 CHAPTER XX Tomorrow. 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 beened 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. Great 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 meager 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 seeing 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 waist, had 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 chaseneth. These words are true, and she'd not be forgotten. The household was a stir 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 holy 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 Kildar's eyes were lively and Miss Helston's languid. "'Today I shall have much to say to more,' 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 is 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 tonight. 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.'" Miss was sad 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. Where a 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, worshiping 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 and first-rate works, where should I be, dead under a cairn of avenging stones in half an hour?" "'Surely. You chatter so I can't fasten you. Be still. And after all, author's heroines are almost as good as author S's heroes. Not at all. Women read men more truly than men read women. All prove that in a magazine paper some day when I have time. Only it will never be inserted. It will be declined with thanks, and left for me at the publishers. 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, Carrie. 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 more 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, field-head, and the cottage are so near, and Hortense is timid in such matters. No doubt as Mrs. Pryor.' "'Take my word for it, Lina. More 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 neighborhood. Fanny, who had been to field-head 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 parlor to announce these terrible facts to the ladies, terminating their clear and inaccurate 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 lodging 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 an awk at the kitchen door announced the field-head errant boy, arrived in hot haste, bearing a billet from Mrs. Pryor. It was hurriedly written, and urged Miss Kildar to return directly, as the neighborhood 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 post-script it was entreated that Miss Halston might not be left alone at the rectory. She had better, it was suggested, accompany Miss Kildar. 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 Breyerfield to Stillborough all day, rousing the magistrates in the courthouse 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 more and Mr. Halston will not take advantage of last night's outbreak to quell them altogether. They will frighten the authorities of Stillborough into energetic measures. I only hope they will not be too severe, not pursue the discomforted 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 by—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 milk-kind was usually fed for the convenience of the neighborhood. Mrs. Kildar owned such a herd—all deep-dulaped, craven cows, reared on the sweet herbage and clear waters of Bonnie Airdale, and very proud she was of their sleek aspect and high condition. Seeing now the state of matters, and that it was desirable to affect 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 got all 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 is your talking do?' There is nothing the lower orders like better than a little downright good-humored rating. Flattery they scorn very much, honest abuse they enjoy. They call it speaking plainly, and to take a sincere delight in being the objects thereof. The homely harshness of Miss Kildar's salutation won her the ear of the whole throng in a second. "'We're no warn or sum that is a bonus, are we?' asked a man, smiling. Nor a wit 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. Soled 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 ramen tea if you are women, or over beer and pipes if you are men, and to talk scandal at your neighbor's 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 presumed 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.' Moving 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 beat 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 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 convenience is also for the wounded. I could not undertake the responsibility of giving orders or taking measures. A feared delay may have been injurious in some instances. But this is not my house. You were absent, my dear Miss Kildar. What could I do?" "'Were no refreshments sent,' asked Shirley, while her countenance hitherto so clear, propitious, and quiet, even while she was raiding 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 defense 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 rung 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 flower 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 carrier's 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 warring in the dust before them, had put her hands round the thick neck of the largest of the currs, and given her whole strength did the assay 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 Kildar proceeded to put questions and give orders, that at such a time field-head 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. Helston's, and the soldier's 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. "'I'll 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 Helston 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 directorous. A chance, glance, and smile from Caroline moved Shirley to an answering smile directly. The former was carrying a heavy basket up the cellar's 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 Kildar 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. More too, I daresay. To speak truth I am not anxious about him. Some slight mischance would be only his just do. This conduct is being—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. Halston 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 two abundant supplies." Miss Kildar blushed while she laughed at her own over-eager generosity and most disproportionate calculations. More 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 Kildar 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 ought 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, leveling another of his keen, quiet glances at the discomforted Shirley. "'Now,' he continued, addressing the Carter, "'I think you might take what remains to the hollow. Your load will be somewhat lighter than the one Miss Kildar 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 called 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 Stillbro." "'Straw? You must have beds and bedding. I will send my wagon directly, properly furnished, and Mr. York I am sure will send his.' "'You guess correctly. He is volunteered already, and Mrs. York, who, like you, seems disposed to regard the rioters