CHAPTER XXX.
RUSHEDGE--A CONFESSIONAL.
Everybody said it was high time for Mr. Moore to return home. AllBriarfield wondered at his strange absence, and Whinbury and Nunnelybrought each its separate contribution of amazement.
Was it known why he stayed away? Yes. It was known twenty--forty timesover, there being at least forty plausible reasons adduced to accountfor the unaccountable circumstance. Business it was not--_that_ thegossips agreed. He had achieved the business on which he departed longago. His four ringleaders he had soon scented out and run down. He hadattended their trial, heard their conviction and sentence, and seen themsafely shipped prior to transportation.
This was known at Briarfield. The newspapers had reported it. The_Stilbro' Courier_ had given every particular, with amplifications. Noneapplauded his perseverance or hailed his success, though the mill-ownerswere glad of it, trusting that the terrors of law vindicated wouldhenceforward paralyze the sinister valour of disaffection. Disaffection,however, was still heard muttering to himself. He swore ominous oathsover the drugged beer of alehouses, and drank strange toasts in fieryBritish gin.
One report affirmed that Moore _dared_ not come to Yorkshire; he knewhis life was not worth an hour's purchase if he did.
"I'll tell him that," said Mr. Yorke, when his foreman mentioned therumour; "and if _that_ does not bring him home full gallop, nothingwill."
Either that or some other motive prevailed at last to recall him. Heannounced to Joe Scott the day he should arrive at Stilbro', desiringhis hackney to be sent to the George for his accommodation; and JoeScott having informed Mr. Yorke, that gentleman made it in his way tomeet him.
It was market-day. Moore arrived in time to take his usual place at themarket dinner. As something of a stranger, and as a man of note andaction, the assembled manufacturers received him with a certaindistinction. Some, who in public would scarcely have dared toacknowledge his acquaintance, lest a little of the hate and vengeancelaid up in store for him should perchance have fallen on them, inprivate hailed him as in some sort their champion. When the wine hadcirculated, their respect would have kindled to enthusiasm had notMoore's unshaken nonchalance held it in a damp, low, smouldering state.
Mr. Yorke, the permanent president of these dinners, witnessed his youngfriend's bearing with exceeding complacency. If one thing could stir histemper or excite his contempt more than another, it was to see a manbefooled by flattery or elate with popularity. If one thing smoothed,soothed, and charmed him especially, it was the spectacle of a publiccharacter incapable of relishing his publicity--_incapable_, I say.Disdain would but have incensed; it was indifference that appeased hisrough spirit.
Robert, leaning back in his chair, quiet and almost surly, while theclothiers and blanket-makers vaunted his prowess and rehearsed hisdeeds--many of them interspersing their flatteries with coarseinvectives against the operative class--was a delectable sight for Mr.Yorke. His heart tingled with the pleasing conviction that these grosseulogiums shamed Moore deeply, and made him half scorn himself and hiswork. On abuse, on reproach, on calumny, it is easy to smile; butpainful indeed is the panegyric of those we contemn. Often had Mooregazed with a brilliant countenance over howling crowds from a hostilehustings. He had breasted the storm of unpopularity with gallant bearingand soul elate; but he drooped his head under the half-bred tradesmen'spraise, and shrank chagrined before their congratulations.
Yorke could not help asking him how he liked his supporters, and whetherhe 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. Ifyou had managed _that_ feat, the gentry here would have riven the horsesout 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 ofStilbro' together.
It was early to go home, but yet it was late in the day. The last ray ofthe sun had already faded from the cloud-edges, and the October nightwas casting over the moorlands the shadow of her approach.
Mr. Yorke, moderately exhilarated with his moderate libations, and notdispleased to see young Moore again in Yorkshire, and to have him forhis comrade during the long ride home, took the discourse much tohimself. He touched briefly, but scoffingly, on the trials and theconviction; he passed thence to the gossip of the neighbourhood, and erelong 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 prizein her wheel--twenty thousand pounds; she only required that you shouldhold your hand out and take it. And what did you do? You called for ahorse and rode a-hunting to Warwickshire. Your sweetheart--Fortune, Imean--was perfectly indulgent. She said, 'I'll excuse him; he's young.'She waited, like 'Patience on a monument,' till the chase was over andthe vermin-prey run down. She expected you would come back then, and bea good lad. You might still have had her first prize.
