human
I came in haste to see how you were, Hortense, and how Robert was too. I was sure you would be both grieved by what happened last night. I did not hear till this morning. My uncle told me at breakfast.
gpt
Ah! it is unspeakable. You sympathize with us? Your uncle sympathizes with us?
human
My uncle is very angry--but he was with Robert, I believe, was he not?--Did he not go with you to Stilbro' Moor?
gpt
Yes, we set out in very martial style, Caroline; but the prisoners we went to rescue met us half-way.
human
Of course nobody was hurt?
gpt
Why, no; only Joe Scott's wrists were a little galled with being pinioned too tightly behind his back.
human
You were not there? You were not with the wagons when they were attacked?
gpt
No. One seldom has the fortune to be present at occurrences at which one would particularly wish to assist.
human
Where are you going this morning? I saw Murgatroyd saddling your horse in the yard.
gpt
To Whinbury. It is market day.
human
Mr. Yorke is going too. I met him in his gig. Come home with him.
gpt
Why?
human
Two are better than one, and nobody dislikes Mr. Yorke--at least, poor people do not dislike him.
gpt
Therefore he would be a protection to me, who am hated?
human
Who are _misunderstood_. That, probably, is the word. Shall you be late?--Will he be late, Cousin Hortense?
gpt
It is too probable. He has often much business to transact at Whinbury. Have you brought your exercise-book, child?
human
Yes.--What time will you return, Robert?
gpt
I generally return at seven. Do you wish me to be at home earlier?
human
Try rather to be back by six. It is not absolutely dark at six now, but by seven daylight is quite gone.
gpt
And what danger is to be apprehended, Caroline, when daylight _is_ gone? What peril do you conceive comes as the companion of darkness for me?
human
I am not sure that I can define my fears, but we all have a certain anxiety at present about our friends. My uncle calls these times dangerous. He says, too, that mill-owners are unpopular.
gpt
And I am one of the most unpopular? Is not that the fact? You are reluctant to speak out plainly, but at heart you think me liable to Pearson's fate, who was shot at--not, indeed, from behind a hedge, but in his own house, through his staircase window, as he was going to bed.
human
Anne Pearson showed me the bullet in the chamber-door, remarked Caroline gravely, as she folded her mantle and arranged it and her muff on a side-table.
gpt
You know, she continued,
human
Certainly he will, affirmed Hortense.
gpt
And now, my child, prepare your lessons for repetition, while I put the peas to soak for the purée at dinner.
human
You suspect I have many enemies, then, Caroline, said Mr. Moore,
gpt
Not destitute, Robert. There is your sister, your brother Louis, whom I have never seen; there is Mr. Yorke, and there is my uncle--besides, of course, many more.
human
You would be puzzled to name your 'many more,' said he.
gpt
But show me your exercise-book. What extreme pains you take with the writing! My sister, I suppose, exacts this care. She wants to form you in all things after the model of a Flemish school-girl. What life are you destined for, Caroline? What will you do with your French, drawing, and other accomplishments, when they are acquired?
human
You may well say, when they are acquired; for, as you are aware, till Hortense began to teach me, I knew precious little. As to the life I am destined for, I cannot tell. I suppose to keep my uncle's house till----
gpt
Till what? Till he dies?
human
No. How harsh to say that! I never think of his dying. He is only fifty-five. But till--in short, till events offer other occupations for me.
gpt
A remarkably vague prospect! Are you content with it?
human
I used to be, formerly. Children, you know, have little reflection, or rather their reflections run on ideal themes. There are moments _now_ when I am not quite satisfied.
gpt
Why?
human
I am making no money--earning nothing.
gpt
You come to the point, Lina. You too, then, wish to make money?
human
I do. I should like an occupation; and if I were a boy, it would not be so difficult to find one. I see such an easy, pleasant way of learning a business, and making my way in life.
gpt
Go on. Let us hear what way.
human
I could be apprenticed to your trade--the cloth-trade. I could learn it of you, as we are distant relations. I would do the counting-house work, keep the books, and write the letters, while you went to market. I know you greatly desire to be rich, in order to pay your father's debts; perhaps I could help you to get rich.
gpt
Help _me_? You should think of yourself.
human
I do think of myself; but must one for ever think only of oneself?
gpt
Of whom else do I think? Of whom else _dare_ I think? The poor ought to have no large sympathies; it is their duty to be narrow.
human
No, Robert----
gpt
Yes, Caroline. Poverty is necessarily selfish, contracted, grovelling, anxious. Now and then a poor man's heart, when certain beams and dews visit it, may smell like the budding vegetation in yonder garden on this spring day, may feel ripe to evolve in foliage, perhaps blossom; but he must not encourage the pleasant impulse; he must invoke Prudence to check it, with that frosty breath of hers, which is as nipping as any north wind.
human
No cottage would be happy then.
gpt
When I speak of poverty, I do not so much mean the natural, habitual poverty of the working-man, as the embarrassed penury of the man in debt. My grub-worm is always a straitened, struggling, care-worn tradesman.
human
Cherish hope, not anxiety. Certain ideas have become too fixed in your mind. It may be presumptuous to say it, but I have the impression that there is something wrong in your notions of the best means of attaining happiness, as there is in----
gpt
I am all ear, Caroline.
human
In (courage! let me speak the truth)--in your manner--mind, I say only _manner_--to these Yorkshire workpeople.
gpt
You have often wanted to tell me that, have you not?
human
Yes; often--very often.
gpt
The faults of my manner are, I think, only negative. I am not proud. What has a man in my position to be proud of? I am only taciturn, phlegmatic, and joyless.
human
As if your living cloth-dressers were all machines like your frames and shears. In your own house you seem different.
gpt
To those of my own house I am no alien, which I am to these English clowns. I might act the benevolent with them, but acting is not my _forte_. I find them irrational, perverse; they hinder me when I long to hurry forward. In treating them justly I fulfil my whole duty towards them.
human
You don't expect them to love you, of course?
gpt
Nor wish it.
human
Ah!