no longer. He had considered of it, and made up his mind to go all lengths. If money and spirit could put down these rioters, they should be put down. Mr. Moore might do as he liked, but he—Christie Sykes—would spend his last penny in law before he would be beaten: he’d settle them, or he’d see.

‘Take another glass,’ urged Moore.

Mr. Sykes didn’t mind if he did. This was a cold morning (Sugden had found it a warm one); it was necessary to be careful at this season of the year—it was proper to take something to keep the damp out. He had a little cough already (here he coughed in attestation of the fact). Something of this sort (lifting the black bottle) was excellent, taken medicinally (he poured the physic into his tumbler). He didn’t make a practice of drinking spirits in a morning, but occasionally it really was prudent to take precautions.

‘Quite prudent, and take them by all means,’ urged the host.

Mr. Sykes now addressed Mr. Helstone, who stood on the hearth, his shovel hat on his head, watching him significantly with his little keen eyes.

‘You, sir, as a clergyman,’ said he, ‘may feel it disagreeable to be present amidst scenes of hurry and flurry, and, I may say, peril: I dare say your nerves won’t stand it. You’re a man of peace, sir, but we manufacturers, living in the world, and always in turmoil, get quite belligerent. Really, there’s an ardour excited by the thoughts of danger that makes my heart pant. When Mrs. Sykes is afraid of the house being attacked and broke open—as she is every night—I get quite excited. I couldn’t describe to you, sir, my feelings. Really, if anybody was to come—thieves or anything—I believe I should enjoy it, such is my spirit.’

The hardest of laughs, though brief and low, and by no means insulting, was the response of the Rector. Moore would have pressed upon the heroic mill-owner a third tumbler, but the clergyman, who never transgressed, nor would suffer others in his presence to transgress, the bounds of decorum, checked him.

‘Enough is as good as a feast, is it not, Mr. Sykes?’ he said, and Mr. Sykes assented, and then sat and watched Joe Scott remove the bottle, at a sign from Helstone, with a self-satisfied simper on his lips and a regretful glisten in his eye.

Moore looked as if he should have liked to fool him to the top of his bent. What would a certain young kinswoman of his have said could she have seen her dear, good, great Robert—her Coriolanus—just now? Would she have acknowledged in that mischievous, sardonic visage the same face to which she had looked up with such love, which had bent over her with such gentleness last night? Was that the man who had spent so quiet an evening with his sister and his cousin—so suave to one, so tender to the other—reading Shakespeare and listening to Ch\da\enier?

Yes, it was the same man, only seen on a different side, a side Caroline had not yet fairly beheld, though perhaps she had enough sagacity faintly to suspect its existence. Well, Caroline had, doubtless, her defective side, too. She was human: she must, then, have been very imperfect, and had she seen Moore on his very worst side, she would probably have said this to herself and excused him. Love can excuse anything except Meanness; but Meanness kills Love, cripples even Natural Affection; without Esteem, True Love cannot exist. Moore, with all his faults, might be esteemed; for he had no moral scrofula in his mind, no hopeless polluting taint, such, for instance, as that of falsehood; neither was he the slave of his appetites—the active life to which he had been born and bred had given him something else to do than to join the futile chase of the pleasure-hunter. He was a man undegraded, the disciple of Reason, not the votary of Sense. The same might be said of old Helstone. Neither of these two would look, think, or speak a lie; for neither of them had the wretched black bottle which had just been put away any charms. Both might boast a valid claim to the proud title of ‘lord of the creation,’ for no animal vice was lord of them; they looked and were superior beings to poor Sykes.


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