Sylvia's Lovers — Complete Read online

  Produced by Charles Aldarondo. HTML version by Al Haines.

  [Editor's Note:--The chapter numbering for volume 2 & 3 was changedfrom the original in order to have unique chapter numbers for thecomplete version, so volume 2 starts with chapter XV and volume 3starts with chapter XXX.]

  SYLVIA'S LOVERS.

  BY

  ELIZABETH GASKELL

  Oh for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil! Behind the veil!--Tennyson

  IN THREE VOLUMES.

  VOL. I.

  LONDON:

  M.DCCC.LXIII.

  CONTENTS

  I MONKSHAVEN II HOME FROM GREENLAND III BUYING A NEW CLOAK IV PHILIP HEPBURN V STORY OF THE PRESS-GANG VI THE SAILOR'S FUNERAL VII TETE-A-TETE.--THE WILL VIII ATTRACTION AND REPULSION IX THE SPECKSIONEER X A REFRACTORY PUPIL XI VISIONS OF THE FUTURE XII NEW YEAR'S FETE XIII PERPLEXITIES XIV PARTNERSHIP XV A DIFFICULT QUESTION XVI THE ENGAGEMENT XVII REJECTED WARNINGS XVIII EDDY IN LOVE'S CURRENT XIX AN IMPORTANT MISSION XX LOVED AND LOST XXI A REJECTED SUITOR XXII DEEPENING SHADOWS XXIII RETALIATION XXIV BRIEF REJOICING XXV COMING TROUBLES XXVI A DREARY VIGIL XXVII GLOOMY DAYS XXVIII THE ORDEAL XXIX WEDDING RAIMENT XXX HAPPY DAYS XXXI EVIL OMENS XXXII RESCUED FROM THE WAVES XXXIII AN APPARITION XXXIV A RECKLESS RECRUIT XXXV THINGS UNUTTERABLE XXXVI MYSTERIOUS TIDINGS XXXVII BEREAVEMENT XXXVIII THE RECOGNITION XXXIX CONFIDENCES XL AN UNEXPECTED MESSENGER XLI THE BEDESMAN OF ST SEPULCHRE XLII A FABLE AT FAULT XLIII THE UNKNOWN XLIV FIRST WORDS XLV SAVED AND LOST

  CHAPTER I

  MONKSHAVEN

  On the north-eastern shores of England there is a town calledMonkshaven, containing at the present day about fifteen thousandinhabitants. There were, however, but half the number at the end ofthe last century, and it was at that period that the events narratedin the following pages occurred.

  Monkshaven was a name not unknown in the history of England, andtraditions of its having been the landing-place of a thronelessqueen were current in the town. At that time there had been afortified castle on the heights above it, the site of which was nowoccupied by a deserted manor-house; and at an even earlier date thanthe arrival of the queen and coeval with the most ancient remains ofthe castle, a great monastery had stood on those cliffs, overlookingthe vast ocean that blended with the distant sky. Monkshaven itselfwas built by the side of the Dee, just where the river falls intothe German Ocean. The principal street of the town ran parallel tothe stream, and smaller lanes branched out of this, and straggled upthe sides of the steep hill, between which and the river the houseswere pent in. There was a bridge across the Dee, and consequently aBridge Street running at right angles to the High Street; and on thesouth side of the stream there were a few houses of more pretension,around which lay gardens and fields. It was on this side of the townthat the local aristocracy lived. And who were the great people ofthis small town? Not the younger branches of the county familiesthat held hereditary state in their manor-houses on the wild bleakmoors, that shut in Monkshaven almost as effectually on the landside as ever the waters did on the sea-board. No; these old familieskept aloof from the unsavoury yet adventurous trade which broughtwealth to generation after generation of certain families inMonkshaven.