as martyrs, and me, and especially Mr. Helston, 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 Aenley, that very plain old maid, sent in a stalk 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. Helston domiciled me at the rectory. Mighty clever, you gentlemen, think you are. I make you heartily welcome to the idea, and hope its savor, 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 requisite gratification of outmaneuvering you would be unknown. Ah, friend, you may search my countenance, but you cannot read it." More 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.' "'In 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 Helston, 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 parlor entering 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 Kilter'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 Helston 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 Kilter 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 hurt at the door. It was half-opened. "'Caroline, come here,' said a low voice. Miss Helston 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 ultimate 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 over it 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 Kildar, doomed to be in constant request during the morning, was presently summoned downstairs again. The rector called first, a lively welcome and a lively reprimand, were at his service. He expected both, and, being in high spirits, took them in equally good parts. 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 Curit, had taken in the defence of the hollow. "'The vials of ferraceaical wrath will be emptied on our heads for our share in this business,' he said. "'But I defy every culminator.' I was only there to support the law, to play my part as a man and a Britain, which characters I deem quite compatible with those of the priest and Levite, in their highest sense. Your tenet, more,' he went on, has won my approvation. 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 events 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. More 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 mean than that with which he has hitherto favoured us. Mr. Halston was about to add to this speech some half-gesting, half-serious warnings to Miss Kildar on the subject of her rumoured partiality for her talented tenet, when a ring at the door, announcing another colour, checked his rallowry. And as that other colour appeared in the form of a white-haired, elderly gentleman with a rather trusulent, countenance and disdainful eye—in short, our old acquaintance and the rector's old enemy, Mr. York—the priest and Levite seized his hat, and with the briefest of adieu to Miss Kildar, and the sternest of nods to her guest, took an abrupt leave. Mr. York was in no mild mood, and in no measured terms did he express his opinion on the transaction of the night. Therefore 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 agitives they were, for the benefit of the fighting Parsons, the Sanguinary Demaniac, 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 among soldiers, blazing away with bullet and gunpowder, taking the lives of far-honestor men than themselves. What would more 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 folks 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. Halston and every other gentleman in the parish should have looked on and seen the building raised and its owner slaughtered, and never stirred a finger to save either. If Mr. Moore had behaved to his men from the beginning as a master ought to behave, they never would have entertained their present feelings toward him. Easy for you to talk, exclaimed Miss Kildar, he was beginning to wax warm in her tenant's cause. You, whose family have lived at Briar mains 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 honor, his talent, and his industry to make his way for him. A monstrous crime that, indeed, under such circumstances, he could not popularize his naturally grave, quiet manners all at once, could not be secular 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. Halston, say what you will of him, has such a heart, to be reviled, like male factors, because they stand by him, because they venture to espouse the cause of one against two hundred? Come, come now, be cool, said Mr. York, 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. York, as you know, but I thoroughly dislike some of your principles. All that can't, excuse me, but I repeat the word, all that can't, about soldiers and parson's, 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 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 Nunnally, is a better friend, both of man and freedom, than Hiram York, the reformer of Browfield. From a man Mr. York would not have borne this language very patiently, nor would he have endured it from some women. But he accounted surely 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-druped lid and lash. What more has 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. York, was the answer, the speaker meantime walking fast, from wall to wall of the oak parlor. 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 tomorrow, and you would have to abandon them. You abused more 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 abused Mr. Halston for everything he does. Mr. Halston has his faults. He sometimes does wrong, but often a 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, plans and persevered in by your predecessor. I wonder people cannot judge more fairly of each other and themselves. When I hear Messers Malone and Don chatter about the authority of the church, the dignity and claims of the priesthood, the difference due to them is clergymen. When I hear the outbreaks of their small spite against dissenters, when I witness their silly narrow jealousies and assumptions, when their paliver 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, ends both she and her sons appear in the utmost need of reformation. Turning away distressed from Minster Tower and Village Spire, I, as distressed as a churchwarden who feels the exingence of whitewash and has not wherewithal to purchase lime, I recall your senseless sarcasms on the fat bishops, the pampered parson's, 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. York, doubt clutches my inmost heart as to whether men exist clement, reasonable, and just enough to be entrusted with a 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 Jesse's stool by your chair in the backpiler of Briar mains for evenings together, listening excitedly to your talk, half admiring what you said, and half rebelling against it. I think you a fine old Yorkshire man, 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, last, nor to the make 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 aren't too haughty, too ambitious, too jealous to be civil to those above you, but you are all alike. Halstern also is proud and prejudiced. More, though juster and more Confederate 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's. And when is it to be? said Mr. York, now rising. When is what to be? The