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.