  The magnates of Monkshaven were those who had the largest number ofships engaged in the whaling-trade. Something like the following wasthe course of life with a Monkshaven lad of this class:--He wasapprenticed as a sailor to one of the great ship-owners--to his ownfather, possibly--along with twenty other boys, or, it might be,even more. During the summer months he and his fellow apprenticesmade voyages to the Greenland seas, returning with their cargoes inthe early autumn; and employing the winter months in watching thepreparation of the oil from the blubber in the melting-sheds, andlearning navigation from some quaint but experienced teacher, halfschoolmaster, half sailor, who seasoned his instructions by stirringnarrations of the wild adventures of his youth. The house of theship-owner to whom he was apprenticed was his home and that of hiscompanions during the idle season between October and March. Thedomestic position of these boys varied according to the premiumpaid; some took rank with the sons of the family, others wereconsidered as little better than servants. Yet once on board anequality prevailed, in which, if any claimed superiority, it was thebravest and brightest. After a certain number of voyages theMonkshaven lad would rise by degrees to be captain, and as suchwould have a share in the venture; all these profits, as well as allhis savings, would go towards building a whaling vessel of his own,if he was not so fortunate as to be the child of a ship-owner. Atthe time of which I write, there was but little division of labourin the Monkshaven whale fishery. The same man might be the owner ofsix or seven ships, any one of which he himself was fitted byeducation and experience to command; the master of a score ofapprentices, each of whom paid a pretty sufficient premium; and theproprietor of the melting-sheds into which his cargoes of blubberand whalebone were conveyed to be fitted for sale. It was no wonderthat large fortunes were acquired by these ship-owners, nor thattheir houses on the south side of the river Dee were statelymansions, full of handsome and substantial furniture. It was alsonot surprising that the whole town had an amphibious appearance, toa degree unusual even in a seaport. Every one depended on the whalefishery, and almost every male inhabitant had been, or hoped to be,a sailor. Down by the river the smell was almost intolerable to anybut Monkshaven people during certain seasons of the year; but onthese unsavoury 'staithes' the old men and children lounged forhours, almost as if they revelled in the odours of train-oil.

  This is, perhaps, enough of a description of the town itself. I havesaid that the country for miles all around was moorland; high abovethe level of the sea towered the purple crags, whose summits werecrowned with greensward that stole down the sides of the scaur alittle way in grassy veins. Here and there a brook forced its wayfrom the heights down to the sea, making its channel into a valleymore or less broad in long process of time. And in the moorlandhollows, as in these valleys, trees and underwood grew andflourished; so that, while on the bare swells of the high land youshivered at the waste desolation of the scenery, when you droppedinto these wooded 'bottoms' you were charmed with the nestlingshelter which they gave. But above and around these rare and fertilevales there were moors for many a mile, here and there bleak enough,with the red freestone cropping out above the scanty herbage; then,perhaps, there was a brown tract of peat and bog, uncertain footingfor the pedestrian who tried to make a short cut to his destination;then on the higher sandy soil there was the purple ling, orcommonest species of heather growing in beautiful wild luxuriance.Tufts of fine elastic grass were occasionally to be found, on whichthe little black-faced sheep browsed; but either the scanty food, ortheir goat-like agility, kept them in a lean condition that did notpromise much for the butcher, nor yet was their wool of a qualityfine enough to make them profitable in that way to their owners. Insuch districts there is little population at the present day; therewas much less in the last century, before agriculture wassufficiently scientific to have a chance of contending with suchnatural disqualifications as the moors presented, and when therewere no facilities of railroads to bring sportsmen from a distanceto enjoy the shooting season, and make an annual demand foraccommodation.

  There were old stone halls in the valleys; there were barefarmhouses to be seen on the moors at long distances apart, withsmall stacks of coarse poor hay, and almost larger stacks of turffor winter fuel in their farmyards. The cattle in the pasture fieldsbelonging to these farms looked half starved; but somehow there wasan
odd, intelligent expression in their faces, as well as in thoseof the black-visaged sheep, which is seldom seen in the placidlystupid countenances of well-fed animals. All the fences were turfbanks, with loose stones piled into walls on the top of these.

