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Sylvia's Lovers — Volume 2

by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell · English · Gutenberg #4535 · 361,086 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Sylvia's Lovers — Volume 2

Author: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell


        
Release date: October 1, 2003 [eBook #4535]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4535

Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYLVIA'S LOVERS — VOLUME 2 ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.









[Editor's Note:--The chapter numbering for volume 2 & 3 was changed
from the original in order to have unique chapter numbers for the
complete version, so volume 2 starts with chapter XV and volume 3
starts with chapter XXX.]





SYLVIA'S LOVERS.


BY

ELIZABETH GASKELL



  Oh for thy voice to soothe and bless!
  What hope of answer, or redress?
  Behind the veil! Behind the veil!--Tennyson




IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

LONDON:

M.DCCC.LXIII.




CONTENTS

      XV  A DIFFICULT QUESTION
     XVI  THE ENGAGEMENT
    XVII  REJECTED WARNINGS
   XVIII  EDDY IN LOVE'S CURRENT
     XIX  AN IMPORTANT MISSION
      XX  LOVED AND LOST
     XXI  A REJECTED SUITOR
    XXII  DEEPENING SHADOWS
   XXIII  RETALIATION
    XXIV  BRIEF REJOICING
     XXV  COMING TROUBLES
    XXVI  A DREARY VIGIL
   XXVII  GLOOMY DAYS
  XXVIII  THE ORDEAL
    XXIX  WEDDING RAIMENT




CHAPTER XV

A DIFFICULT QUESTION


Philip went to bed with that kind of humble penitent gratitude in
his heart, which we sometimes feel after a sudden revulsion of
feeling from despondency to hope. The night before it seemed as if
all events were so arranged as to thwart him in his dearest wishes;
he felt now as if his discontent and repining, not twenty-four hours
before, had been almost impious, so great was the change in his
circumstances for the better. Now all seemed promising for the
fulfilment of what he most desired. He was almost convinced that he
was mistaken in thinking that Kinraid had had anything more than a
sailor's admiration for a pretty girl with regard to Sylvia; at any
rate, he was going away to-morrow, in all probability not to return
for another year (for Greenland ships left for the northern seas as
soon as there was a chance of the ice being broken up), and ere then
he himself might speak out openly, laying before her parents all his
fortunate prospects, and before her all his deep passionate love.

So this night his prayers were more than the mere form that they had
been the night before; they were a vehement expression of gratitude
to God for having, as it were, interfered on his behalf, to grant
him the desire of his eyes and the lust of his heart. He was like
too many of us, he did not place his future life in the hands of
God, and only ask for grace to do His will in whatever circumstances
might arise; but he yearned in that terrible way after a blessing
which, when granted under such circumstances, too often turns out to
be equivalent to a curse. And that spirit brings with it the
material and earthly idea that all events that favour our wishes are
answers to our prayer; and so they are in one sense, but they need
prayer in a deeper and higher spirit to keep us from the temptation
to evil which such events invariably bring with them.

Philip little knew how Sylvia's time had been passed that day. If he
had, he would have laid down this night with even a heavier heart
than he had done on the last.

Charley Kinraid accompanied his cousins as far as the spot where the
path to Haytersbank Farm diverged. Then he stopped his merry talk,
and announced his intention of going to see farmer Robson. Bessy
Corney looked disappointed and a little sulky; but her sister Molly
Brunton laughed, and said,--

'Tell truth, lad! Dannel Robson 'd niver have a call fra' thee if he
hadn't a pretty daughter.'

'Indeed, but he would,' replied Charley, rather annoyed; 'when I've
said a thing, I do it. I promised last night to go see him; besides,
I like the old man.'

'Well! when shall we tell mother yo're comin' whoam?'

'Toward eight o'clock--may-be sooner.'

'Why it's bare five now! bless t' lad, does he think o' staying
theere a' neet, and they up so late last night, and Mrs. Robson
ailing beside? Mother 'll not think it kind on yo' either, will she,
Bess?'

'I dunno. Charley mun do as he likes; I daresay no one'll miss him
if he does bide away till eight.'

'Well, well! I can't tell what I shall do; but yo'd best not stop
lingering here, for it's getting on, and there'll be a keen frost by
t' look o' the stars.'

Haytersbank was closed for the night as far as it ever was closed;
there were no shutters to the windows, nor did they care to draw the
inside curtains, so few were the passers-by. The house door was
fastened; but the shippen door a little on in the same long low
block of building stood open, and a dim light made an oblong upon
the snowy ground outside. As Kinraid drew near he heard talking
there, and a woman's voice; he threw a passing glance through the
window into the fire-lit house-place, and seeing Mrs. Robson asleep
by the fireside in her easy-chair, he went on.

There was the intermittent sound of the sharp whistling of milk into
the pail, and Kester, sitting on a three-legged stool, cajoling a
capricious cow into letting her fragrant burden flow. Sylvia stood
near the farther window-ledge, on which a horn lantern was placed,
pretending to knit at a gray worsted stocking, but in reality
laughing at Kester's futile endeavours, and finding quite enough to
do with her eyes, in keeping herself untouched by the whisking tail,
or the occasional kick. The frosty air was mellowed by the warm and
odorous breath of the cattle--breath that hung about the place in
faint misty clouds. There was only a dim light; such as it was, it
was not dearly defined against the dark heavy shadow in which the
old black rafters and manger and partitions were enveloped.

As Charley came to the door, Kester was saying, 'Quiet wi' thee,
wench! Theere now, she's a beauty, if she'll stand still. There's
niver sich a cow i' t' Riding; if she'll only behave hersel'. She's
a bonny lass, she is; let down her milk, theere's a pretty!'

'Why, Kester,' laughed Sylvia, 'thou'rt asking her for her milk wi'
as many pretty speeches as if thou wert wooing a wife!'

'Hey, lass!' said Kester, turning a bit towards her, and shutting
one eye to cock the other the better upon her; an operation which
puckered up his already wrinkled face into a thousand new lines and
folds. 'An' how does thee know how a man woos a wife, that thee
talks so knowin' about it? That's tellin'. Some un's been tryin' it
on thee.'

'There's niver a one been so impudent,' said Sylvia, reddening and
tossing her head a little; 'I'd like to see 'em try me!'

'Well, well!' said Kester, wilfully misunderstanding her meaning,
'thou mun be patient, wench; and if thou's a good lass, may-be thy
turn 'll come and they 'll try it.'

'I wish thou'd talk of what thou's some knowledge on, Kester,
i'stead of i' that silly way,' replied Sylvia.

'Then a mun talk no more 'bout women, for they're past knowin', an'
druv e'en King Solomon silly.'

At this moment Charley stepped in. Sylvia gave a little start and
dropped her ball of worsted. Kester made as though absorbed in his
task of cajoling Black Nell; but his eyes and ears were both
vigilant.

'I was going into the house, but I saw yo'r mother asleep, and I
didn't like to waken her, so I just came on here. Is yo'r father to
the fore?'

'No,' said Sylvia, hanging down her head a little, wondering if he
could have heard the way in which she and Kester had been talking,
and thinking over her little foolish jokes with anger against
herself. 'Father is gone to Winthrop about some pigs as he's heerd
on. He'll not be back till seven o'clock or so.'

It was but half-past five, and Sylvia in the irritation of the
moment believed that she wished Kinraid would go. But she would have
been extremely disappointed if he had. Kinraid himself seemed to
have no thought of the kind. He saw with his quick eyes, not
unaccustomed to women, that his coming so unexpectedly had fluttered
Sylvia, and anxious to make her quite at her ease with him, and not
unwilling to conciliate Kester, he addressed his next speech to him,
with the same kind of air of interest in the old man's pursuit that
a young man of a different class sometimes puts on when talking to
the chaperone of a pretty girl in a ball-room.

'That's a handsome beast yo've just been milking, master.'

'Ay; but handsome is as handsome does. It were only yesterday as she
aimed her leg right at t' pail wi' t' afterings in. She knowed it
were afterings as well as any Christian, and t' more t' mischief t'
better she likes it; an' if a hadn't been too quick for her, it
would have a' gone swash down i' t' litter. This'n 's a far better
cow i' t' long run, she's just a steady goer,' as the milky
down-pour came musical and even from the stall next to Black Nell's.

Sylvia was knitting away vigorously, thinking all the while that it
was a great pity she had not put on a better gown, or even a cap
with brighter ribbon, and quite unconscious how very pretty she
looked standing against the faint light, her head a little bent
down; her hair catching bright golden touches, as it fell from under
her little linen cap; her pink bed-gown, confined by her
apron-string, giving a sort of easy grace to her figure; her dark
full linsey petticoat short above her trim ancles, looking far more
suitable to the place where she was standing than her long gown of
the night before would have done. Kinraid was wanting to talk to
her, and to make her talk, but was uncertain how to begin. In the
meantime Kester went on with the subject last spoken about.

'Black Nell's at her fourth calf now, so she ought to ha' left off
her tricks and turned sober-like. But bless yo', there's some cows
as 'll be skittish till they're fat for t' butcher. Not but what a
like milking her better nor a steady goer; a man has allays summat
to be watchin' for; and a'm kind o' set up when a've mastered her at
last. T' young missus theere, she's mighty fond o' comin' t' see
Black Nell at her tantrums. She'd niver come near me if a' cows were
like this'n.'

'Do you often come and see the cows milked?' asked Kinraid,

'Many a time,' said Sylvia, smiling a little. 'Why, when we're
throng, I help Kester; but now we've only Black Nell and Daisy
giving milk. Kester knows as I can milk Black Nell quite easy,' she
continued, half vexed that Kester had not named this accomplishment.

'Ay! when she's in a good frame o' mind, as she is sometimes. But t'
difficulty is to milk her at all times.'

'I wish I'd come a bit sooner. I should like t' have seen you milk
Black Nell,' addressing Sylvia.

'Yo'd better come to-morrow e'en, and see what a hand she'll mak' on
her,' said Kester.

'To-morrow night I shall be far on my road back to Shields.'

'To-morrow!' said Sylvia, suddenly looking up at him, and then
dropping her eyes, as she found he had been watching for the effect
of his intelligence on her.

'I mun be back at t' whaler, where I'm engaged,' continued he.
'She's fitting up after a fresh fashion, and as I've been one as
wanted new ways, I mun be on the spot for t' look after her. Maybe I
shall take a run down here afore sailing in March. I'm sure I shall
try.'

There was a good deal meant and understood by these last few words.
The tone in which they were spoken gave them a tender intensity not
lost upon either of the hearers. Kester cocked his eye once more,
but with as little obtrusiveness as he could, and pondered the
sailor's looks and ways. He remembered his coming about the place
the winter before, and how the old master had then appeared to have
taken to him; but at that time Sylvia had seemed to Kester too
little removed from a child to have either art or part in Kinraid's
visits; now, however, the case was different. Kester in his
sphere--among his circle of acquaintance, narrow though it was--had
heard with much pride of Sylvia's bearing away the bell at church
and at market, wherever girls of her age were congregated. He was a
north countryman, so he gave out no further sign of his feelings
than his mistress and Sylvia's mother had done on a like occasion.

'T' lass is weel enough,' said he; but he grinned to himself, and
looked about, and listened to the hearsay of every lad, wondering
who was handsome, and brave, and good enough to be Sylvia's mate.
Now, of late, it had seemed to the canny farm-servant pretty clear
that Philip Hepburn was 'after her'; and to Philip, Kester had an
instinctive objection, a kind of natural antipathy such as has
existed in all ages between the dwellers in a town and those in the
country, between agriculture and trade. So, while Kinraid and Sylvia
kept up their half-tender, half-jesting conversation, Kester was
making up his slow persistent mind as to the desirability of the
young man then present as a husband for his darling, as much from
his being other than Philip in every respect, as from the individual
good qualities he possessed. Kester's first opportunity of favouring
Kinraid's suit consisted in being as long as possible over his
milking; so never were cows that required such 'stripping,' or were
expected to yield such 'afterings', as Black Nell and Daisy that
night. But all things must come to an end; and at length Kester got
up from his three-legged stool, on seeing what the others did
not--that the dip-candle in the lantern was coming to an end--and
that in two or three minutes more the shippen would be in darkness,
and so his pails of milk be endangered. In an instant Sylvia had
started out of her delicious dreamland, her drooping eyes were
raised, and recovered their power of observation; her ruddy arms
were freed from the apron in which she had enfolded them, as a
protection from the gathering cold, and she had seized and adjusted
the wooden yoke across her shoulders, ready to bear the brimming
milk-pails to the dairy.

'Look yo' at her!' exclaimed Kester to Charley, as he adjusted the
fragrant pails on the yoke. 'She thinks she's missus a ready, and
she's allays for carrying in t' milk since t' rhumatiz cotched my
shouther i' t' back end; and when she says "Yea," it's as much as my
heed's worth to say "Nay."'

And along the wall, round the corner, down the round slippery stones
of the rambling farmyard, behind the buildings, did Sylvia trip,
safe and well-poised, though the ground wore all one coating of
white snow, and in many places was so slippery as to oblige Kinraid
to linger near Kester, the lantern-bearer. Kester did not lose his
opportunity, though the cold misty night air provoked his asthmatic
cough when-ever he breathed, and often interrupted his words.

'She's a good wench--a good wench as iver was--an come on a good
stock, an' that's summat, whether in a cow or a woman. A've known
her from a baby; she's a reet down good un.'

By this time they had reached the back-kitchen door, just as Sylvia
had unladen herself, and was striking a light with flint and tinder.
The house seemed warm and inviting after the piercing outer air,
although the kitchen into which they entered contained only a raked
and slumbering fire at one end, over which, on a crook, hung the
immense pan of potatoes cooking for the evening meal of the pigs. To
this pan Kester immediately addressed himself, swinging it round
with ease, owing to the admirable simplicity of the old-fashioned
machinery. Kinraid stood between Kester and the door into the dairy,
through which Sylvia had vanished with the milk. He half wished to
conciliate Kester by helping him, but he seemed also attracted, by a
force which annihilated his will, to follow her wherever she went.
Kester read his mind.

'Let alone, let alone,' said he; 'pigs' vittle takes noan such
dainty carryin' as milk. A may set it down an' niver spill a drop;
she's noan fit for t' serve swine, nor yo' other, mester; better
help her t' teem t' milk.'

So Kinraid followed the light--his light--into the icy chill of the
dairy, where the bright polished tin cans were quickly dimmed with
the warm, sweet-smelling milk, that Sylvia was emptying out into the
brown pans. In his haste to help her, Charley took up one of the
pails.

'Eh? that'n 's to be strained. Yo' have a' the cow's hair in.
Mother's very particular, and cannot abide a hair.'

So she went over to her awkward dairymaid, and before she--but not
before he--was aware of the sweet proximity, she was adjusting his
happy awkward arms to the new office of holding a milk-strainer over
the bowl, and pouring the white liquid through it.

'There!' said she, looking up for a moment, and half blushing; 'now
yo'll know how to do it next time.'

'I wish next time was to come now,' said Kinraid; but she had
returned to her own pail, and seemed not to hear him. He followed
her to her side of the dairy. 'I've but a short memory, can yo' not
show me again how t' hold t' strainer?'

'No,' said she, half laughing, but holding her strainer fast in
spite of his insinuating efforts to unlock her fingers. 'But there's
no need to tell me yo've getten a short memory.'

'Why? what have I done? how dun you know it?'

'Last night,' she began, and then she stopped, and turned away her
head, pretending to be busy in her dairy duties of rinsing and such
like.

'Well!' said he, half conjecturing her meaning, and flattered by it,
if his conjecture were right. 'Last night--what?'

'Oh, yo' know!' said she, as if impatient at being both literally
and metaphorically followed about, and driven into a corner.

'No; tell me,' persisted he.

'Well,' said she, 'if yo' will have it, I think yo' showed yo'd but
a short memory when yo' didn't know me again, and yo' were five
times at this house last winter, and that's not so long sin'. But I
suppose yo' see a vast o' things on yo'r voyages by land or by sea,
and then it's but natural yo' should forget.' She wished she could
go on talking, but could not think of anything more to say just
then; for, in the middle of her sentence, the flattering
interpretation he might put upon her words, on her knowing so
exactly the number of times he had been to Haytersbank, flashed upon
her, and she wanted to lead the conversation a little farther
afield--to make it a little less personal. This was not his wish,
however. In a tone which thrilled through her, even in her own
despite, he said,--

'Do yo' think that can ever happen again, Sylvia?'

She was quite silent; almost trembling. He repeated the question as
if to force her to answer. Driven to bay, she equivocated.

'What happen again? Let me go, I dunno what yo're talking about, and
I'm a'most numbed wi' cold.'

For the frosty air came sharp in through the open lattice window,
and the ice was already forming on the milk. Kinraid would have
found a ready way of keeping his cousins, or indeed most young
women, warm; but he paused before he dared put his arm round Sylvia;
she had something so shy and wild in her look and manner; and her
very innocence of what her words, spoken by another girl, might lead
to, inspired him with respect, and kept him in check. So he
contented himself with saying,--

'I'll let yo' go into t' warm kitchen if yo'll tell me if yo' think
I can ever forget yo' again.'

She looked up at him defiantly, and set her red lips firm. He
enjoyed her determination not to reply to this question; it showed
she felt its significance. Her pure eyes looked steadily into his;
nor was the expression in his such as to daunt her or make her
afraid. They were like two children defying each other; each
determined to conquer. At last she unclosed her lips, and nodding
her head as if in triumph, said, as she folded her arms once more in
her check apron,--

'Yo'll have to go home sometime.'

'Not for a couple of hours yet,' said he; 'and yo'll be frozen
first; so yo'd better say if I can ever forget yo' again, without
more ado.'

Perhaps the fresh voices breaking on the silence,--perhaps the tones
were less modulated than they had been before, but anyhow Bell
Robson's voice was heard calling Sylvia through the second door,
which opened from the dairy to the house-place, in which her mother
had been till this moment asleep. Sylvia darted off in obedience to
the call; glad to leave him, as at the moment Kinraid resentfully
imagined. Through the open door he heard the conversation between
mother and daughter, almost unconscious of its meaning, so difficult
did he find it to wrench his thoughts from the ideas he had just
been forming with Sylvia's bright lovely face right under his eyes.

'Sylvia!' said her mother, 'who's yonder?' Bell was sitting up in
the attitude of one startled out of slumber into intensity of
listening; her hands on each of the chair-arms, as if just going to
rise. 'There's a fremd man i' t' house. I heerd his voice!'

'It's only--it's just Charley Kinraid; he was a-talking to me i' t'
dairy.'

'I' t' dairy, lass! and how com'd he i' t' dairy?'

'He com'd to see feyther. Feyther asked him last night,' said
Sylvia, conscious that he could overhear every word that was said,
and a little suspecting that he was no great favourite with her
mother.

'Thy feyther's out; how com'd he i' t' dairy?' persevered Bell.

'He com'd past this window, and saw yo' asleep, and didn't like for
t' waken yo'; so he com'd on to t' shippen, and when I carried t'
milk in---'

But now Kinraid came in, feeling the awkwardness of his situation a
little, yet with an expression so pleasant and manly in his open
face, and in his exculpatory manner, that Sylvia lost his first
words in a strange kind of pride of possession in him, about which
she did not reason nor care to define the grounds. But her mother
rose from her chair somewhat formally, as if she did not intend to
sit down again while he stayed, yet was too weak to be kept in that
standing attitude long.

'I'm afeared, sir, Sylvie hasn't told yo' that my master's out, and
not like to be in till late. He'll be main and sorry to have missed
yo'.'

There was nothing for it after this but to go. His only comfort was
that on Sylvia's rosy face he could read unmistakable signs of
regret and dismay. His sailor's life, in bringing him suddenly face
to face with unexpected events, had given him something of that
self-possession which we consider the attribute of a gentleman; and
with an apparent calmness which almost disappointed Sylvia, who
construed it into a symptom of indifference as to whether he went or
stayed, he bade her mother good-night, and only said, in holding her
hand a minute longer than was absolutely necessary,--

'I'm coming back ere I sail; and then, may-be, you'll answer yon
question.'

He spoke low, and her mother was rearranging herself in her chair,
else Sylvia would have had to repeat the previous words. As it was,
with soft thrilling ideas ringing through her, she could get her
wheel, and sit down to her spinning by the fire; waiting for her
mother to speak first, Sylvia dreamt her dreams.

Bell Robson was partly aware of the state of things, as far as it
lay on the surface. She was not aware how deep down certain feelings
had penetrated into the girl's heart who sat on the other side of
the fire, with a little sad air diffused over her face and figure.
Bell looked upon Sylvia as still a child, to be warned off forbidden
things by threats of danger. But the forbidden thing was already
tasted, and possible danger in its full acquisition only served to
make it more precious-sweet.

Bell sat upright in her chair, gazing into the fire. Her milk-white
linen mob-cap fringed round and softened her face, from which the
usual apple-red was banished by illness, and the features, from the
same cause, rendered more prominent and stern. She had a clean buff
kerchief round her neck, and stuffed into the bosom of her Sunday
woollen gown of dark blue,--if she had been in working-trim she
would have worn a bedgown like Sylvia's. Her sleeves were pinned
back at the elbows, and her brown arms and hard-working hands lay
crossed in unwonted idleness on her check apron. Her knitting was by
her side; and if she had been going through any accustomed
calculation or consideration she would have had it busily clinking
in her fingers. But she had something quite beyond common to think
about, and, perhaps, to speak about; and for the minute she was not
equal to knitting.

