Sylvia's Lovers Part 7

'Sit yo' down, sit yo' down!' cried Dame Corney, dusting a chair with her ap.r.o.n; 'a reckon Molly 'll be in i' no time. She's n.o.bbut gone int' t' orchard, to see if she can find wind-falls enough for t' make a pie or two for t' lads. They like nowt so weel for supper as apple-pies sweetened wi' treacle, crust stout and leathery, as stands chewing, and we hannot getten in our apples yet.'

'If Molly is in t' orchard, I'll go find her,' said Sylvia.

'Well! yo' la.s.ses will have your conks' (private talks), 'a know; secrets 'bout sweethearts and such like,' said Mrs. Corney, with a knowing look, which made Sylvia hate her for the moment. 'A've not forgotten as a were young mysen. Tak' care; there's a pool o' mucky watter just outside t' back-door.'

But Sylvia was half-way across the back-yard--worse, if possible, than the front as to the condition in which it was kept--and had pa.s.sed through the little gate into the orchard. It was full of old gnarled apple-trees, their trunks covered with gray lichen, in which the cunning chaffinch built her nest in spring-time. The cankered branches remained on the trees, and added to the knotted interweaving overhead, if they did not to the productiveness; the gra.s.s grew in long tufts, and was wet and tangled under foot. There was a tolerable crop of rosy apples still hanging on the gray old trees, and here and there they showed ruddy in the green bosses of untrimmed gra.s.s. Why the fruit was not gathered, as it was evidently ripe, would have puzzled any one not acquainted with the Corney family to say; but to them it was always a maxim in practice, if not in precept, 'Do nothing to-day that you can put off till to-morrow,'

and accordingly the apples dropped from the trees at any little gust of wind, and lay rotting on the ground until the 'lads' wanted a supply of pies for supper.

Molly saw Sylvia, and came quickly across the orchard to meet her, catching her feet in knots of gra.s.s as she hurried along.

'Well, la.s.s!' said she, 'who'd ha' thought o' seeing yo' such a day as it has been?'

'But it's cleared up now beautiful,' said Sylvia, looking up at the soft evening sky, to be seen through the apple boughs. It was of a tender, delicate gray, with the faint warmth of a promising sunset tinging it with a pink atmosphere. 'Rain is over and gone, and I wanted to know how my cloak is to be made; for Donkin 's working at our house, and I wanted to know all about--the news, yo' know.'

'What news?' asked Molly, for she had heard of the affair between the _Good Fortune_ and the _Aurora_ some days before; and, to tell the truth, it had rather pa.s.sed out of her head just at this moment.

'Hannot yo' heard all about t' press-gang and t' whaler, and t'

great fight, and Kinraid, as is your cousin, acting so brave and grand, and lying on his death-bed now?'

'Oh!' said Molly, enlightened as to Sylvia's 'news,' and half surprised at the vehemence with which the little creature spoke; 'yes; a heerd that days ago. But Charley's noane on his death-bed, he's a deal better; an' mother says as he's to be moved up here next week for nursin' and better air nor he gets i' t' town yonder.'

'Oh! I am so glad,' said Sylvia, with all her heart. 'I thought he'd maybe die, and I should niver see him.'

'A'll promise yo' shall see him; that's t' say if a' goes on well, for he's getten an ugly hurt. Mother says as there's four blue marks on his side as'll last him his life, an' t' doctor fears bleeding i'

his inside; and then he'll drop down dead when no one looks for 't.'

'But you said he was better,' said Sylvia, blanching a little at this account.

'Ay, he's better, but life's uncertain, special after gun-shot wounds.'

'He acted very fine,' said Sylvia, meditating.

'A allays knowed he would. Many's the time a've heerd him say "honour bright," and now he's shown how bright his is.'

Molly did not speak sentimentally, but with a kind of proprietorship in Kinraid's honour, which confirmed Sylvia in her previous idea of a mutual attachment between her and her cousin. Considering this notion, she was a little surprised at Molly's next speech.

'An' about yer cloak, are you for a hood or a cape? a reckon that's the question.'

'Oh, I don't care! tell me more about Kinraid. Do yo' really think he'll get better?'

'Dear! how t' la.s.s takes on about him. A'll tell him what a deal of interest a young woman taks i' him!'

From that time Sylvia never asked another question about him. In a somewhat dry and altered tone, she said, after a little pause--

'I think on a hood. What do you say to it?'

