“As to our purpose,” began Barraclough, “it’s one that may sound strange and perhaps foolish to ears like yours, for the childer of this world is wiser in their generation than the childer of light.”
“To the point, if you please, and let me hear what it is.”
“Ye’se hear, sir. If I cannot get it off, there’s eleven behint can help me. It is a grand purpose, and” (changing his voice from a half-sneer to a whine) “it’s the Looard’s own purpose, and that’s better.”
“Do you want a subscription to a new Ranter’s chapel, Mr. Barraclough? Unless your errand be something of that sort, I cannot see what you have to do with it.”
“I hadn’t that duty on my mind, sir; but as Providence has led ye to mention the subject, I’ll make it i’ my way to tak ony trifle ye may have to spare; the smallest contribution will be acceptable.”
With that he doffed his hat, and held it out as a begging-box, a brazen grin at the same time crossing his countenance.
“If I gave you sixpence you would drink it.”
Barraclough uplifted the palms of his hands and the whites of his eyes, evincing in the gesture a mere burlesque of hypocrisy.
“You seem a fine fellow,” said Moore, quite coolly and dryly; “you don’t care for showing me that you are a double-dyed hypocrite, that your trade is fraud. You expect indeed to make me laugh at the cleverness with which you play your coarsely farcical part, while at the same time you think you are deceiving the men behind you.”
Moses’ countenance lowered. He saw he had gone too far. He was going to answer, when the second leader, impatient of being hitherto kept in the background, stepped forward. This man did not look like a traitor, though he had an exceedingly self-confident and conceited air.
“Mr. Moore,” commenced he, speaking also in his throat and nose, and enunciating each word very slowly, as if with a view to giving his audience time to appreciate fully the uncommon elegance of the phraseology, “it might, perhaps, justly be said that reason rather than peace is our purpose. We come, in the first place, to request you to hear reason; and should you refuse, it is my duty to warn you, in very decided terms, that measures will be had resort to” (he meant recourse) “which will probably terminate in — in bringing you to a sense of the unwisdom, of the — the foolishness which seems to guide and guard your proceedings as a tradesman in this manufacturing part of the country. Hem! Sir, I would beg to allude that as a furriner, coming from a distant coast, another quarter and hemisphere of this globe, thrown, as I may say, a perfect outcast on these shores — the cliffs of Albion — you have not that understanding of huz and wer ways which might conduce to the benefit of the working-classes. If, to come at once to partic’lars, you’d consider to give up this here miln, and go without further protractions straight home to where you belong, it ‘ud happen be as well. I can see naught ageean such a plan. — What hev ye to say tull’t, lads?” turning round to the other members of the deputation, who responded unanimously, “Hear, hear!”
“Brayvo, Noah o’ Tim’s!” murmured Joe Scott, who stood behind Mr. Moore. “Moses’ll niver beat that. Cliffs o’ Albion, and t’ other hemisphere! My certy! Did ye come fro’ th’ Antarctic Zone, maister? Moses is dished.”
Moses, however, refused to be dished. He thought he would try again. Casting a somewhat ireful glance at “Noah o’ Tim’s,” he launched out in his turn; and now he spoke in a serious tone, relinquishing the sarcasm which he found had not answered.
“Or iver you set up the pole o’ your tent amang us, Mr. Moore, we lived i’ peace and quietness — yea, I may say, in all lovingkindness. I am not myself an aged person as yet, but I can remember as far back as maybe some twenty year, when hand-labour were encouraged and respected, and no mischief-maker had ventured to introduce these here machines which is so pernicious. Now, I’m not a cloth-dresser myself, but by trade a tailor. Howsiver, my heart is of a softish nature. I’m a very feeling man, and when I see my brethren oppressed, like my great namesake of old, I stand up for ‘em; for which intent I this day speak with you face to face, and advises you to part wi’ your infernal machinery, and tak on more hands.”
“What if I don’t follow your advice, Mr. Barraclough?”
“The Looard pardon you! The Looard soften your heart, sir!”
“Are you in connection with the Wesleyans now, Mr. Barraclough?”
“Praise God! Bless His name! I’m a joined Methody!”
“Which in no respect prevents you from being at the same time a drunkard and a swindler. I saw you one night a week ago laid dead-drunk by the roadside, as I returned from Stilbro’ market; and while you preach peace, you make it the business of your life to stir up dissension. You no more sympathize with the poor who are in distress than you sympathize with me. You incite them to outrage for bad purposes of your own; so does the individual called Noah of Tim’s. You two are restless, meddling, impudent scoundrels, whose chief motive-principle is a selfish ambition, as dangerous as it is puerile. The persons behind you are some of them honest though misguided men; but you two I count altogether bad.”
Barraclough was going to speak.
“Silence! You have had your say, and now I will have mine. As to being dictated to by you, or any Jack, Jem, or Jonathan on earth, I shall not suffer it for a moment. You desire me to quit the country; you request me to part with my machinery. In case I refuse, you threaten me. I do refuse — point-blank! Here I stay, and by this mill I stand, and into it will I convey the best machinery inventors can furnish. What will you do? The utmost you can do — and this you will never dare to do — is to burn down my mill, destroy its contents, and shoot me. What then? Suppose that building was a ruin and I was a corpse — what then, you lads behind these two scamps? Would that stop invention or exhaust science? Not for the fraction of a second of time! Another and better gig-mill would rise on the ruins of this, and perhaps a more enterprising owner come in my place. Hear me! I’ll make my cloth as I please, and according to the best lights I have. In its manufacture I will employ what means I choose. Whoever, after hearing this, shall dare to interfere with me may just take the consequences. An example shall prove I’m in earnest.”
He whistled shrill and loud. Sugden, his staff and warrant, came on the scene.
Moore turned sharply to Barraclough. “You were at Stilbro’,” said he; “I have proof of that. You were on the moor, you wore a mask, you knocked down one of my men with your own hand — you! a preacher of the gospel! — Sugden, arrest him!”
Moses was captured. There was a cry and a rush to rescue, but the right hand which all this while had lain hidden in Moore’s breast, reappearing, held out a pistol.
“Both barrels are loaded,” said he. “I’m quite determined! Keep off!”
Stepping backwards, facing the foe as he went, he guarded his prey to the counting-house. He ordered Joe Scott to pass in with Sugden and the prisoner, and to bolt the door inside. For himself, he walked backwards and forwards along the front of the mill, looking meditatively on the ground, his hand hanging carelessly by his side, but still holding the pistol. The eleven remaining deputies watched him some time, talking under their breath to each other. At length one of them approached. This man looked very different from either of the two who had previously spoken; he was hard-favoured, but modest and manly-looking.
“I’ve not much faith i’ Moses Barraclough,” said he, “and I would speak a word to you myseln, Mr. Moore. It’s out o’ no ill-will that I’m here, for my part; it’s just to mak a effort to get things straightened, for they’re sorely a-crooked. Ye see we’re ill off — varry ill off; wer families is poor and pined. We’re thrown out o’ work wi’ these frames; we can get nought to do; we can earn nought. What is to be done? Mun we say, wisht! and lig us down and dee?