Sylvia's Lovers
Page 287'I'm not sorry,' said she, slowly. 'I were too deeply wronged to be
"put about"; that would go off wi' a night's sleep. It's only the
thought of mother (she's dead and happy, and knows nought of all
this, I trust) that comes between me and hating Philip. I'm not
sorry for what I said.' Jeremiah had never met with any one so frank and undisguised in
expressions of wrong feeling, and he scarcely knew what to say.
He looked extremely grieved, and not a little shocked. So pretty and
delicate a young creature to use such strong relentless language!
She seemed to read his thoughts, for she made answer to them.
'I dare say you think I'm very wicked, sir, not to be sorry. Perhaps
I am. I can't think o' that for remembering how I've suffered; and
wi' a word; and he held his peace, and now it's too late! I'm sick
o' men and their cruel, deceitful ways. I wish I were dead.' She was crying before she had ended this speech, and seeing her
tears, the child began to cry too, stretching out its little arms to
go back to its mother. The hard stony look on her face melted away
into the softest, tenderest love as she clasped the little one to
her, and tried to soothe its frightened sobs.
A bright thought came into the old man's mind.
He had been taking a complete dislike to her till her pretty way
with her baby showed him that she had a heart of flesh within her.
'Poor little one!' said he, 'thy mother had need love thee, for
an orphan; yet I cannot call thee one of the fatherless to whom God
will be a father. Thou'rt a desolate babe, thou may'st well cry;
thine earthly parents have forsaken thee, and I know not if the Lord
will take thee up.' Sylvia looked up at him affrighted; holding her baby tighter to her,
she exclaimed.
'Don't speak so, sir! it's cursing, sir! I haven't forsaken her! Oh,
sir! those are awful sayings.' 'Thee hast sworn never to forgive thy husband, nor to live with him
again. Dost thee know that by the law of the land, he may claim his
child; and then thou wilt have to forsake it, or to be forsworn?
Poor little maiden!' continued he, once more luring the baby to him
Sylvia thought for a while before speaking. Then she said, 'I cannot tell what ways to take. Whiles I think my head is crazed.
It were a cruel turn he did me!' 'It was. I couldn't have thought him guilty of such baseness.' This acquiescence, which was perfectly honest on Jeremiah's part,
almost took Sylvia by surprise. Why might she not hate one who had
been both cruel and base in his treatment of her? And yet she
recoiled from the application of such hard terms by another to
Philip, by a cool-judging and indifferent person, as she esteemed
Jeremiah to be. From some inscrutable turn in her thoughts, she
began to defend him, or at least to palliate the harsh judgment
which she herself had been the first to pronounce.