The Complete Works: Charlotte, Emily, Anne, Patrick & Branwell Brontë. Anne Bronte

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СКАЧАТЬ or three instances where sentiments of this sort had been very bravely maintained so long as health, strength, and worldly prosperity had been the allies of him who professed them; but there came a time,” he said, “to all men, ‘when the keepers of the house should tremble; when they should be afraid of that which is high, and fear should be in the way;’ and that time was the test of the advocate of anarchy and rebellion, the enemy of religion and order. Ere now,” he affirmed, “he had been called upon to read those prayers our church has provided for the sick by the miserable dying-bed of one of her most rancorous foes; he had seen such a one stricken with remorse, solicitous to discover a place for repentance, and unable to find any, though he sought it carefully with tears. He must forewarn Mr. Yorke that blasphemy against God and the king was a deadly sin, and that there was such a thing as ‘judgment to come.’”

      Mr. Yorke “believed fully that there was such a thing as judgment to come. If it were otherwise, it would be difficult to imagine how all the scoundrels who seemed triumphant in this world, who broke innocent hearts with impunity, abused unmerited privileges, were a scandal to honourable callings, took the bread out of the mouths of the poor, browbeat the humble, and truckled meanly to the rich and proud, were to be properly paid off in such coin as they had earned. But,” he added, “whenever he got low-spirited about such-like goings-on, and their seeming success in this mucky lump of a planet, he just reached down t’ owd book” (pointing to a great Bible in the bookcase), “opened it like at a chance, and he was sure to light of a verse blazing wi’ a blue brimstone low that set all straight. He knew,” he said, “where some folk war bound for, just as weel as if an angel wi’ great white wings had come in ower t’ doorstone and told him.”

      “Sir,” said Mr. Helstone, collecting all his dignity — “sir, the great knowledge of man is to know himself, and the bourne whither his own steps tend.”

      “Ay, ay. You’ll recollect, Mr. Helstone, that Ignorance was carried away from the very gates of heaven, borne through the air, and thrust in at a door in the side of the hill which led down to hell.”

      “Nor have I forgotten, Mr. Yorke, that Vain-Confidence, not seeing the way before him, fell into a deep pit, which was on purpose there made by the prince of the grounds, to catch vainglorious fools withal, and was dashed to pieces with his fall.”

      “Now,” interposed Mr. Moore, who had hitherto sat a silent but amused spectator of this worldly combat, and whose indifference to the party politics of the day, as well as to the gossip of the neighbourhood, made him an impartial, if apathetic, judge of the merits of such an encounter, “you have both sufficiently blackballed each other, and proved how cordially you detest each other, and how wicked you think each other. For my part, my hate is still running in such a strong current against the fellows who have broken my frames that I have none to spare for my private acquaintance, and still less for such a vague thing as a sect or a government. But really, gentlemen, you both seem very bad by your own showing — worse than ever I suspected you to be. — I dare not stay all night with a rebel and blasphemer like you, Yorke; and I hardly dare ride home with a cruel and tyrannical ecclesiastic like Mr. Helstone.”

      “I am going, however, Mr. Moore,” said the rector sternly. “Come with me or not, as you please.”

      “Nay, he shall not have the choice; he shall go with you,” responded Yorke. “It’s midnight, and past; and I’ll have nob’dy staying up i’ my house any longer. Ye mun all go.”

      He rang the bell.

      “Deb,” said he to the servant who answered it, “clear them folk out o’ t’ kitchen, and lock t’ doors, and be off to bed. — Here is your way, gentlemen,” he continued to his guests; and, lighting them through the passage, he fairly put them out at his front door.

      They met their party hurrying out pell-mell by the back way. Their horses stood at the gate; they mounted, and rode off, Moore laughing at their abrupt dismissal, Helstone deeply indignant thereat.

      CHAPTER V.

      HOLLOW’S COTTAGE.

      Moore’s good spirits were still with him when he rose next morning. He and Joe Scott had both spent the night in the mill, availing themselves of certain sleeping accommodations producible from recesses in the front and back counting-houses. The master, always an early riser, was up somewhat sooner even than usual. He awoke his man by singing a French song as he made his toilet.

      “Ye’re not custen dahn, then, maister?” cried Joe.

      “Not a stiver, mon garçon — which means, my lad. Get up, and we’ll take a turn through the mill before the hands come in, and I’ll explain my future plans. We’ll have the machinery yet, Joseph. You never heard of Bruce, perhaps?”

      “And th’ arrand (spider)? Yes, but I hev. I’ve read th’ history o’ Scotland, and happen knaw as mich on’t as ye; and I understand ye to mean to say ye’ll persevere.”

      “I do.”

      “Is there mony o’ your mak’ i’ your country?” inquired Joe, as he folded up his temporary bed, and put it away.

      “In my country! Which is my country?”

      “Why, France — isn’t it?”

      “Not it, indeed! The circumstance of the French having seized Antwerp, where I was born, does not make me a Frenchman.”

      “Holland, then?”

      “I am not a Dutchman. Now you are confounding Antwerp with Amsterdam.”

      “Flanders?”

      “I scorn the insinuation, Joe! I a Flamand! Have I a Flemish face — the clumsy nose standing out, the mean forehead falling back, the pale blue eyes ‘à fleur de tête’? Am I all body and no legs, like a Flamand? But you don’t know what they are like, those Netherlanders. Joe, I’m an Anversois. My mother was an Anversoise, though she came of French lineage, which is the reason I speak French.”

      “But your father war Yorkshire, which maks ye a bit Yorkshire too; and onybody may see ye’re akin to us, ye’re so keen o’ making brass, and getting forrards.”

      “Joe, you’re an impudent dog; but I’ve always been accustomed to a boorish sort of insolence from my youth up. The ‘classe ouvrière’ — that is, the working people in Belgium — bear themselves brutally towards their employers; and by brutally, Joe, I mean brutalement — which, perhaps, when properly translated, should be roughly.”

      “We allus speak our minds i’ this country; and them young parsons and grand folk fro’ London is shocked at wer ‘incivility;’ and we like weel enough to gi’e ‘em summat to be shocked at, ‘cause it’s sport to us to watch ‘em turn up the whites o’ their een, and spreed out their bits o’ hands, like as they’re flayed wi’ bogards, and then to hear ‘em say, nipping off their words short like, ‘Dear! dear! Whet seveges! How very corse!’”

      “You are savages, Joe. You don’t suppose you’re civilized, do you?”

      “Middling, middling, maister. I reckon ‘at us manufacturing lads i’ th’ north is a deal more intelligent, and knaws a deal more nor th’ farming folk i’ th’ south. Trade sharpens wer wits; and them that’s mechanics like me is forced to think. Ye know, what wi’ looking after machinery and sich like, I’ve getten into that way that when I see СКАЧАТЬ