"It capped her beyond expression, and me too, to find that, instead ofthundering home in a breakneck gallop and laying your assize laurels ather feet, you coolly took coach up to London. What you have done thereSatan knows; nothing in this world, I believe, but sat and sulked. Yourface was never lily fair, but it is olive green now. You're not as bonnyas 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'velost 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 havehad her."
"By what token, Mr. Yorke?"
"By every token--by the light of her eyes, the red of her cheeks. Redthey 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 Philipmilk 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 theeleventh hour?"
"You can but make the experiment, Robert. If she has a fancy foryou--and, on my conscience, I believe she has or had--she will forgivemuch. But, my lad, you are laughing. Is it at me? You had better grin atyour own perverseness. I see, however, you laugh at the wrong side ofyour mouth. You have as sour a look at this moment as one need wish tosee."
"I have so quarrelled with myself, Yorke. I have so kicked against thepricks, and struggled in a strait waistcoat, and dislocated my wristswith wrenching them in handcuffs, and battered my hard head by drivingit against a harder wall."
"Ha! I'm glad to hear that. Sharp exercise yon! I hope it has done yougood--ta'en some of the self-conceit out of you?"
"Self-conceit? What is it? Self-respect, self-tolerance even, what arethey? Do you sell the articles? Do you know anybody who does? Give anindication. They would find in me a liberal chapman. I would part withmy last guinea this minute to buy."
"Is it so with you, Robert? I find that spicy. I like a man to speak hismind. 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, giveway, Robert. Never heed me; I'll bear it this whet [time]."
"Hideous, abhorrent, base blunder! You may commit in a moment what youwill rue for years--what life cannot cancel."
"Lad, go on. I call it pie, nuts, sugar-candy. I like the tasteuncommonly. Go on. It will do you good to talk. The moor is before usnow, 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 inmy breast, and I choose that you shall hear how it c
an yell."
"To me it is music. What grand voices you and Louis have! When Louissings--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 ablack priest to a blacker penitent. Confess, lad. Smooth naught down. Becandid as a convicted, justified, sanctified Methody at an experiencemeeting. Make yourself as wicked as Beelzebub. It will ease your mind."
"As mean as Mammon, you would say. Yorke, if I got off horseback andlaid myself down across the road, would you have the goodness to gallopover me, backwards and forwards, about twenty times?"
"Wi' all the pleasure in life, if there were no such thing as acoroner's inquest."
"Hiram Yorke, I certainly believed she loved me. I have seen her eyessparkle radiantly when she has found me out in a crowd; she has flushedup 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 shechanged countenance--I know she did. She pronounced it herself in themost musical of her many musical tones. She was cordial to me; she tookan interest in me; she was anxious about me; she wished me well; shesought, she seized every opportunity to benefit me. I considered,paused, watched, weighed, wondered. I could come to but oneconclusion--this is love.
"I looked at her, Yorke. I saw in her youth and a species of beauty. Isaw power in her. Her wealth offered me the redemption of my honour andmy standing. I owed her gratitude. She had aided me substantially andeffectually by a loan of five thousand pounds. Could I remember thesethings? Could I believe she loved me? Could I hear wisdom urge me tomarry her, and disregard every dear advantage, disbelieve everyflattering suggestion, disdain every well-weighed counsel, turn andleave her? Young, graceful, gracious--my benefactress, attached to me,enamoured of me. I used to say so to myself; dwell on the word; mouth itover and over again; swell over it with a pleasant, pompous complacency,with an admiration dedicated entirely to myself, and unimpaired even byesteem for her; indeed I smiled in deep secrecy at her _naivete_ andsimplicity in being the first to love, and to show it. That whip ofyours seems to have a good heavy handle, Yorke; you can swing it aboutyour head and knock me out of the saddle, if you choose. I should ratherrelish a loundering whack."
"Tak patience, Robert, till the moon rises and I can see you. Speakplain out--did you love her or not? I could like to know. I feelcurious."