wedding. Whose wedding? Only that of Robert Gerard Moore Esquire of Hollows Cottage with Miss Kildar, daughter and heiress of the late Charles Cave Kildar of Fieldhead Hall. Shirley gazed at the questioner with rising color, 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 Kildar's representative? By last Moore is a gentleman. His blood is pure and ancient as mine or thine. And we, too, set store by ancient blood. We have family pride. The one of us, at least, is a Republican. York 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, I could surely. Lifting her head with glad grace. She checked herself. Word seemed crowding to her tongue. She would not give them utterance. But her look spoke much at the moment. What? York 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 it. He felt his revenge had not struck home. He felt that surely 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 Kildar for that of Moore? Mr. York, instead of replying, gazed at her much puzzled. He could not divine what her look signified, whether she spoke in earnest or in jest. And there was purpose and feeling, banter and scoff, playing, mingled, on her mobile liniments. 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 a steer 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 him. 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 collars, 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 scented 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. A bounding wild roses looked as if they budded, bloomed, and faded, under the watch of solitude, as an assaulton's harem. Here you saw the sweet azure of bluebells, and recognized in pearl-white blossoms, spangling the grass, and humble type of small 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 demands 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 caliber was her intelligence, how and where her feelings were vulnerable. CHAPTER XXI PART II Today, 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 neighborhood 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 and appreciation of the beautiful or commonplace, a power of comparing the wild with the cultured, the grand with a tame that gave to her discourse a graphic charm as pleasant as it was on pretending. The sort of reverent pleasure with which Caroline listened, so sincere, so quiet, yet so evident, stirred the elder lady's faculties to a gentle animation. Rarely, probably, had she, with her chill, repellent outside, her diffident mean 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 toward whom it seemed, judging by the moved expression of her eyes and features, her heart turned with almost a font 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 toward 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 the color in these cheeks. But perhaps you were never floored. I had red cheeks once, returned Miss Halston 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. What 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. Halston 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 over them somehow. But I do not live. I enjoy existence, but I rarely enjoy it. Since Miss Kildar 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 Kildar. 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 that 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 Kildar'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. Pugnet, I should say, 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, and usual 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 gentleman, I found, regarded me as a tabooed woman, to whom they were interjected 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, 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 and inmates of a lunatic asylum. I said nothing to Mrs. Hargeman. 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 Hargeman, quitted my bedside. She caught the sound. And, turning, said severely, I fear, Miss Gray, 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. Mama 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 Hargeman, 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 acknowledged that I could not describe the dignity of her voice and mean 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 grandeur. 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 tradespeople, 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 Hargeman 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 points. I should be the last person to wish to instill 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, callous 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 Misses or Miss Hargeman 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 away 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 a battle 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 someone 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 and 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 forever. It may perish with a 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 fun. There is perhaps a possibility of content under peculiar circumstances, such as our seldom combines. 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. York, in her most gloomy moments. Like Miss Mann, when she is most sourly and hyperchronically disposed, this is terrible. No, it is only true. Oh, child, you have only lived a pleasant morning time of life. The hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night, are yet to come for you. Mr. Hellstone, you say, talks as I talk. And I wonder how Mrs. Matthewson Hellstone would have talked had she been living. She died. She died. And alas! my own mother and father, exclaimed Caroline, struck by a somber recollection. What of them? Did I never tell you that they were separated? I have heard it. They must 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. Their 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 shrunk and shuddered, as if a rude finger had pressed a naked nerve. And 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 result, 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, when spraying the curse of half our life, may flow the blessing of the remainder. Then I am of a peculiar disposition. I own that, fired 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. Blank, that is, the gentleman I married, was perhaps rather an exceptional than an average character. I hope, at least, the experience of few have 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 ever to which you elude. 