“I to the grave do summon all,”
“I to the grave do summon all,”
“I to the grave do summon all,”
kept on its heavy booming monotone, with which no other sound from land or sea, near or distant, intermingled, except the cackle of the geese on some far-away farm on the moors, as they were coming home to roost; and that one noise from so great a distance seemed only to deepen the stillness. Then there was a little movement in the crowd; a little pushing from side to side, to make a path for the corpse and its bearers—an aggregate of the fragments of room.
With bent heads and spent strength, those who carried the coffin moved on; behind came the poor old gardener, a brown-black funeral cloak thrown over his homely dress, and supporting his wife with steps scarcely less feeble than her own. He had come to church that afternoon with a promise to her that he would return to lead her to the funeral of her firstborn; for he felt, in his sore, perplexed heart, full of indignation and dumb anger, as if he must go and hear something which should exorcise the unwonted longing for revenge that disturbed hisgrief and made him conscious of that great blank of consolation which faithlessness produces. And for the time he was faithless. How came God to permit such cruel injustice of man? Permitting it, He could not be good. Then what was life and what was death, but woe and despair? The beautiful solemn words of the ritual had done him good, and restored much of his faith. Though he could not understand why such sorrow had befallen him any more than before, he had come back to something of his childlike trust; he kept saying to himself in a whisper, as he mounted the weary steps, “It is the Lord’s doing”; and the repetition soothed him unspeakably. Behind this old couple followed their children, grown men and women, come from distant place or farmhouse service: the servants at the vicarage, and many a neighbour, anxious to show their sympathy, and most of the sailors from the crews of the vessels in port, joined in procession, and followed the dead body into the church.
There was too great a crowd immediately within the door for Sylvia and Molly to go in again, and they accordingly betook themselves to the place where the deep grave was waiting, wide and hungry, to receive its dead. There, leaning against the headstones all around, were many standing—looking over the broad and placid sea, and turned to the soft salt air which blew on their hot eyes and rigid faces; for no one spoke of all that number. They were thinking of the violent death of him over whom the solemn words were now being said in the gray old church, scarcely out of their hearing, had not the sound been broken by the measured lapping of the tide far beneath.
Suddenly every one looked round towards the path from the churchyard steps. Two sailors weresupporting a ghastly figure that, with feeble motions, was drawing near the open grave.
“It’s t’ specksioneer as tried to save him! it’s him as was left for dead!” the people murmured round.
“It’s Charley Kinraid, as I’m a sinner!” said Molly, starting forward to greet her cousin.
But as he came on she saw that all his strength was needed for the mere action of walking. The sailors, in their strong sympathy, had yielded to his earnest entreaty, and carried him up the steps, in order that he might see the last of his messmate. They placed him near the grave, resting against a stone; and he was hardly there before the vicar came forth, and the great crowd poured out of the church, following the body to the grave.
Sylvia was so much wrapped up in the solemnity of the occasion that she had no thought to spare at the first moment for the pale and haggard figure opposite; much less was she aware of her cousin Philip, who now, singling her out for the first time from among the crowd, pressed to her side, with an intention of companionship and protection.
As the service went on, ill-checked sobs rose from behind the two girls, who were among the foremost in the crowd, and by and by the cry and the wail became general. Sylvia’s tears rained down her face, and her distress became so evident that it attracted the attention of many in that inner circle. Among others who noticed it, the specksioneer’s hollow eyes were caught by the sight of the innocent blooming child-like face opposite to him, and he wondered if she were a relation; yet, seeing that she bore no badge of mourning, he rather concluded that she must have been a sweetheart of the dead man’s.
And now all was over: the rattle of the gravel onthe coffin; the last long, lingering look of friends and lovers; the rosemary sprigs had been cast down by all who were fortunate enough to have brought them—and oh! how much Sylvia wished she had remembered this last act of respect—and slowly the outer rim of the crowd began to slacken and disappear.
FromSylvia’s Lovers, 1863
This riot, which Mrs. Gaskell describes so graphically, did actually take place on February 23rd, 1797, and the prototype of Daniel Robson was hanged at York, for encouraging the rioters. Mrs. Gaskell got copies of the documents relating to the trial and execution, and she interviewed several of the old residents of Whitby, when writing her story.
This riot, which Mrs. Gaskell describes so graphically, did actually take place on February 23rd, 1797, and the prototype of Daniel Robson was hanged at York, for encouraging the rioters. Mrs. Gaskell got copies of the documents relating to the trial and execution, and she interviewed several of the old residents of Whitby, when writing her story.
