Sylvia's Lovers

On the north-eastern shores of England there is a town called

Monkshaven, containing at the present day about fifteen thousand

inhabitants. There were, however, but half the number at the end of

the last century, and it was at that period that the events narrated

in the following pages occurred.

Monkshaven was a name not unknown in the history of England, and

traditions of its having been the landing-place of a throneless

queen were current in the town. At that time there had been a

fortified castle on the heights above it, the site of which was now

occupied by a deserted manor-house; and at an even earlier date than

the arrival of the queen and coeval with the most ancient remains of

the castle, a great monastery had stood on those cliffs, overlooking

the vast ocean that blended with the distant sky. Monkshaven itself

was built by the side of the Dee, just where the river falls into

the German Ocean. The principal street of the town ran parallel to

the stream, and smaller lanes branched out of this, and straggled up

the sides of the steep hill, between which and the river the houses

were pent in. There was a bridge across the Dee, and consequently a

Bridge Street running at right angles to the High Street; and on the

south side of the stream there were a few houses of more pretension,

around which lay gardens and fields. It was on this side of the town

that the local aristocracy lived. And who were the great people of

this small town? Not the younger branches of the county families

that held hereditary state in their manor-houses on the wild bleak

moors, that shut in Monkshaven almost as effectually on the land

side as ever the waters did on the sea-board. No; these old families

kept aloof from the unsavoury yet adventurous trade which brought

wealth to generation after generation of certain families in

Monkshaven.

The magnates of Monkshaven were those who had the largest number of

ships engaged in the whaling-trade. Something like the following was

the course of life with a Monkshaven lad of this class:--He was

apprenticed as a sailor to one of the great ship-owners--to his own

father, possibly--along with twenty other boys, or, it might be,

even more. During the summer months he and his fellow apprentices

made voyages to the Greenland seas, returning with their cargoes in

the early autumn; and employing the winter months in watching the

preparation of the oil from the blubber in the melting-sheds, and

learning navigation from some quaint but experienced teacher, half

schoolmaster, half sailor, who seasoned his instructions by stirring

narrations of the wild adventures of his youth. The house of the

ship-owner to whom he was apprenticed was his home and that of his

companions during the idle season between October and March. The

domestic position of these boys varied according to the premium

paid; some took rank with the sons of the family, others were

considered as little better than servants. Yet once on board an

equality prevailed, in which, if any claimed superiority, it was the

bravest and brightest. After a certain number of voyages the

Monkshaven lad would rise by degrees to be captain, and as such

would have a share in the venture; all these profits, as well as all

his savings, would go towards building a whaling vessel of his own,

if he was not so fortunate as to be the child of a ship-owner. At

the time of which I write, there was but little division of labour

in the Monkshaven whale fishery. The same man might be the owner of

six or seven ships, any one of which he himself was fitted by

education and experience to command; the master of a score of

apprentices, each of whom paid a pretty sufficient premium; and the

proprietor of the melting-sheds into which his cargoes of blubber

and whalebone were conveyed to be fitted for sale. It was no wonder

that large fortunes were acquired by these ship-owners, nor that

their houses on the south side of the river Dee were stately

mansions, full of handsome and substantial furniture. It was also

not surprising that the whole town had an amphibious appearance, to

a degree unusual even in a seaport. Every one depended on the whale

fishery, and almost every male inhabitant had been, or hoped to be,

a sailor. Down by the river the smell was almost intolerable to any

but Monkshaven people during certain seasons of the year; but on

these unsavoury 'staithes' the old men and children lounged for

hours, almost as if they revelled in the odours of train-oil.