The workingmen at the mill paid me as little attention as possible, save for one: Rufus Shap, a lout built like a bull, who carried an angry face and glared at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. I dared to ask Mr. Wilson once if he had noticed that Rufus seemed to bear me ill will, but he only replied, “That is Rufus for you.” Even Mr. Wilson sometimes nearly came to words with Rufus, but Rufus always backed off at the last moment. “Despite everything,” Mr. Wilson said to me once, “Rufus is a good worker, with a strong back, if a weak enough mind. There are men, Rochester, for whom anger is a way of life. They wake up angry and go to bed angry; they seem to know no other way to accept their position in this world. As long as he controls himself, we can live with the way he looks at us. And I would daresay, if you or I had been born in his shoes, we might see the world the same way.”
But I was not in Rufus’ place, and I was wary of him, and he sensed it. I could tell it in his smirks that passed as smiles, in the way he sometimes deliberately turned his back to me as I neared him, and in the way he at other times stared at me directly in the eye in a kind of silent challenge. It was as if he wanted me to know that as far as he was concerned, I was still that young boy who had first come to Maysbeck Mill and always would be. I tried to ignore it, as Mr. Wilson had advised, but there remained between Rufus and me an animus that simmered as if waiting for the moment of boil.
My duties at Maysbeck Mill had absorbed nearly the whole of my life, and while I sometimes imagined myself as a full partner with Mr. Wilson, in fact I was only too glad not to have the entire responsibility of the place. That became even more clear to me one night just a few weeks after my father had paid his short visit. It was a cloud-covered night, the moon only a vague presence in the sky, and I had been asleep, it seemed, for only a short time, when a fierce pounding came on the front door of Mrs. Clem’s house—even I could hear it on the third floor. At first I thought, Fire! and I leaped from my cot, but I could smell nothing. I was about to climb back under the covers when I heard a commotion belowstairs: shouts and replying shouts, and footsteps running up the stairs and my name: “Rochester! Rochester!” Doors opened on the floor below, and then the steps pounded quite close and I heard my name again. I pulled open the door, and it was a boy, a young boy I did not recognize, full out of breath from running.
“It’s the mill!” he shouted as soon as he caught his breath. “Men!” he shouted at me. “Villains! Attacking the mill!” And suddenly I realized—it should have registered with me before—the mill bell was ringing, clanging wildly in the night: the most ominous sound—an attack on the mill.
Oh God, I thought. They’ve come to Maysbeck—Luddites. The name had been only a distant possibility, men angry at the mechanizations that had taken their jobs. The newspapers had lost interest: there was little mention of them anymore, and anyway, one always assumes such catastrophes happen elsewhere. I threw on my clothes while the boy stood watching, as if to make sure I would really come. And then I followed him, barreling down the narrow stairs and out into the night. We ran the full distance to the mill—a mile or more, only a pale half-moon to light the dark, the sounds growing louder as we approached, shouts and crashes and even gunshots.
There was a crowd, lighted by the torches they carried. Some were attempting to beat down the double oaken doors while others shouted angrily, waving cudgels or anything else they could use as a weapon. I knew I had heard shots, but at first I could see no sign of a gun. Then I saw, in a third-floor window of the mill, Bert Cornes with a musket, which he shot from time to time—more to frighten the mob away than to kill or injure anyone.
Across the way, on the other side of the crowd, I saw Mr. Wilson and Mr. Landes, both also with pistols in their hands, appearing angry and somewhat frightened. My eyes scanned the mob, but I did not recognize any of them—agitators from elsewhere, I guessed. My gaze fell on Rufus Shap, at the far edge of the crowd, only a couple of yards from Mr. Wilson. His stoic face showed nothing, neither anger nor pleasure, and I was stunned by the equanimity of it. Though Maysbeck Mill was his livelihood, it was as if he’d as soon break down the mill as defend it.
Then another shot rang out—from Bert Cornes, in the window—and this time a cry of pain pierced the night. The crowd stilled for an instant, and then it surged forward, as if by signal, as if by the mere force of their combined strength they would push through those solid oak doors. Another shot was fired, and another. I saw Mr. Wilson’s arm raised, and I thought, My God, there’s going to be murder. Just then someone near Mr. Wilson turned to face him, grabbed him, and held him to keep him from shooting, and I realized it was Rufus who had done it.
Desperately I pushed my way through the crowd—I, not half as strong as Rufus but not thinking, so set was I on preventing harm to Mr. Wilson. It was difficult to get close enough, the milling crowd shoving me one way and another, but when I finally reached for Rufus to pull him away, it was like reaching for a bull. He turned to me, though, his face dark with fury. “Get him out of here,” he demanded. “At least you can manage that.” Then he shoved Mr. Wilson toward me, and I grabbed him, pulling him through the crowd and away toward his home. He came almost willingly, as if he were relieved to have someone else make that decision for him. Behind us, Mr. Landes followed.
By daylight it was all over. The doors had held; Bert Cornes’ well-placed shots had injured a few but mostly frightened the rioters from doing their worst, and in the end they gave up and melted away into the countryside from whence they had come. Mr. Wilson expressed dismay that he had been pulled away from his place at the battle, but I quoted Tacitus at him about living to fight another day, and he was so surprised that I not only knew it but could say it in Latin that he quite forgot to be angry with me.
Indeed, in the days after, he expressed his gratitude to me again and again, but he was also subdued for a time, as was everyone else at the mill, going about their business with quiet and serious faces. It was only Rufus Shap who glared at me, and I remembered his words: At least you can manage that. It was clear he despised me. On the other hand, he had saved Mr. Wilson, and I could not deny that.
And then two completely unexpected things happened: I received a letter from Mr. Lincoln, with whom I had held desultory communication since I left Black Hill; and Mr. Wilson fell ill. Mr. Lincoln’s letter was the usual accounting of his present boys, their strengths and their foibles (which always led me to wonder what he had written to others about me). But at the end, a few simple sentences stopped my breath and quickened the beat of my heart:
You will remember Carrot, I daresay. He is the Earl of Lanham now, as you may know, and he writes asking of you. I had not been in communication with him as I have been with you, so I did not know if you two had maintained a connection after leaving Black Hill. I am inclosing his address, for I am not aware if you are in a position to want him to know where you are and what you have been about. So I leave that to you.
I remain,
Mr. Hiram Lincoln
Black Hill