleasant, it was so peace-restoring. You would not have
+thought, to look at him, that he was a poor, struggling man seated
+beside a rich woman; the calm of equality stilled his aspect; perhaps
+that calm, too, reigned in his soul. Now and then, from the way in which
+he looked down on Miss Keeldar as he addressed her, you would have
+fancied his station towered above hers as much as his stature did.
+Almost stern lights sometimes crossed his brow and gleamed in his eyes.
+Their conversation had become animated, though it was confined to a low
+key; she was urging him with questions--evidently he refused to her
+curiosity all the gratification it demanded. She sought his eye once
+with hers. You read, in its soft yet eager expression, that it solicited
+clearer replies. Moore smiled pleasantly, but his lips continued sealed.
+Then she was piqued, and turned away; but he recalled her attention in
+two minutes. He seemed making promises, which he soothed her into
+accepting in lieu of information.
+
+It appeared that the heat of the room did not suit Miss Helstone. She
+grew paler and paler as the process of tea-making was protracted. The
+moment thanks were returned she quitted the table, and hastened to
+follow her cousin Hortense, who, with Miss Mann, had already sought the
+open air. Robert Moore had risen when she did--perhaps he meant to speak
+to her; but there was yet a parting word to exchange with Miss Keeldar,
+and while it was being uttered Caroline had vanished.
+
+Hortense received her former pupil with a demeanour of more dignity than
+warmth. She had been seriously offended by Mr. Helstone's proceedings,
+and had all along considered Caroline to blame in obeying her uncle too
+literally.
+
+"You are a very great stranger," she said austerely, as her pupil held
+and pressed her hand. The pupil knew her too well to remonstrate or
+complain of coldness. She let the punctilious whim pass, sure that her
+natural _bonté_ (I use this French word because it expresses just what I
+mean--neither goodness nor good-nature, but something between the two)
+would presently get the upper hand. It did. Hortense had no sooner
+examined her face well, and observed the change its somewhat wasted
+features betrayed, than her mien softened. Kissing her on both cheeks,
+she asked anxiously after her health. Caroline answered gaily. It would,
+however, have been her lot to undergo a long cross-examination, followed
+by an endless lecture on this head, had not Miss Mann called off the
+attention of the questioner by requesting to be conducted home. The poor
+invalid was already fatigued. Her weariness made her cross--too cross
+almost to speak to Caroline; and besides, that young person's white
+dress and lively look were displeasing in the eyes of Miss Mann. The
+everyday garb of brown stuff or gray gingham, and the everyday air of
+melancholy, suited the solitary spinster better; she would hardly know
+her young friend to-night, and quitted her with a cool nod. Hortense
+having promised to accompany her home, they departed together.
+
+Caroline now looked round for Shirley. She saw the rainbow scarf and
+purple dress in the centre of a throng of ladies, all well known to
+herself, but all of the order whom she systematically avoided whenever
+avoidance was possible. Shyer at some moments than at others, she felt
+just now no courage at all to join this company. She could not, however,
+stand alone where all others went in pairs or parties; so she approached
+a group of her own scholars, great girls, or rather young women, who
+were standing watching some hundreds of the younger children playing at
+blind-man's buff.
+
+Miss Helstone knew these girls liked her, yet she was shy even with them
+out of school. They were not more in awe of her than she of them. She
+drew near them now, rather to find protection in their company than to
+patronize them with her presence. By some instinct they knew her
+weakness, and with natural politeness they respected it. Her knowledge
+commanded their esteem when she taught them; her gentleness attracted
+their regard; and because she was what they considered wise and good
+when _on_ duty, they kindly overlooked her evident timidity when off.
+They did not take advantage of it. Peasant girls as they were, they had
+too much of our own English sensibility to be guilty of the coarse
+error. They stood round her still, civil, friendly, receiving her slight
+smiles and rather hurried efforts to converse with a good feeling and
+good breeding--the last quality being the result of the first--which
+soon set her at her ease.
+
+Mr. Sam Wynne coming up with great haste, to insist on the elder girls
+joining in the game as well as the younger ones, Caroline was again left
+alone. She was meditating a quiet retreat to the house, when Shirley,
+perceiving from afar her isolation, hastened to her side.
+
+"Let us go to the top of the fields," she said. "I know you don't like
+crowds, Caroline."
+
+"But it will be depriving you of a pleasure, Shirley, to take you from
+all these fine people, who court your society so assiduously, and to
+whom you can, without art or effort, make yourself so pleasant."
+
+"Not quite without effort; I am already tired of the exertion. It is but
+insipid, barren work, talking and laughing with the good gentlefolks of
+Briarfield. I have been looking out for your white dress for the last
+ten minutes. I like to watch those I love in a crowd, and to compare
+them with others. I have thus compared you. You resemble none of the
+rest, Lina. There are some prettier faces than yours here. You are not a
+model beauty like Harriet Sykes, for instance--beside her your person
+appears almost insignificant--but you look agreeable, you look
+reflective, you look what I call interesting."
+
+"Hush, Shirley! you flatter me."
+
+"I don't wonder that your scholars like you."
+
+"Nonsense, Shirley! Talk of something else."
+
+"We will talk of Moore, then, and we will watch him. I see him even
+now."
+
+"Where?" And as Caroline asked the question she looked not over the
+fields, but into Miss Keeldar's eyes, as was her wont whenever Shirley
+mentioned any object she descried afar. Her friend had quicker vision
+than herself, and Caroline seemed to think that the secret of her eagle
+acuteness might be read in her dark gray irides, or rather, perhaps, she
+only sought guidance by the direction of those discriminating and
+brilliant spheres.
+
+"There is Moore," said Shirley, pointing right across the wide field
+where a thousand children were playing, and now nearly a thousand adult
+spectators walking about. "There--can you miss the tall stature and
+straight port? He looks amidst the set that surround him like Eliab
+amongst humbler shepherds--like Saul in a war-council; and a war-council
+it is, if I am not mistaken."
+
+"Why so, Shirley?" asked Caroline, whose eye had at last caught the
+object it sought. "Robert is just now speaking to my uncle, and they are
+shaking hands. They are then reconciled."
+
+"Reconciled not without good reason, depend on it--making common cause
+against some common foe. And why, think you, are Messrs. Wynne and
+Sykes, and Armitage and Ramsden, gathered in such a close circle round
+them? And why is Malone beckoned to join them? Where _he_ is summoned,
+be sure a strong arm is needed."
+
+Shirley, as she watched, grew restless; her eyes flashed.
+
+"They won't trust me," she said. "That is always the way when it comes
+to the point."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"Cannot you feel? There is some mystery afloat; some event is expected;
+some preparation is to be made, I am certain. I saw it all in Mr.
+Moore's manner this evening. He was excited, yet hard."
+
+"Hard to _you_, Shirley?"
+
+"Yes, to _me_. He often is hard to me. We seldom converse _tête-à-tête_
+but I am made to feel that the basis of his character is not of eider
+down."
+
+"Yet he seemed to talk to you softly."
+
+"Did he not? Very gentle tones and quiet manner. Yet the man is
+peremptory and secret: his secrecy vexes me."
+
+"Yes, Robert is secret."
+
+"Which he has scarcely a right to be with me, especially as he commenced
+by giving me his confidence. Having done nothing to forfeit that
+confidence, it ought not to be withdrawn; but I suppose I am not
+considered iron-souled enough to be trusted in a crisis."
+
+"He fears, probably, to occasion you uneasiness."
+
+"An unnecessary precaution. I am of elastic materials, not soon crushed.
+He ought to know that. But the man is proud. He has his faults, say what
+you will, Lina. Observe how engaged that group appear. They do not know
+we are watching them."
+
+"If we keep on the alert, Shirley, we shall perhaps find the clue to
+their secret."
+
+"There will be some unusual movements ere long--perhaps to-morrow,
+possibly to-night. But my eyes and ears are wide open. Mr. Moore, you
+shall be under surveillance. Be you vigilant also, Lina."
+
+"I will. Robert is going; I saw him turn. I believe he noticed us. They
+are shaking hands."
+
+"Shaking hands, with emphasis," added Shirley, "as if they were
+ratifying some solemn league and covenant."
+
+They saw Robert quit the group, pass through a gate, and disappear.
+
+"And he has not bid us good-bye," murmured Caroline.
+
+Scarcely had the words escaped her lips when she tried by a smile to
+deny the confession of disappointment they seemed to imply. An unbidden
+suffusion for one moment both softened and brightened her eyes.
+
+"Oh, that is soon remedied!" exclaimed Shirley: "we'll _make_ him bid us
+good-bye."
+
+"_Make_ him! That is not the same thing," was the answer.
+
+"It _shall_ be the same thing."
+
+"But he is gone; you can't overtake him."
+
+"I know a shorter way than that he has taken. We will intercept him."
+
+"But, Shirley, I would rather not go."
+
+Caroline said this as Miss Keeldar seized her arm and hurried her down
+the fields. It was vain to contend. Nothing was so wilful as Shirley
+when she took a whim into her head. Caroline found herself out of sight
+of the crowd almost before she was aware, and ushered into a narrow
+shady spot, embowered above with hawthorns, and enamelled under foot
+with daisies. She took no notice of the evening sun chequering the turf,
+nor was she sensible of the pure incense exhaling at this hour from tree
+and plant; she only heard the wicket opening at one end, and knew Robert
+was approaching. The long sprays of the hawthorns, shooting out before
+them, served as a screen. They saw him before he observed them. At a
+glance Caroline perceived that his social hilarity was gone; he had left
+it behind him in the joy-echoing fields round the school. What remained
+now was his dark, quiet, business countenance. As Shirley had said, a
+certain hardness characterized his air, while his eye was excited, but
+austere. So much the worse timed was the present freak of Shirley's. If
+he had looked disposed for holiday mirth, it would not have mattered
+much; but now----
+
+"I told you not to come," said Caroline, somewhat bitterly, to her
+friend. She seemed truly perturbed. To be intruded on Robert thus,
+against her will and his expectation, and when he evidently would rather
+not be delayed, keenly annoyed her. It did not annoy Miss Keeldar in the
+least. She stepped forward and faced her tenant, barring his way. "You
+omitted to bid us good-bye," she said.
+
+"Omitted to bid you good-bye! Where did you come from? Are you fairies?
+I left two like you, one in purple and one in white, standing at the top
+of a bank, four fields off, but a minute ago."
+
+"You left us there and find us here. We have been watching you, and
+shall watch you still. You must be questioned one day, but not now. At
+present all you have to do is to say good-night, and then pass."
+
+Moore glanced from one to the other without unbending his aspect. "Days
+of fête have their privileges, and so have days of hazard," observed he
+gravely.
+
+"Come, don't moralize. Say good-night, and pass," urged Shirley.
+
+"Must I say good-night to you, Miss Keeldar?"
+
+"Yes, and to Caroline likewise. It is nothing new, I hope. You have bid
+us both good-night before."
+
+He took her hand, held it in one of his, and covered it with the other.
+He looked down at her gravely, kindly, yet commandingly. The heiress
+could not make this man her subject. In his gaze on her bright face
+there was no servility, hardly homage; but there were interest and
+affection, heightened by another feeling. Something in his tone when he
+spoke, as well as in his words, marked that last sentiment to be
+gratitude.
+
+"Your debtor bids you good-night! May you rest safely and serenely till
+morning."
+
+"And you, Mr. Moore--what are you going to do? What have you been saying
+to Mr. Helstone, with whom I saw you shake hands? Why did all those
+gentlemen gather round you? Put away reserve for once. Be frank with
+me."
+
+"Who can resist you? I will be frank. To-morrow, if there is anything to
+relate, you shall hear it."
+
+"Just now," pleaded Shirley; "don't procrastinate."
+
+"But I could only tell half a tale. And my time is limited; I have not a
+moment to spare. Hereafter I will make amends for delay by candour."
+
+"But are you going home?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Not to leave it any more to-night?"
+
+"Certainly not. At present, farewell to both of you."
+
+He would have taken Caroline's hand and joined it in the same clasp in
+which he held Shirley's, but somehow it was not ready for him. She had
+withdrawn a few steps apart. Her answer to Moore's adieu was only a
+slight bend of the head and a gentle, serious smile. He sought no more
+cordial token. Again he said "Farewell," and quitted them both.
+
+"There! it is over," said Shirley when he was gone. "We have made him
+bid us good-night, and yet not lost ground in his esteem, I think,
+Cary."
+
+"I hope not," was the brief reply.
+
+"I consider you very timid and undemonstrative," remarked Miss Keeldar.
+"Why did you not give Moore your hand when he offered you his? He is
+your cousin; you like him. Are you ashamed to let him perceive your
+affection?"
+
+"He perceives all of it that interests him. No need to make a display of
+feeling."
+
+"You are laconic; you would be stoical if you could. Is love, in your
+eyes, a crime, Caroline?"
+
+"Love a crime! No, Shirley; love is a divine virtue. But why drag that
+word into the conversation? It is singularly irrelevant."
+
+"Good!" pronounced Shirley.
+
+The two girls paced the green lane in silence. Caroline first resumed.
+
+"Obtrusiveness is a crime, forwardness is a crime, and both disgust; but
+love! no purest angel need blush to love. And when I see or hear either
+man or woman couple shame with love, I know their minds are coarse,
+their associations debased. Many who think themselves refined ladies and
+gentlemen, and on whose lips the word 'vulgarity' is for ever hovering,
+cannot mention 'love' without betraying their own innate and imbecile
+degradation. It is a low feeling in their estimation, connected only
+with low ideas for them."
+
+"You describe three-fourths of the world, Caroline."
+
+"They are cold--they are cowardly--they are stupid on the subject,
+Shirley! They never loved--they never were loved!"
+
+"Thou art right, Lina. And in their dense ignorance they blaspheme
+living fire, seraph-brought from a divine altar."
+
+"They confound it with sparks mounting from Tophet."
+
+The sudden and joyous clash of bells here stopped the dialogue by
+summoning all to the church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+WHICH THE GENTEEL READER IS RECOMMENDED TO SKIP, LOW PERSONS BEING HERE
+INTRODUCED.
+
+
+The evening was still and warm; close and sultry it even promised to
+become. Round the descending sun the clouds glowed purple; summer tints,
+rather Indian than English, suffused the horizon, and cast rosy
+reflections on hillside, house-front, tree-bole, on winding road and
+undulating pasture-ground. The two girls came down from the fields
+slowly. By the time they reached the churchyard the bells were hushed;
+the multitudes were gathered into the church. The whole scene was
+solitary.
+
+"How pleasant and calm it is!" said Caroline.
+
+"And how hot it will be in the church!" responded Shirley. "And what a
+dreary long speech Dr. Boultby will make! And how the curates will
+hammer over their prepared orations! For my part, I would rather not
+enter."
+
+"But my uncle will be angry if he observes our absence."
+
+"I will bear the brunt of his wrath; he will not devour me. I shall be
+sorry to miss his pungent speech. I know it will be all sense for the
+church, and all causticity for schism. He'll not forget the battle of
+Royd Lane. I shall be sorry also to deprive you of Mr. Hall's sincere
+friendly homily, with all its racy Yorkshireisms; but here I must stay.
+The gray church and grayer tombs look divine with this crimson gleam on
+them. Nature is now at her evening prayers; she is kneeling before those
+red hills. I see her prostrate on the great steps of her altar, praying
+for a fair night for mariners at sea, for travellers in deserts, for
+lambs on moors, and unfledged birds in woods. Caroline, I see her, and I
+will tell you what she is like. She is like what Eve was when she and
+Adam stood alone on earth."
+
+"And that is not Milton's Eve, Shirley."
+
+"Milton's Eve! Milton's Eve! I repeat. No, by the pure Mother of God,
+she is not! Cary, we are alone; we may speak what we think. Milton was
+great; but was he good? His brain was right; how was his heart? He saw
+heaven; he looked down on hell. He saw Satan, and Sin his daughter, and
+Death their horrible offspring. Angels serried before him their
+battalions; the long lines of adamantine shields flashed back on his
+blind eyeballs the unutterable splendour of heaven. Devils gathered
+their legions in his sight; their dim, discrowned, and tarnished armies
+passed rank and file before him. Milton tried to see the first woman;
+but, Cary, he saw her not."
+
+"You are bold to say so, Shirley."
+
+"Not more bold than faithful. It was his cook that he saw; or it was
+Mrs. Gill, as I have seen her, making custards, in the heat of summer,
+in the cool dairy, with rose-trees and nasturtiums about the latticed
+window, preparing a cold collation for the rectors--preserves and
+'dulcet creams;' puzzled 'what choice to choose for delicacy best; what
+order so contrived as not to mix tastes, not well-joined, inelegant, but
+bring taste after taste, upheld with kindliest change.'"
+
+"All very well too, Shirley."
+
+"I would beg to remind him that the first men of the earth were Titans,
+and that Eve was their mother; from her sprang Saturn, Hyperion,
+Oceanus; she bore Prometheus----"
+
+"Pagan that you are! what does that signify?"
+
+"I say, there were giants on the earth in those days--giants that strove
+to scale heaven. The first woman's breast that heaved with life on this
+world yielded the daring which could contend with Omnipotence, the
+strength which could bear a thousand years of bondage, the vitality
+which could feed that vulture death through uncounted ages, the
+unexhausted life and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality,
+which, after millenniums of crimes, struggles, and woes, could conceive
+and bring forth a Messiah. The first woman was heaven-born. Vast was the
+heart whence gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations, and grand
+the undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of creation."
+
+"She coveted an apple, and was cheated by a snake; but you have got such
+a hash of Scripture and mythology into your head that there is no making
+any sense of you. You have not yet told me what you saw kneeling on
+those hills."
+
+"I saw--I now see--a woman-Titan. Her robe of blue air spreads to the
+outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil white as
+an avalanche sweeps from her head to her feet, and arabesques of
+lightning flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple
+like that horizon; through its blush shines the star of evening. Her
+steady eyes I cannot picture. They are clear, they are deep as lakes,
+they are lifted and full of worship, they tremble with the softness of
+love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud,
+and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers. She
+reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty hands are
+joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face she speaks with God. That
+Eve is Jehovah's daughter, as Adam was His son."
+
+"She is very vague and visionary. Come, Shirley, we ought to go into
+church."
+
+"Caroline, I will not; I will stay out here with my mother Eve, in these
+days called Nature. I love her--undying, mighty being! Heaven may have
+faded from her brow when she fell in paradise, but all that is glorious
+on earth shines there still. She is taking me to her bosom, and showing
+me her heart. Hush, Caroline! You will see her and feel as I do, if we
+are both silent."
+
+"I will humour your whim; but you will begin talking again ere ten
+minutes are over."
+
+Miss Keeldar, on whom the soft excitement of the warm summer evening
+seemed working with unwonted power, leaned against an upright headstone;
+she fixed her eyes on the deep-burning west, and sank into a pleasurable
+trance. Caroline, going a little apart, paced to and fro beneath the
+rectory garden wall, dreaming too in her way. Shirley had mentioned the
+word "mother." That word suggested to Caroline's imagination not the
+mighty and mystical parent of Shirley's visions, but a gentle human
+form--the form she ascribed to her own mother, unknown, unloved, but not
+unlonged for.
+
+"Oh that the day would come when she would remember her child! Oh that I
+might know her, and knowing, love her!"
+
+Such was her aspiration.
+
+The longing of her childhood filled her soul again. The desire which
+many a night had kept her awake in her crib, and which fear of its
+fallacy had of late years almost extinguished, relit suddenly, and
+glowed warm in her heart, that her mother might come some happy day,
+and send for her to her presence, look upon her fondly with loving eyes,
+and say to her tenderly, in a sweet voice, "Caroline, my child, I have a
+home for you; you shall live with me. All the love you have needed, and
+not tasted, from infancy, I have saved for you carefully. Come; it shall
+cherish you now."
+
+A noise on the road roused Caroline from her filial hopes, and Shirley
+from her Titan visions. They listened, and heard the tramp of horses.
+They looked, and saw a glitter through the trees. They caught through
+the foliage glimpses of martial scarlet; helm shone, plume waved. Silent
+and orderly, six soldiers rode softly by.
+
+"The same we saw this afternoon," whispered Shirley. "They have been
+halting somewhere till now. They wish to be as little noticed as
+possible, and are seeking their rendezvous at this quiet hour, while the
+people are at church. Did I not say we should see unusual things ere
+long?"
+
+Scarcely were sight and sound of the soldiers lost, when another and
+somewhat different disturbance broke the night-hush--a child's impatient
+scream. They looked. A man issued from the church, carrying in his arms
+an infant--a robust, ruddy little boy of some two years old--roaring
+with all the power of his lungs. He had probably just awaked from a
+church-sleep. Two little girls, of nine and ten, followed. The influence
+of the fresh air, and the attraction of some flowers gathered from a
+grave, soon quieted the child. The man sat down with him, dandling him
+on his knee as tenderly as any woman; the two little girls took their
+places one on each side.
+
+"Good-evening, William," said Shirley, after due scrutiny of the man. He
+had seen her before, and apparently was waiting to be recognized. He now
+took off his hat, and grinned a smile of pleasure. He was a
+rough-headed, hard-featured personage, not old, but very weather-beaten.
+His attire was decent and clean; that of his children singularly neat.
+It was our old friend Farren. The young ladies approached him.
+
+"You are not going into the church?" he inquired, gazing at them
+complacently, yet with a mixture of bashfulness in his look--a sentiment
+not by any means the result of awe of their station, but only of
+appreciation of their elegance and youth. Before gentlemen--such as
+Moore or Helstone, for instance--William was often a little dogged;
+with proud or insolent ladies, too, he was quite unmanageable, sometimes
+very resentful; but he was most sensible of, most tractable to,
+good-humour and civility. His nature--a stubborn one--was repelled by
+inflexibility in other natures; for which reason he had never been able
+to like his former master, Moore; and unconscious of that gentleman's
+good opinion of himself, and of the service he had secretly rendered him
+in recommending him as gardener to Mr. Yorke, and by this means to other
+families in the neighbourhood, he continued to harbour a grudge against
+his austerity. Latterly he had often worked at Fieldhead. Miss Keeldar's
+frank, hospitable manners were perfectly charming to him. Caroline he
+had known from her childhood; unconsciously she was his ideal of a lady.
+Her gentle mien, step, gestures, her grace of person and attire, moved
+some artist-fibres about his peasant heart. He had a pleasure in looking
+at her, as he had in examining rare flowers or in seeing pleasant
+landscapes. Both the ladies liked William; it was their delight to lend
+him books, to give him plants; and they preferred his conversation far
+before that of many coarse, hard, pretentious people immeasurably higher
+in station.
+
+"Who was speaking, William, when you came out?" asked Shirley.
+
+"A gentleman ye set a deal of store on, Miss Shirley--Mr. Donne."
+
+"You look knowing, William. How did you find out my regard for Mr.
+Donne?"
+
+"Ay, Miss Shirley, there's a gleg light i' your een sometimes which
+betrays you. You look raight down scornful sometimes when Mr. Donne is
+by."
+
+"Do you like him yourself, William?"
+
+"Me? I'm stalled o' t' curates, and so is t' wife. They've no manners.
+They talk to poor folk fair as if they thought they were beneath them.
+They're allus magnifying their office. It is a pity but their office
+could magnify them; but it does nought o' t' soart. I fair hate pride."
+
+"But you are proud in your own way yourself," interposed Caroline. "You
+are what you call house-proud: you like to have everything handsome
+about you. Sometimes you look as if you were almost too proud to take
+your wages. When you were out of work, you were too proud to get
+anything on credit. But for your children, I believe you would rather
+have starved than gone to the shops without money; and when I wanted to
+give you something, what a difficulty I had in making you take it!"
+
+"It is partly true, Miss Caroline. Ony day I'd rather give than take,
+especially from sich as ye. Look at t' difference between us. Ye're a
+little, young, slender lass, and I'm a great strong man; I'm rather more
+nor twice your age. It is not _my_ part, then, I think, to tak fro'
+_ye_--to be under obligations (as they say) to _ye_. And that day ye
+came to our house, and called me to t' door, and offered me five
+shillings, which I doubt ye could ill spare--for ye've no fortin', I
+know--that day I war fair a rebel, a radical, an insurrectionist; and
+_ye_ made me so. I thought it shameful that, willing and able as I was
+to work, I suld be i' such a condition that a young cratur about the age
+o' my own eldest lass suld think it needful to come and offer me her bit
+o' brass."
+
+"I suppose you were angry with me, William?"
+
+"I almost was, in a way. But I forgave ye varry soon. Ye meant well. Ay,
+_I am_ proud, and so are _ye_; but your pride and mine is t' raight
+mak--what we call i' Yorkshire clean pride--such as Mr. Malone and Mr.
+Donne knows nought about. Theirs is mucky pride. Now, I shall teach my
+lasses to be as proud as Miss Shirley there, and my lads to be as proud
+as myseln; but I dare ony o' 'em to be like t' curates. I'd lick little
+Michael if I seed him show any signs o' that feeling."
+
+"What is the difference, William?"
+
+"Ye know t' difference weel enow, but ye want me to get a gate o'
+talking. Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne is almost too proud to do aught for
+theirseln; _we_ are almost too proud to let anybody do aught for us. T'
+curates can hardly bide to speak a civil word to them they think beneath
+them; _we_ can hardly bide to tak an uncivil word fro' them that thinks
+themseln aboon us."
+
+"Now, William, be humble enough to tell me truly how you are getting on
+in the world. Are you well off?"
+
+"Miss Shirley, I am varry well off. Since I got into t' gardening line,
+wi' Mr. Yorke's help, and since Mr. Hall (another o' t' raight sort)
+helped my wife to set up a bit of a shop, I've nought to complain of. My
+family has plenty to eat and plenty to wear. My pride makes me find
+means to have an odd pound now and then against rainy days; for I think
+I'd die afore I'd come to t' parish; and me and mine is content. But t'
+neighbours is poor yet. I see a great deal of distress."
+
+"And, consequently, there is still discontent, I suppose?" inquired Miss
+Keeldar.
+
+"_Consequently_--ye say right--_consequently_. In course, starving folk
+cannot be satisfied or settled folk. The country's not in a safe
+condition--I'll say so mich!"
+
+"But what can be done? What more can I do, for instance?"
+
+"Do? Ye can do not mich, poor young lass! Ye've gi'en your brass; ye've
+done well. If ye could transport your tenant, Mr. Moore, to Botany Bay,
+ye'd happen do better. Folks hate him."
+
+"William, for shame!" exclaimed Caroline warmly. "If folks _do_ hate
+him, it is to their disgrace, not his. Mr. Moore himself hates nobody.
+He only wants to do his duty, and maintain his rights. You are wrong to
+talk so."
+
+"I talk as I think. He has a cold, unfeeling heart, yond' Moore."
+
+"But," interposed Shirley, "supposing Moore was driven from the country,
+and his mill razed to the ground, would people have more work?"
+
+"They'd have less. I know that, and they know that; and there is many an
+honest lad driven desperate by the certainty that whichever way he turns
+he cannot better himself; and there is dishonest men plenty to guide
+them to the devil, scoundrels that reckons to be the 'people's friends,'
+and that knows nought about the people, and is as insincere as Lucifer.
+I've lived aboon forty year in the world, and I believe that 'the
+people' will never have any true friends but theirseln and them two or
+three good folk i' different stations that is friends to all the world.
+Human natur', taking it i' th' lump, is nought but selfishness. It is
+but excessive few, it is but just an exception here and there, now and
+then, sich as ye two young uns and me, that, being in a different
+sphere, can understand t' one t' other, and be friends wi'out
+slavishness o' one hand or pride o' t' other. Them that reckons to be
+friends to a lower class than their own fro' political motives is never
+to be trusted; they always try to make their inferiors tools. For my own
+part, I will neither be patronized nor misled for no man's pleasure.
+I've had overtures made to me lately that I saw were treacherous, and I
+flung 'em back i' the faces o' them that offered 'em."
+
+"You won't tell us what overtures?"
+
+"I will not. It would do no good. It would mak no difference. Them they
+concerned can look after theirseln."
+
+"Ay, we'se look after werseln," said another voice. Joe Scott had
+sauntered forth from the church to get a breath of fresh air, and there
+he stood.
+
+"I'll warrant _ye_, Joe," observed William, smiling.
+
+"And I'll warrant my maister," was the answer.--"Young ladies,"
+continued Joe, assuming a lordly air, "ye'd better go into th' house."
+
+"I wonder what for?" inquired Shirley, to whom the overlooker's somewhat
+pragmatical manners were familiar, and who was often at war with him;
+for Joe, holding supercilious theories about women in general, resented
+greatly, in his secret soul, the fact of his master and his master's
+mill being, in a manner, under petticoat government, and had felt as
+wormwood and gall certain business visits of the heiress to the Hollow's
+counting-house.
+
+"Because there is nought agate that fits women to be consarned in."
+
+"Indeed! There is prayer and preaching agate in that church. Are we not
+concerned in that?"
+
+"Ye have been present neither at the prayer nor preaching, ma'am, if I
+have observed aright. What I alluded to was politics. William Farren
+here was touching on that subject, if I'm not mista'en."
+
+"Well, what then? Politics are our habitual study, Joe. Do you know I
+see a newspaper every day, and two of a Sunday?"
+
+"I should think you'll read the marriages, probably, miss, and the
+murders, and the accidents, and sich like?"
+
+"I read the leading articles, Joe, and the foreign intelligence, and I
+look over the market prices. In short, I read just what gentlemen read."
+
+Joe looked as if he thought this talk was like the chattering of a pie.
+He replied to it by a disdainful silence.
+
+"Joe," continued Miss Keeldar, "I never yet could ascertain properly
+whether you are a Whig or a Tory. Pray, which party has the honour of
+your alliance?"
+
+"It is rayther difficult to explain where you are sure not to be
+understood," was Joe's haughty response; "but as to being a Tory, I'd as
+soon be an old woman, or a young one, which is a more flimsier article
+still. It is the Tories that carries on the war and ruins trade; and if
+I be of any party--though political parties is all nonsense--I'm of
+that which is most favourable to peace, and, by consequence, to the
+mercantile interests of this here land."
+
+"So am I, Joe," replied Shirley, who had rather a pleasure in teasing
+the overlooker, by persisting in talking on subjects with which he
+opined she, as a woman, had no right to meddle--"partly, at least. I
+have rather a leaning to the agricultural interest, too; as good reason
+is, seeing that I don't desire England to be under the feet of France,
+and that if a share of my income comes from Hollow's Mill, a larger
+share comes from the landed estate around it. It would not do to take
+any measures injurious to the farmers, Joe, I think?"
+
+"The dews at this hour is unwholesome for females," observed Joe.
+
+"If you make that remark out of interest in me, I have merely to assure
+you that I am impervious to cold. I should not mind taking my turn to
+watch the mill one of these summer nights, armed with your musket, Joe."
+
+Joe Scott's chin was always rather prominent. He poked it out, at this
+speech, some inches farther than usual.
+
+"But--to go back to my sheep," she proceeded--"clothier and mill-owner
+as I am, besides farmer, I cannot get out of my head a certain idea that
+we manufacturers and persons of business are sometimes a little--a _very
+little_--selfish and short-sighted in our views, and rather _too_
+regardless of human suffering, rather heartless in our pursuit of gain.
+Don't you agree with me, Joe?"
+
+"I cannot argue where I cannot be comprehended," was again the answer.
+
+"Man of mystery! Your master will argue with me sometimes, Joe. He is
+not so stiff as you are."
+
+"Maybe not. We've all our own ways."
+
+"Joe, do you seriously think all the wisdom in the world is lodged in
+male skulls?"
+
+"I think that women are a kittle and a froward generation; and I've a
+great respect for the doctrines delivered in the second chapter of St.
+Paul's first Epistle to Timothy."
+
+"What doctrines, Joe?"
+
+"'Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. I suffer not a
+woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in
+silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.'"
+
+"What has that to do with the business?" interjected Shirley. "That
+smacks of rights of primogeniture. I'll bring it up to Mr. Yorke the
+first time he inveighs against those rights."
+
+"And," continued Joe Scott, "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being
+deceived was in the transgression."
+
+"More shame to Adam to sin with his eyes open!" cried Miss Keeldar. "To
+confess the honest truth, Joe, I never was easy in my mind concerning
+that chapter. It puzzles me."
+
+"It is very plain, miss. He that runs may read."
+
+"He may read it in his own fashion," remarked Caroline, now joining in
+the dialogue for the first time. "You allow the right of private
+judgment, I suppose, Joe?"
+
+"My certy, that I do! I allow and claim it for every line of the holy
+Book."
+
+"Women may exercise it as well as men?"
+
+"Nay. Women is to take their husbands' opinion, both in politics and
+religion. It's wholesomest for them."
+
+"Oh! oh!" exclaimed both Shirley and Caroline.
+
+"To be sure; no doubt on't," persisted the stubborn overlooker.
+
+"Consider yourself groaned down, and cried shame over, for such a stupid
+observation," said Miss Keeldar. "You might as well say men are to take
+the opinions of their priests without examination. Of what value would a
+religion so adopted be? It would be mere blind, besotted superstition."
+
+"And what is _your_ reading, Miss Helstone, o' these words o' St.
+Paul's?"
+
+"Hem! I--I account for them in this way. He wrote that chapter for a
+particular congregation of Christians, under peculiar circumstances; and
+besides, I dare say, if I could read the original Greek, I should find
+that many of the words have been wrongly translated, perhaps
+misapprehended altogether. It would be possible, I doubt not, with a
+little ingenuity, to give the passage quite a contrary turn--to make it
+say, 'Let the woman speak out whenever she sees fit to make an
+objection.' 'It is permitted to a woman to teach and to exercise
+authority as much as may be. Man, meantime, cannot do better than hold
+his peace;' and so on."
+
+"That willn't wash, miss."
+
+"I dare say it will. My notions are dyed in faster colours than yours,
+Joe. Mr. Scott, you are a thoroughly dogmatical person, and always
+were. I like William better than you."
+
+"Joe is well enough in his own house," said Shirley. "I have seen him as
+quiet as a lamb at home. There is not a better nor a kinder husband in
+Briarfield. He does not dogmatize to his wife."
+
+"My wife is a hard-working, plain woman; time and trouble has ta'en all
+the conceit out of her. But that is not the case with you, young misses.
+And then you reckon to have so much knowledge; and i' my thoughts it's
+only superficial sort o' vanities you're acquainted with. I can
+tell--happen a year sin'--one day Miss Caroline coming into our
+counting-house when I war packing up summat behind t' great desk, and
+she didn't see me, and she brought a slate wi' a sum on it to t'
+maister. It war only a bit of a sum in practice, that our Harry would
+have settled i' two minutes. She couldn't do it. Mr. Moore had to show
+her how. And when he did show her, she couldn't understand him."
+
+"Nonsense, Joe!"
+
+"Nay, it's no nonsense. And Miss Shirley there reckons to hearken to t'
+maister when he's talking ower trade, so attentive like, as if she
+followed him word for word, and all war as clear as a lady's
+looking-glass to her een; and all t' while she's peeping and peeping out
+o' t' window to see if t' mare stands quiet; and then looking at a bit
+of a splash on her riding-skirt; and then glancing glegly round at wer
+counting-house cobwebs and dust, and thinking what mucky folk we are,
+and what a grand ride she'll have just i' now ower Nunnely Common. She
+hears no more o' Mr. Moore's talk nor if he spake Hebrew."
+
+"Joe, you are a real slanderer. I would give you your answer, only the
+people are coming out of church. We must leave you. Man of prejudice,
+good-bye.--William, good-bye.--Children, come up to Fieldhead to-morrow,
+and you shall choose what you like best out of Mrs. Gill's store-room."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+A SUMMER NIGHT.
+
+
+The hour was now that of dusk. A clear air favoured the kindling of the
+stars.
+
+"There will be just light enough to show me the way home," said Miss
+Keeldar, as she prepared to take leave of Caroline at the rectory garden
+door.
+
+"You must not go alone, Shirley; Fanny shall accompany you."
+
+"That she shall not. Of what need I be afraid in my own parish? I would
+walk from Fieldhead to the church any fine midsummer night, three hours
+later than this, for the mere pleasure of seeing the stars and the
+chance of meeting a fairy."
+
+"But just wait till the crowd is cleared away."
+
+"Agreed. There are the five Misses Armitage streaming by. Here comes
+Mrs. Sykes's phaeton, Mr. Wynne's close carriage, Mrs. Birtwhistle's
+car. I don't wish to go through the ceremony of bidding them all
+good-bye, so we will step into the garden and take shelter amongst the
+laburnums for an instant."
+
+The rectors, their curates, and their churchwardens now issued from the
+church porch. There was a great confabulation, shaking of hands,
+congratulation on speeches, recommendation to be careful of the night
+air, etc. By degrees the throng dispersed, the carriages drove off. Miss
+Keeldar was just emerging from her flowery refuge when Mr. Helstone
+entered the garden and met her.
+
+"Oh, I want you!" he said. "I was afraid you were already
+gone.--Caroline, come here."
+
+Caroline came, expecting, as Shirley did, a lecture on not having been
+visible at church. Other subjects, however, occupied the rector's mind.
+
+"I shall not sleep at home to-night," he continued. "I have just met
+with an old friend, and promised to accompany him. I shall return
+probably about noon to-morrow. Thomas, the clerk, is engaged, and I
+cannot get him to sleep in the house, as I usually do when I am absent
+for a night. Now----"
+
+"Now," interrupted Shirley, "you want me as a gentleman--the first
+gentleman in Briarfield, in short--to supply your place, be master of
+the rectory and guardian of your niece and maids while you are away?"
+
+"Exactly, captain. I thought the post would suit you. Will you favour
+Caroline so far as to be her guest for one night? Will you stay here
+instead of going back to Fieldhead?"
+
+"And what will Mrs. Pryor do? she expects me home."
+
+"I will send her word. Come, make up your mind to stay. It grows late;
+the dew falls heavily. You and Caroline will enjoy each other's society,
+I doubt not."
+
+"I promise you, then, to stay with Caroline," replied Shirley. "As you
+say, we shall enjoy each other's society. We will not be separated
+to-night. Now, rejoin your old friend, and fear nothing for us."
+
+"If there should chance to be any disturbance in the night, captain; if
+you should hear the picking of a lock, the cutting out of a pane of
+glass, a stealthy tread of steps about the house (and I need not fear to
+tell _you_, who bear a well-tempered, mettlesome heart under your girl's
+ribbon sash, that such little incidents are very possible in the present
+time), what would you do?"
+
+"Don't know; faint, perhaps--fall down, and have to be picked up again.
+But, doctor, if you assign me the post of honour, you must give me arms.
+What weapons are there in your stronghold?"
+
+"You could not wield a sword?"
+
+"No; I could manage the carving-knife better."
+
+"You will find a good one in the dining-room sideboard--a lady's knife,
+light to handle, and as sharp-pointed as a poniard."
+
+"It will suit Caroline. But you must give me a brace of pistols. I know
+you have pistols."
+
+"I have two pairs. One pair I can place at your disposal. You will find
+them suspended over the mantelpiece of my study in cloth cases."
+
+"Loaded?"
+
+"Yes, but not on the cock. Cock them before you go to bed. It is paying
+you a great compliment, captain, to lend you these. Were you one of the
+awkward squad you should not have them."
+
+"I will take care. You need delay no longer, Mr. Helstone. You may go
+now.--He is gracious to me to lend me his pistols," she remarked, as the
+rector passed out at the garden gate. "But come, Lina," she continued,
+"let us go in and have some supper. I was too much vexed at tea with the
+vicinage of Mr. Sam Wynne to be able to eat, and now I am really
+hungry."
+
+Entering the house, they repaired to the darkened dining-room, through
+the open windows of which apartment stole the evening air, bearing the
+perfume of flowers from the garden, the very distant sound of
+far-retreating steps from the road, and a soft, vague murmur whose
+origin Caroline explained by the remark, uttered as she stood listening
+at the casement, "Shirley, I hear the beck in the Hollow."
+
+Then she rang the bell, asked for a candle and some bread and milk--Miss
+Keeldar's usual supper and her own. Fanny, when she brought in the tray,
+would have closed the windows and the shutters, but was requested to
+desist for the present. The twilight was too calm, its breath too balmy
+to be yet excluded. They took their meal in silence. Caroline rose once
+to remove to the window-sill a glass of flowers which stood on the
+sideboard, the exhalation from the blossoms being somewhat too powerful
+for the sultry room. In returning she half opened a drawer, and took
+from it something that glittered clear and keen in her hand.
+
+"You assigned this to me, then, Shirley, did you? It is bright,
+keen-edged, finely tapered; it is dangerous-looking. I never yet felt
+the impulse which could move me to direct this against a
+fellow-creature. It is difficult to fancy that circumstances could nerve
+my arm to strike home with this long knife."
+
+"I should hate to do it," replied Shirley, "but I think I could do it,
+if goaded by certain exigencies which I can imagine." And Miss Keeldar
+quietly sipped her glass of new milk, looking somewhat thoughtful and a
+little pale; though, indeed, when did she not look pale? She was never
+florid.
+
+The milk sipped and the bread eaten, Fanny was again summoned. She and
+Eliza were recommended to go to bed, which they were quite willing to
+do, being weary of the day's exertions, of much cutting of currant-buns,
+and filling of urns and teapots, and running backwards and forwards
+with trays. Ere long the maids' chamber door was heard to close.
+Caroline took a candle and went quietly all over the house, seeing that
+every window was fast and every door barred. She did not even evade the
+haunted back kitchen nor the vault-like cellars. These visited, she
+returned.
+
+"There is neither spirit nor flesh in the house at present," she said,
+"which should not be there. It is now near eleven o'clock, fully
+bedtime; yet I would rather sit up a little longer, if you do not
+object, Shirley. Here," she continued, "I have brought the brace of
+pistols from my uncle's study. You may examine them at your leisure."
+
+She placed them on the table before her friend.
+
+"Why would you rather sit up longer?" asked Miss Keeldar, taking up the
+firearms, examining them, and again laying them down.
+
+"Because I have a strange, excited feeling in my heart."
+
+"So have I."
+
+"Is this state of sleeplessness and restlessness caused by something
+electrical in the air, I wonder?"
+
+"No; the sky is clear, the stars numberless. It is a fine night."
+
+"But very still. I hear the water fret over its stony bed in Hollow's
+Copse as distinctly as if it ran below the churchyard wall."
+
+"I am glad it is so still a night. A moaning wind or rushing rain would
+vex me to fever just now."
+
+"Why, Shirley?"
+
+"Because it would baffle my efforts to listen."
+
+"Do you listen towards the Hollow?"
+
+"Yes; it is the only quarter whence we can hear a sound just now."
+
+"The only one, Shirley."
+
+They both sat near the window, and both leaned their arms on the sill,
+and both inclined their heads towards the open lattice. They saw each
+other's young faces by the starlight and that dim June twilight which
+does not wholly fade from the west till dawn begins to break in the
+east.
+
+"Mr. Helstone thinks we have no idea which way he is gone," murmured
+Miss Keeldar, "nor on what errand, nor with what expectations, nor how
+prepared. But I guess much; do not you?"
+
+"I guess something."
+
+"All those gentlemen--your cousin Moore included--think that you and I
+are now asleep in our beds, unconscious."
+
+"Caring nothing about them--hoping and fearing nothing for them," added
+Caroline.
+
+Both kept silent for full half an hour. The night was silent too; only
+the church clock measured its course by quarters. Some words were
+interchanged about the chill of the air. They wrapped their scarves
+closer round them, resumed their bonnets, which they had removed, and
+again watched.
+
+Towards midnight the teasing, monotonous bark of the house-dog disturbed
+the quietude of their vigil. Caroline rose, and made her way noiselessly
+through the dark passages to the kitchen, intending to appease him with
+a piece of bread. She succeeded. On returning to the dining-room she
+found it all dark, Miss Keeldar having extinguished the candle. The
+outline of her shape was visible near the still open window, leaning
+out. Miss Helstone asked no questions; she stole to her side. The dog
+recommenced barking furiously. Suddenly he stopped, and seemed to
+listen. The occupants of the dining-room listened too, and not merely
+now to the flow of the mill-stream. There was a nearer, though a
+muffled, sound on the road below the churchyard--a measured, beating,
+approaching sound--a dull tramp of marching feet.
+
+It drew near. Those who listened by degrees comprehended its extent. It
+was not the tread of two, nor of a dozen, nor of a score of men; it was
+the tread of hundreds. They could see nothing; the high shrubs of the
+garden formed a leafy screen between them and the road. To hear,
+however, was not enough, and this they felt as the troop trod forwards,
+and seemed actually passing the rectory. They felt it more when a human
+voice--though that voice spoke but one word--broke the hush of the
+night.
+
+"Halt!"
+
+A halt followed. The march was arrested. Then came a low conference, of
+which no word was distinguishable from the dining-room.
+
+"We _must_ hear this," said Shirley.
+
+She turned, took her pistols from the table, silently passed out through
+the middle window of the dining-room, which was, in fact, a glass door,
+stole down the walk to the garden wall, and stood listening under the
+lilacs. Caroline would not have quitted the house had she been alone,
+but where Shirley went she would go. She glanced at the weapon on the
+sideboard, but left it behind her, and presently stood at her friend's
+side. They dared not look over the wall, for fear of being seen; they
+were obliged to crouch behind it. They heard these words,--
+
+"It looks a rambling old building. Who lives in it besides the damned
+parson?"
+
+"Only three women--his niece and two servants."
+
+"Do you know where they sleep?"
+
+"The lasses behind; the niece in a front room."
+
+"And Helstone?"
+
+"Yonder is his chamber. He was burning a light, but I see none now."
+
+"Where would you get in?"
+
+"If I were ordered to do his job--and he desarves it--I'd try yond' long
+window; it opens to the dining-room. I could grope my way upstairs, and
+I know his chamber."
+
+"How would you manage about the women folk?"
+
+"Let 'em alone except they shrieked, and then I'd soon quieten 'em. I
+could wish to find the old chap asleep. If he waked, he'd be dangerous."
+
+"Has he arms?"
+
+"Firearms, allus--and allus loadened."
+
+"Then you're a fool to stop us here. A shot would give the alarm. Moore
+would be on us before we could turn round. We should miss our main
+object."
+
+"You might go on, I tell you. I'd engage Helstone alone."
+
+A pause. One of the party dropped some weapon, which rang on the stone
+causeway. At this sound the rectory dog barked again
+furiously--fiercely.
+
+"That spoils all!" said the voice. "He'll awake. A noise like that might
+rouse the dead. You did not say there was a dog. Damn you! Forward!"
+
+Forward they went--tramp, tramp--with mustering, manifold, slow-filing
+tread. They were gone.
+
+Shirley stood erect, looked over the wall, along the road.
+
+"Not a soul remains," she said.
+
+She stood and mused. "Thank God!" was the next observation.
+
+Caroline repeated the ejaculation--not in so steady a tone. She was
+trembling much. Her heart was beating fast and thick; her face was cold,
+her forehead damp.
+
+"Thank God for us!" she reiterated. "But what will happen elsewhere?
+They have passed us by that they may make sure of others."
+
+"They have done well," returned Shirley, with composure. "The others
+will defend themselves. They can do it. They are prepared for them. With
+us it is otherwise. My finger was on the trigger of this pistol. I was
+quite ready to give that man, if he had entered, such a greeting as he
+little calculated on; but behind him followed three hundred. I had
+neither three hundred hands nor three hundred weapons. I could not have
+effectually protected either you, myself, or the two poor women asleep
+under that roof. Therefore I again earnestly thank God for insult and
+peril escaped."
+
+After a second pause she continued: "What is it my duty and wisdom to do
+next? Not to stay here inactive, I am glad to say, but, of course, to
+walk over to the Hollow."
+
+"To the Hollow, Shirley?"
+
+"To the Hollow. Will you go with me?"
+
+"Where those men are gone?"
+
+"They have taken the highway; we should not encounter them. The road
+over the fields is as safe, silent, and solitary as a path through the
+air would be. Will you go?"
+
+"Yes," was the answer, given mechanically, not because the speaker
+wished or was prepared to go, or, indeed, was otherwise than scared at
+the prospect of going, but because she felt she could not abandon
+Shirley.
+
+"Then we must fasten up these windows, and leave all as secure as we can
+behind us. Do you know what we are going for, Cary?"
+
+"Yes--no--because you wish it."
+
+"Is that all? And are you so obedient to a mere caprice of mine? What a
+docile wife you would make to a stern husband! The moon's face is not
+whiter than yours at this moment, and the aspen at the gate does not
+tremble more than your busy fingers; and so, tractable and
+terror-struck, and dismayed and devoted, you would follow me into the
+thick of real danger! Cary, let me give your fidelity a motive. We are
+going for Moore's sake--to see if we can be of use to him, to make an
+effort to warn him of what is coming."
+
+"To be sure! I am a blind, weak fool, and you are acute and sensible,
+Shirley. I will go with you; I will gladly go with you!"
+
+"I do not doubt it. You would die blindly and meekly for me, but you
+would intelligently and gladly die for Moore. But, in truth, there is no
+question of death to-night; we run no risk at all."
+
+Caroline rapidly closed shutter and lattice. "Do not fear that I shall
+not have breath to run as fast as you can possibly run, Shirley. Take my
+hand. Let us go straight across the fields."
+
+"But you cannot climb walls?"
+
+"To-night I can."
+
+"You are afraid of hedges, and the beck which we shall be forced to
+cross?"
+
+"I can cross it."
+
+They started; they ran. Many a wall checked but did not baffle them.
+Shirley was surefooted and agile; she could spring like a deer when she
+chose. Caroline, more timid and less dexterous, fell once or twice, and
+bruised herself; but she rose again directly, saying she was not hurt. A
+quickset hedge bounded the last field; they lost time in seeking a gap
+in it. The aperture, when found, was narrow, but they worked their way
+through. The long hair, the tender skin, the silks and the muslins
+suffered; but what was chiefly regretted was the impediment this
+difficulty had caused to speed. On the other side they met the beck,
+flowing deep in a rough bed. At this point a narrow plank formed the
+only bridge across it. Shirley had trodden the plank successfully and
+fearlessly many a time before; Caroline had never yet dared to risk the
+transit.
+
+"I will carry you across," said Miss Keeldar. "You are light, and I am
+not weak. Let me try."
+
+"If I fall in, you may fish me out," was the answer, as a grateful
+squeeze compressed her hand. Caroline, without pausing, trod forward on
+the trembling plank as if it were a continuation of the firm turf.
+Shirley, who followed, did not cross it more resolutely or safely. In
+their present humour, on their present errand, a strong and foaming
+channel would have been a barrier to neither. At the moment they were
+above the control either of fire or water. All Stilbro' Moor, alight and
+aglow with bonfires, would not have stopped them, nor would Calder or
+Aire thundering in flood. Yet one sound made them pause. Scarce had
+they set foot on the solid opposite bank when a shot split the air from
+the north. One second elapsed. Further off burst a like note in the
+south. Within the space of three minutes similar signals boomed in the
+east and west.
+
+"I thought we were dead at the first explosion," observed Shirley,
+drawing a long breath. "I felt myself hit in the temples, and I
+concluded your heart was pierced; but the reiterated voice was an
+explanation. Those are signals--it is their way--the attack must be
+near. We should have had wings. Our feet have not borne us swiftly
+enough."
+
+A portion of the copse was now to clear. When they emerged from it the
+mill lay just below them. They could look down upon the buildings, the
+yard; they could see the road beyond. And the first glance in that
+direction told Shirley she was right in her conjecture. They were
+already too late to give warning. It had taken more time than they
+calculated on to overcome the various obstacles which embarrassed the
+short cut across the fields.
+
+The road, which should have been white, was dark with a moving mass. The
+rioters were assembled in front of the closed yard gates, and a single
+figure stood within, apparently addressing them. The mill itself was
+perfectly black and still. There was neither life, light, nor motion
+around it.
+
+"Surely he is prepared. Surely that is not Moore meeting them alone?"
+whispered Shirley.
+
+"It is. We must go to him. I _will_ go to him."
+
+"_That_ you will not."
+
+"Why did I come, then? I came only for him. I shall join him."
+
+"Fortunately it is out of your power. There is no entrance to the yard."
+
+"There _is_ a small entrance at the back, besides the gates in front. It
+opens by a secret method which I know. I will try it."
+
+"Not with my leave."
+
+Miss Keeldar clasped her round the waist with both arms and held her
+back. "Not one step shall you stir," she went on authoritatively. "At
+this moment Moore would be both shocked and embarrassed if he saw either
+you or me. Men never want women near them in time of real danger."
+
+"I would not trouble--I would help him," was the reply.
+
+"How?--by inspiring him with heroism? Pooh! these are not the days of
+chivalry. It is not a tilt at a tournament we are going to behold, but a
+struggle about money, and food, and life."
+
+"It is natural that I should be at his side."
+
+"As queen of his heart? His mill is his lady-love, Cary! Backed by his
+factory and his frames, he has all the encouragement he wants or can
+know. It is not for love or beauty, but for ledger and broadcloth, he is
+going to break a spear. Don't be sentimental; Robert is not so."
+
+"I _could_ help him; I _will_ seek him."
+
+"Off then--I let you go--seek Moore. You'll not find him."
+
+She loosened her hold. Caroline sped like levelled shaft from bent bow;
+after her rang a jesting, gibing laugh. "Look well there is no mistake!"
+was the warning given.
+
+But there _was_ a mistake. Miss Helstone paused, hesitated, gazed. The
+figure had suddenly retreated from the gate, and was running back
+hastily to the mill.
+
+"Make haste, Lina!" cried Shirley; "meet him before he enters."
+
+Caroline slowly returned. "It is not Robert," she said. "It has neither
+his height, form, nor bearing."
+
+"I saw it was not Robert when I let you go. How could you imagine it? It
+is a shabby little figure of a private soldier; they had posted him as
+sentinel. He is safe in the mill now. I saw the door open and admit him.
+My mind grows easier. Robert is prepared. Our warning would have been
+superfluous; and now I am thankful we came too late to give it. It has
+saved us the trouble of a scene. How fine to have entered the
+counting-house _toute éperdue_, and to have found oneself in presence of
+Messrs. Armitage and Ramsden smoking, Malone swaggering, your uncle
+sneering, Mr. Sykes sipping a cordial, and Moore himself in his cold
+man-of-business vein! I am glad we missed it all."
+
+"I wonder if there are many in the mill, Shirley!"
+
+"Plenty to defend it. The soldiers we have twice seen to-day were going
+there, no doubt, and the group we noticed surrounding your cousin in the
+fields will be with him."
+
+"What are they doing now, Shirley? What is that noise?"
+
+"Hatchets and crowbars against the yard gates. They are forcing them.
+Are you afraid?"
+
+"No; but my heart throbs fast. I have a difficulty in standing. I will
+sit down. Do you feel unmoved?"
+
+"Hardly that; but I am glad I came. We shall see what transpires with
+our own eyes. We are here on the spot, and none know it. Instead of
+amazing the curate, the clothier, and the corn-dealer with a romantic
+rush on the stage, we stand alone with the friendly night, its mute
+stars, and these whispering trees, whose report our friends will not
+come to gather."
+
+"Shirley, Shirley, the gates are down! That crash was like the felling
+of great trees. Now they are pouring through. They will break down the
+mill doors as they have broken the gate. What can Robert do against so
+many? Would to God I were a little nearer him--could hear him
+speak--could speak to him! With my will--my longing to serve him--I
+could not be a useless burden in his way; I could be turned to some
+account."
+
+"They come on!" cried Shirley. "How steadily they march in! There is
+discipline in their ranks. I will not say there is courage--hundreds
+against tens are no proof of that quality--but" (she dropped her voice)
+"there is suffering and desperation enough amongst them. These goads
+will urge them forwards."
+
+"Forwards against Robert; and they hate him. Shirley, is there much
+danger they will win the day?"
+
+"We shall see. Moore and Helstone are of 'earth's first blood'--no
+bunglers--no cravens----"
+
+A crash--smash--shiver--stopped their whispers. A simultaneously hurled
+volley of stones had saluted the broad front of the mill, with all its
+windows; and now every pane of every lattice lay in shattered and
+pounded fragments. A yell followed this demonstration--a rioters'
+yell--a north-of-England, a Yorkshire, a West-Riding, a
+West-Riding-clothing-district-of-Yorkshire rioters' yell.
+
+You never heard that sound, perhaps, reader? So much the better for your
+ears--perhaps for your heart, since, if it rends the air in hate to
+yourself, or to the men or principles you approve, the interests to
+which you wish well, wrath wakens to the cry of hate; the lion shakes
+his mane, and rises to the howl of the hyena; caste stands up, ireful
+against caste; and the indignant, wronged spirit of the middle rank
+bears down in zeal and scorn on the famished and furious mass of the
+operative class. It is difficult to be tolerant, difficult to be just,
+in such moments.
+
+Caroline rose; Shirley put her arm round her: they stood together as
+still as the straight stems of two trees. That yell was a long one, and
+when it ceased the night was yet full of the swaying and murmuring of a
+crowd.
+
+"What next?" was the question of the listeners. Nothing came yet. The
+mill remained mute as a mausoleum.
+
+"He _cannot_ be alone!" whispered Caroline.
+
+"I would stake all I have that he is as little alone as he is alarmed,"
+responded Shirley.
+
+Shots were discharged by the rioters. Had the defenders waited for this
+signal? It seemed so. The hitherto inert and passive mill woke; fire
+flashed from its empty window-frames; a volley of musketry pealed sharp
+through the Hollow.
+
+"Moore speaks at last!" said Shirley, "and he seems to have the gift of
+tongues. That was not a single voice."
+
+"He has been forbearing. No one can accuse him of rashness," alleged
+Caroline. "Their discharge preceded his. They broke his gates and his
+windows. They fired at his garrison before he repelled them."
+
+What was going on now? It seemed difficult, in the darkness, to
+distinguish; but something terrible, a still-renewing tumult, was
+obvious--fierce attacks, desperate repulses. The mill-yard, the mill
+itself, was full of battle movement. There was scarcely any cessation
+now of the discharge of firearms; and there was struggling, rushing,
+trampling, and shouting between. The aim of the assailants seemed to be
+to enter the mill, that of the defenders to beat them off. They heard
+the rebel leader cry, "To the back, lads!" They heard a voice retort,
+"Come round; we will meet you."
+
+"To the counting-house!" was the order again.
+
+"Welcome! we shall have you there!" was the response. And accordingly
+the fiercest blaze that had yet glowed, the loudest rattle that had yet
+been heard, burst from the counting-house front when the mass of rioters
+rushed up to it.
+
+The voice that had spoken was Moore's own voice. They could tell by its
+tones that his soul was now warm with the conflict; they could guess
+that the fighting animal was roused in every one of those men there
+struggling together, and was for the time quite paramount above the
+rational human being.
+
+Both the girls felt their faces glow and their pulses throb; both knew
+they would do no good by rushing down into the _mêlée_. They desired
+neither to deal nor to receive blows; but they could not have run
+away--Caroline no more than Shirley; they could not have fainted; they
+could not have taken their eyes from the dim, terrible scene--from the
+mass of cloud, of smoke, the musket-lightning--for the world.
+
+"How and when would it end?" was the demand throbbing in their throbbing
+pulses. "Would a juncture arise in which they could be useful?" was what
+they waited to see; for though Shirley put off their too-late arrival
+with a jest, and was ever ready to satirize her own or any other
+person's enthusiasm, she would have given a farm of her best land for a
+chance of rendering good service.
+
+The chance was not vouchsafed her; the looked-for juncture never came.
+It was not likely. Moore had expected this attack for days, perhaps
+weeks; he was prepared for it at every point. He had fortified and
+garrisoned his mill, which in itself was a strong building. He was a
+cool, brave man; he stood to the defence with unflinching firmness.
+Those who were with him caught his spirit, and copied his demeanour. The
+rioters had never been so met before. At other mills they had attacked
+they had found no resistance; an organized, resolute defence was what
+they never dreamed of encountering. When their leaders saw the steady
+fire kept up from the mill, witnessed the composure and determination of
+its owner, heard themselves coolly defied and invited on to death, and
+beheld their men falling wounded round them, they felt that nothing was
+to be done here. In haste they mustered their forces, drew them away
+from the building. A roll was called over, in which the men answered to
+figures instead of names. They dispersed wide over the fields, leaving
+silence and ruin behind them. The attack, from its commencement to its
+termination, had not occupied an hour.
+
+Day was by this time approaching; the west was dim, the east beginning
+to gleam. It would have seemed that the girls who had watched this
+conflict would now wish to hasten to the victors, on whose side all
+their interest had been enlisted; but they only very cautiously
+approached the now battered mill, and when suddenly a number of soldiers
+and gentlemen appeared at the great door opening into the yard, they
+quickly stepped aside into a shed, the deposit of old iron and timber,
+whence they could see without being seen.
+
+It was no cheering spectacle. These premises were now a mere blot of
+desolation on the fresh front of the summer dawn. All the copse up the
+Hollow was shady and dewy, the hill at its head was green; but just
+here, in the centre of the sweet glen, Discord, broken loose in the
+night from control, had beaten the ground with his stamping hoofs, and
+left it waste and pulverized. The mill yawned all ruinous with unglazed
+frames; the yard was thickly bestrewn with stones and brickbats; and
+close under the mill, with the glittering fragments of the shattered
+windows, muskets and other weapons lay here and there. More than one
+deep crimson stain was visible on the gravel, a human body lay quiet on
+its face near the gates, and five or six wounded men writhed and moaned
+in the bloody dust.
+
+Miss Keeldar's countenance changed at this view. It was the after-taste
+of the battle, death and pain replacing excitement and exertion. It was
+the blackness the bright fire leaves when its blaze is sunk, its warmth
+failed, and its glow faded.
+
+"This is what I wished to prevent," she said, in a voice whose cadence
+betrayed the altered impulse of her heart.
+
+"But you could not prevent it; you did your best--it was in vain," said
+Caroline comfortingly. "Don't grieve, Shirley."
+
+"I am sorry for those poor fellows," was the answer, while the spark in
+her glance dissolved to dew. "Are any within the mill hurt, I wonder? Is
+that your uncle?"
+
+"It is, and there is Mr. Malone; and, O Shirley, there is Robert!"
+
+"Well" (resuming her former tone), "don't squeeze your fingers quite
+into my hand. I see. There is nothing wonderful in that. We knew he, at
+least, was here, whoever might be absent."
+
+"He is coming here towards us, Shirley!"
+
+"Towards the pump, that is to say, for the purpose of washing his hands
+and his forehead, which has got a scratch, I perceive."
+
+"He bleeds, Shirley. Don't hold me. I must go."
+
+"Not a step."
+
+"He is hurt, Shirley!"
+
+"Fiddlestick!"
+
+"But I _must_ go to him. I wish to go so much. I cannot bear to be
+restrained."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To speak to him, to ask how he is, and what I can do for him."
+
+"To tease and annoy him; to make a spectacle of yourself and him before
+those soldiers, Mr. Malone, your uncle, et cetera. Would he like it,
+think you? Would you like to remember it a week hence?"
+
+"Am I always to be curbed and kept down?" demanded Caroline, a little
+passionately.
+
+"For his sake, yes; and still more for your own. I tell you, if you
+showed yourself now you would repent it an hour hence, and so would
+Robert."
+
+"You think he would not like it, Shirley?"
+
+"Far less than he would like our stopping him to say good-night, which
+you were so sore about."
+
+"But that was all play; there was no danger."
+
+"And this is serious work; he must be unmolested."
+
+"I only wish to go to him because he is my cousin--you understand?"
+
+"I quite understand. But now, watch him. He has bathed his forehead, and
+the blood has ceased trickling. His hurt is really a mere graze; I can
+see it from hence. He is going to look after the wounded men."
+
+Accordingly Mr. Moore and Mr. Helstone went round the yard, examining
+each prostrate form. They then gave directions to have the wounded taken
+up and carried into the mill. This duty being performed, Joe Scott was
+ordered to saddle his master's horse and Mr. Helstone's pony, and the
+two gentlemen rode away full gallop, to seek surgical aid in different
+directions.
+
+Caroline was not yet pacified.
+
+"Shirley, Shirley, I should have liked to speak one word to him before
+he went," she murmured, while the tears gathered glittering in her eyes.
+
+"Why do you cry, Lina?" asked Miss Keeldar a little sternly. "You ought
+to be glad instead of sorry. Robert has escaped any serious harm; he is
+victorious; he has been cool and brave in combat; he is now considerate
+in triumph. Is this a time--are these causes for weeping?"
+
+"You do not know what I have in my heart," pleaded the other--"what
+pain, what distraction--nor whence it arises. I can understand that you
+should exult in Robert's greatness and goodness; so do I, in one sense,
+but in another I feel _so_ miserable. I am too far removed from him. I
+used to be nearer. Let me alone, Shirley. Do let me cry a few minutes;
+it relieves me."
+
+Miss Keeldar, feeling her tremble in every limb, ceased to expostulate
+with her. She went out of the shed, and left her to weep in peace. It
+was the best plan. In a few minutes Caroline rejoined her, much calmer.
+She said, with her natural, docile, gentle manner, "Come, Shirley, we
+will go home now. I promise not to try to see Robert again till he asks
+for me. I never will try to push myself on him. I thank you for
+restraining me just now."
+
+"I did it with a good intention," returned Miss Keeldar.
+
+"Now, dear Lina," she continued, "let us turn our faces to the cool
+morning breeze, and walk very quietly back to the rectory. We will steal
+in as we stole out. None shall know where we have been or what we have
+seen to-night; neither taunt nor misconstruction can consequently molest
+us. To-morrow we will see Robert, and be of good cheer; but I will say
+no more, lest I should begin to cry too. I seem hard towards you, but I
+am not so."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+TO-MORROW.
+
+
+The two girls met no living soul on their way back to the rectory. They
+let themselves in noiselessly; they stole upstairs unheard--the breaking
+morning gave them what light they needed. Shirley sought her couch
+immediately; and though the room was strange--for she had never slept at
+the rectory before--and though the recent scene was one unparalleled for
+excitement and terror by any it had hitherto been her lot to witness,
+yet scarce was her head laid on the pillow ere a deep, refreshing sleep
+closed her eyes and calmed her senses.
+
+Perfect health was Shirley's enviable portion. Though warm-hearted and
+sympathetic, she was not nervous; powerful emotions could rouse and sway
+without exhausting her spirit. The tempest troubled and shook her while
+it lasted, but it left her elasticity unbent, and her freshness quite
+unblighted. As every day brought her stimulating emotion, so every night
+yielded her recreating rest. Caroline now watched her sleeping, and read
+the serenity of her mind in the beauty of her happy countenance.
+
+For herself, being of a different temperament, she could not sleep. The
+commonplace excitement of the tea-drinking and school-gathering would
+alone have sufficed to make her restless all night; the effect of the
+terrible drama which had just been enacted before her eyes was not
+likely to quit her for days. It was vain even to try to retain a
+recumbent posture; she sat up by Shirley's side, counting the slow
+minutes, and watching the June sun mount the heavens.
+
+Life wastes fast in such vigils as Caroline had of late but too often
+kept--vigils during which the mind, having no pleasant food to nourish
+it, no manna of hope, no hived-honey of joyous memories, tries to live
+on the meagre diet of wishes, and failing to derive thence either
+delight or support, and feeling itself ready to perish with craving
+want, turns to philosophy, to resolution, to resignation; calls on all
+these gods for aid, calls vainly--is unheard, unhelped, and languishes.
+
+Caroline was a Christian; therefore in trouble she framed many a prayer
+after the Christian creed, preferred it with deep earnestness, begged
+for patience, strength, relief. This world, however, we all know, is the
+scene of trial and probation; and, for any favourable result her
+petitions had yet wrought, it seemed to her that they were unheard and
+unaccepted. She believed, sometimes, that God had turned His face from
+her. At moments she was a Calvinist, and, sinking into the gulf of
+religious despair, she saw darkening over her the doom of reprobation.
+
+Most people have had a period or periods in their lives when they have
+felt thus forsaken--when, having long hoped against hope, and still seen
+the day of fruition deferred, their hearts have truly sickened within
+them. This is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which
+precedes the rise of day--that turn of the year when the icy January
+wind carries over the waste at once the dirge of departing winter and
+the prophecy of coming spring. The perishing birds, however, cannot thus
+understand the blast before which they shiver; and as little can the
+suffering soul recognize, in the climax of its affliction, the dawn of
+its deliverance. Yet, let whoever grieves still cling fast to love and
+faith in God. God will never deceive, never finally desert him. "Whom He
+loveth, He chasteneth." These words are true, and should not be
+forgotten.
+
+The household was astir at last; the servants were up; the shutters were
+opened below. Caroline, as she quitted the couch, which had been but a
+thorny one to her, felt that revival of spirits which the return of day,
+of action, gives to all but the wholly despairing or actually dying. She
+dressed herself, as usual, carefully, trying so to arrange her hair and
+attire that nothing of the forlornness she felt at heart should be
+visible externally. She looked as fresh as Shirley when both were
+dressed, only that Miss Keeldar's eyes were lively, and Miss Helstone's
+languid.
+
+"To-day I shall have much to say to Moore," were Shirley's first words;
+and you could see in her face that life was full of interest,
+expectation, and occupation for her. "He will have to undergo
+cross-examination," she added. "I dare say he thinks he has outwitted me
+cleverly. And this is the way men deal with women--still concealing
+danger from them--thinking, I suppose, to spare them pain. They
+imagined we little knew where they were to-night. We _know_ they little
+conjectured where we were. Men, I believe, fancy women's minds something
+like those of children. Now, that is a mistake."
+
+This was said as she stood at the glass, training her naturally waved
+hair into curls, by twining it round her fingers. She took up the theme
+again five minutes after, as Caroline fastened her dress and clasped her
+girdle.
+
+"If men could see us as we really are, they would be a little amazed;
+but the cleverest, the acutest men are often under an illusion about
+women. They do not read them in a true light; they misapprehend them,
+both for good and evil. Their good woman is a queer thing, half doll,
+half angel; their bad woman almost always a fiend. Then to hear them
+fall into ecstasies with each other's creations--worshipping the heroine
+of such a poem, novel, drama--thinking it fine, divine! Fine and divine
+it may be, but often quite artificial--false as the rose in my best
+bonnet there. If I spoke all I think on this point, if I gave my real
+opinion of some first-rate female characters in first-rate works, where
+should I be? Dead under a cairn of avenging stones in half an hour."
+
+"Shirley, you chatter so, I can't fasten you. Be still. And, after all,
+authors' heroines are almost as good as authoresses' heroes."
+
+"Not at all. Women read men more truly than men read women. I'll prove
+that in a magazine paper some day when I've time; only it will never be
+inserted. It will be 'declined with thanks,' and left for me at the
+publisher's."
+
+"To be sure. You could not write cleverly enough. You don't know enough.
+You are not learned, Shirley."
+
+"God knows I can't contradict you, Cary; I'm as ignorant as a stone.
+There's one comfort, however: you are not much better."
+
+They descended to breakfast.
