before, in the very act of showering brickbats on members of their own factory; and, if no great number of stones appeared to swell my pockets, it was not that I was engaged in any process of weaning myself from such fascinating missiles, but that I had liberally made over to their kinsfolk most of those which I possessed. If asked the question, it would be found that I should not myself deny the fact of being at war with their whole order. What was the meaning of that? What was it to which war, and the assumption of warlike functions, pledged a man? It pledged him, in case of an opportunity arising, to storm his enemies; that is, in my own case, to storm the houses of these young factory girls; briefly, and in plain English, to murder them all; to cut the throats of every living creature by their firesides; to float the closets in which, possibly, three generations of their family might have been huddled together for shelter, with the gore of those respectable parties. Almost every book of history in the British Museum, counting up to many myriads of volumes would tell them plainly, and in pretty nearly the very same words, what they had to expect from every warrior, and therefore from me, videlicet this – that neither the guileless smiles of unoffending infancy, nor the gray hairs of the venerable patriarch sitting in the chimney corner; neither the sanctity of the matron, nor the loveliness of the youthful bride; no, nor the warlike self-devotion of the noble young man, fighting as the champion of altars and hearths; none of these searching appeals would reach my heart; neither sex nor age would confer any privilege with me; that I should put them all to the edge of the sword; that I should raze the very foundations of their old ancestral houses; having done which, I should probably plow up the ground with some bushels of Nantwich salt, mixed with bonedust from the graves of infants as a top-dressing; that, in fact, the custom of all warriors, and therefore by necessity of myself, was notoriously to make a wilderness, and to call it a pacification; with other bloody depositions in the same key, and often in the very same words.
All this was passing through my brain as the sort of explanatory introduction which, in mere honesty, I could not disown, if any body should offer it, when suddenly one young woman snatched me up in her arms, and kissed me; from her, I was passed round to others of the party, who all in turn caressed me, with scarcely an allusion to that warlike mission against them and theirs, which only had procured me the honor of an introduction to themselves in the character of captive. The too palpable fact, that I was not the person meant by nature to murder any one individual of their party, was likely enough to withdraw from their minds the counterfact – that too probably, in my military character, I might have dallied with the idea of murdering them all. Not being able to do it, as regarded any one in particular, was illogically accepted as an excuse for the military engagement that bound me to attempt it with regard to all in mass. Not only did these young people kiss me, but I (seeing no military reason against it) kissed them. Really, if young women will insist on kissing major-generals, they must expect that the generals will retaliate. One only of the crowd adverted to the character in which I came before them: to be a lawful prisoner, it struck her too logical mind that I must have been caught in some aggressive practices. "Think," she said, "of this little dog fighting, and fighting our Jack." "But," said another, in a propitiatory tone, "perhaps he'll not do so any more." I was touched by the kindness of her suggestion, and the sweet merciful sound of that same "Not do so any more," which really I fear was prompted by the charity in her that hopeth all things, and despairs of no villain, rather than by any signals of amendment that could have appeared in myself. It was well for me that they gave no time to comment on my own moral condition; for, in that case, I should have told them, that, although I had delivered, in my time, many thousands of stones for the service of their near relatives, and must, without vanity, presume that, on the ratio of one wound to a thousand shots, I had given them numerous reasons for remembering me; yet that, if so, I was sincerely sorry (which I was) for any pain I had caused – the past I regretted, and could plead only the necessities of duty. But, on the other hand, as respected the future, I could not honestly hold out any hopes of a change for the better, since my duty to my brother, in two separate characters, would oblige me to resume hostilities on the very next day. While I was preparing myself, however, for this painful exposition, my female friends saw issuing from the factory a crowd of boys not likely at all to improve my prospects. Instantly setting me down on my feet, they formed a sort of cordon sanitaire behind me, by stretching out their petticoats or aprons, as in dancing, so as to touch; and then, crying out, "Now, little dog, run for thy life," prepared themselves (I doubt not) for rescuing me, if any recapture should be effected.
But this was not effected, although attempted with an energy that alarmed me, and even perplexed me with a vague thought (far too ambitious for my years, but growing out of my chivalrous studies) that one, perhaps, if not two of the pursuing party might be possessed by some demon of jealousy, since he might have seen me reveling among the lips of that fair girlish and womanish bevy, kissed and kissing, loving and being loved; in which case from all that ever I had read about jealousy (and I had read a great deal – viz, "Othello," and Collins's "Ode to the Passions"), I was satisfied that, if again captured, I had very little chance for my life. That jealousy was a green-eyed monster, nobody could know better than I did. "Oh, my lord, beware of jealousy!" Yes; and my lord couldn't possibly beware of it more than myself; indeed, well it would have been for him had his lordship run away from all the ministers of jealousy – Iago, Cassio, Desdemona – and embroidered handkerchiefs – at the same pace of six miles an hour which kept me ahead of my infuriated pursuers. Ah, that maniac, white as a leper with flakes of cotton, can I ever forget him, that ran so far in advance of his party? What passion, but jealousy, could have sustained him in so hot a chase? There were some lovely girls in the fair company that had so condescendingly caressed me; but, doubtless, upon that sweet creature his love must have settled, who suggested, in her low, soft, relenting voice, a penitence in me that, alas! had not dawned, saying, "Yes; but perhaps he will do so no more." Thinking, as I ran, of her beauty, I felt that this jealous demoniac must fancy himself justified in committing seven times seven murders upon me, if he should have it in his power. But, thank heaven, if jealousy can run six miles an hour, there are other passions, as for instance, fear, that can run, upon occasion, six and a half; so, as I had the start of him (you know, reader), and not a very short start – thanks be to the expanded petticoats of my dear female friends! naturally it happened that the green-eyed monster came in second best. Time luckily was precious with him; and therefore, when he had chased me into the by-road leading down to Greenhay, he turned back; and I, with somewhat sorrowful steps, on the consideration that this scene might need to be all acted over again, when Green-eyes might happen to have better luck, and being unhappy, besides, at having to number so many kind-hearted girls among Philistines and daughters of Gath, pensively pursued my way to the gates of Greenhay. Pensively is not the word that meets the realities of the case. I was unhappy, in the profoundest sense, and not from any momentary accident of distress that might pass away and be forgotten, but from deep glimpses which now, as heretofore, had opened themselves, as occasions arose, into the interior sadnesses, and the inevitable conflicts of life. I knew – I anticipated to a dead certainty – that my brother would not hear of any merit belonging to the factory population whom every day we had to meet in battle; on the contrary, even submission on their part, and willingness to walk penitentially through the Furcæ Caudinæ, would hardly have satisfied his sense of their criminality. Continually, indeed, as we came in view of the factory, he used to shake his fist at it, and say, in a ferocious tone of voice, "Delenda est Carthago!" And certainly, I thought to myself, it must be admitted by every body that the factory people are inexcusable in raising a rebellion against my brother. But still rebels were men, and sometimes were women; and rebels, that stretch out their petticoats like fans for the sake of screening one from the hot pursuit of enemies with fiery eyes (green or otherwise), really are not the sort of people that one wishes to hate.
Homeward, therefore, I drew in sadness, and little doubting that hereafter I might have verbal feuds with my brother on behalf of my fair friends, but not dreaming how much displeasure I had already incurred by my treasonable collusion with their caresses. That part of the affair he had seen with his own eyes from his position on the field; and then it was that he left me indignantly to my fate, which, by my first reception, it was easy to see would not prove very gloomy. When I came into our own study, I found him engaged in preparing a bulletin (which
