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 , the assiduity with which he pursued the leaders of the riot. The mob, the , he let alone. Perhaps an sense of justice told him that men misled by false counsel and by privations are not fit objects of , and that he who would visit an even violent act on the head of suffering is a , 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 of the district must have 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 in resolve and in action—the fear, simply, of . This, indeed, was the which had hitherto every manufacturer and almost every public man in the district. Helstone alone had ever it. The old Cossack knew337 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 . 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 a man to fear. Many a time he rode belated over the , moonlit or moonless as the case might be, with feelings far more elate, far better refreshed, than when safety and 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 mill. Its reparation was 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 business claimed his energies and his thoughts—he now and then gave one moment, one effort, to keep alive gentler fires than those which smoulder in the fane of , 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 course very . Meantime the history of the year continued troubled. There was no in the tempest of war; her long hurricane still swept the Continent. There was not the faintest sign of weather, no opening amid "the clouds of battle-dust and smoke," no fall of pure dews 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 or over 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 with Shirley and Caroline? Let us first visit the338 heiress. How does she look? Like a love-lorn , 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 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 of a silk dress, as its wearer sweeps across from room to room, now carrying flowers to the barbarous peach-bloom , now entering the dining-room to open its and let in the 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 , she is 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 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 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 him to the kitchen, and see with her own eyes that his water-bowl is . 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 pigeons. spectacle to Shirley! She runs to the pantry for a roll, and she stands on the door step . Around her her eager, plump, happy feathered .339 John is about the stables, and John must be talked to, and her 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 , 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 doubtful questions about the farming of certain "crofts," and "ings," and "holmes," and his mistress is 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 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 and lionlike bulk of Tartar is ever stretched beside her, his negro laid on his paws—straight, strong, and shapely as the limbs of an wolf. One hand of the mistress generally on the loving serf's rude head, because if she takes it away he 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."
340At 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 sky, and showing its "sweet regent," new throned and glorious, suffice to make earth an Eden, life a poem, for Shirley. A still, deep, delight glows in her young , 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, and , and multiplies its splendours faster than Thought can effect his combinations, faster than can utter her . 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 , 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-siz............