Everyonewho 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 driventhem 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: everyone 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-clangingfire-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 someone. “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 all 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 heavypants 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 anyone else, I’d like to be a chap of nobbut eight stun. A’m welly done for!”
“It were as bloody a shame as ever I heered 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 whaling-knife wi’ me i’ my pea-jacket as my missus threw at me, and a’d ha’ ripped ’em up as soon as winking, if a could ha’ thought what was best to do wi’ that ⸺ bell making such a din right 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’ Randyvow by now,” said someone.
“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 everyone 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’ t’ Mariners’ Arms, and it’ll be easy work reskying 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 there as’ll not be so soft as we was, letting them poor chaps be carried off from under our noses, just because our ears was busy listening to yon confounded bell, whose clip-clapping 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’ night; for a’d be glad of a glass. A’m Daniel 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 shippon, 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; andDaniel, 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 disabled by the shots as to prevent their forcing their 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 theprisoners, 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 everyone 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’ Randyvow down, and mak’ a bonfire on it. We’d ring t’ fire-bell 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 shippon 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 nowdeserted house, where men were busy at the mad work of destruction, and found his way back to the lane into which the shippon 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 out-building, and stood suddenly face to face with Robson.
The man was white with rage and fear.
“Here, tak’ thy beast, and lead her where she’ll noan hear yon cries and shouts. She’s fairly moidered wi’ heat an’ noise.”
“They’re brenning every 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 townfolks, and harboured t’ gang. Sarves thee reet. A’d noan be here leading beasts if a were as young as a were; a’d be in t’ thick on it.”
“It was thee set ’em on—a heerd thee—a see’d thee a helping on ’em t’ break in; they’d ne’r ha’ thought on attacking t’ house, and setting fire to yon things if thou hadn’t spoken on it.” Simpson was now fairly crying. But Daniel did not realise 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 shoulders. A misdoubt me if there were a felly there as would ha’ thought o’ routling out yon wasps’ nest; it taks adeal o’ mother-wit to be up to things. But t’ gang’ll niver harbour there again, one while. A only wish we’d cotched ’em. An’ a should like t’ ha’ given Hobbs a bit o’ my mind.”
“He’s had his sauce,” said Simpson dolefully. “He 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 aching. An’ mak’ thysel’ scarce, for some o’ them fellys has getten their blood up, an’ won’t be for treating thee o’er well if they fall in wi’ thee.”
“Hobbs ought to be served out; it were he 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 night in 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 noan flush mysel’, but here’s half a crown, and tuppence, it’s a’ a’ve gotten wi’ me; but it’ll keep thee and t’ beast i’ food and shelter this neet, and get thee a glass o’ comfort, too. A had thought o’ taking 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 minutebefore 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 recognised 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.
“There, there—dunnot crack thy throat wi’ blessing. 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’ ringing fire-bell,” said he to himself; “it were shame for it to be telling a lie, poor oud story-teller.”
FromSylvia’s Lovers, 1863
Moss Brow, Molly Corney’s old home, is still in existence, and the room in which the game was played can be seen.
Moss Brow, Molly Corney’s old home, is still in existence, and the room in which the game was played can be seen.
Sylviawas by all acknowledged and treated as the belle. When they played at blind-man’s-buff, go where she would, she was always caught; she was called out repeatedly to do what was required in any game, as if all had a pleasure in seeing her light figure and deft ways. She was sufficiently pleased with all this to have got over her shyness with all except Charley. When others paid her their rustic compliments she tossed her head, and made her little saucy repartees; but when he said something low and flattering, it was too honey-sweet to her heart to be thrown off thus. And, somehow, the more she yielded to this fascination the more she avoided Philip. He did not speak flatteringly—he did not pay compliments—he watched her with discontented, longing eyes, and grew more inclinedevery moment, as he remembered his anticipation of a happy evening, to cry out in his heartvanitas vanitatum.
And now came crying the forfeits. Molly Brunton knelt down, her face buried in her mother’s lap; the latter took out the forfeits one by one, and as she held them up she said the accustomed formula:
“A fine thing, and a very fine thing, what must he (or she) do who owns this thing?”
