Was it known why he stayed away? Yes. It was known twenty—forty times over, there being at least forty 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 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 or hailed his success, though the mill-owners were glad of it, trusting that the terrors of law would henceforward paralyze the valour of disaffection. Disaffection, however, was still heard muttering to himself. He swore oaths over the drugged beer of alehouses, and drank strange toasts in 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 ; "and if that does not bring him home full , nothing will."
Either that or some other 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.
462It 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 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 to enthusiasm had not Moore's unshaken 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, , and charmed him especially, it was the spectacle of a public character of his publicity—incapable, I say. would but have ; it was that 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 their flatteries with coarse invectives against the operative class—was a sight for Mr. Yorke. His heart 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 , it is easy to smile; but painful indeed is the of those we . Often had Moore gazed with a brilliant over howling crowds from a hostile . He had breasted the storm of unpopularity with bearing and soul elate; but he his head under the half-bred tradesmen's praise, and shrank 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 , the here would have riven the horses out of the coach, to a score of , and you into Stilbro' like a conquering general."
Moore soon the wine, broke from the party,463 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 to see young Moore again in Yorkshire, and to have him for his comrade during the long ride home, took the much to himself. He touched , but , 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 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 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."
"! 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?"
464"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 . 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 , and struggled in a strait waistcoat, and dislocated my wrists with them in handcuffs, and 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 . I like a man to speak his mind. What has gone wrong?"
"The of all my nature; the whole enginery of this human mill; the , 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 into poetry just e'now. If the comes, give way, Robert. Never me; I'll bear it this [time]."
", , base blunder! You may commit in a moment what you will for years—what life cannot cancel."
"Lad, go on. I call it pie, nuts, sugar-candy. I like the taste . Go on. It will do you good to talk. The 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 . Confess, lad. Smooth down. Be as a convicted, , 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, 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 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 . I owed her . 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, , 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; over it with a pleasant, complacency, with an to myself, and unimpaired even by for her; indeed I smiled in deep at her naïveté and in being the first to love, and to show it. That whip of yours seems to have a good heavy466 handle, Yorke; you can swing it about your head and knock me out of the saddle, if you choose. I should rather a loundering ."
"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 , 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 I should be rich with her and ruined without her—vowing I would be practical, and not romantic."
"A very sensible resolve. What 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 dispatched a note requesting a private interview. I found her at home, and alone.
"She received me without , for she thought I came on business. I was embarrassed enough, but . 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 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 take it in. And then, what did she do? Instead of 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 , backed by the mantelpiece; against it I leaned, and prepared for anything—everything. I knew my , 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 like a 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 and shamed me.
"'Gérard Moore, you know you don't love Shirley Keeldar.' I might have broken out into false swearing— that I did love her; but I could not lie in her pure face. I could not myself in her 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, love.
"What next happened? you will say, Mr. Yorke.
"Why, she sat down in the window-seat and cried. She cried . Her eyes not only rained but lightened. They flashed, open, large, dark, , upon me. They said, 'You have pained me; you have 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 of me. You would me to that mill, your Moloch!'
"I had the common sense to 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.
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