Sylvia's Lovers

For a few days after the evening mentioned in the last chapter the

weather was dull. Not in quick, sudden showers did the rain come

down, but in constant drizzle, blotting out all colour from the

surrounding landscape, and filling the air with fine gray mist,

until people breathed more water than air. At such times the

consciousness of the nearness of the vast unseen sea acted as a

dreary depression to the spirits; but besides acting on the nerves

of the excitable, such weather affected the sensitive or ailing in

material ways. Daniel Robson's fit of rheumatism incapacitated him

from stirring abroad; and to a man of his active habits, and

somewhat inactive mind, this was a great hardship. He was not

ill-tempered naturally, but this state of confinement made him more

ill-tempered than he had ever been before in his life. He sat in the

chimney-corner, abusing the weather and doubting the wisdom or

desirableness of all his wife saw fit to do in the usual daily

household matters. The 'chimney-corner' was really a corner at

Haytersbank. There were two projecting walls on each side of the

fire-place, running about six feet into the room, and a stout wooden

settle was placed against one of these, while opposite was the

circular-backed 'master's chair,' the seat of which was composed of

a square piece of wood judiciously hollowed out, and placed with one

corner to the front. Here, in full view of all the operations going

on over the fire, sat Daniel Robson for four live-long days,

advising and directing his wife in all such minor matters as the

boiling of potatoes, the making of porridge, all the work on which

she specially piqued herself, and on which she would have taken

advice--no! not from the most skilled housewife in all the three

Ridings. But, somehow, she managed to keep her tongue quiet from

telling him, as she would have done any woman, and any other man, to

mind his own business, or she would pin a dish-clout to his tail.

She even checked Sylvia when the latter proposed, as much for fun as

for anything else, that his ignorant directions should be followed,

and the consequences brought before his eyes and his nose.

'Na, na!' said Bell, 'th' feyther's feyther, and we mun respect him.

But it's dree work havin' a man i' th' house, nursing th' fire, an'

such weather too, and not a soul coming near us, not even to fall

out wi' him; for thee and me must na' do that, for th' Bible's sake,

dear; and a good stand-up wordy quarrel would do him a power of

good; stir his blood like. I wish Philip would turn up.' Bell sighed, for in these four days she had experienced somewhat of

Madame de Maintenon's difficulty (and with fewer resources to meet

it) of trying to amuse a man who was not amusable. For Bell, good

and sensible as she was, was not a woman of resources. Sylvia's

plan, undutiful as it was in her mother's eyes, would have done

Daniel more good, even though it might have made him angry, than his

wife's quiet, careful monotony of action, which, however it might

conduce to her husband's comfort when he was absent, did not amuse

him when present.