the priest and Levite, seized his hat, and with the briefest of adieux to Miss Keeldar, and the sternest of nods to her guest, took an abrupt leave.
Mr. Yorke was in no mild mood, and in no measured terms did he express his opinion on the transaction of the night: Moore, the magistrates, the soldiers, the mob-leaders each and all came in for a share of his invectives; but he reserved his strongest epithets—and real, racy Yorkshire Doric adjectives they were—for the benefit of the fighting parsons, the "sanguinary, demoniac" Rector and Curate. According to him, the cup of ecclesiastical guilt was now full indeed.
"The Church," he said, "was in a bonnie pickle now: it was time it came down when parsons took to swaggering amang soldiers, blazing away wi' bullet and gunpowder, taking the lives of far honester men than themselves."
"What would Moore have done, if nobody had helped him?" asked Shirley.
"Drunk as he'd brewed—eaten as he'd baked."
"Which means, you would have left him by himself to face that mob. Good. He has plenty of courage; but the greatest amount of gallantry that ever garrisoned one human breast could scarce avail against two hundred."
"He had the soldiers; those poor slaves who hire out their own blood and spill other folks for money."