  There was comparative fertility and luxuriance down below in therare green dales. The narrow meadows stretching along the brooksideseemed as though the cows could really satisfy their hunger in thedeep rich grass; whereas on the higher lands the scanty herbage washardly worth the fatigue of moving about in search of it. Even inthese 'bottoms' the piping sea-winds, following the current of thestream, stunted and cut low any trees; but still there was richthick underwood, tangled and tied together with brambles, andbrier-rose, [sic] and honeysuckle; and if the farmer in thesecomparatively happy valleys had had wife or daughter who cared forgardening, many a flower would have grown on the western or southernside of the rough stone house. But at that time gardening was not apopular art in any part of England; in the north it is not yet.Noblemen and gentlemen may have beautiful gardens; but farmers andday-labourers care little for them north of the Trent, which is allI can answer for. A few 'berry' bushes, a black currant tree or two(the leaves to be used in heightening the flavour of tea, the fruitas medicinal for colds and sore throats), a potato ground (and thiswas not so common at the close of the last century as it is now), acabbage bed, a bush of sage, and balm, and thyme, and marjoram, withpossibly a rose tree, and 'old man' growing in the midst; a littleplot of small strong coarse onions, and perhaps some marigolds, thepetals of which flavoured the salt-beef broth; such plants made up awell-furnished garden to a farmhouse at the time and place to whichmy story belongs. But for twenty miles inland there was noforgetting the sea, nor the sea-trade; refuse shell-fish, seaweed,the offal of the melting-houses, were the staple manure of thedistrict; great ghastly whale-jaws, bleached bare and white, werethe arches over the gate-posts to many a field or moorland stretch.Out of every family of several sons, however agricultural theirposition might be, one had gone to sea, and the mother lookedwistfully seaward at the changes of the keen piping moorland winds.The holiday rambles were to the coast; no one cared to go inland tosee aught, unless indeed it might be to the great annual horse-fairsheld where the dreary land broke into habitation and cultivation.

  Somehow in this country sea thoughts followed the thinker farinland; whereas in most other parts of the island, at five milesfrom the ocean, he has all but forgotten the existence of such anelement as salt water. The great Greenland trade of the coastingtowns was the main and primary cause of this, no doubt. But therewas also a dread and an irritation in every one's mind, at the timeof which I write, in connection with the neighbouring sea.

  Since the termination of the American war, there had been nothing tocall for any unusual energy in manning the navy; and the grantsrequired by Government for this purpose diminished with every yearof peace. In 1792 this grant touched its minimum for many years. In1793 the proceedings of the French had set Europe on fire, and theEnglish were raging with anti-Gallican excitement, fomented intoaction by every expedient of the Crown and its Ministers. We had ourships; but where were our men? The Admiralty had, however, a readyremedy at hand, with ample precedent for its use, and with common(if not statute) law to sanction its application. They issued 'presswarrants,' calling upon the civil power throughout the country tosupport their officers in the discharge of their duty. The sea-coastwas divided into districts, under the charge of a captain in thenavy, who again delegated sub-districts to lieutenants; and in thismanner all homeward-bound vessels were watched and waited for, allports were under supervision; and in a day, if need were, a largenumber of men could be added to the forces of his Majesty's navy.But if the Admiralty became urgent in their demands, they were alsowilling to be unscrupulous. Landsmen, if able-bodied, might soon betrained into good sailors; and once in the hold of the tender, whichalways awaited the success of the operations of the press-gang, itwas difficult for such prisoners to bring evidence of the nature oftheir former occupations, especially when none had leisure to listento such evidence, or were willing to believe it if they did listen,or would act upon it for the release of the captive if they had bypossibility both listened and believed. Men were kidnapped,literally disappeared, and nothing was ever heard of them again. Thestreet of a busy town was not safe from such press-gang captures, asLord Thurlow could have told, after a certain walk he took aboutthis time on Tower Hill, when he, the attorney-general of England,was impressed, when the Admiralty had its own peculiar ways ofgetting rid of tiresome besiegers and petitioners. Nor yet werelonely inland dwellers more secure; many a rustic went to a statutefair or 'mop,' and never came home to tell of his hiring; many astout young farmer vanished from his place by the hearth of hisfather, and was no more heard of by mother or lover; so great wasthe press for men to serve in the navy during the early years of thewar with France, and after every great naval victory of that war.