'Sylvie,' she began at length, 'did I e'er tell thee on Nancy
Hartley as I knew when I were a child? I'm thinking a deal on her
to-night; may-be it's because I've been dreaming on yon old times.
She was a bonny lass as ever were seen, I've heerd folk say; but
that were afore I knew her. When I knew her she were crazy, poor
wench; wi' her black hair a-streaming down her back, and her eyes,
as were a'most as black, allays crying out for pity, though never a
word she spoke but "He once was here." Just that o'er and o'er
again, whether she were cold or hot, full or hungry, "He once was
here," were all her speech. She had been farm-servant to my mother's
brother--James Hepburn, thy great-uncle as was; she were a poor,
friendless wench, a parish 'prentice, but honest and gaum-like, till
a lad, as nobody knowed, come o'er the hills one sheep-shearing fra'
Whitehaven; he had summat to do wi' th' sea, though not rightly to
be called a sailor: and he made a deal on Nancy Hartley, just to
beguile the time like; and he went away and ne'er sent a thought
after her more. It's the way as lads have; and there's no holding
'em when they're fellows as nobody knows--neither where they come
fro', nor what they've been doing a' their lives, till they come
athwart some poor wench like Nancy Hartley. She were but a softy
after all: for she left off doing her work in a proper manner. I've
heerd my aunt say as she found out as summat was wrong wi' Nancy as
soon as th' milk turned bingy, for there ne'er had been such a clean
lass about her milk-cans afore that; and from bad it grew to worse,
and she would sit and do nothing but play wi' her fingers fro' morn
till night, and if they asked her what ailed her, she just said, "He
once was here;" and if they bid her go about her work, it were a'
the same. And when they scolded her, and pretty sharp too, she would
stand up and put her hair from her eyes, and look about her like a
crazy thing searching for her wits, and ne'er finding them, for all
she could think on was just, "He once was here." It were a caution
to me again thinking a man t' mean what he says when he's a-talking
to a young woman.'

'But what became on poor Nancy?' asked Sylvia.

'What should become on her or on any lass as gives hersel' up to
thinking on a man who cares nought for her?' replied her mother, a
little severely. 'She were crazed, and my aunt couldn't keep her
on, could she? She did keep her a long weary time, thinking as she
would, may-be, come to hersel', and, anyhow, she were a motherless
wench. But at length she had for t' go where she came fro'--back to
Keswick workhouse: and when last I heerd on her she were chained to
th' great kitchen dresser i' t' workhouse; they'd beaten her till
she were taught to be silent and quiet i' th' daytime, but at night,
when she were left alone, she would take up th' oud cry, till it
wrung their heart, so they'd many a time to come down and beat her
again to get any peace. It were a caution to me, as I said afore, to
keep fro' thinking on men as thought nought on me.'

'Poor crazy Nancy!' sighed Sylvia. The mother wondered if she had
taken the 'caution' to herself, or was only full of pity for the mad
girl, dead long before.




CHAPTER XVI

THE ENGAGEMENT


'As the day lengthens so the cold strengthens.' It was so that year;
the hard frost which began on new year's eve lasted on and on into
late February, black and bitter, but welcome enough to the farmers,
as it kept back the too early growth of autumn-sown wheat, and gave
them the opportunity of leading manure. But it did not suit invalids
as well, and Bell Robson, though not getting worse, did not make any
progress towards amendment. Sylvia was kept very busy,
notwithstanding that she had the assistance of a poor widow-woman in
the neighbourhood on cleaning, or washing, or churning days. Her
life was quiet and monotonous, although hard-working; and while her
hands mechanically found and did their accustomed labour, the
thoughts that rose in her head always centred on Charley Kinraid,
his ways, his words, his looks, whether they all meant what she
would fain believe they did, and whether, meaning love at the time,
such a feeling was likely to endure. Her mother's story of crazy
Nancy had taken hold of her; but not as a 'caution,' rather as a
parallel case to her own. Like Nancy, and borrowing the poor girl's
own words, she would say softly to herself, 'He once was here'; but
all along she believed in her heart he would come back again to her,
though it touched her strangely to imagine the agonies of forsaken
love.

Philip knew little of all this. He was very busy with facts and
figures, doggedly fighting through the necessary business, and only
now and then allowing himself the delicious relaxation of going to
Haytersbank in an evening, to inquire after his aunt's health, and
to see Sylvia; for the two Fosters were punctiliously anxious to
make their shopmen test all their statements; insisting on an
examination of the stock, as if Hepburn and Coulson were strangers
to the shop; having the Monkshaven auctioneer in to appraise the
fixtures and necessary furniture; going over the shop books for the
last twenty years with their successors, an employment which took up
evening after evening; and not unfrequently taking one of the young
men on the long commercial journeys which were tediously made in a
gig. By degrees both Hepburn and Coulson were introduced to distant
manufacturers and wholesale dealers. They would have been willing to
take the Fosters' word for every statement the brothers had made on
new year's day; but this, it was evident, would not have satisfied
their masters, who were scrupulous in insisting that whatever
advantage there was should always fall on the side of the younger
men.

When Philip saw Sylvia she was always quiet and gentle; perhaps more
silent than she had been a year ago, and she did not attend so
briskly to what was passing around her. She was rather thinner and
paler; but whatever change there was in her was always an
improvement in Philip's eyes, so long as she spoke graciously to
him. He thought she was suffering from long-continued anxiety about
her mother, or that she had too much to do; and either cause was
enough to make him treat her with a grave regard and deference which
had a repressed tenderness in it, of which she, otherwise occupied,
was quite unaware. She liked him better, too, than she had done a
year or two before, because he did not show her any of the eager
attention which teased her then, although its meaning was not fully
understood.

Things were much in this state when the frost broke, and milder
weather succeeded. This was the time so long looked forward to by
the invalid and her friends, as favouring the doctor's
recommendation of change of air. Her husband was to take her to
spend a fortnight with a kindly neighbour, who lived near the farm
they had occupied, forty miles or so inland, before they came to
Haytersbank. The widow-woman was to come and stay in the house, to
keep Sylvia company, during her mother's absence. Daniel, indeed,
was to return home after conveying his wife to her destination; but
there was so much to be done on the land at this time of the year,
that Sylvia would have been alone all day had it not been for the
arrangement just mentioned.

There was active stirring in Monkshaven harbour as well as on shore.
The whalers were finishing their fittings-out for the Greenland
seas. It was a 'close' season, that is to say, there would be
difficulty in passing the barrier of ice which lay between the ships
and the whaling-grounds; and yet these must be reached before June,
or the year's expedition would be of little avail. Every
blacksmith's shop rung with the rhythmical clang of busy hammers,
beating out old iron, such as horseshoes, nails or stubs, into the
great harpoons; the quays were thronged with busy and important
sailors, rushing hither and thither, conscious of the demand in
which they were held at this season of the year. It was war time,
too. Many captains unable to procure men in Monkshaven would have to
complete their crews in the Shetlands. The shops in the town were
equally busy; stores had to be purchased by the whaling-masters,
warm clothing of all sorts to be provided. These were the larger
wholesale orders; but many a man, and woman, too, brought out their
small hoards to purchase extra comforts, or precious keepsakes for
some beloved one. It was the time of the great half-yearly traffic
of the place; another impetus was given to business when the whalers
returned in the autumn, and the men were flush of money, and full of
delight at once more seeing their homes and their friends.

There was much to be done in Fosters' shop, and later hours were
kept than usual. Some perplexity or other was occupying John and
Jeremiah Foster; their minds were not so much on the alert as usual,
being engaged on some weighty matter of which they had as yet spoken
to no one. But it thus happened that they did not give the prompt
assistance they were accustomed to render at such times; and Coulson
had been away on some of the new expeditions devolving on him and
Philip as future partners. One evening after the shop was closed,
while they were examining the goods, and comparing the sales with
the entries in the day-book, Coulson suddenly inquired--

'By the way, Hester, does thee know where the parcel of best
bandanas is gone? There was four left, as I'm pretty sure, when I
set off to Sandsend; and to-day Mark Alderson came in, and would
fain have had one, and I could find none nowhere.'

'I sold t' last to-day, to yon sailor, the specksioneer, who fought
the press-gang same time as poor Darley were killed. He took it, and
three yards of yon pink ribbon wi' t' black and yellow crosses on
it, as Philip could never abide. Philip has got 'em i' t' book, if
he'll only look.'

'Is he here again?' said Philip; 'I didn't see him. What brings him
here, where he's noan wanted?'

'T' shop were throng wi' folk,' said Hester, 'and he knew his own
mind about the handkercher, and didn't tarry long. Just as he was
leaving, his eye caught on t' ribbon, and he came back for it. It
were when yo' were serving Mary Darby and there was a vast o' folk
about yo'.'

'I wish I'd seen him,' said Coulson. 'I'd ha' gi'en him a word and a
look he'd not ha' forgotten in a hurry.'

'Why, what's up?' said Philip, surprised at William's unusual
manner, and, at the same time, rather gratified to find a reflection
of his own feelings about Kinraid. Coulson's face was pale with
anger, but for a moment or two he seemed uncertain whether he would
reply or not.

'Up!' said he at length. 'It's just this: he came after my sister
for better nor two year; and a better lass--no, nor a prettier i' my
eyes--niver broke bread. And then my master saw another girl, that
he liked better'--William almost choked in his endeavour to keep
down all appearance of violent anger, and then went on, 'and that
he played t' same game wi', as I've heerd tell.'

'And how did thy sister take it?' asked Philip, eagerly.

'She died in a six-month,' said William; '_she_ forgived him, but
it's beyond me. I thought it were him when I heerd of t' work about
Darley; Kinraid--and coming fra' Newcassel, where Annie lived
'prentice--and I made inquiry, and it were t' same man. But I'll
say no more about him, for it stirs t' old Adam more nor I like, or
is fitting.'

Out of respect to him, Philip asked no more questions although there
were many things that he fain would have known. Both Coulson and he
went silently and grimly through the remainder of their day's work.
Independent of any personal interest which either or both of them
had or might have in Kinraid's being a light o' love, this fault of
his was one with which the two grave, sedate young men had no
sympathy. Their hearts were true and constant, whatever else might
be their failings; and it is no new thing to 'damn the faults we
have no mind to.' Philip wished that it was not so late, or that
very evening he would have gone to keep guard over Sylvia in her
mother's absence--nay, perhaps he might have seen reason to give her
a warning of some kind. But, if he had done so, it would have been
locking the stable-door after the steed was stolen. Kinraid had
turned his steps towards Haytersbank Farm as soon as ever he had
completed his purchases. He had only come that afternoon to
Monkshaven, and for the sole purpose of seeing Sylvia once more
before he went to fulfil his engagement as specksioneer in the
_Urania_, a whaling-vessel that was to sail from North Shields on
Thursday morning, and this was Monday.

Sylvia sat in the house-place, her back to the long low window, in
order to have all the light the afternoon hour afforded for her
work. A basket of her father's unmended stockings was on the little
round table beside her, and one was on her left hand, which she
supposed herself to be mending; but from time to time she made long
pauses, and looked in the fire; and yet there was but little motion
of flame or light in it out of which to conjure visions. It was
'redd up' for the afternoon; covered with a black mass of coal, over
which the equally black kettle hung on the crook. In the
back-kitchen Dolly Reid, Sylvia's assistant during her mother's
absence, chanted a lugubrious ditty, befitting her condition as a
widow, while she cleaned tins, and cans, and milking-pails. Perhaps
these bustling sounds prevented Sylvia from hearing approaching
footsteps coming down the brow with swift advance; at any rate, she
started and suddenly stood up as some one entered the open door. It
was strange she should be so much startled, for the person who
entered had been in her thoughts all during those long pauses.
Charley Kinraid and the story of crazy Nancy had been the subjects
for her dreams for many a day, and many a night. Now he stood there,
bright and handsome as ever, with just that much timidity in his
face, that anxiety as to his welcome, which gave his accost an added
charm, could she but have perceived it. But she was so afraid of
herself, so unwilling to show what she felt, and how much she had
been thinking of him in his absence, that her reception seemed cold
and still. She did not come forward to meet him; she went crimson to
the very roots of her hair; but that, in the waning light, he could
not see; and she shook so that she felt as if she could hardly
stand; but the tremor was not visible to him. She wondered if he
remembered the kiss that had passed between them on new year's
eve--the words that had been spoken in the dairy on new year's day;
the tones, the looks, that had accompanied those words. But all she
said was--

'I didn't think to see yo'. I thought yo'd ha' sailed.'

'I told yo' I should come back, didn't I?' said he, still standing,
with his hat in his hand, waiting to be asked to sit down; and she,
in her bashfulness, forgetting to give the invitation, but, instead,
pretending to be attentively mending the stocking she held. Neither
could keep quiet and silent long. She felt his eyes were upon her,
watching every motion, and grew more and more confused in her
expression and behaviour. He was a little taken aback by the nature
of his reception, and was not sure at first whether to take the
great change in her manner, from what it had been when last he saw
her, as a favourable symptom or otherwise. By-and-by, luckily for
him, in some turn of her arm to reach the scissors on the table, she
caught the edge of her work-basket, and down it fell. She stooped to
pick up the scattered stockings and ball of worsted, and so did he;
and when they rose up, he had fast hold of her hand, and her face
was turned away, half ready to cry.

'What ails yo' at me?' said he, beseechingly. 'Yo' might ha'
forgotten me; and yet I thought we made a bargain against forgetting
each other.' No answer. He went on: 'Yo've never been out o' my
thoughts, Sylvia Robson; and I'm come back to Monkshaven for nought
but to see you once and again afore I go away to the northern seas.
It's not two hour sin' I landed at Monkshaven, and I've been near
neither kith nor kin as yet; and now I'm here you won't speak to
me.'

'I don't know what to say,' said she, in a low, almost inaudible
tone. Then hardening herself, and resolving to speak as if she did
not understand his only half-expressed meaning, she lifted up her
head, and all but looking at him--while she wrenched her hand out of
his--she said: 'Mother's gone to Middleham for a visit, and
feyther's out i' t' plough-field wi' Kester; but he'll be in afore
long.'

Charley did not speak for a minute or so. Then he said--

'Yo're not so dull as to think I'm come all this way for t' see
either your father or your mother. I've a great respect for 'em
both; but I'd hardly ha' come all this way for to see 'em, and me
bound to be back i' Shields, if I walk every step of the way, by
Wednesday night. It's that yo' won't understand my meaning, Sylvia;
it's not that yo' don't, or that yo' can't.' He made no effort to
repossess himself of her hand. She was quite silent, but in spite of
herself she drew long hard breaths. 'I may go back to where I came
from,' he went on. 'I thought to go to sea wi' a blessed hope to
cheer me up, and a knowledge o' some one as loved me as I'd left
behind; some one as loved me half as much as I did her; for th'
measure o' my love toward her is so great and mighty, I'd be content
wi' half as much from her, till I'd taught her to love me more. But
if she's a cold heart and cannot care for a honest sailor, why,
then, I'd best go back at once.'

He made for the door. He must have been pretty sure from some sign
or other, or he would never have left it to her womanly pride to
give way, and for her to make the next advance. He had not taken two
steps when she turned quickly towards him, and said something--the
echo of which, rather than the words themselves, reached him.

'I didn't know yo' cared for me; yo' niver said so.' In an instant
he was back at her side, his arm round her in spite of her short
struggle, and his eager passionate voice saying, 'Yo' never knowed I
loved you, Sylvia? say it again, and look i' my face while yo' say
it, if yo' can. Why, last winter I thought yo'd be such a woman when
yo'd come to be one as my een had never looked upon, and this year,
ever sin' I saw yo' i' the kitchen corner sitting crouching behind
my uncle, I as good as swore I'd have yo' for wife, or never wed at
all. And it was not long ere yo' knowed it, for all yo' were so coy,
and now yo' have the face--no, yo' have not the face--come, my
darling, what is it?' for she was crying; and on his turning her wet
blushing face towards him the better to look at it, she suddenly hid
it in his breast. He lulled and soothed her in his arms, as if she
had been a weeping child and he her mother; and then they sat down
on the settle together, and when she was more composed they began to
talk. He asked her about her mother; not sorry in his heart at Bell
Robson's absence. He had intended if necessary to acknowledge his
wishes and desires with regard to Sylvia to her parents; but for
various reasons he was not sorry that circumstances had given him
the chance of seeing her alone, and obtaining her promise to marry
him without being obliged to tell either her father or her mother at
present. 'I ha' spent my money pretty free,' he said, 'and I've
ne'er a penny to the fore, and yo'r parents may look for something
better for yo', my pretty: but when I come back fro' this voyage I
shall stand a chance of having a share i' th' _Urania_, and may-be I
shall be mate as well as specksioneer; and I can get a matter of
from seventy to ninety pound a voyage, let alone th' half-guineas
for every whale I strike, and six shilling a gallon on th' oil; and
if I keep steady wi' Forbes and Company, they'll make me master i'
time, for I've had good schooling, and can work a ship as well as
any man; an' I leave yo' wi' yo'r parents, or take a cottage for yo'
nigh at hand; but I would like to have something to the fore, and
that I shall have, please God, when we come back i' th' autumn. I
shall go to sea happy, now, thinking I've yo'r word. Yo're not one
to go back from it, I'm sure, else it's a long time to leave such a
pretty girl as yo', and ne'er a chance of a letter reaching yo' just
to tell yo' once again how I love yo', and to bid yo' not forget
yo'r true love.'

'There'll be no need o' that,' murmured Sylvia.

She was too dizzy with happiness to have attended much to his
details of his worldly prospects, but at the sound of his tender
words of love her eager heart was ready to listen.

'I don't know,' said he, wanting to draw her out into more
confession of her feelings. 'There's many a one ready to come after
yo'; and yo'r mother is not o'er captivated wi' me; and there's yon
tall fellow of a cousin as looks black at me, for if I'm not
mista'en he's a notion of being sweet on yo' hisself.'

'Not he,' said Sylvia, with some contempt in her tone. 'He's so full
o' business and t' shop, and o' makin' money, and gettin' wealth.'

'Ay, ay; but perhaps when he gets a rich man he'll come and ask my
Sylvia to be his wife, and what will she say then?'

'He'll niver come asking such a foolish question,' said she, a
little impatiently; 'he knows what answer he'd get if he did.'

Kinraid said, almost as if to himself, 'Yo'r mother favours him
though.' But she, weary of a subject she cared nothing about, and
eager to identify herself with all his interests, asked him about
his plans almost at the same time that he said these last words; and
they went on as lovers do, intermixing a great many tender
expressions with a very little conversation relating to facts.

Dolly Reid came in, and went out softly, unheeded by them. But
Sylvia's listening ears caught her father's voice, as he and Kester
returned homewards from their day's work in the plough-field; and
she started away, and fled upstairs in shy affright, leaving Charley
to explain his presence in the solitary kitchen to her father.

He came in, not seeing that any one was there at first; for they had
never thought of lighting a candle. Kinraid stepped forward into the
firelight; his purpose of concealing what he had said to Sylvia
quite melted away by the cordial welcome her father gave him the
instant that he recognized him.

'Bless thee, lad! who'd ha' thought o' seein' thee? Why, if iver a
thought on thee at all, it were half way to Davis' Straits. To be
sure, t' winter's been a dree season, and thou'rt, may-be, i' t'
reet on 't to mak' a late start. Latest start as iver I made was
ninth o' March, an' we struck thirteen whales that year.'

'I have something to say to you,' said Charley, in a hesitating
voice, so different to his usual hearty way, that Daniel gave him a
keen look of attention before he began to speak. And, perhaps, the
elder man was not unprepared for the communication that followed. At
any rate, it was not unwelcome. He liked Kinraid, and had strong
sympathy not merely with what he knew of the young sailor's
character, but with the life he led, and the business he followed.
Robson listened to all he said with approving nods and winks, till
Charley had told him everything he had to say; and then he turned
and struck his broad horny palm into Kinraid's as if concluding a
bargain, while he expressed in words his hearty consent to their
engagement. He wound up with a chuckle, as the thought struck him
that this great piece of business, of disposing of their only child,
had been concluded while his wife was away.

'A'm noan so sure as t' missus 'll like it,' said he; 'tho'
whativer she'll ha' to say again it, mischief only knows. But she's
noan keen on matterimony; though a have made her as good a man as
there is in a' t' Ridings. Anyhow, a'm master, and that she knows.
But may-be, for t' sake o' peace an' quietness--tho' she's niver a
scolding tongue, that a will say for her--we'n best keep this matter
to ourselves till thou comes int' port again. T' lass upstairs 'll
like nought better than t' curl hersel' round a secret, and purr
o'er it, just as t' oud cat does o'er her blind kitten. But thou'll
be wanting to see t' lass, a'll be bound. An oud man like me isn't
as good company as a pretty lass.' Laughing a low rich laugh over
his own wit, Daniel went to the bottom of the stairs, and called,
'Sylvie, Sylvie! come down, lass! a's reet; come down!'