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, resolved the subject in my thoughts ever since you first mentioned your wish to obtain a situation. You know I, at present, reside with Miss Kildar in the capacity of companion. Should she marry? And, that she will marry ere long, these 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 Field Head, 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 too 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. The 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 wanted manner, fell into her usual characteristic pace, a peculiar one, like all her movements, and by the time they reached field-head, she had re-entered into herself. The outside was, as usual, still and shy. CHAPTER XXII of SHIRLEY SHIRLEY by Charlotte Bronte Only half of Moore's activity in 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 led alone. Perhaps an innate sense of justice told him that men misled by false counsel, 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 recognised them during the latter part of the attack when day began to dawn, he let them daily pass him on the street and rode 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 downdrafts, 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 welcomed to his lungs as the policemen's quest to his mood. He preferred it to the steam of die-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. Halston alone had ever repelled it. The old Cossack knew well he might be shot. He knew there was risk, but such a death had for his nerves no terrors. It would have been his chosen, might he have had a choice. More likewise knew his danger. The result was an unquenchable scorn of the quarter when such danger was to be apprehended. The consciousness that he hunted assassins was the spur in his high metal tempers 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 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 Stillbro. The remaining two it was necessary to seek further off. Their haunts were supposed to lie near Birmingham. Meantime the clothier did not neglect his battered mill. Its reparation was a steam-to-light task, carpenters and glazers' work alone being needed. The rioters not having succeeded in affecting 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 smoldered in the feign 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 hurricanes 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 dues 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 Moor's feet, and whether he rode or walked, whether he only crossed his counting-house hearth or galloped over sullen rush-edge, he was aware of a hollow echo and felt the ground shake to his tread. While the summer thus passed with Moor, how did it lapse with Shirley and Caroline? Let us first visit the eras. 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 forever a book in her hand, or sowing 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-sealed 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 sweetbriar, a non-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 needles scarce threaded, when a sudden thought calls her upstairs. Perhaps she goes to seek some just-then-remembered old ivory-backed needle-book, or old or 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, when Spryerfield Church and Rectory are visible, pleasantly bowered in the 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 in their polts, pea-hands on their chicks, pearl-flect 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 doorstep 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 petting 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-yined lambs. It may be twins whose mothers have rejected them. Miss Kildar 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 gypsy straw, and accompany him over style and a long hedge-row to hear the conclusion of the whole agricultural matter on the spot, and with the said Crofts, Ings, and Holmes under her eye. Bright afternoon thus wears into soft evening, and she comes home to a late tea, and after tea she never sows. 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 lion-like bulk of tartars 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-surf'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 fire-light. 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, re-warmed her heart. It has set her brain a stir, furnished her mind with pictures. The still parlor, 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 surely. 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 dour of nature to her child. This joy gives her experience of a genie life. Boyant, by green steps, by glad hills, all verdure and light, she reaches a station scarcely lower than that whence angels look 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 splendor faster than thought can affect 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, humor, and tenderness possess that large gray sphere. In sense her, a red ray pierces the dew it quickens instantly to flame. Here the month of July was passed Miss Kildar would probably have started with Caroline on that northern tour they had planned. But just as that epoch an invasion befell field head. A gentile 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 mister, missus, and two missus Simpson, of Simpson Grove, blankshire, 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 and expedient, where a victory was to be gained for her will. Miss Halston 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 Simpson Grove. How did she like her relatives? She had nothing in common with them, she replied. Little Harry Simpson 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 field head pew in Briar Field 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 Halston. Separated from Miss Kealdar for the present, as she could not seek her in the midst of her fine relatives, scared away from field head 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 parlor which the sun foresook at noon, or in the garden alcove where it shone bright, yet sad on the ripening red currents drained over the trellis, and on the fair monthly roses entwined between, and through them fell checkered 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 ladies' magazines that had once performed a sea voyage with their owner, and undergone a storm, and whose pages were stained with saltwater. 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 sow, make garments for the poor, according to good Miss Ainsley'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 Ainsley 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 straight 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's 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 Ainsley 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 too 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 a society cannot readily cure, it usually forbids utterance on pain of its scorn, this scorn being only a sort of tinseled cloak to its deformed weakness. People hate to be reminded of ills they are unable or unwilling to remedy. Such reminder, enforcing 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. Good 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 armatages, the bird whistles, the sikes. 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 more. 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 York, sure, 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 round you, dropping off in consumption or decline, or what is worse degenerating to sour old maids, envious, backbiting, wretched because life is a desert to them, or what is worst of all reduced to strife 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 maneuverer, the mischief-making tail-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.