ay
yet be mine."

Mrs. Pryor seemed deeply agitated. Large tears trembled in her eyes and
rolled down her cheeks. Caroline kissed her, in her gentle, caressing
way, saying softly, "I love you dearly. Don't cry."

But the lady's whole frame seemed shaken. She sat down, bent her head to
her knee, and wept aloud. Nothing could console her till the inward
storm had had its way. At last the agony subsided of itself.

"Poor thing!" she murmured, returning Caroline's kiss, "poor lonely
lamb! But come," she added abruptly--"come; we must go home."

For a short distance Mrs. Pryor walked very fast. By degrees, however,
she calmed down to her wonted manner, fell into her usual characteristic
pace--a peculiar one, like all her movements--and by the time they
reached Fieldhead she had re-entered into herself. The outside was, as
usual, still and shy.

CHAPTER XXII.

TWO LIVES.

Only half of Moore's activity and resolution had been seen in his
defence of the mill; he showed the other half (and a terrible half it
was) in the indefatigable, the relentless assiduity with which he
pursued the leaders of the riot. The mob, the mere followers, he let
alone. Perhaps an innate sense of justice told him that men misled by
false counsel and goaded by privations are not fit objects of vengeance,
and that he who would visit an even violent act on the bent head of
suffering is a tyrant, not a judge. At all events, though he knew many
of the number, having recognized them during the latter part of the
attack when day began to dawn, he let them daily pass him on street and
road without notice or threat.

The leaders he did not know. They were strangers--emissaries from the
large towns. Most of these were not members of the operative class. They
were chiefly "down-draughts," bankrupts, men always in debt and often in
drink, men who had nothing to lose, and much, in the way of character,
cash, and cleanliness, to gain. These persons Moore hunted like any
sleuth-hound, and well he liked the occupation. Its excitement was of a
kind pleasant to his nature. He liked it better than making cloth.

His horse must have hated these times, for it was ridden both hard and
often. He almost lived on the road, and the fresh air was as welcome to
his lungs as the policeman's quest to his mood; he preferred it to the
steam of dye-houses. The magistrates of the district must have dreaded
him. They were slow, timid men; he liked both to frighten an