For a time there was no answer. Then a door was unbolted, and Sylvia
said,

'I can't come down again. I'm noan comin' down again to-night.'

Daniel laughed the more at this, especially when he caught Charley's
look of disappointment.

'Hearken how she's bolted her door. She'll noane come near us this
night. Eh! but she's a stiff little 'un; she's been our only one, and
we'n mostly let her have her own way. But we'll have a pipe and a
glass; and that, to my thinking, is as good company as iver a woman
in Yorkshire.'




CHAPTER XVII

REJECTED WARNINGS


The post arrived at Monkshaven three times in the week; sometimes,
indeed, there were not a dozen letters in the bag, which was brought
thither by a man in a light mail-cart, who took the better part of a
day to drive from York; dropping private bags here and there on the
moors, at some squire's lodge or roadside inn. Of the number of
letters that arrived in Monkshaven, the Fosters, shopkeepers and
bankers, had the largest share.

The morning succeeding the day on which Sylvia had engaged herself
to Kinraid, the Fosters seemed unusually anxious to obtain their
letters. Several times Jeremiah came out of the parlour in which his
brother John was sitting in expectant silence, and, passing through
the shop, looked up and down the market-place in search of the old
lame woman, who was charitably employed to deliver letters, and who
must have been lamer than ever this morning, to judge from the
lateness of her coming. Although none but the Fosters knew the cause
of their impatience for their letters, yet there was such tacit
sympathy between them and those whom they employed, that Hepburn,
Coulson, and Hester were all much relieved when the old woman at
length appeared with her basket of letters.

One of these seemed of especial consequence to the good brothers.
They each separately looked at the direction, and then at one
another; and without a word they returned with it unread into the
parlour, shutting the door, and drawing the green silk curtain
close, the better to read it in privacy.

Both Coulson and Philip felt that something unusual was going on,
and were, perhaps, as full of consideration as to the possible
contents of this London letter, as of attention to their more
immediate business. But fortunately there was little doing in the
shop. Philip, indeed, was quite idle when John Foster opened the
parlour-door, and, half doubtfully, called him into the room. As the
door of communication shut the three in, Coulson felt himself a
little aggrieved. A minute ago Philip and he were on a level of
ignorance, from which the former was evidently going to be raised.
But he soon returned to his usual state of acquiescence in things as
they were, which was partly constitutional, and partly the result of
his Quaker training.

It was apparently by John Foster's wish that Philip had been
summoned. Jeremiah, the less energetic and decided brother, was
still discussing the propriety of the step when Philip entered.

'No need for haste, John; better not call the young man till we have
further considered the matter.'

But the young man was there in presence; and John's will carried the
day.

It seemed from his account to Philip (explanatory of what he, in
advance of his brother's slower judgment, thought to be a necessary
step), that the Fosters had for some time received anonymous
letters, warning them, with distinct meaning, though in ambiguous
terms, against a certain silk-manufacturer in Spitalfields, with
whom they had had straightforward business dealings for many years;
but to whom they had latterly advanced money. The letters hinted at
the utter insolvency of this manufacturer. They had urged their
correspondent to give them his name in confidence, and this
morning's letter had brought it; but the name was totally unknown to
them, though there seemed no reason to doubt the reality of either
it or the address, the latter of which was given in full. Certain
circumstances were mentioned regarding the transactions between the
Fosters and this manufacturer, which could be known only to those
who were in the confidence of one or the other; and to the Fosters
the man was, as has been said, a perfect stranger. Probably, they
would have been unwilling to incur the risk they had done on this
manufacturer Dickinson's account, if it had not been that he
belonged to the same denomination as themselves, and was publicly
distinguished for his excellent and philanthropic character; but
these letters were provocative of anxiety, especially since this
morning's post had brought out the writer's full name, and various
particulars showing his intimate knowledge of Dickinson's affairs.

After much perplexed consultation, John had hit upon the plan of
sending Hepburn to London to make secret inquiries respecting the
true character and commercial position of the man whose creditors,
not a month ago, they had esteemed it an honour to be.

Even now Jeremiah was ashamed of their want of confidence in one so
good; he believed that the information they had received would all
prove a mistake, founded on erroneous grounds, if not a pure
invention of an enemy; and he had only been brought partially to
consent to the sending of Hepburn, by his brother's pledging himself
that the real nature of Philip's errand should be unknown to any
human creature, save them three.

As all this was being revealed to Philip, he sat apparently unmoved
and simply attentive. In fact, he was giving all his mind to
understanding the probabilities of the case, leaving his own
feelings in the background till his intellect should have done its
work. He said little; but what he did say was to the point, and
satisfied both brothers. John perceived that his messenger would
exercise penetration and act with energy; while Jeremiah was soothed
by Philip's caution in not hastily admitting the probability of any
charge against Dickinson, and in giving full weight to his previous
good conduct and good character.

Philip had the satisfaction of feeling himself employed on a mission
which would call out his powers, and yet not exceed them. In his own
mind he forestalled the instructions of his masters, and was
silently in advance of John Foster's plans and arrangements, while
he appeared to listen to all that was said with quiet business-like
attention.

It was settled that the next morning he was to make his way
northwards to Hartlepool, whence he could easily proceed either by
land or sea to Newcastle, from which place smacks were constantly
sailing to London. As to his personal conduct and behaviour there,
the brothers overwhelmed him with directions and advice; nor did
they fail to draw out of the strong box in the thick wall of their
counting-house a more than sufficient sum of money for all possible
expenses. Philip had never had so much in his hands before, and
hesitated to take it, saying it was more than he should require; but
they repeated, with fresh urgency, their warnings about the terrible
high prices of London, till he could only resolve to keep a strict
account, and bring back all that he did not expend, since nothing
but his taking the whole sum would satisfy his employers.

When he was once more behind the counter, he had leisure enough for
consideration as far as Coulson could give it him. The latter was
silent, brooding over the confidence which Philip had apparently
received, but which was withheld from him. He did not yet know of
the culminating point--of Philip's proposed journey to London; that
great city of London, which, from its very inaccessibility fifty
years ago, loomed so magnificent through the mist of men's
imaginations. It is not to be denied that Philip felt exultant at
the mere fact of 'going to London.' But then again, the thought of
leaving Sylvia; of going out of possible daily reach of her; of not
seeing her for a week--a fortnight; nay, he might be away for a
month,--for no rash hurry was to mar his delicate negotiation,--gnawed
at his heart, and spoilt any enjoyment he might have anticipated
from gratified curiosity, or even from the consciousness of
being trusted by those whose trust and regard he valued. The
sense of what he was leaving grew upon him the longer he thought on
the subject; he almost wished that he had told his masters earlier
in the conversation of his unwillingness to leave Monkshaven for so
long a time; and then again he felt that the gratitude he owed them
quite prohibited his declining any task they might impose,
especially as they had more than once said that it would not do for
them to appear in the affair, and yet that to no one else could they
entrust so difficult and delicate a matter. Several times that day,
as he perceived Coulson's jealous sullenness, he thought in his
heart that the consequence of the excessive confidence for which
Coulson envied him was a burden from which he would be thankful to
be relieved.

As they all sat at tea in Alice Rose's house-place, Philip announced
his intended journey; a piece of intelligence he had not
communicated earlier to Coulson because he had rather dreaded the
increase of dissatisfaction it was sure to produce, and of which he
knew the expression would be restrained by the presence of Alice
Rose and her daughter.

'To Lunnon!' exclaimed Alice.

Hester said nothing.

'Well! some folks has the luck!' said Coulson.

'Luck!' said Alice, turning sharp round on him. 'Niver let me hear
such a vain word out o' thy mouth, laddie, again. It's the Lord's
doing, and luck's the devil's way o' putting it. Maybe it's to try
Philip he's sent there; happen it may be a fiery furnace to him; for
I've heerd tell it's full o' temptations, and he may fall into
sin--and then where'd be the "luck" on it? But why art ta going? and
the morning, say'st thou? Why, thy best shirt is in t' suds, and no
time for t' starch and iron it. Whatten the great haste as should
take thee to Lunnon wi'out thy ruffled shirt?'

'It's none o' my doing,' said Philip; 'there's business to be done,
and John Foster says I'm to do it; and I'm to start to-morrow.'

'I'll not turn thee out wi'out thy ruffled shirt, if I sit up a'
neet,' said Alice, resolutely.

'Niver fret thyself, mother, about t' shirt,' said Philip. 'If I
need a shirt, London's not what I take it for if I can't buy mysel'
one ready-made.'

'Hearken to him!' said Alice. 'He speaks as if buying o' ready-made
shirts were nought to him, and he wi' a good half-dozen as I made
mysel'. Eh, lad? but if that's the frame o' mind thou'rt in, Lunnon
is like for to be a sore place o' temptation. There's pitfalls for
men, and traps for money at ivery turn, as I've heerd say. It would
ha' been better if John Foster had sent an older man on his
business, whativer it be.'

'They seem to make a deal o' Philip all on a sudden,' said Coulson.
'He's sent for, and talked to i' privacy, while Hester and me is
left i' t' shop for t' bear t' brunt o' t' serving.'

'Philip knows,' said Hester, and then, somehow, her voice failed her
and she stopped.

Philip paid no attention to this half-uttered sentence; he was eager
to tell Coulson, as far as he could do so without betraying his
master's secret, how many drawbacks there were to his proposed
journey, in the responsibility which it involved, and his
unwillingness to leave Monkshaven: he said--

'Coulson, I'd give a deal it were thou that were going, and not me.
At least, there is many a time I'd give a deal. I'll not deny but at
other times I'm pleased at the thought on't. But, if I could I'd
change places wi' thee at this moment.'

'It's fine talking,' said Coulson, half mollified, and yet not
caring to show it. 'I make no doubt it were an even chance betwixt
us two at first, which on us was to go; but somehow thou got the
start and thou'st stuck to it till it's too late for aught but to
say thou's sorry.'

'Nay, William,' said Philip, rising, 'it's an ill look-out for the
future, if thee and me is to quarrel, like two silly wenches, o'er
each bit of pleasure, or what thou fancies to be pleasure, as falls
in t' way of either on us. I've said truth to thee, and played thee
fair, and I've got to go to Haytersbank for to wish 'em good-by, so
I'll not stay longer here to be misdoubted by thee.'

He took his cap and was gone, not heeding Alice's shrill inquiry as
to his clothes and his ruffled shirt. Coulson sat still, penitent
and ashamed; at length he stole a look at Hester. She was playing
with her teaspoon, but he could see that she was choking down her
tears; he could not choose but force her to speak with an ill-timed
question.

'What's to do, Hester?' said he.

She lifted up those eyes, usually so soft and serene; now they were
full of the light of indignation shining through tears.

'To do!' she said; 'Coulson, I'd thought better of thee, going and
doubting and envying Philip, as niver did thee an ill turn, or said
an ill word, or thought an ill thought by thee; and sending him away
out o' t' house this last night of all, may-be, wi' thy envyings and
jealousy.'

She hastily got up and left the room. Alice was away, looking up
Philip's things for his journey. Coulson remained alone, feeling
like a guilty child, but dismayed by Hester's words, even more than
by his own regret at what he had said.

Philip walked rapidly up the hill-road towards Haytersbank. He was
chafed and excited by Coulson's words, and the events of the day. He
had meant to shape his life, and now it was, as it were, being
shaped for him, and yet he was reproached for the course it was
taking, as much as though he were an active agent; accused of taking
advantage over Coulson, his intimate companion for years; he who
esteemed himself above taking an unfair advantage over any man! His
feeling on the subject was akin to that of Hazael, 'Is thy servant a
dog that he should do this thing?'

His feelings, disturbed on this one point, shook his judgment off
its balance on another. The resolution he had deliberately formed of
not speaking to Sylvia on the subject of his love till he could
announce to her parents the fact of his succession to Fosters'
business, and till he had patiently, with long-continuing and deep
affection, worked his way into her regard, was set aside during the
present walk. He would speak to her of his passionate attachment,
before he left, for an uncertain length of time, and the certain
distance of London. And all the modification on this point which his
judgment could obtain from his impetuous and excited heart was, that
he would watch her words and manner well when he announced his
approaching absence, and if in them he read the slightest token of
tender regretful feeling, he would pour out his love at her feet,
not even urging the young girl to make any return, or to express the
feelings of which he hoped the germ was already budding in her. He
would be patient with her; he could not be patient himself. His
heart beating, his busy mind rehearsing the probable coming scene,
he turned into the field-path that led to Haytersbank. Coming along
it, and so meeting him, advanced Daniel Robson, in earnest talk with
Charley Kinraid. Kinraid, then, had been at the farm: Kinraid had
been seeing Sylvia, her mother away. The thought of poor dead Annie
Coulson flashed into Philip's mind. Could he be playing the same
game with Sylvia? Philip set his teeth and tightened his lips at the
thought of it. They had stopped talking; they had seen him already,
or his impulse would have been to dodge behind the wall and avoid
them; even though one of his purposes in going to Haytersbank had
been to bid his uncle farewell.

Kinraid took him by surprise from the hearty greeting he gave him,
and which Philip would fain have avoided. But the specksioneer was
full of kindliness towards all the world, especially towards all
Sylvia's friends, and, convinced of her great love towards himself,
had forgotten any previous jealousy of Philip. Secure and exultant,
his broad, handsome, weather-bronzed face was as great a contrast to
Philip's long, thoughtful, sallow countenance, as his frank manner
was to the other's cold reserve. It was some minutes before Hepburn
could bring himself to tell the great event that was about to befall
him before this third person whom he considered as an intrusive
stranger. But as Kinraid seemed to have no idea of going on, and as
there really was no reason why he and all the world should not know
of Philip's intentions, he told his uncle that he was bound for
London the next day on business connected with the Fosters.

Daniel was deeply struck with the fact that he was talking to a man
setting off for London at a day's notice.

'Thou'll niver tell me this hasn't been brewin' longer nor twelve
hours; thou's a sly close chap, and we hannot seen thee this
se'nnight; thou'll ha' been thinkin' on this, and cogitating it,
may-be, a' that time.'

'Nay,' said Philip, 'I knew nought about it last night; it's none o'
my doing, going, for I'd liefer ha' stayed where I am.'

'Yo'll like it when once yo're there,' said Kinraid, with a
travelled air of superiority, as Philip fancied.

'No, I shan't,' he replied, shortly. 'Liking has nought to do with
it.'

'Ah' yo' knew nought about it last neet,' continued Daniel,
musingly. 'Well, life's soon o'er; else when I were a young fellow,
folks made their wills afore goin' to Lunnon.'

'Yet I'll be bound to say yo' niver made a will before going to
sea,' said Philip, half smiling.

'Na, na; but that's quite another mak' o' thing; going' to sea comes
natteral to a man, but goin' to Lunnon,--I were once there, and were
near deafened wi' t' throng and t' sound. I were but two hours i' t'
place, though our ship lay a fortneet off Gravesend.'

Kinraid now seemed in a hurry; but Philip was stung with curiosity
to ascertain his movements, and suddenly addressed him:

'I heard yo' were i' these parts. Are you for staying here long?'

There was a certain abruptness in Philip's tone, if not in his
words, which made Kinraid look in his face with surprise, and answer
with equal curtness.

'I'm off i' th' morning; and sail for the north seas day after.'

He turned away, and began to whistle, as if he did not wish for any
further conversation with his interrogator. Philip, indeed, had
nothing more to say to him: he had learned all he wanted to know.

'I'd like to bid good-by to Sylvie. Is she at home?' he asked of her
father.

'A'm thinking thou'll not find her. She'll be off to Yesterbarrow t'
see if she'd get a settin' o' their eggs; her grey speckled hen is
cluckin', and nought 'll serve our Sylvia but their eggs to set her
upon. But, for a' that, she mayn't be gone yet. Best go on and see
for thysel'.'

So they parted; but Philip had not gone many steps before his uncle
called him back, Kinraid slowly loitering on meanwhile. Robson was
fumbling among some dirty papers he had in an old leather case,
which he had produced out of his pocket.

'Fact is, Philip, t' pleugh's in a bad way, gearin' and a', an' folk
is talkin' on a new kind o' mak'; and if thou's bound for York---'

'I'm not going by York; I'm going by a Newcastle smack.'

'Newcassel--Newcassel--it's pretty much t' same. Here, lad, thou can
read print easy; it's a bit as was cut out on a papper; there's
Newcassel, and York, and Durham, and a vast more towns named, wheere
folk can learn a' about t' new mak' o' pleugh.'

'I see,' said Philip: '"Robinson, Side, Newcastle, can give all
requisite information."'

'Ay, ay,' said Robson; 'thou's hit t' marrow on t' matter. Now, if
thou'rt i' Newcassel, thou can learn all about it; thou'rt little
better nor a woman, for sure, bein' mainly acquaint wi' ribbons, but
they'll tell thee--they'll tell thee, lad; and write down what they
sayn, and what's to be t' price, and look sharp as to what kind o'
folk they are as sells 'em, an' write and let me know. Thou'll be i'
Newcassel to-morrow, may-be? Well, then, I'll reckon to hear fro'
thee in a week, or, mayhap, less,--for t' land is backward, and I'd
like to know about t' pleughs. I'd a month's mind to write to
Brunton, as married Molly Corney, but writin' is more i' thy way an'
t' parson's nor mine; and if thou sells ribbons, Brunton sells
cheese, and that's no better.'

Philip promised to do his best, and to write word to Robson, who,
satisfied with his willingness to undertake the commission, bade him
go on and see if he could not find the lass. Her father was right in
saying that she might not have set out for Yesterbarrow. She had
talked about it to Kinraid and her father in order to cover her
regret at her lover's accompanying her father to see some new kind
of harpoon about which the latter had spoken. But as soon as they
had left the house, and she had covertly watched them up the brow in
the field, she sate down to meditate and dream about her great
happiness in being beloved by her hero, Charley Kinraid. No gloomy
dread of his long summer's absence; no fear of the cold, glittering
icebergs bearing mercilessly down on the _Urania_, nor shuddering
anticipation of the dark waves of evil import, crossed her mind. He
loved her, and that was enough. Her eyes looked, trance-like, into a
dim, glorious future of life; her lips, still warm and reddened by
his kiss, were just parted in a happy smile, when she was startled
by the sound of an approaching footstep--a footstep quite familiar
enough for her to recognize it, and which was unwelcome now, as
disturbing her in the one blessed subject of thought in which alone
she cared to indulge.

'Well, Philip! an' what brings _yo'_ here?' was her rather
ungracious greeting.

'Why, Sylvie, are yo' sorry to see me?' asked Philip, reproachfully.
But she turned it off with assumed lightness.

'Oh, yes,' said she. 'I've been wanting yo' this week past wi' t'
match to my blue ribbon yo' said yo'd get and bring me next time yo'
came.'

'I've forgotten it, Sylvie. It's clean gone out of my mind,' said
Philip, with true regret. 'But I've had a deal to think on,' he
continued, penitently, as if anxious to be forgiven. Sylvia did not
want his penitence, did not care for her ribbon, was troubled by his
earnestness of manner--but he knew nothing of all that; he only knew
that she whom he loved had asked him to do something for her, and he
had neglected it; so, anxious to be excused and forgiven, he went on
with the apology she cared not to hear.

If she had been less occupied with her own affairs, less engrossed
with deep feeling, she would have reproached him, if only in jest,
for his carelessness. As it was, she scarcely took in the sense of
his words.

'You see, Sylvie, I've had a deal to think on; before long I intend
telling yo' all about it; just now I'm not free to do it. And when a
man's mind is full o' business, most particular when it's other
folk's as is trusted to him, he seems to lose count on the very
things he'd most care for at another time.' He paused a little.

Sylvia's galloping thoughts were pulled suddenly up by his silence;
she felt that he wanted her to say something, but she could think of
nothing besides an ambiguous--

'Well?'

'And I'm off to London i' t' morning,' added he, a little wistfully,
almost as if beseeching her to show or express some sorrow at a
journey, the very destination of which showed that he would be
absent for some time.

'To Lunnon!' said she, with some surprise. 'Yo're niver thinking o'
going to live theere, for sure!'

Surprise, and curiosity, and wonder; nothing more, as Philip's
instinct told him. But he reasoned that first correct impression
away with ingenious sophistry.

'Not to live there: only to stay for some time. I shall be back, I
reckon, in a month or so.'

'Oh! that's nought of a going away,' said she, rather petulantly.
'Them as goes to t' Greenland seas has to bide away for six months
and more,' and she sighed.

Suddenly a light shone down into Philip's mind. His voice was
changed as he spoke next.

'I met that good-for-nothing chap, Kinraid, wi' yo'r father just
now. He'll ha' been here, Sylvie?'

She stooped for something she had dropped, and came up red as a
rose.

'To be sure; what then?' And she eyed him defiantly, though in her
heart she trembled, she knew not why.

'What then? and yo'r mother away. He's no company for such as thee,
at no time, Sylvie.'

'Feyther and me chooses our own company, without iver asking leave
o' yo',' said Sylvia, hastily arranging the things in the little
wooden work-box that was on the table, preparatory to putting it
away. At the time, in his agitation, he saw, but did not affix any
meaning to it, that the half of some silver coin was among the
contents thus turned over before the box was locked.

