CHAPTER II
HOME FROM GREENLAND
One hot day, early in October of the year 1796, two girls set offfrom their country homes to Monkshaven to sell their butter andeggs, for they were both farmers' daughters, though rather indifferent circumstances; for Molly Corney was one of a large familyof children, and had to rough it accordingly; Sylvia Robson was anonly child, and was much made of in more people's estimation thanMary's by her elderly parents. They had each purchases to make aftertheir sales were effected, as sales of butter and eggs were effectedin those days by the market-women sitting on the steps of the greatold mutilated cross till a certain hour in the afternoon, afterwhich, if all their goods were not disposed of, they took themunwillingly to the shops and sold them at a lower price. But goodhousewives did not despise coming themselves to the Butter Cross,and, smelling and depreciating the articles they wanted, kept up aperpetual struggle of words, trying, often in vain, to beat downprices. A housekeeper of the last century would have thought thatshe did not know her business, if she had not gone through thispreliminary process; and the farmers' wives and daughters treated itall as a matter of course, replying with a good deal of independenthumour to the customer, who, once having discovered where goodbutter and fresh eggs were to be sold, came time after time todepreciate the articles she always ended in taking. There wasleisure for all this kind of work in those days.
Molly had tied a knot on her pink-spotted handkerchief for each ofthe various purchases she had to make; dull but important articlesneeded for the week's consumption at home; if she forgot any one ofthem she knew she was sure of a good 'rating' from her mother. Thenumber of them made her pocket-handkerchief look like one of thenine-tails of a 'cat;' but not a single thing was for herself, nor,indeed, for any one individual of her numerous family. There wasneither much thought nor much money to spend for any but collectivewants in the Corney family.
It was different with Sylvia. She was going to choose her firstcloak, not to have an old one of her mother's, that had gone downthrough two sisters, dyed for the fourth time (and Molly would havebeen glad had even this chance been hers), but to buy a bran-newduffle cloak all for herself, with not even an elder authority tocurb her as to price, only Molly to give her admiring counsel, andas much sympathy as was consistent with a little patient envy ofSylvia's happier circumstances. Every now and then they wandered offfrom the one grand subject of thought, but Sylvia, with unconsciousart, soon brought the conversation round to the fresh considerationof the respective merits of gray and scarlet. These girls werewalking bare-foot and carrying their shoes and stockings in theirhands during the first part of their way; but as they were drawingnear Monkshaven they stopped, and turned aside along a foot-paththat led from the main-road down to the banks of the Dee. There weregreat stones in the river about here, round which the watersgathered and eddied and formed deep pools. Molly sate down on thegrassy bank to wash her feet; but Sylvia, more active (or perhapslighter-hearted with the notion of the cloak in the distance),placed her basket on a gravelly bit of shore, and, giving a longspring, seated herself on a stone almost in the middle of thestream. Then she began dipping her little rosy toes in the coolrushing water and whisking them out with childish glee.
'Be quiet, wi' the', Sylvia? Thou'st splashing me all ower, and myfeyther'll noane be so keen o' giving me a new cloak as thine is,seemingly.'
Sylvia was quiet, not to say penitent, in a moment. She drew up herfeet instantly; and, as if to take herself out of temptation, sheturned away from Molly to that side of her stony seat on which thecurrent ran shallow, and broken by pebbles. But once disturbed inher play, her thoughts reverted to the great subject of the cloak.She was now as still as a minute before she had been full of frolicand gambolling life. She had tucked herself up on the stone, as ifit had been a cushion, and she a little sultana.
Molly was deliberately washing her feet and drawing on herstockings, when she heard a sudden sigh, and her companion turnedround so as to face her, and said,
'I wish mother hadn't spoken up for t' gray.'
'Why, Sylvia, thou wert saying as we topped t'brow, as she didnought but bid thee think twice afore settling on scarlet.'
'Ay! but mother's words are scarce, and weigh heavy. Feyther's likerme, and we talk a deal o' rubble; but mother's words are liker tohewn stone. She puts a deal o' meaning in 'em. And then,' saidSylvia, as if she was put out by the suggestion, 'she bid me askcousin Philip for his opinion. I hate a man as has getten an opinionon such-like things.'