One or two had been told to kneel to the prettiest, bow to the wittiest, and kiss those they loved best; others had had to bite an inch off the poker, or such plays upon words. And now came Sylvia’s pretty new ribbon that Philip had given her (he almost longed to snatch it out of Mrs. Corney’s hands and burn it before all their faces, so annoyed was he with the whole affair).
“A fine thing and a very fine thing—a most particular fine thing—choose how she came by it. What must she do as owns this thing?”
“She must blow out t’ candle and kiss t’ candlestick.”
In one instant Kinraid had hold of the only candle within reach; all the others had been put up high on inaccessible shelves and other places. Sylvia went up and blew out the candle, and before the sudden partial darkness was over he had taken the candle into his fingers and, according to the traditional meaning of the words, was in the place of the candlestick, and as such was to be kissed. Everyone laughed at innocent Sylvia’s face as the meaning of her penance came into it, everyone but Philip, who almost choked.
“I’m candlestick,” said Kinraid, with less of triumph in his voice than he would have had with any other girl in the room.
“Yo’ mun kiss t’ candlestick,” cried the Corneys, “or you’ll niver get your ribbon back.”
“And she sets a deal o’ store by that ribbon,” said Molly Brunton maliciously.
“I’ll none kiss t’ candlestick, nor him either,” said Sylvia, in a low voice of determination, turning away, full of confusion.
“Yo’ll not get yo’r ribbon if yo’ dunnot,” cried one and all.
“I don’t care for t’ ribbon,” said she, flashing up with a look at her tormentors, now her back was turned to Kinraid. “An’ I won’t play any more at such-like games,” she added, with fresh indignation rising in her heart as she took her old place in the corner of the room a little away from the rest.
Philip’s spirits rose, and he yearned to go to her and tell her how he approved of her conduct. Alas, Philip! Sylvia, though as modest a girl as ever lived, was no prude, and had been brought up in simple, straightforward country ways; and with any other young man, excepting, perhaps, Philip’s self, she would have thought no more of making a rapid pretence of kissing the hand or cheek of the temporary “candlestick” than our ancestresses did in a much higher rank on similar occasions. Kinraid, though mortified by his public rejection, was more conscious of this than the inexperienced Philip; he resolved not to be balked, and watched his opportunity. For the time he went on playing as if Sylvia’s conduct had not affected him in the least, and as if he was hardly aware of her defection from the game. As she saw others submitting, quite as a matter of course, to similar penances, she began to be angry with herself for having thought twice about it, and almost to dislike herself for the strange consciousness which had made it at the time seem impossibleto do what she was told. Her eyes kept filling with tears as her isolated position in the gay party, the thought of what a fool she had made of herself, kept recurring to her mind; but no one saw her, she thought, thus crying; and, ashamed to be discovered when the party should pause in their game, she stole round behind them into the great chamber in which she had helped to lay out the supper, with the intention of bathing her eyes, and taking a drink of water. One instant Charley Kinraid was missing from the circle of which he was the life and soul; and then back he came with an air of satisfaction on his face, intelligible enough to those who had seen his game; but unnoticed by Philip, who, amidst the perpetual noise and movements around him, had not perceived Sylvia’s leaving the room, until she came back at the end of about a quarter of an hour, looking lovelier than ever, her complexion brilliant, her eyes drooping, her hair neatly and freshly arranged, tied with a brown ribbon instead of that she was supposed to have forfeited. She looked as if she did not wish her return to be noticed, stealing softly behind the romping lads and lasses with noiseless motions, and altogether such a contrast to them in her cool freshness and modest neatness that both Kinraid and Philip found it difficult to keep their eyes off her. But the former had a secret triumph in his heart which enabled him to go on with his merry-making as if it absorbed him; while Philip dropped out of the crowd and came up to where she was standing silently by Mrs. Corney, who, arms akimbo, was laughing at the frolic and fun around her. Sylvia started a little when Philip spoke, and kept her soft eyes averted from him after the first glance; she answered him shortly, but with unaccustomed gentleness. He had only asked her when she wouldlike him to take her home; and she, a little surprised at the idea of going home when to her the evening seemed only beginning, had answered:
“Go home? I don’t know! It’s New Year’s eve!”
