“It is not the daughter of Cadmus I see, nor do I realize her fatal longing to look on Jove in the majesty of his god-head. It is a priest of Juno that stands before me, watching late and lone at a shrine in an Argive temple. For years of solitary ministry he has lived on dreams. There is divine madness upon him. He loves the idol he serves, and prays day and night that his frenzy may be fed, and that the Ox-eyed may smile on her votary. She has heard; she will be propitious. All Argos slumbers. The doors of the temple are shut; the priest waits at the altar.
“A shock of heaven and earth is felt – not by the slumbering city, only by that lonely watcher, brave and unshaken in his fanaticism. In the midst of silence, with no preluding sound, he is wrapped in sudden light. Through the roof, through the rent, wide-yawning, vast, white-blazing blue of heaven above, pours a wondrous descent, dread as the downrushing of stars. He has what he asked. Withdraw – forbear to look – I am blinded. I hear in that fane an unspeakable sound. Would that I could not hear it! I see an insufferable glory burning terribly between the pillars. Gods be merciful and quench it!
“A pious Argive enters to make an early offering in the cool dawn of morning. There was thunder in the night; the bolt fell here. The shrine is shivered, the marble pavement round split and blackened. Saturnia’s statue rises chaste, grand, untouched; at her feet piled ashes lie pale. No priest remains; he who watched will be seen no more.
“There is the carriage! Let me lock up the desk and pocket the keys. She will be seeking them tomorrow; she will have to come to me. I hear her: ‘Mr. Moore, have you seen my keys?’
“So she will say, in her clear voice, speaking with reluctance, looking ashamed, conscious that this is the twentieth time of asking. I will tantalize her, keep her with me, expecting, doubting; and when I do restore them, it shall not be without a lecture. Here is the bag, too, and the purse; the glove – pen – seal. She shall wring them all out of me slowly and separately – only by confession, penitence, entreaty. I never can touch her hand, or a ringlet of her head, or a ribbon of her dress, but I will make privileges for myself. Every feature of her face, her bright eyes, her lips, shall go through each change they know, for my pleasure – display each exquisite variety of glance and curve, to delight, thrill, perhaps more hopelessly to enchain me. If I must be her slave, I will not lose my freedom for nothing.”
He locked the desk, pocketed all the property, and went.
Chapter XXX Rushedge – A Confessional
Everybody said it was high time for Mr. Moore to return home. All Briarfield wondered at his strange absence, and Whinbury and Nunnely brought each its separate contribution of amazement.
Was it known why he stayed away? Yes. It was known twenty – forty times over, there being at least forty plausible reasons adduced to account for the unaccountable circumstance. Business it was not – that the gossips agreed. He had achieved the business on which he departed long ago. His four ringleaders he had soon scented out and run down. He had attended their trial, heard their conviction and sentence, and seen them safely shipped prior to transportation.
This was known at Briarfield. The newspapers had reported it. The Stilbro’ Courier had given every particular, with amplifications. None applauded his perseverance or hailed his success, though the mill owners were glad of it, trusting that the terrors of law vindicated would henceforward paralyze the sinister valour of disaffection. Disaffection, however, was still heard muttering to himself. He swore ominous oaths over the drugged beer of alehouses, and drank strange toasts in fiery British gin.
One report affirmed that Moore dared not come to Yorkshire; he knew his life was not worth an hour’s purchase if he did.
“I’ll tell him that,” said Mr. Yorke, when his foreman mentioned the rumour; “and if that does not bring him home full gallop, nothing will.”
Either that or some other motive prevailed at last to recall him. He announced to Joe Scott the day he should arrive at Stilbro,’ desiring his hackney to be sent to the George for his accommodation; and Joe Scott having informed Mr. Yorke, that gentleman made it in his way to meet him.
It was market-day. Moore arrived in time to take his usual place at the market dinner. As something of a stranger, and as a man of note and action, the assembled manufacturers received him with a certain distinction. Some, who in public would scarcely have dared to acknowledge his acquaintance, lest a little of the hate and vengeance laid up in store for him should perchance have fallen on them, in private hailed him as in some sort their champion. When the wine had circulated, their respect would have kindled to enthusiasm had not Moore’s unshaken nonchalance held it in a damp, low, smouldering state.
Mr. Yorke, the permanent president of these dinners, witnessed his young friend’s bearing with exceeding complacency. If one thing could stir his temper or excite his contempt more than another, it was to see a man befooled by flattery or elate with popularity. If one thing smoothed, soothed, and charmed him especially, it was the spectacle of a public character incapable of relishing his publicity – incapable, I say. Disdain would but have incensed; it was indifference that appeased his rough spirit.
Robert, leaning back in his chair, quiet and almost surly, while the clothiers and blanket-makers vaunted his prowess and rehearsed his deeds – many of them interspersing their flatteries with coarse invectives against the operative class – was a delectable sight for Mr. Yorke. His heart tingled with the pleasing conviction that these gross eulogiums shamed Moore deeply, and made him half scorn himself and his work. On abuse, on reproach, on calumny, it is easy to smile; but painful indeed is the panegyric of those we contemn. Often had Moore gazed with a brilliant countenance over howling crowds from a hostile hustings. He had breasted the storm of unpopularity with gallant bearing and soul elate; but he drooped his head under the half-bred tradesmen’s praise, and shrank chagrined before their congratulations.
Yorke could not help asking him how he liked his supporters, and whether he did not think they did honour to his cause. “But it is a pity, lad,” he added, “that you did not hang these four samples of the unwashed. If you had managed that feat, the gentry here would have riven the horses out of the coach, yoked to a score of asses, and drawn you into Stilbro’ like a conquering general.”
Moore soon forsook the wine, broke from the party, and took the road. In less than five minutes Mr. Yorke followed him. They rode out of Stilbro’ together.
It was early to go home, but yet it was late in the day. The last ray of the sun had already faded from the cloud-edges, and the October night was casting over the moorlands the shadow of her approach.
Mr. Yorke, moderately exhilarated with his moderate libations, and not displeased to see young Moore again in Yorkshire, and to have him for his comrade during the long ride home, took the discourse much to himself. He touched briefly, but scoffingly, on the trials and the conviction; he passed thence to the gossip of the neighbourhood, and ere long he attacked Moore on his own personal concerns.
“Bob, I believe you are worsted, and you deserve it. All was smooth. Fortune had fallen in love with you. She had decreed you the first prize in her wheel – twenty thousand pounds; she only required that you should hold your hand out and take it. And what did you do? You called for a horse and rode a-hunting to Warwickshire. Your sweetheart – Fortune, I mean – was perfectly indulgent. She said, ‘I’ll excuse him; he’s young.’ She waited, like ‘Patience on a monument,’ till the chase was over and the vermin-prey run down. She expected you would come back then, and be a good lad. You might still have had her first prize.