+
+"I wonder how Mrs. Pryor and Hortense Moore have passed the night," said
+Caroline, as she made the coffee. "Selfish being that I am, I never
+thought of either of them till just now. They will have heard all the
+tumult, Fieldhead and the cottage are so near; and Hortense is timid in
+such matters--so, no doubt, is Mrs. Pryor."
+
+"Take my word for it, Lina, Moore will have contrived to get his sister
+out of the way. She went home with Miss Mann. He will have quartered
+her there for the night. As to Mrs. Pryor, I own I am uneasy about her;
+but in another half-hour we will be with her."
+
+By this time the news of what had happened at the Hollow was spread all
+over the neighbourhood. Fanny, who had been to Fieldhead to fetch the
+milk, returned in panting haste with tidings that there had been a
+battle in the night at Mr. Moore's mill, and that some said twenty men
+were killed. Eliza, during Fanny's absence, had been apprised by the
+butcher's boy that the mill was burnt to the ground. Both women rushed
+into the parlour to announce these terrible facts to the ladies,
+terminating their clear and accurate narrative by the assertion that
+they were sure master must have been in it all. He and Thomas, the
+clerk, they were confident, must have gone last night to join Mr. Moore
+and the soldiers. Mr. Malone, too, had not been heard of at his lodgings
+since yesterday afternoon; and Joe Scott's wife and family were in the
+greatest distress, wondering what had become of their head.
+
+Scarcely was this information imparted when a knock at the kitchen door
+announced the Fieldhead errand-boy, arrived in hot haste, bearing a
+billet from Mrs. Pryor. It was hurriedly written, and urged Miss Keeldar
+to return directly, as the neighbourhood and the house seemed likely to
+be all in confusion, and orders would have to be given which the
+mistress of the hall alone could regulate. In a postscript it was
+entreated that Miss Helstone might not be left alone at the rectory. She
+had better, it was suggested, accompany Miss Keeldar.
+
+"There are not two opinions on that head," said Shirley, as she tied on
+her own bonnet, and then ran to fetch Caroline's.
+
+"But what will Fanny and Eliza do? And if my uncle returns?"
+
+"Your uncle will not return yet; he has other fish to fry. He will be
+galloping backwards and forwards from Briarfield to Stilbro' all day,
+rousing the magistrates in the court-house and the officers at the
+barracks; and Fanny and Eliza can have in Joe Scott's and the clerk's
+wives to bear them company. Besides, of course, there is no real danger
+to be apprehended now. Weeks will elapse before the rioters can again
+rally, or plan any other attempt; and I am much mistaken if Moore and
+Mr. Helstone will not take advantage of last night's outbreak to quell
+them altogether. They will frighten the authorities of Stilbro' into
+energetic measures. I only hope they will not be too severe--not pursue
+the discomfited too relentlessly."
+
+"Robert will not be cruel. We saw that last night," said Caroline.
+
+"But he will be hard," retorted Shirley; "and so will your uncle."
+
+As they hurried along the meadow and plantation path to Fieldhead, they
+saw the distant highway already alive with an unwonted flow of
+equestrians and pedestrians, tending in the direction of the usually
+solitary Hollow. On reaching the hall, they found the backyard gates
+open, and the court and kitchen seemed crowded with excited
+milk-fetchers--men, women, and children--whom Mrs. Gill, the
+housekeeper, appeared vainly persuading to take their milk-cans and
+depart. (It _is_, or _was_, by-the-bye, the custom in the north of
+England for the cottagers on a country squire's estate to receive their
+supplies of milk and butter from the dairy of the manor house, on whose
+pastures a herd of milch kine was usually fed for the convenience of the
+neighbourhood. Miss Keeldar owned such a herd--all deep-dewlapped,
+Craven cows, reared on the sweet herbage and clear waters of bonny
+Airedale; and very proud she was of their sleek aspect and high
+condition.) Seeing now the state of matters, and that it was desirable
+to effect a clearance of the premises, Shirley stepped in amongst the
+gossiping groups. She bade them good-morning with a certain frank,
+tranquil ease--the natural characteristic of her manner when she
+addressed numbers, especially if those numbers belonged to the
+working-class; she was cooler amongst her equals, and rather proud to
+those above her. She then asked them if they had all got their milk
+measured out; and understanding that they had, she further observed that
+she "wondered what they were waiting for, then."
+
+"We're just talking a bit over this battle there has been at your mill,
+mistress," replied a man.
+
+"Talking a bit! Just like you!" said Shirley. "It is a queer thing all
+the world is so fond of _talking_ over events. You _talk_ if anybody
+dies suddenly; you _talk_ if a fire breaks out; you _talk_ if a
+mill-owner fails; you _talk_ if he's murdered. What good does your
+talking do?"
+
+There is nothing the lower orders like better than a little downright
+good-humoured rating. Flattery they scorn very much; honest abuse they
+enjoy. They call it speaking plainly, and take a sincere delight in
+being the objects thereof. The homely harshness of Miss Keeldar's
+salutation won her the ear of the whole throng in a second.
+
+"We're no war nor some 'at is aboon us, are we?" asked a man, smiling.
+
+"Nor a whit better. You that should be models of industry are just as
+gossip-loving as the idle. Fine, rich people that have nothing to do may
+be partly excused for trifling their time away; you who have to earn
+your bread with the sweat of your brow are quite inexcusable."
+
+"That's queer, mistress. Suld we never have a holiday because we work
+hard?"
+
+"_Never_," was the prompt answer; "unless," added the "mistress," with a
+smile that half belied the severity of her speech--"unless you knew how
+to make a better use of it than to get together over rum and tea if you
+are women, or over beer and pipes if you are men, and _talk_ scandal at
+your neighbours' expense. Come, friends," she added, changing at once
+from bluntness to courtesy, "oblige me by taking your cans and going
+home. I expect several persons to call to-day, and it will be
+inconvenient to have the avenues to the house crowded."
+
+Yorkshire people are as yielding to persuasion as they are stubborn
+against compulsion. The yard was clear in five minutes.
+
+"Thank you, and good-bye to you, friends," said Shirley, as she closed
+the gates on a quiet court.
+
+Now, let me hear the most refined of cockneys presume to find fault with
+Yorkshire manners. Taken as they ought to be, the majority of the lads
+and lasses of the West Riding are gentlemen and ladies, every inch of
+them. It is only against the weak affectation and futile pomposity of a
+would-be aristocrat they turn mutinous.
+
+Entering by the back way, the young ladies passed through the kitchen
+(or _house_, as the inner kitchen is called) to the hall. Mrs. Pryor
+came running down the oak staircase to meet them. She was all unnerved;
+her naturally sanguine complexion was pale; her usually placid, though
+timid, blue eye was wandering, unsettled, alarmed. She did not, however,
+break out into any exclamations, or hurried narrative of what had
+happened. Her predominant feeling had been in the course of the night,
+and was now this morning, a sense of dissatisfaction with herself that
+she could not feel firmer, cooler, more equal to the demands of the
+occasion.
+
+"You are aware," she began with a trembling voice, and yet the most
+conscientious anxiety to avoid exaggeration in what she was about to
+say, "that a body of rioters has attacked Mr. Moore's mill to-night. We
+heard the firing and confusion very plainly here; we none of us slept.
+It was a sad night. The house has been in great bustle all the morning
+with people coming and going. The servants have applied to me for orders
+and directions, which I really did not feel warranted in giving. Mr.
+Moore has, I believe, sent up for refreshments for the soldiers and
+others engaged in the defence, for some conveniences also for the
+wounded. I could not undertake the responsibility of giving orders or
+taking measures. I fear delay may have been injurious in some instances;
+but this is not my house. You were absent, my dear Miss Keeldar. What
+could I do?"
+
+"Were no refreshments sent?" asked Shirley, while her countenance,
+hitherto so clear, propitious, and quiet, even while she was rating the
+milk-fetchers, suddenly turned dark and warm.
+
+"I think not, my dear."
+
+"And nothing for the wounded--no linen, no wine, no bedding?"
+
+"I think not. I cannot tell what Mrs. Gill did; but it seemed impossible
+to me, at the moment, to venture to dispose of your property by sending
+supplies to soldiers. Provisions for a company of soldiers sounds
+formidable. How many there are I did not ask; but I could not think of
+allowing them to pillage the house, as it were. I intended to do what
+was right, yet I did not see the case quite clearly, I own."
+
+"It lies in a nutshell, notwithstanding. These soldiers have risked
+their lives in defence of my property: I suppose they have a right to my
+gratitude. The wounded are our fellow-creatures: I suppose we should aid
+them.--Mrs. Gill!"
+
+She turned, and called in a voice more clear than soft. It rang through
+the thick oak of the hall and kitchen doors more effectually than a
+bell's summons. Mrs. Gill, who was deep in bread-making, came with hands
+and apron in culinary case, not having dared to stop to rub the dough
+from the one or to shake the flour from the other. Her mistress had
+never called a servant in that voice save once before, and that was when
+she had seen from the window Tartar in full tug with two carriers' dogs,
+each of them a match for him in size, if not in courage, and their
+masters standing by, encouraging their animals, while hers was
+unbefriended. Then indeed she had summoned John as if the Day of
+Judgment were at hand. Nor had she waited for the said John's coming,
+but had walked out into the lane bonnetless, and after informing the
+carriers that she held them far less of men than the three brutes
+whirling and worrying in the dust before them, had put her hands round
+the thick neck of the largest of the curs, and given her whole strength
+to the essay of choking it from Tartar's torn and bleeding eye, just
+above and below which organ the vengeful fangs were inserted. Five or
+six men were presently on the spot to help her, but she never thanked
+one of them. "They might have come before if their will had been good,"
+she said. She had not a word for anybody during the rest of the day, but
+sat near the hall fire till evening watching and tending Tartar, who lay
+all gory, stiff, and swelled on a mat at her feet. She wept furtively
+over him sometimes, and murmured the softest words of pity and
+endearment, in tones whose music the old, scarred, canine warrior
+acknowledged by licking her hand or her sandal alternately with his own
+red wounds. As to John, his lady turned a cold shoulder on him for a
+week afterwards.
+
+Mrs. Gill, remembering this little episode, came "all of a tremble," as
+she said herself. In a firm, brief voice Miss Keeldar proceeded to put
+questions and give orders. That at such a time Fieldhead should have
+evinced the inhospitality of a miser's hovel stung her haughty spirit to
+the quick; and the revolt of its pride was seen in the heaving of her
+heart, stirred stormily under the lace and silk which veiled it.
+
+"How long is it since that message came from the mill?"
+
+"Not an hour yet, ma'am," answered the housekeeper soothingly.
+
+"Not an hour! You might almost as well have said not a day. They will
+have applied elsewhere by this time. Send a man instantly down to tell
+them that everything this house contains is at Mr. Moore's, Mr.
+Helstone's, and the soldiers' service. Do that first."
+
+While the order was being executed, Shirley moved away from her friends,
+and stood at the hall-window, silent, unapproachable. When Mrs. Gill
+came back, she turned. The purple flush which painful excitement kindles
+on a pale cheek glowed on hers; the spark which displeasure lights in a
+dark eye fired her glance.
+
+"Let the contents of the larder and the wine-cellar be brought up, put
+into the hay-carts, and driven down to the Hollow. If there does not
+happen to be much bread or much meat in the house, go to the butcher and
+baker, and desire them to send what they have. But I will see for
+myself."
+
+She moved off.
+
+"All will be right soon; she will get over it in an hour," whispered
+Caroline to Mrs. Pryor. "Go upstairs, dear madam," she added
+affectionately, "and try to be as calm and easy as you can. The truth
+is, Shirley will blame herself more than you before the day is over."
+
+By dint of a few more gentle assurances and persuasions, Miss Helstone
+contrived to soothe the agitated lady. Having accompanied her to her
+apartment, and promised to rejoin her there when things were settled,
+Caroline left her to see, as she said, "if she could be useful." She
+presently found that she could be very useful; for the retinue of
+servants at Fieldhead was by no means numerous, and just now their
+mistress found plenty of occupation for all the hands at her command,
+and for her own also. The delicate good-nature and dexterous activity
+which Caroline brought to the aid of the housekeeper and maids--all
+somewhat scared by their lady's unwonted mood--did a world of good at
+once; it helped the assistants and appeased the directress. A chance
+glance and smile from Caroline moved Shirley to an answering smile
+directly. The former was carrying a heavy basket up the cellar stairs.
+
+"This is a shame!" cried Shirley, running to her. "It will strain your
+arm."
+
+She took it from her, and herself bore it out into the yard. The cloud
+of temper was dispelled when she came back; the flash in her eye was
+melted; the shade on her forehead vanished. She resumed her usual
+cheerful and cordial manner to those about her, tempering her revived
+spirits with a little of the softness of shame at her previous unjust
+anger.
+
+She was still superintending the lading of the cart, when a gentleman
+entered the yard and approached her ere she was aware of his presence.
+
+"I hope I see Miss Keeldar well this morning?" he said, examining with
+rather significant scrutiny her still flushed face.
+
+She gave him a look, and then again bent to her employment without
+reply. A pleasant enough smile played on her lips, but she hid it. The
+gentleman repeated his salutation, stooping, that it might reach her ear
+with more facility.
+
+"Well enough, if she be good enough," was the answer; "and so is Mr.
+Moore too, I dare say. To speak truth, I am not anxious about him; some
+slight mischance would be only his just due. His conduct has been--we
+will say _strange_ just now, till we have time to characterize it by a
+more exact epithet. Meantime, may I ask what brings him here?"
+
+"Mr. Helstone and I have just received your message that everything at
+Fieldhead was at our service. We judged, by the unlimited wording of the
+gracious intimation, that you would be giving yourself too much trouble.
+I perceive our conjecture was correct. We are not a regiment,
+remember--only about half a dozen soldiers and as many civilians. Allow
+me to retrench something from these too abundant supplies."
+
+Miss Keeldar blushed, while she laughed at her own over-eager generosity
+and most disproportionate calculations. Moore laughed too, very quietly
+though; and as quietly he ordered basket after basket to be taken from
+the cart, and remanded vessel after vessel to the cellar.
+
+"The rector must hear of this," he said; "he will make a good story of
+it. What an excellent army contractor Miss Keeldar would have been!"
+Again he laughed, adding, "It is precisely as I conjectured."
+
+"You ought to be thankful," said Shirley, "and not mock me. What could I
+do? How could I gauge your appetites or number your band? For aught I
+knew, there might have been fifty of you at least to victual. You told
+me nothing; and then an application to provision soldiers naturally
+suggests large ideas."
+
+"It appears so," remarked Moore, levelling another of his keen, quiet
+glances at the discomfited Shirley.--"Now," he continued, addressing the
+carter, "I think you may take what remains to the Hollow. Your load will
+be somewhat lighter than the one Miss Keeldar destined you to carry."
+
+As the vehicle rumbled out of the yard, Shirley, rallying her spirits,
+demanded what had become of the wounded.
+
+"There was not a single man hurt on our side," was the answer.
+
+"You were hurt yourself, on the temples," interposed a quick, low
+voice--that of Caroline, who, having withdrawn within the shade of the
+door, and behind the large person of Mrs. Gill, had till now escaped
+Moore's notice. When she spoke, his eye searched the obscurity of her
+retreat.
+
+"Are you much hurt?" she inquired.
+
+"As you might scratch your finger with a needle in sewing."
+
+"Lift your hair and let us see."
+
+He took his hat off, and did as he was bid, disclosing only a narrow
+slip of court-plaster. Caroline indicated, by a slight movement of the
+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
+one against two hundred?"
+
+"Come, come now, be cool," said Mr. Yorke, smiling at the earnestness
+with which Shirley multiplied her rapid questions.
+
+"Cool! Must I listen coolly to downright nonsense--to dangerous
+nonsense? No. I like you very well, Mr. Yorke, as you know, but I
+thoroughly dislike some of your principles. All that cant--excuse me,
+but I repeat the word--all that _cant_ about soldiers and parsons is
+most offensive in my ears. All ridiculous, irrational crying up of one
+class, whether the same be aristocrat or democrat--all howling down of
+another class, whether clerical or military--all exacting injustice to
+individuals, whether monarch or mendicant--is really sickening to me;
+all arraying of ranks against ranks, all party hatreds, all tyrannies
+disguised as liberties, I reject and wash my hands of. _You_ think you
+are a philanthropist; _you_ think you are an advocate of liberty; but I
+will tell you this--Mr. Hall, the parson of Nunnely, is a better friend
+both of man and freedom than Hiram Yorke, the reformer of Briarfield."
+
+From a man Mr. Yorke would not have borne this language very patiently,
+nor would he have endured it from some women; but he accounted Shirley
+both honest and pretty, and her plain-spoken ire amused him. Besides, he
+took a secret pleasure in hearing her defend her tenant, for we have
+already intimated he had Robert Moore's interest very much at heart.
+Moreover, if he wished to avenge himself for her severity, he knew the
+means lay in his power: a word, he believed, would suffice to tame and
+silence her, to cover her frank forehead with the rosy shadow of shame,
+and veil the glow of her eye under down-drooped lid and lash.
+
+"What more hast thou to say?" he inquired, as she paused, rather, it
+appeared, to take breath than because her subject or her zeal was
+exhausted.
+
+"Say, Mr. Yorke!" was the answer, the speaker meantime walking fast from
+wall to wall of the oak parlour--"say? I have a great deal to say, if I
+could get it out in lucid order, which I never _can_ do. I have to say
+that your views, and those of most extreme politicians, are such as none
+but men in an irresponsible position _can_ advocate; that they are
+purely opposition views, meant only to be talked about, and never
+intended to be acted on. Make you Prime Minister of England to-morrow,
+and you would have to abandon them. You abuse Moore for defending his
+mill. Had you been in Moore's place you could not with honour or sense
+have acted otherwise than he acted. You abuse Mr. Helstone for
+everything he does. Mr. Helstone has his faults; he sometimes does
+wrong, but oftener right. Were you ordained vicar of Briarfield, you
+would find it no easy task to sustain all the active schemes for the
+benefit of the parish planned and persevered in by your predecessor. I
+wonder people cannot judge more fairly of each other and themselves.
+When I hear Messrs. Malone and Donne chatter about the authority of the
+church, the dignity and claims of the priesthood, the deference due to
+them as clergymen; when I hear the outbreaks of their small spite
+against Dissenters; when I witness their silly, narrow jealousies and
+assumptions; when their palaver about forms, and traditions, and
+superstitions is sounding in my ear; when I behold their insolent
+carriage to the poor, their often base servility to the rich--I think
+the Establishment is indeed in a poor way, and both she and her sons
+appear in the utmost need of reformation. Turning away distressed from
+minster tower and village spire--ay, as distressed as a churchwarden who
+feels the exigence of white-wash and has not wherewithal to purchase
+lime--I recall your senseless sarcasms on the 'fat bishops,' the
+'pampered parsons,' 'old mother church,' etc. I remember your strictures
+on all who differ from you, your sweeping condemnation of classes and
+individuals, without the slightest allowance made for circumstances or
+temptations; and then, Mr. Yorke, doubt clutches my inmost heart as to
+whether men exist clement, reasonable, and just enough to be entrusted
+with the task of reform. I don't believe _you_ are of the number."
+
+"You have an ill opinion of me, Miss Shirley. You never told me so much
+of your mind before."
+
+"I never had an opening. But I have sat on Jessy's stool by your chair
+in the back-parlour at Briarmains, for evenings together, listening
+excitedly to your talk, half admiring what you said, and half rebelling
+against it. I think you a fine old Yorkshireman, sir. I am proud to have
+been born in the same county and parish as yourself. Truthful, upright,
+independent you are, as a rock based below seas; but also you are harsh,
+rude, narrow, and merciless."
+
+"Not to the poor, lass, nor to the meek of the earth; only to the proud
+and high-minded."
+
+"And what right have you, sir, to make such distinctions? A prouder, a
+higher-minded man than yourself does not exist. You find it easy to
+speak comfortably to your inferiors; you are too haughty, too ambitious,
+too jealous to be civil to those above you. But you are all alike.
+Helstone also is proud and prejudiced. Moore, though juster and more
+considerate than either you or the rector, is still haughty, stern, and,
+in a public sense, selfish. It is well there are such men as Mr. Hall to
+be found occasionally--men of large and kind hearts, who can love their
+whole race, who can forgive others for being richer, more prosperous, or
+more powerful than they are. Such men may have less originality, less
+force of character than you, but they are better friends to mankind."
+
+"And when is it to be?" said Mr. Yorke, now rising.
+
+"When is what to be?"
+
+"The wedding."
+
+"Whose wedding?"
+
+"Only that of Robert Gérard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's Cottage, with Miss
+Keeldar, daughter and heiress of the late Charles Cave Keeldar of
+Fieldhead Hall."
+
+Shirley gazed at the questioner with rising colour. But the light in her
+eye was not faltering; it shone steadily--yes, it burned deeply.
+
+"That is your revenge," she said slowly; then added, "Would it be a bad
+match, unworthy of the late Charles Cave Keeldar's representative?"
+
+"My lass, Moore is a gentleman; his blood is pure and ancient as mine or
+thine."
+
+"And we two set store by ancient blood? We have family pride, though one
+of us at least is a republican?"
+
+Yorke bowed as he stood before her. His lips were mute, but his eye
+confessed the impeachment. Yes, he had family pride; you saw it in his
+whole bearing.
+
+"Moore _is_ a gentleman," echoed Shirley, lifting her head with glad
+grace. She checked herself. Words seemed crowding to her tongue. She
+would not give them utterance; but her look spoke much at the moment.
+What, Yorke tried to read, but could not. The language was there,
+visible, but untranslatable--a poem, a fervid lyric, in an unknown
+tongue. It was not a plain story, however, no simple gush of feeling, no
+ordinary love-confession--that was obvious. It was something other,
+deeper, more intricate than he guessed at. He felt his revenge had not
+struck home. He felt that Shirley triumphed. She held him at fault,
+baffled, puzzled. _She_ enjoyed the moment, not _he_.
+
+"And if Moore _is_ a gentleman, you _can_ be only a lady; therefore----"
+
+"Therefore there would be no inequality in our union."
+
+"None."
+
+"Thank you for your approbation. Will you give me away when I relinquish
+the name of Keeldar for that of Moore?"
+
+Mr. Yorke, instead of replying, gazed at her much puzzled. He could not
+divine what her look signified--whether she spoke in earnest or in jest.
+There were purpose and feeling, banter and scoff, playing, mingled, on
+her mobile lineaments.
+
+"I don't understand thee," he said, turning away.
+
+She laughed. "Take courage, sir; you are not singular in your ignorance.
+But I suppose if Moore understands me that will do, will it not?"
+
+"Moore may settle his own matters henceforward for me; I'll neither
+meddle nor make with them further."
+
+A new thought crossed her. Her countenance changed magically. With a
+sudden darkening of the eye and austere fixing of the features she
+demanded, "Have you been asked to interfere? Are you questioning me as
+another's proxy?"
+
+"The Lord save us! Whoever weds thee must look about him! Keep all your
+questions for Robert; I'll answer no more on 'em. Good-day, lassie!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day being fine, or at least fair--for soft clouds curtained the sun,
+and a dim but not chill or waterish haze slept blue on the
+hills--Caroline, while Shirley was engaged with her callers, had
+persuaded Mrs. Pryor to assume her bonnet and summer shawl, and to take
+a walk with her up towards the narrow end of the Hollow.
+
+Here the opposing sides of the glen, approaching each other and becoming
+clothed with brushwood and stunted oaks, formed a wooded ravine, at the
+bottom of which ran the mill-stream, in broken, unquiet course,
+struggling with many stones, chafing against rugged banks, fretting with
+gnarled tree-roots, foaming, gurgling, battling as it went. Here, when
+you had wandered half a mile from the mill, you found a sense of deep
+solitude--found it in the shade of unmolested trees, received it in the
+singing of many birds, for which that shade made a home. This was no
+trodden way. The freshness of the wood flowers attested that foot of man
+seldom pressed them; the abounding wild roses looked as if they budded,
+bloomed, and faded under the watch of solitude, as if in a sultan's
+harem. Here you saw the sweet azure of blue-bells, and recognized in
+pearl-white blossoms, spangling the grass, a humble type of some starlit
+spot in space.
+
+Mrs. Pryor liked a quiet walk. She ever shunned high-roads, and sought
+byways and lonely lanes. One companion she preferred to total solitude,
+for in solitude she was nervous; a vague fear of annoying encounters
+broke the enjoyment of quite lonely rambles. But she feared nothing with
+Caroline. When once she got away from human habitations, and entered
+the still demesne of nature accompanied by this one youthful friend, a
+propitious change seemed to steal over her mind and beam in her
+countenance. When with Caroline--and Caroline only--her heart, you would
+have said, shook off a burden, her brow put aside a veil, her spirits
+too escaped from a restraint. With her she was cheerful; with her, at
+times, she was tender; to her she would impart her knowledge, reveal
+glimpses of her experience, give her opportunities for guessing what
+life she had lived, what cultivation her mind had received, of what
+calibre was her intelligence, how and where her feelings were
+vulnerable.
+
+To-day, for instance, as they walked along, Mrs. Pryor talked to her
+companion about the various birds singing in the trees, discriminated
+their species, and said something about their habits and peculiarities.
+English natural history seemed familiar to her. All the wild flowers
+round their path were recognized by her; tiny plants springing near
+stones and peeping out of chinks in old walls--plants such as Caroline
+had scarcely noticed before--received a name and an intimation of their
+properties. It appeared that she had minutely studied the botany of
+English fields and woods. Having reached the head of the ravine, they
+sat down together on a ledge of gray and mossy rock jutting from the
+base of a steep green hill which towered above them. She looked round
+her, and spoke of the neighbourhood as she had once before seen it long
+ago. She alluded to its changes, and compared its aspect with that of
+other parts of England, revealing in quiet, unconscious touches of
+description a sense of the picturesque, an appreciation of the beautiful
+or commonplace, a power of comparing the wild with the cultured, the
+grand with the tame, that gave to her discourse a graphic charm as
+pleasant as it was unpretending.
+
+The sort of reverent pleasure with which Caroline listened--so sincere,
+so quiet, yet so evident--stirred the elder lady's faculties to gentle
+animation. Rarely, probably, had she, with her chill, repellent outside,
+her diffident mien, and incommunicative habits, known what it was to
+excite in one whom she herself could love feelings of earnest affection
+and admiring esteem. Delightful, doubtless, was the consciousness that a
+young girl towards whom it seemed, judging by the moved expression of
+her eyes and features, her heart turned with almost a fond impulse,
+looked up to her as an instructor, and clung to her as a friend. With a
+somewhat more marked accent of interest than she often permitted herself
+to use, she said, as she bent towards her youthful companion, and put
+aside from her forehead a pale brown curl which had strayed from the
+confining comb, "I do hope this sweet air blowing from the hill will do
+you good, my dear Caroline. I wish I could see something more of colour
+in these cheeks; but perhaps you were never florid?"
+
+"I had red cheeks once," returned Miss Helstone, smiling. "I remember a
+year--two years ago--when I used to look in the glass, I saw a different
+face there to what I see now--rounder and rosier. But when we are
+young," added the girl of eighteen, "our minds are careless and our
+lives easy."
+
+"Do you," continued Mrs. Pryor, mastering by an effort that tyrant
+timidity which made it difficult for her, even under present
+circumstances, to attempt the scrutiny of another's heart--"do you, at
+your age, fret yourself with cares for the future? Believe me, you had
+better not. Let the morrow take thought for the things of itself."
+
+"True, dear madam. It is not over the future I pine. The evil of the day
+is sometimes oppressive--too oppressive--and I long to escape it."
+
+"That is--the evil of the day--that is--your uncle perhaps is not--you
+find it difficult to understand--he does not appreciate----"
+
+Mrs. Pryor could not complete her broken sentences; she could not manage
+to put the question whether Mr. Helstone was too harsh with his niece.
+But Caroline comprehended.
+
+"Oh, that is nothing," she replied. "My uncle and I get on very well. We
+never quarrel--I don't call him harsh--he never scolds me. Sometimes I
+wish somebody in the world loved me, but I cannot say that I
+particularly wish him to have more affection for me than he has. As a
+child, I should perhaps have felt the want of attention, only the
+servants were very kind to me; but when people are long indifferent to
+us, we grow indifferent to their indifference. It is my uncle's way not
+to care for women and girls, unless they be ladies that he meets in
+company. He could not alter, and I have no wish that he should alter, as
+far as I am concerned. I believe it would merely annoy and frighten me
+were he to be affectionate towards me now. But you know, Mrs. Pryor, it
+is scarcely _living_ to measure time as I do at the rectory. The hours
+pass, and I get them over somehow, but I do not _live_. I endure
+existence, but I rarely enjoy it. Since Miss Keeldar and you came I have
+been--I was going to say happier, but that would be untrue." She paused.
+
+"How untrue? You are fond of Miss Keeldar, are you not, my dear?"
+
+"Very fond of Shirley. I both like and admire her. But I am painfully
+circumstanced. For a reason I cannot explain I want to go away from this
+place, and to forget it."
+
+"You told me before you wished to be a governess; but, my dear, if you
+remember, I did not encourage the idea. I have been a governess myself
+great part of my life. In Miss Keeldar's acquaintance I esteem myself
+most fortunate. Her talents and her really sweet disposition have
+rendered my office easy to me; but when I was young, before I married,
+my trials were severe, poignant. I should not like a---- I should not
+like you to endure similar ones. It was my lot to enter a family of
+considerable pretensions to good birth and mental superiority, and the
+members of which also believed that 'on them was perceptible' an unusual
+endowment of the 'Christian graces;' that all their hearts were
+regenerate, and their spirits in a peculiar state of discipline. I was
+early given to understand that 'as I was not their equal,' so I could
+not expect 'to have their sympathy.' It was in no sort concealed from me
+that I was held a 'burden and a restraint in society.' The gentlemen, I
+found, regarded me as a 'tabooed woman,' to whom 'they were interdicted
+from granting the usual privileges of the sex,' and yet 'who annoyed
+them by frequently crossing their path.' The ladies too made it plain
+that they thought me 'a bore.' The servants, it was signified, 'detested
+me;' _why_, I could never clearly comprehend. My pupils, I was told,
+'however much they might love me, and how deep soever the interest I
+might take in them, could not be my friends.' It was intimated that I
+must 'live alone, and never transgress the invisible but rigid line
+which established the difference between me and my employers.' My life
+in this house was sedentary, solitary, constrained, joyless, toilsome.
+The dreadful crushing of the animal spirits, the ever-prevailing sense
+of friendlessness and homelessness consequent on this state of things
+began ere long to produce mortal effects on my constitution. I sickened.
+The lady of the house told me coolly I was the victim of 'wounded
+vanity.' She hinted that if I did not make an effort to quell my
+'ungodly discontent,' to cease 'murmuring against God's appointment,'
+and to cultivate the profound humility befitting my station, my mind
+would very likely 'go to pieces' on the rock that wrecked most of my
+sisterhood--morbid self-esteem--and that I should die an inmate of a
+lunatic asylum.
+
+"I said nothing to Mrs. Hardman--it would have been useless; but to her
+eldest daughter I one day dropped a few observations, which were
+answered thus. There were hardships, she allowed, in the position of a
+governess. 'Doubtless they had their trials; but,' she averred, with a
+manner it makes me smile now to recall--'but it must be so. _She_' (Miss
+H.) 'had neither view, hope, nor _wish_ to see these things remedied;
+for in the inherent constitution of English habits, feelings, and
+prejudices there was no possibility that they should be. Governesses,'
+she observed, 'must ever be kept in a sort of isolation. It is the only
+means of maintaining that distance which the reserve of English manners
+and the decorum of English families exact.'
+
+"I remember I sighed as Miss Hardman quitted my bedside. She caught the
+sound, and turning, said severely, 'I fear, Miss Grey, you have
+inherited in fullest measure the worst sin of our fallen nature--the sin
+of pride. You are proud, and therefore you are ungrateful too. Mamma
+pays you a handsome salary, and if you had average sense you would
+thankfully put up with much that is fatiguing to do and irksome to bear,
+since it is so well made worth your while.'
+
+"Miss Hardman, my love, was a very strong-minded young lady, of most
+distinguished talents. The aristocracy are decidedly a very superior
+class, you know, both physically, and morally, and mentally; as a high
+Tory I acknowledge that. I could not describe the dignity of her voice
+and mien as she addressed me thus; still, I fear she was selfish, my
+dear. I would never wish to speak ill of my superiors in rank, but I
+think she was a little selfish."
+
+"I remember," continued Mrs. Pryor, after a pause, "another of Miss H.'s
+observations, which she would utter with quite a grand air. 'WE,' she
+would say--'WE need the imprudences, extravagances, mistakes, and crimes
+of a certain number of fathers to sow the seed from which WE reap the
+harvest of governesses. The daughters of trades-people, however well
+educated, must necessarily be underbred, and as such unfit to be
+inmates of OUR dwellings, or guardians of OUR children's minds and
+persons. WE shall ever prefer to place those about OUR offspring who
+have been born and bred with somewhat of the same refinement as
+OURSELVES.'"
+
+"Miss Hardman must have thought herself something better than her
+fellow-creatures, ma'am, since she held that their calamities, and even
+crimes, were necessary to minister to her convenience. You say she was
+religious. Her religion must have been that of the Pharisee who thanked
+God that he was not as other men are, nor even as that publican."
+
+"My dear, we will not discuss the point. I should be the last person to
+wish to instil into your mind any feeling of dissatisfaction with your
+lot in life, or any sentiment of envy or insubordination towards your
+superiors. Implicit submission to authorities, scrupulous deference to
+our betters (under which term I, of course, include the higher classes
+of society), are, in my opinion, indispensable to the well-being of
+every community. All I mean to say, my dear, is that you had better not
+attempt to be a governess, as the duties of the position would be too
+severe for your constitution. Not one word of disrespect would I breathe
+towards either Mrs. or Miss Hardman; only, recalling my own experience,
+I cannot but feel that, were you to fall under auspices such as theirs,
+you would contend a while courageously with your doom, then you would
+pine and grow too weak for your work; you would come home--if you still
+had a home--broken down. Those languishing years would follow of which
+none but the invalid and her immediate friends feel the heart-sickness
+and know the burden. Consumption or decline would close the chapter.
+Such is the history of many a life. I would not have it yours. My dear,
+we will now walk about a little, if you please."
+
+They both rose, and slowly paced a green natural terrace bordering the
+chasm.
+
+"My dear," ere long again began Mrs. Pryor, a sort of timid, embarrassed
+abruptness marking her manner as she spoke, "the young, especially those
+to whom nature has been favourable, often--frequently--anticipate--look
+forward to--to marriage as the end, the goal of their hopes."
+
+And she stopped. Caroline came to her relief with promptitude, showing a
+great deal more self-possession and courage than herself on the
+formidable topic now broached.
+
+"They do, and naturally," she replied, with a calm emphasis that
+startled Mrs. Pryor. "They look forward to marriage with some one they
+love as the brightest, the only bright destiny that can await them. Are
+they wrong?"
+
+"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Pryor, clasping her hands; and again she
+paused. Caroline turned a searching, an eager eye on the face of her
+friend: that face was much agitated. "My dear," she murmured, "life is
+an illusion."
+
+"But not love! Love is real--the most real, the most lasting, the
+sweetest and yet the bitterest thing we know."
+
+"My dear, it is very bitter. It is said to be strong--strong as death!
+Most of the cheats of existence are strong. As to their sweetness,
+nothing is so transitory; its date is a moment, the twinkling of an eye.
+The sting remains for ever. It may perish with the dawn of eternity, but
+it tortures through time into its deepest night."
+
+"Yes, it tortures through time," agreed Caroline, "except when it is
+mutual love."
+
+"Mutual love! My dear, romances are pernicious. You do not read them, I
+hope?"
+
+"Sometimes--whenever I can get them, indeed. But romance-writers might
+know nothing of love, judging by the way in which they treat of it."
+
+"Nothing whatever, my dear," assented Mrs. Pryor eagerly, "nor of
+marriage; and the false pictures they give of those subjects cannot be
+too strongly condemned. They are not like reality. They show you only
+the green, tempting surface of the marsh, and give not one faithful or
+truthful hint of the slough underneath."
+
+"But it is not always slough," objected Caroline. "There are happy
+marriages. Where affection is reciprocal and sincere, and minds are
+harmonious, marriage _must_ be happy."
+
+"It is never wholly happy. Two people can never literally be as one.
+There is, perhaps, a possibility of content under peculiar
+circumstances, such as are seldom combined; but it is as well not to run
+the risk--you may make fatal mistakes. Be satisfied, my dear. Let all
+the single be satisfied with their freedom."
+
+"You echo my uncle's words!" exclaimed Caroline, in a tone of dismay.
+"You speak like Mrs. Yorke in her most gloomy moments, like Miss Mann
+when she is most sourly and hypochondriacally disposed. This is
+terrible!"
+
+"No, it is only true. O child, you have only lived the pleasant morning
+time of life; the hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night,
+are yet to come for you. Mr. Helstone, you say, talks as I talk; and I
+wonder how Mrs. Matthewson Helstone would have talked had she been
+living. She died! she died!"
+
+"And, alas! my own mother and father----" exclaimed Caroline, struck by
+a sombre recollection.
+
+"What of them?"
+
+"Did I never tell you that they were separated?"
+
+"I have heard it."
+
+"They must, then, have been very miserable."
+
+"You see all _facts_ go to prove what I say."
+
+"In this case there ought to be no such thing as marriage."
+
+"There ought, my dear, were it only to prove that this life is a mere
+state of probation, wherein neither rest nor recompense is to be
+vouchsafed."
+
+"But your own marriage, Mrs. Pryor?"
+
+Mrs. Pryor shrank and shuddered as if a rude finger had pressed a naked
+nerve. Caroline felt she had touched what would not bear the slightest
+contact.
+
+"My marriage was unhappy," said the lady, summoning courage at last;
+"but yet----" She hesitated.
+
+"But yet," suggested Caroline, "not immitigably wretched?"
+
+"Not in its results, at least. No," she added, in a softer tone; "God
+mingles something of the balm of mercy even in vials of the most
+corrosive woe. He can so turn events that from the very same blind, rash
+act whence sprang the curse of half our life may flow the blessing of
+the remainder. Then I am of a peculiar disposition--I own that--far from
+facile, without address, in some points eccentric. I ought never to have
+married. Mine is not the nature easily to find a duplicate or likely to
+assimilate with a contrast. I was quite aware of my own ineligibility;
+and if I had not been so miserable as a governess, I never should have
+married; and then----"
+
+Caroline's eyes asked her to proceed. They entreated her to break the
+thick cloud of despair which her previous words had seemed to spread
+over life.
+
+"And then, my dear, Mr.--that is, the gentleman I married--was, perhaps,
+rather an exceptional than an average character. I hope, at least, the
+experience of few has been such as mine was, or that few have felt their
+sufferings as I felt mine. They nearly shook my mind; relief was so
+hopeless, redress so unattainable. But, my dear, I do not wish to
+dishearten; I only wish to warn you, and to prove that the single should
+not be too anxious to change their state, as they may change for the
+worse."
+
+"Thank you, my dear madam. I quite understand your kind intentions, but
+there is no fear of my falling into the error to which you allude. I, at
+least, have no thoughts of marriage, and for that reason I want to make
+myself a position by some other means."
+
+"My dear, listen to me. On what I am going to say I have carefully
+deliberated, having, indeed, revolved the subject in my thoughts ever
+since you first mentioned your wish to obtain a situation. You know I at
+present reside with Miss Keeldar in the capacity of companion. Should
+she marry (and that she _will_ marry ere long many circumstances induce
+me to conclude), I shall cease to be necessary to her in that capacity.
+I must tell you that I possess a small independency, arising partly from
+my own savings, and partly from a legacy left me some years since.
+Whenever I leave Fieldhead I shall take a house of my own. I could not
+endure to live in solitude. I have no relations whom I care to invite to
+close intimacy; for, as you must have observed, and as I have already
+avowed, my habits and tastes have their peculiarities. To you, my dear,
+I need not say I am attached; with you I am happier than I have ever
+been with any living thing" (this was said with marked emphasis). "Your
+society I should esteem a very dear privilege--an inestimable privilege,
+a comfort, a blessing. You shall come to me, then. Caroline, do you
+refuse me? I hope you can love me?"
+
+And with these two abrupt questions she stopped.
+
+"Indeed, I _do_ love you," was the reply. "I should like to live with
+you. But you are too kind."
+
+"All I have," went on Mrs. Pryor, "I would leave to you. You should be
+provided for. But never again say I am _too kind_. You pierce my heart,
+child!"
+
+"But, my dear madam--this generosity--I have no claim----"
+
+"Hush! you must not talk about it. There are some things we cannot bear
+to hear. Oh! it is late to begin, but I may yet live a few years. I can
+never wipe out the past, but perhaps a brief space in the future may
+yet be mine."
+
+Mrs. Pryor seemed deeply agitated. Large tears trembled in her eyes and
+rolled down her cheeks. Caroline kissed her, in her gentle, caressing
+way, saying softly, "I love you dearly. Don't cry."
+
+But the lady's whole frame seemed shaken. She sat down, bent her head to
+her knee, and wept aloud. Nothing could console her till the inward
+storm had had its way. At last the agony subsided of itself.
+
+"Poor thing!" she murmured, returning Caroline's kiss, "poor lonely
+lamb! But come," she added abruptly--"come; we must go home."
+
+For a short distance Mrs. Pryor walked very fast. By degrees, however,
+she calmed down to her wonted manner, fell into her usual characteristic
+pace--a peculiar one, like all her movements--and by the time they
+reached Fieldhead she had re-entered into herself. The outside was, as
+usual, still and shy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+TWO LIVES.
+
+
+Only half of Moore's activity and resolution had been seen in his
+defence of the mill; he showed the other half (and a terrible half it
+was) in the indefatigable, the relentless assiduity with which he
+pursued the leaders of the riot. The mob, the mere followers, he let
+alone. Perhaps an innate sense of justice told him that men misled by
+false counsel and goaded by privations are not fit objects of vengeance,
+and that he who would visit an even violent act on the bent head of
+suffering is a tyrant, not a judge. At all events, though he knew many
+of the number, having recognized them during the latter part of the
+attack when day began to dawn, he let them daily pass him on street and
+road without notice or threat.
+
+The leaders he did not know. They were strangers--emissaries from the
+large towns. Most of these were not members of the operative class. They
+were chiefly "down-draughts," bankrupts, men always in debt and often in
+drink, men who had nothing to lose, and much, in the way of character,
+cash, and cleanliness, to gain. These persons Moore hunted like any
+sleuth-hound, and well he liked the occupation. Its excitement was of a
+kind pleasant to his nature. He liked it better than making cloth.
+
+His horse must have hated these times, for it was ridden both hard and
+often. He almost lived on the road, and the fresh air was as welcome to
+his lungs as the policeman's quest to his mood; he preferred it to the
+steam of dye-houses. The magistrates of the district must have dreaded
+him. They were slow, timid men; he liked both to frighten and to rouse
+them. He liked to force them to betray a certain fear, which made them
+alike falter in resolve and recoil in action--the fear, simply, of
+assassination. This, indeed, was the dread which had hitherto hampered
+every manufacturer and almost every public man in the district. Helstone
+alone had ever repelled it. The old Cossack knew well he might be shot.
+He knew there was risk; but such death had for his nerves no terrors. It
+would have been his chosen, might he have had a choice.
+
+Moore likewise knew his danger. The result was an unquenchable scorn of
+the quarter whence such danger was to be apprehended. The consciousness
+that he hunted assassins was the spur in his high-mettled temper's
+flank. As for fear, he was too proud, too hard-natured (if you will),
+too phlegmatic a man to fear. Many a time he rode belated over the
+moors, moonlit or moonless as the case might be, with feelings far more
+elate, faculties far better refreshed, than when safety and stagnation
+environed him in the counting-house. Four was the number of the leaders
+to be accounted for. Two, in the course of a fortnight, were brought to
+bay near Stilbro'; the remaining two it was necessary to seek farther
+off. Their haunts were supposed to lie near Birmingham.
+
+Meantime the clothier did not neglect his battered mill. Its reparation
+was esteemed a light task, carpenters' and glaziers' work alone being
+needed. The rioters not having succeeded in effecting an entrance, his
+grim metal darlings--the machines--had escaped damage.
+
+Whether during this busy life--whether while stern justice and exacting
+business claimed his energies and harassed his thoughts--he now and then
+gave one moment, dedicated one effort, to keep alive gentler fires than
+those which smoulder in the fane of Nemesis, it was not easy to
+discover. He seldom went near Fieldhead; if he did, his visits were
+brief. If he called at the rectory, it was only to hold conferences with
+the rector in his study. He maintained his rigid course very steadily.
+Meantime the history of the year continued troubled. There was no lull
+in the tempest of war; her long hurricane still swept the Continent.
+There was not the faintest sign of serene weather, no opening amid "the
+clouds of battle-dust and smoke," no fall of pure dews genial to the
+olive, no cessation of the red rain which nourishes the baleful and
+glorious laurel. Meantime, Ruin had her sappers and miners at work under
+Moore's feet, and whether he rode or walked, whether he only crossed his
+counting-house hearth or galloped over sullen Rushedge, he was aware of
+a hollow echo, and felt the ground shake to his tread.
+
+While the summer thus passed with Moore, how did it lapse with Shirley
+and Caroline? Let us first visit the heiress. How does she look? Like a
+love-lorn maiden, pale and pining for a neglectful swain? Does she sit
+the day long bent over some sedentary task? Has she for ever a book in
+her hand, or sewing on her knee, and eyes only for that, and words for
+nothing, and thoughts unspoken?
+
+By no means. Shirley is all right. If her wistful cast of physiognomy is
+not gone, no more is her careless smile. She keeps her dark old
+manor-house light and bright with her cheery presence. The gallery and
+the low-ceiled chambers that open into it have learned lively echoes
+from her voice; the dim entrance-hall, with its one window, has grown
+pleasantly accustomed to the frequent rustle of a silk dress, as its
+wearer sweeps across from room to room, now carrying flowers to the
+barbarous peach-bloom salon, now entering the dining-room to open its
+casements and let in the scent of mignonette and sweet-briar, anon
+bringing plants from the staircase window to place in the sun at the
+open porch door.
+
+She takes her sewing occasionally; but, by some fatality, she is doomed
+never to sit steadily at it for above five minutes at a time. Her
+thimble is scarcely fitted on, her needle scarce threaded, when a sudden
+thought calls her upstairs. Perhaps she goes to seek some
+just-then-remembered old ivory-backed needle-book or older china-topped
+work-box, quite unneeded, but which seems at the moment indispensable;
+perhaps to arrange her hair, or a drawer which she recollects to have
+seen that morning in a state of curious confusion; perhaps only to take
+a peep from a particular window at a particular view, whence Briarfield
+church and rectory are visible, pleasantly bowered in trees. She has
+scarcely returned, and again taken up the slip of cambric or square of
+half-wrought canvas, when Tartar's bold scrape and strangled whistle are
+heard at the porch door, and she must run to open it for him. It is a
+hot day; he comes in panting; she must convoy him to the kitchen, and
+see with her own eyes that his water-bowl is replenished. Through the
+open kitchen door the court is visible, all sunny and gay, and peopled
+with turkeys and their poults, peahens and their chicks, pearl-flecked
+Guinea-fowls, and a bright variety of pure white, and purple-necked, and
+blue and cinnamon plumed pigeons. Irresistible spectacle to Shirley! She
+runs to the pantry for a roll, and she stands on the door step
+scattering crumbs. Around her throng her eager, plump, happy feathered
+vassals. John is about the stables, and John must be talked to, and her
+mare looked at. She is still petting and patting it when the cows come
+in to be milked. This is important; Shirley must stay and take a review
+of them all. There are perhaps some little calves, some little
+new-yeaned lambs--it may be twins, whose mothers have rejected them.
+Miss Keeldar must be introduced to them by John, must permit herself the
+treat of feeding them with her own hand, under the direction of her
+careful foreman. Meantime John moots doubtful questions about the
+farming of certain "crofts," and "ings," and "holmes," and his mistress
+is necessitated to fetch her garden-hat--a gipsy straw--and accompany
+him, over stile and along hedgerow, to hear the conclusion of the whole
+agricultural matter on the spot, and with the said "crofts," "ings," and
+"holms" under her eye. Bright afternoon thus wears into soft evening,
+and she comes home to a late tea, and after tea she never sews.
+
+After tea Shirley reads, and she is just about as tenacious of her book
+as she is lax of her needle. Her study is the rug, her seat a footstool,
+or perhaps only the carpet at Mrs. Pryor's feet: there she always
+learned her lessons when a child, and old habits have a strong power
+over her. The tawny and lionlike bulk of Tartar is ever stretched beside
+her, his negro muzzle laid on his fore paws--straight, strong, and
+shapely as the limbs of an Alpine wolf. One hand of the mistress
+generally reposes on the loving serf's rude head, because if she takes
+it away he groans and is discontented. Shirley's mind is given to her
+book. She lifts not her eyes; she neither stirs nor speaks--unless,
+indeed, it be to return a brief respectful answer to Mrs. Pryor, who
+addresses deprecatory phrases to her now and then.
+
+"My dear, you had better not have that great dog so near you; he is
+crushing the border of your dress."
+
+"Oh, it is only muslin. I can put a clean one on to-morrow."
+
+"My dear, I wish you could acquire the habit of sitting to a table when
+you read."
+
+"I will try, ma'am, some time; but it is so comfortable to do as one has
+always been accustomed to do."
+
+"My dear, let me beg of you to put that book down. You are trying your
+eyes by the doubtful firelight."
+
+"No, ma'am, not at all; my eyes are never tired."
+
+At last, however, a pale light falls on the page from the window. She
+looks; the moon is up. She closes the volume, rises, and walks through
+the room. Her book has perhaps been a good one; it has refreshed,
+refilled, rewarmed her heart; it has set her brain astir, furnished her
+mind with pictures. The still parlour, the clean hearth, the window
+opening on the twilight sky, and showing its "sweet regent," new throned
+and glorious, suffice to make earth an Eden, life a poem, for Shirley. A
+still, deep, inborn delight glows in her young veins, unmingled,
+untroubled, not to be reached or ravished by human agency, because by no
+human agency bestowed--the pure gift of God to His creature, the free
+dower of Nature to her child. This joy gives her experience of a
+genii-life. Buoyant, by green steps, by glad hills, all verdure and
+light, she reaches a station scarcely lower than that whence angels
+looked down on the dreamer of Bethel, and her eye seeks, and her soul
+possesses, the vision of life as she wishes it. No, not as she wishes
+it; she has not time to wish. The swift glory spreads out, sweeping and
+kindling, and multiplies its splendours faster than Thought can effect
+his combinations, faster than Aspiration can utter her longings. Shirley
+says nothing while the trance is upon her--she is quite mute; but if
+Mrs. Pryor speaks to her now, she goes out quietly, and continues her
+walk upstairs in the dim gallery.
+
+If Shirley were not an indolent, a reckless, an ignorant being, she
+would take a pen at such moments, or at least while the recollection of
+such moments was yet fresh on her spirit. She would seize, she would fix
+the apparition, tell the vision revealed. Had she a little more of the
+organ of acquisitiveness in her head, a little more of the love of
+property in her nature, she would take a good-sized sheet of paper and
+write plainly out, in her own queer but clear and legible hand, the
+story that has been narrated, the song that has been sung to her, and
+thus possess what she was enabled to create. But indolent she is,
+reckless she is, and most ignorant; for she does not know her dreams are
+rare, her feelings peculiar. She does not know, has never known, and
+will die without knowing, the full value of that spring whose bright
+fresh bubbling in her heart keeps it green.
+
+Shirley takes life easily. Is not that fact written in her eye? In her
+good-tempered moments is it not as full of lazy softness as in her brief
+fits of anger it is fulgent with quick-flashing fire? Her nature is in
+her eye. So long as she is calm, indolence, indulgence, humour, and
+tenderness possess that large gray sphere; incense her, a red ray
+pierces the dew, it quickens instantly to flame.
+
+Ere the month of July was past, Miss Keeldar would probably have started
+with Caroline on that northern tour they had planned; but just at that
+epoch an invasion befell Fieldhead. A genteel foraging party besieged
+Shirley in her castle, and compelled her to surrender at discretion. An
+uncle, an aunt, and two cousins from the south--a Mr., Mrs., and two
+Misses Sympson, of Sympson Grove, ----shire--came down upon her in
+state. The laws of hospitality obliged her to give in, which she did
+with a facility which somewhat surprised Caroline, who knew her to be
+prompt in action and fertile in expedient where a victory was to be
+gained for her will. Miss Helstone even asked her how it was she
+submitted so readily. She answered, old feelings had their power; she
+had passed two years of her early youth at Sympson Grove.
+
+"How did she like her relatives?"
+
+She had nothing in common with them, she replied. Little Harry Sympson,
+indeed, the sole son of the family, was very unlike his sisters, and of
+him she had formerly been fond; but he was not coming to Yorkshire--at
+least not yet.
+
+The next Sunday the Fieldhead pew in Briarfield Church appeared peopled
+with a prim, trim, fidgety, elderly gentleman, who shifted his
+spectacles, and changed his position every three minutes; a patient,
+placid-looking elderly lady in brown satin; and two pattern young
+ladies, in pattern attire, with pattern deportment. Shirley had the air
+of a black swan or a white crow in the midst of this party, and very
+forlorn was her aspect. Having brought her into respectable society, we
+will leave her there a while, and look after Miss Helstone.
+
+Separated from Miss Keeldar for the present, as she could not seek her
+in the midst of her fine relatives, scared away from Fieldhead by the
+visiting commotion which the new arrivals occasioned in the
+neighbourhood, Caroline was limited once more to the gray rectory, the
+solitary morning walk in remote by-paths, the long, lonely afternoon
+sitting in a quiet parlour which the sun forsook at noon, or in the
+garden alcove where it shone bright, yet sad, on the ripening red
+currants trained over the trellis, and on the fair monthly roses
+entwined between, and through them fell chequered on Caroline sitting in
+her white summer dress, still as a garden statue. There she read old
+books, taken from her uncle's library. The Greek and Latin were of no
+use to her, and its collection of light literature was chiefly contained
+on a shelf which had belonged to her aunt Mary--some venerable Lady's
+Magazines, that had once performed a sea-voyage with their owner, and
+undergone a storm, and whose pages were stained with salt water; some
+mad Methodist Magazines, full of miracles and apparitions, of
+preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticism; the
+equally mad letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the Living;
+a few old English classics. From these faded flowers Caroline had in her
+childhood extracted the honey; they were tasteless to her now. By way of
+change, and also of doing good, she would sew--make garments for the
+poor, according to good Miss Ainley's direction. Sometimes, as she felt
+and saw her tears fall slowly on her work, she would wonder how the
+excellent woman who had cut it out and arranged it for her managed to be
+so equably serene in _her_ solitude.
+
+"I never find Miss Ainley oppressed with despondency or lost in grief,"
+she thought; "yet her cottage is a still, dim little place, and she is
+without a bright hope or near friend in the world. I remember, though,
+she told me once she had tutored her thoughts to tend upwards to heaven.
+She allowed there was, and ever had been, little enjoyment in this world
+for her, and she looks, I suppose, to the bliss of the world to come. So
+do nuns, with their close cell, their iron lamp, their robe strait as a
+shroud, their bed narrow as a coffin. She says often she has no fear of
+death--no dread of the grave; no more, doubtless, had St. Simeon
+Stylites, lifted up terrible on his wild column in the wilderness; no
+more has the Hindu votary stretched on his couch of iron spikes. Both
+these having violated nature, their natural likings and antipathies are
+reversed; they grow altogether morbid. I do fear death as yet, but I
+believe it is because I am young. Poor Miss Ainley would cling closer to
+life if life had more charms for her. God surely did not create us and
+cause us to live with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe
+in my heart we were intended to prize life and enjoy it so long as we
+retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless,
+blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is
+becoming to me among the rest.
+
+"Nobody," she went on--"nobody in particular is to blame, that I can
+see, for the state in which things are; and I cannot tell, however much
+I puzzle over it, how they are to be altered for the better; but I feel
+there is something wrong somewhere. I believe single women should have
+more to do--better chances of interesting and profitable occupation than
+they possess now. And when I speak thus I have no impression that I
+displease God by my words; that I am either impious or impatient,
+irreligious or sacrilegious. My consolation is, indeed, that God hears
+many a groan, and compassionates much grief which man stops his ears
+against, or frowns on with impotent contempt. I say _impotent_, for I
+observe that to such grievances as society cannot readily cure it
+usually forbids utterance, on pain of its scorn, this scorn being only a
+sort of tinselled cloak to its deformed weakness. People hate to be
+reminded of ills they are unable or unwilling to remedy. Such reminder,
+in forcing on them a sense of their own incapacity, or a more painful
+sense of an obligation to make some unpleasant effort, troubles their
+ease and shakes their self-complacency. Old maids, like the houseless
+and unemployed poor, should not ask for a place and an occupation in the
+world; the demand disturbs the happy and rich--it disturbs parents. Look
+at the numerous families of girls in this neighbourhood--the Armitages,
+the Birtwhistles, the Sykeses. The brothers of these girls are every one
+in business or in professions; they have something to do. Their sisters
+have no earthly employment but household work and sewing, no earthly
+pleasure but an unprofitable visiting, and no hope, in all their life to
+come, of anything better. This stagnant state of things makes them
+decline in health. They are never well, and their minds and views shrink
+to wondrous narrowness. The great wish, the sole aim of every one of
+them is to be married, but the majority will never marry; they will die
+as they now live. They scheme, they plot, they dress to ensnare
+husbands. The gentlemen turn them into ridicule; they don't want them;
+they hold them very cheap. They say--I have heard them say it with
+sneering laughs many a time--the matrimonial market is overstocked.
+Fathers say so likewise, and are angry with their daughters when they
+observe their manoeuvres--they order them to stay at home. What do they
+expect them to do at home? If you ask, they would answer, sew and cook.
+They expect them to do this, and this only, contentedly, regularly,
+uncomplainingly, all their lives long, as if they had no germs of
+faculties for anything else--a doctrine as reasonable to hold as it
+would be that the fathers have no faculties but for eating what their
+daughters cook or for wearing what they sew. Could men live so
+themselves? Would they not be very weary? And when there came no relief
+to their weariness, but only reproaches at its slightest manifestation,
+would not their weariness ferment in time to frenzy? Lucretia, spinning
+at midnight in the midst of her maidens, and Solomon's virtuous woman
+are often quoted as patterns of what 'the sex,' as they say, ought to
+be. I don't know. Lucretia, I dare say, was a most worthy sort of
+person, much like my cousin Hortense Moore; but she kept her servants up
+very late. I should not have liked to be amongst the number of the
+maidens. Hortense would just work me and Sarah in that fashion, if she
+could, and neither of us would bear it. The 'virtuous woman,' again, had
+her household up in the very middle of the night; she 'got breakfast
+over,' as Mrs. Sykes says, before one o'clock a.m.; but _she_ had
+something more to do than spin and give out portions. She was a
+manufacturer--she made fine linen and sold it; she was an
+agriculturist--she bought estates and planted vineyards. _That_ woman
+was a manager. She was what the matrons hereabouts call 'a clever
+woman.' On the whole, I like her a good deal better than Lucretia; but I
+don't believe either Mr. Armitage or Mr. Sykes could have got the
+advantage of her in a bargain. Yet I like her. 'Strength and honour were
+her clothing; the heart of her husband safely trusted in her. She opened
+her mouth with wisdom; in her tongue was the law of kindness; her
+children rose up and called her blessed; her husband also praised her.'
+King of Israel! your model of a woman is a worthy model! But are we, in
+these days, brought up to be like her? Men of Yorkshire! do your
+daughters reach this royal standard? Can they reach it? Can you help
+them to reach it? Can you give them a field in which their faculties may
+be exercised and grow? Men of England! look at your poor girls, many of
+them fading around you, dropping off in consumption or decline; or, what
+is worse, degenerating to sour old maids--envious, back-biting,
+wretched, because life is a desert to them; or, what is worst of all,
+reduced to strive, by scarce modest coquetry and debasing artifice, to
+gain that position and consideration by marriage which to celibacy is
+denied. Fathers! cannot you alter these things? Perhaps not all at once;
+but consider the matter well when it is brought before you, receive it
+as a theme worthy of thought; do not dismiss it with an idle jest or an
+unmanly insult. You would wish to be proud of your daughters, and not to
+blush for them; then seek for them an interest and an occupation which
+shall raise them above the flirt, the manoeuvrer, the mischief-making
+tale-bearer. Keep your girls' minds narrow and fettered; they will still
+be a plague and a care, sometimes a disgrace to you. Cultivate
+them--give them scope and work; they will be your gayest companions in
+health, your tenderest nurses in sickness, your most faithful prop in
+age."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+AN EVENING OUT.
+
+
+One fine summer day that Caroline had spent entirely alone (her uncle
+being at Whinbury), and whose long, bright, noiseless, breezeless,
+cloudless hours (how many they seemed since sunrise!) had been to her as
+desolate as if they had gone over her head in the shadowless and
+trackless wastes of Sahara, instead of in the blooming garden of an
+English home, she was sitting in the alcove--her task of work on her
+knee, her fingers assiduously plying the needle, her eyes following and
+regulating their movements, her brain working restlessly--when Fanny
+came to the door, looked round over the lawn and borders, and not seeing
+her whom she sought, called out, "Miss Caroline!"
+
+A low voice answered "Fanny!" It issued from the alcove, and thither
+Fanny hastened, a note in her hand, which she delivered to fingers that
+hardly seemed to have nerve to hold it. Miss Helstone did not ask whence
+it came, and she did not look at it; she let it drop amongst the folds
+of her work.
+
+"Joe Scott's son, Harry, brought it," said Fanny.
+
+The girl was no enchantress, and knew no magic spell; yet what she said
+took almost magical effect on her young mistress. She lifted her head
+with the quick motion of revived sensation; she shot, not a languid, but
+a lifelike, questioning glance at Fanny.
+
+"Harry Scott! who sent him?"
+
+"He came from the Hollow."
+
+The dropped note was snatched up eagerly, the seal was broken--it was
+read in two seconds. An affectionate billet from Hortense, informing her
+young cousin that she was returned from Wormwood Wells; that she was
+alone to-day, as Robert was gone to Whinbury market; that nothing would
+give her greater pleasure than to have Caroline's company to tea, and
+the good lady added, she was quite sure such a change would be most
+acceptable and beneficial to Caroline, who must be sadly at a loss both
+for safe guidance and improving society since the misunderstanding
+between Robert and Mr. Helstone had occasioned a separation from her
+"meilleure amie, Hortense Gérard Moore." In a postscript she was urged
+to put on her bonnet and run down directly.
+
+Caroline did not need the injunction. Glad was she to lay by the brown
+holland child's slip she was trimming with braid for the Jew's basket,
+to hasten upstairs, cover her curls with her straw bonnet, and throw
+round her shoulders the black silk scarf, whose simple drapery suited as
+well her shape as its dark hue set off the purity of her dress and the
+fairness of her face; glad was she to escape for a few hours the
+solitude, the sadness, the nightmare of her life; glad to run down the
+green lane sloping to the Hollow, to scent the fragrance of hedge
+flowers sweeter than the perfume of moss-rose or lily. True, she knew
+Robert was not at the cottage; but it was delight to go where he had
+lately been. So long, so totally separated from him, merely to see his
+home, to enter the room where he had that morning sat, felt like a
+reunion. As such it revived her; and then Illusion was again following
+her in Peri mask. The soft agitation of wings caressed her cheek, and
+the air, breathing from the blue summer sky, bore a voice which
+whispered, "Robert may come home while you are in his house, and then,
+at least, you may look in his face--at least you may give him your hand;
+perhaps, for a minute, you may sit beside him."
+
+"Silence!" was her austere response; but she loved the comforter and the
+consolation.
+
+Miss Moore probably caught from the window the gleam and flutter of
+Caroline's white attire through the branchy garden shrubs, for she
+advanced from the cottage porch to meet her. Straight, unbending,
+phlegmatic as usual, she came on. No haste or ecstasy was ever permitted
+to disorder the dignity of _her_ movements; but she smiled, well pleased
+to mark the delight of her pupil, to feel her kiss and the gentle,
+genial strain of her embrace. She led her tenderly in, half deceived and
+wholly flattered. Half deceived! had it not been so she would in all
+probability have put her to the wicket, and shut her out. Had she known
+clearly to whose account the chief share of this childlike joy was to be
+placed, Hortense would most likely have felt both shocked and incensed.
+Sisters do not like young ladies to fall in love with their brothers.
+It seems, if not presumptuous, silly, weak, a delusion, an absurd
+mistake. _They_ do not love these gentlemen--whatever sisterly affection
+they may cherish towards them--and that others should, repels them with
+a sense of crude romance. The first movement, in short, excited by such
+discovery (as with many parents on finding their children to be in love)
+is one of mixed impatience and contempt. Reason--if they be rational
+people--corrects the false feeling in time; but if they be irrational,
+it is never corrected, and the daughter or sister-in-law is disliked to
+the end.
+
+"You would expect to find me alone, from what I said in my note,"
+observed Miss Moore, as she conducted Caroline towards the parlour; "but
+it was written this morning: since dinner, company has come in."
+
+And opening the door she made visible an ample spread of crimson skirts
+overflowing the elbow-chair at the fireside, and above them, presiding
+with dignity, a cap more awful than a crown. That cap had never come to
+the cottage under a bonnet; no, it had been brought in a vast bag, or
+rather a middle-sized balloon of black silk, held wide with whalebone.
+The screed, or frill of the cap, stood a quarter of a yard broad round
+the face of the wearer. The ribbon, flourishing in puffs and bows about
+the head, was of the sort called love-ribbon. There was a good deal of
+it, I may say, a very great deal. Mrs. Yorke wore the cap--it became
+her; she wore the gown also--it suited her no less.
+
+That great lady was come in a friendly way to take tea with Miss Moore.
+It was almost as great and as rare a favour as if the queen were to go
+uninvited to share pot-luck with one of her subjects. A higher mark of
+distinction she could not show--she who in general scorned visiting and
+tea-drinking, and held cheap and stigmatized as "gossips" every maid and
+matron of the vicinage.
+
+There was no mistake, however; Miss Moore _was_ a favourite with her.
+She had evinced the fact more than once--evinced it by stopping to speak
+to her in the churchyard on Sundays; by inviting her, almost hospitably,
+to come to Briarmains; evinced it to-day by the grand condescension of a
+personal visit. Her reasons for the preference, as assigned by herself,
+were that Miss Moore was a woman of steady deportment, without the least
+levity of conversation or carriage; also that, being a foreigner, she
+must feel the want of a friend to countenance her. She might have added
+that her plain aspect, homely, precise dress, and phlegmatic,
+unattractive manner were to her so many additional recommendations. It
+is certain, at least, that ladies remarkable for the opposite qualities
+of beauty, lively bearing, and elegant taste in attire were not often
+favoured with her approbation. Whatever gentlemen are apt to admire in
+women, Mrs. Yorke condemned; and what they overlook or despise, she
+patronized.
+
+Caroline advanced to the mighty matron with some sense of diffidence.
+She knew little of Mrs. Yorke, and, as a parson's niece, was doubtful
+what sort of a reception she might get. She got a very cool one, and was
+glad to hide her discomfiture by turning away to take off her bonnet.
+Nor, upon sitting down, was she displeased to be immediately accosted by
+a little personage in a blue frock and sash, who started up like some
+fairy from the side of the great dame's chair, where she had been
+sitting on a footstool, screened from view by the folds of the wide red
+gown, and running to Miss Helstone, unceremoniously threw her arms round
+her neck and demanded a kiss.
+
+"My mother is not civil to you," said the petitioner, as she received
+and repaid a smiling salute, "and Rose there takes no notice of you; it
+is their way. If, instead of you, a white angel, with a crown of stars,
+had come into the room, mother would nod stiffly, and Rose never lift
+her head at all; but I will be your friend--I have always liked you."
+
+"Jessie, curb that tongue of yours, and repress your forwardness!" said
+Mrs. Yorke.
+
+"But, mother, you are so frozen!" expostulated Jessie. "Miss Helstone
+has never done you any harm; why can't you be kind to her? You sit so
+stiff, and look so cold, and speak so dry--what for? That's just the
+fashion in which you treat Miss Shirley Keeldar and every other young
+lady who comes to our house. And Rose there is such an aut--aut--I have
+forgotten the word, but it means a machine in the shape of a human
+being. However, between you, you will drive every soul away from
+Briarmains; Martin often says so."
+
+"I am an automaton? Good! Let me alone, then," said Rose, speaking from
+a corner where she was sitting on the carpet at the foot of a bookcase,
+with a volume spread open on her knee.--"Miss Helstone, how do you do?"
+she added, directing a brief glance to the person addressed, and then
+again casting down her gray, remarkable eyes on the book and returning
+to the study of its pages.
+
+Caroline stole a quiet gaze towards her, dwelling on her young, absorbed
+countenance, and observing a certain unconscious movement of the mouth
+as she read--a movement full of character. Caroline had tact, and she
+had fine instinct. She felt that Rose Yorke was a peculiar child--one of
+the unique; she knew how to treat her. Approaching quietly, she knelt on
+the carpet at her side, and looked over her little shoulder at her book.
+It was a romance of Mrs. Radcliffe's--"The Italian."
+
+Caroline read on with her, making no remark. Presently Rose showed her
+the attention of asking, ere she turned the leaf, "Are you ready?"
+
+Caroline only nodded.
+
+"Do you like it?" inquired Rose ere long.
+
+"Long since, when I read it as a child, I was wonderfully taken with
+it."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It seemed to open with such promise--such foreboding of a most strange
+tale to be unfolded."
+
+"And in reading it you feel as if you were far away from England--really
+in Italy--under another sort of sky--that blue sky of the south which
+travellers describe."
+
+"You are sensible of that, Rose?"
+
+"It makes me long to travel, Miss Helstone."
+
+"When you are a woman, perhaps, you may be able to gratify your wish."
+
+"I mean to make a way to do so, if one is not made for me. I cannot live
+always in Briarfield. The whole world is not very large compared with
+creation. I must see the outside of our own round planet, at least."
+
+"How much of its outside?"
+
+"First this hemisphere where we live; then the other. I am resolved that
+my life shall be a life. Not a black trance like the toad's, buried in
+marble; nor a long, slow death like yours in Briarfield rectory."
+
+"Like mine! what can you mean, child?"
+
+"Might you not as well be tediously dying as for ever shut up in that
+glebe-house--a place that, when I pass it, always reminds me of a
+windowed grave? I never see any movement about the door. I never hear a
+sound from the wall. I believe smoke never issues from the chimneys.
+What do you do there?"
+
+"I sew, I read, I learn lessons."
+
+"Are you happy?"
+
+"Should I be happy wandering alone in strange countries as you wish to
+do?"
+
+"Much happier, even if you did nothing but wander. Remember, however,
+that I shall have an object in view; but if you only went on and on,
+like some enchanted lady in a fairy tale, you might be happier than now.