FromSylvia’s Lovers, 1863
Shuttingthe door behind him, he went out into the dreary night, and began his lonesome walk back to Monkshaven. The cold sleet almost blinded him as the sea wind drove it straight in his face; it cut against him as it was blown with drifting force. The roar of the wintry sea came borne on the breeze; there was more light from the whitened ground than from the dark laden sky above. The field-paths would have been a matter of perplexity had it not been for the well-known gaps in the dyke-side, which showed the whitened land beyond, between the two dark stone walls. Yet he went clear and straight along his way, having unconsciously left all guidance to the animal instinct which co-exists with the human soul, and sometimes takes strange charge of the human body, when all the nobler powers of the individual are absorbed in acute suffering. At length he was in the lane, toiling up the hill, from which, by day, Monkshaven might be seen. Now all features of the landscape before him were lost in the darkness of night, against which the white flakes came closer and nearer, thicker and faster. On a sudden, the bells of Monkshaven church rang out a welcome to the new year, 1796. From the direction of the wind, itseemed as if the sound was flung with strength and power right into Philip’s face. He walked down the hill to its merry sound—its merry sound, his heavy heart. As he entered the long High Street of Monkshaven, he could see the watching lights put out in parlour, chamber, or kitchen. The new year had come, and expectation was ended. Reality had begun.
He turned to the right, into the court where he lodged with Alice Rose. There was a light still burning there, and cheerful voices were heard. He opened the door; Alice, her daughter, and Coulson stood as if awaiting him. Hester’s wet cloak hung on a chair before the fire; she had her hood on, for she and Coulson had been to the watch-night.
The solemn excitement of the services had left its traces upon her countenance and in her mind. There was a spiritual light in her usually shadowed eyes, and a slight flush on her pale cheek. Merely personal and self-conscious feelings were merged in a loving good-will to all her fellow-creatures. Under the influence of this large charity, she forgot her habitual reserve, and came forward as Philip entered to meet him with her New Year’s wishes—wishes that she had previously interchanged with the other two.
“A happy New Year to you, Philip, and may God have you in His keeping all the days thereof!”
He took her hand, and shook it warmly in reply. The flush on her cheek deepened as she withdrew it. Alice Rose said something curtly about the lateness of the hour and her being much tired; and then she and her daughter went upstairs to the front chamber and Philip and Coulson to that which they shared at the back of the house.
FromSylvia’s Lovers, 1863
This description of the meeting of Sylvia’s two lovers after her marriage to Philip Hepburn is the most dramatic scene in the story.
This description of the meeting of Sylvia’s two lovers after her marriage to Philip Hepburn is the most dramatic scene in the story.
Someonestood in the lane just on the other side of the gap; his back was to the morning sun; all she saw at first was the uniform of a naval officer, so well known in Monkshaven in those days.
Sylvia went hurrying past him, not looking again, although her clothes almost brushed his as he stood there still. She had not gone a yard—no, not half a yard—when her heart leaped up and fell again dead within her, as if she had been shot.
“Sylvia!” he said, in a voice tremulous with joy and passionate love. “Sylvia!”
She looked round; he had turned a little, so that the light fell straight on his face. It was bronzed, and the lines were strengthened; but it was the same face she had last seen in Haytersbank Gully three long years ago and had never thought to see in life again.
He was close to her, and held out his fond arms; she went fluttering towards their embrace, as if drawn by the old fascination; but when she felt them close round her, she started away, and cried out with a great pitiful shriek, and put her hands up to her forehead as if trying to clear away some bewildering mist.
Then she looked at him once more, a terrible story in her eyes, if he could but have read it.
Twice she opened her stiff lips to speak, and twice the words were overwhelmed by the surges of her misery, which bore them back into the depths of her heart.
He thought that he had come upon her too suddenly, and he attempted to soothe her with soft murmurs of love, and to woo her to his outstretched hungry arms once more. But when she saw this motion of his, she made a gesture as though pushing him away; and with an inarticulate moan of agony she put her hands to her head once more, and turning away, began to run blindly towards the town for protection.
For a minute or so he was stunned with surprise at her behaviour; and then he thought it accounted for by the shock of his accost, and that she needed time to understand the unexpected joy. So he followed her swiftly, ever keeping her in view, but not trying to overtake her too speedily.
“I have frightened my poor love,” he kept thinking. And by this thought he tried to repress his impatience and check the speed he longed to use; yet he was always so near behind that her quickened sense heard his well-known footsteps following, and a mad notion flashed across her brain that she would go to the wide full river, and end the hopeless misery she felt enshrouding her. There was a sure hiding-place from all human reproach and heavy mortal woe beneath the rushing waters borne landwards by the morning tide.