'But thy mother wouldn't like it, Sylvie; he's played false wi'
other lasses, he'll be playing thee false some o' these days, if
thou lets him come about thee. He went on wi' Annie Coulson,
William's sister, till he broke her heart; and sin then he's been on
wi' others.'

'I dunnot believe a word on 't,' said Sylvia, standing up, all
aflame.

'I niver telled a lie i' my life,' said Philip, almost choking with
grief at her manner to him, and the regard for his rival which she
betrayed. 'It were Willie Coulson as telled me, as solemn and
serious as one man can speak to another; and he said it weren't the
first nor the last time as he had made his own game with young
women.'

'And how dare yo' come here to me wi' yo'r backbiting tales?' said
Sylvia, shivering all over with passion.

Philip tried to keep calm, and to explain.

'It were yo'r own mother, Sylvia, as knowed yo' had no brother, or
any one to see after yo'; and yo' so pretty, so pretty, Sylvia,' he
continued, shaking his head, sadly, 'that men run after yo' against
their will, as one may say; and yo'r mother bade me watch o'er ye
and see what company yo' kept, and who was following after yo', and
to warn yo', if need were.'

'My mother niver bade yo' to come spying after me, and blaming me
for seeing a lad as my feyther thinks well on. An' I don't believe a
word about Annie Coulson; an' I'm not going to suffer yo' to come
wi' yo'r tales to me; say 'em out to his face, and hear what he'll
say to yo'.'

'Sylvie, Sylvie,' cried poor Philip, as his offended cousin rushed
past him, and upstairs to her little bedroom, where he heard the
sound of the wooden bolt flying into its place. He could hear her
feet pacing quickly about through the unceiled rafters. He sate
still in despair, his head buried in his two hands. He sate till it
grew dusk, dark; the wood fire, not gathered together by careful
hands, died out into gray ashes. Dolly Reid had done her work and
gone home. There were but Philip and Sylvia in the house. He knew he
ought to be going home, for he had much to do, and many arrangements
to make. Yet it seemed as though he could not stir. At length he
raised his stiffened body, and stood up, dizzy. Up the little wooden
stairs he went, where he had never been before, to the small square
landing, almost filled up with the great chest for oat-cake. He
breathed hard for a minute, and then knocked at the door of Sylvia's
room.

'Sylvie! I'm going away; say good-by.' No answer. Not a sound heard.
'Sylvie!' (a little louder, and less hoarsely spoken). There was no
reply. 'Sylvie! I shall be a long time away; perhaps I may niver
come back at all'; here he bitterly thought of an unregarded death.
'Say good-by.' No answer. He waited patiently. Can she be wearied
out, and gone to sleep, he wondered. Yet once again--'Good-by,
Sylvie, and God bless yo'! I'm sorry I vexed yo'.'

No reply.

With a heavy, heavy heart he creaked down the stairs, felt for his
cap, and left the house.

'She's warned, any way,' thought he. Just at that moment the little
casement window of Sylvia's room was opened, and she said--

'Good-by, Philip!'

The window was shut again as soon as the words were spoken. Philip
knew the uselessness of remaining; the need for his departure; and
yet he stood still for a little time like one entranced, as if his
will had lost all power to compel him to leave the place. Those two
words of hers, which two hours before would have been so far beneath
his aspirations, had now power to re-light hope, to quench reproach
or blame.

'She's but a young lassie,' said he to himself; 'an' Kinraid has
been playing wi' her, as such as he can't help doing, once they get
among the women. An' I came down sudden on her about Annie Coulson,
and touched her pride. Maybe, too, it were ill advised to tell her
how her mother was feared for her. I couldn't ha' left the place
to-morrow if he'd been biding here; but he's off for half a year or
so, and I'll be home again as soon as iver I can. In half a year
such as he forgets, if iver he's thought serious about her; but in
a' my lifetime, if I live to fourscore, I can niver forget. God
bless her for saying, "Good-by, Philip."' He repeated the words
aloud in fond mimicry of her tones: 'Good-by, Philip.'




CHAPTER XVIII

EDDY IN LOVE'S CURRENT


The next morning shone bright and clear, if ever a March morning
did. The beguiling month was coming in like a lamb, with whatever
storms it might go raging out. It was long since Philip had tasted
the freshness of the early air on the shore, or in the country, as
his employment at the shop detained him in Monkshaven till the
evening. And as he turned down the quays (or staithes) on the north
side of the river, towards the shore, and met the fresh sea-breeze
blowing right in his face, it was impossible not to feel bright and
elastic. With his knapsack slung over his shoulder, he was prepared
for a good stretch towards Hartlepool, whence a coach would take him
to Newcastle before night. For seven or eight miles the level sands
were as short and far more agreeable a road than the up and down
land-ways. Philip walked on pretty briskly, unconsciously enjoying
the sunny landscape before him; the crisp curling waves rushing
almost up to his feet, on his right hand, and then swishing back
over the fine small pebbles into the great swelling sea. To his left
were the cliffs rising one behind another, having deep gullies here
and there between, with long green slopes upward from the land, and
then sudden falls of brown and red soil or rock deepening to a yet
greater richness of colour at their base towards the blue ocean
before him. The loud, monotonous murmur of the advancing and
receding waters lulled him into dreaminess; the sunny look of
everything tinged his day-dreams with hope. So he trudged merrily
over the first mile or so; not an obstacle to his measured pace on
the hard, level pavement; not a creature to be seen since he had
left the little gathering of bare-legged urchins dabbling in the
sea-pools near Monkshaven. The cares of land were shut out by the
glorious barrier of rocks before him. There were some great masses
that had been detached by the action of the weather, and lay half
embedded in the sand, draperied over by the heavy pendent
olive-green seaweed. The waves were nearer at this point; the
advancing sea came up with a mighty distant length of roar; here and
there the smooth swell was lashed by the fret against unseen rocks
into white breakers; but otherwise the waves came up from the German
Ocean upon that English shore with a long steady roll that might
have taken its first impetus far away, in the haunt of the
sea-serpent on the coast of 'Norroway over the foam.' The air was
soft as May; right overhead the sky was blue, but it deadened into
gray near the sea lines. Flocks of seagulls hovered about the edge
of the waves, slowly rising and turning their white under-plumage to
glimmer in the sunlight as Philip approached. The whole scene was so
peaceful, so soothing, that it dispelled the cares and fears (too
well founded in fact) which had weighed down on his heart during the
dark hours of the past night.

There was Haytersbank gully opening down its green entrance among
the warm brown bases of the cliffs. Below, in the sheltered
brushwood, among the last year's withered leaves, some primroses
might be found. He half thought of gathering Sylvia a posy of them,
and rushing up to the farm to make a little farewell peace-offering.
But on looking at his watch, he put all thoughts of such an action
out of his head; it was above an hour later than he had supposed,
and he must make all haste on to Hartlepool. Just as he was
approaching this gully, a man came dashing down, and ran out some
way upon the sand with the very force of his descent; then he turned
to the left and took the direction of Hartlepool a hundred yards or
so in advance of Philip. He never stayed to look round him, but went
swiftly and steadily on his way. By the peculiar lurch in his
walk--by everything--Philip knew it was the specksioneer, Kinraid.

Now the road up Haytersbank gully led to the farm, and nowhere else.
Still any one wishing to descend to the shore might do so by first
going up to the Robsons' house, and skirting the walls till they
came to the little slender path down to the shore. But by the farm,
by the very house-door they must of necessity pass. Philip slackened
his pace, keeping under the shadow of the rock. By-and-by Kinraid,
walking on the sunlight open sands, turned round and looked long and
earnestly towards Haytersbank gully. Hepburn paused when he paused,
but as intently as he looked at some object above, so intently did
Hepburn look at him. No need to ascertain by sight towards whom his
looks, his thoughts were directed. He took off his hat and waved it,
touching one part of it as if with particular meaning. When he
turned away at last, Hepburn heaved a heavy sigh, and crept yet more
into the cold dank shadow of the cliffs. Each step was now a heavy
task, his sad heart tired and weary. After a while he climbed up a
few feet, so as to mingle his form yet more completely with the
stones and rocks around. Stumbling over the uneven and often jagged
points, slipping on the sea-weed, plunging into little pools of
water left by the ebbing tide in some natural basins, he yet kept
his eyes fixed as if in fascination on Kinraid, and made his way
almost alongside of him. But the last hour had pinched Hepburn's
features into something of the wan haggardness they would wear when
he should first be lying still for ever.

And now the two men were drawing near a creek, about eight miles
from Monkshaven. The creek was formed by a beck (or small stream)
that came flowing down from the moors, and took its way to the sea
between the widening rocks. The melting of the snows and running of
the flooded water-springs above made this beck in the early
spring-time both deep and wide. Hepburn knew that here they both
must take a path leading inland to a narrow foot-bridge about a
quarter of a mile up the stream; indeed from this point, owing to
the jutting out of the rocks, the land path was the shortest; and
this way lay by the water-side at an angle right below the cliff to
which Hepburn's steps were leading him. He knew that on this long
level field path he might easily be seen by any one following; nay,
if he followed any one at a short distance, for it was full of
turnings; and he resolved, late as he was, to sit down for a while
till Kinraid was far enough in advance for him to escape being seen.
He came up to the last rock behind which he could be concealed;
seven or eight feet above the stream he stood, and looked cautiously
for the specksioneer. Up by the rushing stream he looked, then right
below.

'It is God's providence,' he murmured. 'It is God's providence.'

He crouched down where he had been standing and covered his face
with his hands. He tried to deafen as well as to blind himself, that
he might neither hear nor see anything of the coming event of which
he, an inhabitant of Monkshaven at that day, well understood the
betokening signs.

Kinraid had taken the larger angle of the sands before turning up
towards the bridge. He came along now nearing the rocks. By this
time he was sufficiently buoyant to whistle to himself. It steeled
Philip's heart to what was coming to hear his rival whistling, 'Weel
may the keel row,' so soon after parting with Sylvia.

The instant Kinraid turned the corner of the cliff, the ambush was
upon him. Four man-of-war's men sprang on him and strove to pinion
him.

'In the King's name!' cried they, with rough, triumphant jeers.

Their boat was moored not a dozen yards above; they were sent by the
tender of a frigate lying off Hartlepool for fresh water. The tender
was at anchor just beyond the jutting rocks in face.

They knew that fishermen were in the habit of going to and from
their nets by the side of the creek; but such a prize as this
active, strong, and evidently superior sailor, was what they had not
hoped for, and their endeavours to secure him were in proportion to
the value of the prize.

Although taken by surprise, and attacked by so many, Kinraid did not
lose his wits. He wrenched himself free, crying out loud:

'Avast, I'm a protected whaler. I claim my protection. I've my
papers to show, I'm bonded specksioneer to the _Urania_ whaler,
Donkin captain, North Shields port.'

As a protected whaler, the press-gang had, by the 17th section of
Act 26 Geo. III. no legal right to seize him, unless he had failed
to return to his ship by the 10th March following the date of his
bond. But of what use were the papers he hastily dragged out of his
breast; of what use were laws in those days of slow intercourse with
such as were powerful enough to protect, and in the time of popular
panic against a French invasion?

'D--n your protection,' cried the leader of the press-gang; 'come
and serve his Majesty, that's better than catching whales.'

'Is it though?' said the specksioneer, with a motion of his hand,
which the swift-eyed sailor opposed to him saw and interpreted
rightly.

'Thou wilt, wilt thou? Close with him, Jack; and ware the cutlass.'

In a minute his cutlass was forced from him, and it became a
hand-to-hand struggle, of which, from the difference in numbers, it
was not difficult to foretell the result. Yet Kinraid made desperate
efforts to free himself; he wasted no breath in words, but fought,
as the men said, 'like a very devil.'

Hepburn heard loud pants of breath, great thuds, the dull struggle
of limbs on the sand, the growling curses of those who thought to
have managed their affair more easily; the sudden cry of some one
wounded, not Kinraid he knew, Kinraid would have borne any pain in
silence at such a moment; another wrestling, swearing, infuriated
strife, and then a strange silence. Hepburn sickened at the heart;
was then his rival dead? had he left this bright world? lost his
life--his love? For an instant Hepburn felt guilty of his death; he
said to himself he had never wished him dead, and yet in the
struggle he had kept aloof, and now it might be too late for ever.
Philip could not bear the suspense; he looked stealthily round the
corner of the rock behind which he had been hidden, and saw that
they had overpowered Kinraid, and, too exhausted to speak, were
binding him hand and foot to carry him to their boat.

Kinraid lay as still as any hedgehog: he rolled when they pushed
him; he suffered himself to be dragged without any resistance, any
motion; the strong colour brought into his face while fighting was
gone now, his countenance was livid pale; his lips were tightly held
together, as if it cost him more effort to be passive, wooden, and
stiff in their hands than it had done to fight and struggle with all
his might. His eyes seemed the only part about him that showed
cognizance of what was going on. They were watchful, vivid, fierce
as those of a wild cat brought to bay, seeking in its desperate
quickened brain for some mode of escape not yet visible, and in all
probability never to become visible to the hopeless creature in its
supreme agony.

Without a motion of his head, he was perceiving and taking in
everything while he lay bound at the bottom of the boat. A sailor
sat by his side, who had been hurt by a blow from him. The man held
his head in his hand, moaning; but every now and then he revenged
himself by a kick at the prostrate specksioneer, till even his
comrades stopped their cursing and swearing at their prisoner for
the trouble he had given them, to cry shame on their comrade. But
Kinraid never spoke, nor shrank from the outstretched foot.

One of his captors, with the successful insolence of victory,
ventured to jeer him on the supposed reason for his vehement and
hopeless resistance.

He might have said yet more insolent things; the kicks might have
hit harder; Kinraid did not hear or heed. His soul was beating
itself against the bars of inflexible circumstance; reviewing in one
terrible instant of time what had been, what might have been, what
was. Yet while these thoughts thus stabbed him, he was still
mechanically looking out for chances. He moved his head a little, so
as to turn towards Haytersbank, where Sylvia must be quickly, if
sadly, going about her simple daily work; and then his quick eye
caught Hepburn's face, blanched with excitement rather than fear,
watching eagerly from behind the rock, where he had sat breathless
during the affray and the impressment of his rival.

'Come here, lad!' shouted the specksioneer as soon as he saw Philip,
heaving and writhing his body the while with so much vigour that the
sailors started away from the work they were engaged in about the
boat, and held him down once more, as if afraid he should break the
strong rope that held him like withes of green flax. But the bound
man had no such notion in his head. His mighty wish was to call
Hepburn near that he might send some message by him to Sylvia. 'Come
here, Hepburn,' he cried again, falling back this time so weak and
exhausted that the man-of-war's men became sympathetic.

'Come down, peeping Tom, and don't be afeared,' they called out.

'I'm not afeared,' said Philip; 'I'm no sailor for yo' t' impress
me: nor have yo' any right to take that fellow; he's a Greenland
specksioneer, under protection, as I know and can testify.'

'Yo' and yo'r testify go hang. Make haste, man and hear what this
gem'man, as was in a dirty blubbery whale-ship, and is now in his
Majesty's service, has got to say. I dare say, Jack,' went on the
speaker, 'it's some message to his sweetheart, asking her to come
for to serve on board ship along with he, like Billy Taylor's young
woman.'

Philip was coming towards them slowly, not from want of activity,
but because he was undecided what he should be called upon to do or
to say by the man whom he hated and dreaded, yet whom just now he
could not help admiring.

Kinraid groaned with impatience at seeing one, free to move with
quick decision, so slow and dilatory.

'Come on then,' cried the sailors, 'or we'll take you too on board,
and run you up and down the main-mast a few times. Nothing like life
aboard ship for quickening a land-lubber.'

'Yo'd better take him and leave me,' said Kinraid, grimly. 'I've
been taught my lesson; and seemingly he has his yet to learn.'

'His Majesty isn't a schoolmaster to need scholars; but a jolly good
captain to need men,' replied the leader of the gang, eyeing Philip
nevertheless, and questioning within himself how far, with only two
other available men, they durst venture on his capture as well as
the specksioneer's. It might be done, he thought, even though there
was this powerful captive aboard, and the boat to manage too; but,
running his eye over Philip's figure, he decided that the tall
stooping fellow was never cut out for a sailor, and that he should
get small thanks if he captured him, to pay him for the possible
risk of losing the other. Or else the mere fact of being a landsman
was of as little consequence to the press-gang, as the protecting
papers which Kinraid had vainly showed.

'Yon fellow wouldn't have been worth his grog this many a day, and
be d--d to you,' said he, catching Hepburn by the shoulder, and
giving him a push. Philip stumbled over something in this, his
forced run. He looked down; his foot had caught in Kinraid's hat,
which had dropped off in the previous struggle. In the band that
went round the low crown, a ribbon was knotted; a piece of that same
ribbon which Philip had chosen out, with such tender hope, to give
to Sylvia for the Corneys' party on new year's eve. He knew every
delicate thread that made up the briar-rose pattern; and a spasm of
hatred towards Kinraid contracted his heart. He had been almost
relenting into pity for the man captured before his eyes; now he
abhorred him.

Kinraid did not speak for a minute or two. The sailors, who had
begun to take him into favour, were all agog with curiosity to hear
the message to his sweetheart, which they believed he was going to
send. Hepburn's perceptions, quickened with his vehement agitation
of soul, were aware of this feeling of theirs; and it increased his
rage against Kinraid, who had exposed the idea of Sylvia to be the
subject of ribald whispers. But the specksioneer cared little what
others said or thought about the maiden, whom he yet saw before his
closed eyelids as she stood watching him, from the Haytersbank
gully, waving her hands, her handkerchief, all in one passionate
farewell.

'What do yo' want wi' me?' asked Hepburn at last in a gloomy tone.
If he could have helped it, he would have kept silence till Kinraid
spoke first; but he could no longer endure the sailors' nudges, and
winks, and jests among themselves.

'Tell Sylvia,' said Kinraid----

'There's a smart name for a sweetheart,' exclaimed one of the men;
but Kinraid went straight on,--

'What yo've seen; how I've been pressed by this cursed gang.'

'Civil words, messmate, if you please. Sylvia can't abide cursing
and swearing, I'm sure. We're gentlemen serving his Majesty on board
the _Alcestis_, and this proper young fellow shall be helped on to
more honour and glory than he'd ever get bobbing for whales. Tell
Sylvia this, with my love; Jack Carter's love, if she's anxious
about my name.'

One of the sailors laughed at this rude humour; another bade Carter
hold his stupid tongue. Philip hated him in his heart. Kinraid
hardly heard him. He was growing faint with the heavy blows he had
received, the stunning fall he had met with, and the reaction from
his dogged self-control at first.

Philip did not speak nor move.

'Tell her,' continued Kinraid, rousing himself for another effort,
'what yo've seen. Tell her I'll come back to her. Bid her not forget
the great oath we took together this morning; she's as much my wife
as if we'd gone to church;--I'll come back and marry her afore
long.'

Philip said something inarticulately.

'Hurra!' cried Carter, 'and I'll be best man. Tell her, too that
I'll have an eye on her sweetheart, and keep him from running after
other girls.'

'Yo'll have yo'r hands full, then,' muttered Philip, his passion
boiling over at the thought of having been chosen out from among all
men to convey such a message as Kinraid's to Sylvia.

'Make an end of yo'r d--d yarns, and be off,' said the man who had
been hurt by Kinraid, and who had sate apart and silent till now.

Philip turned away; Kinraid raised himself and cried after him,--

'Hepburn, Hepburn! tell her---' what he added Philip could not hear,
for the words were lost before they reached him in the outward noise
of the regular splash of the oars and the rush of the wind down the
gully, with which mingled the closer sound that filled his ears of
his own hurrying blood surging up into his brain. He was conscious
that he had said something in reply to Kinraid's adjuration that he
would deliver his message to Sylvia, at the very time when Carter
had stung him into fresh anger by the allusion to the possibility of
the specksioneer's 'running after other girls,' for, for an instant,
Hepburn had been touched by the contrast of circumstances. Kinraid
an hour or two ago,--Kinraid a banished man; for in those days, an
impressed sailor might linger out years on some foreign station, far
from those he loved, who all this time remained ignorant of his
cruel fate.

But Hepburn began to wonder what he himself had said--how much of a
promise he had made to deliver those last passionate words of
Kinraid's. He could not recollect how much, how little he had said;
he knew he had spoken hoarsely and low almost at the same time as
Carter had uttered his loud joke. But he doubted if Kinraid had
caught his words.

And then the dread Inner Creature, who lurks in each of our hearts,
arose and said, 'It is as well: a promise given is a fetter to the
giver. But a promise is not given when it has not been received.'

At a sudden impulse, he turned again towards the shore when he had
crossed the bridge, and almost ran towards the verge of the land.
Then he threw himself down on the soft fine turf that grew on the
margin of the cliffs overhanging the sea, and commanding an extent
of view towards the north. His face supported by his hands, he
looked down upon the blue rippling ocean, flashing here and there,
into the sunlight in long, glittering lines. The boat was still in
the distance, making her swift silent way with long regular bounds
to the tender that lay in the offing.