+In a day's wandering you would pass many a hill, wood, and watercourse,
+each perpetually altering in aspect as the sun shone out or was
+overcast; as the weather was wet or fair, dark or bright. Nothing
+changes in Briarfield rectory. The plaster of the parlour ceilings, the
+paper on the walls, the curtains, carpets, chairs, are still the same."
+
+"Is change necessary to happiness?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is it synonymous with it?"
+
+"I don't know; but I feel monotony and death to be almost the same."
+
+Here Jessie spoke.
+
+"Isn't she mad?" she asked.
+
+"But, Rose," pursued Caroline, "I fear a wanderer's life, for me at
+least, would end like that tale you are reading--in disappointment,
+vanity, and vexation of spirit."
+
+"Does 'The Italian' so end?"
+
+"I thought so when I read it."
+
+"Better to try all things and find all empty than to try nothing and
+leave your life a blank. To do this is to commit the sin of him who
+buried his talent in a napkin--despicable sluggard!"
+
+"Rose," observed Mrs. Yorke, "solid satisfaction is only to be realized
+by doing one's duty."
+
+"Right, mother! And if my Master has given me ten talents, my duty is to
+trade with them, and make them ten talents more. Not in the dust of
+household drawers shall the coin be interred. I will _not_ deposit it in
+a broken-spouted teapot, and shut it up in a china closet among
+tea-things. I will _not_ commit it to your work-table to be smothered in
+piles of woollen hose. I will _not_ prison it in the linen press to find
+shrouds among the sheets. And least of all, mother" (she got up from the
+floor)--"least of all will I hide it in a tureen of cold potatoes, to be
+ranged with bread, butter, pastry, and ham on the shelves of the
+larder."
+
+She stopped, then went on, "Mother, the Lord who gave each of us our
+talents will come home some day, and will demand from all an account.
+The teapot, the old stocking-foot, the linen rag, the willow-pattern
+tureen will yield up their barren deposit in many a house. Suffer your
+daughters, at least, to put their money to the exchangers, that they may
+be enabled at the Master's coming to pay Him His own with usury."
+
+"Rose, did you bring your sampler with you, as I told you?"
+
+"Yes, mother."
+
+"Sit down, and do a line of marking."
+
+Rose sat down promptly, and wrought according to orders. After a busy
+pause of ten minutes, her mother asked, "Do you think yourself oppressed
+now--a victim?"
+
+"No, mother."
+
+"Yet, as far as I understood your tirade, it was a protest against all
+womanly and domestic employment."
+
+"You misunderstood it, mother. I should be sorry not to learn to sew.
+You do right to teach me, and to make me work."
+
+"Even to the mending of your brothers' stockings and the making of
+sheets?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is the use of ranting and spouting about it, then?"
+
+"Am I to do nothing but that? I will do that, and then I will do more.
+Now, mother, I have said my say. I am twelve years old at present, and
+not till I am sixteen will I speak again about talents. For four years I
+bind myself an industrious apprentice to all you can teach me."
+
+"You see what my daughters are, Miss Helstone," observed Mrs. Yorke;
+"how precociously wise in their own conceits! 'I would rather this, I
+prefer that'--such is Jessie's cuckoo song; while Rose utters the bolder
+cry, 'I _will_, and I will _not_!'"
+
+"I render a reason, mother; besides, if my cry is bold, it is only heard
+once in a twelvemonth. About each birthday the spirit moves me to
+deliver one oracle respecting my own instruction and management. I utter
+it and leave it; it is for you, mother, to listen or not."
+
+"I would advise all young ladies," pursued Mrs. Yorke, "to study the
+characters of such children as they chance to meet with before they
+marry and have any of their own to consider well how they would like
+the responsibility of guiding the careless, the labour of persuading the
+stubborn, the constant burden and task of training the best."
+
+"But with love it need not be so very difficult," interposed Caroline.
+"Mothers love their children most dearly--almost better than they love
+themselves."
+
+"Fine talk! very sentimental! There is the rough, practical part of life
+yet to come for you, young miss."
+
+"But, Mrs. Yorke, if I take a little baby into my arms--any poor woman's
+infant, for instance--I feel that I love that helpless thing quite
+peculiarly, though I am not its mother. I could do almost anything for
+it willingly, if it were delivered over entirely to my care--if it were
+quite dependent on me."
+
+"You _feel_! Yes, yes! I dare say, now. You are led a great deal by your
+_feelings_, and you think yourself a very sensitive personage, no doubt.
+Are you aware that, with all these romantic ideas, you have managed to
+train your features into an habitually lackadaisical expression, better
+suited to a novel-heroine than to a woman who is to make her way in the
+real world by dint of common sense?"
+
+"No; I am not at all aware of that, Mrs. Yorke."
+
+"Look in the glass just behind you. Compare the face you see there with
+that of any early-rising, hard-working milkmaid."
+
+"My face is a pale one, but it is _not_ sentimental; and most milkmaids,
+however red and robust they may be, are more stupid and less practically
+fitted to make their way in the world than I am. I think more, and more
+correctly, than milkmaids in general do; consequently, where they would
+often, for want of reflection, act weakly, I, by dint of reflection,
+should act judiciously."
+
+"Oh no! you would be influenced by your feelings; you would be guided by
+impulse."
+
+"Of course I should often be influenced by my feelings. They were given
+me to that end. Whom my feelings teach me to love I _must_ and _shall_
+love; and I hope, if ever I have a husband and children, my feelings
+will induce me to love them. I hope, in that case, all my impulses will
+be strong in compelling me to love."
+
+Caroline had a pleasure in saying this with emphasis; she had a pleasure
+in daring to say it in Mrs. Yorke's presence. She did not care what
+unjust sarcasm might be hurled at her in reply. She flushed, not with
+anger but excitement, when the ungenial matron answered coolly, "Don't
+waste your dramatic effects. That was well said--it was quite fine; but
+it is lost on two women--an old wife and an old maid. There should have
+been a disengaged gentleman present.--Is Mr. Robert nowhere hid behind
+the curtains, do you think, Miss Moore?"
+
+Hortense, who during the chief part of the conversation had been in the
+kitchen superintending the preparations for tea, did not yet quite
+comprehend the drift of the discourse. She answered, with a puzzled air,
+that Robert was at Whinbury. Mrs. Yorke laughed her own peculiar short
+laugh.
+
+"Straightforward Miss Moore!" said she patronizingly. "It is like you to
+understand my question so literally and answer it so simply. _Your_ mind
+comprehends nothing of intrigue. Strange things might go on around you
+without your being the wiser; you are not of the class the world calls
+sharp-witted."
+
+These equivocal compliments did not seem to please Hortense. She drew
+herself up, puckered her black eyebrows, but still looked puzzled.
+
+"I have ever been noted for sagacity and discernment from childhood,"
+she returned; for, indeed, on the possession of these qualities she
+peculiarly piqued herself.
+
+"You never plotted to win a husband, I'll be bound," pursued Mrs. Yorke;
+"and you have not the benefit of previous experience to aid you in
+discovering when others plot."
+
+Caroline felt this kind language where the benevolent speaker intended
+she should feel it--in her very heart. She could not even parry the
+shafts; she was defenceless for the present. To answer would have been
+to avow that the cap fitted. Mrs. Yorke, looking at her as she sat with
+troubled, downcast eyes, and cheek burning painfully, and figure
+expressing in its bent attitude and unconscious tremor all the
+humiliation and chagrin she experienced, felt the sufferer was fair
+game. The strange woman had a natural antipathy to a shrinking,
+sensitive character--a nervous temperament; nor was a pretty, delicate,
+and youthful face a passport to her affections. It was seldom she met
+with all these obnoxious qualities combined in one individual; still
+more seldom she found that individual at her mercy, under circumstances
+in which she could crush her well. She happened this afternoon to be
+specially bilious and morose--as much disposed to gore as any vicious
+"mother of the herd." Lowering her large head she made a new charge.
+
+"Your cousin Hortense is an excellent sister, Miss Helstone. Such ladies
+as come to try their life's luck here at Hollow's Cottage may, by a very
+little clever female artifice, cajole the mistress of the house, and
+have the game all in their own hands. You are fond of your cousin's
+society, I dare say, miss?"
+
+"Of which cousin's?"
+
+"Oh, of the lady's, _of course_."
+
+"Hortense is, and always has been, most kind to me."
+
+"Every sister with an eligible single brother is considered most kind by
+her spinster friends."
+
+"Mrs. Yorke," said Caroline, lifting her eyes slowly, their blue orbs at
+the same time clearing from trouble, and shining steady and full, while
+the glow of shame left her cheek, and its hue turned pale and
+settled--"Mrs. Yorke, may I ask what you mean?"
+
+"To give you a lesson on the cultivation of rectitude, to disgust you
+with craft and false sentiment."
+
+"Do I need this lesson?"
+
+"Most young ladies of the present day need it. You are quite a modern
+young lady--morbid, delicate, professing to like retirement; which
+implies, I suppose, that you find little worthy of your sympathies in
+the ordinary world. The ordinary world--every-day honest folks--are
+better than you think them, much better than any bookish, romancing chit
+of a girl can be who hardly ever puts her nose over her uncle the
+parson's garden wall."
+
+"Consequently of whom you know nothing. Excuse me--indeed, it does not
+matter whether you excuse me or not--you have attacked me without
+provocation; I shall defend myself without apology. Of my relations with
+my two cousins you are ignorant. In a fit of ill-humour you have
+attempted to poison them by gratuitous insinuations, which are far more
+crafty and false than anything with which you can justly charge me. That
+I happen to be pale, and sometimes to look diffident, is no business of
+yours; that I am fond of books, and indisposed for common gossip, is
+still less your business; that I am a 'romancing chit of a girl' is a
+mere conjecture on your part. I never romanced to you nor to anybody you
+know. That I am the parson's niece is not a crime, though you may be
+narrow-minded enough to think it so. You dislike me. You have no just
+reason for disliking me; therefore keep the expression of your aversion
+to yourself. If at any time in future you evince it annoyingly, I shall
+answer even less scrupulously than I have done now."
+
+She ceased, and sat in white and still excitement. She had spoken in the
+clearest of tones, neither fast nor loud; but her silver accents
+thrilled the ear. The speed of the current in her veins was just then as
+swift as it was viewless.
+
+Mrs. Yorke was not irritated at the reproof, worded with a severity so
+simple, dictated by a pride so quiet. Turning coolly to Miss Moore, she
+said, nodding her cap approvingly, "She has spirit in her, after
+all.--Always speak as honestly as you have done just now," she
+continued, "and you'll do."
+
+"I repel a recommendation so offensive," was the answer, delivered in
+the same pure key, with the same clear look. "I reject counsel poisoned
+by insinuation. It is my right to speak as I think proper; nothing binds
+me to converse as you dictate. So far from always speaking as I have
+done just now, I shall never address any one in a tone so stern or in
+language so harsh, unless in answer to unprovoked insult."
+
+"Mother, you have found your match," pronounced little Jessie, whom the
+scene appeared greatly to edify. Rose had heard the whole with an
+unmoved face. She now said, "No; Miss Helstone is not my mother's match,
+for she allows herself to be vexed. My mother would wear her out in a
+few weeks. Shirley Keeldar manages better.--Mother, you have never hurt
+Miss Keeldar's feelings yet. She wears armour under her silk dress that
+you cannot penetrate."
+
+Mrs. Yorke often complained that her children were mutinous. It was
+strange that with all her strictness, with all her "strong-mindedness,"
+she could gain no command over them. A look from their father had more
+influence with them than a lecture from her.
+
+Miss Moore--to whom the position of witness to an altercation in which
+she took no part was highly displeasing, as being an unimportant
+secondary post--now rallying her dignity, prepared to utter a discourse
+which was to prove both parties in the wrong, and to make it clear to
+each disputant that she had reason to be ashamed of herself, and ought
+to submit humbly to the superior sense of the individual then addressing
+her. Fortunately for her audience, she had not harangued above ten
+minutes when Sarah's entrance with the tea-tray called her attention,
+first to the fact of that damsel having a gilt comb in her hair and a
+red necklace round her throat, and secondly, and subsequently to a
+pointed remonstrance, to the duty of making tea. After the meal Rose
+restored her to good-humour by bringing her guitar and asking for a
+song, and afterwards engaging her in an intelligent and sharp
+cross-examination about guitar-playing and music in general.
+
+Jessie, meantime, directed her assiduities to Caroline. Sitting on a
+stool at her feet, she talked to her, first about religion and then
+about politics. Jessie was accustomed at home to drink in a great deal
+of what her father said on these subjects, and afterwards in company to
+retail, with more wit and fluency than consistency or discretion, his
+opinions, antipathies, and preferences. She rated Caroline soundly for
+being a member of the Established Church, and for having an uncle a
+clergyman. She informed her that she lived on the country, and ought to
+work for her living honestly, instead of passing a useless life, and
+eating the bread of idleness in the shape of tithes. Thence Jessie
+passed to a review of the ministry at that time in office, and a
+consideration of its deserts. She made familiar mention of the names of
+Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Perceval. Each of these personages she adorned
+with a character that might have separately suited Moloch and Belial.
+She denounced the war as wholesale murder, and Lord Wellington as a
+"hired butcher."
+
+Her auditress listened with exceeding edification. Jessie had something
+of the genius of humour in her nature. It was inexpressibly comic to
+hear her repeating her sire's denunciations in his nervous northern
+Doric; as hearty a little Jacobin as ever pent a free mutinous spirit in
+a muslin frock and sash. Not malignant by nature, her language was not
+so bitter as it was racy, and the expressive little face gave a piquancy
+to every phrase which held a beholder's interest captive.
+
+Caroline chid her when she abused Lord Wellington; but she listened
+delighted to a subsequent tirade against the Prince Regent. Jessie
+quickly read, in the sparkle of her hearer's eye and the laughter
+hovering round her lips, that at last she had hit on a topic that
+pleased. Many a time had she heard the fat "Adonis of fifty" discussed
+at her father's breakfast-table, and she now gave Mr. Yorke's comments
+on the theme--genuine as uttered by his Yorkshire lips.
+
+But, Jessie, I will write about you no more. This is an autumn evening,
+wet and wild. There is only one cloud in the sky, but it curtains it
+from pole to pole. The wind cannot rest; it hurries sobbing over hills
+of sullen outline, colourless with twilight and mist. Rain has beat all
+day on that church tower. It rises dark from the stony enclosure of its
+graveyard. The nettles, the long grass, and the tombs all drip with wet.
+This evening reminds me too forcibly of another evening some years
+ago--a howling, rainy autumn evening too--when certain who had that day
+performed a pilgrimage to a grave new-made in a heretic cemetery sat
+near a wood fire on the hearth of a foreign dwelling. They were merry
+and social, but they each knew that a gap, never to be filled, had been
+made in their circle. They knew they had lost something whose absence
+could never be quite atoned for so long as they lived; and they knew
+that heavy falling rain was soaking into the wet earth which covered
+their lost darling, and that the sad, sighing gale was mourning above
+her buried head. The fire warmed them; life and friendship yet blessed
+them; but Jessie lay cold, coffined, solitary--only the sod screening
+her from the storm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mrs. Yorke folded up her knitting, cut short the music lesson and the
+lecture on politics, and concluded her visit to the cottage, at an hour
+early enough to ensure her return to Briarmains before the blush of
+sunset should quite have faded in heaven, or the path up the fields have
+become thoroughly moist with evening dew.
+
+The lady and her daughters being gone, Caroline felt that she also ought
+to resume her scarf, kiss her cousin's cheek, and trip away homeward. If
+she lingered much later dusk would draw on, and Fanny would be put to
+the trouble of coming to fetch her. It was both baking and ironing day
+at the rectory, she remembered--Fanny would be busy. Still, she could
+not quit her seat at the little parlour window. From no point of view
+could the west look so lovely as from that lattice with the garland of
+jessamine round it, whose white stars and green leaves seemed now but
+gray pencil outlines--graceful in form, but colourless in tint--against
+the gold incarnadined of a summer evening--against the fire-tinged blue
+of an August sky at eight o'clock p.m.
+
+Caroline looked at the wicket-gate, beside which holly-oaks spired up
+tall. She looked at the close hedge of privet and laurel fencing in the
+garden; her eyes longed to see something more than the shrubs before
+they turned from that limited prospect. They longed to see a human
+figure, of a certain mould and height, pass the hedge and enter the
+gate. A human figure she at last saw--nay, two. Frederick Murgatroyd
+went by, carrying a pail of water; Joe Scott followed, dangling on his
+forefinger the keys of the mill. They were going to lock up mill and
+stables for the night, and then betake themselves home.
+
+"So must I," thought Caroline, as she half rose and sighed.
+
+"This is all folly--heart-breaking folly," she added. "In the first
+place, though I should stay till dark there will be no arrival; because
+I feel in my heart, Fate has written it down in to-day's page of her
+eternal book, that I am not to have the pleasure I long for. In the
+second place, if he stepped in this moment, my presence here would be a
+chagrin to him, and the consciousness that it must be so would turn half
+my blood to ice. His hand would, perhaps, be loose and chill if I put
+mine into it; his eye would be clouded if I sought its beam. I should
+look up for that kindling, something I have seen in past days, when my
+face, or my language, or my disposition had at some happy moment pleased
+him; I should discover only darkness. I had better go home."
+
+She took her bonnet from the table where it lay, and was just fastening
+the ribbon, when Hortense, directing her attention to a splendid bouquet
+of flowers in a glass on the same table, mentioned that Miss Keeldar had
+sent them that morning from Fieldhead; and went on to comment on the
+guests that lady was at present entertaining, on the bustling life she
+had lately been leading; adding divers conjectures that she did not very
+well like it, and much wonderment that a person who was so fond of her
+own way as the heiress did not find some means of sooner getting rid of
+this _cortége_ of relatives.
+
+"But they say she actually will not let Mr. Sympson and his family go,"
+she added. "They wanted much to return to the south last week, to be
+ready for the reception of the only son, who is expected home from a
+tour. She insists that her cousin Henry shall come and join his friends
+here in Yorkshire. I dare say she partly does it to oblige Robert and
+myself."
+
+"How to oblige Robert and you?" inquired Caroline.
+
+"Why, my child, you are dull. Don't you know--you must often have
+heard----"
+
+"Please, ma'am," said Sarah, opening the door, "the preserves that you
+told me to boil in treacle--the congfiters, as you call them--is all
+burnt to the pan."
+
+"Les confitures! Elles sont brûlées? Ah, quelle négligence coupable!
+Coquine de cuisinière, fille insupportable!"
+
+And mademoiselle, hastily taking from a drawer a large linen apron, and
+tying it over her black apron, rushed _éperdue_ into the kitchen,
+whence, to speak truth, exhaled an odour of calcined sweets rather
+strong than savoury.
+
+The mistress and maid had been in full feud the whole day, on the
+subject of preserving certain black cherries, hard as marbles, sour as
+sloes. Sarah held that sugar was the only orthodox condiment to be used
+in that process; mademoiselle maintained--and proved it by the practice
+and experience of her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother--that
+treacle, "mélasse," was infinitely preferable. She had committed an
+imprudence in leaving Sarah in charge of the preserving-pan, for her
+want of sympathy in the nature of its contents had induced a degree of
+carelessness in watching their confection, whereof the result was--dark
+and cindery ruin. Hubbub followed; high upbraiding, and sobs rather loud
+than deep or real.
+
+Caroline, once more turning to the little mirror, was shading her
+ringlets from her cheek to smooth them under her cottage bonnet, certain
+that it would not only be useless but unpleasant to stay longer, when,
+on the sudden opening of the back-door, there fell an abrupt calm in the
+kitchen. The tongues were checked, pulled up as with bit and bridle.
+"Was it--was it--Robert?" He often--almost always--entered by the
+kitchen way on his return from market. No; it was only Joe Scott, who,
+having hemmed significantly thrice--every hem being meant as a lofty
+rebuke to the squabbling womankind--said, "Now, I thowt I heerd a
+crack?"
+
+None answered.
+
+"And," he continued pragmatically, "as t' maister's comed, and as he'll
+enter through this hoyle, I _con_sidered it desirable to step in and let
+ye know. A household o' women is nivver fit to be comed on wi'out
+warning. Here he is.--Walk forrard, sir. They war playing up queerly,
+but I think I've quietened 'em."
+
+Another person, it was now audible, entered. Joe Scott proceeded with
+his rebukes.
+
+"What d'ye mean by being all i' darkness? Sarah, thou quean, canst t'
+not light a candle? It war sundown an hour syne. He'll brak his shins
+agean some o' yer pots, and tables, and stuff.--Tak tent o' this
+baking-bowl, sir; they've set it i' yer way, fair as if they did it i'
+malice."
+
+To Joe's observations succeeded a confused sort of pause, which
+Caroline, though she was listening with both her ears, could not
+understand. It was very brief. A cry broke it--a sound of surprise,
+followed by the sound of a kiss; ejaculations, but half articulate,
+succeeded.
+
+"Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Est-ce que je m'y attendais?" were the words
+chiefly to be distinguished.
+
+"Et tu te portes toujours bien, bonne soeur?" inquired another
+voice--Robert's, certainly.
+
+Caroline was puzzled. Obeying an impulse the wisdom of which she had not
+time to question, she escaped from the little parlour, by way of leaving
+the coast clear, and running upstairs took up a position at the head of
+the banisters, whence she could make further observations ere presenting
+herself. It was considerably past sunset now; dusk filled the passage,
+yet not such deep dusk but that she could presently see Robert and
+Hortense traverse it.
+
+"Caroline! Caroline!" called Hortense, a moment afterwards, "venez voir
+mon frère!"
+
+"Strange," commented Miss Helstone, "passing strange! What does this
+unwonted excitement about such an every-day occurrence as a return from
+market portend? She has not lost her senses, has she? Surely the burnt
+treacle has not crazed her?"
+
+She descended in a subdued flutter. Yet more was she fluttered when
+Hortense seized her hand at the parlour door, and leading her to Robert,
+who stood in bodily presence, tall and dark against the one window,
+presented her with a mixture of agitation and formality, as though they
+had been utter strangers, and this was their first mutual introduction.
+
+Increasing puzzle! He bowed rather awkwardly, and turning from her with
+a stranger's embarrassment, he met the doubtful light from the window.
+It fell on his face, and the enigma of the dream (a dream it seemed)
+was at its height. She saw a visage like and unlike--Robert, and no
+Robert.
+
+"What is the matter?" said Caroline. "Is my sight wrong? Is it my
+cousin?"
+
+"Certainly it is your cousin," asserted Hortense.
+
+Then who was this now coming through the passage--now entering the room?
+Caroline, looking round, met a new Robert--the real Robert, as she felt
+at once.
+
+"Well," said he, smiling at her questioning, astonished face, "which is
+which?"
+
+"Ah, this is _you_!" was the answer.
+
+He laughed. "I believe it is _me_. And do you know who _he_ is? You
+never saw him before, but you have heard of him."
+
+She had gathered her senses now.
+
+"It _can_ be only one person--your brother, since it is so like you; my
+other cousin, Louis."
+
+"Clever little Oedipus! you would have baffled the Sphinx! But now, see
+us together.--Change places; change again, to confuse her, Louis.--Which
+is the old love now, Lina?"
+
+"As if it were possible to make a mistake when you speak! You should
+have told Hortense to ask. But you are not so much alike. It is only
+your height, your figure, and complexion that are so similar."
+
+"And I am Robert, am I not?" asked the newcomer, making a first effort
+to overcome what seemed his natural shyness.
+
+Caroline shook her head gently. A soft, expressive ray from her eye
+beamed on the real Robert. It said much.
+
+She was not permitted to quit her cousins soon. Robert himself was
+peremptory in obliging her to remain. Glad, simple, and affable in her
+demeanour (glad for this night, at least), in light, bright spirits for
+the time, she was too pleasant an addition to the cottage circle to be
+willingly parted with by any of them. Louis seemed naturally rather a
+grave, still, retiring man; but the Caroline of this evening, which was
+not (as you know, reader) the Caroline of every day, thawed his reserve,
+and cheered his gravity soon. He sat near her and talked to her. She
+already knew his vocation was that of tuition. She learned now he had
+for some years been the tutor of Mr. Sympson's son; that he had been
+travelling with him, and had accompanied him to the north. She inquired
+if he liked his post, but got a look in reply which did not invite or
+license further question. The look woke Caroline's ready sympathy. She
+thought it a very sad expression to pass over so sensible a face as
+Louis's; for he _had_ a sensible face, though not handsome, she
+considered, when seen near Robert's. She turned to make the comparison.
+Robert was leaning against the wall, a little behind her, turning over
+the leaves of a book of engravings, and probably listening, at the same
+time, to the dialogue between her and Louis.
+
+"How could I think them alike?" she asked herself. "I see now it is
+Hortense Louis resembles, not Robert."
+
+And this was in part true. He had the shorter nose and longer upper lip
+of his sister rather than the fine traits of his brother. He had her
+mould of mouth and chin--all less decisive, accurate, and clear than
+those of the young mill-owner. His air, though deliberate and
+reflective, could scarcely be called prompt and acute. You felt, in
+sitting near and looking up at him, that a slower and probably a more
+benignant nature than that of the elder Moore shed calm on your
+impressions.
+
+Robert--perhaps aware that Caroline's glance had wandered towards and
+dwelt upon him, though he had neither met nor answered it--put down the
+book of engravings, and approaching, took a seat at her side. She
+resumed her conversation with Louis, but while she talked to him her
+thoughts were elsewhere. Her heart beat on the side from which her face
+was half averted. She acknowledged a steady, manly, kindly air in Louis;
+but she bent before the secret power of Robert. To be so near
+him--though he was silent, though he did not touch so much as her
+scarf-fringe or the white hem of her dress--affected her like a spell.
+Had she been obliged to speak to him _only_, it would have quelled, but,
+at liberty to address another, it excited her. Her discourse flowed
+freely; it was gay, playful, eloquent. The indulgent look and placid
+manner of her auditor encouraged her to ease; the sober pleasure
+expressed by his smile drew out all that was brilliant in her nature.
+She felt that this evening she appeared to advantage, and as Robert was
+a spectator, the consciousness contented her. Had he been called away,
+collapse would at once have succeeded stimulus.
+
+But her enjoyment was not long to shine full-orbed; a cloud soon crossed
+it.
+
+Hortense, who for some time had been on the move ordering supper, and
+was now clearing the little table of some books, etc., to make room for
+the tray, called Robert's attention to the glass of flowers, the carmine
+and snow and gold of whose petals looked radiant indeed by candlelight.
+
+"They came from Fieldhead," she said, "intended as a gift to you, no
+doubt. We know who is the favourite there; not I, I'm sure."
+
+It was a wonder to hear Hortense jest--a sign that her spirits were at
+high-water mark indeed.
+
+"We are to understand, then, that Robert is the favourite?" observed
+Louis.
+
+"Mon cher," replied Hortense, "Robert--c'est tout ce qu'il y a de plus
+précieux au monde; à côté de lui le reste du genre humain n'est que du
+rebut.--N'ai-je pas raison, mon enfant?" she added, appealing to
+Caroline.
+
+Caroline was obliged to reply, "Yes," and her beacon was quenched. Her
+star withdrew as she spoke.
+
+"Et toi, Robert?" inquired Louis.
+
+"When you shall have an opportunity, ask herself," was the quiet answer.
+Whether he reddened or paled Caroline did not examine. She discovered
+that it was late, and she must go home. Home she would go; not even
+Robert could detain her now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
+
+
+The future sometimes seems to sob a low warning of the events it is
+bringing us, like some gathering though yet remote storm, which, in
+tones of the wind, in flushings of the firmament, in clouds strangely
+torn, announces a blast strong to strew the sea with wrecks; or
+commissioned to bring in fog the yellow taint of pestilence covering
+white Western isles with the poisoned exhalations of the East, dimming
+the lattices of English homes with the breath of Indian plague. At other
+times this future bursts suddenly, as if a rock had rent, and in it a
+grave had opened, whence issues the body of one that slept. Ere you are
+aware you stand face to face with a shrouded and unthought-of
+calamity--a new Lazarus.
+
+Caroline Helstone went home from Hollow's Cottage in good health, as she
+imagined. On waking the next morning she felt oppressed with unwonted
+languor. At breakfast, at each meal of the following day, she missed all
+sense of appetite. Palatable food was as ashes and sawdust to her.
+
+"Am I ill?" she asked, and looked at herself in the glass. Her eyes were
+bright, their pupils dilated, her cheeks seemed rosier, and fuller than
+usual. "I look well; why can I not eat?"
+
+She felt a pulse beat fast in her temples; she felt, too, her brain in
+strange activity. Her spirits were raised; hundreds of busy and broken
+but brilliant thoughts engaged her mind. A glow rested on them, such as
+tinged her complexion.
+
+Now followed a hot, parched, thirsty, restless night. Towards morning
+one terrible dream seized her like a tiger; when she woke, she felt and
+knew she was ill.
+
+How she had caught the fever (fever it was) she could not tell. Probably
+in her late walk home, some sweet, poisoned breeze, redolent of
+honey-dew and miasma, had passed into her lungs and veins, and finding
+there already a fever of mental excitement, and a languor of long
+conflict and habitual sadness, had fanned the spark to flame, and left a
+well-lit fire behind it.
+
+It seemed, however, but a gentle fire. After two hot days and worried
+nights, there was no violence in the symptoms, and neither her uncle,
+nor Fanny, nor the doctor, nor Miss Keeldar, when she called, had any
+fear for her. A few days would restore her, every one believed.
+
+The few days passed, and--though it was still thought it could not long
+delay--the revival had not begun. Mrs. Pryor, who had visited her
+daily--being present in her chamber one morning when she had been ill a
+fortnight--watched her very narrowly for some minutes. She took her hand
+and placed her finger on her wrist; then, quietly leaving the chamber,
+she went to Mr. Helstone's study. With him she remained closeted a long
+time--half the morning. On returning to her sick young friend, she laid
+aside shawl and bonnet. She stood awhile at the bedside, one hand placed
+in the other, gently rocking herself to and fro, in an attitude and with
+a movement habitual to her. At last she said, "I have sent Fanny to
+Fieldhead to fetch a few things for me, such as I shall want during a
+short stay here. It is my wish to remain with you till you are better.
+Your uncle kindly permits my attendance. Will it to yourself be
+acceptable, Caroline?"
+
+"I am sorry you should take such needless trouble. I do not feel very
+ill, but I cannot refuse resolutely. It will be such comfort to know you
+are in the house, to see you sometimes in the room; but don't confine
+yourself on my account, dear Mrs. Pryor. Fanny nurses me very well."
+
+Mrs. Pryor, bending over the pale little sufferer, was now smoothing the
+hair under her cap, and gently raising her pillow. As she performed
+these offices, Caroline, smiling, lifted her face to kiss her.
+
+"Are you free from pain? Are you tolerably at ease?" was inquired in a
+low, earnest voice, as the self-elected nurse yielded to the caress.
+
+"I think I am almost happy."
+
+"You wish to drink? Your lips are parched."
+
+She held a glass filled with some cooling beverage to her mouth.
+
+"Have you eaten anything to-day, Caroline?"
+
+"I cannot eat."
+
+"But soon your appetite will return; it _must_ return--that is, I pray
+God it may."
+
+In laying her again on the couch, she encircled her in her arms; and
+while so doing, by a movement which seemed scarcely voluntary, she drew
+her to her heart, and held her close gathered an instant.
+
+"I shall hardly wish to get well, that I may keep you always," said
+Caroline.
+
+Mrs. Pryor did not smile at this speech. Over her features ran a tremor,
+which for some minutes she was absorbed in repressing.
+
+"You are more used to Fanny than to me," she remarked ere long. "I
+should think my attendance must seem strange, officious?"
+
+"No; quite natural, and very soothing. You must have been accustomed to
+wait on sick people, ma'am. You move about the room so softly, and you
+speak so quietly, and touch me so gently."
+
+"I am dexterous in nothing, my dear. You will often find me awkward, but
+never negligent."
+
+Negligent, indeed, she was not. From that hour Fanny and Eliza became
+ciphers in the sick-room. Mrs. Pryor made it her domain; she performed
+all its duties; she lived in it day and night. The patient
+remonstrated--faintly, however, from the first, and not at all ere long.
+Loneliness and gloom were now banished from her bedside; protection and
+solace sat there instead. She and her nurse coalesced in wondrous union.
+Caroline was usually pained to require or receive much attendance. Mrs.
+Pryor, under ordinary circumstances, had neither the habit nor the art
+of performing little offices of service; but all now passed with such
+ease, so naturally, that the patient was as willing to be cherished as
+the nurse was bent on cherishing; no sign of weariness in the latter
+ever reminded the former that she ought to be anxious. There was, in
+fact, no very hard duty to perform; but a hireling might have found it
+hard.
+
+With all this care it seemed strange the sick girl did not get well; yet
+such was the case. She wasted like any snow-wreath in thaw; she faded
+like any flower in drought. Miss Keeldar, on whose thoughts danger or
+death seldom intruded, had at first entertained no fears at all for her
+friend; but seeing her change and sink from time to time when she paid
+her visits, alarm clutched her heart. She went to Mr. Helstone and
+expressed herself with so much energy that that gentleman was at last
+obliged, however unwillingly, to admit the idea that his niece was ill
+of something more than a migraine; and when Mrs. Pryor came and quietly
+demanded a physician, he said she might send for two if she liked. One
+came, but that one was an oracle. He delivered a dark saying of which
+the future was to solve the mystery, wrote some prescriptions, gave some
+directions--the whole with an air of crushing authority--pocketed his
+fee, and went. Probably he knew well enough he could do no good, but
+didn't like to say so.
+
+Still, no rumour of serious illness got wind in the neighbourhood. At
+Hollow's Cottage it was thought that Caroline had only a severe cold,
+she having written a note to Hortense to that effect; and mademoiselle
+contented herself with sending two pots of currant jam, a recipe for a
+tisane, and a note of advice.
+
+Mrs. Yorke being told that a physician had been summoned, sneered at the
+hypochondriac fancies of the rich and idle, who, she said, having
+nothing but themselves to think about, must needs send for a doctor if
+only so much as their little finger ached.
+
+The "rich and idle," represented in the person of Caroline, were
+meantime falling fast into a condition of prostration, whose quickly
+consummated debility puzzled all who witnessed it except one; for that
+one alone reflected how liable is the undermined structure to sink in
+sudden ruin.
+
+Sick people often have fancies inscrutable to ordinary attendants, and
+Caroline had one which even her tender nurse could not at first explain.
+On a certain day in the week, at a certain hour, she would--whether
+worse or better--entreat to be taken up and dressed, and suffered to sit
+in her chair near the window. This station she would retain till noon
+was past. Whatever degree of exhaustion or debility her wan aspect
+betrayed, she still softly put off all persuasion to seek repose until
+the church clock had duly tolled midday. The twelve strokes sounded, she
+grew docile, and would meekly lie down. Returned to the couch, she
+usually buried her face deep in the pillow, and drew the coverlets close
+round her, as if to shut out the world and sun, of which she was tired.
+More than once, as she thus lay, a slight convulsion shook the sick-bed,
+and a faint sob broke the silence round it. These things were not
+unnoted by Mrs. Pryor.
+
+One Tuesday morning, as usual, she had asked leave to rise, and now she
+sat wrapped in her white dressing-gown, leaning forward in the
+easy-chair, gazing steadily and patiently from the lattice. Mrs. Pryor
+was seated a little behind, knitting as it seemed, but, in truth,
+watching her. A change crossed her pale, mournful brow, animating its
+languor; a light shot into her faded eyes, reviving their lustre; she
+half rose and looked earnestly out. Mrs. Pryor, drawing softly near,
+glanced over her shoulder. From this window was visible the churchyard,
+beyond it the road; and there, riding sharply by, appeared a horseman.
+The figure was not yet too remote for recognition. Mrs. Pryor had long
+sight; she knew Mr. Moore. Just as an intercepting rising ground
+concealed him from view, the clock struck twelve.
+
+"May I lie down again?" asked Caroline.
+
+Her nurse assisted her to bed. Having laid her down and drawn the
+curtain, she stood listening near. The little couch trembled, the
+suppressed sob stirred the air. A contraction as of anguish altered Mrs.
+Pryor's features; she wrung her hands; half a groan escaped her lips.
+She now remembered that Tuesday was Whinbury market day. Mr. Moore must
+always pass the rectory on his way thither, just ere noon of that day.
+
+Caroline wore continually round her neck a slender braid of silk,
+attached to which was some trinket. Mrs. Pryor had seen the bit of gold
+glisten, but had not yet obtained a fair view of it. Her patient never
+parted with it. When dressed it was hidden in her bosom; as she lay in
+bed she always held it in her hand. That Tuesday afternoon the transient
+doze--more like lethargy than sleep--which sometimes abridged the long
+days, had stolen over her. The weather was hot. While turning in febrile
+restlessness, she had pushed the coverlets a little aside. Mrs. Pryor
+bent to replace them. The small, wasted hand, lying nerveless on the
+sick girl's breast, clasped as usual her jealously-guarded treasure.
+Those fingers whose attenuation it gave pain to see were now relaxed in
+sleep. Mrs. Pryor gently disengaged the braid, drawing out a tiny
+locket--a slight thing it was, such as it suited her small purse to
+purchase. Under its crystal face appeared a curl of black hair, too
+short and crisp to have been severed from a female head.
+
+Some agitated movement occasioned a twitch of the silken chain. The
+sleeper started and woke. Her thoughts were usually now somewhat
+scattered on waking, her look generally wandering. Half rising, as if
+in terror, she exclaimed, "Don't take it from me, Robert! Don't! It is
+my last comfort; let me keep it. I never tell any one whose hair it is;
+I never show it."
+
+Mrs. Pryor had already disappeared behind the curtain. Reclining far
+back in a deep arm-chair by the bedside, she was withdrawn from view.
+Caroline looked abroad into the chamber; she thought it empty. As her
+stray ideas returned slowly, each folding its weak wings on the mind's
+sad shore, like birds exhausted, beholding void, and perceiving silence
+round her, she believed herself alone. Collected she was not yet;
+perhaps healthy self-possession and self-control were to be hers no
+more; perhaps that world the strong and prosperous live in had already
+rolled from beneath her feet for ever. So, at least, it often seemed to
+herself. In health she had never been accustomed to think aloud, but now
+words escaped her lips unawares.
+
+"Oh, I _should_ see him once more before all is over! Heaven _might_
+favour me thus far!" she cried. "God grant me a little comfort before I
+die!" was her humble petition.
+
+"But he will not know I am ill till I am gone, and he will come when
+they have laid me out, and I am senseless, cold, and stiff.
+
+"What can my departed soul feel then? Can it see or know what happens to
+the clay? Can spirits, through any medium, communicate with living
+flesh? Can the dead at all revisit those they leave? Can they come in
+the elements? Will wind, water, fire, lend me a path to Moore?
+
+"Is it for nothing the wind sounds almost articulately sometimes--sings
+as I have lately heard it sing at night--or passes the casement sobbing,
+as if for sorrow to come? Does nothing, then, haunt it, nothing inspire
+it?
+
+"Why, it suggested to me words one night; it poured a strain which I
+could have written down, only I was appalled, and dared not rise to seek
+pencil and paper by the dim watch-light.
+
+"What is that electricity they speak of, whose changes make us well or
+ill, whose lack or excess blasts, whose even balance revives? What are
+all those influences that are about us in the atmosphere, that keep
+playing over our nerves like fingers on stringed instruments, and call
+forth now a sweet note, and now a wail--now an exultant swell, and anon
+the saddest cadence?
+
+"_Where is_ the other world? In _what_ will another life consist? Why do
+I ask? Have I not cause to think that the hour is hasting but too fast
+when the veil must be rent for me? Do I not know the Grand Mystery is
+likely to burst prematurely on me? Great Spirit, in whose goodness I
+confide, whom, as my Father, I have petitioned night and morning from
+early infancy, help the weak creation of Thy hands! Sustain me through
+the ordeal I dread and must undergo! Give me strength! Give me patience!
+Give me--oh, _give me_ FAITH!"
+
+She fell back on her pillow. Mrs. Pryor found means to steal quietly
+from the room. She re-entered it soon after, apparently as composed as
+if she had really not overheard this strange soliloquy.
+
+The next day several callers came. It had become known that Miss
+Helstone was worse. Mr. Hall and his sister Margaret arrived. Both,
+after they had been in the sickroom, quitted it in tears; they had found
+the patient more altered than they expected. Hortense Moore came.
+Caroline seemed stimulated by her presence. She assured her, smiling,
+she was not dangerously ill; she talked to her in a low voice, but
+cheerfully. During her stay, excitement kept up the flush of her
+complexion; she looked better.
+
+"How is Mr. Robert?" asked Mrs. Pryor, as Hortense was preparing to take
+leave.
+
+"He was very well when he left."
+
+"Left! Is he gone from home?"
+
+It was then explained that some police intelligence about the rioters of
+whom he was in pursuit had, that morning, called him away to Birmingham,
+and probably a fortnight might elapse ere he returned.
+
+"He is not aware that Miss Helstone is very ill?"
+
+"Oh no! He thought, like me, that she had only a bad cold."
+
+After this visit, Mrs. Pryor took care not to approach Caroline's couch
+for above an hour. She heard her weep, and dared not look on her tears.
+
+As evening closed in, she brought her some tea. Caroline, opening her
+eyes from a moment's slumber, viewed her nurse with an unrecognizing
+glance.
+
+"I smelt the honeysuckles in the glen this summer morning," she said,
+"as I stood at the counting-house window."
+
+Strange words like these from pallid lips pierce a loving listener's
+heart more poignantly than steel. They sound romantic, perhaps, in
+books; in real life they are harrowing.
+
+"My darling, do you know me?" said Mrs. Pryor.
+
+"I went in to call Robert to breakfast. I have been with him in the
+garden. He asked me to go. A heavy dew has refreshed the flowers. The
+peaches are ripening."
+
+"My darling! my darling!" again and again repeated the nurse.
+
+"I thought it was daylight--long after sunrise. It looks dark. Is the
+moon now set?"
+
+That moon, lately risen, was gazing full and mild upon her. Floating in
+deep blue space, it watched her unclouded.
+
+"Then it is not morning? I am not at the cottage? Who is this? I see a
+shape at my bedside."
+
+"It is myself--it is your friend--your nurse--your---- Lean your head on
+my shoulder. Collect yourself." In a lower tone--"O God, take pity! Give
+_her_ life, and _me_ strength! Send me courage! Teach me words!"
+
+Some minutes passed in silence. The patient lay mute and passive in the
+trembling arms, on the throbbing bosom of the nurse.
+
+"I am better now," whispered Caroline at last, "much better. I feel
+where I am. This is Mrs. Pryor near me. I was dreaming. I talk when I
+wake up from dreams; people often do in illness. How fast your heart
+beats, ma'am! Do not be afraid."
+
+"It is not fear, child--only a little anxiety, which will pass. I have
+brought you some tea, Cary. Your uncle made it himself. You know he says
+he can make a better cup of tea than any housewife can. Taste it. He is
+concerned to hear that you eat so little; he would be glad if you had a
+better appetite."
+
+"I am thirsty. Let me drink."
+
+She drank eagerly.
+
+"What o'clock is it, ma'am?" she asked.
+
+"Past nine."
+
+"Not later? Oh! I have yet a long night before me. But the tea has made
+me strong. I will sit up."
+
+Mrs. Pryor raised her, and arranged her pillows.
+
+"Thank Heaven! I am not always equally miserable, and ill, and hopeless.
+The afternoon has been bad since Hortense went; perhaps the evening may
+be better. It is a fine night, I think? The moon shines clear."
+
+"Very fine--a perfect summer night. The old church-tower gleams white
+almost as silver."
+
+"And does the churchyard look peaceful?"
+
+"Yes, and the garden also. Dew glistens on the foliage."
+
+"Can you see many long weeds and nettles amongst the graves? or do they
+look turfy and flowery?"
+
+"I see closed daisy-heads gleaming like pearls on some mounds. Thomas
+has mown down the dock-leaves and rank grass, and cleared all away."
+
+"I always like that to be done; it soothes one's mind to see the place
+in order. And, I dare say, within the church just now that moonlight
+shines as softly as in my room. It will fall through the east window
+full on the Helstone monument. When I close my eyes I seem to see poor
+papa's epitaph in black letters on the white marble. There is plenty of
+room for other inscriptions underneath."
+
+"William Farren came to look after your flowers this morning. He was
+afraid, now you cannot tend them yourself, they would be neglected. He
+has taken two of your favourite plants home to nurse for you."
+
+"If I were to make a will, I would leave William all my plants; Shirley
+my trinkets--except one, which must not be taken off my neck; and you,
+ma'am, my books." After a pause--"Mrs. Pryor, I feel a longing wish for
+something."
+
+"For what, Caroline?"
+
+"You know I always delight to hear you sing. Sing me a hymn just now.
+Sing that hymn which begins,--
+
+    'Our God, our help in ages past,
+       Our hope for years to come,
+     Our shelter from the stormy blast,
+       Our refuge, haven, home!'"
+
+Mrs. Pryor at once complied.
+
+No wonder Caroline liked to hear her sing. Her voice, even in speaking,
+was sweet and silver clear; in song it was almost divine. Neither flute
+nor dulcimer has tones so pure. But the tone was secondary, compared to
+the expression which trembled through--a tender vibration from a feeling
+heart.
+
+The servants in the kitchen, hearing the strain, stole to the stair-foot
+to listen. Even old Helstone, as he walked in the garden, pondering over
+the unaccountable and feeble nature of women, stood still amongst his
+borders to catch the mournful melody more distinctly. Why it reminded
+him of his forgotten dead wife, he could not tell; nor why it made him
+more concerned than he had hitherto been for Caroline's fading girlhood.
+He was glad to recollect that he had promised to pay Wynne, the
+magistrate, a visit that evening. Low spirits and gloomy thoughts were
+very much his aversion. When they attacked him he usually found means to
+make them march in double-quick time. The hymn followed him faintly as
+he crossed the fields. He hastened his customary sharp pace, that he
+might get beyond its reach.
+
+    "Thy word commands our flesh to dust,--
+       'Return, ye sons of men;'
+     All nations rose from earth at first,
+       And turn to earth again.
+
+    "A thousand ages in Thy sight
+       Are like an evening gone--
+     Short as the watch that ends the night
+       Before the rising sun.
+
+    "Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
+       Bears all its sons away;
+     They fly, forgotten, as a dream
+       Dies at the opening day.
+
+    "Like flowery fields, the nations stand,
+       Fresh in the morning light;
+     The flowers beneath the mower's hand
+       Lie withering ere 'tis night.
+
+    "Our God, our help in ages past,
+       Our hope for years to come,
+     Be Thou our guard while troubles last--
+       O Father, be our home!"
+
+"Now sing a song--a Scottish song," suggested Caroline, when the hymn
+was over--"'Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon.'"
+
+Again Mrs. Pryor obeyed, or essayed to obey. At the close of the first
+stanza she stopped. She could get no further. Her full heart flowed
+over.
+
+"You are weeping at the pathos of the air. Come here, and I will comfort
+you," said Caroline, in a pitying accent. Mrs. Pryor came. She sat down
+on the edge of her patient's bed, and allowed the wasted arms to
+encircle her.
+
+"You often soothe me; let me soothe you," murmured the young girl,
+kissing her cheek. "I hope," she added, "it is not for me you weep?"
+
+No answer followed.
+
+"Do you think I shall not get better? I do not feel _very_ ill--only
+weak."
+
+"But your mind, Caroline--your mind is crushed. Your heart is almost
+broken; you have been so neglected, so repulsed, left so desolate."
+
+"I believe grief is, and always has been, my worst ailment. I sometimes
+think if an abundant gush of happiness came on me I could revive yet."
+
+"Do you wish to live?"
+
+"I have no object in life."
+
+"You love me, Caroline?"
+
+"Very much--very truly--inexpressibly sometimes. Just now I feel as if I
+could almost grow to your heart."
+
+"I will return directly, dear," remarked Mrs. Pryor, as she laid
+Caroline down.
+
+Quitting her, she glided to the door, softly turned the key in the lock,
+ascertained that it was fast, and came back. She bent over her. She
+threw back the curtain to admit the moonlight more freely. She gazed
+intently on her face.
+
+"Then, if you love me," said she, speaking quickly, with an altered
+voice; "if you feel as if, to use your own words, you could 'grow to my
+heart,' it will be neither shock nor pain for you to know that _that_
+heart is the source whence yours was filled; that from _my_ veins issued
+the tide which flows in _yours_; that you are _mine_--my daughter--my
+own child."
+
+"Mrs. Pryor----"
+
+"My own child!"
+
+"That is--that means--you have adopted me?"
+
+"It means that, if I have given you nothing else, I at least gave you
+life; that I bore you, nursed you; that I am your true mother. No other
+woman can claim the title; it is _mine_."
+
+"But Mrs. James Helstone--but my father's wife, whom I do not remember
+ever to have seen, she is my mother?"
+
+"She _is_ your mother. James Helstone was _my_ husband. I say you are
+_mine_. I have proved it. I thought perhaps you were all his, which
+would have been a cruel dispensation for me. I find it is _not_ so. God
+permitted me to be the parent of my child's mind. It belongs to me; it
+is my property--my _right_. These features are James's own. He had a
+fine face when he was young, and not altered by error. Papa, my darling,
+gave you your blue eyes and soft brown hair; he gave you the oval of
+your face and the regularity of your lineaments--the outside _he_
+conferred; but the heart and the brain are _mine_. The germs are from
+_me_, and they are improved, they are developed to excellence. I esteem
+and approve my child as highly as I do most fondly love her."
+
+"Is what I hear true? Is it no dream?"
+
+"I wish it were as true that the substance and colour of health were
+restored to your cheek."
+
+"My own mother! is she one I can be so fond of as I can of you? People
+generally did not like her--so I have been given to understand."
+
+"They told you that? Well, your mother now tells you that, not having
+the gift to please people generally, for their approbation she does not
+care. Her thoughts are centred in her child. Does that child welcome or
+reject her?"
+
+"But if you _are_ my mother, the world is all changed to me. Surely I
+can live. I should like to recover----"
+
+"You _must_ recover. You drew life and strength from my breast when you
+were a tiny, fair infant, over whose blue eyes I used to weep, fearing I
+beheld in your very beauty the sign of qualities that had entered my
+heart like iron, and pierced through my soul like a sword. Daughter! we
+have been long parted; I return now to cherish you again."
+
+She held her to her bosom; she cradled her in her arms; she rocked her
+softly, as if lulling a young child to sleep.
+
+"My mother--my own mother!"
+
+The offspring nestled to the parent; that parent, feeling the endearment
+and hearing the appeal, gathered her closer still. She covered her with
+noiseless kisses; she murmured love over her, like a cushat fostering
+its young.
+
+There was silence in the room for a long while.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Does my uncle know?"
+
+"Your uncle knows. I told him when I first came to stay with you here."
+
+"Did you recognize me when we first met at Fieldhead?"
+
+"How could it be otherwise? Mr. and Miss Helstone being announced, I was
+prepared to see my child."
+
+"It was that, then, which moved you. I saw you disturbed."
+
+"You saw nothing, Caroline; I can cover my feelings. You can never tell
+what an age of strange sensation I lived, during the two minutes that
+elapsed between the report of your name and your entrance. You can never
+tell how your look, mien, carriage, shook me."
+
+"Why? Were you disappointed?"
+
+"What will she be like? I had asked myself; and when I saw what you were
+like, I could have dropped."
+
+"Mamma, why?"
+
+"I trembled in your presence. I said, I will never own her; she shall
+never know me."
+
+"But I said and did nothing remarkable. I felt a little diffident at the
+thought of an introduction to strangers--that was all."
+
+"I soon saw you were diffident. That was the first thing which reassured
+me. Had you been rustic, clownish, awkward, I should have been content."
+
+"You puzzle me."
+
+"I had reason to dread a fair outside, to mistrust a popular bearing, to
+shudder before distinction, grace, and courtesy. Beauty and affability
+had come in my way when I was recluse, desolate, young, and ignorant--a
+toil-worn governess perishing of uncheered labour, breaking down before
+her time. These, Caroline, when they smiled on me, I mistook for angels.
+I followed them home; and when into their hands I had given without
+reserve my whole chance of future happiness, it was my lot to witness a
+transfiguration on the domestic hearth--to see the white mask lifted,
+the bright disguise put away, and opposite me sat down---- O God, I
+_have_ suffered!"
+
+She sank on the pillow.
+
+"I _have_ suffered! None saw--none knew. There was no sympathy, no
+redemption, no redress!"
+
+"Take comfort, mother. It is over now."
+
+"It is over, and not fruitlessly. I tried to keep the word of His
+patience. He kept me in the days of my anguish. I was afraid with
+terror--I was troubled. Through great tribulation He brought me through
+to a salvation revealed in this last time. My fear had torment; He has
+cast it out. He has given me in its stead perfect love. But,
+Caroline----"
+
+Thus she invoked her daughter after a pause.
+
+"Mother!"
+
+"I charge you, when you next look on your father's monument, to respect
+the name chiselled there. To you he did only good. On you he conferred
+his whole treasure of beauties, nor added to them one dark defect. All
+_you_ derived from him is excellent. You owe him gratitude. Leave,
+between him and me, the settlement of our mutual account. Meddle not.
+God is the arbiter. This world's laws never came near us--never! They
+were powerless as a rotten bulrush to protect me--impotent as idiot
+babblings to restrain him! As you said, it is all over now; the grave
+lies between us. There he sleeps, in that church. To his dust I say this
+night, what I have never said before, 'James, slumber peacefully! See!
+your terrible debt is cancelled! Look! I wipe out the long, black
+account with my own hand! James, your child atones. This living likeness
+of you--this thing with your perfect features--this one good gift you
+gave me has nestled affectionately to my heart, and tenderly called me
+"mother." Husband, rest forgiven!'"
+
+"Dearest mother, that is right! Can papa's spirit hear us? Is he
+comforted to know that we still love him?"
+
+"I said nothing of love. I spoke of forgiveness. Mind the truth, child;
+I said nothing of love! On the threshold of eternity, should he be there
+to see me enter, will I maintain that."
+
+"O mother, you must have suffered!"
+
+"O child, the human heart _can_ suffer! It can hold more tears than the
+ocean holds waters. We never know how deep, how wide it is, till misery
+begins to unbind her clouds, and fill it with rushing blackness."
+
+"Mother, forget."
+
+"Forget!" she said, with the strangest spectre of a laugh. "The north
+pole will rush to the south, and the headlands of Europe be locked into
+the bays of Australia ere I forget."
+
+"Hush, mother! Rest! Be at peace!"
+
+And the child lulled the parent, as the parent had erst lulled the
+child. At last Mrs. Pryor wept. She then grew calmer. She resumed those
+tender cares agitation had for a moment suspended. Replacing her
+daughter on the couch, she smoothed the pillow and spread the sheet. The
+soft hair whose locks were loosened she rearranged, the damp brow she
+refreshed with a cool, fragrant essence.
+
+"Mamma, let them bring a candle, that I may see you; and tell my uncle
+to come into this room by-and-by. I want to hear him say that I am your
+daughter. And, mamma, take your supper here. Don't leave me for one
+minute to-night."
+
+"O Caroline, it is well you are gentle! You will say to me, Go, and I
+shall go; Come, and I shall come; Do this, and I shall do it. You
+inherit a certain manner as well as certain features. It will always be
+'mamma' prefacing a mandate--softly spoken, though, from you, thank God!
+Well," she added, under her breath, "he spoke softly too, once, like a
+flute breathing tenderness; and then, when the world was not by to
+listen, discords that split the nerves and curdled the blood--sounds to
+inspire insanity."
+
+"It seems so natural, mamma, to ask you for this and that. I shall want
+nobody but you to be near me, or to do anything for me. But do not let
+me be troublesome. Check me if I encroach."
+
+"You must not depend on me to check you; you must keep guard over
+yourself. I have little moral courage; the want of it is my bane. It is
+that which has made me an unnatural parent--which has kept me apart from
+my child during the ten years which have elapsed since my husband's
+death left me at liberty to claim her. It was that which first unnerved
+my arms and permitted the infant I might have retained a while longer to
+be snatched prematurely from their embrace."
+
+"How, mamma?"
+
+"I let you go as a babe, because you were pretty, and I feared your
+loveliness, deeming it the stamp of perversity. They sent me your
+portrait, taken at eight years old; that portrait confirmed my fears.
+Had it shown me a sunburnt little rustic--a heavy, blunt-featured,
+commonplace child--I should have hastened to claim you; but there, under
+the silver paper, I saw blooming the delicacy of an aristocratic
+flower--'little lady' was written on every trait. I had too recently
+crawled from under the yoke of the fine gentleman--escaped galled,
+crushed, paralyzed, dying--to dare to encounter his still finer and most
+fairy-like representative. My sweet little lady overwhelmed me with
+dismay; her air of native elegance froze my very marrow. In my
+experience I had not met with truth, modesty, good principle as the
+concomitants of beauty. A form so straight and fine, I argued, must
+conceal a mind warped and cruel. I had little faith in the power of
+education to rectify such a mind; or rather, I entirely misdoubted my
+own ability to influence it. Caroline, I dared not undertake to rear
+you. I resolved to leave you in your uncle's hands. Matthewson Helstone
+I knew, if an austere, was an upright man. He and all the world thought
+hardly of me for my strange, unmotherly resolve, and I deserved to be
+misjudged."
+
+"Mamma, why did you call yourself Mrs. Pryor?"
+
+"It was a name in my mother's family. I adopted it that I might live
+unmolested. My married name recalled too vividly my married life; I
+could not bear it. Besides, threats were uttered of forcing me to return
+to bondage. It could not be. Rather a bier for a bed, the grave for a
+home. My new name sheltered me. I resumed under its screen my old
+occupation of teaching. At first it scarcely procured me the means of
+sustaining life; but how savoury was hunger when I fasted in peace! How
+safe seemed the darkness and chill of an unkindled hearth when no lurid
+reflection from terror crimsoned its desolation! How serene was
+solitude, when I feared not the irruption of violence and vice!"
+
+"But, mamma, you have been in this neighbourhood before. How did it
+happen that when you reappeared here with Miss Keeldar you were not
+recognized?"
+
+"I only paid a short visit, as a bride, twenty years ago, and then I was
+very different to what I am now--slender, almost as slender as my
+daughter is at this day. My complexion, my very features are changed; my
+hair, my style of dress--everything is altered. You cannot fancy me a
+slim young person, attired in scanty drapery of white muslin, with bare
+arms, bracelets and necklace of beads, and hair disposed in round
+Grecian curls above my forehead?"
+
+"You must, indeed, have been different. Mamma, I heard the front door
+open. If it is my uncle coming in, just ask him to step upstairs, and
+let me hear his assurance that I am truly awake and collected, and not
+dreaming or delirious."
+
+The rector, of his own accord, was mounting the stairs, and Mrs. Pryor
+summoned him to his niece's apartment.
+
+"She's not worse, I hope?" he inquired hastily.
+
+"I think her better. She is disposed to converse; she seems stronger."
+
+"Good!" said he, brushing quickly into the room.--"Ha, Cary! how do? Did
+you drink my cup of tea? I made it for you just as I like it myself."
+
+"I drank it every drop, uncle. It did me good; it has made me quite
+alive. I have a wish for company, so I begged Mrs. Pryor to call you
+in."
+
+The respected ecclesiastic looked pleased, and yet embarrassed. He was
+willing enough to bestow his company on his sick niece for ten minutes,
+since it was her whim to wish it; but what means to employ for her
+entertainment he knew not. He hemmed--he fidgeted.
+
+"You'll be up in a trice," he observed, by way of saying something. "The
+little weakness will soon pass off; and then you must drink port wine--a
+pipe, if you can--and eat game and oysters. I'll get them for you, if
+they are to be had anywhere. Bless me! we'll make you as strong as
+Samson before we're done with you."
+
+"Who is that lady, uncle, standing beside you at the bed-foot?"
+
+"Good God!" he ejaculated. "She's not wandering, is she, ma'am?"
+
+Mrs. Pryor smiled.
+
+"I am wandering in a pleasant world," said Caroline, in a soft, happy
+voice, "and I want you to tell me whether it is real or visionary. What
+lady is that? Give her a name, uncle."
+
+"We must have Dr. Rile again, ma'am; or better still, MacTurk. He's less
+of a humbug. Thomas must saddle the pony and go for him."
+
+"No; I don't want a doctor. Mamma shall be my only physician. Now, do
+you understand, uncle?"
+
+Mr. Helstone pushed up his spectacles from his nose to his forehead,
+handled his snuff-box, and administered to himself a portion of the
+contents. Thus fortified, he answered briefly, "I see daylight. You've
+told her then, ma'am?"
+
+"And is it _true_?" demanded Caroline, rising on her pillow. "Is she
+_really_ my mother?"
+
+"You won't cry, or make any scene, or turn hysterical, if I answer Yes?"
+
+"Cry! I'd cry if you said _No_. It would be terrible to be disappointed
+now. But give her a name. How do you call her?"
+
+"I call this stout lady in a quaint black dress, who looks young enough
+to wear much smarter raiment, if she would--I call her Agnes Helstone.
+She married my brother James, and is his widow."
+
+"And my mother?"
+
+"What a little sceptic it is! Look at her small face, Mrs. Pryor,
+scarcely larger than the palm of my hand, alive with acuteness and
+eagerness." To Caroline--"She had the trouble of bringing you into the
+world at any rate. Mind you show your duty to her by quickly getting
+well, and repairing the waste of these cheeks.--Heigh-ho! she used to be
+plump. What she has done with it all I can't, for the life of me,
+divine."
+
+"If _wishing_ to get well will help me, I shall not be long sick. This
+morning I had no reason and no strength to wish it."
+
+Fanny here tapped at the door, and said that supper was ready.
+
+"Uncle, if you please, you may send me a little bit of supper--anything
+you like, from your own plate. That is wiser than going into hysterics,
+is it not?"
+
+"It is spoken like a sage, Cary. See if I don't cater for you
+judiciously. When women are sensible, and, above all, intelligible, I
+can get on with them. It is only the vague, superfine sensations, and
+extremely wire-drawn notions, that put me about. Let a woman ask me to
+give her an edible or a wearable--be the same a roc's egg or the
+breastplate of Aaron, a share of St. John's locusts and honey or the
+leathern girdle about his loins--I can, at least, understand the demand;
+but when they pine for they know not what--sympathy, sentiment, some of
+these indefinite abstractions--I can't do it; I don't know it; I haven't
+got it.--Madam, accept my arm."
+
+Mrs. Pryor signified that she should stay with her daughter that
+evening. Helstone, accordingly, left them together. He soon returned,
+bringing a plate in his own consecrated hand.
+
+"This is chicken," he said, "but we'll have partridge to-morrow.--Lift
+her up, and put a shawl over her. On my word, I understand
+nursing.--Now, here is the very same little silver fork you used when
+you first came to the rectory. That strikes me as being what you may
+call a happy thought--a delicate attention. Take it, Cary, and munch
+away cleverly."
+
+Caroline did her best. Her uncle frowned to see that her powers were so
+limited. He prophesied, however, great things for the future; and as she
+praised the morsel he had brought, and smiled gratefully in his face, he
+stooped over her pillow, kissed her, and said, with a broken, rugged
+accent, "Good-night, bairnie! God bless thee!"
+
+Caroline enjoyed such peaceful rest that night, circled by her mother's
+arms, and pillowed on her breast, that she forgot to wish for any other
+stay; and though more than one feverish dream came to her in slumber,
+yet, when she woke up panting, so happy and contented a feeling returned
+with returning consciousness that her agitation was soothed almost as
+soon as felt.
+
+As to the mother, she spent the night like Jacob at Peniel. Till break
+of day she wrestled with God in earnest prayer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THE WEST WIND BLOWS.
+
+
+Not always do those who dare such divine conflict prevail. Night after
+night the sweat of agony may burst dark on the forehead; the supplicant
+may cry for mercy with that soundless voice the soul utters when its
+appeal is to the Invisible. "Spare my beloved," it may implore. "Heal my
+life's life. Rend not from me what long affection entwines with my whole
+nature. God of heaven, bend, hear, be clement!" And after this cry and
+strife the sun may rise and see him worsted. That opening morn, which
+used to salute him with the whisper of zephyrs, the carol of skylarks,
+may breathe, as its first accents, from the dear lips which colour and
+heat have quitted, "Oh! I have had a suffering night. This morning I am
+worse. I have tried to rise. I cannot. Dreams I am unused to have
+troubled me."
+
+Then the watcher approaches the patient's pillow, and sees a new and
+strange moulding of the familiar features, feels at once that the
+insufferable moment draws nigh, knows that it is God's will his idol
+shall be broken, and bends his head, and subdues his soul to the
+sentence he cannot avert and scarce can bear.
+
+Happy Mrs. Pryor! She was still praying, unconscious that the summer sun
+hung above the hills, when her child softly woke in her arms. No
+piteous, unconscious moaning--sound which so wastes our strength that,
+even if we have sworn to be firm, a rush of unconquerable tears sweeps
+away the oath--preceded her waking. No space of deaf apathy followed.
+The first words spoken were not those of one becoming estranged from
+this world, and already permitted to stray at times into realms foreign
+to the living. Caroline evidently remembered with clearness what had
+happened.
+
+"Mamma, I have slept _so_ well. I only dreamed and woke twice."
+
+Mrs. Pryor rose with a start, that her daughter might not see the joyful
+tears called into her eyes by that affectionate word "mamma," and the
+welcome assurance that followed it.
+
+For many days the mother dared rejoice only with trembling. That first
+revival seemed like the flicker of a dying lamp. If the flame streamed
+up bright one moment, the next it sank dim in the socket. Exhaustion
+followed close on excitement.
+
+There was always a touching endeavour to _appear_ better, but too often
+ability refused to second will; too often the attempt to bear up failed.
+The effort to eat, to talk, to look cheerful, was unsuccessful. Many an
+hour passed during which Mrs. Pryor feared that the chords of life could
+never more be strengthened, though the time of their breaking might be
+deferred.
+
+During this space the mother and daughter seemed left almost alone in
+the neighbourhood. It was the close of August; the weather was
+fine--that is to say, it was very dry and very dusty, for an arid wind
+had been blowing from the east this month past; very cloudless, too,
+though a pale haze, stationary in the atmosphere, seemed to rob of all
+depth of tone the blue of heaven, of all freshness the verdure of earth,
+and of all glow the light of day. Almost every family in Briarfield was
+absent on an excursion. Miss Keeldar and her friends were at the
+seaside; so were Mrs. Yorke's household. Mr. Hall and Louis Moore,
+between whom a spontaneous intimacy seemed to have arisen--the result,
+probably, of harmony of views and temperament--were gone "up north" on a
+pedestrian excursion to the Lakes. Even Hortense, who would fain have
+stayed at home and aided Mrs. Pryor in nursing Caroline, had been so
+earnestly entreated by Miss Mann to accompany her once more to Wormwood
+Wells, in the hope of alleviating sufferings greatly aggravated by the
+insalubrious weather, that she felt obliged to comply; indeed, it was
+not in her nature to refuse a request that at once appealed to her
+goodness of heart, and, by a confession of dependency, flattered her
+_amour propre_. As for Robert, from Birmingham he had gone on to London,
+where he still sojourned.
+
+So long as the breath of Asiatic deserts parched Caroline's lips and
+fevered her veins, her physical convalescence could not keep pace with
+her returning mental tranquillity; but there came a day when the wind
+ceased to sob at the eastern gable of the rectory, and at the oriel
+window of the church. A little cloud like a man's hand arose in the
+west; gusts from the same quarter drove it on and spread it wide; wet
+and tempest prevailed a while. When that was over the sun broke out
+genially, heaven regained its azure, and earth its green; the livid
+cholera-tint had vanished from the face of nature; the hills rose clear
+round the horizon, absolved from that pale malaria-haze.
+
+Caroline's youth could now be of some avail to her, and so could her
+mother's nurture. Both, crowned by God's blessing, sent in the pure west
+wind blowing soft as fresh through the ever-open chamber lattice,
+rekindled her long-languishing energies. At last Mrs. Pryor saw that it
+was permitted to hope: a genuine, material convalescence had commenced.
+It was not merely Caroline's smile which was brighter, or her spirits
+which were cheered, but a certain look had passed from her face and
+eye--a look dread and indescribable, but which will easily be recalled
+by those who have watched the couch of dangerous disease. Long before
+the emaciated outlines of her aspect began to fill, or its departed
+colour to return, a more subtle change took place; all grew softer and
+warmer. Instead of a marble mask and glassy eye, Mrs. Pryor saw laid on
+the pillow a face pale and wasted enough, perhaps more haggard than the
+other appearance, but less awful; for it was a sick, living girl, not a
+mere white mould or rigid piece of statuary.
+
+Now, too, she was not always petitioning to drink. The words, "I am _so_
+thirsty," ceased to be her plaint. Sometimes, when she had swallowed a
+morsel, she would say it had revived her. All descriptions of food were
+no longer equally distasteful; she could be induced, sometimes, to
+indicate a preference. With what trembling pleasure and anxious care did
+not her nurse prepare what was selected! How she watched her as she
+partook of it!
+
+Nourishment brought strength. She could sit up. Then she longed to
+breathe the fresh air, to revisit her flowers, to see how the fruit had
+ripened. Her uncle, always liberal, had bought a garden-chair for her
+express use. He carried her down in his own arms, and placed her in it
+himself, and William Farren was there to wheel her round the walks, to
+show her what he had done amongst her plants, to take her directions for
+further work.
+
+William and she found plenty to talk about. They had a dozen topics in
+common--interesting to them, unimportant to the rest of the world. They
+took a similar interest in animals, birds, insects, and plants; they
+held similar doctrines about humanity to the lower creation, and had a
+similar turn for minute observation on points of natural history. The
+nest and proceedings of some ground-bees, which had burrowed in the turf
+under an old cherry-tree, was one subject of interest; the haunts of
+certain hedge-sparrows, and the welfare of certain pearly eggs and
+callow fledglings, another.
+
+Had _Chambers's Journal_ existed in those days, it would certainly have
+formed Miss Helstone's and Farren's favourite periodical. She would have
+subscribed for it, and to him each number would duly have been lent;
+both would have put implicit faith and found great savour in its
+marvellous anecdotes of animal sagacity.
+
+This is a digression, but it suffices to explain why Caroline would have
+no other hand than William's to guide her chair, and why his society and
+conversation sufficed to give interest to her garden-airings.
+
+Mrs. Pryor, walking near, wondered how her daughter could be so much at
+ease with a "man of the people." _She_ found it impossible to speak to
+him otherwise than stiffly. She felt as if a great gulf lay between her
+caste and his, and that to cross it or meet him half-way would be to
+degrade herself. She gently asked Caroline, "Are you not afraid, my
+dear, to converse with that person so unreservedly? He may presume, and
+become troublesomely garrulous."
+
+"William presume, mamma? You don't know him. He never presumes. He is
+altogether too proud and sensitive to do so. William has very fine
+feelings."
