remarked, ere this, that I
have thus far shown a criminal remissness in pursuing, catching, and bringing to
condign punishment the would-be assassin of Mr. Robert Moore: here was a fine
opening to lead my willing readers a dance, at once decorous and exciting: a
dance of law and gospel, of the dungeon, the dock, and the dead-thraw. You might
have liked it, reader, but I should not: I and my subject would presently have
quarrelled, and then I should have broken down: I was happy to find that facts
perfectly exonerated me from the attempt. The murderer was never punished; for
the good reason, that he was never caught; the result of the further
circumstance, that he was never pursued. The magistrates made a shuffling, as if
they were going to rise and do valiant things; but, since Moore himself, instead
of urging and leading them as heretofore, lay still on his little cottage-couch,
laughing in his sleeve and sneering with every feature of his pale, foreign
face, they considered better of it; and, after fulfilling certain indispensable
forms, prudently resolved to let the matter quietly drop: which they did.
    Mr. Moore knew who had shot him, and all Briarfield knew: it was no other
than Michael Hartley, the half-crazed weaver once before alluded to, a frantic
Antinomian in religion, and a mad leveller in politics; the poor soul died of
delirium tremens a year after the attempt on Moore, and Robert gave his wretched
widow a guinea to bury him.
 
The winter is over and gone: spring has followed with beamy and shadowy, with
flowery and showery flight: we are now in the heart of summer - in mid-June, -
the June of 1812.
    It is burning weather: the air is deep azure and red gold: it fits the time;
it fits the age; it fits the present spirit of the nations. The nineteenth
century wantons in its giant adolescence: the Titan-boy uproots mountains in his
game, and hurls rocks in his wild sport. This summer, Bonaparte is in the
saddle: he and his host scour Russian deserts: he has with him Frenchmen and
Poles, Italians and children of the Rhine, six hundred thousand strong. He
marches on old Moscow: under old Moscow's walls the rude Cossack waits him.
Barbarian stoic! he waits without fear of the boundless ruin rolling on. He puts
his trust in a snow-cloud: the Wilderness, the Wind, and the Hail-Storm are his
refuge: