Sylvia's Lovers

Foster's shop was the shop of Monkshaven. It was kept by two Quaker

brothers, who were now old men; and their father had kept it before

them; probably his father before that. People remembered it as an

old-fashioned dwelling-house, with a sort of supplementary shop with

unglazed windows projecting from the lower story. These openings had

long been filled with panes of glass that at the present day would

be accounted very small, but which seventy years ago were much

admired for their size. I can best make you understand the

appearance of the place by bidding you think of the long openings in

a butcher's shop, and then to fill them up in your imagination with

panes about eight inches by six, in a heavy wooden frame. There was

one of these windows on each side the door-place, which was kept

partially closed through the day by a low gate about a yard high.

Half the shop was appropriated to grocery; the other half to

drapery, and a little mercery. The good old brothers gave all their

known customers a kindly welcome; shaking hands with many of them,

and asking all after their families and domestic circumstances

before proceeding to business. They would not for the world have had

any sign of festivity at Christmas, and scrupulously kept their shop

open at that holy festival, ready themselves to serve sooner than

tax the consciences of any of their assistants, only nobody ever

came.

But on New Year's Day they had a great cake, and wine, ready

in the parlour behind the shop, of which all who came in to buy

anything were asked to partake. Yet, though scrupulous in most

things, it did not go against the consciences of these good brothers

to purchase smuggled articles. There was a back way from the

river-side, up a covered entry, to the yard-door of the Fosters, and

a peculiar kind of knock at this door always brought out either John

or Jeremiah, or if not them, their shopman, Philip Hepburn; and the

same cake and wine that the excise officer's wife might just have

been tasting, was brought out in the back parlour to treat the

smuggler. There was a little locking of doors, and drawing of the

green silk curtain that was supposed to shut out the shop, but

really all this was done very much for form's sake. Everybody in

Monkshaven smuggled who could, and every one wore smuggled goods who

could, and great reliance was placed on the excise officer's

neighbourly feelings.

The story went that John and Jeremiah Foster were so rich that they

could buy up all the new town across the bridge. They had certainly

begun to have a kind of primitive bank in connection with their

shop, receiving and taking care of such money as people did not wish

to retain in their houses for fear of burglars. No one asked them

for interest on the money thus deposited, nor did they give any;

but, on the other hand, if any of their customers, on whose

character they could depend, wanted a little advance, the Fosters,

after due inquiries made, and in some cases due security given, were

not unwilling to lend a moderate sum without charging a penny for

the use of their money. All the articles they sold were as good as

they knew how to choose, and for them they expected and obtained

ready money. It was said that they only kept on the shop for their

amusement. Others averred that there was some plan of a marriage

running in the brothers' heads--a marriage between William Coulson,

Mr. Jeremiah's wife's nephew (Mr. Jeremiah was a widower), and Hester

Rose, whose mother was some kind of distant relation, and who served

in the shop along with William Coulson and Philip Hepburn. Again,

this was denied by those who averred that Coulson was no blood

relation, and that if the Fosters had intended to do anything

considerable for Hester, they would never have allowed her and her

mother to live in such a sparing way, ekeing out their small income

by having Coulson and Hepburn for lodgers. No; John and Jeremiah

would leave all their money to some hospital or to some charitable

institution. But, of course, there was a reply to this; when are

there not many sides to an argument about a possibility concerning

which no facts are known? Part of the reply turned on this: the old

gentlemen had, probably, some deep plan in their heads in permitting

their cousin to take Coulson and Hepburn as lodgers, the one a kind

of nephew, the other, though so young, the head man in the shop; if

either of them took a fancy to Hester, how agreeably matters could

be arranged!