Hepburn felt insecure, as in a nightmare dream, so long as the boat
did not reach her immediate destination. His contracted eyes could
see four minute figures rowing with ceaseless motion, and a fifth
sate at the helm. But he knew there was a sixth, unseen, lying,
bound and helpless, at the bottom of the boat; and his fancy kept
expecting this man to start up and break his bonds, and overcome all
the others, and return to the shore free and triumphant.

It was by no fault of Hepburn's that the boat sped well away; that
she was now alongside the tender, dancing on the waves; now emptied
of her crew; now hoisted up to her place. No fault of his! and yet
it took him some time before he could reason himself into the belief
that his mad, feverish wishes not an hour before--his wild prayer to
be rid of his rival, as he himself had scrambled onward over the
rocks alongside of Kinraid's path on the sands--had not compelled
the event.

'Anyhow,' thought he, as he rose up, 'my prayer is granted. God be
thanked!'

Once more he looked out towards the ship. She had spread her
beautiful great sails, and was standing out to sea in the glittering
path of the descending sun.

He saw that he had been delayed on his road, and had lingered long.
He shook his stiffened limbs, shouldered his knapsack, and prepared
to walk on to Hartlepool as swiftly as he could.




CHAPTER XIX

AN IMPORTANT MISSION


Philip was too late for the coach he had hoped to go by, but there
was another that left at night, and which reached Newcastle in the
forenoon, so that, by the loss of a night's sleep, he might overtake
his lost time. But, restless and miserable, he could not stop in
Hartlepool longer than to get some hasty food at the inn from which
the coach started. He acquainted himself with the names of the towns
through which it would pass, and the inns at which it would stop,
and left word that the coachman was to be on the look-out for him
and pick him up at some one of these places.

He was thoroughly worn out before this happened--too much tired to
gain any sleep in the coach. When he reached Newcastle, he went to
engage his passage in the next London-bound smack, and then directed
his steps to Robinson's, in the Side, to make all the inquiries he
could think of respecting the plough his uncle wanted to know about.

So it was pretty late in the afternoon, indeed almost evening,
before he arrived at the small inn on the quay-side, where he
intended to sleep. It was but a rough kind of place, frequented
principally by sailors; he had been recommended to it by Daniel
Robson, who had known it well in former days. The accommodation in
it was, however, clean and homely, and the people keeping it were
respectable enough in their way.

Still Hepburn was rather repelled by the appearance of the sailors
who sate drinking in the bar, and he asked, in a low voice, if there
was not another room. The woman stared in surprise, and only shook
her head. Hepburn went to a separate table, away from the roaring
fire, which on this cold March evening was the great attraction, and
called for food and drink. Then seeing that the other men were
eyeing him with the sociable idea of speaking to him, he asked for
pen and ink and paper, with the intention of defeating their purpose
by pre-occupation on his part. But when the paper came, the new pen,
the unused thickened ink, he hesitated long before he began to
write; and at last he slowly put down the words,--

'DEAR AND HONOURED UNCLE,'----

There was a pause; his meal was brought and hastily swallowed. Even
while he was eating it, he kept occasionally touching up the letters
of these words. When he had drunk a glass of ale he began again to
write: fluently this time, for he was giving an account of the
plough. Then came another long stop; he was weighing in his own mind
what he should say about Kinraid. Once he thought for a second of
writing to Sylvia herself, and telling her---how much? She might
treasure up her lover's words like grains of gold, while they were
lighter than dust in their meaning to Philip's mind; words which
such as the specksioneer used as counters to beguile and lead astray
silly women. It was for him to prove his constancy by action; and
the chances of his giving such proof were infinitesimal in Philip's
estimation. But should the latter mention the bare fact of Kinraid's
impressment to Robson? That would have been the natural course of
things, remembering that the last time Philip had seen either, they
were in each other's company. Twenty times he put his pen to the
paper with the intention of relating briefly the event that had
befallen Kinraid; and as often he stopped, as though the first word
would be irrevocable. While he thus sate pen in hand, thinking
himself wiser than conscience, and looking on beyond the next step
which she bade him take into an indefinite future, he caught some
fragments of the sailors' talk at the other end of the room, which
made him listen to their words. They were speaking of that very
Kinraid, the thought of whom filled his own mind like an actual
presence. In a rough, careless way they spoke of the specksioneer,
with admiration enough for his powers as a sailor and harpooner; and
from that they passed on to jesting mention of his power amongst
women, and one or two girls' names were spoken of in connection with
him. Hepburn silently added Annie Coulson and Sylvia Robson to this
list, and his cheeks turned paler as he did so. Long after they had
done speaking about Kinraid, after they had paid their shot, and
gone away, he sate in the same attitude, thinking bitter thoughts.

The people of the house prepared for bed. Their silent guest took no
heed of their mute signs. At length the landlord spoke to him, and
he started, gathered his wits together with an effort, and prepared
to retire with the rest. But before he did so, he signed and
directed the letter to his uncle, leaving it still open, however, in
case some sudden feeling should prompt him to add a postscript. The
landlord volunteered the information that the letter his guest had
been writing must be posted early the next morning if it was going
south; as the mails in that direction only left Newcastle every
other day.

All night long Hepburn wearied himself with passionate tossings,
prompted by stinging recollection. Towards morning he fell into a
dead sound sleep. He was roused by a hasty knocking at the door. It
was broad full daylight; he had overslept himself, and the smack was
leaving by the early tide. He was even now summoned on board. He
dressed, wafered his letter, and rushed with it to the neighbouring
post-office; and, without caring to touch the breakfast for which he
paid, he embarked. Once on board, he experienced the relief which it
always is to an undecided man, and generally is at first to any one
who has been paltering with duty, when circumstances decide for him.
In the first case, it is pleasant to be relieved from the burden of
decision; in the second, the responsibility seems to be shifted on
to impersonal events.

And so Philip sailed out of the mouth of the Tyne on to the great
open sea. It would be a week before the smack reached London, even
if she pursued a tolerably straight course, but she had to keep a
sharp look-out after possible impressment of her crew; and it was
not until after many dodges and some adventures that, at the end of
a fortnight from the time of his leaving Monkshaven, Philip found
himself safely housed in London, and ready to begin the delicate
piece of work which was given him to do.

He felt himself fully capable of unravelling each clue to
information, and deciding on the value of the knowledge so gained.
But during the leisure of the voyage he had wisely determined to
communicate everything he learnt about Dickinson, in short, every
step he took in the matter, by letter to his employers. And thus his
mind both in and out of his lodgings might have appeared to have
been fully occupied with the concerns of others.

But there were times when the miserable luxury of dwelling upon his
own affairs was his--when he lay down in his bed till he fell into
restless sleep--when the point to which his steps tended in his
walks was ascertained. Then he gave himself up to memory, and regret
which often deepened into despair, and but seldom was cheered by
hope.

He grew so impatient of the ignorance in which he was kept--for in
those days of heavy postage any correspondence he might have had on
mere Monkshaven intelligence was very limited--as to the affairs at
Haytersbank, that he cut out an advertisement respecting some new
kind of plough, from a newspaper that lay in the chop-house where he
usually dined, and rising early the next morning he employed the
time thus gained in going round to the shop where these new ploughs
were sold.

That night he wrote another letter to Daniel Robson, with a long
account of the merits of the implements he had that day seen. With a
sick heart and a hesitating hand, he wound up with a message of
regard to his aunt and to Sylvia; an expression of regard which he
dared not make as warm as he wished, and which, consequently, fell
below the usual mark attained by such messages, and would have
appeared to any one who cared to think about it as cold and formal.

When this letter was despatched, Hepburn began to wonder what he had
hoped for in writing it. He knew that Daniel could write--or rather
that he could make strange hieroglyphics, the meaning of which
puzzled others and often himself; but these pen-and-ink signs were
seldom employed by Robson, and never, so far as Philip knew, for the
purpose of letter-writing. But still he craved so for news of
Sylvia--even for a sight of paper which she had seen, and perhaps
touched--that he thought all his trouble about the plough (to say
nothing of the one-and-twopence postage which he had prepaid in
order to make sure of his letter's reception in the frugal household
at Haytersbank) well lost for the mere chance of his uncle's caring
enough for the intelligence to write in reply, or even to get some
friend to write an answer; for in such case, perhaps, Philip might
see her name mentioned in some way, even though it was only that she
sent her duty to him.

But the post-office was dumb; no letter came from Daniel Robson.
Philip heard, it is true, from his employers pretty frequently on
business; and he felt sure they would have named it, if any ill had
befallen his uncle's family, for they knew of the relationship and
of his intimacy there. They generally ended their formal letters
with as formal a summary of Monkshaven news; but there was never a
mention of the Robsons, and that of itself was well, but it did not
soothe Philip's impatient curiosity. He had never confided his
attachment to his cousin to any one, it was not his way; but he
sometimes thought that if Coulson had not taken his present
appointment to a confidential piece of employment so ill, he would
have written to him and asked him to go up to Haytersbank Farm, and
let him know how they all were.

All this time he was transacting the affair on which he had been
sent, with great skill; and, indeed, in several ways, he was quietly
laying the foundation for enlarging the business in Monkshaven.
Naturally grave and quiet, and slow to speak, he impressed those who
saw him with the idea of greater age and experience than he really
possessed. Indeed, those who encountered him in London, thought he
was absorbed in the business of money-making. Yet before the time
came when he could wind up affairs and return to Monkshaven, he
would have given all he possessed for a letter from his uncle,
telling him something about Sylvia. For he still hoped to hear from
Robson, although he knew that he hoped against reason. But we often
convince ourselves by good argument that what we wish for need never
have been expected; and then, at the end of our reasoning, find that
we might have saved ourselves the trouble, for that our wishes are
untouched, and are as strong enemies to our peace of mind as ever.
Hepburn's baulked hope was the Mordecai sitting in Haman's gate; all
his success in his errand to London, his well-doing in worldly
affairs, was tasteless, and gave him no pleasure, because of this
blank and void of all intelligence concerning Sylvia.

And yet he came back with a letter from the Fosters in his pocket,
curt, yet expressive of deep gratitude for his discreet services in
London; and at another time--in fact, if Philip's life had been
ordered differently to what it was--it might have given this man a
not unworthy pleasure to remember that, without a penny of his own,
simply by diligence, honesty, and faithful quick-sightedness as to
the interests of his masters, he had risen to hold the promise of
being their successor, and to be ranked by them as a trusted friend.

As the Newcastle smack neared the shore on her voyage home, Hepburn
looked wistfully out for the faint gray outline of Monkshaven Priory
against the sky, and the well-known cliffs; as if the masses of
inanimate stone could tell him any news of Sylvia.

In the streets of Shields, just after landing, he encountered a
neighbour of the Robsons, and an acquaintance of his own. By this
honest man, he was welcomed as a great traveller is welcomed on his
return from a long voyage, with many hearty good shakes of the hand,
much repetition of kind wishes, and offers to treat him to drink.
Yet, from some insurmountable feeling, Philip avoided all mention of
the family who were the principal bond between the honest farmer and
himself. He did not know why, but he could not bear the shock of
first hearing her name in the open street, or in the rough
public-house. And thus he shrank from the intelligence he craved to
hear.

Thus he knew no more about the Robsons when he returned to
Monkshaven, than he had done on the day when he had last seen them;
and, of course, his first task there was to give a long _viva voce_
account of all his London proceedings to the two brothers Foster,
who, considering that they had heard the result of everything by
letter, seemed to take an insatiable interest in details.

He could hardly tell why, but even when released from the Fosters'
parlour, he was unwilling to go to Haytersbank Farm. It was late, it
is true, but on a May evening even country people keep up till eight
or nine o'clock. Perhaps it was because Hepburn was still in his
travel-stained dress; having gone straight to the shop on his
arrival in Monkshaven. Perhaps it was because, if he went this night
for the short half-hour intervening before bed-time, he would have
no excuse for paying a longer visit on the following evening. At any
rate, he proceeded straight to Alice Rose's, as soon as he had
finished his interview with his employers.

Both Hester and Coulson had given him their welcome home in the
shop, which they had, however, left an hour or two before him.

Yet they gave him a fresh greeting, almost one in which surprise was
blended, when he came to his lodgings. Even Alice seemed gratified
by his spending this first evening with them, as if she had thought
it might have been otherwise. Weary though he was, he exerted
himself to talk and to relate what he had done and seen in London,
as far as he could without breaking confidence with his employers.
It was something to see the pleasure he gave to his auditors,
although there were several mixed feelings in their minds to produce
the expression of it which gratified him. Coulson was sorry for his
former ungenerous reception of the news that Philip was going to
London; Hester and her mother each secretly began to feel as if this
evening was like more happy evenings of old, before the Robsons came
to Haytersbank Farm; and who knows what faint delicious hopes this
resemblance may not have suggested?

While Philip, restless and excited, feeling that he could not sleep,
was glad to pass away the waking hours that must intervene before
to-morrow night, at times, he tried to make them talk of what had
happened in Monkshaven during his absence, but all had gone on in an
eventless manner, as far as he could gather; if they knew of
anything affecting the Robsons, they avoided speaking of it to him;
and, indeed, how little likely were they ever to have heard their
names while he was away?




CHAPTER XX

LOVED AND LOST


Philip walked towards the Robsons' farm like a man in a dream, who
has everything around him according to his wish, and yet is
conscious of a secret mysterious inevitable drawback to his
enjoyment. Hepburn did not care to think--would not realize what
this drawback, which need not have been mysterious in his case, was.

The May evening was glorious in light and shadow. The crimson sun
warmed up the chilly northern air to a semblance of pleasant heat.
The spring sights and sounds were all about; the lambs were bleating
out their gentle weariness before they sank to rest by the side of
their mothers; the linnets were chirping in every bush of golden
gorse that grew out of the stone walls; the lark was singing her
good-night in the cloudless sky, before she dropped down to her nest
in the tender green wheat; all spoke of brooding peace--but Philip's
heart was not at peace.

Yet he was going to proclaim his good fortune. His masters had that
day publicly announced that Coulson and he were to be their
successors, and he had now arrived at that longed-for point in his
business, when he had resolved to openly speak of his love to
Sylvia, and might openly strive to gain her love. But, alas! the
fulfilment of that wish of his had lagged sadly behind. He was
placed as far as he could, even in his most sanguine moments, have
hoped to be as regarded business, but Sylvia was as far from his
attainment as ever--nay, farther. Still the great obstacle was
removed in Kinraid's impressment. Philip took upon himself to decide
that, with such a man as the specksioneer, absence was equivalent to
faithless forgetfulness. He thought that he had just grounds for
this decision in the account he had heard of Kinraid's behaviour to
Annie Coulson; to the other nameless young girl, her successor in
his fickle heart; in the ribald talk of the sailors in the Newcastle
public-house. It would be well for Sylvia if she could forget as
quickly; and, to promote this oblivion, the name of her lover should
never be brought up, either in praise or blame. And Philip would be
patient and enduring; all the time watching over her, and labouring
to win her reluctant love.

There she was! He saw her as he stood at the top of the little
hill-path leading down to the Robsons' door. She was out of doors,
in the garden, which, at some distance from the house, sloped up the
bank on the opposite side of the gully; much too far off to be
spoken to--not too far off to be gazed at by eyes that caressed her
every movement. How well Philip knew that garden; placed long ago by
some tenant of the farm on a southern slope; walled in with rough
moorland stones; planted with berry-bushes for use, and southernwood
and sweet-briar for sweetness of smell. When the Robsons had first
come to Haytersbank, and Sylvia was scarcely more than a pretty
child, how well he remembered helping her with the arrangement of
this garden; laying out his few spare pence in hen-and-chicken
daisies at one time, in flower-seeds at another; again in a
rose-tree in a pot. He knew how his unaccustomed hands had laboured
with the spade at forming a little primitive bridge over the beck in
the hollow before winter streams should make it too deep for
fording; how he had cut down branches of the mountain-ash and
covered them over, yet decked with their scarlet berries, with sods
of green turf, beyond which the brilliancy crept out; but now it was
months and years since he had been in that garden, which had lost
its charm for Sylvia, as she found the bleak sea-winds came up and
blighted all endeavours at cultivating more than the most useful
things--pot-herbs, marigolds, potatoes, onions, and such-like. Why
did she tarry there now, standing quite motionless up by the highest
bit of wall, looking over the sea, with her hand shading her eyes?
Quite motionless; as if she were a stone statue. He began to wish
she would move--would look at him--but any way that she would move,
and not stand gazing thus over that great dreary sea.

He went down the path with an impatient step, and entered the
house-place. There sat his aunt spinning, and apparently as well as
ever. He could hear his uncle talking to Kester in the neighbouring
shippen; all was well in the household. Why was Sylvia standing in
the garden in that strange quiet way?

'Why, lad! thou'rt a sight for sair een!' said his aunt, as she
stood up to welcome him back. 'An' when didst ta come, eh?--but thy
uncle will be glad to see thee, and to hear thee talk about yon
pleughs; he's thought a deal o' thy letters. I'll go call him in.'

'Not yet,' said Philip, stopping her in her progress towards the
door. 'He's busy talking to Kester. I'm in no haste to be gone. I
can stay a couple of hours. Sit down, and tell me how you are
yoursel'--and how iverything is. And I've a deal to tell you.'

'To be sure--to be sure. To think thou's been in Lunnon sin' I saw
thee!--well to be sure! There's a vast o' coming and going i' this
world. Thou'll mind yon specksioneer lad, him as was cousin to t'
Corneys--Charley Kinraid?'

Mind him! As if he could forget him.

'Well! he's dead and gone.'

'Dead! Who told you? I don't understand,' said Philip, in strange
bewilderment. Could Kinraid have tried to escape after all, and been
wounded, killed in the attempt? If not, how should they know he was
dead? Missing he might be, though how this should be known was
strange, as he was supposed to be sailing to the Greenland seas. But
dead! What did they mean? At Philip's worst moment of hatred he had
hardly dared to wish him dead.

'Dunnot yo' mention it afore our Sylvie; we niver speak on him to
her, for she takes it a deal to heart, though I'm thinkin' it were a
good thing for her; for he'd got a hold of her--he had on Bessy
Corney, too, as her mother telled me;--not that I iver let on to
them as Sylvia frets after him, so keep a calm sough, my lad. It's a
girl's fancy--just a kind o' calf-love; let it go by; and it's well
for her he's dead, though it's hard to say so on a drowned man.'

'Drowned!' said Philip. 'How do yo' know?' half hoping that the poor
drenched swollen body might have been found, and thus all questions
and dilemmas solved. Kinraid might have struggled overboard with
ropes or handcuffs on, and so have been drowned.

'Eh, lad! there's no misdoubtin' it. He were thought a deal on by t'
captain o' t' _Urania_; and when he niver come back on t' day when
she ought for to have sailed, he sent to Kinraid's people at
Cullercoats, and they sent to Brunton's i' Newcassel, and they knew
he'd been here. T' captain put off sailing for two or three days,
that he might ha' that much law; but when he heard as Kinraid were
not at Corneys', but had left 'em a'most on to a week, he went off
to them Northern seas wi' t' next best specksioneer he could find.
For there's no use speaking ill on t' dead; an' though I couldn't
abear his coming for iver about t' house, he were a rare good
specksioneer, as I've been told.'

'But how do you know he was drowned?' said Philip, feeling guiltily
disappointed at his aunt's story.

'Why, lad! I'm a'most ashamed to tell thee, I were sore put out
mysel'; but Sylvia were so broken-hearted like I couldn't cast it up
to her as I should ha' liked: th' silly lass had gone and gi'en him
a bit o' ribbon, as many a one knowed, for it had been a vast
noticed and admired that evenin' at th' Corneys'--new year's eve I
think it were--and t' poor vain peacock had tied it on his hat, so
that when t' tide----hist! there's Sylvie coming in at t' back-door;
never let on,' and in a forced made-up voice she inquired aloud, for
hitherto she had been speaking almost in a whisper,--

'And didst ta see King George an' Queen Charlotte?'

Philip could not answer--did not hear. His soul had gone out to meet
Sylvia, who entered with quiet slowness quite unlike her former
self. Her face was wan and white; her gray eyes seemed larger, and
full of dumb tearless sorrow; she came up to Philip, as if his being
there touched her with no surprise, and gave him a gentle greeting
as if he were a familiar indifferent person whom she had seen but
yesterday. Philip, who had recollected the quarrel they had had, and
about Kinraid too, the very last time they had met, had expected
some trace of this remembrance to linger in her looks and speech to
him. But there was no such sign; her great sorrow had wiped away all
anger, almost all memory. Her mother looked at her anxiously, and
then said in the same manner of forced cheerfulness which she had
used before,--

'Here's Philip, lass, a' full o' Lunnon; call thy father in, an
we'll hear a' about t' new-fangled pleughs. It'll be rare an' nice
a' sitting together again.'

Sylvia, silent and docile, went out to the shippen to obey her
mother's wish. Bell Robson leant forward towards Philip,
misinterpreting the expression on his face, which was guilt as much
as sympathy, and checked the possible repentance which might have
urged him on at that moment to tell all he knew, by saying, 'Lad!
it's a' for t' best. He were noane good enough for her; and I
misdoubt me he were only playin' wi' her as he'd done by others. Let
her a-be, let her a-be; she'll come round to be thankful.'

