last, in the shock of the French
Revolution, it had rushed down a total ruin. In its fall was involved the
English and Yorkshire firm of Moore, closely connected with the Antwerp house,
and of which one of the partners, resident in Antwerp, Robert Moore, had married
Hortense Gérard, with the prospect of his bride inheriting her father
Constantine Gérard's share in the business. She inherited, as we have seen, but
his share in the liabilities of the firm; and these liabilities, though duly set
aside by a composition with creditors, some said her son Robert accepted, in his
turn, as a legacy; and that he aspired one day to discharge them, and to rebuild
the fallen house of Gérard and Moore on a scale at least equal to its former
greatness. It was even supposed that he took by-past circumstances much to
heart; and if a childhood passed at the side of a saturnine mother, under
foreboding of coming evil, and a manhood drenched and blighted by the pitiless
descent of the storm, could painfully impress the mind, his probably was
impressed in no golden characters.
    If, however, he had a great end of restoration in view, it was not in his
power to employ great means for its attainment; he was obliged to be content
with the day of small things. When he came to Yorkshire, he - whose ancestors
had owned warehouses in this seaport, and factories in that inland town, had
possessed their town-house and their country-seat - saw no way open to him but
to rent a cloth-mill, in an out-of-the-way nook of an out-of-the-way district;
to take a cottage adjoining it for his residence, and to add to his possessions,
as pasture for his horse, and space for his cloth-tenters, a few acres of the
steep rugged land that lined the hollow through which his mill-stream brawled.
All this he held at a somewhat high rent (for these war times were hard, and
everything was dear), of the trustees of the Fieldhead estate, then the property
of a minor.
    At the time this history commences, Robert Moore had lived but two years in
the district; during which period he had at least proved himself possessed of
the quality of activity. The dingy cottage was converted into a neat, tasteful
residence. Of part of the rough land he had made garden-ground, which he
cultivated with singular, even with Flemish, exactness and care. As to the mill,
which was an old