'Well! we shall niver get to Monkshaven this day, either for to sellour eggs and stuff, or to buy thy cloak, if we're sittin' here muchlonger. T' sun's for slanting low, so come along, lass, and let's begoing.'
'But if I put on my stockings and shoon here, and jump back into yonwet gravel, I 'se not be fit to be seen,' said Sylvia, in a pathetictone of bewilderment, that was funnily childlike. She stood up, herbare feet curved round the curving surface of the stone, her slightfigure balancing as if in act to spring.
'Thou knows thou'll have just to jump back barefoot, and wash thyfeet afresh, without making all that ado; thou shouldst ha' done itat first, like me, and all other sensible folk. But thou'st gettenno gumption.'
Molly's mouth was stopped by Sylvia's hand. She was already on theriver bank by her friend's side.
'Now dunnot lecture me; I'm none for a sermon hung on every peg o'words. I'm going to have a new cloak, lass, and I cannot heed theeif thou dost lecture. Thou shall have all the gumption, and I'llhave my cloak.'
It may be doubted whether Molly thought this an equal division.
Each girl wore tightly-fitting stockings, knit by her own hands, ofthe blue worsted common in that country; they had on neathigh-heeled black leather shoes, coming well over the instep, andfastened as well as ornamented with bright steel buckles. They didnot walk so lightly and freely now as they did before they wereshod, but their steps were still springy with the buoyancy of earlyyouth; for neither of them was twenty, indeed I believe Sylvia wasnot more than seventeen at this time.
They clambered up the steep grassy path, with brambles catching attheir kilted petticoats, through the copse-wood, till they regainedthe high road; and then they 'settled themselves,' as they calledit; that is to say, they took off their black felt hats, and tied uptheir clustering hair afresh; they shook off every speck of waysidedust; straightened the little shawls (or large neck-kerchiefs, callthem which you will) that were spread over their shoulders, pinnedbelow the throat, and confined at the waist by their apron-strings;and then putting on their hats again, and picking up their baskets,they prepared to walk decorously into the town of Monkshaven.
The next turn of the road showed them the red peaked roofs of theclosely packed houses lying almost directly below the hill on whichthey were. The full autumn sun brought out the ruddy colour of thetiled gables, and deepened the shadows in the narrow streets. Thenarrow harbour at the mouth of the river was crowded with smallvessels of all descriptions, making an intricate forest of masts.Beyond lay the sea, like a flat pavement of sapphire, scarcely aripple varying its sunny surface, that stretched out leagues awaytill it blended with the softened azure of the sky. On this bluetrackless water floated scores of white-sailed fishing boats,apparently motionless, unless you measured their progress by someland-mark; but still, and silent, and distant as they seemed, theconsciousness that there were men on board, each going forth intothe great deep, added unspeakably to the interest felt in watchingthem. Close to the bar of the river Dee a larger vessel lay to.Sylvia, who had only recently come into the neighbourhood, looked atthis with the same quiet interest as she did at all the others; butMolly, as soon as her eye caught the build of it, cried out aloud--
'She's a whaler! she's a whaler home from t' Greenland seas! T'first this season! God bless her!' and she turned round and shookboth Sylvia's hands in the fulness of her excitement. Sylvia'scolour rose, and her eyes sparkled out of sympathy.
'Is ta sure?' she asked, breathless in her
turn; for though she didnot know by the aspect of the different ships on what trade theywere bound, yet she was well aware of the paramount interestattached to whaling vessels.
'Three o'clock! and it's not high water till five!' said Molly. 'Ifwe're sharp we can sell our eggs, and be down to the staithes beforeshe comes into port. Be sharp, lass!'
And down the steep long hill they went at a pace that was almost arun. A run they dared not make it; and as it was, the rate at whichthey walked would have caused destruction among eggs less carefullypacked. When the descent was ended, there was yet the long narrowstreet before them, bending and swerving from the straight line, asit followed the course of the river. The girls felt as if theyshould never come to the market-place, which was situated at thecrossing of Bridge Street and High Street. There the old stone crosswas raised by the monks long ago; now worn and mutilated, no oneesteemed it as a holy symbol, but only as the Butter Cross, wheremarket-women clustered on Wednesday, and whence the town crier madeall his proclamations of household sales, things lost or found,beginning with 'Oh! yes, oh! yes, oh! yes!' and ending with 'Godbless the king and the lord of this manor,' and a very brisk 'Amen,'before he went on his way and took off the livery-coat, the coloursof which marked him as a servant of the Burnabys, the family whoheld manorial rights over Monkshaven.