+
+And Mrs. Pryor smiled sceptically at the naïve notion of that
+rough-handed, rough-headed, fustian-clad clown having "fine feelings."
+
+Farren, for his part, showed Mrs. Pryor only a very sulky brow. He knew
+when he was misjudged, and was apt to turn unmanageable with such as
+failed to give him his due.
+
+The evening restored Caroline entirely to her mother, and Mrs. Pryor
+liked the evening; for then, alone with her daughter, no human shadow
+came between her and what she loved. During the day she would have her
+stiff demeanour and cool moments, as was her wont. Between her and Mr.
+Helstone a very respectful but most rigidly ceremonious intercourse was
+kept up. Anything like familiarity would have bred contempt at once in
+one or both these personages; but by dint of strict civility and
+well-maintained distance they got on very smoothly.
+
+Towards the servants Mrs. Pryor's bearing was not uncourteous, but shy,
+freezing, ungenial. Perhaps it was diffidence rather than pride which
+made her appear so haughty; but, as was to be expected, Fanny and Eliza
+failed to make the distinction, and she was unpopular with them
+accordingly. She felt the effect produced; it rendered her at times
+dissatisfied with herself for faults she could not help, and with all
+else dejected, chill, and taciturn.
+
+This mood changed to Caroline's influence, and to that influence alone.
+The dependent fondness of her nursling, the natural affection of her
+child, came over her suavely. Her frost fell away, her rigidity unbent;
+she grew smiling and pliant. Not that Caroline made any wordy profession
+of love--that would ill have suited Mrs. Pryor; she would have read
+therein the proof of insincerity--but she hung on her with easy
+dependence; she confided in her with fearless reliance. These things
+contented the mother's heart.
+
+She liked to hear her daughter say, "Mamma, do this;" "Please, mamma,
+fetch me that;" "Mamma, read to me;" "Sing a little, mamma."
+
+Nobody else--not one living thing--had ever so claimed her services, so
+looked for help at her hand. Other people were always more or less
+reserved and stiff with her, as she was reserved and stiff with them;
+other people betrayed consciousness of and annoyance at her weak points.
+Caroline no more showed such wounding sagacity or reproachful
+sensitiveness now than she had done when a suckling of three months old.
+
+Yet Caroline could find fault. Blind to the constitutional defects that
+were incurable, she had her eyes wide open to the acquired habits that
+were susceptible of remedy. On certain points she would quite artlessly
+lecture her parent; and that parent, instead of being hurt, felt a
+sensation of pleasure in discovering that the girl _dared_ lecture her,
+that she was so much at home with her.
+
+"Mamma, I am determined you shall not wear that old gown any more. Its
+fashion is not becoming; it is too strait in the skirt. You shall put on
+your black silk every afternoon. In that you look nice; it suits you.
+And you shall have a black satin dress for Sundays--a real satin, not a
+satinet or any of the shams. And, mamma, when you get the new one, mind
+you must wear it."
+
+"My dear, I thought of the black silk serving me as a best dress for
+many years yet, and I wished to buy you several things."
+
+"Nonsense, mamma. My uncle gives me cash to get what I want. You know he
+is generous enough; and I have set my heart on seeing you in a black
+satin. Get it soon, and let it be made by a dressmaker of my
+recommending. Let me choose the pattern. You always want to disguise
+yourself like a grandmother. You would persuade one that you are old and
+ugly. Not at all! On the contrary, when well dressed and cheerful you
+are very comely indeed; your smile is so pleasant, your teeth are so
+white, your hair is still such a pretty light colour. And then you speak
+like a young lady, with such a clear, fine tone, and you sing better
+than any young lady I ever heard. Why do you wear such dresses and
+bonnets, mamma, such as nobody else ever wears?"
+
+"Does it annoy you, Caroline?"
+
+"Very much; it vexes me even. People say you are miserly; and yet you
+are not, for you give liberally to the poor and to religious
+societies--though your gifts are conveyed so secretly and quietly that
+they are known to few except the receivers. But I will be your
+lady's-maid myself. When I get a little stronger I will set to work, and
+you must be good, mamma, and do as I bid you."
+
+And Caroline, sitting near her mother, rearranged her muslin
+handkerchief and resmoothed her hair.
+
+"My own mamma," then she went on, as if pleasing herself with the
+thought of their relationship, "who belongs to me, and to whom I belong!
+I am a rich girl now. I have something I can love well, and not be
+afraid of loving. Mamma, who gave you this little brooch? Let me unpin
+it and look at it."
+
+Mrs. Pryor, who usually shrank from meddling fingers and near approach,
+allowed the license complacently.
+
+"Did papa give you this, mamma?"
+
+"My sister gave it me--my only sister, Cary. Would that your Aunt
+Caroline had lived to see her niece!"
+
+"Have you nothing of papa's--no trinket, no gift of his?"
+
+"I have one thing."
+
+"That you prize?"
+
+"That I prize."
+
+"Valuable and pretty?"
+
+"Invaluable and sweet to me."
+
+"Show it, mamma. Is it here or at Fieldhead?"
+
+"It is talking to me now, leaning on me. Its arms are round me."
+
+"Ah, mamma, you mean your teasing daughter, who will never let you
+alone; who, when you go into your room, cannot help running to seek for
+you; who follows you upstairs and down, like a dog."
+
+"Whose features still give me such a strange thrill sometimes. I half
+fear your fair looks yet, child."
+
+"You don't; you can't. Mamma, I am sorry papa was not good. I do so wish
+he had been. Wickedness spoils and poisons all pleasant things. It kills
+love. If you and I thought each other wicked, we could not love each
+other, could we?"
+
+"And if we could not trust each other, Cary?"
+
+"How miserable we should be! Mother, before I knew you I had an
+apprehension that you were not good--that I could not esteem you. That
+dread damped my wish to see you. And now my heart is elate because I
+find you perfect--almost; kind, clever, nice. Your sole fault is that
+you are old-fashioned, and of that I shall cure you. Mamma, put your
+work down; read to me. I like your southern accent; it is so pure, so
+soft. It has no rugged burr, no nasal twang, such as almost every one's
+voice here in the north has. My uncle and Mr. Hall say that you are a
+fine reader, mamma. Mr. Hall said he never heard any lady read with such
+propriety of expression or purity of accent."
+
+"I wish I could reciprocate the compliment, Cary; but, really, the first
+time I heard your truly excellent friend read and preach I could not
+understand his broad northern tongue."
+
+"Could you understand me, mamma? Did I seem to speak roughly?"
+
+"No. I almost wished you had, as I wished you had looked unpolished.
+Your father, Caroline, naturally spoke well, quite otherwise than your
+worthy uncle--correctly, gently, smoothly. You inherit the gift."
+
+"Poor papa! When he was so agreeable, why was he not good?"
+
+"Why he was _as_ he was--and happily of that you, child, can form no
+conception--I cannot tell. It is a deep mystery. The key is in the hands
+of his Maker. There I leave it."
+
+"Mamma, you will keep stitching, stitching away. Put down the sewing; I
+am an enemy to it. It cumbers your lap, and I want it for my head; it
+engages your eyes, and I want them for a book. Here is your
+favourite--Cowper."
+
+These importunities were the mother's pleasure. If ever she delayed
+compliance, it was only to hear them repeated, and to enjoy her child's
+soft, half-playful, half-petulant urgency. And then, when she yielded,
+Caroline would say archly, "You will spoil me, mamma. I always thought I
+should like to be spoiled, and I find it very sweet." So did Mrs.
+Pryor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+OLD COPY-BOOKS.
+
+
+By the time the Fieldhead party returned to Briarfield Caroline was
+nearly well. Miss Keeldar, who had received news by post of her friend's
+convalescence, hardly suffered an hour to elapse between her arrival at
+home and her first call at the rectory.
+
+A shower of rain was falling gently, yet fast, on the late flowers and
+russet autumn shrubs, when the garden wicket was heard to swing open,
+and Shirley's well-known form passed the window. On her entrance her
+feelings were evinced in her own peculiar fashion. When deeply moved by
+serious fears or joys she was not garrulous. The strong emotion was
+rarely suffered to influence her tongue, and even her eye refused it
+more than a furtive and fitful conquest. She took Caroline in her arms,
+gave her one look, one kiss, then said, "You are better."
+
+And a minute after, "I see you are safe now; but take care. God grant
+your health may be called on to sustain no more shocks!"
+
+She proceeded to talk fluently about the journey. In the midst of
+vivacious discourse her eye still wandered to Caroline. There spoke in
+its light a deep solicitude, some trouble, and some amaze.
+
+"She may be better," it said, "but how weak she still is! What peril she
+has come through!"
+
+Suddenly her glance reverted to Mrs. Pryor. It pierced her through.
+
+"When will my governess return to me?" she asked.
+
+"May I tell her all?" demanded Caroline of her mother. Leave being
+signified by a gesture, Shirley was presently enlightened on what had
+happened in her absence.
+
+"Very good," was the cool comment--"very good! But it is no news to me."
+
+"What! did you know?"
+
+"I guessed long since the whole business. I have heard somewhat of Mrs.
+Pryor's history--not from herself, but from others. With every detail of
+Mr. James Helstone's career and character I was acquainted. An
+afternoon's sitting and conversation with Miss Mann had rendered me
+familiar therewith; also he is one of Mrs. Yorke's warning examples--one
+of the blood-red lights she hangs out to scare young ladies from
+matrimony. I believe I should have been sceptical about the truth of the
+portrait traced by such fingers--both these ladies take a dark pleasure
+in offering to view the dark side of life--but I questioned Mr. Yorke on
+the subject, and he said, 'Shirley, my woman, if you want to know aught
+about yond' James Helstone, I can only say he was a man-tiger. He was
+handsome, dissolute, soft, treacherous, courteous, cruel----' Don't cry,
+Cary; we'll say no more about it."
+
+"I am not crying, Shirley; or if I am, it is nothing. Go on; you are no
+friend if you withhold from me the truth. I hate that false plan of
+disguising, mutilating the truth."
+
+"Fortunately I have said pretty nearly all that I have to say, except
+that your uncle himself confirmed Mr. Yorke's words; for he too scorns a
+lie, and deals in none of those conventional subterfuges that are
+shabbier than lies."
+
+"But papa is dead; they should let him alone now."
+
+"They should; and we _will_ let him alone. Cry away, Cary; it will do
+you good. It is wrong to check natural tears. Besides, I choose to
+please myself by sharing an idea that at this moment beams in your
+mother's eye while she looks at you. Every drop blots out a sin. Weep!
+your tears have the virtue which the rivers of Damascus lacked. Like
+Jordan, they can cleanse a leprous memory."
+
+"Madam," she continued, addressing Mrs. Pryor, "did you think I could be
+daily in the habit of seeing you and your daughter together--marking
+your marvellous similarity in many points, observing (pardon me) your
+irrepressible emotions in the presence and still more in the absence of
+your child--and not form my own conjectures? I formed them, and they are
+literally correct. I shall begin to think myself shrewd."
+
+"And you said nothing?" observed Caroline, who soon regained the quiet
+control of her feelings.
+
+"Nothing. I had no warrant to breathe a word on the subject. _My_
+business it was not; I abstained from making it such."
+
+"You guessed so deep a secret, and did not hint that you guessed it?"
+
+"Is that so difficult?"
+
+"It is not like you."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"You are not reserved; you are frankly communicative."
+
+"I may be communicative, yet know where to stop. In showing my treasure
+I may withhold a gem or two--a curious, unbought graven stone--an amulet
+of whose mystic glitter I rarely permit even myself a glimpse.
+Good-day."
+
+Caroline thus seemed to get a view of Shirley's character under a novel
+aspect. Ere long the prospect was renewed; it opened upon her.
+
+No sooner had she regained sufficient strength to bear a change of
+scene--the excitement of a little society--than Miss Keeldar sued daily
+for her presence at Fieldhead. Whether Shirley had become wearied of her
+honoured relatives is not known. She did not say she was; but she
+claimed and retained Caroline with an eagerness which proved that an
+addition to that worshipful company was not unwelcome.
+
+The Sympsons were church people. Of course the rector's niece was
+received by them with courtesy. Mr. Sympson proved to be a man of
+spotless respectability, worrying temper, pious principles, and worldly
+views; his lady was a very good woman--patient, kind, well-bred. She had
+been brought up on a narrow system of views, starved on a few
+prejudices--a mere handful of bitter herbs; a few preferences, soaked
+till their natural flavour was extracted, and with no seasoning added in
+the cooking; some excellent principles, made up in a stiff raised crust
+of bigotry difficult to digest. Far too submissive was she to complain
+of this diet or to ask for a crumb beyond it.
+
+The daughters were an example to their sex. They were tall, with a Roman
+nose apiece. They had been educated faultlessly. All they did was well
+done. History and the most solid books had cultivated their minds.
+Principles and opinions they possessed which could not be mended. More
+exactly-regulated lives, feelings, manners, habits, it would have been
+difficult to find anywhere. They knew by heart a certain
+young-ladies'-schoolroom code of laws on language, demeanour, etc.;
+themselves never deviated from its curious little pragmatical
+provisions, and they regarded with secret whispered horror all
+deviations in others. The Abomination of Desolation was no mystery to
+them; they had discovered that unutterable Thing in the characteristic
+others call Originality. Quick were they to recognize the signs of this
+evil; and wherever they saw its trace--whether in look, word, or deed;
+whether they read it in the fresh, vigorous style of a book, or listened
+to it in interesting, unhackneyed, pure, expressive language--they
+shuddered, they recoiled. Danger was above their heads, peril about
+their steps. What was this strange thing? Being unintelligible it must
+be bad. Let it be denounced and chained up.
+
+Henry Sympson, the only son and youngest child of the family, was a boy
+of fifteen. He generally kept with his tutor. When he left him, he
+sought his cousin Shirley. This boy differed from his sisters. He was
+little, lame, and pale; his large eyes shone somewhat languidly in a wan
+orbit. They were, indeed, usually rather dim, but they were capable of
+illumination. At times they could not only shine, but blaze. Inward
+emotion could likewise give colour to his cheek and decision to his
+crippled movements. Henry's mother loved him; she thought his
+peculiarities were a mark of election. He was not like other children,
+she allowed. She believed him regenerate--a new Samuel--called of God
+from his birth. He was to be a clergyman. Mr. and the Misses Sympson,
+not understanding the youth, let him much alone. Shirley made him her
+pet, and he made Shirley his playmate.
+
+In the midst of this family circle, or rather outside it, moved the
+tutor--the satellite.
+
+Yes, Louis Moore was a satellite of the house of Sympson--connected, yet
+apart; ever attendant, ever distant. Each member of that correct family
+treated him with proper dignity. The father was austerely civil,
+sometimes irritable; the mother, being a kind woman, was attentive, but
+formal; the daughters saw in him an abstraction, not a man. It seemed,
+by their manner, that their brother's tutor did not live for them. They
+were learned; so was he--but not for them. They were accomplished; he
+had talents too, imperceptible to their senses. The most spirited sketch
+from his fingers was a blank to their eyes; the most original
+observation from his lips fell unheard on their ears. Nothing could
+exceed the propriety of their behaviour.
+
+I should have said nothing could have equalled it; but I remember a fact
+which strangely astonished Caroline Helstone. It was--to discover that
+her cousin had absolutely _no_ sympathizing friend at Fieldhead; that to
+Miss Keeldar he was as much a mere teacher, as little a gentleman, as
+little a man, as to the estimable Misses Sympson.
+
+What had befallen the kind-hearted Shirley that she should be so
+indifferent to the dreary position of a fellow-creature thus isolated
+under her roof? She was not, perhaps, haughty to him, but she never
+noticed him--she let him alone. He came and went, spoke or was silent,
+and she rarely recognized his existence.
+
+As to Louis Moore himself, he had the air of a man used to this life,
+and who had made up his mind to bear it for a time. His faculties seemed
+walled up in him, and were unmurmuring in their captivity. He never
+laughed; he seldom smiled; he was uncomplaining. He fulfilled the round
+of his duties scrupulously. His pupil loved him; he asked nothing more
+than civility from the rest of the world. It even appeared that he would
+accept nothing more--in that abode at least; for when his cousin
+Caroline made gentle overtures of friendship, he did not encourage
+them--he rather avoided than sought her. One living thing alone, besides
+his pale, crippled scholar, he fondled in the house, and that was the
+ruffianly Tartar, who, sullen and impracticable to others, acquired a
+singular partiality for him--a partiality so marked that sometimes, when
+Moore, summoned to a meal, entered the room and sat down unwelcomed,
+Tartar would rise from his lair at Shirley's feet and betake himself to
+the taciturn tutor. Once--but once--she noticed the desertion, and
+holding out her white hand, and speaking softly, tried to coax him back.
+Tartar looked, slavered, and sighed, as his manner was, but yet
+disregarded the invitation, and coolly settled himself on his haunches
+at Louis Moore's side. That gentleman drew the dog's big, black-muzzled
+head on to his knee, patted him, and smiled one little smile to himself.
+
+An acute observer might have remarked, in the course of the same
+evening, that after Tartar had resumed his allegiance to Shirley, and
+was once more couched near her footstool, the audacious tutor by one
+word and gesture fascinated him again. He pricked up his ears at the
+word; he started erect at the gesture, and came, with head lovingly
+depressed, to receive the expected caress. As it was given, the
+significant smile again rippled across Moore's quiet face.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Shirley," said Caroline one day, as they two were sitting alone in the
+summer-house, "did you know that my cousin Louis was tutor in your
+uncle's family before the Sympsons came down here?"
+
+Shirley's reply was not so prompt as her responses usually were, but at
+last she answered, "Yes--of course; I knew it well."
+
+"I thought you must have been aware of the circumstance."
+
+"Well! what then?"
+
+"It puzzles me to guess how it chanced that you never mentioned it to
+me."
+
+"Why should it puzzle you?"
+
+"It seems odd. I cannot account for it. You talk a great deal--you talk
+freely. How was that circumstance never touched on?"
+
+"Because it never was," and Shirley laughed.
+
+"You are a singular being!" observed her friend. "I thought I knew you
+quite well; I begin to find myself mistaken. You were silent as the
+grave about Mrs. Pryor, and now again here is another secret. But why
+you made it a secret is the mystery to me."
+
+"I never made it a secret; I had no reason for so doing. If you had
+asked me who Henry's tutor was, I would have told you. Besides, I
+thought you knew."
+
+"I am puzzled about more things than one in this matter. You don't like
+poor Louis. Why? Are you impatient at what you perhaps consider his
+_servile_ position? Do you wish that Robert's brother were more highly
+placed?"
+
+"Robert's brother, indeed!" was the exclamation, uttered in a tone like
+the accents of scorn; and with a movement of proud impatience Shirley
+snatched a rose from a branch peeping through the open lattice.
+
+"Yes," repeated Caroline, with mild firmness, "Robert's brother. He _is_
+thus closely related to Gérard Moore of the Hollow, though nature has
+not given him features so handsome or an air so noble as his kinsman;
+but his blood is as good, and he is as much a gentleman were he free."
+
+"Wise, humble, pious Caroline!" exclaimed Shirley ironically. "Men and
+angels, hear her! We should not despise plain features, nor a laborious
+yet honest occupation, should we? Look at the subject of your panegyric.
+He is there in the garden," she continued, pointing through an aperture
+in the clustering creepers; and by that aperture Louis Moore was
+visible, coming slowly down the walk.
+
+"He is not ugly, Shirley," pleaded Caroline; "he is not ignoble. He is
+sad; silence seals his mind. But I believe him to be intelligent; and be
+certain, if he had not something very commendable in his disposition,
+Mr. Hall would never seek his society as he does."
+
+Shirley laughed; she laughed again, each time with a slightly sarcastic
+sound. "Well, well," was her comment. "On the plea of the man being
+Cyril Hall's friend and Robert Moore's brother, we'll just tolerate his
+existence; won't we, Cary? You believe him to be intelligent, do you?
+Not quite an idiot--eh? Something commendable in his disposition!--_id
+est_, not an absolute ruffian. Good! Your representations have weight
+with me; and to prove that they have, should he come this way I will
+speak to him."
+
+He approached the summer-house. Unconscious that it was tenanted, he sat
+down on the step. Tartar, now his customary companion, had followed him,
+and he couched across his feet.
+
+"Old boy!" said Louis, pulling his tawny ear, or rather the mutilated
+remains of that organ, torn and chewed in a hundred battles, "the autumn
+sun shines as pleasantly on us as on the fairest and richest. This
+garden is none of ours, but we enjoy its greenness and perfume, don't
+we?"
+
+He sat silent, still caressing Tartar, who slobbered with exceeding
+affection. A faint twittering commenced among the trees round. Something
+fluttered down as light as leaves. They were little birds, which,
+lighting on the sward at shy distance, hopped as if expectant.
+
+"The small brown elves actually remember that I fed them the other day,"
+again soliloquized Louis. "They want some more biscuit. To-day I forgot
+to save a fragment. Eager little sprites, I have not a crumb for you."
+
+He put his hand in his pocket and drew it out empty.
+
+"A want easily supplied," whispered the listening Miss Keeldar.
+
+She took from her reticule a morsel of sweet-cake; for that repository
+was never destitute of something available to throw to the chickens,
+young ducks, or sparrows. She crumbled it, and bending over his
+shoulder, put the crumbs into his hand.
+
+"There," said she--"there is a providence for the improvident."
+
+"This September afternoon is pleasant," observed Louis Moore, as, not at
+all discomposed, he calmly cast the crumbs on to the grass.
+
+"Even for you?"
+
+"As pleasant for me as for any monarch."
+
+"You take a sort of harsh, solitary triumph in drawing pleasure out of
+the elements and the inanimate and lower animate creation."
+
+"Solitary, but not harsh. With animals I feel I am Adam's son, the heir
+of him to whom dominion was given over 'every living thing that moveth
+upon the earth.' Your dog likes and follows me. When I go into that
+yard, the pigeons from your dovecot flutter at my feet. Your mare in the
+stable knows me as well as it knows you, and obeys me better."
+
+"And my roses smell sweet to you, and my trees give you shade."
+
+"And," continued Louis, "no caprice can withdraw these pleasures from
+me; they are _mine_."
+
+He walked off. Tartar followed him, as if in duty and affection bound,
+and Shirley remained standing on the summer-house step. Caroline saw her
+face as she looked after the rude tutor. It was pale, as if her pride
+bled inwardly.
+
+"You see," remarked Caroline apologetically, "his feelings are so often
+hurt it makes him morose."
+
+"You see," retorted Shirley, with ire, "he is a topic on which you and I
+shall quarrel if we discuss it often; so drop it henceforward and for
+ever."
+
+"I suppose he has more than once behaved in this way," thought Caroline
+to herself, "and that renders Shirley so distant to him. Yet I wonder
+she cannot make allowance for character and circumstances. I wonder the
+general modesty, manliness, sincerity of his nature do not plead with
+her in his behalf. She is not often so inconsiderate, so irritable."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The verbal testimony of two friends of Caroline's to her cousin's
+character augmented her favourable opinion of him. William Farren, whose
+cottage he had visited in company with Mr. Hall, pronounced him a "real
+gentleman;" there was not such another in Briarfield.
+He--William--"could do aught for that man. And then to see how t' bairns
+liked him, and how t' wife took to him first minute she saw him. He
+never went into a house but t' childer wor about him directly. Them
+little things wor like as if they'd a keener sense nor grown-up folks i'
+finding our folk's natures."
+
+Mr. Hall, in answer to a question of Miss Helstone's as to what he
+thought of Louis Moore, replied promptly that he was the best fellow he
+had met with since he left Cambridge.
+
+"But he is so grave," objected Caroline.
+
+"Grave! the finest company in the world! Full of odd, quiet,
+out-of-the-way humour. Never enjoyed an excursion so much in my life as
+the one I took with him to the Lakes. His understanding and tastes are
+so superior, it does a man good to be within their influence; and as to
+his temper and nature, I call them fine."
+
+"At Fieldhead he looks gloomy, and, I believe, has the character of
+being misanthropical."
+
+"Oh! I fancy he is rather out of place there--in a false position. The
+Sympsons are most estimable people, but not the folks to comprehend him.
+They think a great deal about form and ceremony, which are quite out of
+Louis's way."
+
+"I don't think Miss Keeldar likes him."
+
+"She doesn't know him--she doesn't know him; otherwise she has sense
+enough to do justice to his merits."
+
+"Well, I suppose she doesn't know him," mused Caroline to herself, and
+by this hypothesis she endeavoured to account for what seemed else
+unaccountable. But such simple solution of the difficulty was not left
+her long. She was obliged to refuse Miss Keeldar even this negative
+excuse for her prejudice.
+
+One day she chanced to be in the schoolroom with Henry Sympson, whose
+amiable and affectionate disposition had quickly recommended him to her
+regard. The boy was busied about some mechanical contrivance; his
+lameness made him fond of sedentary occupation. He began to ransack his
+tutor's desk for a piece of wax or twine necessary to his work. Moore
+happened to be absent. Mr. Hall, indeed, had called for him to take a
+long walk. Henry could not immediately find the object of his search. He
+rummaged compartment after compartment; and at last, opening an inner
+drawer, he came upon--not a ball of cord or a lump of beeswax, but a
+little bundle of small marble-coloured cahiers, tied with tape. Henry
+looked at them. "What rubbish Mr. Moore stores up in his desk!" he
+said. "I hope he won't keep my old exercises so carefully."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Old copy-books."
+
+He threw the bundle to Caroline. The packet looked so neat externally
+her curiosity was excited to see its contents.
+
+"If they are only copy-books, I suppose I may open them?"
+
+"Oh yes, quite freely. Mr. Moore's desk is half mine--for he lets me
+keep all sorts of things in it--and I give you leave."
+
+On scrutiny they proved to be French compositions, written in a hand
+peculiar but compact, and exquisitely clean and clear. The writing was
+recognizable. She scarcely needed the further evidence of the name
+signed at the close of each theme to tell her whose they were. Yet that
+name astonished her--"Shirley Keeldar, Sympson Grove, ----shire" (a
+southern county), and a date four years back.
+
+She tied up the packet, and held it in her hand, meditating over it. She
+half felt as if, in opening it, she had violated a confidence.
+
+"They are Shirley's, you see," said Henry carelessly.
+
+"Did _you_ give them to Mr. Moore? She wrote them with Mrs. Pryor, I
+suppose?"
+
+"She wrote them in my schoolroom at Sympson Grove, when she lived with
+us there. Mr. Moore taught her French; it is his native language."
+
+"I know. Was she a good pupil, Henry?"
+
+"She was a wild, laughing thing, but pleasant to have in the room. She
+made lesson-time charming. She learned fast--you could hardly tell when
+or how. French was nothing to her. She spoke it quick, quick--as quick
+as Mr. Moore himself."
+
+"Was she obedient? Did she give trouble?"
+
+"She gave plenty of trouble, in a way. She was giddy, but I liked her.
+I'm desperately fond of Shirley."
+
+"_Desperately_ fond--you small simpleton! You don't know what you say."
+
+"I _am desperately_ fond of her. She is the light of my eyes. I said so
+to Mr. Moore last night."
+
+"He would reprove you for speaking with exaggeration."
+
+"He didn't. He never reproves and reproves, as girls' governesses do. He
+was reading, and he only smiled into his book, and said that if Miss
+Keeldar was no more than that, she was less than he took her to be; for
+I was but a dim-eyed, short-sighted little chap. I'm afraid I am a poor
+unfortunate, Miss Caroline Helstone. I am a cripple, you know."
+
+"Never mind, Henry, you are a very nice little fellow; and if God has
+not given you health and strength, He has given you a good disposition
+and an excellent heart and brain."
+
+"I shall be despised. I sometimes think both Shirley and you despise
+me."
+
+"Listen, Henry. Generally, I don't like schoolboys. I have a great
+horror of them. They seem to me little ruffians, who take an unnatural
+delight in killing and tormenting birds, and insects, and kittens, and
+whatever is weaker than themselves. But you are so different I am quite
+fond of you. You have almost as much sense as a man (far more, God wot,"
+she muttered to herself, "than many men); you are fond of reading, and
+you can talk sensibly about what you read."
+
+"I _am_ fond of reading. I know I have sense, and I know I have
+feeling."
+
+Miss Keeldar here entered.
+
+"Henry," she said, "I have brought your lunch here. I shall prepare it
+for you myself."
+
+She placed on the table a glass of new milk, a plate of something which
+looked not unlike leather, and a utensil which resembled a
+toasting-fork.
+
+"What are you two about," she continued, "ransacking Mr. Moore's desk?"
+
+"Looking at your old copy-books," returned Caroline.
+
+"My old copy-books?"
+
+"French exercise-books. Look here! They must be held precious; they are
+kept carefully."
+
+She showed the bundle. Shirley snatched it up. "Did not know one was in
+existence," she said. "I thought the whole lot had long since lit the
+kitchen fire, or curled the maid's hair at Sympson Grove.--What made you
+keep them, Henry?"
+
+"It is not my doing. I should not have thought of it. It never entered
+my head to suppose copy-books of value. Mr. Moore put them by in the
+inner drawer of his desk. Perhaps he forgot them."
+
+"C'est cela. He forgot them, no doubt," echoed Shirley. "They are
+extremely well written," she observed complacently.
+
+"What a giddy girl you were, Shirley, in those days! I remember you so
+well. A slim, light creature whom, though you were so tall, I could lift
+off the floor. I see you with your long, countless curls on your
+shoulders, and your streaming sash. You used to make Mr. Moore
+lively--that is, at first. I believe you grieved him after a while."
+
+Shirley turned the closely-written pages and said nothing. Presently she
+observed, "That was written one winter afternoon. It was a description
+of a snow scene."
+
+"I remember," said Henry. "Mr. Moore, when he read it, cried, 'Voilà le
+Français gagné!' He said it was well done. Afterwards you made him draw,
+in sepia, the landscape you described."
+
+"You have not forgotten, then, Hal?"
+
+"Not at all. We were all scolded that day for not coming down to tea
+when called. I can remember my tutor sitting at his easel, and you
+standing behind him, holding the candle, and watching him draw the snowy
+cliff, the pine, the deer couched under it, and the half-moon hung
+above."
+
+"Where are his drawings, Harry? Caroline should see them."
+
+"In his portfolio. But it is padlocked; he has the key."
+
+"Ask him for it when he comes in."
+
+"You should ask him, Shirley. You are shy of him now. You are grown a
+proud lady to him; I notice that."
+
+"Shirley, you are a real enigma," whispered Caroline in her ear. "What
+queer discoveries I make day by day now!--I who thought I had your
+confidence. Inexplicable creature! even this boy reproves you."
+
+"I have forgotten 'auld lang syne,' you see, Harry," said Miss Keeldar,
+answering young Sympson, and not heeding Caroline.
+
+"Which you never should have done. You don't deserve to be a man's
+morning star if you have so short a memory."
+
+"A man's morning star, indeed! and by 'a man' is meant your worshipful
+self, I suppose? Come, drink your new milk while it is warm."
+
+The young cripple rose and limped towards the fire; he had left his
+crutch near the mantelpiece.
+
+"My poor lame darling!" murmured Shirley, in her softest voice, aiding
+him.
+
+"Whether do you like me or Mr. Sam Wynne best, Shirley?" inquired the
+boy, as she settled him in an arm-chair.
+
+"O Harry, Sam Wynne is my aversion; you are my pet."
+
+"Me or Mr. Malone?"
+
+"You again, a thousand times."
+
+"Yet they are great whiskered fellows, six feet high each."
+
+"Whereas, as long as you live, Harry, you will never be anything more
+than a little pale lameter."
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"You need not be sorrowful. Have I not often told you who was almost as
+little, as pale, as suffering as you, and yet potent as a giant and
+brave as a lion?"
+
+"Admiral Horatio?"
+
+"Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson, and Duke of Bronte; great at heart as
+a Titan; gallant and heroic as all the world and age of chivalry; leader
+of the might of England; commander of her strength on the deep; hurler
+of her thunder over the flood."
+
+"A great man. But I am not warlike, Shirley; and yet my mind is so
+restless I burn day and night--for what I can hardly tell--to be--to
+do--to suffer, I think."
+
+"Harry, it is your mind, which is stronger and older than your frame,
+that troubles you. It is a captive; it lies in physical bondage. But it
+will work its own redemption yet. Study carefully not only books but the
+world. You love nature; love her without fear. Be patient--wait the
+course of time. You will not be a soldier or a sailor, Henry; but if you
+live you will be--listen to my prophecy--you will be an author, perhaps
+a poet."
+
+"An author! It is a flash--a flash of light to me! I will--I _will_!
+I'll write a book that I may dedicate it to you."
+
+"You will write it that you may give your soul its natural release.
+Bless me! what am I saying? more than I understand, I believe, or can
+make good. Here, Hal--here is your toasted oatcake; eat and live!"
+
+"Willingly!" here cried a voice outside the open window. "I know that
+fragrance of meal bread. Miss Keeldar, may I come in and partake?"
+
+"Mr. Hall"--it was Mr. Hall, and with him was Louis Moore, returned from
+their walk--"there is a proper luncheon laid out in the dining-room and
+there are proper people seated round it. You may join that society and
+share that fare if you please; but if your ill-regulated tastes lead you
+to prefer ill-regulated proceedings, step in here, and do as we do."
+
+"I approve the perfume, and therefore shall suffer myself to be led by
+the nose," returned Mr. Hall, who presently entered, accompanied by
+Louis Moore. That gentleman's eye fell on his desk, pillaged.
+
+"Burglars!" said he.--"Henry, you merit the ferule."
+
+"Give it to Shirley and Caroline; they did it," was alleged, with more
+attention to effect than truth.
+
+"Traitor and false witness!" cried both the girls. "We never laid hands
+on a thing, except in the spirit of laudable inquiry!"
+
+"Exactly so," said Moore, with his rare smile. "And what have you
+ferreted out, in your 'spirit of laudable inquiry'?"
+
+He perceived the inner drawer open.
+
+"This is empty," said he. "Who has taken----"
+
+"Here, here!" Caroline hastened to say, and she restored the little
+packet to its place. He shut it up; he locked it in with a small key
+attached to his watch-guard; he restored the other papers to order,
+closed the repository, and sat down without further remark.
+
+"I thought you would have scolded much more, sir," said Henry. "The
+girls deserve reprimand."
+
+"I leave them to their own consciences."
+
+"It accuses them of crimes intended as well as perpetrated, sir. If I
+had not been here, they would have treated your portfolio as they have
+done your desk; but I told them it was padlocked."
+
+"And will you have lunch with us?" here interposed Shirley, addressing
+Moore, and desirous, as it seemed, to turn the conversation.
+
+"Certainly, if I may."
+
+"You will be restricted to new milk and Yorkshire oatcake."
+
+"Va--pour le lait frais!" said Louis. "But for your oatcake!" and he
+made a grimace.
+
+"He cannot eat it," said Henry. "He thinks it is like bran, raised with
+sour yeast."
+
+"Come, then; by special dispensation we will allow him a few cracknels,
+but nothing less homely."
+
+The hostess rang the bell and gave her frugal orders, which were
+presently executed. She herself measured out the milk, and distributed
+the bread round the cosy circle now enclosing the bright little
+schoolroom fire. She then took the post of toaster-general; and kneeling
+on the rug, fork in hand, fulfilled her office with dexterity. Mr. Hall,
+who relished any homely innovation on ordinary usages, and to whom the
+husky oatcake was from custom suave as manna, seemed in his best
+spirits. He talked and laughed gleefully--now with Caroline, whom he had
+fixed by his side, now with Shirley, and again with Louis Moore. And
+Louis met him in congenial spirit. He did not laugh much, but he uttered
+in the quietest tone the wittiest things. Gravely spoken sentences,
+marked by unexpected turns and a quite fresh flavour and poignancy, fell
+easily from his lips. He proved himself to be--what Mr. Hall had said he
+was--excellent company. Caroline marvelled at his humour, but still more
+at his entire self-possession. Nobody there present seemed to impose on
+him a sensation of unpleasant restraint. Nobody seemed a bore--a
+check--a chill to him; and yet there was the cool and lofty Miss Keeldar
+kneeling before the fire, almost at his feet.
+
+But Shirley was cool and lofty no longer, at least not at this moment.
+She appeared unconscious of the humility of her present position; or if
+conscious, it was only to taste a charm in its lowliness. It did not
+revolt her pride that the group to whom she voluntarily officiated as
+handmaid should include her cousin's tutor. It did not scare her that
+while she handed the bread and milk to the rest, she had to offer it to
+him also; and Moore took his portion from her hand as calmly as if he
+had been her equal.
+
+"You are overheated now," he said, when she had retained the fork for
+some time; "let me relieve you."
+
+And he took it from her with a sort of quiet authority, to which she
+submitted passively, neither resisting him nor thanking him.
+
+"I should like to see your pictures, Louis," said Caroline, when the
+sumptuous luncheon was discussed.--"Would not you, Mr. Hall?"
+
+"To please you, I should; but, for my own part, I have cut him as an
+artist. I had enough of him in that capacity in Cumberland and
+Westmoreland. Many a wetting we got amongst the mountains because he
+would persist in sitting on a camp-stool, catching effects of
+rain-clouds, gathering mists, fitful sunbeams, and what not."
+
+"Here is the portfolio," said Henry, bringing it in one hand and leaning
+on his crutch with the other.
+
+Louis took it, but he still sat as if he wanted another to speak. It
+seemed as if he would not open it unless the proud Shirley deigned to
+show herself interested in the exhibition.
+
+"He makes us wait to whet our curiosity," she said.
+
+"You understand opening it," observed Louis, giving her the key. "You
+spoiled the lock for me once; try now."
+
+He held it. She opened it, and, monopolizing the contents, had the first
+view of every sketch herself. She enjoyed the treat--if treat it
+were--in silence, without a single comment. Moore stood behind her chair
+and looked over her shoulder, and when she had done and the others were
+still gazing, he left his post and paced through the room.
+
+A carriage was heard in the lane--the gate-bell rang. Shirley started.
+
+"There are callers," she said, "and I shall be summoned to the room. A
+pretty figure--as they say--I am to receive company. I and Henry have
+been in the garden gathering fruit half the morning. Oh for rest under
+my own vine and my own fig-tree! Happy is the slave-wife of the Indian
+chief, in that she has no drawing-room duty to perform, but can sit at
+ease weaving mats, and stringing beads, and peacefully flattening her
+pickaninny's head in an unmolested corner of her wigwam. I'll emigrate
+to the western woods."
+
+Louis Moore laughed.
+
+"To marry a White Cloud or a Big Buffalo, and after wedlock to devote
+yourself to the tender task of digging your lord's maize-field while he
+smokes his pipe or drinks fire-water."
+
+Shirley seemed about to reply, but here the schoolroom door unclosed,
+admitting Mr. Sympson. That personage stood aghast when he saw the group
+around the fire.
+
+"I thought you alone, Miss Keeldar," he said. "I find quite a party."
+
+And evidently from his shocked, scandalized air, had he not recognized
+in one of the party a clergyman, he would have delivered an extempore
+philippic on the extraordinary habits of his niece: respect for the
+cloth arrested him.
+
+"I merely wished to announce," he proceeded coldly, "that the family
+from De Walden Hall, Mr., Mrs., the Misses, and Mr. Sam Wynne, are in
+the drawing-room." And he bowed and withdrew.
+
+"The family from De Walden Hall! Couldn't be a worse set," murmured
+Shirley.
+
+She sat still, looking a little contumacious, and very much indisposed
+to stir. She was flushed with the fire. Her dark hair had been more than
+once dishevelled by the morning wind that day. Her attire was a light,
+neatly fitting, but amply flowing dress of muslin; the shawl she had
+worn in the garden was still draped in a careless fold round her.
+Indolent, wilful, picturesque, and singularly pretty was her
+aspect--prettier than usual, as if some soft inward emotion, stirred who
+knows how, had given new bloom and expression to her features.
+
+"Shirley, Shirley, you ought to go," whispered Caroline.
+
+"I wonder why?"
+
+She lifted her eyes, and saw in the glass over the fireplace both Mr.
+Hall and Louis Moore gazing at her gravely.
+
+"If," she said, with a yielding smile--"if a majority of the present
+company maintain that the De Walden Hall people have claims on my
+civility, I will subdue my inclinations to my duty. Let those who think
+I ought to go hold up their hands."
+
+Again consulting the mirror, it reflected an unanimous vote against her.
+
+"You must go," said Mr. Hall, "and behave courteously too. You owe many
+duties to society. It is not permitted you to please only yourself."
+
+Louis Moore assented with a low "Hear, hear!"
+
+Caroline, approaching her, smoothed her wavy curls, gave to her attire a
+less artistic and more domestic grace, and Shirley was put out of the
+room, protesting still, by a pouting lip, against her dismissal.
+
+"There is a curious charm about her," observed Mr. Hall, when she was
+gone. "And now," he added, "I must away; for Sweeting is off to see his
+mother, and there are two funerals."
+
+"Henry, get your books; it is lesson-time," said Moore, sitting down to
+his desk.
+
+"A curious charm!" repeated the pupil, when he and his master were left
+alone. "True. Is she not a kind of white witch?" he asked.
+
+"Of whom are you speaking, sir?"
+
+"Of my cousin Shirley."
+
+"No irrelevant questions; study in silence."
+
+Mr. Moore looked and spoke sternly--sourly. Henry knew this mood. It was
+a rare one with his tutor; but when it came he had an awe of it. He
+obeyed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+THE FIRST BLUESTOCKING.
+
+
+Miss Keeldar and her uncle had characters that would not harmonize, that
+never had harmonized. He was irritable, and she was spirited. He was
+despotic, and she liked freedom. He was worldly, and she, perhaps,
+romantic.
+
+Not without purpose had he come down to Yorkshire. His mission was
+clear, and he intended to discharge it conscientiously. He anxiously
+desired to have his niece married, to make for her a suitable match,
+give her in charge to a proper husband, and wash his hands of her for
+ever.
+
+The misfortune was, from infancy upwards, Shirley and he had disagreed
+on the meaning of the words "suitable" and "proper." She never yet had
+accepted his definition; and it was doubtful whether, in the most
+important step of her life, she would consent to accept it.
+
+The trial soon came.
+
+Mr. Wynne proposed in form for his son, Samuel Fawthrop Wynne.
+
+"Decidedly suitable! most proper!" pronounced Mr. Sympson. "A fine
+unencumbered estate, real substance, good connections. _It must be
+done!_"
+
+He sent for his niece to the oak parlour; he shut himself up there with
+her alone; he communicated the offer; he gave his opinion; he claimed
+her consent.
+
+It was withheld.
+
+"No; I shall not marry Samuel Fawthrop Wynne."
+
+"I ask why. I must have a reason. In all respects he is more than worthy
+of you."
+
+She stood on the hearth. She was pale as the white marble slab and
+cornice behind her; her eyes flashed large, dilated, unsmiling.
+
+"And _I_ ask in what sense that young man is worthy of _me_?"
+
+"He has twice your money, twice your common sense, equal connections,
+equal respectability."
+
+"Had he my money counted fivescore times I would take no vow to love
+him."
+
+"Please to state your objections."
+
+"He has run a course of despicable, commonplace profligacy. Accept that
+as the first reason why I spurn him."
+
+"Miss Keeldar, you shock me!"
+
+"That conduct alone sinks him in a gulf of immeasurable inferiority. His
+intellect reaches no standard I can esteem: there is a second
+stumbling-block. His views are narrow, his feelings are blunt, his
+tastes are coarse, his manners vulgar."
+
+"The man is a respectable, wealthy man! To refuse him is presumption on
+your part."
+
+"I refuse point-blank! Cease to annoy me with the subject; I forbid it!"
+
+"Is it your intention ever to marry; or do you prefer celibacy?"
+
+"I deny your right to claim an answer to that question."
+
+"May I ask if you expect some man of title--some peer of the realm--to
+demand your hand?"
+
+"I doubt if the peer breathes on whom I would confer it."
+
+"Were there insanity in the family, I should believe you mad. Your
+eccentricity and conceit touch the verge of frenzy."
+
+"Perhaps, ere I have finished, you will see me over-leap it."
+
+"I anticipate no less. Frantic and impracticable girl! Take warning! I
+dare you to sully our name by a _mésalliance_!"
+
+"_Our_ name! Am _I_ called Sympson?"
+
+"God be thanked that you are not! But be on your guard; I will not be
+trifled with!"
+
+"What, in the name of common law and common sense, would you or could
+you do if my pleasure led me to a choice you disapproved?"
+
+"Take care! take care!" warning her with voice and hand that trembled
+alike.
+
+"Why? What shadow of power have _you_ over me? Why should I fear you?"
+
+"Take care, madam!"
+
+"Scrupulous care I will take, Mr. Sympson. Before I marry I am resolved
+to esteem--to admire--to _love_."
+
+"Preposterous stuff! indecorous, unwomanly!"
+
+"To love with my whole heart. I know I speak in an unknown tongue; but I
+feel indifferent whether I am comprehended or not."
+
+"And if this love of yours should fall on a beggar?"
+
+"On a beggar it will never fall. Mendicancy is not estimable."
+
+"On a low clerk, a play-actor, a play-writer, or--or----"
+
+"Take courage, Mr. Sympson! Or what?"
+
+"Any literary scrub, or shabby, whining artist."
+
+"For the scrubby, shabby, whining I have no taste; for literature and
+the arts I have. And there I wonder how your Fawthrop Wynne would suit
+me. He cannot write a note without orthographical errors; he reads only
+a sporting paper; he was the booby of Stilbro' grammar school!"
+
+"Unladylike language! Great God! to what will she come?" He lifted hands
+and eyes.
+
+"Never to the altar of Hymen with Sam Wynne."
+
+"To what will she come? Why are not the laws more stringent, that I
+might compel her to hear reason?"
+
+"Console yourself, uncle. Were Britain a serfdom and you the Czar, you
+could not _compel_ me to this step. _I_ will write to Mr. Wynne. Give
+yourself no further trouble on the subject."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fortune is proverbially called changeful, yet her caprice often takes
+the form of repeating again and again a similar stroke of luck in the
+same quarter. It appeared that Miss Keeldar--or her fortune--had by this
+time made a sensation in the district, and produced an impression in
+quarters by her unthought of. No less than three offers followed Mr.
+Wynne's, all more or less eligible. All were in succession pressed on
+her by her uncle, and all in succession she refused. Yet amongst them
+was more than one gentleman of unexceptionable character as well as
+ample wealth. Many besides her uncle asked what she meant, and whom she
+expected to entrap, that she was so insolently fastidious.
+
+At last the gossips thought they had found the key to her conduct, and
+her uncle was sure of it; and what is more, the discovery showed his
+niece to him in quite a new light, and he changed his whole deportment
+to her accordingly.
+
+Fieldhead had of late been fast growing too hot to hold them both. The
+suave aunt could not reconcile them; the daughters froze at the view of
+their quarrels. Gertrude and Isabella whispered by the hour together in
+their dressing-room, and became chilled with decorous dread if they
+chanced to be left alone with their audacious cousin. But, as I have
+said, a change supervened. Mr. Sympson was appeased and his family
+tranquillized.
+
+The village of Nunnely has been alluded to--its old church, its forest,
+its monastic ruins. It had also its hall, called the priory--an older, a
+larger, a more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and
+what is more, it had its man of title--its baronet, which neither
+Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast. This possession--its proudest and
+most prized--had for years been nominal only. The present baronet, a
+young man hitherto resident in a distant province, was unknown on his
+Yorkshire estate.
+
+During Miss Keeldar's stay at the fashionable watering-place of
+Cliffbridge, she and her friends had met with and been introduced to Sir
+Philip Nunnely. They encountered him again and again on the sands, the
+cliffs, in the various walks, sometimes at the public balls of the
+place. He seemed solitary. His manner was very unpretending--too simple
+to be termed affable; rather timid than proud. He did not _condescend_
+to their society; he seemed _glad_ of it.
+
+With any unaffected individual Shirley could easily and quickly cement
+an acquaintance. She walked and talked with Sir Philip; she, her aunt,
+and cousins sometimes took a sail in his yacht. She liked him because
+she found him kind and modest, and was charmed to feel she had the power
+to amuse him.
+
+One slight drawback there was--where is the friendship without it?--Sir
+Philip had a literary turn. He wrote poetry--sonnets, stanzas, ballads.
+Perhaps Miss Keeldar thought him a little too fond of reading and
+reciting these compositions; perhaps she wished the rhyme had possessed
+more accuracy, the measure more music, the tropes more freshness, the
+inspiration more fire. At any rate, she always winced when he recurred
+to the subject of his poems, and usually did her best to divert the
+conversation into another channel.
+
+He would beguile her to take moonlight walks with him on the bridge, for
+the sole purpose, as it seemed, of pouring into her ear the longest of
+his ballads. He would lead her away to sequestered rustic seats, whence
+the rush of the surf to the sands was heard soft and soothing; and when
+he had her all to himself, and the sea lay before them, and the scented
+shade of gardens spread round, and the tall shelter of cliffs rose
+behind them, he would pull out his last batch of sonnets, and read them
+in a voice tremulous with emotion. He did not seem to know that though
+they might be rhyme they were not poetry. It appeared, by Shirley's
+downcast eye and disturbed face, that she knew it, and felt heartily
+mortified by the single foible of this good and amiable gentleman.
+
+Often she tried, as gently as might be, to wean him from this fanatic
+worship of the Muses. It was his monomania; on all ordinary subjects he
+was sensible enough, and fain was she to engage him in ordinary topics.
+He questioned her sometimes about his place at Nunnely; she was but too
+happy to answer his interrogatories at length. She never wearied of
+describing the antique priory, the wild silvan park, the hoary church
+and hamlet; nor did she fail to counsel him to come down and gather his
+tenantry about him in his ancestral halls.
+
+Somewhat to her surprise, Sir Philip followed her advice to the letter,
+and actually, towards the close of September, arrived at the priory.
+
+He soon made a call at Fieldhead, and his first visit was not his last.
+He said--when he had achieved the round of the neighbourhood--that under
+no roof had he found such pleasant shelter as beneath the massive oak
+beams of the gray manor-house of Briarfield; a cramped, modest dwelling
+enough compared with his own, but he liked it.
+
+Presently it did not suffice to sit with Shirley in her panelled
+parlour, where others came and went, and where he could rarely find a
+quiet moment to show her the latest production of his fertile muse; he
+must have her out amongst the pleasant pastures, and lead her by the
+still waters. _Tête-à-tête_ ramblings she shunned, so he made parties
+for her to his own grounds, his glorious forest; to remoter
+scenes--woods severed by the Wharfe, vales watered by the Aire.
+
+Such assiduity covered Miss Keeldar with distinction. Her uncle's
+prophetic soul anticipated a splendid future. He already scented the
+time afar off when, with nonchalant air, and left foot nursed on his
+right knee, he should be able to make dashingly-familiar allusion to his
+"nephew the baronet." Now his niece dawned upon him no longer "a mad
+girl," but a "most sensible woman." He termed her, in confidential
+dialogues with Mrs. Sympson, "a truly superior person; peculiar, but
+very clever." He treated her with exceeding deference; rose reverently
+to open and shut doors for her; reddened his face and gave himself
+headaches with stooping to pick up gloves, handkerchiefs, and other
+loose property, whereof Shirley usually held but insecure tenure. He
+would cut mysterious jokes about the superiority of woman's wit over
+man's wisdom; commence obscure apologies for the blundering mistake he
+had committed respecting the generalship, the tactics, of "a personage
+not a hundred miles from Fieldhead." In short, he seemed elate as any
+"midden-cock on pattens."
+
+His niece viewed his manoeuvres and received his innuendoes with phlegm;
+apparently she did not above half comprehend to what aim they tended.
+When plainly charged with being the preferred of the baronet, she said
+she believed he did like her, and for her part she liked him. She had
+never thought a man of rank--the only son of a proud, fond mother, the
+only brother of doting sisters--could have so much goodness, and, on the
+whole, so much sense.
+
+Time proved, indeed, that Sir Philip liked her. Perhaps he had found in
+her that "curious charm" noticed by Mr. Hall. He sought her presence
+more and more, and at last with a frequency that attested it had become
+to him an indispensable stimulus. About this time strange feelings
+hovered round Fieldhead; restless hopes and haggard anxieties haunted
+some of its rooms. There was an unquiet wandering of some of the inmates
+among the still fields round the mansion; there was a sense of
+expectancy that kept the nerves strained.
+
+One thing seemed clear: Sir Philip was not a man to be despised. He was
+amiable; if not highly intellectual, he was intelligent. Miss Keeldar
+could not affirm of him, what she had so bitterly affirmed of Sam Wynne,
+that his feelings were blunt, his tastes coarse, and his manners vulgar.
+There was sensibility in his nature; there was a very real, if not a
+very discriminating, love of the arts; there was the English gentleman
+in all his deportment. As to his lineage and wealth, both were, of
+course, far beyond her claims.
+
+His appearance had at first elicited some laughing though not
+ill-natured remarks from the merry Shirley. It was boyish. His features
+were plain and slight, his hair sandy, his stature insignificant. But
+she soon checked her sarcasm on this point; she would even fire up if
+any one else made uncomplimentary allusion thereto. He had "a pleasing
+countenance," she affirmed; "and there was that in his heart which was
+better than three Roman noses, than the locks of Absalom or the
+proportions of Saul." A spare and rare shaft she still reserved for his
+unfortunate poetic propensity; but even here she would tolerate no irony
+save her own.
+
+In short, matters had reached a point which seemed fully to warrant an
+observation made about this time by Mr. Yorke to the tutor, Louis.
+
+"Yond' brother Robert of yours seems to me to be either a fool or a
+madman. Two months ago I could have sworn he had the game all in his own
+hands; and there he runs the country, and quarters himself up in London
+for weeks together, and by the time he comes back he'll find himself
+checkmated. Louis, 'there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken
+at the flood, leads on to fortune, but, once let slip, never returns
+again.' I'd write to Robert, if I were you, and remind him of that."
+
+"Robert had views on Miss Keeldar?" inquired Louis, as if the idea was
+new to him.
+
+"Views I suggested to him myself, and views he might have realized, for
+she liked him."
+
+"As a neighbour?"
+
+"As more than that. I have seen her change countenance and colour at the
+mere mention of his name. Write to the lad, I say, and tell him to come
+home. He is a finer gentleman than this bit of a baronet, after all."
+
+"Does it not strike you, Mr. Yorke, that for a mere penniless adventurer
+to aspire to a rich woman's hand is presumptuous--contemptible?"
+
+"Oh, if you are for high notions and double-refined sentiment, I've
+naught to say. I'm a plain, practical man myself, and if Robert is
+willing to give up that royal prize to a lad-rival--a puling slip of
+aristocracy--I am quite agreeable. At _his_ age, in _his_ place, with
+_his_ inducements, I would have acted differently. Neither baronet, nor
+duke, nor prince should have snatched my sweetheart from me without a
+struggle. But you tutors are such solemn chaps; it is almost like
+speaking to a parson to consult with you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Flattered and fawned upon as Shirley was just now, it appeared she was
+not absolutely spoiled--that her better nature did not quite leave her.
+Universal report had indeed ceased to couple her name with that of
+Moore, and this silence seemed sanctioned by her own apparent oblivion
+of the absentee; but that she had not _quite_ forgotten him--that she
+still regarded him, if not with love, yet with interest--seemed proved
+by the increased attention which at this juncture of affairs a sudden
+attack of illness induced her to show that tutor-brother of Robert's, to
+whom she habitually bore herself with strange alternations of cool
+reserve and docile respect--now sweeping past him in all the dignity of
+the moneyed heiress and prospective Lady Nunnely, and anon accosting him
+as abashed school-girls are wont to accost their stern professors;
+bridling her neck of ivory and curling her lip of carmine, if he
+encountered her glance, one minute, and the next submitting to the grave
+rebuke of his eye with as much contrition as if he had the power to
+inflict penalties in case of contumacy.
+
+Louis Moore had perhaps caught the fever, which for a few days laid him
+low, in one of the poor cottages of the district, which he, his lame
+pupil, and Mr. Hall were in the habit of visiting together. At any rate
+he sickened, and after opposing to the malady a taciturn resistance for
+a day or two, was obliged to keep his chamber.
+
+He lay tossing on his thorny bed one evening, Henry, who would not quit
+him, watching faithfully beside him, when a tap--too light to be that of
+Mrs. Gill or the housemaid--summoned young Sympson to the door.
+
+"How is Mr. Moore to-night?" asked a low voice from the dark gallery.
+
+"Come in and see him yourself."
+
+"Is he asleep?"
+
+"I wish he could sleep. Come and speak to him, Shirley."
+
+"He would not like it."
+
+But the speaker stepped in, and Henry, seeing her hesitate on the
+threshold, took her hand and drew her to the couch.
+
+The shaded light showed Miss Keeldar's form but imperfectly; yet it
+revealed her in elegant attire. There was a party assembled below,
+including Sir Philip Nunnely; the ladies were now in the drawing-room,
+and their hostess had stolen from them to visit Henry's tutor. Her pure
+white dress, her fair arms and neck, the trembling chainlet of gold
+circling her throat and quivering on her breast, glistened strangely
+amid the obscurity of the sickroom. Her mien was chastened and pensive.
+She spoke gently.
+
+"Mr. Moore, how are you to-night?"
+
+"I have not been very ill, and am now better."
+
+"I heard that you complained of thirst. I have brought you some grapes;
+can you taste one?"
+
+"No; but I thank you for remembering me."
+
+"Just one."
+
+From the rich cluster that filled a small basket held in her hand she
+severed a berry and offered it to his lips. He shook his head, and
+turned aside his flushed face.
+
+"But what, then, can I bring you instead? You have no wish for fruit;
+yet I see that your lips are parched. What beverage do you prefer?"
+
+"Mrs. Gill supplies me with toast-and-water. I like it best."
+
+Silence fell for some minutes.
+
+"Do you suffer?--have you pain?"
+
+"Very little."
+
+"What made you ill?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"I wonder what caused this fever? To what do you attribute it?"
+
+"Miasma, perhaps--malaria. This is autumn, a season fertile in fevers."
+
+"I hear you often visit the sick in Briarfield, and Nunnely too, with
+Mr. Hall. You should be on your guard; temerity is not wise."
+
+"That reminds me, Miss Keeldar, that perhaps you had better not enter
+this chamber or come near this couch. I do not believe my illness is
+infectious. I scarcely fear"--with a sort of smile--"_you_ will take it;
+but why should you run even the shadow of a risk? Leave me."
+
+"Patience, I will go soon; but I should like to do something for you
+before I depart--any little service----"
+
+"They will miss you below."
+
+"No; the gentlemen are still at table."
+
+"They will not linger long. Sir Philip Nunnely is no wine-bibber, and I
+hear him just now pass from the dining-room to the drawing-room."
+
+"It is a servant."
+
+"It is Sir Philip; I know his step."
+
+"Your hearing is acute."
+
+"It is never dull, and the sense seems sharpened at present. Sir Philip
+was here to tea last night. I heard you sing to him some song which he
+had brought you. I heard him, when he took his departure at eleven
+o'clock, call you out on to the pavement, to look at the evening star."
+
+"You must be nervously sensitive."
+
+"I heard him kiss your hand."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"No: my chamber is over the hall, the window just above the front door;
+the sash was a little raised, for I felt feverish. You stood ten minutes
+with him on the steps. I heard your discourse, every word, and I heard
+the salute.--Henry, give me some water."
+
+"Let me give it him."
+
+But he half rose to take the glass from young Sympson, and declined her
+attendance.
+
+"And can I do nothing?"
+
+"Nothing; for you cannot guarantee me a night's peaceful rest, and it is
+all I at present want."
+
+"You do not sleep well?"
+
+"Sleep has left me."
+
+"Yet you said you were not very ill?"
+
+"I am often sleepless when in high health."
+
+"If I had power, I would lap you in the most placid slumber--quite deep
+and hushed, without a dream."
+
+"Blank annihilation! I do not ask that."
+
+"With dreams of all you most desire."
+
+"Monstrous delusions! The sleep would be delirium, the waking death."
+
+"Your wishes are not so chimerical; you are no visionary."
+
+"Miss Keeldar, I suppose you think so; but my character is not, perhaps,
+quite as legible to you as a page of the last new novel might be."
+
+"That is possible. But this sleep--I _should_ like to woo it to your
+pillow, to win for you its favour. If I took a book and sat down and
+read some pages? I can well spare half an hour."
+
+"Thank you, but I will not detain you."
+
+"I would read softly."
+
+"It would not do. I am too feverish and excitable to bear a soft,
+cooing, vibrating voice close at my ear. You had better leave me."
+
+"Well, I will go."
+
+"And no good-night?"
+
+"Yes, sir, yes. Mr. Moore, good-night." (Exit Shirley.)
+
+"Henry, my boy, go to bed now; it is time you had some repose."
+
+"Sir, it would please me to watch at your bedside all night."
+
+"Nothing less called for. I am getting better. There, go."
+
+"Give me your blessing, sir."
+
+"God bless you, my best pupil!"
+
+"You never call me your dearest pupil!"
+
+"No, nor ever shall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Possibly Miss Keeldar resented her former teacher's rejection of her
+courtesy. It is certain she did not repeat the offer of it. Often as her
+light step traversed the gallery in the course of a day, it did not
+again pause at his door; nor did her "cooing, vibrating voice" disturb a
+second time the hush of the sickroom. A sickroom, indeed, it soon ceased
+to be; Mr. Moore's good constitution quickly triumphed over his
+indisposition. In a few days he shook it off, and resumed his duties as
+tutor.
+
+That "auld lang syne" had still its authority both with preceptor and
+scholar was proved by the manner in which he sometimes promptly passed
+the distance she usually maintained between them, and put down her high
+reserve with a firm, quiet hand.
+
+One afternoon the Sympson family were gone out to take a carriage
+airing. Shirley, never sorry to snatch a reprieve from their society,
+had remained behind, detained by business, as she said. The business--a
+little letter-writing--was soon dispatched after the yard gates had
+closed on the carriage; Miss Keeldar betook herself to the garden.
+
+It was a peaceful autumn day. The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed
+the pastures far and wide. The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped,
+but were yet full of leaf. The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not
+withered, tinged the hills. The beck wandered down to the Hollow,
+through a silent district; no wind followed its course or haunted its
+woody borders. Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay. On the
+walks, swept that morning, yellow leaves had fluttered down again. Its
+time of flowers, and even of fruits, was over; but a scantling of
+apples enriched the trees. Only a blossom here and there expanded pale
+and delicate amidst a knot of faded leaves.
+
+These single flowers--the last of their race--Shirley culled as she
+wandered thoughtfully amongst the beds. She was fastening into her
+girdle a hueless and scentless nosegay, when Henry Sympson called to her
+as he came limping from the house.
+
+"Shirley, Mr. Moore would be glad to see you in the schoolroom and to
+hear you read a little French, if you have no more urgent occupation."
+
+The messenger delivered his commission very simply, as if it were a mere
+matter of course.
+
+"Did Mr. Moore tell you to say that?"
+
+"Certainly; why not? And now, do come, and let us once more be as we
+were at Sympson Grove. We used to have pleasant school-hours in those
+days."
+
+Miss Keeldar perhaps thought that circumstances were changed since then;
+however, she made no remark, but after a little reflection quietly
+followed Henry.
+
+Entering the schoolroom, she inclined her head with a decent obeisance,
+as had been her wont in former times. She removed her bonnet, and hung
+it up beside Henry's cap. Louis Moore sat at his desk, turning the
+leaves of a book, open before him, and marking passages with his pencil.
+He just moved, in acknowledgment of her curtsy, but did not rise.
+
+"You proposed to read to me a few nights ago," said he. "I could not
+hear you then. My attention is now at your service. A little renewed
+practice in French may not be unprofitable. Your accent, I have
+observed, begins to rust."
+
+"What book shall I take?"
+
+"Here are the posthumous works of St. Pierre. Read a few pages of the
+'Fragments de l'Amazone.'"
+
+She accepted the chair which he had placed in readiness near his own;
+the volume lay on his desk--there was but one between them; her sweeping
+curls dropped so low as to hide the page from him.
+
+"Put back your hair," he said.
+
+For one moment Shirley looked not quite certain whether she would obey
+the request or disregard it. A flicker of her eye beamed furtive on the
+professor's face. Perhaps if he had been looking at her harshly or
+timidly, or if one undecided line had marked his countenance, she would
+have rebelled, and the lesson had ended there and then; but he was only
+awaiting her compliance--as calm as marble, and as cool. She threw the
+veil of tresses behind her ear. It was well her face owned an agreeable
+outline, and that her cheek possessed the polish and the roundness of
+early youth, or, thus robbed of a softening shade, the contours might
+have lost their grace. But what mattered that in the present society?
+Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor.
+
+She began to read. The language had become strange to her tongue; it
+faltered; the lecture flowed unevenly, impeded by hurried breath, broken
+by Anglicized tones. She stopped.
+
+"I can't do it. Read me a paragraph, if you please, Mr. Moore."
+
+What _he_ read _she_ repeated. She caught his accent in three minutes.
+
+"Très bien," was the approving comment at the close of the piece.
+
+"C'est presque le Français rattrapé, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+"You could not write French as you once could, I dare say?"
+
+"Oh no! I should make strange work of my concords now."
+
+"You could not compose the _devoir_ of 'La Première Femme Savante'?"
+
+"Do you still remember that rubbish?"
+
+"Every line."
+
+"I doubt you."
+
+"I will engage to repeat it word for word."
+
+"You would stop short at the first line."
+
+"Challenge me to the experiment."
+
+"I challenge you."
+
+He proceeded to recite the following. He gave it in French, but we must
+translate, on pain of being unintelligible to some readers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of
+       the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons
+       of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they
+       took them wives of all which they chose."
+
+This was in the dawn of time, before the morning stars were set, and
+while they yet sang together.
+
+The epoch is so remote, the mists and dewy gray of matin twilight veil
+it with so vague an obscurity, that all distinct feature of custom, all
+clear line of locality, evade perception and baffle research. It must
+suffice to know that the world then existed; that men peopled it; that
+man's nature, with its passions, sympathies, pains, and pleasures,
+informed the planet and gave it soul.
+
+A certain tribe colonized a certain spot on the globe; of what race this
+tribe--unknown; in what region that spot--untold. We usually think of
+the East when we refer to transactions of that date; but who shall
+declare that there was no life in the West, the South, the North? What
+is to disprove that this tribe, instead of camping under palm groves in
+Asia, wandered beneath island oak woods rooted in our own seas of
+Europe?
+
+It is no sandy plain, nor any circumscribed and scant oasis I seem to
+realize. A forest valley, with rocky sides and brown profundity of
+shade, formed by tree crowding on tree, descends deep before me. Here,
+indeed, dwell human beings, but so few, and in alleys so thick branched
+and overarched, they are neither heard nor seen. Are they savage?
+Doubtless. They live by the crook and the bow; half shepherds, half
+hunters, their flocks wander wild as their prey. Are they happy? No, not
+more happy than we are at this day. Are they good? No, not better than
+ourselves. Their nature is our nature--human both. There is one in this
+tribe too often miserable--a child bereaved of both parents. None cares
+for this child. She is fed sometimes, but oftener forgotten. A hut
+rarely receives her; the hollow tree and chill cavern are her home.
+Forsaken, lost, and wandering, she lives more with the wild beast and
+bird than with her own kind. Hunger and cold are her comrades; sadness
+hovers over, and solitude besets her round. Unheeded and unvalued, she
+should die; but she both lives and grows. The green wilderness nurses
+her, and becomes to her a mother; feeds her on juicy berry, on
+saccharine root and nut.
+
+There is something in the air of this clime which fosters life kindly.
+There must be something, too, in its dews which heals with sovereign
+balm. Its gentle seasons exaggerate no passion, no sense; its
+temperature tends to harmony; its breezes, you would say, bring down
+from heaven the germ of pure thought and purer feeling. Not grotesquely
+fantastic are the forms of cliff and foliage, not violently vivid the
+colouring of flower and bird. In all the grandeur of these forests
+there is repose; in all their freshness there is tenderness.
+
+The gentle charm vouchsafed to flower and tree, bestowed on deer and
+dove, has not been denied to the human nursling. All solitary, she has
+sprung up straight and graceful. Nature cast her features in a fine
+mould; they have matured in their pure, accurate first lines, unaltered
+by the shocks of disease. No fierce dry blast has dealt rudely with the
+surface of her frame; no burning sun has crisped or withered her
+tresses. Her form gleams ivory-white through the trees; her hair flows
+plenteous, long, and glossy; her eyes, not dazzled by vertical fires,
+beam in the shade large and open, and full and dewy. Above those eyes,
+when the breeze bares her forehead, shines an expanse fair and ample--a
+clear, candid page, whereon knowledge, should knowledge ever come, might
+write a golden record. You see in the desolate young savage nothing
+vicious or vacant. She haunts the wood harmless and thoughtful, though
+of what one so untaught can think it is not easy to divine.
+
+On the evening of one summer day, before the Flood, being utterly
+alone--for she had lost all trace of her tribe, who had wandered leagues
+away, she knew not where--she went up from the vale, to watch Day take
+leave and Night arrive. A crag overspread by a tree was her station. The
+oak roots, turfed and mossed, gave a seat; the oak boughs, thick-leaved,
+wove a canopy.
+
+Slow and grand the Day withdrew, passing in purple fire, and parting to
+the farewell of a wild, low chorus from the woodlands. Then Night
+entered, quiet as death. The wind fell, the birds ceased singing. Now
+every nest held happy mates, and hart and hind slumbered blissfully safe
+in their lair.
+
+The girl sat, her body still, her soul astir; occupied, however, rather
+in feeling than in thinking, in wishing than hoping, in imagining than
+projecting. She felt the world, the sky, the night, boundlessly mighty.
+Of all things herself seemed to herself the centre--a small, forgotten
+atom of life, a spark of soul, emitted inadvertent from the great
+creative source, and now burning unmarked to waste in the heart of a
+black hollow. She asked, was she thus to burn out and perish, her living
+light doing no good, never seen, never needed--a star in an else
+starless firmament, which nor shepherd, nor wanderer, nor sage, nor
+priest tracked as a guide or read as a prophecy? Could this be, she
+demanded, when the flame of her intelligence burned so vivid; when her
+life beat so true, and real, and potent; when something within her
+stirred disquieted, and restlessly asserted a God-given strength, for
+which it insisted she should find exercise?
+
+She gazed abroad on Heaven and Evening. Heaven and Evening gazed back on
+her. She bent down, searching bank, hill, river, spread dim below. All
+she questioned responded by oracles. She heard--she was impressed; but
+she could not understand. Above her head she raised her hands joined
+together.
+
+"Guidance--help--comfort--come!" was her cry.
+
+There was no voice, nor any that answered.
+
+She waited, kneeling, steadfastly looking up. Yonder sky was sealed; the
+solemn stars shone alien and remote.
+
+At last one overstretched chord of her agony slacked; she thought
+Something above relented; she felt as if Something far round drew
+nigher; she heard as if Silence spoke. There was no language, no word,
+only a tone.
