Shirley

officer chiding his subalterns, than of a venerable priest exhorting his sons in the faith. Gospel mildness – apostolic benignity, never seemed to have breathed their influence over that keen brown visage; but firmness had fixed the features, and sagacity had carved her own lines about them.
    »I met Supplehough,« he continued, »plodding through the mud this wet night, going to preach at Milldean opposition shop. As I told you, I heard Barraclough bellowing in the midst of a conventicle like a possessed bull; and I find
you,
gentlemen, tarrying over your half pint of muddy port-wine, and scolding like angry old women. No wonder Supplehough should have dipped sixteen adult converts in a day – which he did a fortnight since; no wonder Barraclough, scamp and hypocrite as he is, should attract all the weaver-girls, in their flowers and ribbons, to witness how much harder are his knuckles than the wooden brim of his tub; as little wonder that
you,
when you are left to yourselves, without your rectors – myself, and Hall, and Boult-by – to back you, should too often perform the holy service of our church to bare walls, and read your bit of a dry discourse to the clerk, and the organist, and the beadle. But enough of the subject: I came to see Malone – I have an errand unto thee, O captain!«
    »What is it?« inquired Malone discontentedly; »there can be no funeral to take at this time of day.«
    »Have you any arms about you?«
    »Arms, sir? – yes, and legs:« and he advanced the mighty members.
    »Bah! weapons, I mean.«
    »I have the pistols you gave me yourself; I never part with them: I lay them ready cocked on a chair by my bedside at night. I have my blackthorn.«
    »Very good. Will you go to Hollow's-mill?«
    »What is stirring at Hollow's-mill?«
    »Nothing as yet, nor perhaps will be; but Moore is alone there. He has sent all the workmen he can trust to Stilbro'; there are only two women left about the place. It would be a nice opportunity for any of his well-wishers to pay him a visit, if they knew how straight the path was made before them.«
    »I am none of his well-wishers, sir: I don't care for him.«
    »Soh! Malone, you are afraid.«
    »You know me better than that. If I really thought there was a chance of a row, I would go: but Moore is a strange, shy man, whom I never pretend to understand; and for the sake of his sweet company only, I would not stir a step.«
    »But there
is
a chance of a row; if a positive riot does not take place – of which, indeed, I see no signs – yet it is unlikely this night will pass quite tranquilly. You know Moore has resolved to have the new machinery, and he expects two waggon loads of frames and shears from Stilbro' this evening. Scott, the overlooker, and a few picked men, are gone to fetch them.«
    »They will bring them in safely and quietly enough, sir.«
    »Moore says so, and affirms he wants nobody: some one, however, he must have, if it were only to bear evidence in case anything should happen. I call him very careless. He sits in the counting-house with the shutters unclosed; he goes out here and there after dark, wanders right up the hollow, down Fieldhead-lane, among the plantations, just as if he were the darling of the neighbourhood, or – being, as he is, its detestation – bore a ›charmed life‹ as they say in tale-books. He takes no warning from the fate of Pearson, nor from that of Armitage – shot, one in his own house and the other on the moor.«
    »But he should take warning, sir, and use precautions too,« interposed Mr. Sweeting; »and I think he would, if he heard what I heard the other day.«
    »What did you hear, Davy?«
    »You know Mike Hartley, sir?«
    »The Antinomian weaver? Yes.«
    »When Mike has been drinking for a few weeks together, he generally winds up by a visit to Nunnely vicarage, to tell Mr. Hall a piece of his mind about his sermons, to denounce the horrible tendency of his doctrine of works, and warn him that he and all his hearers are sitting in outer darkness.«
    »Well – that has nothing to do with Moore.«
    »Besides being an Antinomian, he is a violent Jacobin and leveller, sir.«
    »I know. When he is very drunk, his mind is always running on regicide. Mike is not unacquainted with history, and it is rich to hear him going over the list of tyrants of whom, as he says, ›the revenger of blood has obtained satisfaction.‹ The fellow exults strangely in murder done on crowned heads, or on any head for