'Well; hoods is a bit old-fashioned, to my mind. If 't were mine, I'd have a cape cut i' three points, one to tie on each shoulder, and one to dip down handsome behind. But let yo' an' me go to Monkshaven church o' Sunday, and see Measter Fishburn's daughters, as has their things made i' York, and notice a bit how they're made.

We needn't do it i' church, but just scan 'em o'er i' t' churchyard, and there'll be no harm done. Besides, there's to be this grand burryin' o' t' man t' press-gang shot, and 't will be like killing two birds at once.'

'I should like to go,' said Sylvia. 'I feel so sorry like for the poor sailors shot down and kidnapped just as they was coming home, as we see'd 'em o' Thursday last. I'll ask mother if she'll let me go.'

'Ay, do. I know my mother 'll let me, if she doesn't go hersen; for it 'll be a sight to see and to speak on for many a long year, after what I've heerd. And Miss Fishburns is sure to be theere, so I'd just get Donkin to cut out cloak itsel', and keep back yer mind fra'

fixing o' either cape or hood till Sunday's turn'd.'

'Will yo' set me part o' t' way home?' said Sylvia, seeing the dying daylight become more and more crimson through the blackening trees.

'No; I can't. A should like it well enough, but somehow, there's a deal o' work to be done yet, for t' hours slip through one's fingers so as there's no knowing. Mind yo', then, o' Sunday. A'll be at t'

stile one o'clock punctual; and we'll go slowly into t' town, and look about us as we go, and see folk's dresses; and go to t' church, and say wer prayers, and come out and have a look at t' funeral.'

And with this programme of proceedings settled for the following Sunday, the girls whom neighbourhood and parity of age had forced into some measure of friendship parted for the time.

Sylvia hastened home, feeling as if she had been absent long; her mother stood on the little knoll at the side of the house watching for her, with her hand shading her eyes from the low rays of the setting sun: but as soon as she saw her daughter in the distance, she returned to her work, whatever that might be. She was not a woman of many words, or of much demonstration; few observers would have guessed how much she loved her child; but Sylvia, without any reasoning or observation, instinctively knew that her mother's heart was bound up in her.

Her father and Donkin were going on much as when she had left them; talking and disputing, the one compelled to be idle, the other st.i.tching away as fast as he talked. They seemed as if they had never missed Sylvia; no more did her mother for that matter, for she was busy and absorbed in her afternoon dairy-work to all appearance.

But Sylvia had noted the watching not three minutes before, and many a time in her after life, when no one cared much for her out-goings and in-comings, the straight, upright figure of her mother, fronting the setting sun, but searching through its blinding rays for a sight of her child, rose up like a sudden-seen picture, the remembrance of which smote Sylvia to the heart with a sense of a lost blessing, not duly valued while possessed.

'Well, feyther, and how's a' wi' you?' asked Sylvia, going to the side of his chair, and laying her hand on his shoulder.

'Eh! harkee till this la.s.s o' mine. She thinks as because she's gone galraverging, I maun ha' missed her and be ailing. Why, la.s.s, Donkin and me has had t' most sensible talk a've had this many a day. A've gi'en him a vast o' knowledge, and he's done me a power o' good.

Please G.o.d, to-morrow a'll tak' a start at walking, if t' weather holds up.'

'Ay!' said Donkin, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice; 'feyther and me has settled many puzzles; it's been a loss to Government as they hannot been here for profiting by our wisdom. We've done away wi' taxes and press-gangs, and many a plague, and beaten t'

French--i' our own minds, that's to say.'

'It's a wonder t' me as those Lunnon folks can't see things clear,'

said Daniel, all in good faith.

Sylvia did not quite understand the state of things as regarded politics and taxes--and politics and taxes were all one in her mind, it must be confessed--but she saw that her innocent little scheme of giving her father the change of society afforded by Donkin's coming had answered; and in the gladness of her heart she went out and ran round the corner of the house to find Kester, and obtain from him that sympathy in her success which she dared not ask from her mother.

'Kester, Kester, lad!' said she, in a loud whisper; but Kester was suppering the horses, and in the clamp of their feet on the round stable pavement, he did not hear her at first. She went a little farther into the stable. 'Kester! he's a vast better, he'll go out to-morrow; it's all Donkin's doing. I'm beholden to thee for fetching him, and I'll try and spare thee waistcoat fronts out o' t'

stuff for my new red cloak. Thou'll like that, Kester, won't ta?'

Kester took the notion in slowly, and weighed it.

