Shirley

progressist, the man most abominated. And it perhaps rather agreed with Moore's temperament than otherwise to be generally hated; especially when he believed the thing for which he was hated a right and an expedient thing; and it was with a sense of warlike excitement he, on this night, sat in his counting-house waiting the arrival of his frame-laden waggons. Malone's coming and company were, it may be, most unwelcome to him: he would have preferred sitting alone; for he liked a silent, sombre, unsafe solitude: his watchman's musket would have been company enough for him; the full-flowing beck in the den would have delivered continuously the discourse most genial to his ear.
     
    With the queerest look in the world, had the manufacturer for some ten minutes been watching the Irish curate, as the latter made free with the punch; when suddenly that steady gray eye changed, as if another vision came between it and Malone. He raised his hand.
    »Chut!« he said, in his French fashion, as Malone made a noise with his glass. He listened a moment, then rose, put his hat on, and went out at the counting-house door.
    The night was still, dark, and stagnant; the water yet rushed on full and fast: its flow almost seemed a flood in the utter silence. Moore's ear, however, caught another sound – very distant, but yet dissimilar – broken, and rugged: in short, a sound of heavy wheels crunching a stony road. He returned to the counting-house and lit a lantern, with which he walked down the mill-yard, and proceeded to open the gates. The big waggons were coming on; the dray-horses' huge hoofs were heard splashing in the mud and water. Moore hailed them.
    »Hey, Joe Scott! Is all right?«
    Probably Joe Scott was yet at too great a distance to hear the inquiry; he did not answer it.
    »Is all right, I say?« again asked Moore, when the elephant-like leader's nose almost touched his.
    Some one jumped out from the foremost waggon into the road; a voice cried aloud, »Ay, ay, divil, all's raight! We've smashed 'em.«
    And there was a run. The waggons stood still; they were now deserted.
    »Joe Scott!« No Joe Scott answered. »Murgatroyd! Pighills! Sykes!« No reply. Mr. Moore lifted his lantern, and looked into the vehicles; there was neither man nor machinery: they were empty and abandoned.
    Now Mr. Moore loved his machinery: he had risked the last of his capital on the purchase of these frames and shears which to-night had been expected; speculations most important to his interests depended on the results to be wrought by them: where were they?
    The words »we've smashed 'em!« rung in his ears. How did the catastrophe affect him? By the light of the lantern he held, were his features visible, relaxing to a singular smile: the smile the man of determined spirit wears when he reaches a juncture in his life where this determined spirit is to feel a demand on its strength: when the strain is to be made, and the faculty must bear or break. Yet he remained silent and even motionless; for at the instant he neither knew what to say nor what to do. He placed the lantern on the ground, and stood with his arms folded, gazing down and reflecting.
    An impatient trampling of one of the horses made him presently look up; his eye, in the moment, caught the gleam of something white attached to a part of the harness. Examined by the light of the lantern, this proved to be a folded paper – a billet. It bore no address without; within was the superscription: –
    »To the Divil of Hollow's-miln.«
    We will not copy the rest of the orthography, which was very peculiar, but translate it into legible English. It ran thus: –
    »Your hellish machinery is shivered to smash on Stilbro' Moor, and your men are lying bound hand and foot in a ditch by the roadside. Take this as a warning from men that are starving, and have starving wives and children to go home to when they have done this deed. If you get new machines, or if you otherwise go on as you have done, you shall hear from us again. Beware!«
    »Hear from you again? Yes; I'll hear from you again, and you shall hear from me. I'll speak to you directly: on Stilbro' Moor you shall hear from me in a moment.«
    Having led the waggons within the gates, he hastened towards the cottage. Opening the door, he spoke a few words quickly but quietly to two females who ran to meet him in the passage. He calmed the seeming alarm of one by a brief palliative account of what had taken place; to the other he said,