+
+Again--a fine, full, lofty tone, a deep, soft sound, like a storm
+whispering, made twilight undulate.
+
+Once more, profounder, nearer, clearer, it rolled harmonious.
+
+Yet again--a distinct voice passed between Heaven and Earth.
+
+"Eva!"
+
+If Eva were not this woman's name, she had none. She rose. "Here am I."
+
+"Eva!"
+
+"O Night (it can be but Night that speaks), I am here!"
+
+The voice, descending, reached Earth.
+
+"Eva!"
+
+"Lord," she cried, "behold thine handmaid!"
+
+She had her religion--all tribes held some creed.
+
+"I come--a Comforter!"
+
+"Lord, come quickly!"
+
+The Evening flushed full of hope; the Air panted; the Moon--rising
+before--ascended large, but her light showed no shape.
+
+"Lean towards me, Eva. Enter my arms; repose thus."
+
+"Thus I lean, O Invisible but felt! And what art thou?"
+
+"Eva, I have brought a living draught from heaven. Daughter of Man,
+drink of my cup!"
+
+"I drink: it is as if sweetest dew visited my lips in a full current. My
+arid heart revives; my affliction is lightened; my strait and struggle
+are gone. And the night changes! the wood, the hill, the moon, the wide
+sky--all change!"
+
+"All change, and for ever. I take from thy vision darkness; I loosen
+from thy faculties fetters! I level in thy path obstacles; I with my
+presence fill vacancy. I claim as mine the lost atom of life. I take to
+myself the spark of soul--burning heretofore forgotten!"
+
+"O take me! O claim me! This is a god."
+
+"This is a son of God--one who feels himself in the portion of life that
+stirs you. He is suffered to reclaim his own, and so to foster and aid
+that it shall not perish hopeless."
+
+"A son of God! Am I indeed chosen?"
+
+"Thou only in this land. I saw thee that thou wert fair; I knew thee
+that thou wert mine. To me it is given to rescue, to sustain, to cherish
+mine own. Acknowledge in me that Seraph on earth named Genius."
+
+"My glorious Bridegroom! true Dayspring from on high! All I would have
+at last I possess. I receive a revelation. The dark hint, the obscure
+whisper, which have haunted me from childhood, are interpreted. Thou art
+He I sought. Godborn, take me, thy bride!"
+
+"Unhumbled, I can take what is mine. Did I not give from the altar the
+very flame which lit Eva's being? Come again into the heaven whence thou
+wert sent."
+
+That Presence, invisible but mighty, gathered her in like a lamb to the
+fold; that voice, soft but all-pervading, vibrated through her heart
+like music. Her eye received no image; and yet a sense visited her
+vision and her brain as of the serenity of stainless air, the power of
+sovereign seas, the majesty of marching stars, the energy of colliding
+elements, the rooted endurance of hills wide based, and, above all, as
+of the lustre of heroic beauty rushing victorious on the Night,
+vanquishing its shadows like a diviner sun.
+
+Such was the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse the
+tale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale? Who
+shall tell how He between whom and the Woman God put enmity forged
+deadly plots to break the bond or defile its purity? Who shall record
+the long strife between Serpent and Seraph:--How still the Father of
+Lies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom, grossness into glory,
+pain into bliss, poison into passion? How the "dreadless Angel" defied,
+resisted, and repelled? How again and again he refined the polluted cup,
+exalted the debased emotion, rectified the perverted impulse, detected
+the lurking venom, baffled the frontless temptation--purified,
+justified, watched, and withstood? How, by his patience, by his
+strength, by that unutterable excellence he held from God--his
+Origin--this faithful Seraph fought for Humanity a good fight through
+time; and, when Time's course closed, and Death was encountered at the
+end, barring with fleshless arm the portals of Eternity, how Genius
+still held close his dying bride, sustained her through the agony of the
+passage, bore her triumphant into his own home, Heaven; restored her,
+redeemed, to Jehovah, her Maker; and at last, before Angel and
+Archangel, crowned her with the crown of Immortality?
+
+Who shall of these things write the chronicle?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I never could correct that composition," observed Shirley, as Moore
+concluded. "Your censor-pencil scored it with condemnatory lines, whose
+signification I strove vainly to fathom."
+
+She had taken a crayon from the tutor's desk, and was drawing little
+leaves, fragments of pillars, broken crosses, on the margin of the book.
+
+"French may be half forgotten, but the habits of the French lesson are
+retained, I see," said Louis. "My books would now, as erst, be unsafe
+with you. My newly-bound St. Pierre would soon be like my Racine--Miss
+Keeldar, her mark, traced on every page."
+
+Shirley dropped her crayon as if it burned her fingers.
+
+"Tell me what were the faults of that _devoir_?" she asked. "Were they
+grammatical errors, or did you object to the substance?"
+
+"I never said that the lines I drew were indications of faults at all.
+You would have it that such was the case, and I refrained from
+contradiction."
+
+"What else did they denote?"
+
+"No matter now."
+
+"Mr. Moore," cried Henry, "make Shirley repeat some of the pieces she
+used to say so well by heart."
+
+"If I ask for any, it will be 'Le Cheval Dompté,'" said Moore, trimming
+with his penknife the pencil Miss Keeldar had worn to a stump.
+
+She turned aside her head; the neck, the clear cheek, forsaken by their
+natural veil, were seen to flush warm.
+
+"Ah! she has not forgotten, you see, sir," said Henry, exultant. "She
+knows how naughty she was."
+
+A smile, which Shirley would not permit to expand, made her lip tremble;
+she bent her face, and hid it half with her arms, half in her curls,
+which, as she stooped, fell loose again. "Certainly I was a rebel," she
+answered.
+
+"A rebel!" repeated Henry. "Yes; you and papa had quarrelled terribly,
+and you set both him and mamma, and Mrs. Pryor, and everybody, at
+defiance. You said he had insulted you----"
+
+"He _had_ insulted me," interposed Shirley.
+
+"And you wanted to leave Sympson Grove directly. You packed your things
+up, and papa threw them out of your trunk; mamma cried, Mrs. Pryor
+cried; they both stood wringing their hands begging you to be patient;
+and you knelt on the floor with your things and your up-turned box
+before you, looking, Shirley, looking--why, in one of _your_ passions.
+Your features, in such passions, are not distorted; they are fixed, but
+quite beautiful. You scarcely look angry, only resolute, and in a
+certain haste; yet one feels that at such times an obstacle cast across
+your path would be split as with lightning. Papa lost heart, and called
+Mr. Moore."
+
+"Enough, Henry."
+
+"No, it is not enough. I hardly know how Mr. Moore managed, except that
+I recollect he suggested to papa that agitation would bring on his gout;
+and then he spoke quietly to the ladies, and got them away; and
+afterwards he said to you, Miss Shirley, that it was of no use talking
+or lecturing now, but that the tea-things were just brought into the
+schoolroom, and he was very thirsty, and he would be glad if you would
+leave your packing for the present and come and make a cup of tea for
+him and me. You came; you would not talk at first, but soon you softened
+and grew cheerful. Mr. Moore began to tell us about the Continent, the
+war, and Bonaparte--subjects we were both fond of listening to. After
+tea he said we should neither of us leave him that evening; he would not
+let us stray out of his sight, lest we should again get into mischief.
+We sat one on each side of him. We were so happy. I never passed so
+pleasant an evening. The next day he gave you, missy, a lecture of an
+hour, and wound it up by marking you a piece to learn in Bossuet as a
+punishment-lesson--'Le Cheval Dompté.' You learned it instead of packing
+up, Shirley. We heard no more of your running away. Mr. Moore used to
+tease you on the subject for a year afterwards."
+
+"She never said a lesson with greater spirit," subjoined Moore. "She
+then, for the first time, gave me the treat of hearing my native tongue
+spoken without accent by an English girl."
+
+"She was as sweet as summer cherries for a month afterwards," struck in
+Henry: "a good hearty quarrel always left Shirley's temper better than
+it found it."
+
+"You talk of me as if I were not present," observed Miss Keeldar, who
+had not yet lifted her face.
+
+"Are you sure you _are_ present?" asked Moore. "There have been moments
+since my arrival here when I have been tempted to inquire of the lady of
+Fieldhead if she knew what had become of my former pupil."
+
+"She is here now."
+
+"I see her, and humble enough; but I would neither advise Harry nor
+others to believe too implicitly in the humility which one moment can
+hide its blushing face like a modest little child, and the next lift it
+pale and lofty as a marble Juno."
+
+"One man in times of old, it is said, imparted vitality to the statue he
+had chiselled; others may have the contrary gift of turning life to
+stone."
+
+Moore paused on this observation before he replied to it. His look, at
+once struck and meditative, said, "A strange phrase; what may it mean?"
+He turned it over in his mind, with thought deep and slow, as some
+German pondering metaphysics.
+
+"You mean," he said at last, "that some men inspire repugnance, and so
+chill the kind heart."
+
+"Ingenious!" responded Shirley. "If the interpretation pleases you, you
+are welcome to hold it valid. _I_ don't care."
+
+And with that she raised her head, lofty in look and statue-like in hue,
+as Louis had described it.
+
+"Behold the metamorphosis!" he said; "scarce imagined ere it is
+realized: a lowly nymph develops to an inaccessible goddess. But Henry
+must not be disappointed of his recitation, and Olympia will deign to
+oblige him. Let us begin."
+
+"I have forgotten the very first line."
+
+"Which I have not. _My_ memory, if a slow, is a retentive one. I acquire
+deliberately both knowledge and liking. The acquisition grows into my
+brain, and the sentiment into my breast; and it is not as the
+rapid-springing produce which, having no root in itself, flourishes
+verdurous enough for a time, but too soon falls withered away.
+Attention, Henry! Miss Keeldar consents to favour you. 'Voyez ce cheval
+ardent et impétueux,' so it commences."
+
+Miss Keeldar did consent to make the effort; but she soon stopped.
+
+"Unless I heard the whole repeated I cannot continue it," she said.
+
+"Yet it was quickly learned--'soon gained, soon gone,'" moralized the
+tutor. He recited the passage deliberately, accurately, with slow,
+impressive emphasis.
+
+Shirley, by degrees, inclined her ear as he went on. Her face, before
+turned from him, _re_turned towards him. When he ceased, she took the
+word up as if from his lips; she took his very tone; she seized his very
+accent; she delivered the periods as he had delivered them; she
+reproduced his manner, his pronunciation, his expression.
+
+It was now her turn to petition.
+
+"Recall 'Le Songe d'Athalie,'" she entreated, "and say it."
+
+He said it for her. She took it from him; she found lively excitement in
+the pleasure of making his language her own. She asked for further
+indulgence; all the old school pieces were revived, and with them
+Shirley's old school days.
+
+He had gone through some of the best passages of Racine and Corneille,
+and then had heard the echo of his own deep tones in the girl's voice,
+that modulated itself faithfully on his. "Le chêne et le Roseau," that
+most beautiful of La Fontaine's fables, had been recited, well recited,
+by the tutor, and the pupil had animatedly availed herself of the
+lesson. Perhaps a simultaneous feeling seized them now, that their
+enthusiasm had kindled to a glow, which the slight fuel of French poetry
+no longer sufficed to feed; perhaps they longed for a trunk of English
+oak to be thrown as a Yule log to the devouring flame. Moore observed,
+"And these are our best pieces! And we have nothing more dramatic,
+nervous, natural!"
+
+And then he smiled and was silent. His whole nature seemed serenely
+alight. He stood on the hearth, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece,
+musing not unblissfully.
+
+Twilight was closing on the diminished autumn day. The schoolroom
+windows--darkened with creeping plants, from which no high October winds
+had as yet swept the sere foliage--admitted scarce a gleam of sky; but
+the fire gave light enough to talk by.
+
+And now Louis Moore addressed his pupil in French, and she answered at
+first with laughing hesitation and in broken phrase. Moore encouraged
+while he corrected her. Henry joined in the lesson; the two scholars
+stood opposite the master, their arms round each other's waists. Tartar,
+who long since had craved and obtained admission, sat sagely in the
+centre of the rug, staring at the blaze which burst fitful from morsels
+of coal among the red cinders. The group were happy enough, but--
+
+    "Pleasures are like poppies spread;
+     You seize the flower--its bloom is shed."
+
+The dull, rumbling sound of wheels was heard on the pavement in the
+yard.
+
+"It is the carriage returned," said Shirley; "and dinner must be just
+ready, and I am not dressed."
+
+A servant came in with Mr. Moore's candle and tea; for the tutor and his
+pupil usually dined at luncheon time.
+
+"Mr. Sympson and the ladies are returned," she said, "and Sir Philip
+Nunnely is with them."
+
+"How you did start, and how your hand trembled, Shirley!" said Henry,
+when the maid had closed the shutter and was gone. "But I know
+why--don't you, Mr. Moore? I know what papa intends. He is a little ugly
+man, that Sir Philip. I wish he had not come. I wish sisters and all of
+them had stayed at De Walden Hall to dine.--Shirley should once more
+have made tea for you and me, Mr. Moore, and we would have had a happy
+evening of it."
+
+Moore was locking up his desk and putting away his St. Pierre. "That was
+_your_ plan, was it, my boy?"
+
+"Don't you approve it, sir?"
+
+"I approve nothing utopian. Look Life in its iron face; stare Reality
+out of its brassy countenance. Make the tea, Henry; I shall be back in a
+minute."
+
+He left the room; so did Shirley, by another door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+PHOEBE.
+
+
+Shirley probably got on pleasantly with Sir Philip that evening, for the
+next morning she came down in one of her best moods.
+
+"Who will take a walk with me?" she asked, after breakfast. "Isabella
+and Gertrude, will you?"
+
+So rare was such an invitation from Miss Keeldar to her female cousins
+that they hesitated before they accepted it. Their mamma, however,
+signifying acquiescence in the project, they fetched their bonnets, and
+the trio set out.
+
+It did not suit these three young persons to be thrown much together.
+Miss Keeldar liked the society of few ladies; indeed, she had a cordial
+pleasure in that of none except Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone. She
+was civil, kind, attentive even to her cousins; but still she usually
+had little to say to them. In the sunny mood of this particular morning,
+she contrived to entertain even the Misses Sympson. Without deviating
+from her wonted rule of discussing with them only ordinary themes, she
+imparted to these themes an extraordinary interest; the sparkle of her
+spirit glanced along her phrases.
+
+What made her so joyous? All the cause must have been in herself. The
+day was not bright. It was dim--a pale, waning autumn day. The walks
+through the dun woods were damp; the atmosphere was heavy, the sky
+overcast; and yet it seemed that in Shirley's heart lived all the light
+and azure of Italy, as all its fervour laughed in her gray English eye.
+
+Some directions necessary to be given to her foreman, John, delayed her
+behind her cousins as they neared Fieldhead on their return. Perhaps an
+interval of twenty minutes elapsed between her separation from them and
+her re-entrance into the house. In the meantime she had spoken to John,
+and then she had lingered in the lane at the gate. A summons to
+luncheon called her in. She excused herself from the meal, and went
+upstairs.
+
+"Is not Shirley coming to luncheon?" asked Isabella. "She said she was
+hungry."
+
+An hour after, as she did not quit her chamber, one of her cousins went
+to seek her there. She was found sitting at the foot of the bed, her
+head resting on her hand; she looked quite pale, very thoughtful, almost
+sad.
+
+"You are not ill?" was the question put.
+
+"A little sick," replied Miss Keeldar.
+
+Certainly she was not a little changed from what she had been two hours
+before.
+
+This change, accounted for only by those three words, explained no
+otherwise; this change--whencesoever springing, effected in a brief ten
+minutes--passed like no light summer cloud. She talked when she joined
+her friends at dinner, talked as usual. She remained with them during
+the evening. When again questioned respecting her health, she declared
+herself perfectly recovered. It had been a mere passing faintness, a
+momentary sensation, not worth a thought; yet it was felt there was a
+difference in Shirley.
+
+The next day--the day, the week, the fortnight after--this new and
+peculiar shadow lingered on the countenance, in the manner of Miss
+Keeldar. A strange quietude settled over her look, her movements, her
+very voice. The alteration was not so marked as to court or permit
+frequent questioning, yet it _was_ there, and it would not pass away. It
+hung over her like a cloud which no breeze could stir or disperse. Soon
+it became evident that to notice this change was to annoy her. First she
+shrank from remark; and, if persisted in, she, with her own peculiar
+_hauteur_, repelled it. "Was she ill?" The reply came with decision.
+
+"I _am not_."
+
+"Did anything weigh on her mind? Had anything happened to affect her
+spirits?"
+
+She scornfully ridiculed the idea. "What did they mean by spirits? She
+had no spirits, black or white, blue or gray, to affect."
+
+"Something must be the matter--she was so altered."
+
+"She supposed she had a right to alter at her ease. She knew she was
+plainer. If it suited her to grow ugly, why need others fret themselves
+on the subject?"
+
+"There must be a cause for the change. What was it?"
+
+She peremptorily requested to be let alone.
+
+Then she would make every effort to appear quite gay, and she seemed
+indignant at herself that she could not perfectly succeed. Brief
+self-spurning epithets burst from her lips when alone. "Fool! coward!"
+she would term herself. "Poltroon!" she would say, "if you must tremble,
+tremble in secret! Quail where no eye sees you!"
+
+"How dare you," she would ask herself--"how dare you show your weakness
+and betray your imbecile anxieties? Shake them off; rise above them. If
+you cannot do this, hide them."
+
+And to hide them she did her best. She once more became resolutely
+lively in company. When weary of effort and forced to relax, she sought
+solitude--not the solitude of her chamber (she refused to mope, shut up
+between four walls), but that wilder solitude which lies out of doors,
+and which she could chase, mounted on Zoë, her mare. She took long rides
+of half a day. Her uncle disapproved, but he dared not remonstrate. It
+was never pleasant to face Shirley's anger, even when she was healthy
+and gay; but now that her face showed thin, and her large eye looked
+hollow, there was something in the darkening of that face and kindling
+of that eye which touched as well as alarmed.
+
+To all comparative strangers who, unconscious of the alterations in her
+spirits, commented on the alteration in her looks, she had one reply,--
+
+"I am perfectly well; I have not an ailment."
+
+And health, indeed, she must have had, to be able to bear the exposure
+to the weather she now encountered. Wet or fair, calm or storm, she took
+her daily ride over Stilbro' Moor, Tartar keeping up at her side, with
+his wolf-like gallop, long and untiring.
+
+Twice, three times, the eyes of gossips--those eyes which are
+everywhere, in the closet and on the hill-top--noticed that instead of
+turning on Rushedge, the top ridge of Stilbro' Moor, she rode forwards
+all the way to the town. Scouts were not wanting to mark her destination
+there. It was ascertained that she alighted at the door of one Mr.
+Pearson Hall, a solicitor, related to the vicar of Nunnely. This
+gentleman and his ancestors had been the agents of the Keeldar family
+for generations back. Some people affirmed that Miss Keeldar was become
+involved in business speculations connected with Hollow's Mill--that she
+had lost money, and was constrained to mortgage her land. Others
+conjectured that she was going to be married, and that the settlements
+were preparing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Moore and Henry Sympson were together in the schoolroom. The tutor
+was waiting for a lesson which the pupil seemed busy in preparing.
+
+"Henry, make haste. The afternoon is getting on."
+
+"Is it, sir?"
+
+"Certainly. Are you nearly ready with that lesson?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Not _nearly_ ready?"
+
+"I have not construed a line."
+
+Mr. Moore looked up. The boy's tone was rather peculiar.
+
+"The task presents no difficulties, Henry; or, if it does, bring them to
+me. We will work together."
+
+"Mr. Moore, I can do no work."
+
+"My boy, you are ill."
+
+"Sir, I am not worse in bodily health than usual, but my heart is full."
+
+"Shut the book. Come hither, Harry. Come to the fireside."
+
+Harry limped forward. His tutor placed him in a chair; his lips were
+quivering, his eyes brimming. He laid his crutch on the floor, bent down
+his head, and wept.
+
+"This distress is not occasioned by physical pain, you say, Harry? You
+have a grief; tell it me."
+
+"Sir, I have such a grief as I never had before. I wish it could be
+relieved in some way; I can hardly bear it."
+
+"Who knows but, if we talk it over, we may relieve it? What is the
+cause? Whom does it concern?"
+
+"The cause, sir, is Shirley; it concerns Shirley."
+
+"Does it? You think her changed?"
+
+"All who know her think her changed--you too, Mr. Moore."
+
+"Not seriously--no. I see no alteration but such as a favourable turn
+might repair in a few weeks; besides, her own word must go for
+something: she says she is well."
+
+"There it is, sir. As long as she maintained she was well, I believed
+her. When I was sad out of her sight, I soon recovered spirits in her
+presence. Now----"
+
+"Well, Harry, now. Has she said anything to you? You and she were
+together in the garden two hours this morning. I saw her talking, and
+you listening. Now, my dear Harry, if Miss Keeldar has said she is ill,
+and enjoined you to keep her secret, do not obey her. For her life's
+sake, avow everything. Speak, my boy."
+
+"_She_ say she is ill! I believe, sir, if she were dying, she would
+smile, and aver, 'Nothing ails me.'"
+
+"What have you learned then? What new circumstance?"
+
+"I have learned that she has just made her will."
+
+"Made her will?"
+
+The tutor and pupil were silent.
+
+"She told you that?" asked Moore, when some minutes had elapsed.
+
+"She told me quite cheerfully, not as an ominous circumstance, which I
+felt it to be. She said I was the only person besides her solicitor,
+Pearson Hall, and Mr. Helstone and Mr. Yorke, who knew anything about
+it; and to me, she intimated, she wished specially to explain its
+provisions."
+
+"Go on, Harry."
+
+"'Because,' she said, looking down on me with her beautiful eyes--oh!
+they _are_ beautiful, Mr. Moore! I love them! I love her! She is my
+star! Heaven must not claim her! She is lovely in this world, and fitted
+for this world. Shirley is not an angel; she is a woman, and she shall
+live with men. Seraphs shall not have her! Mr. Moore, if one of the
+'sons of God,' with wings wide and bright as the sky, blue and sounding
+as the sea, having seen that she was fair, descended to claim her, his
+claim should be withstood--withstood by me--boy and cripple as I am."
+
+"Henry Sympson, go on, when I tell you."
+
+"'Because,' she said, 'if I made no will, and died before you, Harry,
+all my property would go to you; and I do not intend that it should be
+so, though your father would like it. But you,' she said, 'will have his
+whole estate, which is large--larger than Fieldhead. Your sisters will
+have nothing; so I have left them some money, though I do not love them,
+both together, half so much as I love one lock of your fair hair.' She
+said these words, and she called me her 'darling,' and let me kiss her.
+She went on to tell me that she had left Caroline Helstone some money
+too; that this manor house, with its furniture and books, she had
+bequeathed to me, as she did not choose to take the old family place
+from her own blood; and that all the rest of her property, amounting to
+about twelve thousand pounds, exclusive of the legacies to my sisters
+and Miss Helstone, she had willed, not to me, seeing I was already rich,
+but to a good man, who would make the best use of it that any human
+being could do--a man, she said, that was both gentle and brave, strong
+and merciful--a man that might not profess to be pious, but she knew he
+had the secret of religion pure and undefiled before God. The spirit of
+love and peace was with him. He visited the fatherless and widows in
+their affliction, and kept himself unspotted from the world. Then she
+asked, 'Do you approve what I have done, Harry?' I could not answer. My
+tears choked me, as they do now."
+
+Mr. Moore allowed his pupil a moment to contend with and master his
+emotion. He then demanded, "What else did she say?"
+
+"When I had signified my full consent to the conditions of her will, she
+told me I was a generous boy, and she was proud of me. 'And now,' she
+added, 'in case anything should happen, you will know what to say to
+Malice when she comes whispering hard things in your ear, insinuating
+that Shirley has wronged you, that she did not love you. You will know
+that I _did_ love you, Harry; that no sister could have loved you
+better--my own treasure.' Mr. Moore, sir, when I remember her voice, and
+recall her look, my heart beats as if it would break its strings. She
+_may_ go to heaven before me--if God commands it, she _must_; but the
+rest of my life--and my life will not be long, I am glad of that
+now--shall be a straight, quick, thoughtful journey in the path her step
+has pressed. I thought to enter the vault of the Keeldars before her.
+Should it be otherwise, lay my coffin by Shirley's side."
+
+Moore answered him with a weighty calm, that offered a strange contrast
+to the boy's perturbed enthusiasm.
+
+"You are wrong, both of you--you harm each other. If youth once falls
+under the influence of a shadowy terror, it imagines there will never be
+full sunlight again; its first calamity it fancies will last a lifetime.
+What more did she say? Anything more?"
+
+"We settled one or two family points between ourselves."
+
+"I should rather like to know what----"
+
+"But, Mr. Moore, you smile. _I_ could not smile to see Shirley in such a
+mood."
+
+"My boy, I am neither nervous, nor poetic, nor inexperienced. I see
+things as they are; you don't as yet. Tell me these family points."
+
+"Only, sir, she asked me whether I considered myself most of a Keeldar
+or a Sympson; and I answered I was Keeldar to the core of the heart and
+to the marrow of the bones. She said she was glad of it; for, besides
+her, I was the only Keeldar left in England. And then we agreed on some
+matters."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, sir, that if I lived to inherit my father's estate, and her
+house, I was to take the name of Keeldar, and to make Fieldhead my
+residence. Henry Shirley Keeldar I said I would be called; and I will.
+Her name and her manor house are ages old, and Sympson and Sympson Grove
+are of yesterday."
+
+"Come, you are neither of you going to heaven yet. I have the best hopes
+of you both, with your proud distinctions--a pair of half-fledged
+eaglets. Now, what is your inference from all you have told me? Put it
+into words."
+
+"That Shirley thinks she is going to die."
+
+"She referred to her health?"
+
+"Not once; but I assure you she is wasting. Her hands are grown quite
+thin, and so is her cheek."
+
+"Does she ever complain to your mother or sisters?"
+
+"Never. She laughs at them when they question her. Mr. Moore, she is a
+strange being, so fair and girlish--not a man-like woman at all, not an
+Amazon, and yet lifting her head above both help and sympathy."
+
+"Do you know where she is now, Henry? Is she in the house, or riding
+out?"
+
+"Surely not out, sir. It rains fast."
+
+"True; which, however, is no guarantee that she is not at this moment
+cantering over Rushedge. Of late she has never permitted weather to be a
+hindrance to her rides."
+
+"You remember, Mr. Moore, how wet and stormy it was last Wednesday--so
+wild, indeed, that she would not permit Zoë to be saddled? Yet the blast
+she thought too tempestuous for her mare she herself faced on foot; that
+afternoon she walked nearly as far as Nunnely. I asked her, when she
+came in, if she was not afraid of taking cold. 'Not I,' she said. 'It
+would be too much good luck for me. I don't know, Harry, but the best
+thing that could happen to me would be to take a good cold and fever,
+and so pass off like other Christians.' She is reckless, you see, sir."
+
+"Reckless indeed! Go and find out where she is, and if you can get an
+opportunity of speaking to her without attracting attention, request her
+to come here a minute."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+He snatched his crutch, and started up to go.
+
+"Harry!"
+
+He returned.
+
+"Do not deliver the message formally. Word it as, in former days, you
+would have worded an ordinary summons to the schoolroom."
+
+"I see, sir. She will be more likely to obey."
+
+"And, Harry----"
+
+"Sir?"
+
+"I will call you when I want you. Till then, you are dispensed from
+lessons."
+
+He departed. Mr. Moore, left alone, rose from his desk.
+
+"I can be very cool and very supercilious with Henry," he said. "I can
+seem to make light of his apprehensions, and look down _du haut de ma
+grandeur_ on his youthful ardour. To _him_ I can speak as if, in my
+eyes, they were both children. Let me see if I can keep up the same rôle
+with her. I have known the moment when I seemed about to forget it, when
+Confusion and Submission seemed about to crush me with their soft
+tyranny, when my tongue faltered, and I have almost let the mantle drop,
+and stood in her presence, not master--no--but something else. I trust I
+shall never so play the fool. It is well for a Sir Philip Nunnely to
+redden when he meets her eye. He may permit himself the indulgence of
+submission. He may even, without disgrace, suffer his hand to tremble
+when it touches hers; but if one of her farmers were to show himself
+susceptible and sentimental, he would merely prove his need of a strait
+waistcoat. So far I have always done very well. She has sat near me, and
+I have not shaken--more than my desk. I have encountered her looks and
+smiles like--why, like a tutor, as I am. Her hand I never yet
+touched--never underwent that test. Her farmer or her footman I am
+not--no serf nor servant of hers have I ever been; but I am poor, and it
+behoves me to look to my self-respect--not to compromise an inch of it.
+What did she mean by that allusion to the cold people who petrify flesh
+to marble? It pleased me--I hardly know why; I would not permit myself
+to inquire. I never do indulge in scrutiny either of her language or
+countenance; for if I did, I should sometimes forget common sense and
+believe in romance. A strange, secret ecstasy steals through my veins at
+moments. I'll not encourage--I'll not remember it. I am resolved, as
+long as may be, to retain the right to say with Paul, 'I am not mad, but
+speak forth the words of truth and soberness.'"
+
+He paused, listening.
+
+"Will she come, or will she not come?" he inquired. "How will she take
+the message? Naïvely or disdainfully? Like a child or like a queen? Both
+characters are in her nature.
+
+"If she comes, what shall I say to her? How account, firstly, for the
+freedom of the request? Shall I apologize to her? I could in all
+humility; but would an apology tend to place us in the positions we
+ought relatively to occupy in this matter? I _must_ keep up the
+professor, otherwise---- I hear a door."
+
+He waited. Many minutes passed.
+
+"She will refuse me. Henry is entreating her to come; she declines. My
+petition is presumption in her eyes. Let her _only_ come, I can teach
+her to the contrary. I would rather she were a little perverse; it will
+steel me. I prefer her cuirassed in pride, armed with a taunt. Her scorn
+startles me from my dreams; I stand up myself. A sarcasm from her eyes
+or lips puts strength into every nerve and sinew I have. Some step
+approaches, and not Henry's."
+
+The door unclosed; Miss Keeldar came in. The message, it appeared, had
+found her at her needle; she brought her work in her hand. That day she
+had not been riding out; she had evidently passed it quietly. She wore
+her neat indoor dress and silk apron. This was no Thalestris from the
+fields, but a quiet domestic character from the fireside. Mr. Moore had
+her at advantage. He should have addressed her at once in solemn
+accents, and with rigid mien. Perhaps he would, had she looked saucy;
+but her air never showed less of _crânerie_. A soft kind of youthful
+shyness depressed her eyelid and mantled on her cheek. The tutor stood
+silent.
+
+She made a full stop between the door and his desk.
+
+"Did you want me, sir?" she asked.
+
+"I ventured, Miss Keeldar, to send for you--that is, to ask an interview
+of a few minutes."
+
+She waited; she plied her needle.
+
+"Well, sir" (not lifting her eyes), "what about?"
+
+"Be seated first. The subject I would broach is one of some moment.
+Perhaps I have hardly a right to approach it. It is possible I ought to
+frame an apology; it is possible no apology can excuse me. The liberty I
+have taken arises from a conversation with Henry. The boy is unhappy
+about your health; all your friends are unhappy on that subject. It is
+of your health I would speak."
+
+"I am quite well," she said briefly.
+
+"Yet changed."
+
+"That matters to none but myself. We all change."
+
+"Will you sit down? Formerly, Miss Keeldar, I had some influence with
+you: have I any now? May I feel that what I am saying is not accounted
+positive presumption?"
+
+"Let me read some French, Mr. Moore, or I will even take a spell at the
+Latin grammar, and let us proclaim a truce to all sanitary discussions."
+
+"No, no. It is time there were discussions."
+
+"Discuss away, then, but do not choose me for your text. I am a healthy
+subject."
+
+"Do you not think it wrong to affirm and reaffirm what is substantially
+untrue?"
+
+"I say I am well. I have neither cough, pain, nor fever."
+
+"Is there no equivocation in that assertion? Is it the direct truth?"
+
+"The direct truth."
+
+Louis Moore looked at her earnestly.
+
+"I can myself," he said, "trace no indications of actual disease. But
+why, then, are you altered?"
+
+"_Am_ I altered?"
+
+"We will try. We will seek a proof."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I ask, in the first place, do you sleep as you used to?"
+
+"I do not; but it is not because I am ill."
+
+"Have you the appetite you once had?"
+
+"No; but it is not because I am ill."
+
+"You remember this little ring fastened to my watch-chain? It was my
+mother's, and is too small to pass the joint of my little finger. You
+have many a time sportively purloined it. It fitted your fore-finger.
+Try now."
+
+She permitted the test. The ring dropped from the wasted little hand.
+Louis picked it up, and reattached it to the chain. An uneasy flush
+coloured his brow. Shirley again said, "It is not because I am ill."
+
+"Not only have you lost sleep, appetite, and flesh," proceeded Moore,
+"but your spirits are always at ebb. Besides, there is a nervous alarm
+in your eye, a nervous disquiet in your manner. These peculiarities were
+not formerly yours."
+
+"Mr. Moore, we will pause here. You have exactly hit it. I am nervous.
+Now, talk of something else. What wet weather we have--steady, pouring
+rain!"
+
+"_You_ nervous? Yes; and if Miss Keeldar is nervous, it is not without a
+cause. Let me reach it. Let me look nearer. The ailment is not physical.
+I have suspected that. It came in one moment. I know the day. I noticed
+the change. Your pain is mental."
+
+"Not at all. It is nothing so dignified--merely nervous. Oh! dismiss the
+topic."
+
+"When it is exhausted; not till then. Nervous alarms should always be
+communicated, that they may be dissipated. I wish I had the gift of
+persuasion, and could incline you to speak willingly. I believe
+confession, in your case, would be half equivalent to cure."
+
+"No," said Shirley abruptly. "I wish that were at all probable; but I am
+afraid it is not."
+
+She suspended her work a moment. She was now seated. Resting her elbow
+on the table, she leaned her head on her hand. Mr. Moore looked as if he
+felt he had at last gained some footing in this difficult path. She was
+serious, and in her wish was implied an important admission; after that
+she could no longer affirm that _nothing_ ailed her.
+
+The tutor allowed her some minutes for repose and reflection ere he
+returned to the charge. Once his lips moved to speak, but he thought
+better of it, and prolonged the pause. Shirley lifted her eye to his.
+Had he betrayed injudicious emotion, perhaps obstinate persistence in
+silence would have been the result; but he looked calm, strong,
+trustworthy.
+
+"I had better tell _you_ than my aunt," she said, "or than my cousins,
+or my uncle. They would all make such a bustle, and it is that very
+bustle I dread--the alarm, the flurry, the _éclat_. In short, I never
+liked to be the centre of a small domestic whirlpool. You can bear a
+little shock--eh?"
+
+"A great one, if necessary."
+
+Not a muscle of the man's frame moved, and yet his large heart beat fast
+in his deep chest. What was she going to tell him? Was irremediable
+mischief done?
+
+"Had I thought it right to go to you, I would never have made a secret
+of the matter one moment," she continued. "I would have told you at
+once, and asked advice."
+
+"Why was it not right to come to me?"
+
+"It might be _right_--I do not mean that; but I could not do it. I
+seemed to have no title to trouble you. The mishap concerned me only. I
+wanted to keep it to myself, and people will not let me. I tell you, I
+hate to be an object of worrying attention, or a theme for village
+gossip. Besides, it may pass away without result--God knows!"
+
+Moore, though tortured with suspense, did not demand a quick
+explanation. He suffered neither gesture, glance, nor word to betray
+impatience. His tranquillity tranquillized Shirley; his confidence
+reassured her.
+
+"Great effects may spring from trivial causes," she remarked, as she
+loosened a bracelet from her wrist. Then, unfastening her sleeve, and
+partially turning it up, "Look here, Mr. Moore."
+
+She showed a mark in her white arm--rather a deep though healed-up
+indentation--something between a burn and a cut.
+
+"I would not show that to any one in Briarfield but you, because you can
+take it quietly."
+
+"Certainly there is nothing in the little mark to shock. Its history
+will explain."
+
+"Small as it is, it has taken my sleep away, and made me nervous, thin,
+and foolish; because, on account of that little mark, I am obliged to
+look forward to a possibility that has its terrors."
+
+The sleeve was readjusted, the bracelet replaced.
+
+"Do you know that you try me?" he said, smiling. "I am a patient sort of
+man, but my pulse is quickening."
+
+"Whatever happens, you will befriend me, Mr. Moore? You will give me the
+benefit of your self-possession, and not leave me at the mercy of
+agitated cowards?"
+
+"I make no promise now. Tell me the tale, and then exact what pledge you
+will."
+
+"It is a very short tale. I took a walk with Isabella and Gertrude one
+day, about three weeks ago. They reached home before me; I stayed behind
+to speak to John. After leaving him, I pleased myself with lingering in
+the lane, where all was very still and shady. I was tired of chattering
+to the girls, and in no hurry to rejoin them. As I stood leaning against
+the gate-pillar, thinking some very happy thoughts about my future
+life--for that morning I imagined that events were beginning to turn as
+I had long wished them to turn----"
+
+"Ah! Nunnely had been with her the evening before!" thought Moore
+parenthetically.
+
+"I heard a panting sound; a dog came running up the lane. I know most of
+the dogs in this neighbourhood. It was Phoebe, one of Mr. Sam Wynne's
+pointers. The poor creature ran with her head down, her tongue hanging
+out; she looked as if bruised and beaten all over. I called her. I meant
+to coax her into the house and give her some water and dinner. I felt
+sure she had been ill-used. Mr. Sam often flogs his pointers cruelly.
+She was too flurried to know me; and when I attempted to pat her head,
+she turned and snatched at my arm. She bit it so as to draw blood, then
+ran panting on. Directly after, Mr. Wynne's keeper came up, carrying a
+gun. He asked if I had seen a dog. I told him I had seen Phoebe.
+
+"'You had better chain up Tartar, ma'am,' he said, 'and tell your people
+to keep within the house. I am after Phoebe to shoot her, and the groom
+is gone another way. She is raging mad.'"
+
+Mr. Moore leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.
+Miss Keeldar resumed her square of silk canvas, and continued the
+creation of a wreath of Parmese violets.
+
+"And you told no one, sought no help, no cure? You would not come to
+me?"
+
+"I got as far as the schoolroom door; there my courage failed. I
+preferred to cushion the matter."
+
+"Why? What can I demand better in this world than to be of use to you?"
+
+"I had no claim."
+
+"Monstrous! And you did nothing?"
+
+"Yes. I walked straight into the laundry, where they are ironing most of
+the week, now that I have so many guests in the house. While the maid
+was busy crimping or starching, I took an Italian iron from the fire,
+and applied the light scarlet glowing tip to my arm. I bored it well
+in. It cauterized the little wound. Then I went upstairs."
+
+"I dare say you never once groaned?"
+
+"I am sure I don't know. I was very miserable--not firm or tranquil at
+all, I think. There was no calm in my mind."
+
+"There was calm in your person. I remember listening the whole time we
+sat at luncheon, to hear if you moved in the room above. All was quiet."
+
+"I was sitting at the foot of the bed, wishing Phoebe had not bitten
+me."
+
+"And alone. You like solitude."
+
+"Pardon me."
+
+"You disdain sympathy."
+
+"Do I, Mr. Moore?"
+
+"With your powerful mind you must feel independent of help, of advice,
+of society."
+
+"So be it, since it pleases you."
+
+She smiled. She pursued her embroidery carefully and quickly, but her
+eyelash twinkled, and then it glittered, and then a drop fell.
+
+Mr. Moore leaned forward on his desk, moved his chair, altered his
+attitude.
+
+"If it is not so," he asked, with a peculiar, mellow change in his
+voice, "how is it, then?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You do know, but you won't speak. All must be locked up in yourself."
+
+"Because it is not worth sharing."
+
+"Because nobody can give the high price you require for your confidence.
+Nobody is rich enough to purchase it. Nobody has the honour, the
+intellect, the power you demand in your adviser. There is not a shoulder
+in England on which you would rest your hand for support, far less a
+bosom which you would permit to pillow your head. Of course you must
+live alone."
+
+"I _can_ live alone, if need be. But the question is not how to live,
+but how to die alone. That strikes me in a more grisly light."
+
+"You apprehend the effects of the virus? You anticipate an indefinitely
+threatening, dreadful doom?"
+
+She bowed.
+
+"You are very nervous and womanish."
+
+"You complimented me two minutes since on my powerful mind."
+
+"You are very womanish. If the whole affair were coolly examined and
+discussed, I feel assured it would turn out that there is no danger of
+your dying at all."
+
+"Amen! I am very willing to live, if it please God. I have felt life
+sweet."
+
+"How can it be otherwise than sweet with your endowments and nature? Do
+you truly expect that you will be seized with hydrophobia, and die
+raving mad?"
+
+"I _expect_ it, and have _feared_ it. Just now I fear nothing."
+
+"Nor do I, on your account. I doubt whether the smallest particle of
+virus mingled with your blood; and if it did, let me assure you that,
+young, healthy, faultlessly sound as you are, no harm will ensue. For
+the rest, I shall inquire whether the dog was really mad. I hold she was
+not mad."
+
+"Tell nobody that she bit me."
+
+"Why should I, when I believe the bite innocuous as a cut of this
+penknife? Make yourself easy. _I_ am easy, though I value your life as
+much as I do my own chance of happiness in eternity. Look up."
+
+"Why, Mr. Moore?"
+
+"I wish to see if you are cheered. Put your work down; raise your head."
+
+"There----"
+
+"Look at me. Thank you. And is the cloud broken?"
+
+"I fear nothing."
+
+"Is your mind restored to its own natural sunny clime?"
+
+"I am very content; but I want your promise."
+
+"Dictate."
+
+"You know, in case the worst I _have_ feared should happen, they will
+smother me. You need not smile. They will; they always do. My uncle will
+be full of horror, weakness, precipitation; and that is the only
+expedient which will suggest itself to him. Nobody in the house will be
+self-possessed but you. Now promise to befriend me--to keep Mr. Sympson
+away from me, not to let Henry come near, lest I should hurt him.
+Mind--_mind_ that you take care of yourself too. But I shall not injure
+you; I know I shall not. Lock the chamber door against the surgeons;
+turn them out if they get in. Let neither the young nor the old MacTurk
+lay a finger on me; nor Mr. Greaves, their colleague; and lastly, if I
+give trouble, with your own hand administer to me a strong
+narcotic--such a sure dose of laudanum as shall leave no mistake.
+_Promise to do this._"
+
+Moore left his desk, and permitted himself the recreation of one or two
+turns through the room. Stopping behind Shirley's chair, he bent over
+her, and said, in a low, emphatic voice, "I promise all you ask--without
+comment, without reservation."
+
+"If female help is needed, call in my housekeeper, Mrs. Gill. Let her
+lay me out if I die. She is attached to me. She wronged me again and
+again, and again and again I forgave her. She now loves me, and would
+not defraud me of a pin. Confidence has made her honest; forbearance has
+made her kind-hearted. At this day I can trust both her integrity, her
+courage, and her affection. Call her; but keep my good aunt and my timid
+cousins away. Once more, promise."
+
+"I promise."
+
+"That is good in you," she said, looking up at him as he bent over her,
+and smiling.
+
+"Is it good? Does it comfort?"
+
+"Very much."
+
+"I will be with you--I and Mrs. Gill only--in any, in every extremity
+where calm and fidelity are needed. No rash or coward hand shall
+meddle."
+
+"Yet you think me childish?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Ah! you despise me."
+
+"Do we despise children?"
+
+"In fact, I am neither so strong, nor have I such pride in my strength,
+as people think, Mr. Moore; nor am I so regardless of sympathy. But when
+I have any grief, I fear to impart it to those I love, lest it should
+pain them; and to those whom I view with indifference I cannot
+condescend to complain. After all, you should not taunt me with being
+childish, for if you were as unhappy as I have been for the last three
+weeks, you too would want some friend."
+
+"We all want a friend, do we not?"
+
+"All of us that have anything good in our natures."
+
+"Well, you have Caroline Helstone."
+
+"Yes. And you have Mr. Hall."
+
+"Yes. Mrs. Pryor is a wise, good woman. She can counsel you when you
+need counsel."
+
+"For your part, you have your brother Robert."
+
+"For any right-hand defections, there is the Rev. Matthewson Helstone,
+M.A., to lean upon; for any left-hand fallings-off there is Hiram Yorke,
+Esq. Both elders pay you homage."
+
+"I never saw Mrs. Yorke so motherly to any young man as she is to you. I
+don't know how you have won her heart, but she is more tender to you
+than she is to her own sons. You have, besides, your sister Hortense."
+
+"It appears we are both well provided."
+
+"It appears so."
+
+"How thankful we ought to be!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How contented!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For my part, I am almost contented just now, and very thankful.
+Gratitude is a divine emotion. It fills the heart, but not to bursting;
+it warms it, but not to fever. I like to taste leisurely of bliss.
+Devoured in haste, I do not know its flavour."
+
+Still leaning on the back of Miss Keeldar's chair, Moore watched the
+rapid motion of her fingers, as the green and purple garland grew
+beneath them. After a prolonged pause, he again asked, "Is the shadow
+_quite_ gone?"
+
+"Wholly. As I _was_ two hours since, and as I _am_ now, are two
+different states of existence. I believe, Mr. Moore, griefs and fears
+nursed in silence grow like Titan infants."
+
+"You will cherish such feelings no more in silence?"
+
+"Not if I dare speak."
+
+"In using the word '_dare_,' to whom do you allude?"
+
+"To you."
+
+"How is it applicable to me?"
+
+"On account of your austerity and shyness."
+
+"Why am I austere and shy?"
+
+"Because you are proud."
+
+"Why am I proud?"
+
+"I should like to know. Will you be good enough to tell me?"
+
+"Perhaps, because I am poor, for one reason. Poverty and pride often go
+together."
+
+"That is such a nice reason. I should be charmed to discover another
+that would pair with it. Mate that turtle, Mr. Moore."
+
+"Immediately. What do you think of marrying to sober Poverty many-tinted
+Caprice?"
+
+"Are you capricious?"
+
+"_You_ are."
+
+"A libel. I am steady as a rock, fixed as the polar star."
+
+"I look out at some early hour of the day, and see a fine, perfect
+rainbow, bright with promise, gloriously spanning the beclouded welkin
+of life. An hour afterwards I look again: half the arch is gone, and the
+rest is faded. Still later, the stern sky denies that it ever wore so
+benign a symbol of hope."
+
+"Well, Mr. Moore, you should contend against these changeful humours.
+They are your besetting sin. One never knows where to have you."
+
+"Miss Keeldar, I had once, for two years, a pupil who grew very dear to
+me. Henry is dear, but she was dearer. Henry never gives me trouble;
+she--well, she did. I think she vexed me twenty-three hours out of the
+twenty-four----"
+
+"She was never with you above three hours, or at the most six at a
+time."
+
+"She sometimes spilled the draught from my cup, and stole the food from
+my plate; and when she had kept me unfed for a day (and that did not
+suit me, for I am a man accustomed to take my meals with reasonable
+relish, and to ascribe due importance to the rational enjoyment of
+creature comforts)----"
+
+"I know you do. I can tell what sort of dinners you like best--perfectly
+well. I know precisely the dishes you prefer----"
+
+"She robbed these dishes of flavour, and made a fool of me besides. I
+like to sleep well. In my quiet days, when I was my own man, I never
+quarrelled with the night for being long, nor cursed my bed for its
+thorns. She changed all this."
+
+"Mr. Moore----"
+
+"And having taken from me peace of mind and ease of life, she took from
+me herself--quite coolly, just as if, when she was gone, the world would
+be all the same to me. I knew I should see her again at some time. At
+the end of two years, it fell out that we encountered again under her
+own roof, where she was mistress. How do you think she bore herself
+towards me, Miss Keeldar?"
+
+"Like one who had profited well by lessons learned from yourself."
+
+"She received me haughtily. She meted out a wide space between us, and
+kept me aloof by the reserved gesture, the rare and alienated glance,
+the word calmly civil."
+
+"She was an excellent pupil! Having seen you distant, she at once
+learned to withdraw. Pray, sir, admire in her _hauteur_ a careful
+improvement on your own coolness."
+
+"Conscience, and honour, and the most despotic necessity dragged me
+apart from her, and kept me sundered with ponderous fetters. She was
+free: she might have been clement."
+
+"Never free to compromise her self-respect, to seek where she had been
+shunned."
+
+"Then she was inconsistent; she tantalized as before. When I thought I
+had made up my mind to seeing in her only a lofty stranger, she would
+suddenly show me such a glimpse of loving simplicity--she would warm me
+with such a beam of reviving sympathy, she would gladden an hour with
+converse so gentle, gay, and kindly--that I could no more shut my heart
+on her image than I could close that door against her presence. Explain
+why she distressed me so."
+
+"She could not bear to be quite outcast; and then she would sometimes
+get a notion into her head, on a cold, wet day, that the schoolroom was
+no cheerful place, and feel it incumbent on her to go and see if you and
+Henry kept up a good fire; and once there, she liked to stay."
+
+"But she should not be changeful. If she came at all, she should come
+oftener."
+
+"There is such a thing as intrusion."
+
+"To-morrow you will not be as you are to-day."
+
+"I don't know. Will you?"
+
+"I am not mad, most noble Berenice! We may give one day to dreaming, but
+the next we must awake; and I shall awake to purpose the morning you are
+married to Sir Philip Nunnely. The fire shines on you and me, and shows
+us very clearly in the glass, Miss Keeldar; and I have been gazing on
+the picture all the time I have been talking. Look up! What a difference
+between your head and mine! I look old for thirty!"
+
+"You are so grave; you have such a square brow; and your face is sallow.
+I never regard you as a young man, nor as Robert's junior."
+
+"Don't you? I thought not. Imagine Robert's clear-cut, handsome face
+looking over my shoulder. Does not the apparition make vividly manifest
+the obtuse mould of my heavy traits? There!" (he started), "I have been
+expecting that wire to vibrate this last half-hour."
+
+The dinner-bell rang, and Shirley rose.
+
+"Mr. Moore," she said, as she gathered up her silks, "have you heard
+from your brother lately? Do you know what he means by staying in town
+so long? Does he talk of returning?"
+
+"He talks of returning; but what has caused his long absence I cannot
+tell. To speak the truth, I thought none in Yorkshire knew better than
+yourself why he was reluctant to come home."
+
+A crimson shadow passed across Miss Keeldar's cheek.
+
+"Write to him and urge him to come," she said. "I know there has been no
+impolicy in protracting his absence thus far. It is good to let the mill
+stand, while trade is so bad; but he must not abandon the county."
+
+"I am aware," said Louis, "that he had an interview with you the evening
+before he left, and I saw him quit Fieldhead afterwards. I read his
+countenance, or _tried_ to read it. He turned from me. I divined that he
+would be long away. Some fine, slight fingers have a wondrous knack at
+pulverizing a man's brittle pride. I suppose Robert put too much trust
+in his manly beauty and native gentlemanhood. Those are better off who,
+being destitute of advantage, cannot cherish delusion. But I will write,
+and say you advise his return."
+
+"Do not say _I_ advise his return, but that his return is advisable."
+
+The second bell rang, and Miss Keeldar obeyed its call.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+LOUIS MOORE.
+
+
+Louis Moore was used to a quiet life. Being a quiet man, he endured it
+better than most men would. Having a large world of his own in his own
+head and heart, he tolerated confinement to a small, still corner of the
+real world very patiently.
+
+How hushed is Fieldhead this evening! All but Moore--Miss Keeldar, the
+whole family of the Sympsons, even Henry--are gone to Nunnely. Sir
+Philip would have them come; he wished to make them acquainted with his
+mother and sisters, who are now at the priory. Kind gentleman as the
+baronet is, he asked the tutor too; but the tutor would much sooner have
+made an appointment with the ghost of the Earl of Huntingdon to meet
+him, and a shadowy ring of his merry men, under the canopy of the
+thickest, blackest, oldest oak in Nunnely Forest. Yes, he would rather
+have appointed tryst with a phantom abbess, or mist-pale nun, among the
+wet and weedy relics of that ruined sanctuary of theirs, mouldering in
+the core of the wood. Louis Moore longs to have something near him
+to-night; but not the boy-baronet, nor his benevolent but stern mother,
+nor his patrician sisters, nor one soul of the Sympsons.
+
+This night is not calm; the equinox still struggles in its storms. The
+wild rains of the day are abated; the great single cloud disparts and
+rolls away from heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all sapphire, but
+tossed buoyant before a continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight
+tempest. The moon reigns glorious, glad of the gale, as glad as if she
+gave herself to his fierce caress with love. No Endymion will watch for
+his goddess to-night. There are no flocks out on the mountains; and it
+is well, for to-night she welcomes Æolus.
+
+Moore, sitting in the schoolroom, heard the storm roar round the other
+gable and along the hall-front. This end was sheltered. He wanted no
+shelter; he desired no subdued sounds or screened position.
+
+"All the parlours are empty," said he. "I am sick at heart of this
+cell."
+
+He left it, and went where the casements, larger and freer than the
+branch-screened lattice of his own apartment, admitted unimpeded the
+dark-blue, the silver-fleeced, the stirring and sweeping vision of the
+autumn night-sky. He carried no candle; unneeded was lamp or fire. The
+broad and clear though cloud-crossed and fluctuating beam of the moon
+shone on every floor and wall.
+
+Moore wanders through all the rooms. He seems following a phantom from
+parlour to parlour. In the oak room he stops. This is not chill, and
+polished, and fireless like the _salon_. The hearth is hot and ruddy;
+the cinders tinkle in the intense heat of their clear glow; near the rug
+is a little work-table, a desk upon it, a chair near it.
+
+Does the vision Moore has tracked occupy that chair? You would think so,
+could you see him standing before it. There is as much interest now in
+his eye, and as much significance in his face, as if in this household
+solitude he had found a living companion, and was going to speak to it.
+
+He makes discoveries. A bag--a small satin bag--hangs on the chair-back.
+The desk is open, the keys are in the lock. A pretty seal, a silver pen,
+a crimson berry or two of ripe fruit on a green leaf, a small, clean,
+delicate glove--these trifles at once decorate and disarrange the stand
+they strew. Order forbids details in a picture--she puts them tidily
+away; but details give charm.
+
+Moore spoke.
+
+"Her mark," he said. "Here she has been--careless, attractive
+thing!--called away in haste, doubtless, and forgetting to return and
+put all to rights. Why does she leave fascination in her footprints?
+Whence did she acquire the gift to be heedless and never offend? There
+is always something to chide in her, and the reprimand never settles in
+displeasure on the heart, but, for her lover or her husband, when it had
+trickled a while in words, would naturally melt from his lips in a kiss.
+Better pass half an hour in remonstrating with her than a day in
+admiring or praising any other woman alive. Am I muttering?
+soliloquizing? Stop that."
+
+He did stop it. He stood thinking, and then he made an arrangement for
+his evening's comfort.
+
+He dropped the curtains over the broad window and regal moon. He shut
+out sovereign and court and starry armies; he added fuel to the hot but
+fast-wasting fire; he lit a candle, of which there were a pair on the
+table; he placed another chair opposite that near the workstand; and
+then he sat down. His next movement was to take from his pocket a small,
+thick book of blank paper, to produce a pencil, and to begin to write in
+a cramp, compact hand. Come near, by all means, reader. Do not be shy.
+Stoop over his shoulder fearlessly, and read as he scribbles.
+
+"It is nine o'clock; the carriage will not return before eleven, I am
+certain. Freedom is mine till then; till then I may occupy her room, sit
+opposite her chair, rest my elbow on her table, have her little
+mementoes about me.
+
+"I used rather to like Solitude--to fancy her a somewhat quiet and
+serious, yet fair nymph; an Oread, descending to me from lone
+mountain-passes, something of the blue mist of hills in her array and of
+their chill breeze in her breath, but much also of their solemn beauty
+in her mien. I once could court her serenely, and imagine my heart
+easier when I held her to it--all mute, but majestic.
+
+"Since that day I called S. to me in the schoolroom, and she came and
+sat so near my side; since she opened the trouble of her mind to me,
+asked my protection, appealed to my strength--since that hour I abhor
+Solitude. Cold abstraction, fleshless skeleton, daughter, mother, and
+mate of Death!
+
+"It is pleasant to write about what is near and dear as the core of my
+heart. None can deprive me of this little book, and through this pencil
+I can say to it what I will--say what I dare utter to nothing
+living--say what I dare not _think_ aloud.
+
+"We have scarcely encountered each other since that evening. Once, when
+I was alone in the drawing-room, seeking a book of Henry's, she entered,
+dressed for a concert at Stilbro'. Shyness--_her_ shyness, not
+mine--drew a silver veil between us. Much cant have I heard and read
+about 'maiden modesty,' but, properly used, and not hackneyed, the words
+are good and appropriate words. As she passed to the window, after
+tacitly but gracefully recognizing me, I could call her nothing in my
+own mind save 'stainless virgin.' To my perception, a delicate
+splendour robed her, and the modesty of girlhood was her halo. I may be
+the most fatuous, as I am one of the plainest, of men, but in truth that
+shyness of hers touched me exquisitely; it flattered my finest
+sensations. I looked a stupid block, I dare say. I was alive with a life
+of Paradise, as she turned _her_ glance from _my_ glance, and softly
+averted her head to hide the suffusion of her cheek.
+
+"I know this is the talk of a dreamer--of a rapt, romantic lunatic. I
+_do_ dream. I _will_ dream now and then; and if she has inspired romance
+into my prosaic composition, how can I help it?
+
+"What a child she is sometimes! What an unsophisticated, untaught thing!
+I see her now looking up into my face, and entreating me to prevent them
+from smothering her, and to be sure and give her a strong narcotic. I
+see her confessing that she was not so self-sufficing, so independent of
+sympathy, as people thought. I see the secret tear drop quietly from her
+eyelash. She said I thought her childish, and I did. She imagined I
+despised her. Despised her! It was unutterably sweet to feel myself at
+once near her and above her--to be conscious of a natural right and
+power to sustain her, as a husband should sustain his wife.
+
+"I worship her perfections; but it is her faults, or at least her
+foibles, that bring her near to me, that nestle her to my heart, that
+fold her about with my love, and that for a most selfish but
+deeply-natural reason. These faults are the steps by which I mount to
+ascendency over her. If she rose a trimmed, artificial mound, without
+inequality, what vantage would she offer the foot? It is the natural
+hill, with its mossy breaks and hollows, whose slope invites ascent,
+whose summit it is pleasure to gain.
+
+"To leave metaphor. It delights my eye to look on her. She suits me. If
+I were a king and she the housemaid that swept my palace-stairs, across
+all that space between us my eye would recognize her qualities; a true
+pulse would beat for her in my heart, though an unspanned gulf made
+acquaintance impossible. If I were a gentleman, and she waited on me as
+a servant, I could not help liking that Shirley. Take from her her
+education; take her ornaments, her sumptuous dress, all extrinsic
+advantages; take all grace, but such as the symmetry of her form renders
+inevitable; present her to me at a cottage door, in a stuff gown; let
+her offer me there a draught of water, with that smile, with that warm
+good-will with which she now dispenses manorial hospitality--I should
+like her. I should wish to stay an hour; I should linger to talk with
+that rustic. I should not feel as I _now_ do; I should find in her
+nothing divine; but whenever I met the young peasant, it would be with
+pleasure; whenever I left her, it would be with regret.
+
+"How culpably careless in her to leave her desk open, where I know she
+has money! In the lock hang the keys of all her repositories, of her
+very jewel-casket. There is a purse in that little satin bag; I see the
+tassel of silver beads hanging out. That spectacle would provoke my
+brother Robert. All her little failings would, I know, be a source of
+irritation to him. If they vex me it is a most pleasurable vexation. I
+delight to find her at fault; and were I always resident with her, I am
+aware she would be no niggard in thus ministering to my enjoyment. She
+would just give me something to do, to rectify--a theme for my tutor
+lectures. I never lecture Henry, never feel disposed to do so. If he
+does wrong--and that is very seldom, dear, excellent lad!--a word
+suffices. Often I do no more than shake my head. But the moment her
+_minois mutin_ meets my eye, expostulatory words crowd to my lips. From
+a taciturn man I believe she would transform me into a talker. Whence
+comes the delight I take in that talk? It puzzles myself sometimes. The
+more _crâne, malin, taquin_ is her mood, consequently the clearer
+occasion she gives me for disapprobation, the more I seek her, the
+better I like her. She is never wilder than when equipped in her habit
+and hat, never less manageable than when she and Zoë come in fiery from
+a race with the wind on the hills; and I confess it--to this mute page I
+may confess it--I have waited an hour in the court for the chance of
+witnessing her return, and for the dearer chance of receiving her in my
+arms from the saddle. I have noticed (again it is to this page only I
+would make the remark) that she will never permit any man but myself to
+render her that assistance. I have seen her politely decline Sir Philip
+Nunnely's aid. She is always mighty gentle with her young baronet,
+mighty tender for his feelings, forsooth, and of his very thin-skinned
+_amour propre_. I have marked her haughtily reject Sam Wynne's. Now I
+know--my heart knows it, for it has felt it--that she resigns herself to
+me unreluctantly. Is she conscious how my strength rejoices to serve
+her? I myself am not her slave--I declare it--but my faculties gather
+to her beauty, like the genii to the glisten of the lamp. All my
+knowledge, all my prudence, all my calm, and all my power stand in her
+presence humbly waiting a task. How glad they are when a mandate comes!
+What joy they take in the toils she assigns! Does she know it?
+
+"I have called her careless. It is remarkable that her carelessness
+never compromises her refinement. Indeed, through this very loophole of
+character, the reality, depth, genuineness of that refinement may be
+ascertained. A whole garment sometimes covers meagreness and
+malformation; through a rent sleeve a fair round arm may be revealed. I
+have seen and handled many of her possessions, because they are
+frequently astray. I never saw anything that did not proclaim the
+lady--nothing sordid, nothing soiled. In one sense she is as scrupulous
+as, in another, she is unthinking. As a peasant girl, she would go ever
+trim and cleanly. Look at the pure kid of this little glove, at the
+fresh, unsullied satin of the bag.
+
+"What a difference there is between S. and that pearl C. H.! Caroline, I
+fancy, is the soul of conscientious punctuality and nice exactitude. She
+would precisely suit the domestic habits of a certain fastidious kinsman
+of mine--so delicate, dexterous, quaint, quick, quiet--all done to a
+minute, all arranged to a strawbreadth. She would suit Robert. But what
+could _I_ do with anything so nearly faultless? _She_ is my equal, poor
+as myself. She is certainly pretty: a little Raffaelle head
+hers--Raffaelle in feature, quite English in expression, all insular
+grace and purity; but where is there anything to alter, anything to
+endure, anything to reprimand, to be anxious about? There she is, a lily
+of the valley, untinted, needing no tint. What change could improve her?
+What pencil dare to paint? _My_ sweetheart, if I ever have one, must
+bear nearer affinity to the rose--a sweet, lively delight guarded with
+prickly peril. _My_ wife, if I ever marry, must stir my great frame with
+a sting now and then; she must furnish use to her husband's vast mass of
+patience. I was not made so enduring to be mated with a lamb; I should
+find more congenial responsibility in the charge of a young lioness or
+leopardess. I like few things sweet but what are likewise pungent--few
+things bright but what are likewise hot. I like the summer day, whose
+sun makes fruit blush and corn blanch. Beauty is never so beautiful as
+when, if I tease it, it wreathes back on me with spirit. Fascination is
+never so imperial as when, roused and half ireful, she threatens
+transformation to fierceness. I fear I should tire of the mute,
+monotonous innocence of the lamb; I should ere long feel as burdensome
+the nestling dove which never stirred in my bosom; but my patience would
+exult in stilling the flutterings and training the energies of the
+restless merlin. In managing the wild instincts of the scarce manageable
+_bête fauve_ my powers would revel.
+
+"O my pupil! O Peri! too mutinous for heaven, too innocent for hell,
+never shall I do more than see, and worship, and wish for thee. Alas!
+knowing I could make thee happy, will it be my doom to see thee
+possessed by those who have not that power?
+
+"However kindly the hand, if it is feeble, it cannot bend Shirley; and
+she must be bent. It cannot curb her; and she must be curbed.
+
+"Beware, Sir Philip Nunnely! I never see you walking or sitting at her
+side, and observe her lips compressed, or her brow knit, in resolute
+endurance of some trait of your character which she neither admires nor
+likes, in determined toleration of some weakness she believes atoned for
+by a virtue, but which annoys her despite that belief; I never mark the
+grave glow of her face, the unsmiling sparkle of her eye, the slight
+recoil of her whole frame when you draw a little too near, and gaze a
+little too expressively, and whisper a little too warmly--I never
+witness these things but I think of the fable of Semele reversed.
+
+"It is not the daughter of Cadmus I see, nor do I realize her fatal
+longing to look on Jove in the majesty of his god-head. It is a priest
+of Juno that stands before me, watching late and lone at a shrine in an
+Argive temple. For years of solitary ministry he has lived on dreams.
+There is divine madness upon him. He loves the idol he serves, and prays
+day and night that his frenzy may be fed, and that the Ox-eyed may smile
+on her votary. She has heard; she will be propitious. All Argos
+slumbers. The doors of the temple are shut; the priest waits at the
+altar.
+
+"A shock of heaven and earth is felt--not by the slumbering city, only
+by that lonely watcher, brave and unshaken in his fanaticism. In the
+midst of silence, with no preluding sound, he is wrapped in sudden
+light. Through the roof, through the rent, wide-yawning, vast,
+white-blazing blue of heaven above, pours a wondrous descent, dread as
+the downrushing of stars. He has what he asked. Withdraw--forbear to
+look--I am blinded. I hear in that fane an unspeakable sound. Would that
+I could not hear it! I see an insufferable glory burning terribly
+between the pillars. Gods be merciful and quench it!
+
+"A pious Argive enters to make an early offering in the cool dawn of
+morning. There was thunder in the night; the bolt fell here. The shrine
+is shivered, the marble pavement round split and blackened. Saturnia's
+statue rises chaste, grand, untouched; at her feet piled ashes lie pale.
+No priest remains; he who watched will be seen no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There is the carriage! Let me lock up the desk and pocket the keys. She
+will be seeking them to-morrow; she will have to come to me. I hear her:
+'Mr. Moore, have you seen my keys?'
+
+"So she will say, in her clear voice, speaking with reluctance, looking
+ashamed, conscious that this is the twentieth time of asking. I will
+tantalize her, keep her with me, expecting, doubting; and when I _do_
+restore them, it shall not be without a lecture. Here is the bag, too,
+and the purse; the glove--pen--seal. She shall wring them all out of me
+slowly and separately--only by confession, penitence, entreaty. I never
+can touch her hand, or a ringlet of her head, or a ribbon of her dress,
+but I will make privileges for myself. Every feature of her face, her
+bright eyes, her lips, shall go through each change they know, for my
+pleasure--display each exquisite variety of glance and curve, to
+delight, thrill, perhaps more hopelessly to enchain me. If I must be her
+slave, I will not lose my freedom for nothing."
+
+He locked the desk, pocketed all the property, and went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+RUSHEDGE--A CONFESSIONAL.
+
+
+Everybody said it was high time for Mr. Moore to return home. All
+Briarfield wondered at his strange absence, and Whinbury and Nunnely
+brought each its separate contribution of amazement.
+
+Was it known why he stayed away? Yes. It was known twenty--forty times
+over, there being at least forty plausible reasons adduced to account
+for the unaccountable circumstance. Business it was not--_that_ the
+gossips agreed. He had achieved the business on which he departed long
+ago. His four ringleaders he had soon scented out and run down. He had
+attended their trial, heard their conviction and sentence, and seen them
+safely shipped prior to transportation.
+
+This was known at Briarfield. The newspapers had reported it. The
+_Stilbro' Courier_ had given every particular, with amplifications. None
+applauded his perseverance or hailed his success, though the mill-owners
+were glad of it, trusting that the terrors of law vindicated would
+henceforward paralyze the sinister valour of disaffection. Disaffection,
+however, was still heard muttering to himself. He swore ominous oaths
+over the drugged beer of alehouses, and drank strange toasts in fiery
+British gin.
+
+One report affirmed that Moore _dared_ not come to Yorkshire; he knew
+his life was not worth an hour's purchase if he did.
+
+"I'll tell him that," said Mr. Yorke, when his foreman mentioned the
+rumour; "and if _that_ does not bring him home full gallop, nothing
+will."
+
+Either that or some other motive prevailed at last to recall him. He
+announced to Joe Scott the day he should arrive at Stilbro', desiring
+his hackney to be sent to the George for his accommodation; and Joe
+Scott having informed Mr. Yorke, that gentleman made it in his way to
+meet him.
+
+It was market-day. Moore arrived in time to take his usual place at the
+market dinner. As something of a stranger, and as a man of note and
+action, the assembled manufacturers received him with a certain
+distinction. Some, who in public would scarcely have dared to
+acknowledge his acquaintance, lest a little of the hate and vengeance
+laid up in store for him should perchance have fallen on them, in
+private hailed him as in some sort their champion. When the wine had
+circulated, their respect would have kindled to enthusiasm had not
+Moore's unshaken nonchalance held it in a damp, low, smouldering state.
+
+Mr. Yorke, the permanent president of these dinners, witnessed his young
+friend's bearing with exceeding complacency. If one thing could stir his
+temper or excite his contempt more than another, it was to see a man
+befooled by flattery or elate with popularity. If one thing smoothed,
+soothed, and charmed him especially, it was the spectacle of a public
+character incapable of relishing his publicity--_incapable_, I say.
+Disdain would but have incensed; it was indifference that appeased his
+rough spirit.
+
+Robert, leaning back in his chair, quiet and almost surly, while the
+clothiers and blanket-makers vaunted his prowess and rehearsed his
+deeds--many of them interspersing their flatteries with coarse
+invectives against the operative class--was a delectable sight for Mr.
+Yorke. His heart tingled with the pleasing conviction that these gross
+eulogiums shamed Moore deeply, and made him half scorn himself and his
+work. On abuse, on reproach, on calumny, it is easy to smile; but
+painful indeed is the panegyric of those we contemn. Often had Moore
+gazed with a brilliant countenance over howling crowds from a hostile
+hustings. He had breasted the storm of unpopularity with gallant bearing
+and soul elate; but he drooped his head under the half-bred tradesmen's
+praise, and shrank chagrined before their congratulations.
+
+Yorke could not help asking him how he liked his supporters, and whether
+he did not think they did honour to his cause. "But it is a pity, lad,"
+he added, "that you did not hang these four samples of the unwashed. If
+you had managed _that_ feat, the gentry here would have riven the horses
+out of the coach, yoked to a score of asses, and drawn you into Stilbro'
+like a conquering general."
+
+Moore soon forsook the wine, broke from the party, and took the road.
+In less than five minutes Mr. Yorke followed him. They rode out of
+Stilbro' together.