Of course the much frequented space surrounding the Butter Cross wasthe favourite centre for shops; and on this day, a fine market day,just when good housewives begin to look over their winter store ofblankets and flannels, and discover their needs betimes, these shopsought to have had plenty of customers. But they were empty and ofeven quieter aspect than their every-day wont. The three-leggedcreepie-stools that were hired out at a penny an hour to suchmarket-women as came too late to find room on the steps wereunoccupied; knocked over here and there, as if people had passed byin haste.
Molly took in all at a glance, and interpreted the signs, though shehad no time to explain their meaning, and her consequent course ofaction, to Sylvia, but darted into a corner shop.
'T' whalers is coming home! There's one lying outside t' bar!'
This was put in the form of an assertion; but the tone was that ofeager cross-questioning.
'Ay!' said a lame man, mending fishing-nets behind a rough dealcounter. 'She's come back airly, and she's brought good news o' t'others, as I've heered say. Time was I should ha' been on th'staithes throwing up my cap wit' t' best on 'em; but now it pleasest' Lord to keep me at home, and set me to mind other folks' gear.See thee, wench, there's a vast o' folk ha' left their skeps o'things wi' me while they're away down to t' quay side. Leave me youreggs and be off wi' ye for t' see t' fun, for mebbe ye'll live to bepalsied yet, and then ye'll be fretting ower spilt milk, and that yedidn't tak' all chances when ye was young. Ay, well! they're out o'hearin' o' my moralities; I'd better find a lamiter like mysen topreach to, for it's not iverybody has t' luck t' clargy has ofsaying their say out whether folks likes it or not.'
He put the baskets carefully away with much of such talk as thisaddressed to himself while he did so. Then he sighed once or twice;and then he took the better course and began to sing over his tarrywork.
Molly and Sylvia were far along the staithes by the time he got tothis point of cheerfulness. They ran on, regardless of stitches andpains in the side; on along the river bank to where the concourse ofpeople was gathered. There was no great length of way between theButter Cross and the harbour; in five minutes the breathless girlswere close together in the best place they could get for seeing, onthe outside of the crowd; and in as short a time longer they werepressed inwards, by fresh arrivals, into the very midst of thethrong. All eyes were directed to the ship, beating her anchor justoutside the bar, not a quarter of a mile away. The custom-houseofficer was just gone aboard of her to receive the captain's reportof his cargo, and make due examination. The men who had taken himout in his boat were rowing back to the shore, and brought smallfragments of news when they landed a little distance from the crowd,which moved as one man to hear what was to be told. Sylvia took ahard grasp of the hand of the older and more experienced Molly, andlistened open-mouthed to the answers she was extracting from a gruffold sailor she happened to find near her.
'What ship is she?'
'T' _Resolution_ of Monkshaven!' said he, indignantly, as if anygoose might have known that.
'An' a good _Resolution_, and a blessed ship she's been to me,'piped out an old woman, close at Mary's elbow. 'She's brought mehome my ae' lad--for he shouted to yon boatman to bid him tell me hewas well. 'Tell Peggy Christison,' says he (my name is MargaretChristison)--'tell Peggy Christison as her son Hezekiah is come backsafe and sound.' The Lord's name be praised! An' me a widow as neverthought to see my lad again!'
It seemed as if everybody relied on every one else's sympathy inthat hour of great joy.
'I ax pardon, but if you'd gie me just a bit of elbow-room for aminute like, I'd hold my babby up, so that he might see daddy'sship, and happen, my master might see him. He's four months old lastTuesday se'nnight, and his feyther's never clapt eyne on him yet,and he wi' a tooth through, an another just breaking, bless him!'
