“So be it I need not stoop to woo too humbly. My star is o’ercast now, but a day shall come when yo’ will regret the hour yo’ spurned George Mellor’s love. And yo! Ben Bamforth, traitor to your friend’s confided love,” . . . . and he turned upon me fiercely with flashing eye and clenched fist, and all his wrath surged to his lips and he would have gladly poured it out on me.
“Nay, George, I have not said my say,” Mary broke in. “Yo’ have told me yo’ loved me, and when first I knew you I think I could have been easy won to love. But you were here when Ben Walker told how Long Tom had outraged me. Yo’ heard every word he said, and I grant yo’ you talked big. But what did you do? The girl yo’ woo’d for your bride told her tale, and yo’—yo’ made a speech and went home to bed, leaving to another arm to wreak the punishment you only threatened. My love, such as it was, died that night, that was the icy breath that killed it, and from that night I have almost loathed myself that ever I wasted a tender thought on you. But go, leave this house, your mind should be on other things than love. I ask no questions. But if my fears are true, it is of making your peace with an offended Maker you should be thinking, and crying for mercy rather than suing for love.”
“You have had your answer, George,” I said, as Mary hastened from the room leaving us confronting each other.
“Aye, I have had my answer. Yo’ have stolen my love from me, yo’r desertion will wreck our cause, and now, finish what tha has begun, go to Justice Radcliffe, tell him George Mellor did not sleep at his father’s house last night, put the bloodhounds of the law upon my track, and when tha draws the price of blood make a merry wedding for thissen an’ th’ lass tha’s stolen to lay her head upon thi false an’ perjured heart!”
And he waxed me off as I strode towards him, and made with quick step across the yard, and for many months I saw George Mellor no more.
Horsfall’s death had an effect just the opposite to that expected by the Luds. It did not bring the masters to their knees: on the contrary it hardened and united them. It did not embolden the Luddites; rather they became alarmed at their own extremes. A reward was offered for the discovery of those concerned in the attack on Rawfolds, and a large sum, three thousand pounds, if my memory serves me, was put together by the millowners and given to Mr. Cartwright to mend his windows and to reward his pluck. Another reward, of two thousand pounds, was offered by the Government to anyone, not the actual murderer, who should betray to justice those who had shot Mr. Horsfall. Justice Radcliffe never rested. The least rumour that reached his ear was sufficient to justify an arrest, and no one knew when it would be his turn to be summoned to Milnsbridge House and have an ugly half–hour in the sweating room where the magistrate examined the men, women and children he hauled before him. I do not know what warrant Justice Radcliffe had for such examinations—probably none. But, then, how were ignorant folk, half frightened out of their wits, to know this; or if they knew it, how was their knowledge to serve them? To refuse to answer would be construed as a sure sign of guilty knowledge, if not of actual partnership: so people made themselves as gaumless as they could, and when driven into a corner lied like blacks.
The manufacturers who felt themselves or their goods in danger took heart. All eyes at this time were fixed on Marsden. Enoch and James Taylor, who made the new cropping frames, were looked upon as marked men, and Woodbottom mill was fortified as if for a siege; soldiers sleeping in the mill at night.
“Arthur Hirst’s a main clever chap,” said ’Siah, with unwilling admiration.
Arthur Hirst was the engineer at Woodbottom.
“How so, ’Siah?” I asked.