Shirley

partial to my favourite, Peter; little David shall be the champion, or spotless Joseph. Malone, you are but a great floundering Saul after all, good only to lend your armour: out with your fire-arms, fetch your shillelagh; it is there – in the corner.«
    With a significant grin, Malone produced his pistols, offering one to each of his brethren: they were not readily seized on. With graceful modesty, each gentleman retired a step from the presented weapon.
    »I never touch them: I never did touch anything of the kind,« said Mr. Donne.
    »I am almost a stranger to Mr. Moore,« murmured Sweeting.
    »If you never touched a pistol, try the feel of it now, great satrap of Egypt. As to the little minstrel, he probably prefers encountering the Philistines with no other weapon than his flute. Get their hats, Peter; they'll both of 'em go.«
    »No, sir; no, Mr. Helstone; my mother wouldn't like it,« pleaded Sweeting.
    »And I make it a rule never to get mixed up in affairs of the kind,« observed Donne.
    Helstone smiled sardonically; Malone laughed a horselaugh. He then replaced his arms, took his hat and cudgel, and saying that »he never felt more in tune for a shindy in his life, and that he wished a score of greasy cloth-dressers might beat up Moore's quarters that night,« he made his exit, clearing the stairs at a stride or two, and making the house shake with the bang of the front-door behind him.
     
     
Chapter II
The Waggons
    The evening was pitch-dark: star and moon were quenched in gray rain-clouds – gray they would have been by day, by night they looked sable. Malone was not a man given to close observation of Nature; her changes passed, for the most part, unnoticed by him; he could walk miles on the most varying April day, and never see the beautiful dallying of earth and heaven; never mark when a sunbeam kissed the hill-tops, making them smile clear in green light, or when a shower wept over them, hiding their crests with the low-hanging, dishevelled tresses of a cloud. He did not, therefore, care to contrast the sky as it now appeared – a muffled, streaming vault, all black, save where, towards the east, the furnaces of Stilbro' iron-works threw a tremulous lurid shimmer on the horizon – with the same sky on an unclouded frosty night. He did not trouble himself to ask where the constellations and the planets were gone, or to regret the ›black-blue‹ serenity of the air-ocean which those white islets stud; and which another ocean, of heavier and denser element, now rolled below and concealed. He just doggedly pursued his way, leaning a little forward as he walked, and wearing his hat on the back of his head, as his Irish manner was. »Tramp, tramp,« he went along the causeway, where the road boasted the privilege of such an accommodation; »splash, splash,« through the mire-filled cart-ruts, where the flags were exchanged for soft mud. He looked but for certain landmarks: the spire of Briarfield church; further on, the lights of Redhouse. This was an inn; and when he reached it, the glow of a fire through a half-curtained window, a vision of glasses on a round table, and of revellers on an oaken settle had nearly drawn aside the curate from his course. He thought longingly of a tumbler of whisky-and-water: in a strange place, he would instantly have realized the dream; but the company assembled in that kitchen were Mr. Helstone's own parishioners; they all knew him. He sighed, and passed on.
    The high road was now to be quitted, as the remaining distance to Hollow's-mill might be considerably reduced by a short cut across fields. These fields were level and monotonous; Malone took a direct course through them, jumping hedge and wall. He passed but one building here, and that seemed large and hall-like, though irregular: you could see a high gable, then a long front, then a low gable, then a thick, lofty stack of chimneys: there were some trees behind it. It was dark; not a candle shone from any window; it was absolutely still: the rain running from the eaves, and the rather wild, but very low whistle of the wind round the chimneys and through the boughs, were the sole sounds in its neighbourhood.
    This building passed, the fields, hitherto flat, declined in a rapid descent: evidently a vale lay below, through which you could hear the water run. One light glimmered in the depth: for that beacon Malone steered.
    He came to a little white house – you could see it was white even through this dense