'Na, la.s.s,' said he, deliberately, after a pause. 'A could na' bear to see thee wi' thy cloak scrimpit. A like t' see a wench look bonny and smart, an' a tak' a kind o' pride in thee, an should be a'most as much hurt i' my mind to see thee i' a pinched cloak as if old Moll's tail here were docked too short. Na, la.s.s, a'se niver got a mirroring gla.s.s for t' see mysen in, so what's waistcoats to me?

Keep thy stuff to thysen, theere's a good wench; but a'se main and glad about t' measter. Place isn't like itsen when he's shut up and cranky.'

He took up a wisp of straw and began rubbing down the old mare, and hissing over his work as if he wished to consider the conversation as ended. And Sylvia, who had strung herself up in a momentary fervour of grat.i.tude to make the generous offer, was not sorry to have it refused, and went back planning what kindness she could show to Kester without its involving so much sacrifice to herself. For giving waistcoat fronts to him would deprive her of the pleasant power of selecting a fashionable pattern in Monkshaven churchyard next Sunday.

That wished-for day seemed long a-coming, as wished-for days most frequently do. Her father got better by slow degrees, and her mother was pleased by the tailor's good pieces of work; showing the neatly-placed patches with as much pride as many matrons take in new clothes now-a-days. And the weather cleared up into a dim kind of autumnal fineness, into anything but an Indian summer as far as regarded gorgeousness of colouring, for on that coast the mists and sea fogs early spoil the brilliancy of the foliage. Yet, perhaps, the more did the silvery grays and browns of the inland scenery conduce to the tranquillity of the time,--the time of peace and rest before the fierce and stormy winter comes on. It seems a time for gathering up human forces to encounter the coming severity, as well as of storing up the produce of harvest for the needs of winter. Old people turn out and sun themselves in that calm St. Martin's summer, without fear of 'the heat o' th' sun, or the coming winter's rages,'

and we may read in their pensive, dreamy eyes that they are weaning themselves away from the earth, which probably many may never see dressed in her summer glory again.

Many such old people set out betimes, on the Sunday afternoon to which Sylvia had been so looking forward, to scale the long flights of stone steps--worn by the feet of many generations--which led up to the parish church, placed on a height above the town, on a great green area at the summit of the cliff, which was the angle where the river and the sea met, and so overlooking both the busy crowded little town, the port, the shipping, and the bar on the one hand, and the wide illimitable tranquil sea on the other--types of life and eternity. It was a good situation for that church.

Homeward-bound sailors caught sight of the tower of St Nicholas, the first land object of all. They who went forth upon the great deep might carry solemn thoughts with them of the words they had heard there; not conscious thoughts, perhaps--rather a distinct if dim conviction that buying and selling, eating and marrying, even life and death, were not all the realities in existence. Nor were the words that came up to their remembrance words of sermons preached there, however impressive. The sailors mostly slept through the sermons; unless, indeed, there were incidents such as were involved in what were called 'funeral discourses' to be narrated. They did not recognize their daily faults or temptations under the grand aliases befitting their appearance from a preacher's mouth. But they knew the old, oft-repeated words praying for deliverance from the familiar dangers of lightning and tempest; from battle, murder, and sudden death; and nearly every man was aware that he left behind him some one who would watch for the prayer for the preservation of those who travel by land or by water, and think of him, as G.o.d-protected the more for the earnestness of the response then given.

There, too, lay the dead of many generations; for St. Nicholas had been the parish church ever since Monkshaven was a town, and the large churchyard was rich in the dead. Masters, mariners, ship-owners, seamen: it seemed strange how few other trades were represented in that great plain so full of upright gravestones. Here and there was a memorial stone, placed by some survivor of a large family, most of whom perished at sea:--'Supposed to have perished in the Greenland seas,' 'Shipwrecked in the Baltic,' 'Drowned off the coast of Iceland.' There was a strange sensation, as if the cold sea-winds must bring with them the dim phantoms of those lost sailors, who had died far from their homes, and from the hallowed ground where their fathers lay.

Each flight of steps up to this churchyard ended in a small flat s.p.a.ce, on which a wooden seat was placed. On this particular Sunday, all these seats were filled by aged people, breathless with the unusual exertion of climbing. You could see the church stair, as it was called, from nearly every part of the town, and the figures of the numerous climbers, diminished by distance, looked like a busy ant-hill, long before the bell began to ring for afternoon service.

All who could manage it had put on a bit of black in token of mourning; it might be very little; an old ribbon, a rusty piece of c.r.a.pe; but some sign of mourning was shown by every one down to the little child in its mother's arms, that innocently clutched the piece of rosemary to be thrown into the grave 'for remembrance.'