Sylvia's Lovers

But he was quite far enough gone in love of her beauty, and pretty

modest ways, not to care much whether she talked or no, so long as

she showed herself so pleasingly conscious of his close

neighbourhood.

'I must come and see the old gentleman; and your mother, too,' he

added more slowly, for he remembered that his visits last year had

not been quite so much welcomed by Bell Robson as by her husband;

perhaps it was because of the amount of drink which he and Daniel

managed to get through of an evening. He resolved this year to be

more careful to please the mother of Sylvia.

When tea was ended there was a great bustle and shifting of places,

while Mrs. Corney and her daughters carried out trays full of used

cups, and great platters of uneaten bread and butter into the

back-kitchen, to be washed up after the guests were gone. Just

because she was so conscious that she did not want to move, and

break up the little conversation between herself and Kinraid, Sylvia

forced herself to be as active in the service going on as became a

friend of the house; and she was too much her mother's own daughter

to feel comfortable at leaving all the things in the disorder which

to the Corney girls was second nature.

'This milk mun go back to t' dairy, I reckon,' said she, loading

herself with milk and cream.

'Niver fash thysel' about it,' said Nelly Corney, 'Christmas comes

but onest a year, if it does go sour; and mother said she'd have a

game at forfeits first thing after tea to loosen folks's tongues,

and mix up t' lads and lasses, so come along.' But Sylvia steered her careful way to the cold chill of the dairy,

and would not be satisfied till she had carried away all the unused

provision into some fresher air than that heated by the fires and

ovens used for the long day's cooking of pies and cakes and much

roast meat.

When they came back a round of red-faced 'lads,' as young men up to

five-and-thirty are called in Lancashire and Yorkshire if they are

not married before, and lasses, whose age was not to be defined,

were playing at some country game, in which the women were

apparently more interested than the men, who looked shamefaced, and

afraid of each other's ridicule. Mrs. Corney, however, knew how to

remedy this, and at a sign from her a great jug of beer was brought

in. This jug was the pride of her heart, and was in the shape of a

fat man in white knee-breeches, and a three-cornered hat; with one

arm he supported the pipe in his broad, smiling mouth, and the other

was placed akimbo and formed the handle. There was also a great

china punch-bowl filled with grog made after an old ship-receipt

current in these parts, but not too strong, because if their

visitors had too much to drink at that early part of the evening 'it

would spoil t' fun,' as Nelly Corney had observed. Her father,

however, after the notions of hospitality prevalent at that time in

higher circles, had stipulated that each man should have 'enough'

before he left the house; enough meaning in Monkshaven parlance the

liberty of getting drunk, if they thought fit to do it.