"Sir--sir--I say--she is very pretty, in her own style, and veryattractive. She has a look, at times, of a thing made out of fire andair, at which I stand and marvel, without a thought of clasping andkissing it. I felt in her a powerful magnet to my interest and vanity. Inever felt as if nature meant her to be my other and better self. When aquestion on that head rushed upon me, I flung it off, saying brutally Ishould be rich with her and ruined without her--vowing I would bepractical, and not romantic."
"A very sensible resolve. What mischief came of it, Bob?"
"With this sensible resolve I walked up to Fieldhead one night lastAugust. It was the very eve of my departure for Birmingham; for, yousee, I wanted to secure Fortune's splendid prize. I had previouslydispatched a note requesting a private interview. I found her at home,and alone.
"She received me without embarrassment, for she thought I came onbusiness. _I_ was embarrassed enough, but determined. I hardly know howI got the operation over; but I went to work in a hard, firmfashion--frightful enough, I dare say. I sternly offered myself--my fineperson--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 haveunderstood you, Mr. Moore.'
"And I had to go over the whole proposal twice, and word it as plainlyas 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, confusedsilence (which would have been as good), she started up, walked twicefast through the room, in the way that _she_ only does, and no otherwoman, and ejaculated, 'God bless me!'
"Yorke, I stood on the hearth, backed by the mantelpiece; against it Ileaned, and prepared for anything--everything. I knew my doom, and Iknew myself. There was no misunderstanding her aspect and voice. Shestopped and looked at me.
"'God bless me!' she piteously repeated, in that shocked, indignant, yetsaddened accent. 'You have made a strange proposal--strange from _you_;and if you knew how strangely you worded it and looked it, you would bestartled at yourself. You spoke like a brigand who demanded my purserather than like a lover who asked my heart.'
"A queer sentence, was it not, Yorke? And I knew, as she uttered it, itwas 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.
"'Gerard Moore, you know you don't love Shirley Keeldar.' I might havebroken out into false swearing--vowed that I did love her; but I couldnot lie in her pure face. I could not perjure myself in her truthfulpresence. Besides, such hollow oaths would have been vain as void. Shewould no more have believed me than she would have believed the ghost ofJudas, had he broken from the night and stood before her. Her femaleheart had finer perceptions than to be cheated into mistaking myhalf-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, asmuch as if you were my brother; and _you--you_ want to make aspeculation of me. You would immolate me to that mill, your Moloch!'
"I had the common sense to abstain from any word of excuse, any attemptat palliation. I stood to be scorned.
"Sold to the devil for the time being, I was certainly infatuated. WhenI did speak, what do you think I said?
"'Whatever my own feelings were, I was persuaded _you_ loved _me_, MissKeeldar.'
"Beautiful, was it not? She sat quite confounded. 'Is it Robert Moorethat 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 aswe 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 heranswer. '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 acomplicated, a bold, and an immodest manoeuvre to ensnare a husband. Youimply 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. Yourtongue betrays you; you now speak wrong. I never loved you. Be at restthere. My heart is as pure of passion for you as yours is barren ofaffection 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 asister--never shunned you, never feared you. You cannot,' she affirmedtriumphantly--'you cannot make me tremble with your coming, noraccelerate my pulse by your influence.'
"I alleged that often, when she spoke to me, she blushed, and that thesound of my name moved her.
"'Not for _your_ sake!' she declared briefly. I urged explanation, butcould get none.
"'When I sat beside you at the school feast, did you think I loved youthen? When I stopped you in Maythorn Lane, did you think I loved youthen? When I called on you in the counting-house, when I walked with youon 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 refinedalmost to flame. There was a trembling all through her, as in live coalwhen i
ts vivid vermilion is hottest.
"'That is to say that you have the worst opinion of me; that you deny methe possession of all I value most. That is to say that I am a traitorto all my sisters; that I have acted as no woman can act withoutdegrading herself and her sex; that I have sought where the incorrupt ofmy kind naturally scorn and abhor to seek.' She and I were silent formany a minute. 'Lucifer, Star of the Morning,' she went on, 'thou artfallen! You, once high in my esteem, are hurled down; you, once intimatein my friendship, are cast out. Go!'
"I went not. I had heard her voice tremble, seen her lip quiver. I knewanother storm of tears would fall, and then I believed some calm andsome 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 thanhaughty, 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 agroan. 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 mebitter 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 Ibelieved she would not let me. Nor would she but for the mortal pang Ihad 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, toapproach her, and to say, 'Forgive me.'