Robson bustled in with loud welcome; all the louder and more
talkative because he, like his wife, assumed a cheerful manner
before Sylvia. Yet he, unlike his wife, had many a secret regret
over Kinraid's fate. At first, while merely the fact of his
disappearance was known, Daniel Robson had hit on the truth, and had
stuck to his opinion that the cursed press-gang were at the bottom
of it. He had backed his words by many an oath, and all the more
because he had not a single reason to give that applied to the
present occasion. No one on the lonely coast had remarked any sign
of the presence of the men-of-war, or the tenders that accompanied
them, for the purpose of impressment on the king's ships. At
Shields, and at the mouth of the Tyne, where they lay in greedy
wait, the owners of the _Urania_ had caused strict search to be made
for their skilled and protected specksioneer, but with no success.
All this positive evidence in contradiction to Daniel Robson's
opinion only made him cling to it the more; until the day when the
hat was found on the shore with Kinraid's name written out large and
fair in the inside, and the tell-tale bit of ribbon knotted in the
band. Then Daniel, by a sudden revulsion, gave up every hope; it
never entered his mind that it could have fallen off by any
accident. No! now Kinraid was dead and drowned, and it was a bad
job, and the sooner it could be forgotten the better for all
parties; and it was well no one knew how far it had gone with
Sylvia, especially now since Bessy Corney was crying her eyes out as
if he had been engaged to her. So Daniel said nothing to his wife
about the mischief that had gone on in her absence, and never spoke
to Sylvia about the affair; only he was more than usually tender to
her in his rough way, and thought, morning, noon, and night, on what
he could do to give her pleasure, and drive away all recollection of
her ill-starred love.

To-night he would have her sit by him while Philip told his stories,
or heavily answered questions put to him. Sylvia sat on a stool by
her father's knee, holding one of his hands in both of hers; and
presently she laid down her head upon them, and Philip saw her sad
eyes looking into the flickering fire-light with long unwinking
stare, showing that her thoughts were far distant. He could hardly
go on with his tales of what he had seen, and what done, he was so
full of pity for her. Yet, for all his pity, he had now resolved
never to soothe her with the knowledge of what he knew, nor to
deliver the message sent by her false lover. He felt like a mother
withholding something injurious from the foolish wish of her
plaining child.

But he went away without breathing a word of his good fortune in
business. The telling of such kind of good fortune seemed out of
place this night, when the thought of death and the loss of friends
seemed to brood over the household, and cast its shadow there,
obscuring for the time all worldly things.

And so the great piece of news came out in the ordinary course of
gossip, told by some Monkshaven friend to Robson the next market
day. For months Philip had been looking forward to the sensation
which the intelligence would produce in the farm household, as a
preliminary to laying his good fortune at Sylvia's feet. And they
heard of it, and he away, and all chance of his making use of it in
the manner he had intended vanished for the present.

Daniel was always curious after other people's affairs, and now was
more than ever bent on collecting scraps of news which might
possibly interest Sylvia, and rouse her out of the state of
indifference as to everything into which she had fallen. Perhaps he
thought that he had not acted altogether wisely in allowing her to
engage herself to Kinraid, for he was a man apt to judge by results;
and moreover he had had so much reason to repent of the
encouragement which he had given to the lover whose untimely end had
so deeply affected his only child, that he was more unwilling than
ever that his wife should know of the length to which the affair had
gone during her absence. He even urged secrecy upon Sylvia as a
personal favour; unwilling to encounter the silent blame which he
openly affected to despise.

'We'll noane fret thy mother by lettin' on how oft he came and went.
She'll, may-be, be thinkin' he were for speakin' to thee, my poor
lass; an' it would put her out a deal, for she's a woman of a stern
mind towards matteremony. And she'll be noane so strong till
summer-weather comes, and I'd be loath to give her aught to worrit
hersel' about. So thee and me 'll keep our own counsel.'

'I wish mother had been here, then she'd ha' known all, without my
telling her.'

'Cheer up, lass; it's better as it is. Thou'll get o'er it sooner
for havin' no one to let on to. A myself am noane going to speak
on't again.'

No more he did; but there was a strange tenderness in his tones when
he spoke to her; a half-pathetic way of seeking after her, if by any
chance she was absent for a minute from the places where he expected
to find her; a consideration for her, about this time, in his way of
bringing back trifling presents, or small pieces of news that he
thought might interest her, which sank deep into her heart.

'And what dun yo' think a' t' folks is talkin' on i' Monkshaven?'
asked he, almost before he had taken off his coat, on the day when
he had heard of Philip's promotion in the world. 'Why, missus, thy
nephew, Philip Hepburn, has got his name up i' gold letters four
inch long o'er Fosters' door! Him and Coulson has set up shop
together, and Fosters is gone out!'

'That's t' secret of his journey t' Lunnon,' said Bell, more
gratified than she chose to show.

'Four inch long if they're theere at all! I heerd on it at t' Bay
Horse first; but I thought yo'd niver be satisfied 'bout I seed it
wi' my own eyes. They do say as Gregory Jones, t' plumber, got it
done i' York, for that nought else would satisfy old Jeremiah. It'll
be a matter o' some hundreds a year i' Philip's pocket.'

'There'll be Fosters i' th' background, as one may say, to take t'
biggest share on t' profits,' said Bell.

'Ay, ay, that's but as it should be, for I reckon they'll ha' to
find t' brass the first, my lass!' said he, turning to Sylvia. 'A'm
fain to tak' thee in to t' town next market-day, just for thee t'
see 't. A'll buy thee a bonny ribbon for thy hair out o' t' cousin's
own shop.'

Some thought of another ribbon which had once tied up her hair, and
afterwards been cut in twain, must have crossed Sylvia's mind, for
she answered, as if she shrank from her father's words,--

'I cannot go, I'm noane wantin' a ribbon; I'm much obliged, father,
a' t' same.'

Her mother read her heart clearly, and suffered with her, but never
spoke a word of sympathy. But she went on rather more quickly than
she would otherwise have done to question her husband as to all he
knew about this great rise of Philip's. Once or twice Sylvia joined
in with languid curiosity; but presently she became tired and went
to bed. For a few moments after she left, her parents sate silent.
Then Daniel, in a tone as if he were justifying his daughter, and
comforting himself as well as his wife, observed that it was almost
on for nine; the evenings were light so long now. Bell said nothing
in reply, but gathered up her wool, and began to arrange the things
for night.

By-and-by Daniel broke the silence by saying,--

'A thowt at one time as Philip had a fancy for our Sylvie.'

For a minute or two Bell did not speak. Then, with deeper insight
into her daughter's heart than her husband, in spite of his greater
knowledge of the events that had happened to affect it, she said,--

'If thou's thinking on a match between 'em, it 'll be a long time
afore th' poor sad wench is fit t' think on another man as
sweetheart.'

'A said nought about sweethearts,' replied he, as if his wife had
reproached him in some way. 'Woman's allays so full o' sweethearts
and matteremony. A only said as a'd thowt once as Philip had a fancy
for our lass, and a think so still; and he'll be worth his two
hunder a year afore long. But a niver said nought about
sweethearts.'




CHAPTER XXI

A REJECTED SUITOR


There were many domestic arrangements to be made in connection with
the new commercial ones which affected Hepburn and Coulson.

The Fosters, with something of the busybodiness which is apt to
mingle itself with kindly patronage, had planned in their own minds
that the Rose household should be removed altogether to the house
belonging to the shop; and that Alice, with the assistance of the
capable servant, who, at present, managed all John's domestic
affairs, should continue as mistress of the house, with Philip and
Coulson for her lodgers.

But arrangements without her consent did not suit Alice at any time,
and she had very good reasons for declining to accede to this. She
was not going to be uprooted at her time of life, she said, nor
would she consent to enter upon a future which might be so
uncertain. Why, Hepburn and Coulson were both young men, she said,
and they were as likely to marry as not; and then the bride would be
sure to wish to live in the good old-fashioned house at the back of
the shop.

It was in vain she was told by every one concerned, that, in case of
such an event, the first married partner should take a house of his
own, leaving her in undisputed possession. She replied, with
apparent truth, that both might wish to marry, and surely the wife
of one ought to take possession of the house belonging to the
business; that she was not going to trust herself to the fancies of
young men, who were always, the best of them, going and doing the
very thing that was most foolish in the way of marriage; of which
state, in fact, she spoke with something of acrimonious contempt and
dislike, as if young people always got mismatched, yet had not the
sense to let older and wiser people choose for them.

'Thou'll not have been understanding why Alice Rose spoke as she did
this morning,' said Jeremiah Foster to Philip, on the afternoon
succeeding the final discussion of this plan. 'She was a-thinking of
her youth, I reckon, when she was a well-favoured young woman, and
our John was full of the thought of marrying her. As he could not
have her, he has lived a bachelor all his days. But if I am not a
vast mistaken, all that he has will go to her and to Hester, for all
that Hester is the child of another man. Thee and Coulson should
have a try for Hester, Philip. I have told Coulson this day of
Hester's chances. I told him first because he is my wife's nephew;
but I tell thee now, Philip. It would be a good thing for the shop
if one of ye was married.'

Philip reddened. Often as the idea of marriage had come into his
mind, this was the first time it had been gravely suggested to him
by another. But he replied quietly enough.

'I don't think Hester Rose has any thought of matrimony.'

'To be sure not; it is for thee, or for William Coulson, to make her
think. She, may-be, remembers enough of her mother's life with her
father to make her slow to think on such things. But it's in her to
think on matrimony; it's in all of us.'

'Alice's husband was dead before I knew her,' said Philip, rather
evading the main subject.

'It was a mercy when he were taken. A mercy to them who were left, I
mean. Alice was a bonny young woman, with a smile for everybody,
when he wed her--a smile for every one except our John, who never
could do enough to try and win one from her. But, no! she would have
none of him, but set her heart on Jack Rose, a sailor in a
whale-ship. And so they were married at last, though all her own
folks were against it. And he was a profligate sinner, and went
after other women, and drank, and beat her. She turned as stiff and
as grey as thou seest her now within a year of Hester's birth. I
believe they'd have perished for want and cold many a time if it had
not been for John. If she ever guessed where the money came from, it
must have hurt her pride above a bit, for she was always a proud
woman. But mother's love is stronger than pride.'

Philip fell to thinking; a generation ago something of the same kind
had been going on as that which he was now living through, quick
with hopes and fears. A girl beloved by two--nay, those two so
identical in occupation as he and Kinraid were--Rose identical even
in character with what he knew of the specksioneer; a girl choosing
the wrong lover, and suffering and soured all her life in
consequence of her youth's mistake; was that to be Sylvia's
lot?--or, rather, was she not saved from it by the event of the
impressment, and by the course of silence he himself had resolved
upon? Then he went on to wonder if the lives of one generation were
but a repetition of the lives of those who had gone before, with no
variation but from the internal cause that some had greater capacity
for suffering than others. Would those very circumstances which made
the interest of his life now, return, in due cycle, when he was dead
and Sylvia was forgotten?

Perplexed thoughts of this and a similar kind kept returning into
Philip's mind whenever he had leisure to give himself up to
consideration of anything but the immediate throng of business. And
every time he dwelt on this complication and succession of similar
events, he emerged from his reverie more and more satisfied with the
course he had taken in withholding from Sylvia all knowledge of her
lover's fate.

It was settled at length that Philip was to remove to the house
belonging to the shop, Coulson remaining with Alice and her
daughter. But in the course of the summer the latter told his
partner that he had offered marriage to Hester on the previous day,
and been refused. It was an awkward affair altogether, as he lived
in their house, and was in daily companionship with Hester, who,
however, seemed to preserve her gentle calmness, with only a tinge
more of reserve in her manner to Coulson.

'I wish yo' could find out what she has again' me, Philip,' said
Coulson, about a fortnight after he had made the proposal. The poor
young man thought that Hester's composure of manner towards him
since the event argued that he was not distasteful to her; and as he
was now on very happy terms with Philip, he came constantly to him,
as if the latter could interpret the meaning of all the little
occurrences between him and his beloved. 'I'm o' right age, not two
months betwixt us; and there's few in Monkshaven as would think on
her wi' better prospects than me; and she knows my folks; we're kind
o' cousins, in fact; and I'd be like a son to her mother; and
there's noane i' Monkshaven as can speak again' my character.
There's nought between yo' and her, is there, Philip?'

'I ha' telled thee many a time that she and me is like brother and
sister. She's no more thought on me nor I have for her. So be
content wi't, for I'se not tell thee again.'

'Don't be vexed, Philip; if thou knew what it was to be in love,
thou'd be always fancying things, just as I am.'

'I might be,' said Philip; 'but I dunnut think I should be always
talking about my fancies.'

'I wunnot talk any more after this once, if thou'll just find out
fra' thysel', as it were, what it is she has again' me. I'd go to
chapel for iver with her, if that's what she wants. Just ask her,
Philip.'

'It's an awkward thing for me to be melling wi',' said Hepburn,
reluctantly.

'But thou said thee and she were like brother and sister; and a
brother would ask a sister, and niver think twice about it.'

'Well, well,' replied Philip, 'I'll see what I can do; but, lad, I
dunnot think she'll have thee. She doesn't fancy thee, and fancy is
three parts o' love, if reason is t' other fourth.'

But somehow Philip could not begin on the subject with Hester. He
did not know why, except that, as he said, 'it was so awkward.' But
he really liked Coulson so much as to be anxious to do what the
latter wished, although he was almost convinced that it would be of
no use. So he watched his opportunity, and found Alice alone and at
leisure one Sunday evening.

She was sitting by the window, reading her Bible, when he went in.
She gave him a curt welcome, hearty enough for her, for she was
always chary in her expressions of pleasure or satisfaction. But she
took off her horn spectacles and placed them in the book to keep her
place; and then turning more fully round on her chair, so as to face
him, she said,--

'Well, lad! and how does it go on? Though it's not a day for t' ask
about worldly things. But I niver see thee now but on Sabbath day,
and rarely then. Still we munnot speak o' such things on t' Lord's
day. So thee mun just say how t' shop is doing, and then we'll leave
such vain talk.'

'T' shop is doing main an' well, thank ye, mother. But Coulson could
tell yo' o' that any day.'

'I'd a deal rayther hear fra' thee, Philip. Coulson doesn't know how
t' manage his own business, let alone half the business as it took
John and Jeremiah's heads--ay, and tasked 'em, too--to manage. I've
no patience with Coulson.'

'Why? he's a decent young fellow as ever there is in Monkshaven.'

'He may be. He's noane cut his wisdom-teeth yet. But, for that
matter, there's other folks as far fra' sense as he is.'

'Ay, and farther. Coulson mayn't be so bright at all times as he
might be, but he's a steady-goer, and I'd back him again' any chap
o' his age i' Monkshaven.'

'I know who I'd sooner back in many a thing, Philip!' She said it
with so much meaning that he could not fail to understand that he
himself was meant, and he replied, ingenuously enough,--

'If yo' mean me, mother, I'll noane deny that in a thing or two I
may be more knowledgeable than Coulson. I've had a deal o' time on
my hands i' my youth, and I'd good schooling as long as father
lived.'

'Lad! it's not schooling, nor knowledge, nor book-learning as
carries a man through t' world. It's mother-wit. And it's noane
schooling, nor knowledge, nor book-learning as takes a young woman.
It's summat as cannot be put into words.'

'That's just what I told Coulson!' said Philip, quickly. 'He were
sore put about because Hester had gi'en him the bucket, and came to
me about it.'

'And what did thou say?' asked Alice, her deep eyes gleaming at him
as if to read his face as well as his words. Philip, thinking he
could now do what Coulson had begged of him in the neatest manner,
went on,--

'I told him I'd help him all as I could---'

'Thou did, did thou? Well, well, there's nought sa queer as folks,
that a will say,' muttered Alice, between her teeth.

'--but that fancy had three parts to do wi' love,' continued Philip,
'and it would be hard, may-be, to get a reason for her not fancying
him. Yet I wish she'd think twice about it; he so set upon having
her, I think he'll do himself a mischief wi' fretting, if it goes on
as it is.'

'It'll noane go on as it is,' said Alice, with gloomy oracularness.

'How not?' asked Philip. Then, receiving no answer, he went on, 'He
loves her true, and he's within a month or two on her age, and his
character will bear handling on a' sides; and his share on t' shop
will be worth hundreds a year afore long.'

Another pause. Alice was trying to bring down her pride to say
something, which she could not with all her efforts.

'Maybe yo'll speak a word for him, mother,' said Philip, annoyed at
her silence.

'I'll do no such thing. Marriages are best made wi'out melling. How
do I know but what she likes some one better?'

'Our Hester's not th' lass to think on a young man unless he's been
a-wooing on her. And yo' know, mother, as well as I do--and Coulson
does too--she's niver given any one a chance to woo her; living half
her time here, and t' other half in t' shop, and niver speaking to
no one by t' way.'

'I wish thou wouldn't come here troubling me on a Sabbath day wi'
thy vanity and thy worldly talk. I'd liefer by far be i' that world
wheere there's neither marrying nor giving in marriage, for it's all
a moithering mess here.' She turned to the closed Bible lying on the
dresser, and opened it with a bang. While she was adjusting her
spectacles on her nose, with hands trembling with passion, she heard
Philip say,--

'I ask yo'r pardon, I'm sure. I couldn't well come any other day.'

'It's a' t' same--I care not. But thou might as well tell truth.
I'll be bound thou's been at Haytersbank Farm some day this week?'

Philip reddened; in fact, he had forgotten how he had got to
consider his frequent visits to the farm as a regular piece of
occupation. He kept silence.

Alice looked at him with a sharp intelligence that read his silence
through.

'I thought so. Next time thou thinks to thyself, 'I'm more
knowledgeable than Coulson,' just remember Alice Rose's words, and
they are these:--If Coulson's too thick-sighted to see through a
board, thou'rt too blind to see through a window. As for comin' and
speakin' up for Coulson, why he'll be married to some one else afore
t' year's out, for all he thinks he's so set upon Hester now. Go thy
ways, and leave me to my Scripture, and come no more on Sabbath days
wi' thy vain babbling.'

So Philip returned from his mission rather crestfallen, but quite as
far as ever from 'seeing through a glass window.'

Before the year was out, Alice's prophecy was fulfilled. Coulson,
who found the position of a rejected lover in the same house with
the girl who had refused him, too uncomfortable to be endured, as
soon as he was convinced that his object was decidedly out of his
reach, turned his attention to some one else. He did not love his
new sweetheart as he had done Hester: there was more of reason and
less of fancy in his attachment. But it ended successfully; and
before the first snow fell, Philip was best man at his partner's
wedding.




CHAPTER XXII

DEEPENING SHADOWS


But before Coulson was married, many small events happened--small
events to all but Philip. To him they were as the sun and moon. The
days when he went up to Haytersbank and Sylvia spoke to him, the
days when he went up and she had apparently no heart to speak to any
one, but left the room as soon as he came, or never entered it at
all, although she must have known that he was there--these were his
alternations from happiness to sorrow.

From her parents he always had a welcome. Oppressed by their
daughter's depression of spirits, they hailed the coming of any
visitor as a change for her as well as for themselves. The former
intimacy with the Corneys was in abeyance for all parties, owing to
Bessy Corney's out-spoken grief for the loss of her cousin, as if
she had had reason to look upon him as her lover, whereas Sylvia's
parents felt this as a slur upon their daughter's cause of grief.
But although at this time the members of the two families ceased to
seek after each other's society, nothing was said. The thread of
friendship might be joined afresh at any time, only just now it was
broken; and Philip was glad of it. Before going to Haytersbank he
sought each time for some little present with which to make his
coming welcome. And now he wished even more than ever that Sylvia
had cared for learning; if she had he could have taken her many a
pretty ballad, or story-book, such as were then in vogue. He did try
her with the translation of the _Sorrows of Werther_, so popular at
the time that it had a place in all pedlars' baskets, with Law's
_Serious Call_, the _Pilgrim's Progress_, Klopstock's _Messiah_, and
_Paradise Lost_. But she could not read it for herself; and after
turning the leaves languidly over, and smiling a little at the
picture of Charlotte cutting bread and butter in a left-handed
manner, she put it aside on the shelf by the _Complete Farrier_; and
there Philip saw it, upside down and untouched, the next time he
came to the farm.

Many a time during that summer did he turn to the few verses in
Genesis in which Jacob's twice seven years' service for Rachel is
related, and try and take fresh heart from the reward which came to
the patriarch's constancy at last. After trying books, nosegays,
small presents of pretty articles of dress, such as suited the
notions of those days, and finding them all received with the same
languid gratitude, he set himself to endeavour to please her in some
other way. It was time that he should change his tactics; for the
girl was becoming weary of the necessity for thanking him, every
time he came, for some little favour or other. She wished he would
let her alone and not watch her continually with such sad eyes. Her
father and mother hailed her first signs of impatient petulance
towards him as a return to the old state of things before Kinraid
had come to disturb the tenour of their lives; for even Daniel had
turned against the specksioneer, irritated by the Corneys' loud
moans over the loss of the man to whom their daughter said that she
was attached. If Daniel wished for him to be alive again, it was
mainly that the Corneys might be convinced that his last visit to
the neighbourhood of Monkshaven was for the sake of the pale and
silent Sylvia, and not for that of Bessy, who complained of
Kinraid's untimely death rather as if by it she had been cheated of
a husband than for any overwhelming personal love towards the
deceased.

