A few days after, Farmer Robson left Haytersbank betimes on a
longish day's journey, to purchase a horse. Sylvia and her mother
were busied with a hundred household things, and the early winter's
evening closed in upon them almost before they were aware. The
consequences of darkness in the country even now are to gather the
members of a family together into one room, and to make them settle
to some sedentary employment; and it was much more the case at the
period of my story, when candles were far dearer than they are at
present, and when one was often made to suffice for a large family.
The mother and daughter hardly spoke at all when they sat down at
last. The cheerful click of the knitting-needles made a pleasant
home-sound; and in the occasional snatches of slumber that overcame
her mother, Sylvia could hear the long-rushing boom of the waves,
down below the rocks, for the Haytersbank gulley allowed the sullen
roar to come up so far inland. It might have been about eight
o'clock--though from the monotonous course of the evening it seemed
much later--when Sylvia heard her father's heavy step cranching down
the pebbly path. More unusual, she heard his voice talking to some
companion.
Curious to see who it could be, with a lively instinctive advance
towards any event which might break the monotony she had begun to
find somewhat dull, she sprang up to open the door. Half a glance
into the gray darkness outside made her suddenly timid, and she drew
back behind the door as she opened it wide to admit her father and
Kinraid.
Daniel Robson came in bright and boisterous. He was pleased with his
purchase, and had had some drink to celebrate his bargain. He had
ridden the new mare into Monkshaven, and left her at the smithy
there until morning, to have her feet looked at, and to be new shod.
On his way from the town he had met Kinraid wandering about in
search of Haytersbank Farm itself, so he had just brought him along
with him; and here they were, ready for bread and cheese, and aught
else the mistress would set before them.
To Sylvia the sudden change into brightness and bustle occasioned by
the entrance of her father and the specksioneer was like that which
you may effect any winter's night, when you come into a room where a
great lump of coal lies hot and slumbering on the fire; just break
it up with a judicious blow from the poker, and the room, late so
dark, and dusk, and lone, is full of life, and light, and warmth.
She moved about with pretty household briskness, attending to all
her father's wants. Kinraid's eye watched her as she went backwards
and forwards, to and fro, into the pantry, the back-kitchen, out of
light into shade, out of the shadow into the broad firelight where
he could see and note her appearance. She wore the high-crowned
linen cap of that day, surmounting her lovely masses of golden brown
hair, rather than concealing them, and tied firm to her head by a
broad blue ribbon. A long curl hung down on each side of her neck--
her throat rather, for her neck was concealed by a little spotted
handkerchief carefully pinned across at the waist of her brown stuff
gown.