Sylvia's Lovers

And Kinraid immediately looked at Sylvia. It was no premeditated

action; it came as naturally as wakening in the morning when his

sleep was ended; but Sylvia coloured as red as any rose at his

sudden glance,--coloured so deeply that he looked away until he

thought she had recovered her composure, and then he sat gazing at

her again. But not for long, for Bell suddenly starting up, did all

but turn him out of the house. It was late, she said, and her master

was tired, and they had a hard day before them next day; and it was

keeping Ellen Corney up; and they had had enough to drink,--more

than was good for them, she was sure, for they had both been taking

her in with their stories, which she had been foolish enough to

believe. No one saw the real motive of all this almost inhospitable

haste to dismiss her guest, how the sudden fear had taken possession

of her that he and Sylvia were 'fancying each other'. Kinraid had

said early in the evening that he had come to thank her for her

kindness in sending the sausages, as he was off to his own home near

Newcastle in a day or two. But now he said, in reply to Daniel

Robson, that he would step in another night before long and hear

some more of the old man's yarns.

Daniel had just had enough drink to make him very good-tempered, or

else his wife would not have dared to have acted as she did; and

this maudlin amiability took the shape of hospitable urgency that

Kinraid should come as often as he liked to Haytersbank; come and

make it his home when he was in these parts; stay there altogether,

and so on, till Bell fairly shut the outer door to, and locked it

before the specksioneer had well got out of the shadow of their

roof.

All night long Sylvia dreamed of burning volcanoes springing out of

icy southern seas. But, as in the specksioneer's tale the flames

were peopled with demons, there was no human interest for her in the

wondrous scene in which she was no actor, only a spectator. With

daylight came wakening and little homely every-day wonders. Did

Kinraid mean that he was going away really and entirely, or did he

not? Was he Molly Corney's sweetheart, or was he not? When she had

argued herself into certainty on one side, she suddenly wheeled

about, and was just of the opposite opinion. At length she settled

that it could not be settled until she saw Molly again; so, by a

strong gulping effort, she resolutely determined to think no more

about him, only about the marvels he had told. She might think a

little about them when she sat at night, spinning in silence by the

household fire, or when she went out in the gloaming to call the

cattle home to be milked, and sauntered back behind the patient,

slow-gaited creatures; and at times on future summer days, when, as

in the past, she took her knitting out for the sake of the freshness

of the faint sea-breeze, and dropping down from ledge to ledge of

the rocks that faced the blue ocean, established herself in a

perilous nook that had been her haunt ever since her parents had

come to Haytersbank Farm. From thence she had often seen the distant

ships pass to and fro, with a certain sort of lazy pleasure in

watching their swift tranquillity of motion, but no thought as to

where they were bound to, or what strange places they would

penetrate to before they turned again, homeward bound.