'If he were after her he were a big black scoundrel, that's what he
were; and a wish he were alive again to be hung. But a dunnot
believe it; them Corney lasses were allays a-talkin' an' a-thinking
on sweethearts, and niver a man crossed t' threshold but they tried
him on as a husband. An' their mother were no better: Kinraid has
spoken civil to Bessy as became a lad to a lass, and she makes an
ado over him as if they'd been to church together not a week sin'.'

'I dunnot uphold t' Corneys; but Molly Corney--as is Molly Brunton
now--used to speak on this dead man to our Sylvie as if he were her
sweetheart in old days. Now there's no smoke without fire, and I'm
thinking it's likely enough he were one of them fellows as is always
after some lass or another, and, as often as not, two or three at a
time. Now look at Philip, what a different one he is! He's niver
thought on a woman but our Sylvie, I'll be bound. I wish he wern't
so old-fashioned and faint-hearted.'

'Ay! and t' shop's doin' a vast o' business, I've heard say. He's a
deal better company, too, 'n or he used to be. He'd a way o'
preaching wi' him as a couldn't abide; but now he tak's his glass,
an' holds his tongue, leavin' room for wiser men to say their say.'

Such was a conjugal colloquy about this time. Philip was gaining
ground with Daniel, and that was something towards winning Sylvia's
heart; for she was unaware of her father's change of feeling towards
Kinraid, and took all his tenderness towards herself as if they were
marks of his regard for her lost lover and his sympathy in her loss,
instead of which he was rather feeling as if it might be a good
thing after all that the fickle-hearted sailor was dead and drowned.
In fact, Daniel was very like a child in all the parts of his
character. He was strongly affected by whatever was present, and apt
to forget the absent. He acted on impulse, and too often had reason
to be sorry for it; but he hated his sorrow too much to let it teach
him wisdom for the future. With all his many faults, however, he had
something in him which made him be dearly loved, both by the
daughter whom he indulged, and the wife who was in fact superior to
him, but whom he imagined that he ruled with a wise and absolute
sway.

Love to Sylvia gave Philip tact. He seemed to find out that to
please the women of the household he must pay all possible attention
to the man; and though he cared little in comparison for Daniel, yet
this autumn he was continually thinking of how he could please him.
When he had said or done anything to gratify or amuse her father,
Sylvia smiled and was kind. Whatever he did was right with his aunt;
but even she was unusually glad when her husband was pleased. Still
his progress was slow towards his object; and often he sighed
himself to sleep with the words, 'seven years, and maybe seven years
more'. Then in his dreams he saw Kinraid again, sometimes
struggling, sometimes sailing towards land, the only one on board a
swift advancing ship, alone on deck, stern and avenging; till Philip
awoke in remorseful terror.

Such and similar dreams returned with the greater frequency when, in
the November of that year, the coast between Hartlepool and
Monkshaven was overshadowed by the presence of guard-ships, driven
south from their station at North Shields by the resolution which
the sailors of that port had entered into to resist the press-gang,
and the energy with which they had begun to carry out their
determination. For on a certain Tuesday evening yet remembered by
old inhabitants of North Shields, the sailors in the merchant
service met together and overpowered the press-gang, dismissing them
from the town with the highest contempt, and with their jackets
reversed. A numerous mob went with them to Chirton Bar; gave them
three cheers at parting, but vowed to tear them limb from limb
should they seek to re-enter North Shields. But a few days
afterwards some fresh cause of irritation arose, and five hundred
sailors, armed with such swords and pistols as they could collect,
paraded through the town in the most riotous manner, and at last
attempted to seize the tender Eleanor, on some pretext of the
ill-treatment of the impressed men aboard. This endeavour failed,
however, owing to the energetic conduct of the officers in command.
Next day this body of sailors set off for Newcastle; but learning,
before they reached the town, that there was a strong military and
civil force prepared to receive them there, they dispersed for the
time; but not before the good citizens had received a great fright,
the drums of the North Yorkshire militia beating to arms, and the
terrified people rushing out into the streets to learn the reason of
the alarm, and some of them seeing the militia, under the command of
the Earl of Fauconberg, marching from the guard-house adjoining New
Gate to the house of rendezvous for impressed seamen in the Broad
Chase.

But a few weeks after, the impressment service took their revenge
for the insults they had been subjected to in North Shields. In the
dead of night a cordon was formed round that town by a regiment
stationed at Tynemouth barracks; the press-gangs belonging to armed
vessels lying off Shields harbour were let loose; no one within the
circle could escape, and upwards of two hundred and fifty men,
sailors, mechanics, labourers of every description, were forced on
board the armed ships. With that prize they set sail, and wisely
left the place, where deep passionate vengeance was sworn against
them. Not all the dread of an invasion by the French could reconcile
the people of these coasts to the necessity of impressment. Fear and
confusion prevailed after this to within many miles of the
sea-shore. A Yorkshire gentleman of rank said that his labourers
dispersed like a covey of birds, because a press-gang was reported
to have established itself so far inland as Tadcaster; and they only
returned to work on the assurance from the steward of his master's
protection, but even then begged leave to sleep on straw in the
stables or outhouses belonging to their landlord, not daring to
sleep at their own homes. No fish was caught, for the fishermen
dared not venture out to sea; the markets were deserted, as the
press-gangs might come down on any gathering of men; prices were
raised, and many were impoverished; many others ruined. For in the
great struggle in which England was then involved, the navy was
esteemed her safeguard; and men must be had at any price of money,
or suffering, or of injustice. Landsmen were kidnapped and taken to
London; there, in too many instances, to be discharged without
redress and penniless, because they were discovered to be useless
for the purpose for which they had been taken.

Autumn brought back the whaling-ships. But the period of their
return was full of gloomy anxiety, instead of its being the annual
time of rejoicing and feasting; of gladdened households, where brave
steady husbands or sons returned; of unlimited and reckless
expenditure, and boisterous joviality among those who thought that
they had earned unbounded licence on shore by their six months of
compelled abstinence. In other years this had been the time for new
and handsome winter clothing; for cheerful if humble hospitality;
for the shopkeepers to display their gayest and best; for the
public-houses to be crowded; for the streets to be full of blue
jackets, rolling along with merry words and open hearts. In other
years the boiling-houses had been full of active workers, the
staithes crowded with barrels, the ship-carpenters' yards thronged
with seamen and captains; now a few men, tempted by high wages, went
stealthily by back lanes to their work, clustering together, with
sinister looks, glancing round corners, and fearful of every
approaching footstep, as if they were going on some unlawful
business, instead of true honest work. Most of them kept their
whaling-knives about them ready for bloody defence if they were
attacked. The shops were almost deserted; there was no unnecessary
expenditure by the men; they dared not venture out to buy lavish
presents for the wife or sweetheart or little children. The
public-houses kept scouts on the look-out; while fierce men drank
and swore deep oaths of vengeance in the bar--men who did not
maunder in their cups, nor grow foolishly merry, but in whom liquor
called forth all the desperate, bad passions of human nature.

Indeed, all along the coast of Yorkshire, it seemed as if a blight
hung over the land and the people. Men dodged about their daily
business with hatred and suspicion in their eyes, and many a curse
went over the sea to the three fatal ships lying motionless at
anchor three miles off Monkshaven. When first Philip had heard in
his shop that these three men-of-war might be seen lying fell and
still on the gray horizon, his heart sank, and he scarcely dared to
ask their names. For if one should be the _Alcestis_; if Kinraid
should send word to Sylvia; if he should say he was living, and
loving, and faithful; if it should come to pass that the fact of the
undelivered message sent by her lover through Philip should reach
Sylvia's ears: what would be the position of the latter, not merely
in her love--that, of course, would be hopeless--but in her esteem?
All sophistry vanished; the fear of detection awakened Philip to a
sense of guilt; and, besides, he found out, that, in spite of all
idle talk and careless slander, he could not help believing that
Kinraid was in terrible earnest when he uttered those passionate
words, and entreated that they might be borne to Sylvia. Some
instinct told Philip that if the specksioneer had only flirted with
too many, yet that for Sylvia Robson his love was true and vehement.
Then Philip tried to convince himself that, from all that was said
of his previous character, Kinraid was not capable of an enduring
constant attachment; and with such poor opiate to his conscience as
he could obtain from this notion Philip was obliged to remain
content, until, a day or two after the first intelligence of the
presence of those three ships, he learned, with some trouble and
pains, that their names were the _Megoera_, the _Bellerophon_, and
the _Hanover_.

Then he began to perceive how unlikely it was that the _Alcestis_
should have been lingering on this shore all these many months. She
was, doubtless, gone far away by this time; she had, probably,
joined the fleet on the war station. Who could tell what had become
of her and her crew? she might have been in battle before now, and
if so---

So his previous fancies shrank to nothing, rebuked for their
improbability, and with them vanished his self-reproach. Yet there
were times when the popular attention seemed totally absorbed by the
dread of the press-gang; when no other subject was talked about--hardly,
in fact, thought about. At such flows of panic, Philip had his
own private fears lest a flash of light should come upon Sylvia,
and she should suddenly see that Kinraid's absence might be
accounted for in another way besides death. But when he reasoned,
this seemed unlikely. No man-of-war had been seen off the coast, or,
if seen, had never been spoken about, at the time of Kinraid's
disappearance. If he had vanished this winter time, every one would
have been convinced that the press-gang had seized upon him. Philip
had never heard any one breathe the dreaded name of the _Alcestis_.
Besides, he went on to think, at the farm they are out of hearing of
this one great weary subject of talk. But it was not so, as he
became convinced one evening. His aunt caught him a little aside
while Sylvia was in the dairy, and her husband talking in the
shippen with Kester.

'For good's sake, Philip, dunnot thee bring us talk about t'
press-gang. It's a thing as has got hold on my measter, till thou'd
think him possessed. He's speaking perpetual on it i' such a way,
that thou'd think he were itching to kill 'em a' afore he tasted
bread again. He really trembles wi' rage and passion; an' a' night
it's just as bad. He starts up i' his sleep, swearing and cursing at
'em, till I'm sometimes afeard he'll mak' an end o' me by mistake.
And what mun he do last night but open out on Charley Kinraid, and
tell Sylvie he thought m'appen t' gang had got hold on him. It might
make her cry a' her saut tears o'er again.'

Philip spoke, by no wish of his own, but as if compelled to speak.

'An' who knows but what it's true?'

The instant these words had come out of his lips he could have
bitten his tongue off. And yet afterwards it was a sort of balm to
his conscience that he had so spoken.

'What nonsense, Philip!' said his aunt; 'why, these fearsome ships
were far out o' sight when he went away, good go wi' him, and Sylvie
just getting o'er her trouble so nicely, and even my master went on
for to say if they'd getten hold on him, he were not a chap to stay
wi' 'em; he'd gi'en proofs on his hatred to 'em, time on. He either
ha' made off--an' then sure enough we should ha' heerd on him
somehow--them Corneys is full on him still and they've a deal to wi'
his folk beyond Newcassel--or, as my master says, he were just t'
chap to hang or drown hissel, sooner nor do aught against his will.'

'What did Sylvie say?' asked Philip, in a hoarse low voice.

'Say? why, a' she could say was to burst out crying, and after a
bit, she just repeated her feyther's words, and said anyhow he was
dead, for he'd niver live to go to sea wi' a press-gang. She knowed
him too well for that. Thou sees she thinks a deal on him for a
spirited chap, as can do what he will. I belie' me she first began
to think on him time o' t' fight aboard th' _Good Fortune_, when
Darley were killed, and he would seem tame-like to her if he
couldn't conquer press-gangs, and men-o'-war. She's sooner think on
him drowned, as she's ne'er to see him again.'

'It's best so,' said Philip, and then, to calm his unusually excited
aunt, he promised to avoid the subject of the press-gang as much as
possible.

But it was a promise very difficult of performance, for Daniel
Robson was, as his wife said, like one possessed. He could hardly
think of anything else, though he himself was occasionally weary of
the same constantly recurring idea, and would fain have banished it
from his mind. He was too old a man to be likely to be taken by
them; he had no son to become their victim; but the terror of them,
which he had braved and defied in his youth, seemed to come back and
take possession of him in his age; and with the terror came
impatient hatred. Since his wife's illness the previous winter he
had been a more sober man until now. He was never exactly drunk, for
he had a strong, well-seasoned head; but the craving to hear the
last news of the actions of the press-gang drew him into Monkshaven
nearly every day at this dead agricultural season of the year; and a
public-house is generally the focus from which gossip radiates; and
probably the amount of drink thus consumed weakened Robson's power
over his mind, and caused the concentration of thought on one
subject. This may be a physiological explanation of what afterwards
was spoken of as a supernatural kind of possession, leading him to
his doom.




CHAPTER XXIII

RETALIATION


The public-house that had been chosen by the leaders of the
press-gang in Monkshaven at this time, for their rendezvous (or
'Randyvowse', as it was generally pronounced), was an inn of poor
repute, with a yard at the back which opened on to the staithe or
quay nearest to the open sea. A strong high stone wall bounded this
grass-grown mouldy yard on two sides; the house, and some unused
out-buildings, formed the other two. The choice of the place was
good enough, both as to situation, which was sufficiently isolated,
and yet near to the widening river; and as to the character of the
landlord, John Hobbs was a failing man, one who seemed as if doomed
to be unfortunate in all his undertakings, and the consequence of
all this was that he was envious of the more prosperous, and willing
to do anything that might bring him in a little present success in
life. His household consisted of his wife, her niece, who acted as
servant, and an out-of-doors man, a brother of Ned Simpson, the
well-doing butcher, who at one time had had a fancy for Sylvia. But
the one brother was prosperous, the other had gone on sinking in
life, like him who was now his master. Neither Hobbs nor his man
Simpson were absolutely bad men; if things had gone well with them
they might each have been as scrupulous and conscientious as their
neighbours, and even now, supposing the gain in money to be equal,
they would sooner have done good than evil; but a very small sum was
enough to turn the balance. And in a greater degree than in most
cases was the famous maxim of Rochefoucault true with them; for in
the misfortunes of their friends they seemed to see some
justification of their own. It was blind fate dealing out events,
not that the events themselves were the inevitable consequences of
folly or misconduct. To such men as these the large sum offered by
the lieutenant of the press-gang for the accommodation of the
Mariners' Arms was simply and immediately irresistible. The best
room in the dilapidated house was put at the service of the
commanding officer of the impress service, and all other
arrangements made at his desire, irrespective of all the former
unprofitable sources of custom and of business. If the relatives
both of Hobbs and of Simpson had not been so well known and so
prosperous in the town, they themselves would have received more
marks of popular ill opinion than they did during the winter the
events of which are now being recorded. As it was, people spoke to
them when they appeared at kirk or at market, but held no
conversation with them; no, not although they each appeared better
dressed than they had either of them done for years past, and
although their whole manner showed a change, inasmuch as they had
been formerly snarling and misanthropic, and were now civil almost
to deprecation.

Every one who was capable of understanding the state of feeling in
Monkshaven at this time must have been aware that at any moment an
explosion might take place; and probably there were those who had
judgment enough to be surprised that it did not take place sooner
than it did. For until February there were only occasional cries and
growls of rage, as the press-gang made their captures first here,
then there; often, apparently, tranquil for days, then heard of at
some distance along the coast, then carrying off a seaman from the
very heart of the town. They seemed afraid of provoking any general
hostility, such as that which had driven them from Shields, and
would have conciliated the inhabitants if they could; the officers
on the service and on board the three men-of-war coming often into
the town, spending largely, talking to all with cheery friendliness,
and making themselves very popular in such society as they could
obtain access to at the houses of the neighbouring magistrates or at
the rectory. But this, however agreeable, did not forward the object
the impress service had in view; and, accordingly, a more decided
step was taken at a time when, although there was no apparent
evidence as to the fact, the town was full of the Greenland mariners
coming quietly in to renew their yearly engagements, which, when
done, would legally entitle them to protection from impressment. One
night--it was on a Saturday, February 23rd, when there was a bitter
black frost, with a north-east wind sweeping through the streets,
and men and women were close shut in their houses--all were startled
in their household content and warmth by the sound of the fire-bell
busily swinging, and pealing out for help. The fire-bell was kept in
the market-house where High Street and Bridge Street met: every one
knew what it meant. Some dwelling, or maybe a boiling-house was on
fire, and neighbourly assistance was summoned with all speed, in a
town where no water was laid on, nor fire-engines kept in readiness.
Men snatched up their hats, and rushed out, wives following, some
with the readiest wraps they could lay hands on, with which to
clothe the over-hasty husbands, others from that mixture of dread
and curiosity which draws people to the scene of any disaster. Those
of the market people who were making the best of their way
homewards, having waited in the town till the early darkness
concealed their path, turned back at the sound of the ever-clanging
fire-bell, ringing out faster and faster as if the danger became
every instant more pressing.

As men ran against or alongside of each other, their breathless
question was ever, 'Where is it?' and no one could tell; so they
pressed onwards into the market-place, sure of obtaining the
information desired there, where the fire-bell kept calling out with
its furious metal tongue.

The dull oil-lamps in the adjoining streets only made darkness
visible in the thronged market-place, where the buzz of many men's
unanswered questions was rising louder and louder. A strange feeling
of dread crept over those nearest to the closed market-house. Above
them in the air the bell was still clanging; but before them was a
door fast shut and locked; no one to speak and tell them why they
were summoned--where they ought to be. They were at the heart of the
mystery, and it was a silent blank! Their unformed dread took shape
at the cry from the outside of the crowd, from where men were still
coming down the eastern side of Bridge Street. 'The gang! the gang!'
shrieked out some one. 'The gang are upon us! Help! help!' Then the
fire-bell had been a decoy; a sort of seething the kid in its
mother's milk, leading men into a snare through their kindliest
feelings. Some dull sense of this added to utter dismay, and made
them struggle and strain to get to all the outlets save that in
which a fight was now going on; the swish of heavy whips, the thud
of bludgeons, the groans, the growls of wounded or infuriated men,
coming with terrible distinctness through the darkness to the
quickened ear of fear.

A breathless group rushed up the blackness of a narrow entry to
stand still awhile, and recover strength for fresh running. For a
time nothing but heavy pants and gasps were heard amongst them. No
one knew his neighbour, and their good feeling, so lately abused and
preyed upon, made them full of suspicion. The first who spoke was
recognized by his voice.

'Is it thee, Daniel Robson?' asked his neighbour, in a low tone.

'Ay! Who else should it be?'

'A dunno.'

'If a am to be any one else, I'd like to be a chap of nobbut eight
stun. A'm welly done for!'

'It were as bloody a shame as iver I heerd on. Who's to go t' t'
next fire, a'd like to know!'

'A tell yo' what, lads,' said Daniel, recovering his breath, but
speaking in gasps. 'We were a pack o' cowards to let 'em carry off
yon chaps as easy as they did, a'm reckoning!'

'A think so, indeed,' said another voice.

Daniel went on--

'We was two hunder, if we was a man; an' t' gang has niver numbered
above twelve.'

'But they was armed. A seen t' glitter on their cutlasses,' spoke
out a fresh voice.

'What then!' replied he who had latest come, and who stood at the
mouth of the entry. 'A had my whalin' knife wi' me i' my pea-jacket
as my missus threw at me, and a'd ha' ripped 'em up as soon as
winkin', if a could ha' thought what was best to do wi' that d----d
bell makin' such a din reet above us. A man can but die onest, and
we was ready to go int' t' fire for t' save folks' lives, and yet
we'd none on us t' wit to see as we might ha' saved yon poor chaps
as screeched out for help.'

'They'll ha' getten 'em to t' Randyvowse by now,' said some one.

'They cannot tak' 'em aboard till morning; t' tide won't serve,'
said the last speaker but one.

Daniel Robson spoke out the thought that was surging up into the
brain of every one there.

'There's a chance for us a'. How many be we?' By dint of touching
each other the numbers were counted. Seven. 'Seven. But if us seven
turns out and rouses t' town, there'll be many a score ready to gang
t' Mariners' Arms, and it'll be easy work reskyin' them chaps as is
pressed. Us seven, each man jack on us, go and seek up his friends,
and get him as well as he can to t' church steps; then, mebbe,
there'll be some theere as'll not be so soft as we was, lettin' them
poor chaps be carried off from under our noses, just becase our ears
was busy listenin' to yon confounded bell, whose clip-clappin'
tongue a'll tear out afore this week is out.'

Before Daniel had finished speaking, those nearest to the entrance
muttered their assent to his project, and had stolen off, keeping to
the darkest side of the streets and lanes, which they threaded in
different directions; most of them going straight as sleuth-hounds
to the haunts of the wildest and most desperate portion of the
seafaring population of Monkshaven. For, in the breasts of many,
revenge for the misery and alarm of the past winter took a deeper
and more ferocious form than Daniel had thought of when he made his
proposal of a rescue. To him it was an adventure like many he had
been engaged in in his younger days; indeed, the liquor he had drunk
had given him a fictitious youth for the time; and it was more in
the light of a rough frolic of which he was to be the leader, that
he limped along ( always lame from old attacks of rheumatism),
chuckling to himself at the apparent stillness of the town, which
gave no warning to the press-gang at the Rendezvous of anything in
the wind. Daniel, too, had his friends to summon; old hands like
himself, but 'deep uns', also, like himself, as he imagined.