"'I could, if there was not myself to forgive too,' was her reply; 'butto mislead a sagacious man so far I must have done wrong.'
"I broke out suddenly with some declamation I do not remember. I knowthat it was sincere, and that my wish and aim were to absolve her toherself. In fact, in her case self-accusation was a chimera.
"At last she extended her hand. For the first time I wished to take herin 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 timeto read my actions and motives in a true light, and not so horribly tomisinterpret 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 mentionmarriage to a woman unless I feel love. Henceforth credit and commercemay take care of themselves. Bankruptcy may come when it lists. I havedone with slavish fear of disaster. I mean to work diligently, waitpatiently, bear steadily. Let the worst come, I will take my axe and anemigrant's berth, and go out with Louis to the West; he and I havesettled 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 presencewill I ever again stand at once such a fool and such a knave, such abrute and such a puppy."
"Tut!" said the imperturbable Yorke, "you make too much of it; butstill, I say, I am capped. Firstly, that she did not love you; andsecondly, that you did not love her. You are both young; you are bothhandsome; you are both well enough for wit and even for temper--take youon 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 whenwe came very near. I have sat at one side of a room and observed her atthe other, perhaps in an excited, genial moment, when she had some ofher favourites round her--her old beaux, for instance, yourself andHelstone, with whom she is so playful, pleasant, and eloquent. I havewatched her when she was most natural, most lively, and most lovely; myjudgment has pronounced her beautiful. Beautiful she is at times, whenher mood and her array partake of the splendid. I have drawn a littlenearer, feeling that our terms of acquaintance gave me the right ofapproach. I have joined the circle round her seat, caught her eye, andmastered her attention; then we have conversed; and others, thinking me,perhaps, peculiarly privileged, have withdrawn by degrees, and left usalone. Were we happy thus left? For myself, I must say No. Always afeeling of constraint came over me; always I was disposed to be sternand strange. We talked politics and business. No soft sense of domesticintimacy ever opened our hearts, or thawed our language and made it floweasy and limpid. If we had confidences, they were confidences of thecounting-house, not of the heart. Nothing in her cherished affection inme, made me better, gentler; she only stirred my brain and whetted myacuteness. She never crept into my heart or influenced its pulse; andfor this good reason, no doubt, because I had not the secret of makingher love me."
"Well, lad, it is a queer thing. I might laugh at thee, and reckon todespise thy refinements; but as it is dark night and we are byourselves, I don't mind telling thee that thy talk brings back a glimpseof my own past life. Twenty-five years ago I tried to persuade abeautiful woman to love me, and she would not. I had not the key to hernature; 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. MissHelstone, 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 inshadow, and is very still and very pale, and is, happen, about to fallasleep wi' the length of the sermon and the heat of the biggin', she isas 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 shehadn't wings and a crown. She was a stately, peaceful angel was myMary."
"And you could not persuade her to love you?"
"Not with all I could do, though I prayed Heaven many a time, on mybended knees, to help me."
"Mary Cave was not what you think her, Yorke. I have seen her picture atthe 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 thismoment. However, I'll hold my hand. Reason tells me you are right and Iam wrong. I know well enough that the passion I still have is only theremnant of an illusion. If Miss Cave had possessed either feeling orsense, she could not have been so perfectly impassible to my regard asshe showed herself; she must have preferred me to that copper-faceddespot."