+
+It was early to go home, but yet it was late in the day. The last ray of
+the sun had already faded from the cloud-edges, and the October night
+was casting over the moorlands the shadow of her approach.
+
+Mr. Yorke, moderately exhilarated with his moderate libations, and not
+displeased to see young Moore again in Yorkshire, and to have him for
+his comrade during the long ride home, took the discourse much to
+himself. He touched briefly, but scoffingly, on the trials and the
+conviction; he passed thence to the gossip of the neighbourhood, and ere
+long he attacked Moore on his own personal concerns.
+
+"Bob, I believe you are worsted, and you deserve it. All was smooth.
+Fortune had fallen in love with you. She had decreed you the first prize
+in her wheel--twenty thousand pounds; she only required that you should
+hold your hand out and take it. And what did you do? You called for a
+horse and rode a-hunting to Warwickshire. Your sweetheart--Fortune, I
+mean--was perfectly indulgent. She said, 'I'll excuse him; he's young.'
+She waited, like 'Patience on a monument,' till the chase was over and
+the vermin-prey run down. She expected you would come back then, and be
+a good lad. You might still have had her first prize.
+
+"It capped her beyond expression, and me too, to find that, instead of
+thundering home in a breakneck gallop and laying your assize laurels at
+her feet, you coolly took coach up to London. What you have done there
+Satan knows; nothing in this world, I believe, but sat and sulked. Your
+face was never lily fair, but it is olive green now. You're not as bonny
+as you were, man."
+
+"And who is to have this prize you talk so much about?"
+
+"Only a baronet; that is all. I have not a doubt in my own mind you've
+lost her. She will be Lady Nunnely before Christmas."
+
+"Hem! Quite probable."
+
+"But she need not to have been. Fool of a lad! I swear you might have
+had her."
+
+"By what token, Mr. Yorke?"
+
+"By every token--by the light of her eyes, the red of her cheeks. Red
+they grew when your name was mentioned, though of custom they are pale."
+
+"My chance is quite over, I suppose?"
+
+"It ought to be. But try; it is worth trying. I call this Sir Philip
+milk and water. And then he writes verses, they say--tags rhymes. _You_
+are above that, Bob, at all events."
+
+"Would you advise me to propose, late as it is, Mr. Yorke--at the
+eleventh hour?"
+
+"You can but make the experiment, Robert. If she has a fancy for
+you--and, on my conscience, I believe she has or had--she will forgive
+much. But, my lad, you are laughing. Is it at me? You had better grin at
+your own perverseness. I see, however, you laugh at the wrong side of
+your mouth. You have as sour a look at this moment as one need wish to
+see."
+
+"I have so quarrelled with myself, Yorke. I have so kicked against the
+pricks, and struggled in a strait waistcoat, and dislocated my wrists
+with wrenching them in handcuffs, and battered my hard head by driving
+it against a harder wall."
+
+"Ha! I'm glad to hear that. Sharp exercise yon! I hope it has done you
+good--ta'en some of the self-conceit out of you?"
+
+"Self-conceit? What is it? Self-respect, self-tolerance even, what are
+they? Do you sell the articles? Do you know anybody who does? Give an
+indication. They would find in me a liberal chapman. I would part with
+my last guinea this minute to buy."
+
+"Is it so with you, Robert? I find that spicy. I like a man to speak his
+mind. What has gone wrong?"
+
+"The machinery of all my nature; the whole enginery of this human mill;
+the boiler, which I take to be the heart, is fit to burst."
+
+"That suld be putten i' print; it's striking. It's almost blank verse.
+Ye'll be jingling into poetry just e'now. If the afflatus comes, give
+way, Robert. Never heed me; I'll bear it this whet [time]."
+
+"Hideous, abhorrent, base blunder! You may commit in a moment what you
+will rue for years--what life cannot cancel."
+
+"Lad, go on. I call it pie, nuts, sugar-candy. I like the taste
+uncommonly. Go on. It will do you good to talk. The moor is before us
+now, and there is no life for many a mile round."
+
+"I _will_ talk. I am not ashamed to tell. There is a sort of wild cat in
+my breast, and I choose that you shall hear how it can yell."
+
+"To me it is music. What grand voices you and Louis have! When Louis
+sings--tones off like a soft, deep bell--I've felt myself tremble again.
+The night is still. It listens. It is just leaning down to you, like a
+black priest to a blacker penitent. Confess, lad. Smooth naught down. Be
+candid as a convicted, justified, sanctified Methody at an experience
+meeting. Make yourself as wicked as Beelzebub. It will ease your mind."
+
+"As mean as Mammon, you would say. Yorke, if I got off horseback and
+laid myself down across the road, would you have the goodness to gallop
+over me, backwards and forwards, about twenty times?"
+
+"Wi' all the pleasure in life, if there were no such thing as a
+coroner's inquest."
+
+"Hiram Yorke, I certainly believed she loved me. I have seen her eyes
+sparkle radiantly when she has found me out in a crowd; she has flushed
+up crimson when she has offered me her hand, and said, 'How do you do,
+Mr. Moore?'
+
+"My name had a magical influence over her. When others uttered it she
+changed countenance--I know she did. She pronounced it herself in the
+most musical of her many musical tones. She was cordial to me; she took
+an interest in me; she was anxious about me; she wished me well; she
+sought, she seized every opportunity to benefit me. I considered,
+paused, watched, weighed, wondered. I could come to but one
+conclusion--this is love.
+
+"I looked at her, Yorke. I saw in her youth and a species of beauty. I
+saw power in her. Her wealth offered me the redemption of my honour and
+my standing. I owed her gratitude. She had aided me substantially and
+effectually by a loan of five thousand pounds. Could I remember these
+things? Could I believe she loved me? Could I hear wisdom urge me to
+marry her, and disregard every dear advantage, disbelieve every
+flattering suggestion, disdain every well-weighed counsel, turn and
+leave her? Young, graceful, gracious--my benefactress, attached to me,
+enamoured of me. I used to say so to myself; dwell on the word; mouth it
+over and over again; swell over it with a pleasant, pompous complacency,
+with an admiration dedicated entirely to myself, and unimpaired even by
+esteem for her; indeed I smiled in deep secrecy at her _naïveté_ and
+simplicity in being the first to love, and to show it. That whip of
+yours seems to have a good heavy handle, Yorke; you can swing it about
+your head and knock me out of the saddle, if you choose. I should rather
+relish a loundering whack."
+
+"Tak patience, Robert, till the moon rises and I can see you. Speak
+plain out--did you love her or not? I could like to know. I feel
+curious."
+
+"Sir--sir--I say--she is very pretty, in her own style, and very
+attractive. She has a look, at times, of a thing made out of fire and
+air, at which I stand and marvel, without a thought of clasping and
+kissing it. I felt in her a powerful magnet to my interest and vanity. I
+never felt as if nature meant her to be my other and better self. When a
+question on that head rushed upon me, I flung it off, saying brutally I
+should be rich with her and ruined without her--vowing I would be
+practical, and not romantic."
+
+"A very sensible resolve. What mischief came of it, Bob?"
+
+"With this sensible resolve I walked up to Fieldhead one night last
+August. It was the very eve of my departure for Birmingham; for, you
+see, I wanted to secure Fortune's splendid prize. I had previously
+dispatched a note requesting a private interview. I found her at home,
+and alone.
+
+"She received me without embarrassment, for she thought I came on
+business. _I_ was embarrassed enough, but determined. I hardly know how
+I got the operation over; but I went to work in a hard, firm
+fashion--frightful enough, I dare say. I sternly offered myself--my fine
+person--with my debts, of course, as a settlement.
+
+"It vexed me, it kindled my ire, to find that she neither blushed,
+trembled, nor looked down. She responded, 'I doubt whether I have
+understood you, Mr. Moore.'
+
+"And I had to go over the whole proposal twice, and word it as plainly
+as A B C, before she would fully take it in. And then, what did she do?
+Instead of faltering a sweet Yes, or maintaining a soft, confused
+silence (which would have been as good), she started up, walked twice
+fast through the room, in the way that _she_ only does, and no other
+woman, and ejaculated, 'God bless me!'
+
+"Yorke, I stood on the hearth, backed by the mantelpiece; against it I
+leaned, and prepared for anything--everything. I knew my doom, and I
+knew myself. There was no misunderstanding her aspect and voice. She
+stopped and looked at me.
+
+"'God bless me!' she piteously repeated, in that shocked, indignant, yet
+saddened accent. 'You have made a strange proposal--strange from _you_;
+and if you knew how strangely you worded it and looked it, you would be
+startled at yourself. You spoke like a brigand who demanded my purse
+rather than like a lover who asked my heart.'
+
+"A queer sentence, was it not, Yorke? And I knew, as she uttered it, it
+was true as queer. Her words were a mirror in which I saw myself.
+
+"I looked at her, dumb and wolfish. She at once enraged and shamed me.
+
+"'Gérard Moore, you know you don't love Shirley Keeldar.' I might have
+broken out into false swearing--vowed that I did love her; but I could
+not lie in her pure face. I could not perjure myself in her truthful
+presence. Besides, such hollow oaths would have been vain as void. She
+would no more have believed me than she would have believed the ghost of
+Judas, had he broken from the night and stood before her. Her female
+heart had finer perceptions than to be cheated into mistaking my
+half-coarse, half-cold admiration for true-throbbing, manly love.
+
+"What next happened? you will say, Mr. Yorke.
+
+"Why, she sat down in the window-seat and cried. She cried passionately.
+Her eyes not only rained but lightened. They flashed, open, large, dark,
+haughty, upon me. They said, 'You have pained me; you have outraged me;
+you have deceived me.'
+
+"She added words soon to looks.
+
+"'I _did_ respect--I _did_ admire--I _did_ like you,' she said--'yes, as
+much as if you were my brother; and _you--you_ want to make a
+speculation of me. You would immolate me to that mill, your Moloch!'
+
+"I had the common sense to abstain from any word of excuse, any attempt
+at palliation. I stood to be scorned.
+
+"Sold to the devil for the time being, I was certainly infatuated. When
+I did speak, what do you think I said?
+
+"'Whatever my own feelings were, I was persuaded _you_ loved _me_, Miss
+Keeldar.'
+
+"Beautiful, was it not? She sat quite confounded. 'Is it Robert Moore
+that speaks?' I heard her mutter. 'Is it a man--or something lower?'
+
+"'Do you mean,' she asked aloud--'do you mean you thought I loved you as
+we love those we wish to marry?'
+
+"It _was_ my meaning, and I said so.
+
+"'You conceived an idea obnoxious to a woman's feelings,' was her
+answer. 'You have announced it in a fashion revolting to a woman's soul.
+You insinuate that all the frank kindness I have shown you has been a
+complicated, a bold, and an immodest manoeuvre to ensnare a husband. You
+imply that at last you come here out of pity to offer me your hand,
+because I have courted you. Let me say this: Your sight is jaundiced;
+you have seen wrong. Your mind is warped; you have judged wrong. Your
+tongue betrays you; you now speak wrong. I never loved you. Be at rest
+there. My heart is as pure of passion for you as yours is barren of
+affection for me.'
+
+"I hope I was answered, Yorke?
+
+"'I seem to be a blind, besotted sort of person,' was my remark.
+
+"'_Loved_ you!' she cried. 'Why, I have been as frank with you as a
+sister--never shunned you, never feared you. You cannot,' she affirmed
+triumphantly--'you cannot make me tremble with your coming, nor
+accelerate my pulse by your influence.'
+
+"I alleged that often, when she spoke to me, she blushed, and that the
+sound of my name moved her.
+
+"'Not for _your_ sake!' she declared briefly. I urged explanation, but
+could get none.
+
+"'When I sat beside you at the school feast, did you think I loved you
+then? When I stopped you in Maythorn Lane, did you think I loved you
+then? When I called on you in the counting-house, when I walked with you
+on the pavement, did you think I loved you then?'
+
+"So she questioned me; and I said I did.
+
+"By the Lord! Yorke, she rose, she grew tall, she expanded and refined
+almost to flame. There was a trembling all through her, as in live coal
+when its vivid vermilion is hottest.
+
+"'That is to say that you have the worst opinion of me; that you deny me
+the possession of all I value most. That is to say that I am a traitor
+to all my sisters; that I have acted as no woman can act without
+degrading herself and her sex; that I have sought where the incorrupt of
+my kind naturally scorn and abhor to seek.' She and I were silent for
+many a minute. 'Lucifer, Star of the Morning,' she went on, 'thou art
+fallen! You, once high in my esteem, are hurled down; you, once intimate
+in my friendship, are cast out. Go!'
+
+"I went not. I had heard her voice tremble, seen her lip quiver. I knew
+another storm of tears would fall, and then I believed some calm and
+some sunshine must come, and I would wait for it.
+
+"As fast, but more quietly than before, the warm rain streamed down.
+There was another sound in her weeping--a softer, more regretful sound.
+While I watched, her eyes lifted to me a gaze more reproachful than
+haughty, more mournful than incensed.
+
+"'O Moore!' said she. It was worse than 'Et tu, Brute!'
+
+"I relieved myself by what should have been a sigh, but it became a
+groan. A sense of Cain-like desolation made my breast ache.
+
+"'There has been error in what I have done,' I said, 'and it has won me
+bitter wages, which I will go and spend far from her who gave them.'
+
+"I took my hat. All the time I could not have borne to depart so, and I
+believed she would not let me. Nor would she but for the mortal pang I
+had given her pride, that cowed her compassion and kept her silent.
+
+"I was obliged to turn back of my own accord when I reached the door, to
+approach her, and to say, 'Forgive me.'
+
+"'I could, if there was not myself to forgive too,' was her reply; 'but
+to mislead a sagacious man so far I must have done wrong.'
+
+"I broke out suddenly with some declamation I do not remember. I know
+that it was sincere, and that my wish and aim were to absolve her to
+herself. In fact, in her case self-accusation was a chimera.
+
+"At last she extended her hand. For the first time I wished to take her
+in my arms and kiss her. I _did_ kiss her hand many times.
+
+"'Some day we shall be friends again,' she said, 'when you have had time
+to read my actions and motives in a true light, and not so horribly to
+misinterpret them. Time may give you the right key to all. Then,
+perhaps, you will comprehend me, and then we shall be reconciled.'
+
+"Farewell drops rolled slow down her cheeks. She wiped them away.
+
+"'I am sorry for what has happened--deeply sorry,' she sobbed. So was I,
+God knows! Thus were we severed."
+
+"A queer tale!" commented Mr. Yorke.
+
+"I'll do it no more," vowed his companion; "never more will I mention
+marriage to a woman unless I feel love. Henceforth credit and commerce
+may take care of themselves. Bankruptcy may come when it lists. I have
+done with slavish fear of disaster. I mean to work diligently, wait
+patiently, bear steadily. Let the worst come, I will take my axe and an
+emigrant's berth, and go out with Louis to the West; he and I have
+settled it. No woman shall ever again look at me as Miss Keeldar looked,
+ever again feel towards me as Miss Keeldar felt. In no woman's presence
+will I ever again stand at once such a fool and such a knave, such a
+brute and such a puppy."
+
+"Tut!" said the imperturbable Yorke, "you make too much of it; but
+still, I say, I am capped. Firstly, that she did not love you; and
+secondly, that you did not love her. You are both young; you are both
+handsome; you are both well enough for wit and even for temper--take you
+on the right side. What ailed you that you could not agree?"
+
+"We never _have_ been, never _could_ be _at home_ with each other,
+Yorke. Admire each other as we might at a distance, still we jarred when
+we came very near. I have sat at one side of a room and observed her at
+the other, perhaps in an excited, genial moment, when she had some of
+her favourites round her--her old beaux, for instance, yourself and
+Helstone, with whom she is so playful, pleasant, and eloquent. I have
+watched her when she was most natural, most lively, and most lovely; my
+judgment has pronounced her beautiful. Beautiful she is at times, when
+her mood and her array partake of the splendid. I have drawn a little
+nearer, feeling that our terms of acquaintance gave me the right of
+approach. I have joined the circle round her seat, caught her eye, and
+mastered her attention; then we have conversed; and others, thinking me,
+perhaps, peculiarly privileged, have withdrawn by degrees, and left us
+alone. Were we happy thus left? For myself, I must say No. Always a
+feeling of constraint came over me; always I was disposed to be stern
+and strange. We talked politics and business. No soft sense of domestic
+intimacy ever opened our hearts, or thawed our language and made it flow
+easy and limpid. If we had confidences, they were confidences of the
+counting-house, not of the heart. Nothing in her cherished affection in
+me, made me better, gentler; she only stirred my brain and whetted my
+acuteness. She never crept into my heart or influenced its pulse; and
+for this good reason, no doubt, because I had not the secret of making
+her love me."
+
+"Well, lad, it is a queer thing. I might laugh at thee, and reckon to
+despise thy refinements; but as it is dark night and we are by
+ourselves, I don't mind telling thee that thy talk brings back a glimpse
+of my own past life. Twenty-five years ago I tried to persuade a
+beautiful woman to love me, and she would not. I had not the key to her
+nature; she was a stone wall to me, doorless and windowless."
+
+"But you loved _her_, Yorke; you worshipped Mary Cave. Your conduct,
+after all, was that of a man--never of a fortune-hunter."
+
+"Ay, I _did_ love her; but then she was beautiful as the moon we do
+_not_ see to-night. There is naught like her in these days. Miss
+Helstone, maybe, has a look of her, but nobody else."
+
+"Who has a look of her?"
+
+"That black-coated tyrant's niece--that quiet, delicate Miss Helstone.
+Many a time I have put on my spectacles to look at the lassie in church,
+because she has gentle blue een, wi' long lashes; and when she sits in
+shadow, and is very still and very pale, and is, happen, about to fall
+asleep wi' the length of the sermon and the heat of the biggin', she is
+as like one of Canova's marbles as aught else."
+
+"Was Mary Cave in that style?"
+
+"Far grander!--less lass-like and flesh-like. You wondered why she
+hadn't wings and a crown. She was a stately, peaceful angel was my
+Mary."
+
+"And you could not persuade her to love you?"
+
+"Not with all I could do, though I prayed Heaven many a time, on my
+bended knees, to help me."
+
+"Mary Cave was not what you think her, Yorke. I have seen her picture at
+the rectory. She is no angel, but a fair, regular-featured,
+taciturn-looking woman--rather too white and lifeless for my taste. But,
+supposing she had been something better than she was----"
+
+"Robert," interrupted Yorke, "I could fell you off your horse at this
+moment. However, I'll hold my hand. Reason tells me you are right and I
+am wrong. I know well enough that the passion I still have is only the
+remnant of an illusion. If Miss Cave had possessed either feeling or
+sense, she could not have been so perfectly impassible to my regard as
+she showed herself; she must have preferred me to that copper-faced
+despot."
+
+"Supposing, Yorke, she had been educated (no women were educated in
+those days); supposing she had possessed a thoughtful, original mind, a
+love of knowledge, a wish for information, which she took an artless
+delight in receiving from your lips, and having measured out to her by
+your hand; supposing her conversation, when she sat at your side, was
+fertile, varied, imbued with a picturesque grace and genial interest,
+quiet flowing but clear and bounteous; supposing that when you stood
+near her by chance, or when you sat near her by design, comfort at once
+became your atmosphere, and content your element; supposing that
+whenever her face was under your gaze, or her idea filled your thoughts,
+you gradually ceased to be hard and anxious, and pure affection, love of
+home, thirst for sweet discourse, unselfish longing to protect and
+cherish, replaced the sordid, cankering calculations of your trade;
+supposing, with all this, that many a time, when you had been so happy
+as to possess your Mary's little hand, you had felt it tremble as you
+held it, just as a warm little bird trembles when you take it from its
+nest; supposing you had noticed her shrink into the background on your
+entrance into a room, yet if you sought her in her retreat she welcomed
+you with the sweetest smile that ever lit a fair virgin face, and only
+turned her eyes from the encounter of your own lest their clearness
+should reveal too much; supposing, in short, your Mary had been not
+cold, but modest; not vacant, but reflective; not obtuse, but sensitive;
+not inane, but innocent; not prudish, but pure,--would you have left her
+to court another woman for her wealth?"
+
+Mr. Yorke raised his hat, wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.
+
+"The moon is up," was his first not quite relevant remark, pointing with
+his whip across the moor. "There she is, rising into the haze, staring
+at us wi' a strange red glower. She is no more silver than old
+Helstone's brow is ivory. What does she mean by leaning her cheek on
+Rushedge i' that way, and looking at us wi' a scowl and a menace?"
+
+"Yorke, if Mary had loved you silently yet faithfully, chastely yet
+fervently, as you would wish your wife to love, would you have left
+her?"
+
+"Robert!"--he lifted his arm, he held it suspended, and paused--"Robert!
+this is a queer world, and men are made of the queerest dregs that
+Chaos churned up in her ferment. I might swear sounding oaths--oaths
+that would make the poachers think there was a bittern booming in
+Bilberry Moss--that, in the case you put, death only should have parted
+me from Mary. But I have lived in the world fifty-five years; I have
+been forced to study human nature; and, to speak a dark truth, the odds
+are, if Mary had loved and not scorned me, if I had been secure of her
+affection, certain of her constancy, been irritated by no doubts, stung
+by no humiliations--the odds are" (he let his hand fall heavy on the
+saddle)--"the odds are I should have left her!"
+
+They rode side by side in silence. Ere either spoke again they were on
+the other side of Rushedge. Briarfield lights starred the purple skirt
+of the moor. Robert, being the youngest, and having less of the past to
+absorb him than his comrade, recommenced first.
+
+"I believe--I daily find it proved--that we can get nothing in this
+world worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, except
+out of purifying flame or through strengthening peril. We err, we fall,
+we are humbled; then we walk more carefully. We greedily eat and drink
+poison out of the gilded cup of vice or from the beggar's wallet of
+avarice. We are sickened, degraded; everything good in us rebels against
+us; our souls rise bitterly indignant against our bodies; there is a
+period of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rules
+thereafter."
+
+"What art thou going to do now, Robert? What are thy plans?"
+
+"For my private plans, I'll keep them to myself--which is very easy, as
+at present I have none. No private life is permitted a man in my
+position--a man in debt. For my public plans, my views are a little
+altered. While I was in Birmingham I looked a little into reality,
+considered closely and at their source the causes of the present
+troubles of this country. I did the same in London. Unknown, I could go
+where I pleased, mix with whom I would. I went where there was want of
+food, of fuel, of clothing; where there was no occupation and no hope. I
+saw some, with naturally elevated tendencies and good feelings, kept
+down amongst sordid privations and harassing griefs. I saw many
+originally low, and to whom lack of education left scarcely anything but
+animal wants, disappointed in those wants, ahungered, athirst, and
+desperate as famished animals. I saw what taught my brain a new lesson,
+and filled my breast with fresh feelings. I have no intention to profess
+more softness or sentiment than I have hitherto professed; mutiny and
+ambition I regard as I have always regarded them. I should resist a
+riotous mob just as heretofore; I should open on the scent of a runaway
+ringleader as eagerly as ever, and run him down as relentlessly, and
+follow him up to condign punishment as rigorously; but I should do it
+now chiefly for the sake and the security of those he misled. Something
+there is to look to, Yorke, beyond a man's personal interest, beyond the
+advancement of well-laid schemes, beyond even the discharge of
+dishonouring debts. To respect himself, a man must believe he renders
+justice to his fellow-men. Unless I am more considerate to ignorance,
+more forbearing to suffering, than I have hitherto been, I shall scorn
+myself as grossly unjust.--What now?" he said, addressing his horse,
+which, hearing the ripple of water, and feeling thirsty, turned to a
+wayside trough, where the moonbeam was playing in a crystal eddy.
+
+"Yorke," pursued Moore, "ride on; I must let him drink."
+
+Yorke accordingly rode slowly forwards, occupying himself as he advanced
+in discriminating, amongst the many lights now spangling the distance,
+those of Briarmains. Stilbro' Moor was left behind; plantations rose
+dusk on either hand; they were descending the hill; below them lay the
+valley with its populous parish: they felt already at home.
+
+Surrounded no longer by heath, it was not startling to Mr. Yorke to see
+a hat rise, and to hear a voice speak behind the wall. The words,
+however, were peculiar.
+
+"When the wicked perisheth there is shouting," it said; and added, "As
+the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more" (with a deeper growl):
+"terrors take hold of him as waters; hell is naked before him. He shall
+die without knowledge."
+
+A fierce flash and sharp crack violated the calm of night. Yorke, ere he
+turned, knew the four convicts of Birmingham were avenged.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+UNCLE AND NIECE.
+
+
+The die was cast. Sir Philip Nunnely knew it; Shirley knew it; Mr.
+Sympson knew it. That evening, when all the Fieldhead family dined at
+Nunnely Priory, decided the business.
+
+Two or three things conduced to bring the baronet to a point. He had
+observed that Miss Keeldar looked pensive and delicate. This new phase
+in her demeanour smote him on his weak or poetic side. A spontaneous
+sonnet brewed in his brain; and while it was still working there, one of
+his sisters persuaded his lady-love to sit down to the piano and sing a
+ballad--one of Sir Philip's own ballads. It was the least elaborate, the
+least affected--out of all comparison the best of his numerous efforts.
+
+It chanced that Shirley, the moment before, had been gazing from a
+window down on the park. She had seen that stormy moonlight which "le
+Professeur Louis" was perhaps at the same instant contemplating from her
+own oak-parlour lattice; she had seen the isolated trees of the
+domain--broad, strong, spreading oaks, and high-towering heroic
+beeches--wrestling with the gale. Her ear had caught the full roar of
+the forest lower down; the swift rushing of clouds, the moon, to the
+eye, hasting swifter still, had crossed her vision. She turned from
+sight and sound--touched, if not rapt; wakened, if not inspired.
+
+She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the
+ballad--faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that
+disaster could not shake; love that in calamity waxed fonder, in poverty
+clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air; in themselves they
+were simple and sweet. Perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when
+_well_ sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well. She breathed
+into the feeling softness; she poured round the passion force. Her voice
+was fine that evening, its expression dramatic. She impressed all, and
+charmed one.
+
+On leaving the instrument she went to the fire, and sat down on a
+seat--semi-stool, semi-cushion. The ladies were round her; none of them
+spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her as
+quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange
+fowl. What made her sing so? _They_ never sang so. Was it _proper_ to
+sing with such expression, with such originality--so unlike a
+school-girl? Decidedly not. It was strange, it was unusual. What was
+_strange_ must be _wrong_; what was _unusual_ must be _improper_.
+Shirley was judged.
+
+Moreover, old Lady Nunnely eyed her stonily from her great chair by the
+fireside. Her gaze said, "This woman is not of mine or my daughters'
+kind. I object to her as my son's wife."
+
+Her son, catching the look, read its meaning. He grew alarmed. What he
+so wished to win there was danger he might lose. He must make haste.
+
+The room they were in had once been a picture-gallery. Sir Philip's
+father--Sir Monckton--had converted it into a saloon; but still it had a
+shadowy, long-withdrawing look. A deep recess with a window--a recess
+that held one couch, one table, and a fairy cabinet--formed a room
+within a room. Two persons standing there might interchange a dialogue,
+and, so it were neither long nor loud, none be the wiser.
+
+Sir Philip induced two of his sisters to perpetrate a duet. He gave
+occupation to the Misses Sympson. The elder ladies were conversing
+together. He was pleased to remark that meantime Shirley rose to look at
+the pictures. He had a tale to tell about one ancestress, whose dark
+beauty seemed as that of a flower of the south. He joined her, and began
+to tell it.
+
+There were mementoes of the same lady in the cabinet adorning the
+recess; and while Shirley was stooping to examine the missal and the
+rosary on the inlaid shelf, and while the Misses Nunnely indulged in a
+prolonged screech, guiltless of expression, pure of originality,
+perfectly conventional and absolutely unmeaning, Sir Philip stooped too,
+and whispered a few hurried sentences. At first Miss Keeldar was struck
+so still you might have fancied that whisper a charm which had changed
+her to a statue; but she presently looked up and answered. They parted.
+Miss Keeldar returned to the fire, and resumed her seat. The baronet
+gazed after her, then went and stood behind his sisters. Mr.
+Sympson--Mr. Sympson only--had marked the pantomime.
+
+That gentleman drew his own conclusions. Had he been as acute as he was
+meddling, as profound as he was prying, he might have found that in Sir
+Philip's face whereby to correct his inference. Ever shallow, hasty, and
+positive, he went home quite cock-a-hoop.
+
+He was not a man that kept secrets well. When elate on a subject, he
+could not avoid talking about it. The next morning, having occasion to
+employ his son's tutor as his secretary, he must needs announce to him,
+in mouthing accents, and with much flimsy pomp of manner, that he had
+better hold himself prepared for a return to the south at an early day,
+as the important business which had detained him (Mr. Sympson) so long
+in Yorkshire was now on the eve of fortunate completion. His anxious and
+laborious efforts were likely, at last, to be crowned with the happiest
+success. A truly eligible addition was about to be made to the family
+connections.
+
+"In Sir Philip Nunnely?" Louis Moore conjectured.
+
+Whereupon Mr. Sympson treated himself simultaneously to a pinch of snuff
+and a chuckling laugh, checked only by a sudden choke of dignity, and an
+order to the tutor to proceed with business.
+
+For a day or two Mr. Sympson continued as bland as oil, but also he
+seemed to sit on pins, and his gait, when he walked, emulated that of a
+hen treading a hot girdle. He was for ever looking out of the window and
+listening for chariot-wheels. Bluebeard's wife--Sisera's mother--were
+nothing to him. He waited when the matter should be opened in form, when
+himself should be consulted, when lawyers should be summoned, when
+settlement discussions and all the delicious worldly fuss should
+pompously begin.
+
+At last there came a letter. He himself handed it to Miss Keeldar out of
+the bag. He knew the handwriting; he knew the crest on the seal. He did
+not see it opened and read, for Shirley took it to her own room; nor did
+he see it answered, for she wrote her reply shut up, and was very long
+about it--the best part of a day. He questioned her whether it was
+answered; she responded, "Yes."
+
+Again he waited--waited in silence, absolutely not daring to speak, kept
+mute by something in Shirley's face--a very awful something--inscrutable
+to him as the writing on the wall to Belshazzar. He was moved more than
+once to call Daniel, in the person of Louis Moore, and to ask an
+interpretation; but his dignity forbade the familiarity. Daniel himself,
+perhaps, had his own private difficulties connected with that baffling
+bit of translation; he looked like a student for whom grammars are blank
+and dictionaries dumb.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Sympson had been out, to while away an anxious hour in the society
+of his friends at De Walden Hall. He returned a little sooner than was
+expected. His family and Miss Keeldar were assembled in the oak parlour.
+Addressing the latter, he requested her to step with him into another
+room. He wished to have with her a "_strictly_ private interview."
+
+She rose, asking no questions and professing no surprise.
+
+"Very well, sir," she said, in the tone of a determined person who is
+informed that the dentist is come to extract that large double tooth of
+his, from which he has suffered such a purgatory this month past. She
+left her sewing and her thimble in the window-seat, and followed her
+uncle where he led.
+
+Shut into the drawing-room, the pair took seats, each in an arm-chair,
+placed opposite, a few yards between them.
+
+"I have been to De Walden Hall," said Mr. Sympson. He paused. Miss
+Keeldar's eyes were on the pretty white-and-green carpet. _That_
+information required no response. She gave none.
+
+"I have learned," he went on slowly--"I have learned a circumstance
+which surprises me."
+
+Resting her cheek on her forefinger, she waited to be told _what_
+circumstance.
+
+"It seems that Nunnely Priory is shut up--that the family are gone back
+to their place in ----shire. It seems that the baronet--that the
+baronet--that Sir Philip himself has accompanied his mother and
+sisters."
+
+"Indeed!" said Shirley.
+
+"May I ask if you share the amazement with which I received this news?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"_Is_ it news to you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I mean--I mean," pursued Mr. Sympson, now fidgeting in his chair,
+quitting his hitherto brief and tolerably clear phraseology, and
+returning to his customary wordy, confused, irritable style--"I mean to
+have a _thorough_ explanation. I will _not_ be put off. I--I--shall
+_insist_ on being heard, and on--on having my own way. My questions
+_must_ be answered. I will have clear, satisfactory replies. I am not to
+be trifled with. (Silence.)
+
+"It is a strange and an extraordinary thing--a very singular--a most odd
+thing! I thought all was right, knew no other; and there--the family are
+gone!"
+
+"I suppose, sir, they had a right to go."
+
+"_Sir Philip is gone!_" (with emphasis).
+
+Shirley raised her brows. "_Bon voyage!_" said she.
+
+"This will not do; this must be altered, ma'am."
+
+He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he looked perfectly
+incensed, and perfectly helpless.
+
+"Come, come now, uncle," expostulated Shirley, "do not begin to fret and
+fume, or we shall make no sense of the business. Ask me what you want to
+know. I am as willing to come to an explanation as you. I promise you
+truthful replies."
+
+"I want--I demand to know, Miss Keeldar, whether Sir Philip has made you
+an offer?"
+
+"He has."
+
+"You avow it?"
+
+"I avow it. But now, go on. Consider that point settled."
+
+"He made you an offer that night we dined at the priory?"
+
+"It is enough to say that he made it. Go on."
+
+"He proposed in the recess--in the room that used to be a
+picture-gallery--that Sir Monckton converted into it saloon?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"You were both examining a cabinet. I saw it all. My sagacity was not at
+fault--it never is. Subsequently you received a letter from him. On what
+subject--of what nature were the contents?"
+
+"No matter."
+
+"Ma'am, is that the way in which you speak to me?"
+
+Shirley's foot tapped quick on the carpet.
+
+"There you sit, silent and sullen--_you_ who promised truthful replies."
+
+"Sir, I have answered you thus far. Proceed."
+
+"I should like to see that letter."
+
+"You _cannot_ see it."
+
+"I _must_ and _shall_, ma'am; I am your guardian."
+
+"Having ceased to be a ward, I have no guardian."
+
+"Ungrateful being! Reared by me as my own daughter----"
+
+"Once more, uncle, have the kindness to keep to the point. Let us both
+remain cool. For my part, I do not wish to get into a passion; but, you
+know, once drive me beyond certain bounds, I care little what I say--I
+am not then soon checked. Listen! You have asked me whether Sir Philip
+made me an offer. That question is answered. What do you wish to know
+next?"
+
+"I desire to know whether you accepted or refused him, and know it I
+will."
+
+"Certainly, you ought to know it. I refused him."
+
+"Refused him! You--_you_, Shirley Keeldar, _refused_ Sir Philip
+Nunnely?"
+
+"I did."
+
+The poor gentleman bounced from his chair, and first rushed and then
+trotted through the room.
+
+"There it is! There it is! There it is!"
+
+"Sincerely speaking, I am sorry, uncle, you are so disappointed."
+
+Concession, contrition, never do any good with some people. Instead of
+softening and conciliating, they but embolden and harden them. Of that
+number was Mr. Sympson.
+
+"_I_ disappointed? What is it to me? Have _I_ an interest in it? You
+would insinuate, perhaps, that I have motives?"
+
+"Most people have motives of some sort for their actions."
+
+"She accuses me to my face! I, that have been a parent to her, she
+charges with bad motives!"
+
+"_Bad_ motives I did not say."
+
+"And now you prevaricate; you have no principles!"
+
+"Uncle, you tire me. I want to go away."
+
+"Go you shall not! I will be answered. What are your intentions, Miss
+Keeldar?"
+
+"In what respect?"
+
+"In respect of matrimony?"
+
+"To be quiet, and to do just as I please."
+
+"Just as you please! The words are to the last degree indecorous."
+
+"Mr. Sympson, I advise you not to become insulting. You know I will not
+bear that."
+
+"You read French. Your mind is poisoned with French novels. You have
+imbibed French principles."
+
+"The ground you are treading now returns a mighty hollow sound under
+your feet. Beware!"
+
+"It will end in infamy, sooner or later. I have foreseen it all along."
+
+"Do you assert, sir, that something in which _I_ am concerned will end
+in infamy?"
+
+"That it will--that it will. You said just now you would act as you
+please. You acknowledge no rules--no limitations."
+
+"Silly stuff, and vulgar as silly!"
+
+"Regardless of decorum, you are prepared to fly in the face of
+propriety."
+
+"You tire me, uncle."
+
+"What, madam--_what_ could be your reasons for refusing Sir Philip?"
+
+"At last there is another sensible question; I shall be glad to reply to
+it. Sir Philip is too young for me. I regard him as a boy. All his
+relations--his mother especially--would be annoyed if he married me.
+Such a step would embroil him with them. I am not his equal in the
+world's estimation."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Our dispositions are not compatible."
+
+"Why, a more amiable gentleman never breathed."
+
+"He is very amiable--very excellent--truly estimable; but _not my
+master_--not in one point. I could not trust myself with his happiness.
+I would not undertake the keeping of it for thousands. I will accept no
+hand which cannot hold me in check."
+
+"I thought you liked to do as you please. You are vastly inconsistent."
+
+"When I promise to obey, it shall be under the conviction that I can
+keep that promise. I could not obey a youth like Sir Philip. Besides, he
+would never command me. He would expect me always to rule--to guide--and
+I have no taste whatever for the office."
+
+"_You_ no taste for swaggering, and subduing, and ordering, and ruling?"
+
+"Not my husband; only my uncle."
+
+"Where is the difference?"
+
+"There _is_ a slight difference--that is certain. And I know full well
+any man who wishes to live in decent comfort with me as a husband must
+be able to control me."
+
+"I wish you had a real tyrant."
+
+"A tyrant would not hold me for a day, not for an hour. I would
+rebel--break from him--defy him."
+
+"Are you not enough to bewilder one's brain with your
+self-contradiction?"
+
+"It is evident I bewilder your brain."
+
+"You talk of Sir Philip being young. He is two-and-twenty."
+
+"My husband must be thirty, with the sense of forty."
+
+"You had better pick out some old man--some white-headed or bald-headed
+swain."
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"You could lead some doting fool; you might pin him to your apron."
+
+"I might do that with a boy; but it is not my vocation. Did I not say I
+prefer a _master_--one in whose presence I shall feel obliged and
+disposed to be good; one whose control my impatient temper must
+acknowledge; a man whose approbation can reward, whose displeasure
+punish me; a man I shall feel it impossible not to love, and very
+possible to fear?"
+
+"What is there to hinder you from doing all this with Sir Philip? He is
+a baronet--a man of rank, property, connections far above yours. If you
+talk of intellect, he is a poet--he writes verses; which you, I take it,
+cannot do, with all your cleverness."
+
+"Neither his title, wealth, pedigree, nor poetry avail to invest him
+with the power I describe. These are feather-weights; they want ballast.
+A measure of sound, solid, practical sense would have stood him in
+better stead with me."
+
+"You and Henry rave about poetry! You used to catch fire like tinder on
+the subject when you were a girl."
+
+"O uncle, there is nothing really valuable in this world, there is
+nothing glorious in the world to come that is not poetry!"
+
+"Marry a poet, then, in God's name!"
+
+"Show him me, and I will."
+
+"Sir Philip."
+
+"Not at all. You are almost as good a poet as he."
+
+"Madam, you are wandering from the point."
+
+"Indeed, uncle, I wanted to do so, and I shall be glad to lead you away
+with me. Do not let us get out of temper with each other; it is not
+worth while."
+
+"Out of temper, Miss Keeldar! I should be glad to know who is out of
+temper."
+
+"_I_ am not, yet."
+
+"If you mean to insinuate that _I_ am, I consider that you are guilty of
+impertinence."
+
+"You will be soon, if you go on at that rate."
+
+"There it is! With your pert tongue you would try the patience of a
+Job."
+
+"I know I should."
+
+"No levity, miss! This is not a laughing matter. It is an affair I am
+resolved to probe thoroughly, convinced that there is mischief at the
+bottom. You described just now, with far too much freedom for your years
+and sex, the sort of individual you would prefer as a husband. Pray, did
+you paint from the life?"
+
+Shirley opened her lips, but instead of speaking she only glowed
+rose-red.
+
+"I shall have an answer to that question," affirmed Mr. Sympson,
+assuming vast courage and consequence on the strength of this symptom of
+confusion.
+
+"It was an historical picture, uncle, from several originals."
+
+"Several originals! Bless my heart!"
+
+"I have been in love several times."
+
+"This is cynical."
+
+"With heroes of many nations."
+
+"What next----"
+
+"And philosophers."
+
+"She is mad----"
+
+"Don't ring the bell, uncle; you will alarm my aunt."
+
+"Your poor dear aunt, what a niece has she!"
+
+"Once I loved Socrates."
+
+"Pooh! no trifling, ma'am."
+
+"I admired Themistocles, Leonidas, Epaminondas."
+
+"Miss Keeldar----"
+
+"To pass over a few centuries, Washington was a plain man, but I liked
+him; but to speak of the actual present----"
+
+"Ah! the actual present."
+
+"To quit crude schoolgirl fancies, and come to realities."
+
+"Realities! That is the test to which you shall be brought, ma'am."
+
+"To avow before what altar I now kneel--to reveal the present idol of my
+soul----"
+
+"You will make haste about it, if you please. It is near luncheon time,
+and confess _you shall_."
+
+"Confess I must. My heart is full of the secret. It must be spoken. I
+only wish you were Mr. Helstone instead of Mr. Sympson; you would
+sympathize with me better."
+
+"Madam, it is a question of common sense and common prudence, not of
+sympathy and sentiment, and so on. Did you say it was Mr. Helstone?"
+
+"Not precisely, but as near as may be; they are rather alike."
+
+"I will know the name; I will have particulars."
+
+"They positively _are_ rather alike. Their very faces are not
+dissimilar--a pair of human falcons--and dry, direct, decided both. But
+my hero is the mightier of the two. His mind has the clearness of the
+deep sea, the patience of its rocks, the force of its billows."
+
+"Rant and fustian!"
+
+"I dare say he can be harsh as a saw-edge and gruff as a hungry raven."
+
+"Miss Keeldar, does the person reside in Briarfield? Answer me that."
+
+"Uncle, I am going to tell you; his name is trembling on my tongue."
+
+"Speak, girl!"
+
+"That was well said, uncle. 'Speak, girl!' It is quite tragic. England
+has howled savagely against this man, uncle, and she will one day roar
+exultingly over him. He has been unscared by the howl, and he will be
+unelated by the shout."
+
+"I said she was mad. She is."
+
+"This country will change and change again in her demeanour to him; he
+will never change in his duty to her. Come, cease to chafe, uncle, I'll
+tell you his name."
+
+"You shall tell me, or----"
+
+"Listen! Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington."
+
+Mr. Sympson rose up furious. He bounced out of the room, but immediately
+bounced back again, shut the door, and resumed his seat.
+
+"Ma'am, you _shall_ tell me _this_. Will your principles permit you to
+marry a man without money--a man below you?"
+
+"Never a man below me."
+
+(In a high voice.) "Will you, Miss Keeldar, marry a poor man?"
+
+"What right have you, Mr. Sympson, to ask me?"
+
+"I insist upon knowing."
+
+"You don't go the way to know."
+
+"My family respectability shall not be compromised."
+
+"A good resolution; keep it."
+
+"Madam, it is _you_ who shall keep it."
+
+"Impossible, sir, since I form no part of your family."
+
+"Do you disown us?"
+
+"I disdain your dictatorship."
+
+"Whom _will_ you marry, Miss Keeldar?"
+
+"Not Mr. Sam Wynne, because I scorn him; not Sir Philip Nunnely, because
+I _only_ esteem him."
+
+"Whom have you in your eye?"
+
+"Four rejected candidates."
+
+"Such obstinacy could not be unless you were under improper influence."
+
+"What do you mean? There are certain phrases potent to make my blood
+boil. Improper influence! What old woman's cackle is that?"
+
+"Are you a young lady?"
+
+"I am a thousand times better: I am an honest woman, and as such I will
+be treated."
+
+"Do you know" (leaning mysteriously forward, and speaking with ghastly
+solemnity)--"do you know the whole neighbourhood teems with rumours
+respecting you and a bankrupt tenant of yours, the foreigner Moore?"
+
+"Does it?"
+
+"It does. Your name is in every mouth."
+
+"It honours the lips it crosses, and I wish to the gods it may purify
+them."
+
+"Is it _that_ person who has power to influence you?"
+
+"Beyond any whose cause you have advocated."
+
+"Is it he you will marry?"
+
+"He is handsome, and manly, and commanding."
+
+"You declare it to my face! The Flemish knave! the low trader!"
+
+"He is talented, and venturous, and resolute. Prince is on his brow, and
+ruler in his bearing."
+
+"She glories in it! She conceals nothing! No shame, no fear!"
+
+"When we speak the name of Moore, shame should be forgotten and fear
+discarded. The Moores know only honour and courage."
+
+"I say she is mad."
+
+"You have taunted me till my blood is up; you have worried me till I
+turn again."
+
+"That Moore is the brother of my son's tutor. Would you let the usher
+call you sister?"
+
+Bright and broad shone Shirley's eye as she fixed it on her questioner
+now.
+
+"No, no; not for a province of possession, not for a century of life."
+
+"You cannot separate the husband from his family."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Mr. Louis Moore's sister you will be."
+
+"Mr. Sympson, I am sick at heart with all this weak trash; I will bear
+no more. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, your aims are not my aims,
+your gods are not my gods. We do not view things in the same light; we
+do not measure them by the same standard; we hardly speak in the same
+tongue. Let us part."
+
+"It is not," she resumed, much excited--"it is not that I hate you; you
+are a good sort of man. Perhaps you mean well in your way. But we cannot
+suit; we are ever at variance. You annoy me with small meddling, with
+petty tyranny; you exasperate my temper, and make and keep me
+passionate. As to your small maxims, your narrow rules, your little
+prejudices, aversions, dogmas, bundle them off. Mr. Sympson, go, offer
+them a sacrifice to the deity you worship; I'll none of them. I wash my
+hands of the lot. I walk by another creed, light, faith, and hope than
+you."
+
+"Another creed! I believe she is an infidel."
+
+"An infidel to _your_ religion, an atheist to _your_ god."
+
+"_An--atheist!!!_"
+
+"Your god, sir, is the world. In my eyes you too, if not an infidel, are
+an idolater. I conceive that you ignorantly worship; in all things you
+appear to me too superstitious. Sir, your god, your great Bel, your
+fish-tailed Dagon, rises before me as a demon. You, and such as you,
+have raised him to a throne, put on him a crown, given him a sceptre.
+Behold how hideously he governs! See him busied at the work he likes
+best--making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the
+imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius, and fetters the dead to
+the living. In his realm there is hatred--secret hatred; there is
+disgust--unspoken disgust; there is treachery--family treachery; there
+is vice--deep, deadly domestic vice. In his dominions children grow
+unloving between parents who have never loved; infants are nursed on
+deception from their very birth; they are reared in an atmosphere
+corrupt with lies. Your god rules at the bridal of kings; look at your
+royal dynasties! Your deity is the deity of foreign aristocracies;
+analyze the blue blood of Spain! Your god is the Hymen of France; what
+is French domestic life? All that surrounds him hastens to decay; all
+declines and degenerates under his sceptre. _Your_ god is a masked
+Death."
+
+"This language is terrible! My daughters and you must associate no
+longer, Miss Keeldar; there is danger in such companionship. Had I known
+you a little earlier--but, extraordinary as I thought you, I could not
+have believed----"
+
+"Now, sir, do you begin to be aware that it is useless to scheme for me;
+that in doing so you but sow the wind to reap the whirlwind? I sweep
+your cobweb projects from my path, that I may pass on unsullied. I am
+anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall
+dispose of my hand--_they only_. Know this at last."
+
+Mr. Sympson was becoming a little bewildered.
+
+"Never heard such language!" he muttered again and again; "never was so
+addressed in my life--never was so used!"
+
+"You are quite confused, sir. You had better withdraw, or I will."
+
+He rose hastily. "We must leave this place; they must pack up at once."
+
+"Do not hurry my aunt and cousins; give them time."
+
+"No more intercourse; she's not proper."
+
+He made his way to the door. He came back for his handkerchief. He
+dropped his snuff-box, leaving the contents scattered on the carpet; he
+stumbled out. Tartar lay outside across the mat; Mr. Sympson almost fell
+over him. In the climax of his exasperation he hurled an oath at the dog
+and a coarse epithet at his mistress.
+
+"Poor Mr. Sympson! he is both feeble and vulgar," said Shirley to
+herself. "My head aches, and I am tired," she added; and leaning her
+head upon a cushion, she softly subsided from excitement to repose. One,
+entering the room a quarter of an hour afterwards, found her asleep.
+When Shirley had been agitated, she generally took this natural
+refreshment; it would come at her call.
+
+The intruder paused in her unconscious presence, and said, "Miss
+Keeldar."
+
+Perhaps his voice harmonized with some dream into which she was passing.
+It did not startle, it hardly roused her. Without opening her eyes, she
+but turned her head a little, so that her cheek and profile, before
+hidden by her arm, became visible. She looked rosy, happy, half smiling,
+but her eyelashes were wet. She had wept in slumber; or perhaps, before
+dropping asleep, a few natural tears had fallen after she had heard that
+epithet. No man--no woman--is always strong, always able to bear up
+against the unjust opinion, the vilifying word. Calumny, even from the
+mouth of a fool, will sometimes cut into unguarded feelings. Shirley
+looked like a child that had been naughty and punished, but was now
+forgiven and at rest.
+
+"Miss Keeldar," again said the voice. This time it woke her. She looked
+up, and saw at her side Louis Moore--not close at her side, but
+standing, with arrested step, two or three yards from her.
+
+"O Mr. Moore!" she said. "I was afraid it was my uncle again: he and I
+have quarrelled."
+
+"Mr. Sympson should let you alone," was the reply. "Can he not see that
+you are as yet far from strong?"
+
+"I assure you he did not find me weak. I did not cry when he was here."
+
+"He is about to evacuate Fieldhead--so he says. He is now giving orders
+to his family. He has been in the schoolroom issuing commands in a
+manner which, I suppose, was a continuation of that with which he has
+harassed you."
+
+"Are you and Henry to go?"
+
+"I believe, as far as Henry is concerned, that was the tenor of his
+scarcely intelligible directions; but he may change all to-morrow. He is
+just in that mood when you cannot depend on his consistency for two
+consecutive hours. I doubt whether he will leave you for weeks yet. To
+myself he addressed some words which will require a little attention and
+comment by-and-by, when I have time to bestow on them. At the moment he
+came in I was busied with a note I had got from Mr. Yorke--so fully
+busied that I cut short the interview with him somewhat abruptly. I left
+him raving. Here is the note. I wish you to see it. It refers to my
+brother Robert." And he looked at Shirley.
+
+"I shall be glad to hear news of him. Is he coming home?"
+
+"He is come. He is in Yorkshire. Mr. Yorke went yesterday to Stilbro' to
+meet him."
+
+"Mr. Moore, something is wrong----"
+
+"Did my voice tremble? He is now at Briarmains, and I am going to see
+him."
+
+"What has occurred?"
+
+"If you turn so pale I shall be sorry I have spoken. It might have been
+worse. Robert is not dead, but much hurt."
+
+"O sir, it is you who are pale. Sit down near me."
+
+"Read the note. Let me open it."
+
+Miss Keeldar read the note. It briefly signified that last night Robert
+Moore had been shot at from behind the wall of Milldean plantation, at
+the foot of the Brow; that he was wounded severely, but it was hoped not
+fatally. Of the assassin, or assassins, nothing was known; they had
+escaped. "No doubt," Mr. Yorke observed, "it was done in revenge. It was
+a pity ill-will had ever been raised; but that could not be helped now."
+
+"He is my only brother," said Louis, as Shirley returned the note. "I
+cannot hear unmoved that ruffians have laid in wait for him, and shot
+him down, like some wild beast from behind a wall."
+
+"Be comforted; be hopeful. He will get better--I know he will."
+
+Shirley, solicitous to soothe, held her hand over Mr. Moore's as it lay
+on the arm of the chair. She just touched it lightly, scarce palpably.
+
+"Well, give me your hand," he said. "It will be for the first time; it
+is in a moment of calamity. Give it me."
+
+Awaiting neither consent nor refusal, he took what he asked.
+
+"I am going to Briarmains now," he went on. "I want you to step over to
+the rectory and tell Caroline Helstone what has happened. Will you do
+this? She will hear it best from you."
+
+"Immediately," said Shirley, with docile promptitude. "Ought I to say
+that there is no danger?"
+
+"Say so."
+
+"You will come back soon, and let me know more?"
+
+"I will either come or write."
+
+"Trust me for watching over Caroline. I will communicate with your
+sister too; but doubtless she is already with Robert?"
+
+"Doubtless, or will be soon. Good-morning now."
+
+"You will bear up, come what may."
+
+"We shall see that."
+
+Shirley's fingers were obliged to withdraw from the tutor's. Louis was
+obliged to relinquish that hand folded, clasped, hidden in his own.
+
+"I thought I should have had to support her," he said, as he walked
+towards Briarmains, "and it is she who has made me strong. That look of
+pity, that gentle touch! No down was ever softer, no elixir more potent!
+It lay like a snowflake; it thrilled like lightning. A thousand times I
+have longed to possess that hand--to have it in mine. I _have_ possessed
+it; for five minutes I held it. Her fingers and mine can never be
+strangers more. Having met once they must meet again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+THE SCHOOLBOY AND THE WOOD-NYMPH.
+
+
+Briarmains being nearer than the Hollow, Mr. Yorke had conveyed his
+young comrade there. He had seen him laid in the best bed of the house,
+as carefully as if he had been one of his own sons. The sight of his
+blood, welling from the treacherously inflicted wound, made him indeed
+the son of the Yorkshire gentleman's heart. The spectacle of the sudden
+event, of the tall, straight shape prostrated in its pride across the
+road, of the fine southern head laid low in the dust, of that youth in
+prime flung at once before him pallid, lifeless, helpless--this was the
+very combination of circumstances to win for the victim Mr. Yorke's
+liveliest interest.
+
+No other hand was there to raise--to aid, no other voice to question
+kindly, no other brain to concert measures; he had to do it all himself.
+This utter dependence of the speechless, bleeding youth (as a youth he
+regarded him) on his benevolence secured that benevolence most
+effectually. Well did Mr. Yorke like to have power, and to use it. He
+had now between his hands power over a fellow-creature's life. It suited
+him.
+
+No less perfectly did it suit his saturnine better half. The incident
+was quite in her way and to her taste. Some women would have been
+terror-struck to see a gory man brought in over their threshold, and
+laid down in their hall in the "howe of the night." There, you would
+suppose, was subject-matter for hysterics. No. Mrs. Yorke went into
+hysterics when Jessie would not leave the garden to come to her
+knitting, or when Martin proposed starting for Australia, with a view to
+realize freedom and escape the tyranny of Matthew; but an attempted
+murder near her door--a half-murdered man in her best bed--set her
+straight, cheered her spirits, gave her cap the dash of a turban.
+
+Mrs. Yorke was just the woman who, while rendering miserable the
+drudging life of a simple maid-servant, would nurse like a heroine a
+hospital full of plague patients. She almost loved Moore. Her tough
+heart almost yearned towards him when she found him committed to her
+charge--left in her arms, as dependent on her as her youngest-born in
+the cradle. Had she seen a domestic or one of her daughters give him a
+draught of water or smooth his pillow, she would have boxed the
+intruder's ears. She chased Jessie and Rose from the upper realm of the
+house; she forbade the housemaids to set their foot in it.
+
+Now, if the accident had happened at the rectory gates, and old Helstone
+had taken in the martyr, neither Yorke nor his wife would have pitied
+him. They would have adjudged him right served for his tyranny and
+meddling. As it was, he became, for the present, the apple of their eye.
+
+Strange! Louis Moore was permitted to come--to sit down on the edge of
+the bed and lean over the pillow; to hold his brother's hand, and press
+his pale forehead with his fraternal lips; and Mrs. Yorke bore it well.
+She suffered him to stay half the day there; she once suffered him to
+sit up all night in the chamber; she rose herself at five o'clock of a
+wet November morning, and with her own hands lit the kitchen fire, and
+made the brothers a breakfast, and served it to them herself.
+Majestically arrayed in a boundless flannel wrapper, a shawl, and her
+nightcap, she sat and watched them eat, as complacently as a hen beholds
+her chickens feed. Yet she gave the cook warning that day for venturing
+to make and carry up to Mr. Moore a basin of sago-gruel; and the
+housemaid lost her favour because, when Mr. Louis was departing, she
+brought him his surtout aired from the kitchen, and, like a "forward
+piece" as she was, helped him on with it, and accepted in return a
+smile, a "Thank you, my girl," and a shilling. Two ladies called one
+day, pale and anxious, and begged earnestly, humbly, to be allowed to
+see Mr. Moore one instant. Mrs. Yorke hardened her heart, and sent them
+packing--not without opprobrium.
+
+But how was it when Hortense Moore came? Not so bad as might have been
+expected. The whole family of the Moores really seemed to suit Mrs.
+Yorke so as no other family had ever suited her. Hortense and she
+possessed an exhaustless mutual theme of conversation in the corrupt
+propensities of servants. Their views of this class were similar; they
+watched them with the same suspicion, and judged them with the same
+severity. Hortense, too, from the very first showed no manner of
+jealousy of Mrs. Yorke's attentions to Robert--she let her keep the post
+of nurse with little interference; and, for herself, found ceaseless
+occupation in fidgeting about the house, holding the kitchen under
+surveillance, reporting what passed there, and, in short, making herself
+generally useful. Visitors they both of them agreed in excluding
+sedulously from the sickroom. They held the young mill-owner captive,
+and hardly let the air breathe or the sun shine on him.
+
+Mr. MacTurk, the surgeon to whom Moore's case had been committed,
+pronounced his wound of a dangerous, but, he trusted, not of a hopeless
+character. At first he wished to place with him a nurse of his own
+selection; but this neither Mrs. Yorke nor Hortense would hear of. They
+promised faithful observance of directions. He was left, therefore, for
+the present in their hands.
+
+Doubtless they executed the trust to the best of their ability; but
+something got wrong. The bandages were displaced or tampered with; great
+loss of blood followed. MacTurk, being summoned, came with steed afoam.
+He was one of those surgeons whom it is dangerous to vex--abrupt in his
+best moods, in his worst savage. On seeing Moore's state he relieved his
+feelings by a little flowery language, with which it is not necessary to
+strew the present page. A bouquet or two of the choicest blossoms fell
+on the unperturbed head of one Mr. Graves, a stony young assistant he
+usually carried about with him; with a second nosegay he gifted another
+young gentleman in his train--an interesting fac-simile of himself,
+being indeed his own son; but the full _corbeille_ of blushing bloom
+fell to the lot of meddling womankind, _en masse_.
+
+For the best part of one winter night himself and satellites were busied
+about Moore. There at his bedside, shut up alone with him in his
+chamber, they wrought and wrangled over his exhausted frame. They three
+were on one side of the bed, and Death on the other. The conflict was
+sharp; it lasted till day broke, when the balance between the
+belligerents seemed so equal that both parties might have claimed the
+victory.
+
+At dawn Graves and young MacTurk were left in charge of the patient,
+while the senior went himself in search of additional strength, and
+secured it in the person of Mrs. Horsfall, the best nurse on his staff.
+To this woman he gave Moore in charge, with the sternest injunctions
+respecting the responsibility laid on her shoulders. She took this
+responsibility stolidly, as she did also the easy-chair at the bedhead.
+That moment she began her reign.
+
+Mrs. Horsfall had one virtue--orders received from MacTurk she obeyed to
+the letter. The ten commandments were less binding in her eyes than her
+surgeon's dictum. In other respects she was no woman, but a dragon.
+Hortense Moore fell effaced before her; Mrs. Yorke withdrew--crushed;
+yet both these women were personages of some dignity in their own
+estimation, and of some bulk in the estimation of others. Perfectly
+cowed by the breadth, the height, the bone, and the brawn of Mrs.
+Horsfall, they retreated to the back parlour. She, for her part, sat
+upstairs when she liked, and downstairs when she preferred it. She took
+her dram three times a day, and her pipe of tobacco four times.
+
+As to Moore, no one now ventured to inquire about him. Mrs. Horsfall had
+him at dry-nurse. It was she who was to do for him, and the general
+conjecture now ran that she did for him accordingly.
+
+Morning and evening MacTurk came to see him. His case, thus complicated
+by a new mischance, was become one of interest in the surgeon's eyes. He
+regarded him as a damaged piece of clockwork, which it would be
+creditable to his skill to set agoing again. Graves and young
+MacTurk--Moore's sole other visitors--contemplated him in the light in
+which they were wont to contemplate the occupant for the time being of
+the dissecting-room at Stilbro' Infirmary.
+
+Robert Moore had a pleasant time of it--in pain, in danger, too weak to
+move, almost too weak to speak, a sort of giantess his keeper, the three
+surgeons his sole society. Thus he lay through the diminishing days and
+lengthening nights of the whole drear month of November.
+
+In the commencement of his captivity Moore used feebly to resist Mrs.
+Horsfall. He hated the sight of her rough bulk, and dreaded the contact
+of her hard hands; but she taught him docility in a trice. She made no
+account whatever of his six feet, his manly thews and sinews; she turned
+him in his bed as another woman would have turned a babe in its cradle.
+When he was good she addressed him as "my dear" and "honey," and when he
+was bad she sometimes shook him. Did he attempt to speak when MacTurk
+was there, she lifted her hand and bade him "Hush!" like a nurse
+checking a forward child. If she had not smoked, if she had not taken
+gin, it would have been better, he thought; but she did both. Once, in
+her absence, he intimated to MacTurk that "that woman was a
+dram-drinker."
+
+"Pooh! my dear sir, they are all so," was the reply he got for his
+pains. "But Horsfall has this virtue," added the surgeon--"drunk or
+sober, she always remembers to obey _me_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At length the latter autumn passed; its fogs, its rains withdrew from
+England their mourning and their tears; its winds swept on to sigh over
+lands far away. Behind November came deep winter--clearness, stillness,
+frost accompanying.
+
+A calm day had settled into a crystalline evening. The world wore a
+North Pole colouring; all its lights and tints looked like the
+_reflets_[A] of white, or violet, or pale green gems. The hills wore a
+lilac blue; the setting sun had purple in its red; the sky was ice, all
+silvered azure; when the stars rose, they were of white crystal, not
+gold; gray, or cerulean, or faint emerald hues--cool, pure, and
+transparent--tinged the mass of the landscape.
+
+    [A] Find me an English word as good, reader, and I will gladly
+        dispense with the French word. "Reflections" won't do.
+
+What is this by itself in a wood no longer green, no longer even russet,
+a wood neutral tint--this dark blue moving object? Why, it is a
+schoolboy--a Briarfield grammar-school boy--who has left his companions,
+now trudging home by the highroad, and is seeking a certain tree, with a
+certain mossy mound at its root, convenient as a seat. Why is he
+lingering here? The air is cold and the time wears late. He sits down.
+What is he thinking about? Does he feel the chaste charm Nature wears
+to-night? A pearl-white moon smiles through the gray trees; does he care
+for her smile?
+
+Impossible to say; for he is silent, and his countenance does not speak.
+As yet it is no mirror to reflect sensation, but rather a mask to
+conceal it. This boy is a stripling of fifteen--slight, and tall of his
+years. In his face there is as little of amenity as of servility, his
+eye seems prepared to note any incipient attempt to control or overreach
+him, and the rest of his features indicate faculties alert for
+resistance. Wise ushers avoid unnecessary interference with that lad.
+To break him in by severity would be a useless attempt; to win him by
+flattery would be an effort worse than useless. He is best let alone.
+Time will educate and experience train him.
+
+Professedly Martin Yorke (it is a young Yorke, of course) tramples on
+the name of poetry. Talk sentiment to him, and you would be answered by
+sarcasm. Here he is, wandering alone, waiting duteously on Nature, while
+she unfolds a page of stern, of silent, and of solemn poetry beneath his
+attentive gaze.
+
+Being seated, he takes from his satchel a book--not the Latin grammar,
+but a contraband volume of fairy tales. There will be light enough yet
+for an hour to serve his keen young vision. Besides, the moon waits on
+him; her beam, dim and vague as yet, fills the glade where he sits.
+
+He reads. He is led into a solitary mountain region; all round him is
+rude and desolate, shapeless, and almost colourless. He hears bells
+tinkle on the wind. Forth-riding from the formless folds of the mist
+dawns on him the brightest vision--a green-robed lady, on a snow-white
+palfrey. He sees her dress, her gems, and her steed. She arrests him
+with some mysterious question. He is spell-bound, and must follow her
+into fairyland.
+
+A second legend bears him to the sea-shore. There tumbles in a strong
+tide, boiling at the base of dizzy cliffs. It rains and blows. A reef of
+rocks, black and rough, stretches far into the sea. All along, and
+among, and above these crags dash and flash, sweep and leap, swells,
+wreaths, drifts of snowy spray. Some lone wanderer is out on these
+rocks, treading with cautious step the wet, wild seaweed; glancing down
+into hollows where the brine lies fathoms deep and emerald clear, and
+seeing there wilder and stranger and huger vegetation than is found on
+land, with treasure of shells--some green, some purple, some
+pearly--clustered in the curls of the snaky plants. He hears a cry.
+Looking up and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a tall,
+pale thing--shaped like man, but made of spray--transparent, tremulous,
+awful. It stands not alone. They are all human figures that wanton in
+the rocks--a crowd of foam-women--a band of white, evanescent Nereids.
+
+Hush! Shut the book; hide it in the satchel. Martin hears a tread. He
+listens. No--yes. Once more the dead leaves, lightly crushed, rustle on
+the wood path. Martin watches; the trees part, and a woman issues
+forth.
+
+She is a lady dressed in dark silk, a veil covering her face. Martin
+never met a lady in this wood before--nor any female, save, now and
+then, a village girl come to gather nuts. To-night the apparition does
+not displease him. He observes, as she approaches, that she is neither
+old nor plain, but, on the contrary, very youthful; and, but that he now
+recognizes her for one whom he has often wilfully pronounced ugly, he
+would deem that he discovered traits of beauty behind the thin gauze of
+that veil.
+
+She passes him and says nothing. He knew she would. All women are proud
+monkeys, and he knows no more conceited doll than that Caroline
+Helstone. The thought is hardly hatched in his mind when the lady
+retraces those two steps she had got beyond him, and raising her veil,
+reposes her glance on his face, while she softly asks, "Are you one of
+Mr. Yorke's sons?"
+
+No human evidence would ever have been able to persuade Martin Yorke
+that he blushed when thus addressed; yet blush he did, to the ears.
+
+"I am," he said bluntly, and encouraged himself to wonder,
+superciliously, what would come next.
+
+"You are Martin, I think?" was the observation that followed.
+
+It could not have been more felicitous. It was a simple sentence--very
+artlessly, a little timidly, pronounced; but it chimed in harmony to the
+youth's nature. It stilled him like a note of music.
+
+Martin had a keen sense of his personality; he felt it right and
+sensible that the girl should discriminate him from his brothers. Like
+his father, he hated ceremony. It was acceptable to hear a lady address
+him as "Martin," and not Mr. Martin or Master Martin, which form would
+have lost her his good graces for ever. Worse, if possible, than
+ceremony was the other extreme of slipshod familiarity. The slight tone
+of bashfulness, the scarcely perceptible hesitation, was considered
+perfectly in place.
+
+"I am Martin," he said.
+
+"Are your father and mother well?" (it was lucky she did not say _papa_
+and _mamma_; that would have undone all); "and Rose and Jessie?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"My cousin Hortense is still at Briarmains?"
+
+"Oh yes."
+
+Martin gave a comic half-smile and demi-groan. The half-smile was
+responded to by the lady, who could guess in what sort of odour Hortense
+was likely to be held by the young Yorkes.
+
+"Does your mother like her?"
+
+"They suit so well about the servants they can't help liking each
+other."
+
+"It is cold to-night."
+
+"Why are you out so late?"
+
+"I lost my way in this wood."
+
+Now, indeed, Martin allowed himself a refreshing laugh of scorn.
+
+"Lost your way in the mighty forest of Briarmains! You deserve never
+more to find it."
+
+"I never was here before, and I believe I am trespassing now. You might
+inform against me if you chose, Martin, and have me fined. It is your
+father's wood."
+
+"I should think I knew that. But since you are so simple as to lose your
+way, I will guide you out."
+
+"You need not. I have got into the track now. I shall be right. Martin"
+(a little quickly), "how is Mr. Moore?"
+
+Martin had heard certain rumours; it struck him that it might be amusing
+to make an experiment.
+
+"Going to die. Nothing can save him. All hope flung overboard!"
+
+She put her veil aside. She looked into his eyes, and said, "To die!"
+
+"To die. All along of the women, my mother and the rest. They did
+something about his bandages that finished everything. He would have got
+better but for them. I am sure they should be arrested, cribbed, tried,
+and brought in for Botany Bay, at the very least."
+
+The questioner, perhaps, did nor hear this judgment. She stood
+motionless. In two minutes, without another word, she moved forwards; no
+good-night, no further inquiry. This was not amusing, nor what Martin
+had calculated on. He expected something dramatic and demonstrative. It
+was hardly worth while to frighten the girl if she would not entertain
+him in return. He called, "Miss Helstone!"
+
+She did not hear or turn. He hastened after and overtook her.
+
+"Come; are you uneasy about what I said?"
+
+"You know nothing about death, Martin; you are too young for me to talk
+to concerning such a thing."
+
+"Did you believe me? It's all flummery! Moore eats like three men. They
+are always making sago or tapioca or something good for him. I never go
+into the kitchen but there is a saucepan on the fire, cooking him some
+dainty. I think I will play the old soldier, and be fed on the fat of
+the land like him."
+
+"Martin! Martin!" Here her voice trembled, and she stopped.
+
+"It is exceedingly wrong of you, Martin. You have almost killed me."
+
+Again she stopped. She leaned against a tree, trembling, shuddering, and
+as pale as death.
+
+Martin contemplated her with inexpressible curiosity. In one sense it
+was, as he would have expressed it, "nuts" to him to see this. It told
+him so much, and he was beginning to have a great relish for discovering
+secrets. In another sense it reminded him of what he had once felt when
+he had heard a blackbird lamenting for her nestlings, which Matthew had
+crushed with a stone, and that was not a pleasant feeling. Unable to
+find anything very appropriate to _say_ in order to comfort her, he
+began to cast about in his mind what he could _do_. He smiled. The lad's
+smile gave wondrous transparency to his physiognomy.
+
+"Eureka!" he cried. "I'll set all straight by-and-by. You are better
+now, Miss Caroline. Walk forward," he urged.
+
+Not reflecting that it would be more difficult for Miss Helstone than
+for himself to climb a wall or penetrate a hedge, he piloted her by a
+short cut which led to no gate. The consequence was he had to help her
+over some formidable obstacles, and while he railed at her for
+helplessness, he perfectly liked to feel himself of use.
+
+"Martin, before we separate, assure me seriously, and on your word of
+honour, that Mr. Moore is better."
+
+"How very much you think of that Moore!"
+
+"No--but--many of his friends may ask me, and I wish to be able to give
+an authentic answer."
