m rather more
time--to make my changes more slowly. You know I cannot do that:
straitened on all sides as I am, I have nothing for it but to push on. I
thought it would be idle to palaver long with them. I sent them away,
after arresting a rascal amongst them, whom I hope to transport--a
fellow who preaches at the chapel yonder sometimes."

"Not Moses Barraclough?"

"Yes."

"Ah! you've arrested him? Good! Then out of a scoundrel you're going to
make a martyr. You've done a wise thing."

"I've done a right thing. Well, the short and the long of it is, I'm
determined to get Farren a place, and I reckon on you to give him one."

"This is cool, however!" exclaimed Mr. Yorke. "What right have you to
reckon on me to provide for your dismissed workmen? What do I know about
your Farrens and your Williams? I've heard he's an honest man, but am I
to support all the honest men in Yorkshire? You may say that would be no
great charge to undertake; but great or little, I'll none of it."

"Come, Mr. Yorke, what can you find for him to do?"

"_I_ find! You'll make me use language I'm not accustomed to use. I wish
you would go home. Here is the door; set off."

Moore sat down on one of the hall chairs.

"You can't give him work in your mill--good; but you have land. Find him
some occupation on your land, Mr. Yorke."

"Bob, I thought you cared nothing about our _lourdauds de paysans_. I
don't understand this change."

"I do. The fellow spoke to me nothing but truth and sense. I answered
him just as roughly as I did the rest, who jabbered mere gibberish. I
couldn't make distinctions there and then. His appearance told what he
had gone through lately clearer than his words; but where is the use of
explaining? Let him have work."

"Let him have it yourself. If you are so very much in earnest, strain a
point."

"If there was a point left in my affairs to strain, I would strain it
till it cracked again; but I received letters this morning which showed
me pretty clearly where I stand, and it is not far off the end of the
plank. My foreign market, at any rate, is gorged. If there is no
change--if there dawns no prospect of peace--if the Orders in Council
are not, at least, suspended, so as to open our way in the West--I do
not know where I am to turn. I see no more light than if I were sealed
in a rock, so that for me to pretend to offer a man a livelihood would
be to do a dishonest thing."

"Come, let us take a turn on the fr