One or two of the better end of the Monkshaven inhabitants stood alittle before Molly and Sylvia; and as they moved in compliance withthe young mother's request, they overheard some of the informationthese ship-owners had received from the boatman.
'Haynes says they'll send the manifest of the cargo ashore in twentyminutes, as soon as Fishburn has looked over the casks. Only eightwhales, according to what he says.'
'No one can tell,' said the other, 'till the manifest comes tohand.'
'I'm afraid he's right. But he brings a good report of the _GoodFortune_. She's off St Abb's Head, with something like fifteenwhales to her share.'
'We shall see how much is true, when she comes in.'
'That'll be by the afternoon tide to-morrow.'
'That's my cousin's ship,' said Molly to Sylvia. 'He's specksioneeron board the _Good Fortune_.'
An old man touched her as she spoke--
'I humbly make my manners, missus, but I'm stone blind; my lad'saboard yon vessel outside t' bar; and my old woman is bed-fast. Willshe be long, think ye, in making t' harbour? Because, if so be asshe were, I'd just make my way back, and speak a word or two to mymissus, who'll be boiling o'er into some mak o' mischief now sheknows he's so near. May I be so bold as to ax if t' Crooked Negro iscovered yet?'
Molly stood on tip-toe to try and see the black stone thus named;but Sylvia, stooping and peeping through the glimpses affordedbetween the arms of the moving people, saw it first, and told theblind old man it was still above water.
'A watched pot,' said he, 'ne'er boils, I reckon. It's ta'en a vasto' watter t' cover that stone to-day. Anyhow, I'll have time to gohome and rate my missus for worritin' hersen, as I'll be bound she'sdone, for all as I bade her not, but to keep easy and content.'
'We'd better be off too,' said Molly, as an opening was made throughthe press to let out the groping old man. 'Eggs and butter is yet tosell, and tha' cloak to be bought.'
'Well, I suppose we had!' said Sylvia, rather regretfully; for,though all the way into Monkshaven her head had been full of thepurchase of this cloak, yet she was of that impressible nature thattakes the tone of feeling from those surrounding; and though sheknew no one on board the Resolution, she was just as anxious for themoment to see her come into harbour as any one in the crowd who hada dear relation on board. So she turned reluctantly to follow themore prudent Molly along the quay back to the Butter Cross.
It was a pretty scene, though it was too familiar to the eyes of allwho then saw it for them to notice its beauty. The sun was lowenough in the west to turn the mist that filled the distant valleyof the river into golden haze. Above, on either bank of the Dee,there lay the moorland heights swelling one behind the other; thenearer, russet brown with the tints of the fading bracken; the moredistant, gray and dim against the rich autumnal sky. The red andfluted tiles of the gable
d houses rose in crowded irregularity onone side of the river, while the newer suburb was built in moreorderly and less picturesque fashion on the opposite cliff. Theriver itself was swelling and chafing with the incoming tide tillits vexed waters rushed over the very feet of the watching crowd onthe staithes, as the great sea waves encroached more and more everyminute. The quay-side was unsavourily ornamented with glitteringfish-scales, for the hauls of fish were cleansed in the open air,and no sanitary arrangements existed for sweeping away any of therelics of this operation.
The fresh salt breeze was bringing up the lashing, leaping tide fromthe blue sea beyond the bar. Behind the returning girls there rockedthe white-sailed ship, as if she were all alive with eagerness forher anchors to be heaved.
How impatient her crew of beating hearts were for that moment, howthose on land sickened at the suspense, may be imagined, when youremember that for six long summer months those sailors had been asif dead from all news of those they loved; shut up in terrible,dreary Arctic seas from the hungry sight of sweethearts and friends,wives and mothers. No one knew what might have happened. The crowdon shore grew silent and solemn before the dread of the possiblenews of death that might toll in upon their hearts with thisuprushing tide. The whalers went out into the Greenland seas full ofstrong, hopeful men; but the whalers never returned as they sailedforth. On land there are deaths among two or three hundred men to bemourned over in every half-year's space of time. Whose bones hadbeen left to blacken on the gray and terrible icebergs? Who laystill until the sea should give up its dead? Who were those whoshould come back to Monkshaven never, no, never more?