"Supposing, Yorke, she had been educated (no women were educated inthose days); supposing she had possessed a thoughtful, original mind, alove of knowledge, a wish for information, which she took an artlessdelight in receiving from your lips, and having measured out to her byyour hand; supposing her conversation, when she sat at your side, wasfertile, varied, imbued with a picturesque grace and genial interest,quiet flowing but clear and bounteous; supposing that when you stoodnear her by chance, or when you sat near her by design, comfort at oncebecame your atmosphere, and content your element; supposing thatwhenever her face was under your gaze, or her idea filled your thoughts,you gradually ceased to be hard and anxious, and pure affection, love ofhome, thirst for sweet discourse, unselfish longing to protect andcherish, replaced the sordid, cankering calculations of your trade;supposing, with all this, that many a time, when you had been so happyas to possess your Mary's little hand, you had felt it tremble as youheld it, just as a warm little bird trembles when you take it from itsnest; supposing you had noticed her shrink into the background on yourentrance into a room, yet
if you sought her in her retreat she welcomedyou with the sweetest smile that ever lit a fair virgin face, and onlyturned her eyes from the encounter of your own lest their clearnessshould reveal too much; supposing, in short, your Mary had been notcold, but modest; not vacant, but reflective; not obtuse, but sensitive;not inane, but innocent; not prudish, but pure,--would you have left herto 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 withhis whip across the moor. "There she is, rising into the haze, staringat us wi' a strange red glower. She is no more silver than oldHelstone's brow is ivory. What does she mean by leaning her cheek onRushedge i' that way, and looking at us wi' a scowl and a menace?"
"Yorke, if Mary had loved you silently yet faithfully, chastely yetfervently, as you would wish your wife to love, would you have lefther?"
"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 thatChaos churned up in her ferment. I might swear sounding oaths--oathsthat would make the poachers think there was a bittern booming inBilberry Moss--that, in the case you put, death only should have partedme from Mary. But I have lived in the world fifty-five years; I havebeen forced to study human nature; and, to speak a dark truth, the oddsare, if Mary had loved and not scorned me, if I had been secure of heraffection, certain of her constancy, been irritated by no doubts, stungby no humiliations--the odds are" (he let his hand fall heavy on thesaddle)--"the odds are I should have left her!"
They rode side by side in silence. Ere either spoke again they were onthe other side of Rushedge. Briarfield lights starred the purple skirtof the moor. Robert, being the youngest, and having less of the past toabsorb him than his comrade, recommenced first.
"I believe--I daily find it proved--that we can get nothing in thisworld worth keeping, not so much as a principle or a conviction, exceptout of purifying flame or through strengthening peril. We err, we fall,we are humbled; then we walk more carefully. We greedily eat and drinkpoison out of the gilded cup of vice or from the beggar's wallet ofavarice. We are sickened, degraded; everything good in us rebels againstus; our souls rise bitterly indignant against our bodies; there is aperiod of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rulesthereafter."
"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, asat present I have none. No private life is permitted a man in myposition--a man in debt. For my public plans, my views are a littlealtered. While I was in Birmingham I looked a little into reality,considered closely and at their source the causes of the presenttroubles of this country. I did the same in London. Unknown, I could gowhere I pleased, mix with whom I would. I went where there was want offood, of fuel, of clothing; where there was no occupation and no hope. Isaw some, with naturally elevated tendencies and good feelings, keptdown amongst sordid privations and harassing griefs. I saw manyoriginally low, and to whom lack of education left scarcely anything butanimal wants, disappointed in those wants, ahungered, athirst, anddesperate as famished animals. I saw what taught my brain a new lesson,and filled my breast with fresh feelings. I have no intention to professmore softness or sentiment than I have hitherto professed; mutiny andambition I regard as I have always regarded them. I should resist ariotous mob just as heretofore; I should open on the scent of a runawayringleader as eagerly as ever, and run him down as relentlessly, andfollow him up to condign punishment as rigorously; but I should do itnow chiefly for the sake and the security of those he misled. Somethingthere is to look to, Yorke, beyond a man's personal interest, beyond theadvancement of well-laid schemes, beyond even the discharge ofdishonouring debts. To respect himself, a man must believe he rendersjustice to his fellow-men. Unless I am more considerate to ignorance,more forbearing to suffering, than I have hitherto been, I shall scornmyself as grossly unjust.--What now?" he said, addressing his horse,which, hearing the ripple of water, and feeling thirsty, turned to awayside 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 advancedin discriminating, amongst the many lights now spangling the distance,those of Briarmains. Stilbro' Moor was left behind; plantations rosedusk on either hand; they were descending the hill; below them lay thevalley with its populous parish: they felt already at home.
Surrounded no longer by heath, it was not startling to Mr. Yorke to seea 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, "Asthe 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 shalldie without knowledge."
A fierce flash and sharp crack violated the calm of night. Yorke, ere heturned, knew the four convicts of Birmingham were avenged.