It was nine o'clock when all who were summoned met at the church
steps; and by nine o'clock, Monkshaven, in those days, was more
quiet and asleep than many a town at present is at midnight. The
church and churchyard above them were flooded with silver light, for
the moon was high in the heavens: the irregular steps were here and
there in pure white clearness, here and there in blackest shadow.
But more than half way up to the top, men clustered like bees; all
pressing so as to be near enough to question those who stood nearest
to the planning of the attack. Here and there, a woman, with wild
gestures and shrill voice, that no entreaty would hush down to the
whispered pitch of the men, pushed her way through the crowd--this
one imploring immediate action, that adjuring those around her to
smite and spare not those who had carried off her 'man',--the
father, the breadwinner. Low down in the darkened silent town were
many whose hearts went with the angry and excited crowd, and who
would bless them and caress them for that night's deeds. Daniel soon
found himself a laggard in planning, compared to some of those
around him. But when, with the rushing sound of many steps and but
few words, they had arrived at the blank, dark, shut-up Mariners'
Arms, they paused in surprise at the uninhabited look of the whole
house: it was Daniel once more who took the lead.

'Speak 'em fair,' said he; 'try good words first. Hobbs 'll mebbe
let 'em out quiet, if we can catch a word wi' him. A say, Hobbs,'
said he, raising his voice, 'is a' shut up for t' neet; for a'd be
glad of a glass. A'm Dannel Robson, thou knows.'

Not one word in reply, any more than from the tomb; but his speech
had been heard nevertheless. The crowd behind him began to jeer and
to threaten; there was no longer any keeping down their voices,
their rage, their terrible oaths. If doors and windows had not of
late been strengthened with bars of iron in anticipation of some
such occasion, they would have been broken in with the onset of the
fierce and now yelling crowd who rushed against them with the force
of a battering-ram, to recoil in baffled rage from the vain assault.
No sign, no sound from within, in that breathless pause.

'Come away round here! a've found a way to t' back o' behint, where
belike it's not so well fenced,' said Daniel, who had made way for
younger and more powerful men to conduct the assault, and had
employed his time meanwhile in examining the back premises. The men
rushed after him, almost knocking him down, as he made his way into
the lane into which the doors of the outbuildings belonging to the
inn opened. Daniel had already broken the fastening of that which
opened into a damp, mouldy-smelling shippen, in one corner of which
a poor lean cow shifted herself on her legs, in an uneasy, restless
manner, as her sleeping-place was invaded by as many men as could
cram themselves into the dark hold. Daniel, at the end farthest from
the door, was almost smothered before he could break down the rotten
wooden shutter, that, when opened, displayed the weedy yard of the
old inn, the full clear light defining the outline of each blade of
grass by the delicate black shadow behind.

This hole, used to give air and light to what had once been a
stable, in the days when horse travellers were in the habit of
coming to the Mariners' Arms, was large enough to admit the passage
of a man; and Daniel, in virtue of its discovery, was the first to
get through. But he was larger and heavier than he had been; his
lameness made him less agile, and the impatient crowd behind him
gave him a helping push that sent him down on the round stones with
which the yard was paved, and for the time disabled him so much that
he could only just crawl out of the way of leaping feet and heavy
nailed boots, which came through the opening till the yard was
filled with men, who now set up a fierce, derisive shout, which, to
their delight, was answered from within. No more silence, no more
dead opposition: a living struggle, a glowing, raging fight; and
Daniel thought he should be obliged to sit there still, leaning
against the wall, inactive, while the strife and the action were
going on in which he had once been foremost.

He saw the stones torn up; he saw them used with good effect on the
unguarded back-door; he cried out in useless warning as he saw the
upper windows open, and aim taken among the crowd; but just then the
door gave way, and there was an involuntary forward motion in the
throng, so that no one was so disabled by the shots as to prevent
his forcing his way in with the rest. And now the sounds came veiled
by the walls as of some raging ravening beast growling over his
prey; the noise came and went--once utterly ceased; and Daniel
raised himself with difficulty to ascertain the cause, when again
the roar came clear and fresh, and men poured into the yard again,
shouting and rejoicing over the rescued victims of the press-gang.
Daniel hobbled up, and shouted, and rejoiced, and shook hands with
the rest, hardly caring to understand that the lieutenant and his
gang had quitted the house by a front window, and that all had
poured out in search of them; the greater part, however, returning
to liberate the prisoners, and then glut their vengeance on the
house and its contents.

From all the windows, upper and lower, furniture was now being
thrown into the yard. The smash of glass, the heavier crash of wood,
the cries, the laughter, the oaths, all excited Daniel to the
utmost; and, forgetting his bruises, he pressed forwards to lend a
helping hand. The wild, rough success of his scheme almost turned
his head. He hurraed at every flagrant piece of destruction; he
shook hands with every one around him, and, at last, when the
destroyers inside paused to take breath, he cried out,--

'If a was as young as onest a was, a'd have t' Randyvowse down, and
mak' a bonfire on it. We'd ring t' fire-bell then t' some purpose.'

No sooner said than done. Their excitement was ready to take the
slightest hint of mischief; old chairs, broken tables, odd drawers,
smashed chests, were rapidly and skilfully heaped into a pyramid,
and one, who at the first broaching of the idea had gone for live
coals the speedier to light up the fire, came now through the crowd
with a large shovelful of red-hot cinders. The rioters stopped to
take breath and look on like children at the uncertain flickering
blaze, which sprang high one moment, and dropped down the next only
to creep along the base of the heap of wreck, and make secure of its
future work. Then the lurid blaze darted up wild, high, and
irrepressible; and the men around gave a cry of fierce exultation,
and in rough mirth began to try and push each other in. In one of
the pauses of the rushing, roaring noise of the flames, the moaning
low and groan of the poor alarmed cow fastened up in the shippen
caught Daniel's ear, and he understood her groans as well as if they
had been words. He limped out of the yard through the now deserted
house, where men were busy at the mad work of destruction, and found
his way back to the lane into which the shippen opened. The cow was
dancing about at the roar, and dazzle, and heat of the fire; but
Daniel knew how to soothe her, and in a few minutes he had a rope
round her neck, and led her gently out from the scene of her alarm.
He was still in the lane when Simpson, the man-of-all-work at the
Mariners' Arms, crept out of some hiding-place in the deserted
outbuilding, and stood suddenly face to face with Robson.

The man was white with fear and rage.

'Here, tak' thy beast, and lead her wheere she'll noane hear yon
cries and shouts. She's fairly moithered wi' heat an' noise.'

'They're brennin' ivery rag I have i' t' world,' gasped out Simpson:
'I niver had much, and now I'm a beggar.'

'Well! thou shouldn't ha' turned again' thine own town-folks, and
harboured t' gang. Sarves thee reet. A'd noane be here leadin'
beasts if a were as young as a were; a'd be in t' thick on it.'

'It was thee set 'm on--a heerd thee--a see'd thee a helping on 'em
t' break in; they'd niver ha' thought on attackin' t' house, and
settin' fire to yon things, if thou hadn't spoken on it.' Simpson
was now fairly crying. But Daniel did not realize what the loss of
all the small property he had in the world was to the poor fellow
(rapscallion though he was, broken down, unprosperous
ne'er-do-weel!) in his pride at the good work he believed he had set
on foot.

'Ay,' said he; 'it's a great thing for folk to have a chap for t'
lead 'em wi' a head on his shouthers. A misdoubt me if there were a
felly theere as would ha' thought o' routling out yon wasps' nest;
it tak's a deal o' mother-wit to be up to things. But t' gang'll
niver harbour theere again, one while. A only wish we'd cotched 'em.
An' a should like t' ha' gi'en Hobbs a bit o' my mind.'

'He's had his sauce,' said Simpson, dolefully. 'Him and me is
ruined.'

'Tut, tut, thou's got thy brother, he's rich enough. And Hobbs 'll
do a deal better; he's had his lesson now, and he'll stick to his
own side time to come. Here, tak' thy beast an' look after her, for
my bones is achin'. An' mak' thysel' scarce, for some o' them fellys
has getten their blood up, an' wunnot be for treating thee o'er well
if they fall in wi' thee.'

'Hobbs ought to be served out; it were him as made t' bargain wi'
lieutenant; and he's off safe wi' his wife and his money bag, and
a'm left a beggar this neet i' Monkshaven street. My brother and me
has had words, and he'll do nought for me but curse me. A had three
crown-pieces, and a good pair o' breeches, and a shirt, and a dare
say better nor two pair o' stockings. A wish t' gang, and thee, and
Hobbs and them mad folk up yonder, were a' down i' hell, a do.'

'Coom, lad,' said Daniel, noways offended at his companion's wish on
his behalf. 'A'm noane flush mysel', but here's half-a-crown and
tuppence; it's a' a've getten wi' me, but it'll keep thee and t'
beast i' food and shelter to-neet, and get thee a glass o' comfort,
too. A had thought o' takin' one mysel', but a shannot ha' a penny
left, so a'll just toddle whoam to my missus.'

Daniel was not in the habit of feeling any emotion at actions not
directly affecting himself; or else he might have despised the poor
wretch who immediately clutched at the money, and overwhelmed that
man with slobbery thanks whom he had not a minute before been
cursing. But all Simpson's stronger passions had been long ago used
up; now he only faintly liked and disliked, where once he loved and
hated; his only vehement feeling was for himself; that cared for,
other men might wither or flourish as best suited them.

Many of the doors which had been close shut when the crowd went down
the High Street, were partially open as Daniel slowly returned; and
light streamed from them on the otherwise dark road. The news of the
successful attempt at rescue had reached those who had sate in
mourning and in desolation an hour or two ago, and several of these
pressed forwards as from their watching corner they recognized
Daniel's approach; they pressed forward into the street to shake him
by the hand, to thank him (for his name had been bruited abroad as
one of those who had planned the affair), and at several places he
was urged to have a dram--urgency that he was loath for many reasons
to refuse, but his increasing uneasiness and pain made him for once
abstinent, and only anxious to get home and rest. But he could not
help being both touched and flattered at the way in which those who
formed his 'world' looked upon him as a hero; and was not
insensible to the words of blessing which a wife, whose husband had
been impressed and rescued this night, poured down upon him as he
passed.

'Theere, theere,--dunnot crack thy throat wi' blessin'. Thy man
would ha' done as much for me, though mebbe he mightn't ha' shown so
much gumption and capability; but them's gifts, and not to be proud
on.'

When Daniel reached the top of the hill on the road home, he turned
to look round; but he was lame and bruised, he had gone along
slowly, the fire had pretty nearly died out, only a red hue in the
air about the houses at the end of the long High Street, and a hot
lurid mist against the hill-side beyond where the Mariners' Arms had
stood, were still left as signs and token of the deed of violence.

Daniel looked and chuckled. 'That comes o' ringin' t' fire-bell,'
said he to himself; 'it were shame for it to be tellin' a lie, poor
oud story-teller.'




CHAPTER XXIV

BRIEF REJOICING


Daniel's unusually late absence from home disturbed Bell and Sylvia
not a little. He was generally at home between eight and nine on
market days. They expected to see him the worse for liquor at such
times; but this did not shock them; he was no worse than most of his
neighbours, indeed better than several, who went off once or twice a
year, or even oftener, on drinking bouts of two or three days'
duration, returning pale, sodden, and somewhat shame-faced, when all
their money was gone; and, after the conjugal reception was well
over, settling down into hard-working and decently sober men until
the temptation again got power over them. But, on market days, every
man drank more than usual; every bargain or agreement was ratified
by drink; they came from greater or less distances, either afoot or
on horseback, and the 'good accommodation for man and beast' (as the
old inn-signs expressed it) always included a considerable amount of
liquor to be drunk by the man.

Daniel's way of announcing his intention of drinking more than
ordinary was always the same. He would say at the last moment,
'Missus, I've a mind to get fuddled to-neet,' and be off,
disregarding her look of remonstrance, and little heeding the
injunctions she would call after him to beware of such and such
companions, or to attend to his footsteps on his road home.

But this night he had given no such warning. Bell and Sylvia put the
candle on the low window-seat at the usual hour to guide him through
the fields--it was a habit kept up even on moonlight nights like
this--and sate on each side of the fire, at first scarcely caring to
listen, so secure were they of his return. Bell dozed, and Sylvia
sate gazing at the fire with abstracted eyes, thinking of the past
year and of the anniversary which was approaching of the day when
she had last seen the lover whom she believed to be dead, lying
somewhere fathoms deep beneath the surface of that sunny sea on
which she looked day by day without ever seeing his upturned face
through the depths, with whatsoever heart-sick longing for just one
more sight she yearned and inwardly cried. If she could set her eyes
on his bright, handsome face, that face which was fading from her
memory, overtasked in the too frequent efforts to recall it; if she
could but see him once again, coming over the waters beneath which
he lay with supernatural motion, awaiting her at the stile, with the
evening sun shining ruddy into his bonny eyes, even though, after
that one instant of vivid and visible life, he faded into mist; if
she could but see him now, sitting in the faintly flickering
fire-light in the old, happy, careless way, on a corner of the
dresser, his legs dangling, his busy fingers playing with some of
her woman's work;--she wrung her hands tight together as she
implored some, any Power, to let her see him just once again--just
once--for one minute of passionate delight. Never again would she
forget that dear face, if but once more she might set her eyes upon
it.

Her mother's head fell with a sudden jerk, and she roused herself
up; and Sylvia put by her thought of the dead, and her craving after
his presence, into that receptacle of her heart where all such are
kept closed and sacred from the light of common day.

'Feyther's late,' said Bell.

'It's gone eight,' replied Sylvia.

'But our clock is better nor an hour forrard,' answered Bell.

'Ay, but t' wind brings Monkshaven bells clear to-night. I heerd t'
eight o'clock bell ringing not five minutes ago.'

It was the fire-bell, but she had not distinguished the sound.

There was another long silence; both wide awake this time.

'He'll have his rheumatics again,' said Bell.

'It's cold for sartin,' said Sylvia. 'March weather come afore its
time. But I'll make him a treacle-posset, it's a famous thing for
keeping off hoasts.'

The treacle-posset was entertainment enough for both while it was
being made. But once placed in a little basin in the oven, there was
again time for wonder and anxiety.

'He said nought about having a bout, did he, mother?' asked Sylvia
at length.

'No,' said Bell, her face a little contracting. After a while she
added, 'There's many a one as has husbands that goes off drinking
without iver saying a word to their wives. My master is none o' that
mak'.'

'Mother,' broke in Sylvia again, 'I'll just go and get t' lantern
out of t' shippen, and go up t' brow, and mebbe to t' ash-field
end.'

'Do, lass,' said her mother. 'I'll get my wraps and go with thee.'

'Thou shall do niver such a thing,' said Sylvia. 'Thou's too frail
to go out i' t' night air such a night as this.'

'Then call Kester up.'

'Not I. I'm noane afraid o' t' dark.'

'But of what thou mayst meet i' t' dark, lass?'

Sylvia shivered all over at the sudden thought, suggested by this
speech of her mother's, that the idea that had flashed into her own
mind of going to look for her father might be an answer to the
invocation to the Powers which she had made not long ago, that she
might indeed meet her dead lover at the ash-field stile; but though
she shivered as this superstitious fancy came into her head, her
heart beat firm and regular; not from darkness nor from the spirits
of the dead was she going to shrink; her great sorrow had taken away
all her girlish nervous fear.

She went; and she came back. Neither man nor spirit had she seen;
the wind was blowing on the height enough to sweep all creatures
before it; but no one was coming.

So they sate down again to keep watch. At length his step was heard
close to the door; and it startled them even in their state of
expectation.

'Why, feyther!' cried Sylvia as he entered; while his wife stood up
trembling, but not saying a word.

'A'm a'most done up,' said he, sitting heavily down on the chair
nearest the door.

'Poor old feyther!' said Sylvia, stooping to take off his heavy
clogged shoes; while Bell took the posset out of the oven.

'What's this? posset? what creatures women is for slops,' said he;
but he drank it all the same, while Sylvia fastened the door, and
brought the flaring candle from the window-seat. The fresh
arrangement of light displayed his face blackened with smoke, and
his clothes disarranged and torn.

'Who's been melling wi' thee?' asked Bell.

'No one has melled wi' me; but a've been mellin' wi' t' gang at
last.'

'Thee: they niver were for pressing thee!' exclaimed both the women
at once.

'No! they knowed better. They'n getten their belly-full as it is.
Next time they try it on, a reckon they'll ax if Daniel Robson is
wi'in hearin'. A've led a resky this neet, and saved nine or ten
honest chaps as was pressed, and carried off to t' Randyvowse. Me
and some others did it. And Hobbs' things and t' lieutenant's is a'
burnt; and by this time a reckon t' Randyvowse is pretty nigh four
walls, ready for a parish-pound.'

'Thou'rt niver for saying thou burnt it down wi' t' gang in it, for
sure?' asked Bell.

'Na, na, not this time. T' 'gang fled up t' hill like coneys; and
Hobbs and his folks carried off a bag o' money; but t' oud
tumbledown place is just a heap o' brick and mortar; an' t'
furniture is smoulderin' int' ashes; and, best of a', t' men is
free, and will niver be cotched wi' a fire-bell again.'

And so he went on to tell of the ruse by which they had been enticed
into the market-place; interrupted from time to time by their eager
questions, and interrupting himself every now and then with
exclamations of weariness and pain, which made him at last say,--

'Now a'm willing to tell yo' a' about it to-morrow, for it's not
ivery day a man can do such great things; but to-neet a mun go to
bed, even if King George were wantin' for to know how a managed it
a'.'

He went wearily upstairs, and wife and daughter both strove their
best to ease his aching limbs, and make him comfortable. The
warming-pan, only used on state occasions, was taken down and
unpapered for his service; and as he got between the warm sheets, he
thanked Sylvia and her mother in a sleepy voice, adding,--

'It's a vast o' comfort to think on yon poor lads as is sleepin' i'
their own homes this neet,' and then slumber fell upon him, and he
was hardly roused by Bell's softly kissing his weather-beaten cheek,
and saying low,--

'God bless thee, my man! Thou was allays for them that was down and
put upon.'

He murmured some monosyllabic reply, unheard by his wife, who stole
away to undress herself noiselessly, and laid herself down on her
side of the bed as gently as her stiffened limbs would permit.

They were late in rising the next morning. Kester was long since up
and at his work among the cattle before he saw the house-door open
to admit the fresh chill morning air; and even then Sylvia brushed
softly, and went about almost on tip-toe. When the porridge was
ready, Kester was called in to his breakfast, which he took sitting
at the dresser with the family. A large wooden platter stood in the
middle; and each had a bowl of the same material filled with milk.
The way was for every one to dip his pewter spoon into the central
dish, and convey as much or as little as he liked at a time of the
hot porridge into his pure fresh milk. But to-day Bell told Kester
to help himself all at once, and to take his bowl up to the master's
room and keep him company. For Daniel was in bed, resting from his
weariness, and bemoaning his painful bruises whenever he thought of
them. But his mind was still so much occupied with the affair of the
previous night, that Bell judged rightly that a new listener would
give ease to his body as well as to his mind, and her proposal of
Kester's carrying up his breakfast had been received by Daniel with
satisfaction.

So Kester went up slowly, carrying his over-full basin tenderly, and
seated himself on the step leading down into the bed-room (for
levels had not been calculated when the old house was built) facing
his master, who, half sitting up in the blue check bed, not
unwillingly began his relation again; to which Kester listened so
attentively, that his spoon was often arrested in its progress from
the basin to his mouth, open ready to receive it, while he gazed
with unwinking eyes at Daniel narrating his exploits.

But after Daniel had fought his battle o'er again to every auditor
within his reach, he found the seclusion of his chamber rather
oppressive, without even the usual week-days' noises below; so after
dinner, though far from well, he came down and wandered about the
stable and the fields nearest to the house, consulting with Kester
as to crops and manure for the most part; but every now and then
breaking out into an episodical chuckle over some part of last
night's proceedings. Kester enjoyed the day even more than his
master, for he had no bruises to remind him that, although a hero,
he was also flesh and blood.

When they returned to the house they found Philip there, for it was
already dusk. It was Kester's usual Sunday plan to withdraw to bed
at as early an hour as he could manage to sleep, often in winter
before six; but now he was too full of interest in what Philip might
have to tell of Monkshaven news to forego his Sabbath privilege of
spending the evening sitting on the chair at the end of the dresser
behind the door.

Philip was as close to Sylvia as he could possibly get without
giving her offence, when they came in. Her manner was listless and
civil; she had lost all that active feeling towards him which made
him positively distasteful, and had called out her girlish
irritation and impertinence. She now was rather glad to see him than
otherwise. He brought some change into the heavy monotony of her
life--monotony so peaceful until she had been stirred by passion out
of that content with the small daily events which had now become
burdensome recurrences. Insensibly to herself she was becoming
dependent on his timid devotion, his constant attention; and he,
lover-like, once so attracted, in spite of his judgment, by her
liveliness and piquancy, now doted on her languor, and thought her
silence more sweet than words.

He had only just arrived when master and man came in. He had been to
aft

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