No one can tell what changed her course; perhaps the thought of her sucking child; perhaps her mother; perhaps an angel of God; no one on earth knows, but as she ran along the quay-side she all at once turned up an entry, and through an open door.
He, following all the time, came into a quiet, darkparlour, with a cloth and tea things on the table ready for breakfast; the change from the bright sunny air out of doors to the deep shadow of this room made him think for the first moment that she had passed on, and that no one was there, and he stood for an instant baffled, and hearing no sound but the beating of his own heart; but an irrepressible sobbing gasp made him look round, and there he saw her cowered behind the door, her face covered tight up, and sharp shudders going through her whole frame.
“My love, my darling!” said he, going up to her, and trying to raise her, and to loosen her hands away from her face. “I have been too sudden for thee; it was thoughtless in me; but I have so looked forward to this time, and seeing thee come along the field, and go past me; but I should ha’ been more tender and careful of thee. Nay! let me have another look of thy sweet face.”
All this he whispered in the old tones of manœuvring love, in that voice she had yearned and hungered to hear in life, and had not heard, for all her longing, save in her dreams.
She tried to crouch more and more into the corner, into the hidden shadow—to sink into the ground out of sight.
Once more he spoke, beseeching her to lift up her face, to let him hear her speak.
But she only moaned.
“Sylvia,” said he, thinking he could change his tactics, and pique her into speaking, that he would make a pretence of suspicion and offence.
“Sylvia! one would think you were not glad to see me back again at length. I only came in late last night, and my first thought on wakening was of you; it has been ever since I left you.”
Sylvia took her hands away from her face; it was grey as the face of death; her awful eyes were passionless in her despair.
“Where have yo’ been?” she asked, in slow, hoarse tones, as if her voice were half strangled within her.
“Been!” said he, a red light coming into his eyes, as he bent his looks upon her; now, indeed, a true and not an assumed suspicion entering his mind.
“Been!” he repeated; then, coming a step nearer to her, and taking her hand, not tenderly this time, but with a resolution to be satisfied.
“Did not your cousin—Hepburn, I mean—did not he tell you?—he saw the press-gang seize me—I gave him a message to you—I bade you keep true to me as I would be to you.”
Between every clause of this speech he paused and gasped for an answer; but none came. Her eyes dilated and held his steady gaze prisoner as with a magical charm—neither could look away from the other’s wild, searching gaze. When he had ended, she was silent for a moment, then she cried out, shrill and fierce:
“Philip!” No answer.
Wilder and shriller still, “Philip!” she cried.
He was in the distant ware-room completing the last night’s work before the regular shop hours began; before breakfast, also, that his wife might not find him waiting and impatient.
He heard her cry; it cut through doors, and still air, and great bales of woollen stuff; he thought that she had hurt herself, that her mother was worse, that her baby was ill, and he hastened to the spot whence the cry proceeded.
On opening the door that separated the shop from the sitting-room, he saw the back of a navalofficer, and his wife on the ground, huddled up in a heap; when she perceived him come in, she dragged herself up by means of a chair, groping like a blind person, and came and stood facing him.
The officer turned fiercely round, and would have come towards Philip, who was so bewildered by the scene that even yet he did not understand who the stranger was, did not perceive for an instant that he saw the realisation of his greatest dread.
But Sylvia laid her hand on Kinraid’s arm, and assumed to herself the right of speech. Philip did not know her voice, it was so changed.
“Philip,” she said, “this is Kinraid come back again to wed me. He is alive; he has niver been dead, only taken by t’ press-gang. And he says yo’ saw it, and knew it all t’ time. Speak, was it so?”
Philip knew not what to say, whither to turn, under what refuge of words or acts to shelter.
Sylvia’s influence was keeping Kinraid silent, but he was rapidly passing beyond it.
“Speak!” he cried, loosening himself from Sylvia’s light grasp, and coming towards Philip, with a threatening gesture. “Did I not bid you tell her how it was? did I not bid you say how I would be faithful to her, and she was to be faithful to me? Oh! you damned scoundrel! have you kept it from her all that time, and let her think me dead, or false? Take that!”
His closed fist was up to strike the man, who hung his head with bitterest shame and miserable self-reproach; but Sylvia came swift between the blow and its victim.
“Charley, thou shan’t strike him,” she said. “He is a damned scoundrel” (this was said in the hardest, quietest tone), “but he is my husband.”
“Oh! thou false heart!” exclaimed Kinraid, turning sharp on her. “If ever I trusted woman, I trusted you, Sylvia Robson.”