Many a heart swelled with passionate, unspoken fear, as the firstwhaler lay off the bar on her return voyage.
Molly and Sylvia had left the crowd in this hushed suspense. Butfifty yards along the staithe they passed five or six girls withflushed faces and careless attire, who had mounted a pile of timber,placed there to season for ship-building, from which, as from thesteps of a ladder or staircase, they could command the harbour. Theywere wild and free in their gestures, and held each other by thehand, and swayed from side to side, stamping their feet in time, asthey sang--
Weel may the keel row, the keel row, the keel row, Weel may the keel row that my laddie's in!
'What for are ye going off, now?' they called out to our two girls.'She'll be in in ten minutes!' and without waiting for the answerwhich never came, they resumed their song.
Old sailors stood about in little groups, too proud to show theirinterest in the adventures they could no longer share, but quiteunable to keep up any semblance of talk on indifferent subjects.
The town seemed very quiet and deserted as Molly and Sylvia enteredthe dark, irregular Bridge Street, and the market-place was as emptyof people as before. But the skeps and baskets and three-leggedstools were all cleared away.
'Market's over for to-day,' said Molly Corney, in disappointedsurprise. 'We mun make the best on't, and sell to t' huxters, and ahard bargain they'll be for driving. I doubt mother'll be vexed.'
She and Sylvia went to the corner shop to reclaim their baskets. Theman had his joke at them for their delay.
'Ay, ay! lasses as has sweethearts a-coming home don't care muchwhat price they get for butter and eggs! I dare say, now, there'ssome un in yon ship that 'ud give as much as a shilling a pound forthis butter if he only knowed who churned it!' This was to Sylvia,as he handed her back her property.
The fancy-free Sylvia reddened, pouted, tossed back her head, andhardly deigned a farewell word of thanks or civility to the lameman; she was at an age to be affronted by any jokes on such asubject. Molly took the joke without disclaimer and without offence.She rather liked the unfounded idea of her having a sweetheart, andwas rather surprised to think how devoid of foundation the notionwas. If she could have a new cloak as Sylvia was going to have,then, indeed, there might be a chance! Until some such good luck, itwas as well to laugh and blush as if the surmise of her having alover was not very far from the truth, and so she replied insomething of the same strain as the lame net-maker to his joke aboutthe butter.
'He'll need it all, and more too, to grease his tongue, if iver hereckons to win me for his wife!'
When they were out of the shop, Sylvia said, in a coaxing tone,--
'Molly, who is it? Whose tongue 'll need greasing? Just tell me, andI'll never tell!'
She was so much in earnest that Molly was perplexed. She did notquite like saying that she had alluded to no one in particular, onlyto a possible sweetheart, so she began to think what young man hadmade the most civil speeches to her in her life; the list was not along one to go over, for her father was not so well off as to makeher sought after for her money, and her face was rather of thehomeliest. But she suddenly remembered her cousin, the specksioneer,who had given her two large shells, and taken a kiss from herhalf-willing lips before he went to sea the last time. So she smileda little, and then said,--
'Well! I dunno. It's ill talking o' these things afore one has madeup one's mind. And perhaps if Charley Kinraid behaves hissen, Imight be brought to listen.'
'Charley Kinraid! who's he?'
'Yon specksioneer cousin o' mine, as I was talking on.'
'And do yo' think he cares for yo'?' asked Sylvia, in a low, tendertone, as if touching on a great mystery.
Molly only said, 'Be quiet wi' yo',' and Sylvia could not make outwhether she cut the conversation so short because she was offended,or because they had come to the shop where they had to sell theirbutter and eggs.
'Now, Sylvia, if thou'll leave me thy basket, I'll make as good abargain as iver I can on 'em; and thou can be off to choose thisgrand new cloak as is to be, afore it gets any darker. Where is tagoing to?'
'Mother said I'd better go to Foster's,' answered Sylvia, with ashade of annoyance in her face. 'Feyther said just anywhere.'
'Foster's is t' best place; thou canst try anywhere afterwards. I'llbe at Foster's in five minutes, for I reckon we mun hasten a bitnow. It'll be near five o'clock.'
Sylvia hung her head and looked very demure as she walked off byherself to Foster's shop in the market-place.