+
+"You may tell them he is well enough, only idle. You may tell them that
+he takes mutton chops for dinner, and the best of arrowroot for supper.
+I intercepted a basin myself one night on its way upstairs, and ate half
+of it."
+
+"And who waits on him, Martin? who nurses him?"
+
+"Nurses him? The great baby! Why, a woman as round and big as our
+largest water-butt--a rough, hard-favoured old girl. I make no doubt
+she leads him a rich life. Nobody else is let near him. He is chiefly in
+the dark. It is my belief she knocks him about terribly in that chamber.
+I listen at the wall sometimes when I am in bed, and I think I hear her
+thumping him. You should see her fist. She could hold half a dozen hands
+like yours in her one palm. After all, notwithstanding the chops and
+jellies he gets, I would not be in his shoes. In fact, it is my private
+opinion that she eats most of what goes up on the tray to Mr. Moore. I
+wish she may not be starving him."
+
+Profound silence and meditation on Caroline's part, and a sly
+watchfulness on Martin's.
+
+"You never see him, I suppose, Martin?"
+
+"I? No. I don't care to see him, for my own part."
+
+Silence again.
+
+"Did not you come to our house once with Mrs. Pryor, about five weeks
+since, to ask after him?" again inquired Martin.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I dare say you wished to be shown upstairs?"
+
+"We _did_ wish it. We entreated it; but your mother declined."
+
+"Ay! she declined. I heard it all. She treated you as it is her pleasure
+to treat visitors now and then. She behaved to you rudely and harshly."
+
+"She was not kind; for you know, Martin, we are relations, and it is
+natural we should take an interest in Mr. Moore. But here we must part;
+we are at your father's gate."
+
+"Very well, what of that? I shall walk home with you."
+
+"They will miss you, and wonder where you are."
+
+"Let them. I can take care of myself, I suppose."
+
+Martin knew that he had already incurred the penalty of a lecture, and
+dry bread for his tea. No matter; the evening had furnished him with an
+adventure. It was better than muffins and toast.
+
+He walked home with Caroline. On the way he promised to see Mr. Moore,
+in spite of the dragon who guarded his chamber, and appointed an hour on
+the next day when Caroline was to come to Briarmains Wood and get
+tidings of him. He would meet her at a certain tree. The scheme led to
+nothing; still he liked it.
+
+Having reached home, the dry bread and the lecture were duly
+administered to him, and he was dismissed to bed at an early hour. He
+accepted his punishment with the toughest stoicism.
+
+Ere ascending to his chamber he paid a secret visit to the dining-room,
+a still, cold, stately apartment, seldom used, for the family
+customarily dined in the back parlour. He stood before the mantelpiece,
+and lifted his candle to two pictures hung above--female heads: one, a
+type of serene beauty, happy and innocent; the other, more lovely, but
+forlorn and desperate.
+
+"She looked like _that_," he said, gazing on the latter sketch, "when
+she sobbed, turned white, and leaned against the tree."
+
+"I suppose," he pursued, when he was in his room, and seated on the edge
+of his pallet-bed--"I suppose she is what they call '_in love_'--yes,
+_in love_ with that long thing in the next chamber. Whisht! is that
+Horsfall clattering him? I wonder he does not yell out. It really sounds
+as if she had fallen on him tooth and nail; but I suppose she is making
+the bed. I saw her at it once. She hit into the mattresses as if she was
+boxing. It is queer, Zillah (they call her Zillah)--Zillah Horsfall is a
+woman, and Caroline Helstone is a woman; they are two individuals of the
+same species--not much alike though. Is she a pretty girl, that
+Caroline? I suspect she is; very nice to look at--something so clear in
+her face, so soft in her eyes. I approve of her looking at me; it does
+me good. She has long eyelashes. Their shadow seems to rest where she
+gazes, and to instil peace and thought. If she behaves well, and
+continues to suit me as she has suited me to-day, I may do her a good
+turn. I rather relish the notion of circumventing my mother and that
+ogress old Horsfall. Not that I like humouring Moore; but whatever I do
+I'll be paid for, and in coin of my own choosing. I know what reward I
+will claim--one displeasing to Moore, and agreeable to myself."
+
+He turned into bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+MARTIN'S TACTICS.
+
+
+It was necessary to the arrangement of Martin's plan that he should stay
+at home that day. Accordingly, he found no appetite for breakfast, and
+just about school-time took a severe pain about his heart, which
+rendered it advisable that, instead of setting out to the grammar school
+with Mark, he should succeed to his father's arm-chair by the fireside,
+and also to his morning paper. This point being satisfactorily settled,
+and Mark being gone to Mr. Summer's class, and Matthew and Mr. Yorke
+withdrawn to the counting-house, three other exploits--nay,
+four--remained to be achieved.
+
+The first of these was to realize the breakfast he had not yet tasted,
+and with which his appetite of fifteen could ill afford to dispense; the
+second, third, fourth, to get his mother, Miss Moore, and Mrs. Horsfall
+successfully out of the way before four o'clock that afternoon.
+
+The first was, for the present, the most pressing, since the work before
+him demanded an amount of energy which the present empty condition of
+his youthful stomach did not seem likely to supply.
+
+Martin knew the way to the larder, and knowing this way he took it. The
+servants were in the kitchen, breakfasting solemnly with closed doors;
+his mother and Miss Moore were airing themselves on the lawn, and
+discussing the closed doors aforesaid. Martin, safe in the larder, made
+fastidious selection from its stores. His breakfast had been delayed; he
+was determined it should be _recherché_. It appeared to him that a
+variety on his usual somewhat insipid fare of bread and milk was both
+desirable and advisable; the savoury and the salutary he thought might
+be combined. There was store of rosy apples laid in straw upon a shelf;
+he picked out three. There was pastry upon a dish; he selected an
+apricot puff and a damson tart. On the plain household bread his eye
+did not dwell; but he surveyed with favour some currant tea-cakes, and
+condescended to make choice of one. Thanks to his clasp-knife, he was
+able to appropriate a wing of fowl and a slice of ham; a cantlet of cold
+custard-pudding he thought would harmonize with these articles; and
+having made this final addition to his booty, he at length sallied forth
+into the hall.
+
+He was already half-way across--three steps more would have anchored him
+in the harbour of the back parlour--when the front door opened, and
+there stood Matthew. Better far had it been the Old Gentleman, in full
+equipage of horns, hoofs, and tail.
+
+Matthew, sceptic and scoffer, had already failed to subscribe a prompt
+belief in that pain about the heart. He had muttered some words, amongst
+which the phrase "shamming Abraham" had been very distinctly audible,
+and the succession to the armchair and newspaper had appeared to affect
+him with mental spasms. The spectacle now before him--the apples, the
+tarts, the tea-cakes, the fowl, ham, and pudding--offered evidence but
+too well calculated to inflate his opinion of his own sagacity.
+
+Martin paused _interdit_ one minute, one instant; the next he knew his
+ground, and pronounced all well. With the true perspicacity _des âmes
+élites_, he at once saw how this at first sight untoward event might be
+turned to excellent account. He saw how it might be so handled as to
+secure the accomplishment of his second task--namely, the disposal of
+his mother. He knew that a collision between him and Matthew always
+suggested to Mrs. Yorke the propriety of a fit of hysterics. He further
+knew that, on the principle of calm succeeding to storm, after a morning
+of hysterics his mother was sure to indulge in an afternoon of bed. This
+would accommodate him perfectly.
+
+The collision duly took place in the hall. A dry laugh, an insulting
+sneer, a contemptuous taunt, met by a nonchalant but most cutting reply,
+were the signals. They rushed at it. Martin, who usually made little
+noise on these occasions, made a great deal now. In flew the servants,
+Mrs. Yorke, Miss Moore. No female hand could separate them. Mr. Yorke
+was summoned.
+
+"Sons," said he, "one of you must leave my roof if this occurs again. I
+will have no Cain and Abel strife here."
+
+Martin now allowed himself to be taken off. He had been hurt; he was the
+youngest and slightest. He was quite cool, in no passion; he even
+smiled, content that the most difficult part of the labour he had set
+himself was over.
+
+Once he seemed to flag in the course of the morning.
+
+"It is not worth while to bother myself for that Caroline," he remarked.
+But a quarter of an hour afterwards he was again in the dining-room,
+looking at the head with dishevelled tresses, and eyes turbid with
+despair.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I made her sob, shudder, almost faint. I'll see her
+smile before I've done with her; besides, I want to outwit all these
+womenites."
+
+Directly after dinner Mrs. Yorke fulfilled her son's calculation by
+withdrawing to her chamber. Now for Hortense.
+
+That lady was just comfortably settled to stocking-mending in the back
+parlour, when Martin--laying down a book which, stretched on the sofa
+(he was still indisposed, according to his own account), he had been
+perusing in all the voluptuous ease of a yet callow pacha--lazily
+introduced some discourse about Sarah, the maid at the Hollow. In the
+course of much verbal meandering he insinuated information that this
+damsel was said to have three suitors--Frederic Murgatroyd, Jeremiah
+Pighills, and John-of-Mally's-of-Hannah's-of-Deb's; and that Miss Mann
+had affirmed she knew for a fact that, now the girl was left in sole
+charge of the cottage, she often had her swains to meals, and
+entertained them with the best the house afforded.
+
+It needed no more. Hortense could not have lived another hour without
+betaking herself to the scene of these nefarious transactions, and
+inspecting the state of matters in person. Mrs. Horsfall remained.
+
+Martin, master of the field now, extracted from his mother's work-basket
+a bunch of keys; with these he opened the sideboard cupboard, produced
+thence a black bottle and a small glass, placed them on the table,
+nimbly mounted the stairs, made for Mr. Moore's door, tapped; the nurse
+opened.
+
+"If you please, ma'am, you are invited to step into the back parlour and
+take some refreshment. You will not be disturbed; the family are out."
+
+He watched her down; he watched her in; himself shut the door. He knew
+she was safe.
+
+The hard work was done; now for the pleasure. He snatched his cap, and
+away for the wood.
+
+It was yet but half-past three. It had been a fine morning, but the sky
+looked dark now. It was beginning to snow; the wind blew cold; the wood
+looked dismal, the old tree grim. Yet Martin approved the shadow on his
+path. He found a charm in the spectral aspect of the doddered oak.
+
+He had to wait. To and fro he walked, while the flakes fell faster; and
+the wind, which at first had but moaned, pitifully howled.
+
+"She is long in coming," he muttered, as he glanced along the narrow
+track. "I wonder," he subjoined, "what I wish to see her so much for?
+She is not coming for me. But I have power over her, and I want her to
+come that I may use that power."
+
+He continued his walk.
+
+"Now," he resumed, when a further period had elapsed, "if she fails to
+come, I shall hate and scorn her."
+
+It struck four. He heard the church clock far away. A step so quick, so
+light, that, but for the rustling of leaves, it would scarcely have
+sounded on the wood-walk, checked his impatience. The wind blew fiercely
+now, and the thickening white storm waxed bewildering; but on she came,
+and not dismayed.
+
+"Well, Martin," she said eagerly, "how is he?"
+
+"It is queer how she thinks of _him_," reflected Martin. "The blinding
+snow and bitter cold are nothing to her, I believe; yet she is but a
+'chitty-faced creature,' as my mother would say. I could find in my
+heart to wish I had a cloak to wrap her in."
+
+Thus meditating to himself, he neglected to answer Miss Helstone.
+
+"You have seen him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Oh! you promised you would."
+
+"I mean to do better by you than that. Didn't I say _I_ don't care to
+see him?"
+
+"But now it will be so long before I get to know any thing certain about
+him, and I am sick of waiting. Martin, _do_ see him, and give him
+Caroline Helstone's regards, and say she wished to know how he was, and
+if anything could be done for his comfort."
+
+"I won't."
+
+"You are changed. You were so friendly last night."
+
+"Come, we must not stand in this wood; it is too cold."
+
+"But before I go promise me to come again to-morrow with news."
+
+"No such thing. I am much too delicate to make and keep such
+appointments in the winter season. If you knew what a pain I had in my
+chest this morning, and how I went without breakfast, and was knocked
+down besides, you'd feel the impropriety of bringing me here in the
+snow. Come, I say."
+
+"Are you really delicate, Martin?"
+
+"Don't I look so?"
+
+"You have rosy cheeks."
+
+"That's hectic. Will you come--or you won't?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"With me. I was a fool not to bring a cloak. I would have made you
+cosy."
+
+"You are going home; my nearest road lies in the opposite direction."
+
+"Put your arm through mine; I'll take care of you."
+
+"But the wall--the hedge--it is such hard work climbing, and you are too
+slender and young to help me without hurting yourself."
+
+"You shall go through the gate."
+
+"But----"
+
+"But, but--will you trust me or not?"
+
+She looked into his face.
+
+"I think I will. Anything rather than return as anxious as I came."
+
+"I can't answer for that. This, however, I promise you: be ruled by me,
+and you shall see Moore yourself."
+
+"See him myself?"
+
+"Yourself."
+
+"But, dear Martin, does he know?"
+
+"Ah! I'm dear now. No, he doesn't know."
+
+"And your mother and the others?"
+
+"All is right."
+
+Caroline fell into a long, silent fit of musing, but still she walked on
+with her guide. They came in sight of Briarmains.
+
+"Have you made up your mind?" he asked.
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Decide; we are just on the spot. I _won't_ see him--that I tell
+you--except to announce your arrival."
+
+"Martin, you are a strange boy, and this is a strange step; but all I
+feel _is_ and _has_ been, for a long time, strange. I will see him."
+
+"Having said that, you will neither hesitate nor retract?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Here we are, then. Do not be afraid of passing the parlour window; no
+one will see you. My father and Matthew are at the mill, Mark is at
+school, the servants are in the back kitchen, Miss Moore is at the
+cottage, my mother in her bed, and Mrs. Horsfall in paradise. Observe--I
+need not ring. I open the door; the hall is empty, the staircase quiet;
+so is the gallery. The whole house and all its inhabitants are under a
+spell, which I will not break till you are gone."
+
+"Martin, I trust you."
+
+"You never said a better word. Let me take your shawl. I will shake off
+the snow and dry it for you. You are cold and wet. Never mind; there is
+a fire upstairs. Are you ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Follow me."
+
+He left his shoes on the mat, mounted the stair unshod. Caroline stole
+after, with noiseless step. There was a gallery, and there was a
+passage; at the end of that passage Martin paused before a door and
+tapped. He had to tap twice--thrice. A voice, known to one listener, at
+last said, "Come in."
+
+The boy entered briskly.
+
+"Mr. Moore, a lady called to inquire after you. None of the women were
+about. It is washing-day, and the maids are over the crown of the head
+in soap-suds in the back kitchen, so I asked her to step up."
+
+"Up here, sir?"
+
+"Up here, sir; but if you object, she shall go down again."
+
+"Is this a place or am I a person to bring a lady to, you absurd lad?"
+
+"No; so I'll take her off."
+
+"Martin, you will stay here. Who is she?"
+
+"Your grandmother from that château on the Scheldt Miss Moore talks
+about."
+
+"Martin," said the softest whisper at the door, "don't be foolish."
+
+"Is she there?" inquired Moore hastily. He had caught an imperfect
+sound.
+
+"She is there, fit to faint. She is standing on the mat, shocked at your
+want of filial affection."
+
+"Martin, you are an evil cross between an imp and a page. What is she
+like?"
+
+"More like me than you; for she is young and beautiful."
+
+"You are to show her forward. Do you hear?"
+
+"Come, Miss Caroline."
+
+"Miss Caroline!" repeated Moore.
+
+And when Miss Caroline entered she was encountered in the middle of the
+chamber by a tall, thin, wasted figure, who took both her hands.
+
+"I give you a quarter of an hour," said Martin, as he withdrew, "no
+more. Say what you have to say in that time. Till it is past I will wait
+in the gallery; nothing shall approach; I'll see you safe away. Should
+you persist in staying longer, I leave you to your fate."
+
+He shut the door. In the gallery he was as elate as a king. He had never
+been engaged in an adventure he liked so well, for no adventure had ever
+invested him with so much importance or inspired him with so much
+interest.
+
+"You are come at last," said the meagre man, gazing on his visitress
+with hollow eyes.
+
+"Did you expect me before?"
+
+"For a month, near two months, we have been very near; and I have been
+in sad pain, and danger, and misery, Cary."
+
+"I could not come."
+
+"Couldn't you? But the rectory and Briarmains are very near--not two
+miles apart."
+
+There was pain and there was pleasure in the girl's face as she listened
+to these implied reproaches. It was sweet, it was bitter to defend
+herself.
+
+"When I say I could not come, I mean I could not see you; for I came
+with mamma the very day we heard what had happened. Mr. MacTurk then
+told us it was impossible to admit any stranger."
+
+"But afterwards--every fine afternoon these many weeks past I have
+waited and listened. Something here, Cary"--laying his hand on his
+breast--"told me it was impossible but that you should think of me. Not
+that I merit thought; but we are old acquaintance--we are cousins."
+
+"I came again, Robert; mamma and I came again."
+
+"Did you? Come, that is worth hearing. Since you came again, we will sit
+down and talk about it."
+
+They sat down. Caroline drew her chair up to his. The air was now dark
+with snow; an Iceland blast was driving it wildly. This pair neither
+heard the long "wuthering" rush, nor saw the white burden it drifted.
+Each seemed conscious but of one thing--the presence of the other.
+
+"So mamma and you came again?"
+
+"And Mrs. Yorke did treat us strangely. We asked to see you. 'No,' said
+she, 'not in my house. I am at present responsible for his life; it
+shall not be forfeited for half an hour's idle gossip.' But I must not
+tell you all she said; it was very disagreeable. However, we came yet
+again--mamma, Miss Keeldar, and I. This time we thought we should
+conquer, as we were three against one, and Shirley was on our side. But
+Mrs. Yorke opened such a battery."
+
+Moore smiled. "What did she say?"
+
+"Things that astonished us. Shirley laughed at last; I cried; mamma was
+seriously annoyed. We were all three driven from the field. Since that
+time I have only walked once a day past the house, just for the
+satisfaction of looking up at your window, which I could distinguish by
+the drawn curtains. I really dared not come in."
+
+"I _have_ wished for you, Caroline."
+
+"I did not know that; I never dreamt one instant that you thought of me.
+If I had but most distantly imagined such a possibility----"
+
+"Mrs. Yorke would still have beaten you."
+
+"She would not. Stratagem should have been tried, if persuasion failed.
+I would have come to the kitchen door; the servants should have let me
+in, and I would have walked straight upstairs. In fact, it was far more
+the fear of intrusion--the fear of yourself--that baffled me than the
+fear of Mrs. Yorke."
+
+"Only last night I despaired of ever seeing you again. Weakness has
+wrought terrible depression in me--terrible depression."
+
+"And you sit alone?"
+
+"Worse than alone."
+
+"But you must be getting better, since you can leave your bed?"
+
+"I doubt whether I shall live. I see nothing for it, after such
+exhaustion, but decline."
+
+"You--you shall go home to the Hollow."
+
+"Dreariness would accompany, nothing cheerful come near me."
+
+"I _will_ alter this. This _shall_ be altered, were there ten Mrs.
+Yorkes to do battle with."
+
+"Cary, you make me smile."
+
+"Do smile; smile again. Shall I tell you what I should like?"
+
+"Tell me anything--only keep talking. I am Saul; but for music I should
+perish."
+
+"I should like you to be brought to the rectory, and given to me and
+mamma."
+
+"A precious gift! I have not laughed since they shot me till now."
+
+"Do you suffer pain, Robert?"
+
+"Not so much pain now; but I am hopelessly weak, and the state of my
+mind is inexpressible--dark, barren, impotent. Do you not read it all in
+my face? I look a mere ghost."
+
+"Altered; yet I should have known you anywhere. But I understand your
+feelings; I experienced something like it. Since we met, I too have been
+very ill."
+
+"_Very_ ill?"
+
+"I thought I should die. The tale of my life seemed told. Every night,
+just at midnight, I used to wake from awful dreams; and the book lay
+open before me at the last page, where was written 'Finis.' I had
+strange feelings."
+
+"You speak my experience."
+
+"I believed I should never see you again; and I grew so thin--as thin as
+you are now. I could do nothing for myself--neither rise nor lie down;
+and I could not eat. Yet you see I am better."
+
+"Comforter--sad as sweet. I am too feeble to say what I feel; but while
+you speak I _do_ feel."
+
+"Here I am at your side, where I thought never more to be. Here I speak
+to you. I see you listen to me willingly--look at me kindly. Did I count
+on that? I despaired."
+
+Moore sighed--a sigh so deep it was nearly a groan. He covered his eyes
+with his hand.
+
+"May I be spared to make some atonement."
+
+Such was his prayer.
+
+"And for what?"
+
+"We will not touch on it now, Cary; unmanned as I am, I have not the
+power to cope with such a topic. Was Mrs. Pryor with you during your
+illness?"
+
+"Yes"--Caroline smiled brightly--"you know she is mamma?"
+
+"I have heard--Hortense told me; but that tale too I will receive from
+yourself. Does she add to your happiness?"
+
+"What! mamma? She is _dear_ to me; _how_ dear I cannot say. I was
+altogether weary, and she held me up."
+
+"I deserve to hear that in a moment when I can scarce lift my hand to my
+head. I deserve it."
+
+"It is no reproach against you."
+
+"It is a coal of fire heaped on my head; and so is every word you
+address to me, and every look that lights your sweet face. Come still
+nearer, Lina; and give me your hand--if my thin fingers do not scare
+you."
+
+She took those thin fingers between her two little hands; she bent her
+head _et les effleura de ses lèvres_. (I put that in French because the
+word _effleurer_ is an exquisite word.) Moore was much moved. A large
+tear or two coursed down his hollow cheek.
+
+"I'll keep these things in my heart, Cary; that kiss I will put by, and
+you shall hear of it again one day."
+
+"Come out!" cried Martin, opening the door--"come away; you have had
+twenty minutes instead of a quarter of an hour."
+
+"She will not stir yet, you hempseed."
+
+"I dare not stay longer, Robert."
+
+"Can you promise to return?"
+
+"No, she can't," responded Martin. "The thing mustn't become customary.
+I can't be troubled. It's very well for once; I'll not have it
+repeated."
+
+"_You_'ll not have it repeated."
+
+"Hush! don't vex him; we could not have met to-day but for him. But I
+will come again, if it is your wish that I should come."
+
+"It _is_ my wish--my _one_ wish--almost the only wish I can feel."
+
+"Come this minute. My mother has coughed, got up, set her feet on the
+floor. Let her only catch you on the stairs, Miss Caroline. You're not
+to bid him good-bye"--stepping between her and Moore--"you are to
+march."
+
+"My shawl, Martin."
+
+"I have it. I'll put it on for you when you are in the hall."
+
+He made them part. He would suffer no farewell but what could be
+expressed in looks. He half carried Caroline down the stairs. In the
+hall he wrapped her shawl round her, and, but that his mother's tread
+then creaked in the gallery, and but that a sentiment of diffidence--the
+proper, natural, therefore the noble impulse of his boy's heart--held
+him back, he would have claimed his reward; he would have said, "Now,
+Miss Caroline, for all this give me one kiss." But ere the words had
+passed his lips she was across the snowy road, rather skimming than
+wading the drifts.
+
+"She is my debtor, and I _will_ be paid."
+
+He flattered himself that it was opportunity, not audacity, which had
+failed him. He misjudged the quality of his own nature, and held it for
+something lower than it was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+CASE OF DOMESTIC PERSECUTION--REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF PIOUS PERSEVERANCE
+IN THE DISCHARGE OF RELIGIOUS DUTIES.
+
+
+Martin, having known the taste of excitement, wanted a second draught;
+having felt the dignity of power, he loathed to relinquish it. Miss
+Helstone--that girl he had always called ugly, and whose face was now
+perpetually before his eyes, by day and by night, in dark and in
+sunshine--had once come within his sphere. It fretted him to think the
+visit might never be repeated.
+
+Though a schoolboy he was no ordinary schoolboy; he was destined to grow
+up an original. At a few years' later date he took great pains to pare
+and polish himself down to the pattern of the rest of the world, but he
+never succeeded; an unique stamp marked him always. He now sat idle at
+his desk in the grammar school, casting about in his mind for the means
+of adding another chapter to his commenced romance. He did not yet know
+how many commenced life-romances are doomed never to get beyond the
+first, or at most the second chapter. His Saturday half-holiday he spent
+in the wood with his book of fairy legends, and that other unwritten
+book of his imagination.
+
+Martin harboured an irreligious reluctance to see the approach of
+Sunday. His father and mother, while disclaiming community with the
+Establishment, failed not duly, once on the sacred day, to fill their
+large pew in Briarfield Church with the whole of their blooming family.
+Theoretically, Mr. Yorke placed all sects and churches on a level. Mrs.
+Yorke awarded the palm to Moravians and Quakers, on account of that
+crown of humility by these worthies worn. Neither of them were ever
+known, however, to set foot in a conventicle.
+
+Martin, I say, disliked Sunday, because the morning service was long,
+and the sermon usually little to his taste. This Saturday afternoon,
+however, his woodland musings disclosed to him a new-found charm in the
+coming day.
+
+It proved a day of deep snow--so deep that Mrs. Yorke during breakfast
+announced her conviction that the children, both boys and girls, would
+be better at home; and her decision that, instead of going to church,
+they should sit silent for two hours in the back parlour, while Rose and
+Martin alternately read a succession of sermons--John Wesley's
+"Sermons." John Wesley, being a reformer and an agitator, had a place
+both in her own and her husband's favour.
+
+"Rose will do as she pleases," said Martin, not looking up from the book
+which, according to his custom then and in after-life, he was studying
+over his bread and milk.
+
+"Rose will do as she is told, and Martin too," observed the mother.
+
+"I am going to church."
+
+So her son replied, with the ineffable quietude of a true Yorke, who
+knows his will and means to have it, and who, if pushed to the wall,
+will let himself be crushed to death, provided no way of escape can be
+found, but will never capitulate.
+
+"It is not fit weather," said the father.
+
+No answer. The youth read studiously; he slowly broke his bread and
+sipped his milk.
+
+"Martin hates to go to church, but he hates still more to obey," said
+Mrs. Yorke.
+
+"I suppose I am influenced by pure perverseness?"
+
+"Yes, you are."
+
+"Mother, _I am not_."
+
+"By what, then, are you influenced?"
+
+"By a complication of motives, the intricacies of which I should as soon
+think of explaining to you as I should of turning myself inside out to
+exhibit the internal machinery of my frame."
+
+"Hear Martin! hear him!" cried Mr. Yorke. "I must see and have this lad
+of mine brought up to the bar. Nature meant him to live by his tongue.
+Hesther, your third son must certainly be a lawyer; he has the
+stock-in-trade--brass, self-conceit, and words--words--words."
+
+"Some bread, Rose, if you please," requested Martin, with intense
+gravity, serenity, phlegm. The boy had naturally a low, plaintive voice,
+which in his "dour moods" rose scarcely above a lady's whisper. The more
+inflexibly stubborn the humour, the softer, the sadder the tone. He
+rang the bell, and gently asked for his walking-shoes.
+
+"But, Martin," urged his sire, "there is drift all the way; a man could
+hardly wade through it. However, lad," he continued, seeing that the boy
+rose as the church bell began to toll, "this is a case wherein I would
+by no means balk the obdurate chap of his will. Go to church by all
+means. There is a pitiless wind, and a sharp, frozen sleet, besides the
+depth under foot. Go out into it, since thou prefers it to a warm
+fireside."
+
+Martin quietly assumed his cloak, comforter, and cap, and deliberately
+went out.
+
+"My father has more sense than my mother," he pronounced. "How women
+miss it! They drive the nail into the flesh, thinking they are hammering
+away at insensate stone."
+
+He reached church early.
+
+"Now, if the weather frightens her (and it is a real December tempest),
+or if that Mrs. Pryor objects to her going out, and I should miss her
+after all, it will vex me; but, tempest or tornado, hail or ice, she
+_ought_ to come, and if she has a mind worthy of her eyes and features
+she _will_ come. She will be here for the chance of seeing me, as I am
+here for the chance of seeing her. She will want to get a word
+respecting her confounded sweetheart, as I want to get another flavour
+of what I think the essence of life--a taste of existence, with the
+spirit preserved in it, and not evaporated. Adventure is to stagnation
+what champagne is to flat porter."
+
+He looked round. The church was cold, silent, empty, but for one old
+woman. As the chimes subsided and the single bell tolled slowly, another
+and another elderly parishioner came dropping in, and took a humble
+station in the free sittings. It is always the frailest, the oldest, and
+the poorest that brave the worst weather, to prove and maintain their
+constancy to dear old mother church. This wild morning not one affluent
+family attended, not one carriage party appeared--all the lined and
+cushioned pews were empty; only on the bare oaken seats sat ranged the
+gray-haired elders and feeble paupers.
+
+"I'll scorn her if she doesn't come," muttered Martin, shortly and
+savagely, to himself. The rector's shovel-hat had passed the porch. Mr.
+Helstone and his clerk were in the vestry.
+
+The bells ceased--the reading-desk was filled--the doors were
+closed--the service commenced. Void stood the rectory pew--she was not
+there. Martin scorned her.
+
+"Worthless thing! vapid thing! commonplace humbug! Like all other
+girls--weakly, selfish, shallow!"
+
+Such was Martin's liturgy.
+
+"She is not like our picture. Her eyes are not large and expressive; her
+nose is not straight, delicate, Hellenic; her mouth has not that charm I
+thought it had, which I imagined could beguile me of sullenness in my
+worst moods. What is she? A thread-paper, a doll, a toy, a _girl_, in
+short."
+
+So absorbed was the young cynic he forgot to rise from his knees at the
+proper place, and was still in an exemplary attitude of devotion when,
+the litany over, the first hymn was given out. To be so caught did not
+contribute to soothe him. He started up red (for he was as sensitive to
+ridicule as any girl). To make the matter worse, the church door had
+reopened, and the aisles were filling: patter, patter, patter, a hundred
+little feet trotted in. It was the Sunday scholars. According to
+Briarfield winter custom, these children had till now been kept where
+there was a warm stove, and only led into church just before the
+communion and sermon.
+
+The little ones were settled first, and at last, when the boys and the
+younger girls were all arranged--when the organ was swelling high, and
+the choir and congregation were rising to uplift a spiritual song--a
+tall class of young women came quietly in, closing the procession. Their
+teacher, having seen them seated, passed into the rectory pew. The
+French-gray cloak and small beaver bonnet were known to Martin; it was
+the very costume his eyes had ached to catch. Miss Helstone had not
+suffered the storm to prove an impediment. After all, she was come to
+church. Martin probably whispered his satisfaction to his hymn book; at
+any rate, he therewith hid his face two minutes.
+
+Satisfied or not, he had time to get very angry with her again before
+the sermon was over. She had never once looked his way; at least he had
+not been so lucky as to encounter a glance.
+
+"If," he said--"if she takes no notice of me, if she shows I am not in
+her thoughts, I shall have a worse, a meaner opinion of her than ever.
+Most despicable would it be to come for the sake of those sheep-faced
+Sunday scholars, and not for my sake or that long skeleton Moore's."
+
+The sermon found an end; the benediction was pronounced; the
+congregation dispersed. She had not been near him.
+
+Now, indeed, as Martin set his face homeward, he felt that the sleet was
+sharp and the east wind cold.
+
+His nearest way lay through some fields. It was a dangerous, because an
+untrodden way. He did not care; he would take it. Near the second stile
+rose a clump of trees. Was that an umbrella waiting there? Yes, an
+umbrella, held with evident difficulty against the blast; behind it
+fluttered a French-gray cloak. Martin grinned as he toiled up the steep,
+encumbered field, difficult to the foot as a slope in the upper realms
+of Etna. There was an inimitable look in his face when, having gained
+the stile, he seated himself coolly thereupon, and thus opened a
+conference which, for his own part, he was willing to prolong
+indefinitely.
+
+"I think you had better strike a bargain. Exchange me for Mrs. Pryor."
+
+"I was not sure whether you would come this way, Martin, but I thought I
+would run the chance. There is no such thing as getting a quiet word
+spoken in the church or churchyard."
+
+"Will you agree?--make over Mrs. Pryor to my mother, and put me in her
+skirts?"
+
+"As if I could understand you! What puts Mrs. Pryor into your head?"
+
+"You call her 'mamma,' don't you?"
+
+"She _is_ my mamma."
+
+"Not possible--or so inefficient, so careless a mamma; I should make a
+five times better one. You _may_ laugh. I have no objection to see you
+laugh. Your teeth--I hate ugly teeth; but yours are as pretty as a pearl
+necklace, and a necklace of which the pearls are very fair, even, and
+well matched too."
+
+"Martin, what now? I thought the Yorkes never paid compliments?"
+
+"They have not done till this generation; but I feel as if it were my
+vocation to turn out a new variety of the Yorke species. I am rather
+tired of my own ancestors. We have traditions going back for four
+ages--tales of Hiram, which was the son of Hiram, which was the son of
+Samuel, which was the son of John, which was the son of Zerubbabel
+Yorke. All, from Zerubbabel down to the last Hiram, were such as you see
+my father. Before that there was a Godfrey. We have his picture; it
+hangs in Moore's bedroom; it is like me. Of his character we know
+nothing; but I am sure it was different to his descendants. He has long,
+curling dark hair; he is carefully and cavalierly dressed. Having said
+that he is like me, I need not add that he is handsome."
+
+"You are not handsome, Martin."
+
+"No; but wait awhile--just let me take my time. I mean to begin from
+this day to cultivate, to polish, and we shall see."
+
+"You are a very strange, a very unaccountable boy, Martin. But don't
+imagine you ever will be handsome; you cannot."
+
+"I mean to try. But we were talking about Mrs. Pryor. She must be the
+most unnatural mamma in existence, coolly to let her daughter come out
+in this weather. Mine was in such a rage because I would go to church;
+she was fit to fling the kitchen brush after me."
+
+"Mamma was very much concerned about me; but I am afraid I was
+obstinate. I _would_ go."
+
+"To see me?"
+
+"Exactly; I thought of nothing else. I greatly feared the snow would
+hinder you from coming. You don't know how pleased I was to see you all
+by yourself in the pew."
+
+"_I_ came to fulfil my duty, and set the parish a good example. And so
+you were obstinate, were you? I should like to see you obstinate, I
+should. Wouldn't I have you in good discipline if I owned you? Let me
+take the umbrella."
+
+"I can't stay two minutes; our dinner will be ready."
+
+"And so will ours; and we have always a hot dinner on Sundays. Roast
+goose to-day, with apple-pie and rice-pudding. I always contrive to know
+the bill of fare. Well, I like these things uncommonly; but I'll make
+the sacrifice, if you will."
+
+"We have a cold dinner. My uncle will allow no unnecessary cooking on
+the Sabbath. But I must return; the house would be in commotion if I
+failed to appear."
+
+"So will Briarmains, bless you! I think I hear my father sending out the
+overlooker and five of the dyers, to look in six directions for the body
+of his prodigal son in the snow; and my mother repenting her of her
+many misdeeds towards me, now I am gone."
+
+"Martin, how is Mr. Moore?"
+
+"_That_ is what you came for, just to say that word."
+
+"Come, tell me quickly."
+
+"Hang him! he is no worse; but as ill-used as ever--mewed up, kept in
+solitary confinement. They mean to make either an idiot or a maniac of
+him, and take out a commission of lunacy. Horsfall starves him; you saw
+how thin he was."
+
+"You were very good the other day, Martin."
+
+"What day? I am always good--a model."
+
+"When will you be so good again?"
+
+"I see what you are after; but you'll not wheedle me--I am no
+cat's-paw."
+
+"But it must be done. It is quite a right thing, and a necessary thing."
+
+"How you encroach! Remember, I managed the matter of my own free will
+before."
+
+"And you will again."
+
+"I won't. The business gave me far too much trouble. I like my ease."
+
+"Mr. Moore wishes to see me, Martin, and I wish to see him."
+
+"I dare say" (coolly).
+
+"It is too bad of your mother to exclude his friends."
+
+"Tell her so."
+
+"His own relations."
+
+"Come and blow her up."
+
+"You know that would advance nothing. Well, I shall stick to my point.
+See him I will. If you won't help me, I'll manage without help."
+
+"Do; there is nothing like self-reliance, self-dependence."
+
+"I have no time to reason with you now; but I consider you provoking.
+Good-morning."
+
+Away she went, the umbrella shut, for she could not carry it against the
+wind.
+
+"She is not vapid; she is not shallow," said Martin. "I shall like to
+watch, and mark how she will work her way without help. If the storm
+were not of snow, but of fire--such as came refreshingly down on the
+cities of the plain--she would go through it to procure five minutes'
+speech of that Moore. Now, I consider I have had a pleasant morning.
+The disappointments got time on; the fears and fits of anger only made
+that short discourse pleasanter, when it came at last. She expected to
+coax me at once. She'll not manage that in one effort. She shall come
+again, again, and yet again. It would please me to put her in a
+passion--to make her cry. I want to discover how far she will go--what
+she will do and dare--to get her will. It seems strange and new to find
+one human being thinking so much about another as she thinks about
+Moore. But it is time to go home; my appetite tells me the hour. Won't I
+walk into that goose? and we'll try whether Matthew or I shall get the
+largest cut of the apple-pie to-day."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+WHEREIN MATTERS MAKE SOME PROGRESS, BUT NOT MUCH.
+
+
+Martin had planned well. He had laid out a dexterously concerted scheme
+for his private amusement. But older and wiser schemers than he are
+often doomed to see their finest-spun projects swept to annihilation by
+the sudden broom of Fate, that fell housewife whose red arm none can
+control. In the present instance this broom was manufactured out of the
+tough fibres of Moore's own stubborn purpose, bound tight with his will.
+He was now resuming his strength, and making strange head against Mrs.
+Horsfall. Each morning he amazed that matron with a fresh astonishment.
+First he discharged her from her valet duties; he would dress himself.
+Then he refused the coffee she brought him; he would breakfast with the
+family. Lastly, he forbade her his chamber. On the same day, amidst the
+outcries of all the women in the place, he put his head out of doors.
+The morning after, he followed Mr. Yorke to his counting-house, and
+requested an envoy to fetch a chaise from the Red House Inn. He was
+resolved, he said, to return home to the Hollow that very afternoon. Mr.
+Yorke, instead of opposing, aided and abetted him. The chaise was sent
+for, though Mrs. Yorke declared the step would be his death. It came.
+Moore, little disposed to speak, made his purse do duty for his tongue.
+He expressed his gratitude to the servants and to Mrs. Horsfall by the
+chink of his coin. The latter personage approved and understood this
+language perfectly; it made amends for all previous contumacy. She and
+her patient parted the best friends in the world.
+
+The kitchen visited and soothed, Moore betook himself to the parlour. He
+had Mrs. Yorke to appease; not quite so easy a task as the pacification
+of her housemaids. There she sat plunged in sullen dudgeon, the
+gloomiest speculations on the depths of man's ingratitude absorbing her
+thoughts. He drew near and bent over her; she was obliged to look up,
+if it were only to bid him "avaunt." There was beauty still in his pale,
+wasted features; there was earnestness and a sort of sweetness--for he
+was smiling--in his hollow eyes.
+
+"Good-bye!" he said, and as he spoke the smile glittered and melted. He
+had no iron mastery of his sensations now; a trifling emotion made
+itself apparent in his present weak state.
+
+"And what are you going to leave us for?" she asked. "We will keep you,
+and do anything in the world for you, if you will only stay till you are
+stronger."
+
+"Good-bye!" he again said; and added, "You have been a mother to me;
+give your wilful son one embrace."
+
+Like a foreigner, as he was, he offered her first one cheek, then the
+other. She kissed him.
+
+"What a trouble--what a burden I have been to you!" he muttered.
+
+"You are the worst trouble now, headstrong youth!" was the answer. "I
+wonder who is to nurse you at Hollow's Cottage? Your sister Hortense
+knows no more about such matters than a child."
+
+"Thank God! for I have had nursing enough to last me my life."
+
+Here the little girls came in--Jessie crying, Rose quiet but grave.
+Moore took them out into the hall to soothe, pet, and kiss them. He knew
+it was not in their mother's nature to bear to see any living thing
+caressed but herself. She would have felt annoyed had he fondled a
+kitten in her presence.
+
+The boys were standing about the chaise as Moore entered it; but for
+them he had no farewell. To Mr. Yorke he only said, "You have a good
+riddance of me. That was an unlucky shot for you, Yorke; it turned
+Briarmains into an hospital. Come and see me at the cottage soon."
+
+He drew up the glass; the chaise rolled away. In half an hour he
+alighted at his own garden wicket. Having paid the driver and dismissed
+the vehicle, he leaned on that wicket an instant, at once to rest and to
+muse.
+
+"Six months ago I passed out at this gate," said he, "a proud, angry,
+disappointed man. I come back sadder and wiser; weakly enough, but not
+worried. A cold, gray, yet quiet world lies round--a world where, if I
+hope little, I fear nothing. All slavish terrors of embarrassment have
+left me. Let the worst come, I can work, as Joe Scott does, for an
+honourable living; in such doom I yet see some hardship but no
+degradation. Formerly, pecuniary ruin was equivalent in my eyes to
+personal dishonour. It is not so now; I know the difference. Ruin _is_
+an evil, but one for which I am prepared; the day of whose coming I
+know, for I have calculated. I can yet put it off six months--not an
+hour longer. If things by that time alter, which is not probable; if
+fetters, which now seem indissoluble, should be loosened from our trade
+(of all things the most unlikely to happen), I might conquer in this
+long struggle yet--I might--good God! what might I not do? But the
+thought is a brief madness; let me see things with sane eyes. Ruin will
+come, lay her axe to my fortune's roots, and hew them down. I shall
+snatch a sapling, I shall cross the sea, and plant it in American woods.
+Louis will go with me. Will none but Louis go? I cannot tell--I have no
+right to ask."
+
+He entered the house.
+
+It was afternoon, twilight yet out of doors--starless and moonless
+twilight; for though keenly freezing with a dry, black frost, heaven
+wore a mask of clouds congealed and fast locked. The mill-dam too was
+frozen. The Hollow was very still. Indoors it was already dark. Sarah
+had lit a good fire in the parlour; she was preparing tea in the
+kitchen.
+
+"Hortense," said Moore, as his sister bustled up to help him off with
+his cloak, "I am pleased to come home."
+
+Hortense did not feel the peculiar novelty of this expression coming
+from her brother, who had never before called the cottage his home, and
+to whom its narrow limits had always heretofore seemed rather
+restrictive than protective. Still, whatever contributed to his
+happiness pleased her, and she expressed herself to that effect.
+
+He sat down, but soon rose again. He went to the window; he came back to
+the fire.
+
+"Hortense!"
+
+"Mon frère?"
+
+"This little parlour looks very clean and pleasant--unusually bright,
+somehow."
+
+"It is true, brother; I have had the whole house thoroughly and
+scrupulously cleaned in your absence."
+
+"Sister, I think on this first day of your return home you ought to have
+a friend or so to tea, if it were only to see how fresh and spruce you
+have made the little place."
+
+"True, brother. If it were not late I might send for Miss Mann."
+
+"So you might; but it really is too late to disturb that good lady, and
+the evening is much too cold for her to come out."
+
+"How thoughtful in you, dear Gérard! We must put it off till another
+day."
+
+"I want some one to-day, dear sister--some quiet guest, who would tire
+neither of us."
+
+"Miss Ainley?"
+
+"An excellent person, they say; but she lives too far off. Tell Harry
+Scott to step up to the rectory with a request from you that Caroline
+Helstone should come and spend the evening with you."
+
+"Would it not be better to-morrow, dear brother?"
+
+"I should like her to see the place as it is just now; its brilliant
+cleanliness and perfect neatness are so much to your credit."
+
+"It might benefit her in the way of example."
+
+"It might and must; she ought to come."
+
+He went into the kitchen.
+
+"Sarah, delay tea half an hour." He then commissioned her to dispatch
+Harry Scott to the rectory, giving her a twisted note hastily scribbled
+in pencil by himself, and addressed "Miss Helstone."
+
+Scarcely had Sarah time to get impatient under the fear of damage to her
+toast already prepared when the messenger returned, and with him the
+invited guest.
+
+She entered through the kitchen, quietly tripped up Sarah's stairs to
+take off her bonnet and furs, and came down as quietly, with her
+beautiful curls nicely smoothed, her graceful merino dress and delicate
+collar all trim and spotless, her gay little work-bag in her hand. She
+lingered to exchange a few kindly words with Sarah, and to look at the
+new tortoise-shell kitten basking on the kitchen hearth, and to speak to
+the canary-bird, which a sudden blaze from the fire had startled on its
+perch; and then she betook herself to the parlour.
+
+The gentle salutation, the friendly welcome, were interchanged in such
+tranquil sort as befitted cousins meeting; a sense of pleasure, subtle
+and quiet as a perfume, diffused itself through the room; the
+newly-kindled lamp burnt up bright; the tray and the singing urn were
+brought in.
+
+"I am pleased to come home," repeated Mr. Moore.
+
+They assembled round the table. Hortense chiefly talked. She
+congratulated Caroline on the evident improvement in her health. Her
+colour and her plump cheeks were returning, she remarked. It was true.
+There was an obvious change in Miss Helstone. All about her seemed
+elastic; depression, fear, forlornness, were withdrawn. No longer
+crushed, and saddened, and slow, and drooping, she looked like one who
+had tasted the cordial of heart's ease, and been lifted on the wing of
+hope.
+
+After tea Hortense went upstairs. She had not rummaged her drawers for a
+month past, and the impulse to perform that operation was now become
+resistless. During her absence the talk passed into Caroline's hands.
+She took it up with ease; she fell into her best tone of conversation. A
+pleasing facility and elegance of language gave fresh charm to familiar
+topics; a new music in the always soft voice gently surprised and
+pleasingly captivated the listener; unwonted shades and lights of
+expression elevated the young countenance with character, and kindled it
+with animation.
+
+"Caroline, you look as if you had heard good tidings," said Moore, after
+earnestly gazing at her for some minutes.
+
+"Do I?"
+
+"I sent for you this evening that I might be cheered; but you cheer me
+more than I had calculated."
+
+"I am glad of that. And I _really_ cheer you?"
+
+"You look brightly, move buoyantly, speak musically."
+
+"It is pleasant to be here again."
+
+"Truly it is pleasant; I feel it so. And to see health on your cheek and
+hope in your eye is pleasant, Cary; but what is this hope, and what is
+the source of this sunshine I perceive about you?"
+
+"For one thing, I am happy in mamma. I love her so much, and she loves
+me. Long and tenderly she nursed me. Now, when her care has made me
+well, I can occupy myself for and with her all the day. I say it is my
+turn to attend to her; and I _do_ attend to her. I am her waiting-woman
+as well as her child. I like--you would laugh if you knew what pleasure
+I have in making dresses and sewing for her. She looks so nice now,
+Robert; I will not let her be old-fashioned. And then, she is charming
+to talk to--full of wisdom, ripe in judgment, rich in information,
+exhaustless in stores her observant faculties have quietly amassed.
+Every day that I live with her I like her better, I esteem her more
+highly, I love her more tenderly."
+
+"_That_ for one thing, then, Cary. You talk in such a way about 'mamma'
+it is enough to make one jealous of the old lady."
+
+"She is not old, Robert."
+
+"Of the young lady, then."
+
+"She does not pretend to be young."
+
+"Well, of the matron. But you said 'mamma's' affection was _one_ thing
+that made you happy; now for the other thing."
+
+"I am glad you are better."
+
+"What besides?"
+
+"I am glad we are friends."
+
+"You and I?"
+
+"Yes. I once thought we never should be."
+
+"Cary, some day I mean to tell you a thing about myself that is not to
+my credit, and consequently will not please you."
+
+"Ah, don't! I cannot bear to think ill of you."
+
+"And I cannot bear that you should think better of me than I deserve."
+
+"Well, but I half know your 'thing;' indeed, I believe I know all about
+it."
+
+"You do not."
+
+"I believe I do."
+
+"Whom does it concern besides me?"
+
+She coloured; she hesitated; she was silent.
+
+"Speak, Cary! Whom does it concern?"
+
+She tried to utter a name, and could not.
+
+"Tell me; there is none present but ourselves. Be frank."
+
+"But if I guess wrong?"
+
+"I will forgive. Whisper, Cary."
+
+He bent his ear to her lips. Still she would not, or could not, speak
+clearly to the point. Seeing that Moore waited and was resolved to hear
+something, she at last said, "Miss Keeldar spent a day at the rectory
+about a week since. The evening came on very wintry, and we persuaded
+her to stay all night."
+
+"And you and she curled your hair together?"
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"And then you chattered, and she told you----"
+
+"It was not at curling-hair time, so you are not as wise as you think;
+and, besides, she didn't tell me."
+
+"You slept together afterwards?"
+
+"We occupied the same room and bed. We did not sleep much; we talked the
+whole night through."
+
+"I'll be sworn you did! And then it all came out--_tant pis_. I would
+rather you had heard it from myself."
+
+"You are quite wrong. She did not tell me what you suspect--she is not
+the person to proclaim such things; but yet I inferred something from
+parts of her discourse. I gathered more from rumour, and I made out the
+rest by instinct."
+
+"But if she did not tell you that I wanted to marry her for the sake of
+her money, and that she refused me indignantly and scornfully (you need
+neither start nor blush; nor yet need you prick your trembling fingers
+with your needle. That is the plain truth, whether you like it or
+not)--if such was not the subject of her august confidences, on what
+point did they turn? You say you talked the whole night through; what
+about?"
+
+"About things we never thoroughly discussed before, intimate friends as
+we have been; but you hardly expect I should tell you?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Cary; you will tell me. You said we were friends, and friends
+should always confide in each other."
+
+"But you are sure you won't repeat it?"
+
+"Quite sure."
+
+"Not to Louis?"
+
+"Not even to Louis. What does Louis care for young ladies' secrets?"
+
+"Robert, Shirley is a curious, magnanimous being."
+
+"I dare say. I can imagine there are both odd points and grand points
+about her."
+
+"I have found her chary in showing her feelings; but when they rush out,
+river-like, and pass full and powerful before you--almost without leave
+from her--you gaze, wonder; you admire, and--I think--love her."
+
+"You saw this spectacle?"
+
+"Yes; at dead of night, when all the house was silent, and starlight and
+the cold reflection from the snow glimmered in our chamber, then I saw
+Shirley's heart."
+
+"Her heart's core? Do you think she showed you that?"
+
+"Her heart's core."
+
+"And how was it?"
+
+"Like a shrine, for it was holy; like snow, for it was pure; like
+flame, for it was warm; like death, for it was strong."
+
+"Can she love? tell me that."
+
+"What think you?"
+
+"She has loved none that have loved her yet."
+
+"Who are those that have loved her?"
+
+He named a list of gentlemen, closing with Sir Philip Nunnely.
+
+"She has loved none of these."
+
+"Yet some of them were worthy of a woman's affection."
+
+"Of some women's, but not of Shirley's."
+
+"Is she better than others of her sex?"
+
+"She is peculiar, and more dangerous to take as a wife--rashly."
+
+"I can imagine that."
+
+"She spoke of you----"
+
+"Oh, she did! I thought you denied it."
+
+"She did not speak in the way you fancy; but I asked her, and I would
+make her tell me what she thought of you, or rather how she felt towards
+you. I wanted to know; I had long wanted to know."
+
+"So had I; but let us hear. She thinks meanly, she feels contemptuously,
+doubtless?"
+
+"She thinks of you almost as highly as a woman can think of a man. You
+know she can be eloquent. I yet feel in fancy the glow of the language
+in which her opinion was conveyed."
+
+"But how does she feel?"
+
+"Till you shocked her (she said you had shocked her, but she would not
+tell me how) she felt as a sister feels towards a brother of whom she is
+at once fond and proud."
+
+"I'll shock her no more, Cary, for the shock rebounded on myself till I
+staggered again. But that comparison about sister and brother is all
+nonsense. She is too rich and proud to entertain fraternal sentiments
+for me."
+
+"You don't know her, Robert; and, somehow, I fancy now (I had other
+ideas formerly) that you cannot know her. You and she are not so
+constructed as to be able thoroughly to understand each other."
+
+"It may be so. I esteem her, I admire her; and yet my impressions
+concerning her are harsh--perhaps uncharitable. I believe, for instance,
+that she is incapable of love----"
+
+"Shirley incapable of love!"
+
+"That she will never marry. I imagine her jealous of compromising her
+pride, of relinquishing her power, of sharing her property."
+
+"Shirley has hurt your _amour propre_."
+
+"She did hurt it; though I had not an emotion of tenderness, nor a spark
+of passion for her."
+
+"Then, Robert, it was very wicked in you to want to marry her."
+
+"And very mean, my little pastor, my pretty priestess. I never wanted to
+kiss Miss Keeldar in my life, though she has fine lips, scarlet and
+round as ripe cherries; or, if I did wish it, it was the mere desire of
+the eye."
+
+"I doubt, now, whether you are speaking the truth. The grapes or the
+cherries are sour--'hung too high.'"
+
+"She has a pretty figure, a pretty face, beautiful hair. I acknowledge
+all her charms and feel none of them, or only feel them in a way she
+would disdain. I suppose I was truly tempted by the mere gilding of the
+bait. Caroline, what a noble fellow your Robert is--great, good,
+disinterested, and then so pure!"
+
+"But not perfect. He made a great blunder once, and we will hear no more
+about it."
+
+"And shall we think no more about it, Cary? Shall we not despise him in
+our heart--gentle but just, compassionate but upright?"
+
+"Never! We will remember that with what measure we mete it shall be
+measured unto us, and so we will give no scorn, only affection."
+
+"Which won't satisfy, I warn you of that. Something besides
+affection--something far stronger, sweeter, warmer--will be demanded one
+day. Is it there to give?"
+
+Caroline was moved, much moved.
+
+"Be calm, Lina," said Moore soothingly. "I have no intention, because I
+have no right, to perturb your mind now, nor for months to come. Don't
+look as if you would leave me. We will make no more agitating allusions;
+we will resume our gossip. Do not tremble; look me in the face. See what
+a poor, pale, grim phantom I am--more pitiable than formidable."
+
+She looked shyly. "There is something formidable still, pale as you
+are," she said, as her eye fell under his.
+
+"To return to Shirley," pursued Moore: "is it your opinion that she is
+ever likely to marry?"
+
+"She loves."
+
+"Platonically--theoretically--all humbug!"
+
+"She loves what I call sincerely."
+
+"Did she say so?"
+
+"I cannot affirm that she said so. No such confession as 'I love this
+man or that' passed her lips."
+
+"I thought not."
+
+"But the feeling made its way in spite of her, and I saw it. She spoke
+of one man in a strain not to be misunderstood. Her voice alone was
+sufficient testimony. Having wrung from her an opinion on your
+character, I demanded a second opinion of--another person about whom I
+had my conjectures, though they were the most tangled and puzzled
+conjectures in the world. I would _make_ her speak. I shook her, I chid
+her, I pinched her fingers when she tried to put me off with gibes and
+jests in her queer provoking way, and at last out it came. The voice, I
+say, was enough; hardly raised above a whisper, and yet such a soft
+vehemence in its tones. There was no confession, no confidence, in the
+matter. To these things she cannot condescend; but I am sure that man's
+happiness is dear to her as her own life."
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"I charged her with the fact. She did not deny, she did not avow, but
+looked at me. I saw her eyes by the snow-gleam. It was quite enough. I
+triumphed over her mercilessly."
+
+"What right had _you_ to triumph? Do you mean to say _you_ are fancy
+free?"
+
+"Whatever _I_ am, Shirley is a bondswoman. Lioness, she has found her
+captor. Mistress she may be of all round her, but her own mistress she
+is not."
+
+"So you exulted at recognizing a fellow-slave in one so fair and
+imperial?"
+
+"I did; Robert, you say right, in one so fair and imperial."
+
+"You confess it--a _fellow_-slave?"
+
+"I confess nothing; but I say that haughty Shirley is no more free than
+was Hagar."
+
+"And who, pray, is the Abraham, the hero of a patriarch who has achieved
+such a conquest?"
+
+"You still speak scornfully, and cynically, and sorely; but I will make
+you change your note before I have done with you."
+
+"We will see that. Can she marry this Cupidon?"
+
+"Cupidon! he is just about as much a Cupidon as you are a Cyclops."
+
+"Can she marry him?"
+
+"You will see."
+
+"I want to know his name, Cary."
+
+"Guess it."
+
+"Is it any one in this neighbourhood?"
+
+"Yes, in Briarfield parish."
+
+"Then it is some person unworthy of her. I don't know a soul in
+Briarfield parish her equal."
+
+"Guess."
+
+"Impossible. I suppose she is under a delusion, and will plunge into
+some absurdity, after all."
+
+Caroline smiled.
+
+"Do _you_ approve the choice?" asked Moore.
+
+"Quite, _quite_."
+
+"Then I _am_ puzzled; for the head which owns this bounteous fall of
+hazel curls is an excellent little thinking machine, most accurate in
+its working. It boasts a correct, steady judgment, inherited from
+'mamma,' I suppose."
+
+"And I _quite_ approve, and mamma was charmed."
+
+"'Mamma' charmed--Mrs. Pryor! It can't be romantic, then?"
+
+"It _is_ romantic, but it is also right."
+
+"Tell me, Cary--tell me out of pity; I am too weak to be tantalized."
+
+"You shall be tantalized--it will do you no harm; you are not so weak as
+you pretend."
+
+"I have twice this evening had some thoughts of falling on the floor at
+your feet."
+
+"You had better not. I shall decline to help you up."
+
+"And worshipping you downright. My mother was a Roman Catholic. You look
+like the loveliest of her pictures of the Virgin. I think I will embrace
+her faith and kneel and adore."
+
+"Robert, Robert, sit still; don't be absurd. I will go to Hortense if
+you commit extravagances."
+
+"You have stolen my senses. Just now nothing will come into my mind but
+_les litanies de la sainte Vièrge. Rose céleste, reine des anges_!"
+
+"_Tour d'ivoire, maison d'or_--is not that the jargon? Well, sit down
+quietly, and guess your riddle."
+
+"But 'mamma' charmed--there's the puzzle."
+
+"I'll tell you what mamma said when I told her. 'Depend upon it, my
+dear, such a choice will make the happiness of Miss Keeldar's life.'"
+
+"I'll guess once, and no more. It is old Helstone. She is going to be
+your aunt."
+
+"I'll tell my uncle; I'll tell Shirley!" cried Caroline, laughing
+gleefully. "Guess again, Robert; your blunders are charming."
+
+"It is the parson--Hall."
+
+"Indeed, no; he is mine, if you please."
+
+"Yours! Ay, the whole generation of women in Briarfield seem to have
+made an idol of that priest. I wonder why; he is bald, sand-blind,
+gray-haired."
+
+"Fanny will be here to fetch me before you have solved the riddle, if
+you don't make haste."
+
+"I'll guess no more--I am tired; and then I don't care. Miss Keeldar may
+marry _le grand Turc_ for me."
+
+"Must I whisper?"
+
+"That you must, and quickly. Here comes Hortense; come near, a little
+nearer, my own Lina. I care for the whisper more than the words."
+
+She whispered. Robert gave a start, a flash of the eye, a brief laugh.
+Miss Moore entered, and Sarah followed behind, with information that
+Fanny was come. The hour of converse was over.
+
+Robert found a moment to exchange a few more whispered sentences. He was
+waiting at the foot of the staircase as Caroline descended after putting
+on her shawl.
+
+"Must I call Shirley a noble creature now?" he asked.
+
+"If you wish to speak the truth, certainly."
+
+"Must I forgive her?"
+
+"Forgive her? Naughty Robert! Was she in the wrong, or were you?"
+
+"Must I at length love her downright, Cary?"
+
+Caroline looked keenly up, and made a movement towards him, something
+between the loving and the petulant.
+
+"Only give the word, and I'll try to obey you."
+
+"Indeed, you must not love her; the bare idea is perverse."
+
+"But then she is handsome, peculiarly handsome. Hers is a beauty that
+grows on you. You think her but graceful when you first see her; you
+discover her to be beautiful when you have known her for a year."
+
+"It is not you who are to say these things. Now, Robert, be good."
+
+"O Cary, I have no love to give. Were the goddess of beauty to woo me, I
+could not meet her advances. There is no heart which I can call mine in
+this breast."
+
+"So much the better; you are a great deal safer without. Good-night."
+
+"Why must you always go, Lina, at the very instant when I most want you
+to stay?"
+
+"Because you most wish to retain when you are most certain to lose."
+
+"Listen; one other word. Take care of your own heart--do you hear me?"
+
+"There is no danger."
+
+"I am not convinced of that. The Platonic parson, for instance."
+
+"Who--Malone?"
+
+"Cyril Hall. I owe more than one twinge of jealousy to that quarter."
+
+"As to you, you have been flirting with Miss Mann. She showed me the
+other day a plant you had given her.--Fanny, I am ready."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+WRITTEN IN THE SCHOOLROOM.
+
+
+Louis Moore's doubts respecting the immediate evacuation of Fieldhead by
+Mr. Sympson turned out to be perfectly well founded. The very next day
+after the grand quarrel about Sir Philip Nunnely a sort of
+reconciliation was patched up between uncle and niece. Shirley, who
+could never find it in her heart to be or to seem inhospitable (except
+in the single instance of Mr. Donne), begged the whole party to stay a
+little longer. She begged in such earnest it was evident she wished it
+for some reason. They took her at her word. Indeed, the uncle could not
+bring himself to leave her quite unwatched--at full liberty to marry
+Robert Moore as soon as that gentleman should be able (Mr. Sympson
+piously prayed this might never be the case) to reassert his supposed
+pretensions to her hand. They all stayed.
+
+In his first rage against all the house of Moore, Mr. Sympson had so
+conducted himself towards Mr. Louis that that gentleman--patient of
+labour or suffering, but intolerant of coarse insolence--had promptly
+resigned his post, and could now be induced to resume and retain it only
+till such time as the family should quit Yorkshire. Mrs. Sympson's
+entreaties prevailed with him thus far; his own attachment to his pupil
+constituted an additional motive for concession; and probably he had a
+third motive, stronger than either of the other two. Probably he would
+have found it very hard indeed to leave Fieldhead just now.
+
+Things went on for some time pretty smoothly. Miss Keeldar's health was
+re-established; her spirits resumed their flow. Moore had found means to
+relieve her from every nervous apprehension; and, indeed, from the
+moment of giving him her confidence, every fear seemed to have taken
+wing. Her heart became as lightsome, her manner as careless, as those of
+a little child, that, thoughtless of its own life or death, trusts all
+responsibility to its parents. He and William Farren--through whose
+medium he made inquiries concerning the state of Phoebe--agreed in
+asserting that the dog was not mad, that it was only ill-usage which had
+driven her from home; for it was proved that her master was in the
+frequent habit of chastising her violently. Their assertion might or
+might not be true. The groom and gamekeeper affirmed to the
+contrary--both asserting that, if hers was not a clear case of
+hydrophobia, there was no such disease. But to this evidence Louis Moore
+turned an incredulous ear. He reported to Shirley only what was
+encouraging. She believed him; and, right or wrong, it is certain that
+in her case the bite proved innocuous.
+
+November passed; December came. The Sympsons were now really departing.
+It was incumbent on them to be at home by Christmas. Their packages were
+preparing; they were to leave in a few days. One winter evening, during
+the last week of their stay, Louis Moore again took out his little blank
+book, and discoursed with it as follows:--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"She is lovelier than ever. Since that little cloud was dispelled all
+the temporary waste and wanness have vanished. It was marvellous to see
+how soon the magical energy of youth raised her elastic and revived her
+blooming.
+
+"After breakfast this morning, when I had seen her, and listened to her,
+and, so to speak, felt her, in every sentient atom of my frame, I passed
+from her sunny presence into the chill drawing-room. Taking up a little
+gilt volume, I found it to contain a selection of lyrics. I read a poem
+or two; whether the spell was in me or in the verse I know not, but my
+heart filled genially, my pulse rose. I glowed, notwithstanding the
+frost air. I, too, am young as yet. Though she said she never considered
+me young, I am barely thirty. There are moments when life, for no other
+reason than my own youth, beams with sweet hues upon me.
+
+"It was time to go to the schoolroom. I went. That same schoolroom is
+rather pleasant in a morning. The sun then shines through the low
+lattice; the books are in order; there are no papers strewn about; the
+fire is clear and clean; no cinders have fallen, no ashes accumulated. I
+found Henry there, and he had brought with him Miss Keeldar. They were
+together.
+
+"I said she was lovelier than ever. She is. A fine rose, not deep but
+delicate, opens on her cheek. Her eye, always dark, clear, and speaking,
+utters now a language I cannot render; it is the utterance, seen not
+heard, through which angels must have communed when there was 'silence
+in heaven.' Her hair was always dusk as night and fine as silk, her neck
+was always fair, flexible, polished; but both have now a new charm. The
+tresses are soft as shadow, the shoulders they fall on wear a goddess
+grace. Once I only _saw_ her beauty, now I _feel_ it.
+
+"Henry was repeating his lesson to her before bringing it to me. One of
+her hands was occupied with the book; he held the other. That boy gets
+more than his share of privileges; he dares caress and is caressed. What
+indulgence and compassion she shows him! Too much. If this went on,
+Henry in a few years, when his soul was formed, would offer it on her
+altar, as I have offered mine.
+
+"I saw her eyelid flitter when I came in, but she did not look up; _now_
+she hardly ever gives me a glance. She seems to grow silent too; to _me_
+she rarely speaks, and when I am present, she says little to others. In
+my gloomy moments I attribute this change to indifference, aversion,
+what not? In my sunny intervals I give it another meaning. I say, were I
+her equal, I could find in this shyness coyness, and in that coyness
+love. As it is, dare I look for it? What could I do with it if found?
+
+"This morning I dared at least contrive an hour's communion for her and
+me; I dared not only _wish_ but _will_ an interview with her. I dared
+summon solitude to guard us. Very decidedly I called Henry to the door.
+Without hesitation I said, 'Go where you will, my boy; but, till I call
+you, return not here.'
+
+"Henry, I could see, did not like his dismissal. That boy is young, but
+a thinker; his meditative eye shines on me strangely sometimes. He half
+feels what links me to Shirley; he half guesses that there is a dearer
+delight in the reserve with which I am treated than in all the
+endearments he is allowed. The young, lame, half-grown lion would growl
+at me now and then, because I have tamed his lioness and am her keeper,
+did not the habit of discipline and the instinct of affection hold him
+subdued. Go, Henry; you must learn to take your share of the bitter of
+life with all of Adam's race that have gone before or will come after
+you. Your destiny can be no exception to the common lot; be grateful
+that your love is overlooked thus early, before it can claim any
+affinity to passion. An hour's fret, a pang of envy, suffice to express
+what you feel. Jealousy hot as the sun above the line, rage destructive
+as the tropic storm, the clime of your sensations ignores--as yet.
+
+"I took my usual seat at the desk, quite in my usual way. I am blessed
+in that power to cover all inward ebullition with outward calm. No one
+who looks at my slow face can guess the vortex sometimes whirling in my
+heart, and engulfing thought and wrecking prudence. Pleasant is it to
+have the gift to proceed peacefully and powerfully in your course
+without alarming by one eccentric movement. It was not my present
+intention to utter one word of love to her, or to reveal one glimpse of
+the fire in which I wasted. Presumptuous I never have been; presumptuous
+I never will be. Rather than even _seem_ selfish and interested, I would
+resolutely rise, gird my loins, part and leave her, and seek, on the
+other side of the globe, a new life, cold and barren as the rock the
+salt tide daily washes. My design this morning was to take of her a near
+scrutiny--to read a line in the page of her heart. Before I left I
+determined to know _what_ I was leaving.
+
+"I had some quills to make into pens. Most men's hands would have
+trembled when their hearts were so stirred; mine went to work steadily,
+and my voice, when I called it into exercise, was firm.
+
+"'This day week you will be alone at Fieldhead, Miss Keeldar.'
+
+"'Yes: I rather think my uncle's intention to go is a settled one now.'
+
+"'He leaves you dissatisfied.'
+
+"'He is not pleased with me.'
+
+"'He departs as he came--no better for his journey. This is mortifying.'
+
+"'I trust the failure of his plans will take from him all inclination to
+lay new ones.'
+
+"'In his way Mr. Sympson honestly wished you well. All he has done or
+intended to do he believed to be for the best.'
+
+"'You are kind to undertake the defence of a man who has permitted
+himself to treat you with so much insolence.'
+
+"'I never feel shocked at, or bear malice for, what is spoken in
+character; and most perfectly in character was that vulgar and violent
+onset against me, when he had quitted you worsted.'
+
+"'You cease now to be Henry's tutor?'
+
+"'I shall be parted from Henry for a while (if he and I live we shall
+meet again somehow, for we love each other) and be ousted from the bosom
+of the Sympson family for ever. Happily this change does not leave me
+stranded; it but hurries into premature execution designs long formed.'
+
+"'No change finds you off your guard. I was sure, in your calm way, you
+would be prepared for sudden mutation. I always think you stand in the
+world like a solitary but watchful, thoughtful archer in a wood. And the
+quiver on your shoulder holds more arrows than one; your bow is provided
+with a second string. Such too is your brother's wont. You two might go
+forth homeless hunters to the loneliest western wilds; all would be well
+with you. The hewn tree would make you a hut, the cleared forest yield
+you fields from its stripped bosom, the buffalo would feel your
+rifle-shot, and with lowered horns and hump pay homage at your feet.'
+
+"'And any Indian tribe of Blackfeet or Flatheads would afford us a
+bride, perhaps?'
+
+"'No' (hesitating), 'I think not. The savage is sordid. I think--that
+is, I _hope_--you would neither of you share your hearth with that to
+which you could not give your heart.'
+
+"'What suggested the wild West to your mind, Miss Keeldar? Have you been
+with me in spirit when I did not see you? Have you entered into my
+day-dreams, and beheld my brain labouring at its scheme of a future?'
+
+"She had separated a slip of paper for lighting tapers--a spill, as it
+is called--into fragments. She threw morsel by morsel into the fire, and
+stood pensively watching them consume. She did not speak.
+
+"'How did you learn what you seem to know about my intentions?'
+
+"'I know nothing. I am only discovering them now. I spoke at hazard.'
+
+"'Your hazard sounds like divination. A tutor I will never be again;
+never take a pupil after Henry and yourself; not again will I sit
+habitually at another man's table--no more be the appendage of a family.
+I am now a man of thirty; I have never been free since I was a boy of
+ten. I have such a thirst for freedom, such a deep passion to know her
+and call her mine, such a day-desire and night-longing to win her and
+possess her, I will not refuse to cross the Atlantic for her sake; her I
+will follow deep into virgin woods. Mine it shall not be to accept a
+savage girl as a slave--she could not be a wife. I know no white woman
+whom I love that would accompany me; but I am certain Liberty will await
+me, sitting under a pine. When I call her she will come to my loghouse,
+and she shall fill my arms.'