He made as though throwing her from him, with a gesture of contempt that stung her to life.
“Oh, Charley!” she cried, springing to him, “dunnot cut me to the quick; have pity on me, though he had none. I did so love thee; it was my very heart-strings as gave way when they told me thou was drowned—father, and the Corneys, and all, iverybody. Thy hat and the bit of ribbon I gave thee were found drenched and dripping wi’ sea-water; and I went mourning for thee all the day long—dunnot turn away from me; only hearken this once, and then kill me dead, and I’ll bless you—and have niver been mysel’ since; niver ceased to feel the sun grow dark and the air chill and dreary when I thought on the time when thou was alive. I did, my Charley, my own love! And I thought that thou was dead for iver, and I wished I were lying beside thee. Oh, Charley! Philip, there where he stands, could tell you this was true. Philip, wasn’t it so?”
“Would God I were dead!” moaned forth the unhappy, guilty man. But she had turned to Kinraid, and was speaking again to him, and neither of them heard or heeded him—they were drawing closer and closer together—she, with her cheeks and eyes aflame, talking eagerly.
“And father was taken up, and all for setting some free as t’ press-gang had taken by a foul trick; and he were put in York prison, and tried, and hung! hung! Charley!—good kind father was hung on a gallows; and mother lost her sense and grew silly in grief, and we were like to be turned out on t’ wide world, and poor mother dateless—and I thought yo’were dead—oh! I thought yo’ were dead, I did—oh, Charley, Charley!”
By this time they were in each other’s arms, she with her head on his shoulder, crying as if her heart would break.
Philip came forwards and took hold of her to pull her away; but Charley held her tight, mutely defying Philip. Unconsciously, she was Philip’s protection, in that hour of danger, from a blow which might have been his death if strong will could have aided it to kill.
“Sylvia!” said he, grasping her tight. “Listen to me. He did not love you as I did. He had loved other women. I, you—you alone. He had loved other girls before you, and had left off loving them. I—I wish God would free my heart from the pang; but it will go on till I die, whether you love me or not. And then—where was I? Oh! that very night that he was taken, I was a-thinking on you and on him; and I might ha’ given you his message, but I heard those speaking of him who knew him well; they talked of his false, fickle ways. How was I to know he would keep true to thee? It might be a sin in me, I cannot say; my heart and my sense are gone dead within me. I know this, I have loved you as no man but me ever loved before. Have some pity and forgiveness on me, if it’s only because I have been so tormented with my love.”
He looked at her with feverish eager wistfulness; it faded away into despair as she made no sign of having even heard his words. He let go his hold of her, and his arm fell loosely by his side.
“I may die,” he said, “for my life is ended!”
“Sylvia!” spoke out Kinraid, bold and fervent, “your marriage is no marriage. You were tricked into it. You are my wife, not his. I am yourhusband; we plighted each other our troth. See! here is my half of the sixpence.”
He pulled it out from his bosom, tied by a black ribbon round his neck.
“When they stripped me and searched me in the French prison, I managed to keep this. No lies can break the oath we swore to each other. I can get your pretence of a marriage set aside. I am in favour with my admiral, and he will do a deal for me, and will back me out. Come with me; your marriage shall be set aside, and we’ll be married again, all square and above-board. Come away. Leave that damned fellow to repent of the trick he played an honest sailor; we’ll be true, whatever has come and gone. Come, Sylvia.”
His arm was round her waist, and he was drawing her towards the door, his face all crimson with eagerness and hope. Just then the baby cried.
“Hark!” said she, starting away from Kinraid, “baby is crying for me. His child—yes, it is his child—I had forgotten that—forgotten all. I’ll make my vow now, lest I lose mysel’ again. I’ll niver forgive yon man, nor live with him as his wife again. All that’s done and ended. He’s spoilt my life—he’s spoilt it for as long as iver I live on this earth; but neither you nor him shall spoil my soul. It goes hard wi’ me, Charley, it does indeed. I’ll just give you one kiss—one little kiss—and then, so help me God, I’ll niver see nor hear till—no, not that, not that is needed—I’ll niver see—sure that’s enough—I’ll niver see yo’ again on this side heaven, so help me God! I’m bound and tied, but I have sworn my oath to him as well as yo’: there’s things I will do, and there’s things I won’t. Kiss me once more. God help me, he is gone!”
FromWives and Daughters, 1866