+
+"She could not hear me speak so unmoved, and she _was_ moved. It was
+right--I meant to move her. She could not answer me, nor could she look
+at me. I should have been sorry if she could have done either. Her cheek
+glowed as if a crimson flower through whose petals the sun shone had
+cast its light upon it. On the white lid and dark lashes of her downcast
+eye trembled all that is graceful in the sense of half-painful,
+half-pleasing shame.
+
+"Soon she controlled her emotion, and took all her feelings under
+command. I saw she had felt insurrection, and was waking to empire. She
+sat down. There was that in her face which I could read. It said, I see
+the line which is my limit; nothing shall make me pass it. I feel--I
+know how far I may reveal my feelings, and when I must clasp the volume.
+I have advanced to a certain distance, as far as the true and sovereign
+and undegraded nature of my kind permits; now here I stand rooted. My
+heart may break if it is baffled; let it break. It shall never dishonour
+me; it shall never dishonour my sisterhood in me. Suffering before
+degradation! death before treachery!
+
+"I, for my part, said, 'If she were poor, I would be at her feet; if she
+were lowly, I would take her in my arms. Her gold and her station are
+two griffins that guard her on each side. Love looks and longs, and
+dares not; Passion hovers round, and is kept at bay; Truth and Devotion
+are scared. There is nothing to lose in winning her, no sacrifice to
+make. It is all clear gain, and therefore unimaginably difficult.'
+
+"Difficult or not, something must be done, something must be said. I
+could not, and would not, sit silent with all that beauty modestly mute
+in my presence. I spoke thus, and still I spoke with calm. Quiet as my
+words were, I could hear they fell in a tone distinct, round, and deep.
+
+"'Still, I know I shall be strangely placed with that mountain nymph
+Liberty. She is, I suspect, akin to that Solitude which I once wooed,
+and from which I now seek a divorce. These Oreads are peculiar. They
+come upon you with an unearthly charm, like some starlight evening; they
+inspire a wild but not warm delight; their beauty is the beauty of
+spirits; their grace is not the grace of life, but of seasons or scenes
+in nature. Theirs is the dewy bloom of morning, the languid flush of
+evening, the peace of the moon, the changefulness of clouds. I want and
+will have something different. This elfish splendour looks chill to my
+vision, and feels frozen to my touch. I am not a poet; I cannot live
+with abstractions. You, Miss Keeldar, have sometimes, in your laughing
+satire, called me a material philosopher, and implied that I live
+sufficiently for the substantial. Certainly I feel material from head to
+foot; and glorious as Nature is, and deeply as I worship her with the
+solid powers of a solid heart, I would rather behold her through the
+soft human eyes of a loved and lovely wife than through the wild orbs of
+the highest goddess of Olympus.'
+
+"'Juno could not cook a buffalo steak as you like it,' said she.
+
+"'She could not; but I will tell you who could--some young, penniless,
+friendless orphan girl. I wish I could find such a one--pretty enough
+for me to love, with something of the mind and heart suited to my taste;
+not uneducated--honest and modest. I care nothing for attainments, but I
+would fain have the germ of those sweet natural powers which nothing
+acquired can rival; any temper Fate wills--I can manage the hottest. To
+such a creature as this I should like to be first tutor and then
+husband. I would teach her my language, my habits and my principles, and
+then I would reward her with my love.'
+
+"'_Reward_ her, lord of the creation--_reward_ her!'" ejaculated she,
+with a curled lip.
+
+"'And be repaid a thousandfold.'
+
+"'If she willed it, monseigneur.'
+
+"'And she _should_ will it.'
+
+"'You have stipulated for any temper Fate wills. Compulsion is flint and
+a blow to the metal of some souls.'
+
+"'And love the spark it elicits.'
+
+"'Who cares for the love that is but a spark--seen, flown upward, and
+gone?'
+
+"'I must find my orphan girl. Tell me how, Miss Keeldar.'
+
+"'Advertise; and be sure you add, when you describe the qualifications,
+she must be a good plain cook.'
+
+"'I must find her; and when I do find her I shall marry her.'
+
+"'Not you!' and her voice took a sudden accent of peculiar scorn.
+
+"I liked this. I had roused her from the pensive mood in which I had
+first found her. I would stir her further.
+
+"'Why doubt it?'
+
+"'_You_ marry!'
+
+"'Yes, of course; nothing more evident than that I can and shall.'
+
+"'The contrary is evident, Mr. Moore.'
+
+"She charmed me in this mood--waxing disdainful, half insulting; pride,
+temper, derision, blent in her large fine eye, that had just now the
+look of a merlin's.
+
+"'Favour me with your reasons for such an opinion, Miss Keeldar.'
+
+"'How will _you_ manage to marry, I wonder?'
+
+"'I shall manage it with ease and speed when I find the proper person.'
+
+"'Accept celibacy!' (and she made a gesture with her hand as if she gave
+me something) 'take it as your doom!'
+
+"'No; you cannot give what I already have. Celibacy has been mine for
+thirty years. If you wish to offer me a gift, a parting present, a
+keepsake, you must change the boon.'
+
+"'Take worse, then!'
+
+"'How--what?'
+
+"I now felt, and looked, and spoke eagerly. I was unwise to quit my
+sheet-anchor of calm even for an instant; it deprived me of an advantage
+and transferred it to her. The little spark of temper dissolved in
+sarcasm, and eddied over her countenance in the ripples of a mocking
+smile.
+
+"'Take a wife that has paid you court to save your modesty, and thrust
+herself upon you to spare your scruples.'
+
+"'Only show me where.'
+
+"'Any stout widow that has had a few husbands already, and can manage
+these things.'
+
+"'She must not be rich, then. Oh these riches!'
+
+"'Never would you have gathered the produce of the gold-bearing garden.
+You have not courage to confront the sleepless dragon; you have not
+craft to borrow the aid of Atlas.'
+
+"'You look hot and haughty.'
+
+"'And you far haughtier. Yours is the monstrous pride which counterfeits
+humility.'
+
+"'I am a dependant; I know my place.'
+
+"'I am a woman; I know mine.'
+
+"'I am poor; I must be proud.'
+
+"'I have received ordinances, and own obligations stringent as yours.'
+
+"We had reached a critical point now, and we halted and looked at each
+other. _She_ would not give in, I felt. Beyond this I neither felt nor
+saw. A few moments yet were mine. The end was coming--I heard its
+rush--but not come. I would dally, wait, talk, and when impulse urged I
+would act. I am never in a hurry; I never was in a hurry in my whole
+life. Hasty people drink the nectar of existence scalding hot; I taste
+it cool as dew. I proceeded: 'Apparently, Miss Keeldar, you are as
+little likely to marry as myself. I know you have refused three--nay,
+four--advantageous offers, and, I believe, a fifth. Have you rejected
+Sir Philip Nunnely?'
+
+"I put this question suddenly and promptly.
+
+"'Did you think I should take him?'
+
+"'I thought you might.'
+
+"'On what grounds, may I ask?'
+
+"'Conformity of rank, age, pleasing contrast of temper--for _he_ is mild
+and amiable--harmony of intellectual tastes.'
+
+"'A beautiful sentence! Let us take it to pieces. "Conformity of rank."
+He is quite above me. Compare my grange with his palace, if you please.
+I am disdained by his kith and kin. "Suitability of age." We were born
+in the same year; consequently he is still a boy, while I am a
+woman--ten years his senior to all intents and purposes. "Contrast of
+temper." Mild and amiable, is he; I--what? Tell me.'
+
+"'Sister of the spotted, bright, quick, fiery leopard.'
+
+"'And you would mate me with a kid--the millennium being yet millions of
+centuries from mankind; being yet, indeed, an archangel high in the
+seventh heaven, uncommissioned to descend? Unjust barbarian! "Harmony of
+intellectual tastes." He is fond of poetry, and I hate it----'
+
+"'Do you? That is news.'
+
+"'I absolutely shudder at the sight of metre or at the sound of rhyme
+whenever I am at the priory or Sir Philip at Fieldhead. Harmony,
+indeed! When did I whip up syllabub sonnets or string stanzas fragile as
+fragments of glass? and when did I betray a belief that those
+penny-beads were genuine brilliants?'
+
+"'You might have the satisfaction of leading him to a higher standard,
+of improving his tastes.'
+
+"'Leading and improving! teaching and tutoring! bearing and forbearing!
+Pah! my husband is not to be my baby. I am not to set him his daily
+lesson and see that he learns it, and give him a sugar-plum if he is
+good, and a patient, pensive, pathetic lecture if he is bad. But it is
+like a tutor to talk of the "satisfaction of teaching." I suppose _you_
+think it the finest employment in the world. I don't. I reject it.
+Improving a husband! No. I shall insist upon my husband improving me, or
+else we part.'
+
+"'God knows it is needed!'
+
+"'What do you mean by that, Mr. Moore?'
+
+"'What I say. Improvement is imperatively needed.'
+
+"'If you were a woman you would school _monsieur, votre mari_,
+charmingly. It would just suit you; schooling is your vocation.'
+
+"'May I ask whether, in your present just and gentle mood, you mean to
+taunt me with being a tutor?'
+
+"'Yes, bitterly; and with anything else you please--any defect of which
+you are painfully conscious.'
+
+"'With being poor, for instance?'
+
+"'Of course; that will sting you. You are sore about your poverty; you
+brood over that.'
+
+"'With having nothing but a very plain person to offer the woman who may
+master my heart?'
+
+"'Exactly. You have a habit of calling yourself plain. You are sensitive
+about the cut of your features because they are not quite on an Apollo
+pattern. You abase them more than is needful, in the faint hope that
+others may say a word in their behalf--which won't happen. Your face is
+nothing to boast of, certainly--not a pretty line nor a pretty tint to
+be found therein.'
+
+"'Compare it with your own.'
+
+"'It looks like a god of Egypt--a great sand-buried stone head; or
+rather I will compare it to nothing so lofty. It looks like Tartar. You
+are my mastiff's cousin. I think you as much like him as a man can be
+like a dog.'
+
+"'Tartar is your dear companion. In summer, when you rise early, and
+run out into the fields to wet your feet with the dew, and freshen your
+cheek and uncurl your hair with the breeze, you always call him to
+follow you. You call him sometimes with a whistle that you learned from
+me. In the solitude of your wood, when you think nobody but Tartar is
+listening, you whistle the very tunes you imitated from my lips, or sing
+the very songs you have caught up by ear from my voice. I do not ask
+whence flows the feeling which you pour into these songs, for I know it
+flows out of your heart, Miss Keeldar. In the winter evenings Tartar
+lies at your feet. You suffer him to rest his head on your perfumed lap;
+you let him couch on the borders of your satin raiment. His rough hide
+is familiar with the contact of your hand. I once saw you kiss him on
+that snow-white beauty spot which stars his broad forehead. It is
+dangerous to say I am like Tartar; it suggests to me a claim to be
+treated like Tartar.'
+
+"'Perhaps, sir, you can extort as much from your penniless and
+friendless young orphan girl, when you find her.'
+
+"'Oh could I find her such as I image her! Something to tame first, and
+teach afterwards; to break in, and then to fondle. To lift the destitute
+proud thing out of poverty; to establish power over and then to be
+indulgent to the capricious moods that never were influenced and never
+indulged before; to see her alternately irritated and subdued about
+twelve times in the twenty-four hours; and perhaps, eventually, when her
+training was accomplished, to behold her the exemplary and patient
+mother of about a dozen children, only now and then lending little Louis
+a cordial cuff by way of paying the interest of the vast debt she owes
+his father. Oh' (I went on), 'my orphan girl would give me many a kiss;
+she would watch on the threshold for my coming home of an evening; she
+would run into my arms; she would keep my hearth as bright as she would
+make it warm. God bless the sweet idea! Find her I must.'
+
+"Her eyes emitted an eager flash, her lips opened; but she reclosed
+them, and impetuously turned away.
+
+"'Tell me, tell me where she is, Miss Keeldar!'
+
+"Another movement, all haughtiness and fire and impulse.
+
+"'I must know. You _can_ tell me; you _shall_ tell me.'
+
+"'I _never will_.'
+
+"She turned to leave me. Could I now let her part as she had always
+parted from me? No. I had gone too far not to finish; I had come too
+near the end not to drive home to it. All the encumbrance of doubt, all
+the rubbish of indecision, must be removed at once, and the plain truth
+must be ascertained. She must take her part, and tell me what it was; I
+must take mine and adhere to it.
+
+"'A minute, madam,' I said, keeping my hand on the door-handle before I
+opened it. 'We have had a long conversation this morning, but the last
+word has not been spoken yet. It is yours to speak it.'
+
+"'May I pass?'
+
+"'No; I guard the door. I would almost rather die than let you leave me
+just now, without speaking the word I demand.'
+
+"'What dare you expect me to say?'
+
+"'What I am dying and perishing to hear; what I _must_ and _will_ hear;
+what you dare not now suppress.'
+
+"'Mr. Moore, I hardly know what you mean. You are not like yourself.'
+
+"I suppose I hardly was like my usual self, for I scared her--that I
+could see. It was right: she must be scared to be won.
+
+"'You _do_ know what I mean, and for the first time I stand before you
+_myself_. I have flung off the tutor, and beg to introduce you to the
+man. And remember, he is a gentleman.'
+
+"She trembled. She put her hand to mine as if to remove it from the
+lock. She might as well have tried to loosen, by her soft touch, metal
+welded to metal. She felt she was powerless, and receded; and again she
+trembled.
+
+"What change I underwent I cannot explain, but out of her emotion passed
+into me a new spirit. I neither was crushed nor elated by her lands and
+gold; I thought not of them, cared not for them. They were
+nothing--dross that could not dismay me. I saw only herself--her young
+beautiful form, the grace, the majesty, the modesty of her girlhood.
+
+"'My pupil,' I said.
+
+"'My master,' was the low answer.
+
+"'I have a thing to tell you.'
+
+"She waited with declined brow and ringlets drooped.
+
+"'I have to tell you that for four years you have been growing into
+your tutor's heart, and that you are rooted there now. I have to declare
+that you have bewitched me, in spite of sense, and experience, and
+difference of station and estate. You have so looked, and spoken, and
+moved; so shown me your faults and your virtues--beauties rather, they
+are hardly so stern as virtues--that I love you--love you with my life
+and strength. It is out now.'
+
+"She sought what to say, but could not find a word. She tried to rally,
+but vainly. I passionately repeated that I loved her.
+
+"'Well, Mr. Moore, what then?' was the answer I got, uttered in a tone
+that would have been petulant if it had not faltered.
+
+"'Have you nothing to say to me? Have you no love for me?'
+
+"'A little bit.'
+
+"'I am not to be tortured. I will not even play at present.'
+
+"'I don't want to play; I want to go.'
+
+"'I wonder you dare speak of going at this moment. _You_ go! What! with
+my heart in your hand, to lay it on your toilet and pierce it with your
+pins? From my presence you do not stir, out of my reach you do not
+stray, till I receive a hostage--pledge for pledge--your heart for
+mine.'
+
+"'The thing you want is mislaid--lost some time since. Let me go and
+seek it.'
+
+"'Declare that it is where your keys often are--in my possession.'
+
+"'You ought to know. And where are my keys, Mr. Moore? Indeed and truly
+I have lost them again; and Mrs. Gill wants some money, and I have none,
+except this sixpence.'
+
+"She took the coin out of her apron pocket, and showed it in her palm. I
+could have trifled with her, but it would not do; life and death were at
+stake. Mastering at once the sixpence and the hand that held it, I
+demanded, 'Am I to die without you, or am I to live for you?'
+
+"'Do as you please. Far be it from me to dictate your choice.'
+
+"'You shall tell me with your own lips whether you doom me to exile or
+call me to hope.'
+
+"'Go; I can bear to be left.'
+
+"'Perhaps I too _can_ bear to leave you. But reply, Shirley, my pupil,
+my sovereign--reply.'
+
+"'Die without me if you will; live for me if you dare.'
+
+"'I am not afraid of you, my leopardess. I _dare_ live for and with you,
+from this hour till my death. Now, then, I have you. You are mine. I
+will never let you go. Wherever my home be, I have chosen my wife. If I
+stay in England, in England you will stay; if I cross the Atlantic, you
+will cross it also. Our lives are riveted, our lots intertwined.'
+
+"'And are we equal, then, sir? are we equal at last?'
+
+"'You are younger, frailer, feebler, more ignorant than I.'
+
+"'Will you be good to me, and never tyrannize?'
+
+"'Will you let me breathe, and not bewilder me? You must not smile at
+present. The world swims and changes round me. The sun is a dizzying
+scarlet blaze, the sky a violet vortex whirling over me.'
+
+"I am a strong man, but I staggered as I spoke. All creation was
+exaggerated. Colour grew more vivid, motion more rapid, life itself more
+vital. I hardly saw her for a moment, but I heard her voice--pitilessly
+sweet. She would not subdue one of her charms in compassion. Perhaps she
+did not know what I felt.
+
+"'You name me leopardess. Remember, the leopardess is tameless,' said
+she.
+
+"'Tame or fierce, wild or subdued, you are _mine_.'
+
+"'I am glad I know my keeper and am used to him. Only his voice will I
+follow; only his hand shall manage me; only at his feet will I repose.'
+
+"I took her back to her seat, and sat down by her side. I wanted to hear
+her speak again. I could never have enough of her voice and her words.
+
+"'How much do you love me?' I asked.
+
+"'Ah! you know. I will not gratify you--I will not flatter.'
+
+"'I don't know half enough; my heart craves to be fed. If you knew how
+hungry and ferocious it is, you would hasten to stay it with a kind word
+or two.'
+
+"'Poor Tartar!' said she, touching and patting my hand--'poor fellow,
+stalwart friend, Shirley's pet and favourite, lie down!'
+
+"'But I will not lie down till I am fed with one sweet word.'
+
+"And at last she gave it.
+
+"'Dear Louis, be faithful to me; never leave me. I don't care for life
+unless I may pass it at your side.'
+
+"'Something more.'
+
+"She gave me a change; it was not her way to offer the same dish twice.
+
+"'Sir,' she said, starting up, 'at your peril you ever again name such
+sordid things as money, or poverty, or inequality. It will be absolutely
+dangerous to torment me with these maddening scruples. I defy you to do
+it.'
+
+"My face grew hot. I did once more wish I were not so poor or she were
+not so rich. She saw the transient misery; and then, indeed, she
+caressed me. Blent with torment, I experienced rapture.
+
+"'Mr. Moore,' said she, looking up with a sweet, open, earnest
+countenance, 'teach me and help me to be good. I do not ask you to take
+off my shoulders all the cares and duties of property, but I ask you to
+share the burden, and to show me how to sustain my part well. Your
+judgment is well balanced, your heart is kind, your principles are
+sound. I know you are wise; I feel you are benevolent; I believe you are
+conscientious. Be my companion through life; be my guide where I am
+ignorant; be my master where I am faulty; be my friend always!'
+
+"'So help me God, I will!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Yet again a passage from the blank book if you like, reader; if you
+don't like it, pass it over:--
+
+"The Sympsons are gone, but not before discovery and explanation. My
+manner must have betrayed something, or my looks. I was quiet, but I
+forgot to be guarded sometimes. I stayed longer in the room than usual;
+I could not bear to be out of her presence; I returned to it, and basked
+in it, like Tartar in the sun. If she left the oak parlour,
+instinctively I rose and left it too. She chid me for this procedure
+more than once. I did it with a vague, blundering idea of getting a word
+with her in the hall or elsewhere. Yesterday towards dusk I had her to
+myself for five minutes by the hall fire. We stood side by side; she was
+railing at me, and I was enjoying the sound of her voice. The young
+ladies passed, and looked at us; we did not separate. Ere long they
+repassed, and again looked. Mrs. Sympson came; we did not move. Mr.
+Sympson opened the dining-room door. Shirley flashed him back full
+payment for his spying gaze. She curled her lip and tossed her tresses.
+The glance she gave was at once explanatory and defiant. It said: 'I
+like Mr. Moore's society, and I dare you to find fault with my taste.'
+
+"I asked, 'Do you mean him to understand how matters are?'
+
+"'I do,' said she; 'but I leave the development to chance. There will be
+a scene. I neither invite it nor fear it; only, you must be present, for
+I am inexpressibly tired of facing him solus. I don't like to see him in
+a rage. He then puts off all his fine proprieties and conventional
+disguises, and the real human being below is what you would call
+_commun, plat, bas--vilain et un peu méchant_. His ideas are not clean,
+Mr. Moore; they want scouring with soft soap and fuller's earth. I
+think, if he could add his imagination to the contents of Mrs. Gill's
+bucking-basket, and let her boil it in her copper, with rain-water and
+bleaching-powder (I hope you think me a tolerable laundress), it would
+do him incalculable good.'
+
+"This morning, fancying I heard her descend somewhat early, I was down
+instantly. I had not been deceived. There she was, busy at work in the
+breakfast-parlour, of which the housemaid was completing the arrangement
+and dusting. She had risen betimes to finish some little keepsake she
+intended for Henry. I got only a cool reception, which I accepted till
+the girl was gone, taking my book to the window-seat very quietly. Even
+when we were alone I was slow to disturb her. To sit with her in sight
+was happiness, and the proper happiness, for early morning--serene,
+incomplete, but progressive. Had I been obtrusive, I knew I should have
+encountered rebuff. 'Not at home to suitors' was written on her brow.
+Therefore I read on, stole now and then a look, watched her countenance
+soften and open as she felt I respected her mood, and enjoyed the gentle
+content of the moment.
+
+"The distance between us shrank, and the light hoar-frost thawed
+insensibly. Ere an hour elapsed I was at her side, watching her sew,
+gathering her sweet smiles and her merry words, which fell for me
+abundantly. We sat, as we had a right to sit, side by side; my arm
+rested on her chair; I was near enough to count the stitches of her
+work, and to discern the eye of her needle. The door suddenly opened.
+
+"I believe, if I had just then started from her, she would have
+despised me. Thanks to the phlegm of my nature, I rarely start. When I
+am well-off, _bien_, comfortable, I am not soon stirred. _Bien_ I
+was--_très bien_--consequently immutable. No muscle moved. I hardly
+looked to the door.
+
+"'Good-morning, uncle,' said she, addressing that personage, who paused
+on the threshold in a state of petrifaction.
+
+"'Have you been long downstairs, Miss Keeldar, and alone with Mr.
+Moore?'
+
+"'Yes, a very long time. We both came down early; it was scarcely
+light.'
+
+"'The proceeding is improper----'
+
+"'It was at first, I was rather cross, and not civil; but you will
+perceive that we are now friends.'
+
+"'I perceive more than you would wish me to perceive.'
+
+"'Hardly, sir,' said I; 'we have no disguises. Will you permit me to
+intimate that any further observations you have to make may as well be
+addressed to me? Henceforward I stand between Miss Keeldar and all
+annoyance.'
+
+"'_You!_ What have _you_ to do with Miss Keeldar?'
+
+"'To protect, watch over, serve her.'
+
+"'You, sir--you, the tutor?'
+
+"'Not one word of insult, sir,' interposed she; 'not one syllable of
+disrespect to Mr. Moore in this house.'
+
+"'Do you take his part?'
+
+"'_His_ part? oh yes!'
+
+"She turned to me with a sudden fond movement, which I met by circling
+her with my arm. She and I both rose.
+
+"'Good Ged!' was the cry from the morning-gown standing quivering at the
+door. _Ged_, I think, must be the cognomen of Mr. Sympson's Lares. When
+hard pressed he always invokes this idol.
+
+"'Come forward, uncle; you shall hear all.--Tell him all, Louis.'
+
+"'I dare him to speak--the beggar! the knave! the specious hypocrite!
+the vile, insinuating, infamous menial!--Stand apart from my niece, sir.
+Let her go!'
+
+"She clung to me with energy. 'I am near my future husband,' she said.
+'Who dares touch him or me?'
+
+"'Her husband!' He raised and spread his hands. He dropped into a seat.
+
+"'A while ago you wanted much to know whom I meant to marry. My
+intention was then formed, but not mature for communication. Now it is
+ripe, sun-mellowed, perfect. Take the crimson peach--take Louis Moore!'
+
+"'But' (savagely) 'you _shall not_ have him; he _shall not_ have you.'
+
+"'I would die before I would have another. I would die if I might not
+have him.'
+
+"He uttered words with which this page shall never be polluted.
+
+"She turned white as death; she shook all over; she lost her strength. I
+laid her down on the sofa; just looked to ascertain that she had not
+fainted--of which, with a divine smile, she assured me. I kissed her;
+and then, if I were to perish, I cannot give a clear account of what
+happened in the course of the next five minutes. She has since--through
+tears, laughter, and trembling--told me that I turned terrible, and gave
+myself to the demon. She says I left her, made one bound across the
+room; that Mr. Sympson vanished through the door as if shot from a
+cannon. I also vanished, and she heard Mrs. Gill scream.
+
+"Mrs. Gill was still screaming when I came to my senses. I was then in
+another apartment--the oak parlour, I think. I held Sympson before me
+crushed into a chair, and my hand was on his cravat. His eyes rolled in
+his head; I was strangling him, I think. The housekeeper stood wringing
+her hands, entreating me to desist. I desisted that moment, and felt at
+once as cool as stone. But I told Mrs. Gill to fetch the Red-House Inn
+chaise instantly, and informed Mr. Sympson he must depart from Fieldhead
+the instant it came. Though half frightened out of his wits, he declared
+he would not. Repeating the former order, I added a commission to fetch
+a constable. I said, 'You _shall_ go, by fair means or foul.'
+
+"He threatened prosecution; I cared for nothing. I had stood over him
+once before, not quite so fiercely as now, but full as austerely. It was
+one night when burglars attempted the house at Sympson Grove, and in his
+wretched cowardice he would have given a vain alarm, without daring to
+offer defence. I had then been obliged to protect his family and his
+abode by mastering himself--and I had succeeded. I now remained with him
+till the chaise came. I marshalled him to it, he scolding all the way.
+He was terribly bewildered, as well as enraged. He would have resisted
+me, but knew not how. He called for his wife and daughters to come. I
+said they should follow him as soon as they could prepare. The smoke,
+the fume, the fret of his demeanour was inexpressible, but it was a fury
+incapable of producing a deed. That man, properly handled, must ever
+remain impotent. I know he will never touch me with the law. I know his
+wife, over whom he tyrannizes in trifles, guides him in matters of
+importance. I have long since earned her undying mother's gratitude by
+my devotion to her boy. In some of Henry's ailments I have nursed
+him--better, she said, than any woman could nurse. She will never forget
+that. She and her daughters quitted me to-day, in mute wrath and
+consternation; but she respects me. When Henry clung to my neck as I
+lifted him into the carriage and placed him by her side, when I arranged
+her own wrapping to make her warm, though she turned her head from me, I
+saw the tears start to her eyes. She will but the more zealously
+advocate my cause because she has left me in anger. I am glad of
+this--not for my own sake, but for that of my life and idol--my
+Shirley."
+
+Once again he writes, a week after:--"I am now at Stilbro'. I have taken
+up my temporary abode with a friend--a professional man, in whose
+business I can be useful. Every day I ride over to Fieldhead. How long
+will it be before I can call that place my home, and its mistress mine?
+I am not easy, not tranquil; I am tantalized, sometimes tortured. To see
+her now, one would think she had never pressed her cheek to my shoulder,
+or clung to me with tenderness or trust. I feel unsafe; she renders me
+miserable. I am shunned when I visit her; she withdraws from my reach.
+Once this day I lifted her face, resolved to get a full look down her
+deep, dark eyes. Difficult to describe what I read there! Pantheress!
+beautiful forest-born! wily, tameless, peerless nature! She gnaws her
+chain; I see the white teeth working at the steel! She has dreams of her
+wild woods and pinings after virgin freedom. I wish Sympson would come
+again, and oblige her again to entwine her arms about me. I wish there
+was danger she should lose me, as there is risk I shall lose her. No;
+final loss I do not fear, but long delay----
+
+"It is now night--midnight. I have spent the afternoon and evening at
+Fieldhead. Some hours ago she passed me, coming down the oak staircase
+to the hall. She did not know I was standing in the twilight, near the
+staircase window, looking at the frost-bright constellations. How
+closely she glided against the banisters! How shyly shone her large eyes
+upon me! How evanescent, fugitive, fitful she looked--slim and swift as
+a northern streamer!
+
+"I followed her into the drawing-room. Mrs. Pryor and Caroline Helstone
+were both there; she has summoned them to bear her company awhile. In
+her white evening dress, with her long hair flowing full and wavy, with
+her noiseless step, her pale cheek, her eye full of night and lightning,
+she looked, I thought, spirit-like--a thing made of an element, the
+child of a breeze and a flame, the daughter of ray and raindrop--a thing
+never to be overtaken, arrested, fixed. I wished I could avoid following
+her with my gaze as she moved here and there, but it was impossible. I
+talked with the other ladies as well as I could, but still I looked at
+her. She was very silent; I think she never spoke to me--not even when
+she offered me tea. It happened that she was called out a minute by Mrs.
+Gill. I passed into the moonlit hall, with the design of getting a word
+as she returned; nor in this did I fail.
+
+"'Miss Keeldar, stay one instant,' said I, meeting her.
+
+"'Why? the hall is too cold.'
+
+"'It is not cold for me; at my side it should not be cold for you.'
+
+"'But I shiver.'
+
+"'With fear, I believe. What makes you fear me? You are quiet and
+distant. Why?'
+
+"'I may well fear what looks like a great dark goblin meeting me in the
+moonlight.'
+
+"'_Do not--do not_ pass! Stay with me awhile. Let us exchange a few
+quiet words. It is three days since I spoke to you alone. Such changes
+are cruel.'
+
+"'I have no wish to be cruel,' she responded, softly enough. Indeed
+there was softness in her whole deportment--in her face, in her voice;
+but there was also reserve, and an air fleeting, evanishing, intangible.
+
+"'You certainly give me pain,' said I. 'It is hardly a week since you
+called me your future husband and treated me as such. Now I am once more
+the tutor for you. I am addressed as Mr. Moore and sir. Your lips have
+forgotten Louis.'
+
+"'No, Louis, no. It is an easy, liquid name--not soon forgotten.'
+
+"'Be cordial to Louis, then; approach him--let him approach.'
+
+"'I _am_ cordial,' said she, hovering aloof like a white shadow.
+
+"'Your voice is very sweet and very low,' I answered, quietly advancing.
+'You seem subdued, but still startled.'
+
+"'No--quite calm, and afraid of nothing,' she assured me.
+
+"'Of nothing but your votary.'
+
+"I bent a knee to the flags at her feet.
+
+"'You see I am in a new world, Mr. Moore. I don't know myself; I don't
+know you. But rise. When you do so I feel troubled and disturbed.'
+
+"I obeyed. It would not have suited me to retain that attitude long. I
+courted serenity and confidence for her, and not vainly. She trusted and
+clung to me again.
+
+"'Now, Shirley,' I said, 'you can conceive I am far from happy in my
+present uncertain, unsettled state.'
+
+"'Oh yes, you _are_ happy!' she cried hastily. 'You don't know how happy
+you are. Any change will be for the worse.'
+
+"'Happy or not, I cannot bear to go on so much longer. You are too
+generous to require it.'
+
+"'Be reasonable, Louis; be patient! I like you because you are patient.'
+
+"'Like me no longer, then; love me instead. Fix our marriage day; think
+of it to-night, and decide.'
+
+"She breathed a murmur, inarticulate yet expressive; darted, or melted,
+from my arms--and I lost her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+THE WINDING-UP.
+
+
+Yes, reader, we must settle accounts now. I have only briefly to narrate
+the final fates of some of the personages whose acquaintance we have
+made in this narrative, and then you and I must shake hands, and for the
+present separate.
+
+Let us turn to the curates--to the much-loved, though long-neglected.
+Come forward, modest merit! Malone, I see, promptly answers the
+invocation. He knows his own description when he hears it.
+
+No, Peter Augustus; we can have nothing to say to you. It won't do.
+Impossible to trust ourselves with the touching tale of your deeds and
+destinies. Are you not aware, Peter, that a discriminating public has
+its crotchets; that the unvarnished truth does not answer; that plain
+facts will not digest? Do you not know that the squeak of the real pig
+is no more relished now than it was in days of yore? Were I to give the
+catastrophe of your life and conversation, the public would sweep off in
+shrieking hysterics, and there would be a wild cry for sal-volatile and
+burnt feathers. "Impossible!" would be pronounced here; "untrue!" would
+be responded there; "inartistic!" would be solemnly decided. Note well.
+Whenever you present the actual, simple truth, it is, somehow, always
+denounced as a lie--they disown it, cast it off, throw it on the parish;
+whereas the product of your own imagination, the mere figment, the sheer
+fiction, is adopted, petted, termed pretty, proper, sweetly natural--the
+little, spurious wretch gets all the comfits, the honest, lawful
+bantling all the cuffs. Such is the way of the world, Peter; and as you
+are the legitimate urchin, rude, unwashed, and naughty, you must stand
+down.
+
+Make way for Mr. Sweeting.
+
+Here he comes, with his lady on his arm--the most splendid and the
+weightiest woman in Yorkshire--Mrs. Sweeting, formerly Miss Dora Sykes.
+They were married under the happiest auspices, Mr. Sweeting having been
+just inducted to a comfortable living, and Mr. Sykes being in
+circumstances to give Dora a handsome portion. They lived long and
+happily together, beloved by their parishioners and by a numerous circle
+of friends.
+
+There! I think the varnish has been put on very nicely.
+
+Advance, Mr. Donne.
+
+This gentleman turned out admirably--far better than either you or I
+could possibly have expected, reader. He, too, married a most sensible,
+quiet, lady-like little woman. The match was the making of him. He
+became an exemplary domestic character, and a truly active parish priest
+(as a pastor he, to his dying day, conscientiously refused to act). The
+outside of the cup and platter he burnished up with the best
+polishing-powder; the furniture of the altar and temple he looked after
+with the zeal of an upholsterer, the care of a cabinet-maker. His little
+school, his little church, his little parsonage, all owed their erection
+to him; and they did him credit. Each was a model in its way. If
+uniformity and taste in architecture had been the same thing as
+consistency and earnestness in religion, what a shepherd of a Christian
+flock Mr. Donne would have made! There was one art in the mastery of
+which nothing mortal ever surpassed Mr. Donne: it was that of begging.
+By his own unassisted efforts he begged all the money for all his
+erections. In this matter he had a grasp of plan, a scope of action
+quite unique. He begged of high and low--of the shoeless cottage brat
+and the coroneted duke. He sent out begging-letters far and wide--to old
+Queen Charlotte, to the princesses her daughters, to her sons the royal
+dukes, to the Prince Regent, to Lord Castlereagh, to every member of the
+ministry then in office; and, what is more remarkable, he screwed
+something out of every one of these personages. It is on record that he
+got five pounds from the close-fisted old lady Queen Charlotte, and two
+guineas from the royal profligate her eldest son. When Mr. Donne set out
+on begging expeditions, he armed himself in a complete suit of brazen
+mail. That you had given a hundred pounds yesterday was with him no
+reason why you should not give two hundred to-day. He would tell you so
+to your face, and, ten to one, get the money out of you. People gave to
+get rid of him. After all, he did some good with the cash. He was
+useful in his day and generation.
+
+Perhaps I ought to remark that on the premature and sudden vanishing of
+Mr. Malone from the stage of Briarfield parish (you cannot know how it
+happened, reader; your curiosity must be robbed to pay your elegant love
+of the pretty and pleasing), there came as his successor another Irish
+curate, Mr. Macarthey. I am happy to be able to inform you, _with
+truth_, that this gentleman did as much credit to his country as Malone
+had done it discredit. He proved himself as decent, decorous, and
+conscientious as Peter was rampant, boisterous, and---- This last
+epithet I choose to suppress, because it would let the cat out of the
+bag. He laboured faithfully in the parish. The schools, both Sunday and
+day schools, flourished under his sway like green bay trees. Being
+human, of course he had his faults. These, however, were proper,
+steady-going, clerical faults--what many would call virtues. The
+circumstance of finding himself invited to tea with a Dissenter would
+unhinge him for a week. The spectacle of a Quaker wearing his hat in the
+church, the thought of an unbaptized fellow-creature being interred with
+Christian rites--these things could make strange havoc in Mr.
+Macarthey's physical and mental economy. Otherwise he was sane and
+rational, diligent and charitable.
+
+I doubt not a justice-loving public will have remarked, ere this, that I
+have thus far shown a criminal remissness in pursuing, catching, and
+bringing to condign punishment the would-be assassin of Mr. Robert
+Moore. Here was a fine opening to lead my willing readers a dance, at
+once decorous and exciting--a dance of law and gospel, of the dungeon,
+the dock, and the "dead-thraw." You might have liked it, reader, but _I_
+should not. I and my subject would presently have quarrelled, and then I
+should have broken down. I was happy to find that facts perfectly
+exonerated me from the attempt. The murderer was never punished, for the
+good reason that he was never caught--the result of the further
+circumstance that he was never pursued. The magistrates made a
+shuffling, as if they were going to rise and do valiant things; but
+since Moore himself, instead of urging and leading them as heretofore,
+lay still on his little cottage-couch, laughing in his sleeve, and
+sneering with every feature of his pale, foreign face, they considered
+better of it, and after fulfilling certain indispensable forms,
+prudently resolved to let the matter quietly drop, which they did.
+
+Mr. Moore knew who had shot him, and all Briarfield knew. It was no
+other than Michael Hartley, the half-crazed weaver once before alluded
+to, a frantic Antinomian in religion, and a mad leveller in politics.
+The poor soul died of delirium tremens a year after the attempt on
+Moore, and Robert gave his wretched widow a guinea to bury him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The winter is over and gone; spring has followed with beamy and shadowy,
+with flowery and showery flight. We are now in the heart of summer--in
+mid-June--the June of 1812.
+
+It is burning weather. The air is deep azure and red gold. It fits the
+time; it fits the age; it fits the present spirit of the nations. The
+nineteenth century wantons in its giant adolescence; the Titan boy
+uproots mountains in his game, and hurls rocks in his wild sport. This
+summer Bonaparte is in the saddle; he and his host scour Russian
+deserts. He has with him Frenchmen and Poles, Italians and children of
+the Rhine, six hundred thousand strong. He marches on old Moscow. Under
+old Moscow's walls the rude Cossack waits him. Barbarian stoic! he waits
+without fear of the boundless ruin rolling on. He puts his trust in a
+snow-cloud; the wilderness, the wind, and the hail-storm are his refuge;
+his allies are the elements--air, fire, water. And what are these? Three
+terrible archangels ever stationed before the throne of Jehovah. They
+stand clothed in white, girdled with golden girdles; they uplift vials,
+brimming with the wrath of God. Their time is the day of vengeance;
+their signal, the word of the Lord of hosts, "thundering with the voice
+of His excellency."
+
+"Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the
+treasures of the hail, which I have reserved against the time of
+trouble, against the day of battle and war?
+
+"Go your ways. Pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth."
+
+It is done. The earth is scorched with fire; the sea becomes "as the
+blood of a dead man;" the islands flee away; the mountains are not
+found.
+
+In this year, Lord Wellington assumed the reins in Spain. They made him
+generalissimo, for their own salvation's sake. In this year he took
+Badajos, he fought the field of Vittoria, he captured Pampeluna, he
+stormed San Sebastian; in this year he won Salamanca.
+
+Men of Manchester, I beg your pardon for this slight _résumé_ of warlike
+facts, but it is of no consequence. Lord Wellington is, for you, only a
+decayed old gentleman now. I rather think some of you have called him a
+"dotard;" you have taunted him with his age and the loss of his physical
+vigour. What fine heroes you are yourselves! Men like you have a right
+to trample on what is mortal in a demigod. Scoff at your ease; your
+scorn can never break his grand old heart.
+
+But come, friends, whether Quakers or cotton-printers, let us hold a
+peace-congress, and let out our venom quietly. We have been talking with
+unseemly zeal about bloody battles and butchering generals; we arrive
+now at a triumph in your line. On the 18th of June 1812 the Orders in
+Council were repealed, and the blockaded ports thrown open. You know
+very well--such of you as are old enough to remember--you made Yorkshire
+and Lancashire shake with your shout on that occasion. The ringers
+cracked a bell in Briarfield belfry; it is dissonant to this day. The
+Association of Merchants and Manufacturers dined together at Stilbro',
+and one and all went home in such a plight as their wives would never
+wish to witness more. Liverpool started and snorted like a river-horse
+roused amongst his reeds by thunder. Some of the American merchants felt
+threatenings of apoplexy, and had themselves bled--all, like wise men,
+at this first moment of prosperity, prepared to rush into the bowels of
+speculation, and to delve new difficulties, in whose depths they might
+lose themselves at some future day. Stocks which had been accumulating
+for years now went off in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.
+Warehouses were lightened, ships were laden; work abounded, wages rose;
+the good time seemed come. These prospects might be delusive, but they
+were brilliant--to some they were even true. At that epoch, in that
+single month of June, many a solid fortune was realized.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a whole province rejoices, the humblest of its inhabitants tastes a
+festal feeling; the sound of public bells rouses the most secluded
+abode, as if with a call to be gay. And so Caroline Helstone thought,
+when she dressed herself more carefully than usual on the day of this
+trading triumph, and went, attired in her neatest muslin, to spend the
+afternoon at Fieldhead, there to superintend certain millinery
+preparations for a great event, the last appeal in these matters being
+reserved for her unimpeachable taste. She decided on the wreath, the
+veil, the dress to be worn at the altar. She chose various robes and
+fashions for more ordinary occasions, without much reference to the
+bride's opinion--that lady, indeed, being in a somewhat impracticable
+mood.
+
+Louis had presaged difficulties, and he had found them--in fact, his
+mistress had shown herself exquisitely provoking, putting off her
+marriage day by day, week by week, month by month, at first coaxing him
+with soft pretences of procrastination, and in the end rousing his whole
+deliberate but determined nature to revolt against her tyranny, at once
+so sweet and so intolerable.
+
+It had needed a sort of tempest-shock to bring her to the point; but
+there she was at last, fettered to a fixed day. There she lay, conquered
+by love, and bound with a vow.
+
+Thus vanquished and restricted, she pined, like any other chained
+denizen of deserts. Her captor alone could cheer her; his society only
+could make amends for the lost privilege of liberty. In his absence she
+sat or wandered alone, spoke little, and ate less.
+
+She furthered no preparations for her nuptials; Louis was himself
+obliged to direct all arrangements. He was virtually master of Fieldhead
+weeks before he became so nominally--the least presumptuous, the kindest
+master that ever was, but with his lady absolute. She abdicated without
+a word or a struggle. "Go to Mr. Moore, ask Mr. Moore," was her answer
+when applied to for orders. Never was wooer of wealthy bride so
+thoroughly absolved from the subaltern part, so inevitably compelled to
+assume a paramount character.
+
+In all this Miss Keeldar partly yielded to her disposition; but a remark
+she made a year afterwards proved that she partly also acted on system.
+"Louis," she said, "would never have learned to rule if she had not
+ceased to govern. The incapacity of the sovereign had developed the
+powers of the premier."
+
+It had been intended that Miss Helstone should act as bridesmaid at the
+approaching nuptials, but Fortune had destined her another part.
+
+She came home in time to water her plants. She had performed this little
+task. The last flower attended to was a rose-tree, which bloomed in a
+quiet green nook at the back of the house. This plant had received the
+refreshing shower; she was now resting a minute. Near the wall stood a
+fragment of sculptured stone--a monkish relic--once, perhaps, the base
+of a cross. She mounted it, that she might better command the view. She
+had still the watering pot in one hand; with the other her pretty dress
+was held lightly aside, to avoid trickling drops. She gazed over the
+wall, along some lonely fields; beyond three dusk trees, rising side by
+side against the sky; beyond a solitary thorn at the head of a solitary
+lane far off. She surveyed the dusk moors, where bonfires were kindling.
+The summer evening was warm; the bell-music was joyous; the blue smoke
+of the fires looked soft, their red flame bright. Above them, in the sky
+whence the sun had vanished, twinkled a silver point--the star of love.
+
+Caroline was not unhappy that evening--far otherwise; but as she gazed
+she sighed, and as she sighed a hand circled her, and rested quietly on
+her waist. Caroline thought she knew who had drawn near; she received
+the touch unstartled.
+
+"I am looking at Venus, mamma. See, she is beautiful. How white her
+lustre is, compared with the deep red of the bonfires!"
+
+The answer was a closer caress; and Caroline turned, and looked, not
+into Mrs. Pryor's matron face, but up at a dark manly visage. She
+dropped her watering-pot and stepped down from the pedestal.
+
+"I have been sitting with 'mamma' an hour," said the intruder. "I have
+had a long conversation with her. Where, meantime, have you been?"
+
+"To Fieldhead. Shirley is as naughty as ever, Robert. She will neither
+say Yes nor No to any question put. She sits alone. I cannot tell
+whether she is melancholy or nonchalant. If you rouse her or scold her,
+she gives you a look, half wistful, half reckless, which sends you away
+as queer and crazed as herself. What Louis will make of her, I cannot
+tell. For my part, if I were a gentleman, I think I would not dare
+undertake her."
+
+"Never mind them. They were cut out for each other. Louis, strange to
+say, likes her all the better for these freaks. He will manage her, if
+any one can. She tries him, however. He has had a stormy courtship for
+such a calm character; but you see it all ends in victory for him.
+Caroline, I have sought you to ask an audience. Why are those bells
+ringing?"
+
+"For the repeal of your terrible law--the Orders you hate so much. You
+are pleased, are you not?"
+
+"Yesterday evening at this time I was packing some books for a
+sea-voyage. They were the only possessions, except some clothes, seeds,
+roots, and tools, which I felt free to take with me to Canada. I was
+going to leave you."
+
+"To leave me? To leave _me_?"
+
+Her little fingers fastened on his arm; she spoke and looked affrighted.
+
+"Not now--not now. Examine my face--yes, look at me well. Is the despair
+of parting legible thereon?"
+
+She looked into an illuminated countenance, whose characters were all
+beaming, though the page itself was dusk. This face, potent in the
+majesty of its traits, shed down on her hope, fondness, delight.
+
+"Will the repeal do you good--_much_ good, _immediate_ good?" she
+inquired.
+
+"The repeal of the Orders in Council saves me. Now I shall not turn
+bankrupt; now I shall not give up business; now I shall not leave
+England; now I shall be no longer poor; now I can pay my debts; now all
+the cloth I have in my warehouses will be taken off my hands, and
+commissions given me for much more. This day lays for my fortunes a
+broad, firm foundation, on which, for the first time in my life, I can
+securely build."
+
+Caroline devoured his words; she held his hand in hers; she drew a long
+breath.
+
+"You are saved? Your heavy difficulties are lifted?"
+
+"They are lifted. I breathe. I can act."
+
+"At last! Oh, Providence is kind! Thank Him, Robert."
+
+"I do thank Providence."
+
+"And I also, for your sake!" She looked up devoutly.
+
+"Now I can take more workmen, give better wages, lay wiser and more
+liberal plans, do some good, be less selfish. _Now_, Caroline, I can
+have a house--a home which I can truly call mine--and _now_----"
+
+He paused, for his deep voice was checked.
+
+"And _now_," he resumed--"now I can think of marriage, _now_ I can seek
+a wife."
+
+This was no moment for her to speak. She did not speak.
+
+"Will Caroline, who meekly hopes to be forgiven as she forgives--will
+she pardon all I have made her suffer, all that long pain I have
+wickedly caused her, all that sickness of body and mind she owed to me?
+Will she forget what she knows of my poor ambition, my sordid schemes?
+Will she let me expiate these things? Will she suffer me to prove that,
+as I once deserted cruelly, trifled wantonly, injured basely, I can now
+love faithfully, cherish fondly, treasure tenderly?"
+
+His hand was in Caroline's still; a gentle pressure answered him.
+
+"Is Caroline mine?"
+
+"Caroline is yours."
+
+"I will prize her. The sense of her value is here, in my heart; the
+necessity for her society is blended with my life. Not more jealous
+shall I be of the blood whose flow moves my pulses than of her happiness
+and well-being."
+
+"I love you, too, Robert, and will take faithful care of you."
+
+"Will you take faithful care of me? Faithful care! As if that rose
+should promise to shelter from tempest this hard gray stone! But she
+_will_ care for me, in her way. These hands will be the gentle
+ministrants of every comfort I can taste. I know the being I seek to
+entwine with my own will bring me a solace, a charity, a purity, to
+which, of myself, I am a stranger."
+
+Suddenly Caroline was troubled; her lip quivered.
+
+"What flutters my dove?" asked Moore, as she nestled to and then
+uneasily shrank from him.
+
+"Poor mamma! I am all mamma has. Must I leave her?"
+
+"Do you know, I thought of that difficulty. I and 'mamma' have discussed
+it."
+
+"Tell me what you wish, what you would like, and I will consider if it
+is possible to consent. But I cannot desert her, even for you. I cannot
+break her heart, even for your sake."
+
+"She was faithful when I was false--was she not? I never came near your
+sick-bed, and she watched it ceaselessly."
+
+"What must I do? Anything but leave her."
+
+"At my wish you never shall leave her."
+
+"She may live very near us?"
+
+"With us--only she will have her own rooms and servant. For this she
+stipulates herself."
+
+"You know she has an income, that, with her habits, makes her quite
+independent?"
+
+"She told me that, with a gentle pride that reminded me of somebody
+else."
+
+"She is not at all interfering, and incapable of gossip."
+
+"I know her, Cary. But if, instead of being the personification of
+reserve and discretion, she were something quite opposite, I should not
+fear her."
+
+"Yet she will be your mother-in-law?" The speaker gave an arch little
+nod. Moore smiled.
+
+"Louis and I are not of the order of men who fear their mothers-in-law,
+Cary. Our foes never have been, nor will be, those of our own household.
+I doubt not my mother-in-law will make much of me."
+
+"That she will--in her quiet way, you know. She is not demonstrative;
+and when you see her silent, or even cool, you must not fancy her
+displeased; it is only a manner she has. Be sure to let me interpret for
+her whenever she puzzles you; always believe my account of the matter,
+Robert."
+
+"Oh, implicitly! Jesting apart, I feel that she and I will suit--_on ne
+peut mieux_. Hortense, you know, is exquisitely susceptible--in our
+French sense of the word--and not, perhaps, always reasonable in her
+requirements; yet, dear, honest girl, I never painfully wounded her
+feelings or had a serious quarrel with her in my life."
+
+"No; you are most generously considerate, indeed, most tenderly
+indulgent to her; and you will be considerate with mamma. You are a
+gentleman all through, Robert, to the bone, and nowhere so perfect a
+gentleman as at your own fireside."
+
+"A eulogium I like; it is very sweet. I am well pleased my Caroline
+should view me in this light."
+
+"Mamma just thinks of you as I do."
+
+"Not quite, I hope?"
+
+"She does not want to marry you--don't be vain; but she said to me the
+other day, 'My dear, Mr. Moore has pleasing manners; he is one of the
+few gentlemen I have seen who combine politeness with an air of
+sincerity.'"
+
+"'Mamma' is rather a misanthropist, is she not? Not the best opinion of
+the sterner sex?"
+
+"She forbears to judge them as a whole, but she has her exceptions whom
+she admires--Louis and Mr. Hall, and, of late, yourself. She did not
+like you once; I knew that, because she would never speak of you. But,
+Robert----"
+
+"Well, what now? What is the new thought?"
+
+"You have not seen my uncle yet?"
+
+"I have. 'Mamma' called him into the room. He consents conditionally. If
+I prove that I can keep a wife, I may have her; and I _can_ keep her
+better than he thinks--better than I choose to boast."
+
+"If you get rich you will do good with your money, Robert?"
+
+"I _will_ do good; you shall tell me how. Indeed, I have some schemes of
+my own, which you and I will talk about on our own hearth one day. I
+have seen the necessity of doing good; I have learned the downright
+folly of being selfish. Caroline, I foresee what I will now foretell.
+This war _must_ ere long draw to a close. Trade is likely to prosper for
+some years to come. There may be a brief misunderstanding between
+England and America, but that will not last. What would you think if,
+one day--perhaps ere another ten years elapse--Louis and I divide
+Briarfield parish betwixt us? Louis, at any rate, is certain of power
+and property. He will not bury his talents. He is a benevolent fellow,
+and has, besides, an intellect of his own of no trifling calibre. His
+mind is slow but strong. It must work. It may work deliberately, but it
+will work well. He will be made magistrate of the district--Shirley says
+he shall. She would proceed impetuously and prematurely to obtain for
+him this dignity, if he would let her, but he will not. As usual, he
+will be in no haste. Ere he has been master of Fieldhead a year all the
+district will feel his quiet influence, and acknowledge his unassuming
+superiority. A magistrate is wanted; they will, in time, invest him with
+the office voluntarily and unreluctantly. Everybody admires his future
+wife, and everybody will, in time, like him. He is of the _pâte_
+generally approved, _bon comme le pain_--daily bread for the most
+fastidious, good for the infant and the aged, nourishing for the poor,
+wholesome for the rich. Shirley, in spite of her whims and oddities, her
+dodges and delays, has an infatuated fondness for him. She will one day
+see him as universally beloved as even _she_ could wish. He will also be
+universally esteemed, considered, consulted, depended on--too much so.
+His advice will be always judicious, his help always good-natured. Ere
+long both will be in inconvenient request. He will have to impose
+restrictions. As for me, if I succeed as I intend to do, my success will
+add to his and Shirley's income. I can double the value of their mill
+property. I can line yonder barren Hollow with lines of cottages and
+rows of cottage-gardens----"
+
+"Robert! And root up the copse?"
+
+"The copse shall be firewood ere five years elapse. The beautiful wild
+ravine shall be a smooth descent; the green natural terrace shall be a
+paved street. There shall be cottages in the dark ravine, and cottages
+on the lonely slopes. The rough pebbled track shall be an even, firm,
+broad, black, sooty road, bedded with the cinders from my mill; and my
+mill, Caroline--my mill shall fill its present yard."
+
+"Horrible! You will change our blue hill-country air into the Stilbro'
+smoke atmosphere."
+
+"I will pour the waters of Pactolus through the valley of Briarfield."
+
+"I like the beck a thousand times better."
+
+"I will get an Act for enclosing Nunnely Common, and parcelling it out
+into farms."
+
+"Stilbro' Moor, however, defies you, thank Heaven! What can you grow in
+Bilberry Moss? What will flourish on Rushedge?"
+
+"Caroline, the houseless, the starving, the unemployed shall come to
+Hollow's Mill from far and near; and Joe Scott shall give them work, and
+Louis Moore, Esq., shall let them a tenement, and Mrs. Gill shall mete
+them a portion till the first pay-day."
+
+She smiled up in his face.
+
+"Such a Sunday school as you will have, Cary! such collections as you
+will get! such a day school as you and Shirley and Miss Ainley will have
+to manage between you! The mill shall find salaries for a master and
+mistress, and the squire or the clothier shall give a treat once a
+quarter."
+
+She mutely offered a kiss--an offer taken unfair advantage of, to the
+extortion of about a hundred kisses.
+
+"Extravagant day-dreams," said Moore, with a sigh and smile, "yet
+perhaps we may realize some of them. Meantime, the dew is falling. Mrs.
+Moore, I shall take you in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is August. The bells clash out again, not only through Yorkshire, but
+through England. From Spain the voice of a trumpet has sounded long; it
+now waxes louder and louder; it proclaims Salamanca won. This night is
+Briarfield to be illuminated. On this day the Fieldhead tenantry dine
+together; the Hollow's Mill workpeople will be assembled for a like
+festal purpose; the schools have a grand treat. This morning there were
+two marriages solemnized in Briarfield church--Louis Gérard Moore, Esq.,
+late of Antwerp, to Shirley, daughter of the late Charles Cave Keeldar,
+Esq., of Fieldhead; Robert Gérard Moore, Esq., of Hollow's Mill, to
+Caroline, niece of the Rev. Matthewson Helstone, M.A., rector of
+Briarfield.
+
+The ceremony, in the first instance, was performed by Mr. Helstone,
+Hiram Yorke, Esq., of Briarmains, giving the bride away. In the second
+instance, Mr. Hall, vicar of Nunnely, officiated. Amongst the bridal
+train the two most noticeable personages were the youthful bridesmen,
+Henry Sympson and Martin Yorke.
+
+I suppose Robert Moore's prophecies were, partially at least, fulfilled.
+The other day I passed up the Hollow, which tradition says was once
+green, and lone, and wild; and there I saw the manufacturer's day-dreams
+embodied in substantial stone and brick and ashes--the cinder-black
+highway, the cottages, and the cottage gardens; there I saw a mighty
+mill, and a chimney ambitious as the tower of Babel. I told my old
+housekeeper when I came home where I had been.
+
+"Ay," said she, "this world has queer changes. I can remember the old
+mill being built--the very first it was in all the district; and then I
+can remember it being pulled down, and going with my lake-lasses
+[companions] to see the foundation-stone of the new one laid. The two
+Mr. Moores made a great stir about it. They were there, and a deal of
+fine folk besides, and both their ladies; very bonny and grand they
+looked. But Mrs. Louis was the grandest; she always wore such handsome
+dresses. Mrs. Robert was quieter like. Mrs. Louis smiled when she
+talked. She had a real, happy, glad, good-natured look; but she had een
+that pierced a body through. There is no such ladies nowadays."
+
+"What was the Hollow like then, Martha?"
+
+"Different to what it is now; but I can tell of it clean different
+again, when there was neither mill, nor cot, nor hall, except Fieldhead,
+within two miles of it. I can tell, one summer evening, fifty years
+syne, my mother coming running in just at the edge of dark, almost
+fleyed out of her wits, saying she had seen a fairish [fairy] in
+Fieldhead Hollow; and that was the last fairish that ever was seen on
+this countryside (though they've been heard within these forty years). A
+lonesome spot it was, and a bonny spot, full of oak trees and nut trees.
+It is altered now."
+
+The story is told. I think I now see the judicious reader putting on his
+spectacles to look for the moral. It would be an insult to his sagacity
+to offer directions. I only say, God speed him in the quest!
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+ESTABLISHED 1798
+
+[Illustration]
+
+T. NELSON AND SONS
+
+PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+THE NELSON CLASSICS.
+
+_Uniform with this Volume and Same Price._
+
+
+=Jack Sheppard.= HARRISON AINSWORTH.
+
+
+=Masterman Ready.= CAPTAIN MARRYAT.
+
+
+=Michael Strogoff.= JULES VERNE.
+
+
+=The Wide Wide World.= ELIZ. WETHERELL.
+
+This famous American novel has for many years been a classic in every
+home. It is a masterpiece of the best type of domestic fiction.
+
+
+=Hereward the Wake.= CHARLES KINGSLEY.
+
+This brilliant romance tells of the last stand of the great English
+leader, Hereward, against the advance of the Normans. The scene is
+largely laid in the Fen country, and every page is a record of fierce
+strife. The fall of Hereward is one of the greatest death scenes in
+literature.
+
+
+=David Copperfield--I.= CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+=David Copperfield--II.= CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+"David Copperfield" is, by general consent, Dickens's masterpiece,
+showing, as it does, all his peculiar merits in their highest form. It
+is the most autobiographical of his novels, and the one into which he
+put most of his philosophy of life.
+
+
+=Jane Eyre.= CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
+
+"Jane Eyre" is Charlotte Brontë's first and most famous work. It was the
+first realistic novel, in the modern sense of the word, in English
+literature, and its influence has been beyond reckoning. It ranks as one
+of the great novels of the nineteenth century.
+
+
+=Verdant Green.= CUTHBERT BEDE.
+
+This is the humorous classic of Oxford life. Published more than half a
+century ago, its humour is as fresh to-day as ever.
+
+
+=Pickwick Papers--I.= CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+=Pickwick Papers--II.= CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+Every year sees a new edition of "Pickwick," and the world still asks
+for more. It is one of the world's greatest romances of the road, where
+adventures fall to those who seek them. It is also a faithful and loving
+picture of an older England, from which we have travelled far to-day. We
+may become a wiser people, but we shall never again be so humorous.
+
+
+=Windsor Castle.= HARRISON AINSWORTH.
+
+The romances of Harrison Ainsworth need no advertisement. In this, as in
+his "Tower of London" and "Old St. Paul's," he has taken one of
+England's great historical sites, and woven around it an appropriate
+romance.
+
+
+=Peg Woffington.= CHARLES READE.
+
+"Peg Woffington" was the first of Charles Reade's romances, and was
+founded upon his comedy, "Masks and Faces." The story of the famous
+Irish actress who dazzled London in the eighteenth century, and with
+whom Garrick was in love, has been made the foundation of a charming
+romance.
+
+
+=Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character.= Dean RAMSAY.
+
+The only book of jests that has ever attained an honourable place in
+literature. Its wealth of genuine humour is a perpetual refutation of
+the old slander that Scots joke "wi' deeficulty."
+
+
+=Parables from Nature.= Mrs. GATTY.
+
+This is one of the great children's books of the world. It was a classic
+in our grandmothers' time, and possesses that imperishable charm which
+makes it as attractive to-day as when it was first written.
+
+
+=Lavengro.= GEORGE BORROW.
+
+The greatest romance of the road in English literature, telling of all
+the byways and humours of that older England which is fast disappearing.
+
+
+=Little Women.= LOUISA M. ALCOTT.
+
+This delightful book has become a possession of childhood and youth. It
+has captured the affections of millions of young people in two
+continents, and is certainly the finest piece of work in the whole range
+of Miss Alcott's breezy, hopeful, genial, and tender writings.
+
+
+=Pride and Prejudice.= JANE AUSTEN.
+
+=Sense and Sensibility.= JANE AUSTEN.
+
+Sir Walter Scott was among the earliest to detect the merits of Miss
+Austen's work, and of recent years her humour and her keen insight into
+human nature have been abundantly recognized, so that to-day she is
+probably the most read novelist of her period. In Sir Walter Scott's
+phrase she possesses "the exquisite touch which renders ordinary
+commonplace things and characters interesting."
+
+
+=Toilers of the Sea.= VICTOR HUGO.
+
+=The Laughing Man.= VICTOR HUGO.
+
+=Les Misérables--I.= VICTOR HUGO.
+
+=Les Misérables--II.= VICTOR HUGO.
+
+
+='Ninety-Three.= VICTOR HUGO.
+
+Victor Hugo took the romantic novel as invented by Sir Walter Scott and
+gave it a new and philosophic interest. All his great romances have a
+purpose. "Les Misérables" exposes the tyranny of human laws; "The
+Toilers of the Sea" shows the conflict of man with nature; "The Laughing
+Man" expounds the tyranny of the aristocratic ideal as exemplified in
+England. But being a great artist as well as a great thinker, he never
+turned his romances into pamphlets. Drama is always his aim, and no
+novelist has attained more often the supreme dramatic moment.
+
+
+=The Heir of Redclyffe.= C. M. YONGE.
+
+This is a reprint of Miss Yonge's most famous tale. It has been said of
+her that she domesticated the historical romance, which owed its origin
+to Sir Walter Scott, and her characters were for long the ideal figures
+of most English households.
+
+
+=Wild Wales.= GEORGE BORROW.
+
+This book was the result of Borrow's wanderings after the publication of
+"Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye." He tramped on foot throughout the
+country, and the work is a classic of description, both of the scenery
+and people.
+
+
+=The Cloister and the Hearth.= CHARLES READE.
+
+There are many who think this the greatest of all historical novels, and
+it is certain that there are few better. It is not a story so much as a
+vast and varied transcript of life. It is also a delightful romance, and
+Gerard and Margaret are among the immortals of fiction.
+
+
+=Romola.= GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+This is the only novel of George Eliot's in which the scene is laid
+outside her own country. It is a story of Florence during the time of
+the Renaissance, a marvellous picture of the intellectual and moral
+ferment which the New Learning created. With amazing learning and
+insight the author portrays the souls of men and women, and her study of
+a weak man and a strong woman has rarely been surpassed in English
+literature for dramatic power and moral truth.
+
+
+=Silas Marner.= GEORGE ELIOT.
+
+This, the shortest and the most exquisite of George Eliot's tales,
+represents her great powers at their best. In the picture of the hero
+she shows a profound understanding of human nature, and the feelings
+which were then moving rural and industrial England.
+
+
+=The Abbot.= Sir WALTER SCOTT.
+
+One of the Waverley novels which has always been deservedly popular.
+
+
+=Bride of Lammermoor.= Sir WALTER SCOTT.
+
+The story is a tragedy on the lines of Greek drama, and the ending has
+been pronounced by great critics to be the most moving in prose
+literature. In the Master of Ravenswood, Scott has drawn perhaps his
+greatest tragic figure, and in Caleb Balderstone one of his most
+humorous creations.
+
+
+=The Black Tulip.= ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
+
+This was the last of Dumas' great stories. It is a veritable _tour de
+force_, for in it the reader follows with consuming interest the
+vicissitudes of a tulip, and the human element in the story is quite
+subsidiary. Nevertheless, it contains such strongly-drawn characters as
+Cornelius van Baerle, the guardian of the tulip, and Rosa, the jailer's
+daughter.
+
+
+=Tom Cringle's Log.= MICHAEL SCOTT.
+
+A brilliant story of West Indian life by an author who combined abundant
+personal experience with keen observation, sprightly temper, and
+delightful humour. "Tom Cringle's Log" has been many times reprinted,
+and has lost nothing of its popularity and power to please.
+
+
+=Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.=
+
+Tens of thousands of readers have been led to Shakespeare by the
+charmingly told stories which Charles and Mary Lamb, about a hundred
+years ago, extracted from the plays of the greatest dramatist of all
+time. Though produced by Lamb at the very outset of his literary career,
+these stories betray that unique and finished art, that delightful
+freshness and rare sympathy, which are the characteristics of his mature
+work.
+
+
+=The Scarlet Letter.= NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+This is one of the most powerful and affecting stories ever conceived.
+On its first appearance, in 1850, it immediately leaped high into public
+favour, and attained the distinction of an unmistakable classic. The
+tragedy of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale is wrought out in the
+midst of an austere Puritan community, which exacts the bitterest
+expiation for sin.
+
+
+
+
+THE NELSON CLASSICS.
+
+
+_Uniform with this Volume and Same Price_.
+
+CONDENSED LIST.
+
+     1. A Tale of Two Cities.
+     2. Tom Brown's Schooldays.
+     3. The Deerslayer.
+     4. Henry Esmond.
+     5. Hypatia.
+     6. The Mill on the Floss.
+     7. Uncle Tom's Cabin.
+     8. The Last of the Mohicans.
+     9. Adam Bede.
+    10. The Old Curiosity Shop.
+    11. Oliver Twist.
+    12. Kenilworth.
+    13. Robinson Crusoe.
+    14. The Last Days of Pompeii.
+    15. Cloister and the Hearth.
+    16. Ivanhoe.
+    17. East Lynne.
+    18. Cranford.
+    19. John Halifax, Gentleman.
+    20. The Pathfinder.
+    21. Westward Ho!
+    22. The Three Musketeers.
+    23. The Channings.
+    24. The Pilgrim's Progress.
+    25. Pride and Prejudice.
+    26. Quentin Durward.
+    27. Villette.
+    28. Hard Times.
+    29. Child's History of England.
+    30. The Bible in Spain.
+    31. Gulliver's Travels.
+    32. Sense and Sensibility.
+    33. Kate Coventry.
+    34. Silas Marner.
+    35. Notre Dame.
+    36. Old St. Paul's.
+    37. Waverley.
+    38. 'Ninety-Three.
+    39. Eothen.
+    40. Toilers of the Sea.
+    41. Children of the New Forest.
+    42. The Laughing Man.
+    43. A Book of Golden Deeds.
+    44. Great Expectations.
+    45. Guy Mannering.
+    46. Modern Painters (Selections)
+    47. Les Misérables--I.
+    48. Les Misérables--II.
+    49. The Monastery.
+    50. Romola.
+    51. The Vicar of Wakefield.
+    52. Emma.
+    53. Lavengro.
+    54. Emerson's Essays.
+    55. The Bride of Lammermoor.
+    56. The Abbot.
+    57. Tom Cringle's Log.
+    58. Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.
+    59. The Scarlet Letter.
+    60. Old Mortality.
+    61. The Romany Rye.
+    62. Hans Andersen.
+    63. The Black Tulip.
+    64. Little Women.
+    65. The Talisman.
+    66. Scottish Life and Character.
+    67. The Woman in White.
+    68. Tales of Mystery.
+    69. Fair Maid of Perth.
+    70. Parables from Nature.
+    71. Peg Woffington.
+    72. Windsor Castle.
+    73. Edmund Burke.
+    74. Ingoldsby Legends.
+    75. Pickwick Papers.--I.
+    76. Pickwick Papers.--II.
+    77. Verdant Green.
+    78. The Heir of Redclyffe.
+    79. Wild Wales.
+    80. Two Years Before the Mast.
+    81. Jane Eyre.
+    82. David Copperfield.--I.
+    83. David Copperfield.--II.
+    84. Hereward the Wake.
+    85. Wide Wide World.
+    86. Michael Strogoff.
+
+THOMAS NELSON AND SONS.
+
+
+
+
+    Transcriber's Note:
+
+    Variations in hyphenated words have been retained as
+    they appear in the original publication.
+
+    Changes have been made as follows:
+
+    Page 30
+    with some inpatience _changed to_
+    with some impatience
+
+    Page 48
+    very bravely mantained _changed to_
+    very bravely maintained
+
+    Page 120
+    Sudgen, his staff; and Sudgen arrest him _changed to_
+    Sugden, his staff; and Sugden arrest him
+
+    Page 166
+    The old atticed _changed to_
+    The old latticed
+
+    Page 175
+    Let as have _changed to_
+    Let us have
+
+    Page 185
+    Mrs. Gill, my houskeeper _changed to_
+    Mrs. Gill, my housekeeper
+
+    Page 224
+    by a downward gave _changed to_
+    by a downward gaze
+
+    Page 242
+    gently invired him _changed to_
+    gently invited him
+
+    Page 245
+    a smiling Melancthon _changed to_
+    a smiling Melanchthon
+
+    Page 255
+    Sentinels of Nunwood _changed to_
+    Sentinels of Nunnwood
+
+    Page 260
+    only the profiters _changed to_
+    only the profiteers
+
+    Page 274
+    dark gray irids _changed to_
+    dark gray irides
+
+    Page 297
+    alight and alow _changed to_
+    alight and aglow
+
+    Page 380
+    my old accupation _changed to_
+    my old occupation
+
+    Page 492
+    not without approbrium _changed to_
+    not without opprobrium
+
+    Punctuation has been changed as follows:
+
+    Page 119
+    Mr Moore, we lived _changed to_
+    Mr. Moore, we lived
+
+    Page 145
+    stones on the road? _changed to_
+    stones on the road.
+
+    Page 393
+    "Shirley, my woman _changed to_
+    'Shirley, my woman
+
+    Page 540
+    _reward_ her!" _changed to_
+    _reward_ her!'"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHIRLEY ***
+
+***** This file should be named 30486-8.txt or 30486-8.zip *****
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