  The servants of the Admiralty lay in wait for all merchantmen andtraders; there were many instances of vessels returning home afterlong absence, and laden with rich cargo, being boarded within aday's distance of land, and so many men pressed and carried off,that the ship, with her cargo, became unmanageable from the loss ofher crew, drifted out again into the wild wide ocean, and wassometimes found in the helpless guidance of one or two infirm orignorant sailors; sometimes such vessels were never heard of more.The men thus pressed were taken from the near grasp of parents orwives, and were often deprived of the hard earnings of years, whichremained in the hands of the masters of the merchantman in whichthey had served, subject to all the chances of honesty ordishonesty, life or death. Now all this tyranny (for I can use noother word) is marvellous to us; we cannot imagine how it is that anation submitted to it for so long, even under any warlikeenthusiasm, any panic of invasion, any amount of loyal subservienceto the governing powers. When we read of the military being calledin to assist the civil power in backing up the press-gang, ofparties of soldiers patrolling the streets, and sentries withscrewed bayonets placed at every door while the press-gang enteredand searched each hole and corner of the dwelling; when we hear ofchurches being surrounded during divine service by troops, while thepress-gang stood ready at the door to seize men as they came outfrom attending public worship, and take these instances as merelytypes of what was constantly going on in different forms, we do notwonder at Lord Mayors, and other civic authorities in large towns,complaining that a stop was put to business by the danger which thetradesmen and their servants incurred in leaving their houses andgoing into the streets, infested by press-gangs.

  Whether it was that living in closer neighbourhood to themetropolis--the centre of politics and news--inspired theinhabitants of the southern counties with a strong feeling of thatkind of patriotism which consists in hating all other nations; orwhether it was that the chances of capture were so much greater atall the southern ports that the merchant sailors became inured tothe danger; or whether it was that serving in the navy, to thosefamiliar with such towns as Portsmouth and Plymouth, had anattraction to most men from the dash and brilliancy of theadventurous employment--it is certain that the southerners took theoppression of press-warrants more submissively than the wildnorth-eastern people. For with them the chances of profit beyondtheir wages in the whaling or Greenland trade extended to the lowestdescription of sailor. He might rise by daring and saving to be aship-owner himself. Numbers around him had done so; and this veryfact made the distinction between class and class less apparent; andthe common ventures and dangers, the universal interest felt in onepursuit, bound the inhabitants of that line of coast together with astrong tie, the severance of which by any violent extraneousmeasure, gave rise to passionate anger and thirst for vengeance. AYorkshireman once said to me, 'My county folk are all alike. Theirfirst thought is how to resist. Why! I myself, if I hear a man sayit is a fine day, catch myself trying to find out that it is no suchthing. It is so in thought; it is so in word; it is so in deed.'

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p; So you may imagine the press-gang had no easy time of it on theYorkshire coast. In other places they inspired fear, but here rageand hatred. The Lord Mayor of York was warned on 20th January, 1777,by an anonymous letter, that 'if those men were not sent from thecity on or before the following Tuesday, his lordship's owndwelling, and the Mansion-house also, should be burned to theground.'

  Perhaps something of the ill-feeling that prevailed on the subjectwas owing to the fact which I have noticed in other places similarlysituated. Where the landed possessions of gentlemen of ancientfamily but limited income surround a centre of any kind ofprofitable trade or manufacture, there is a sort of latent ill-willon the part of the squires to the tradesman, be he manufacturer,merchant, or ship-owner, in whose hands is held a power ofmoney-making, which no hereditary pride, or gentlemanly love ofdoing nothing, prevents him from using. This ill-will, to be sure,is mostly of a negative kind; its most common form of manifestationis in absence of speech or action, a sort of torpid and genteelignoring all unpleasant neighbours; but really the whale-fisheriesof Monkshaven had become so impertinently and obtrusively prosperousof late years at the time of which I write, the Monkshavenship-owners were growing so wealthy and consequential, that thesquires, who lived at home at ease in the old stone manor-housesscattered up and down the surrounding moorland, felt that the checkupon the Monkshaven trade likely to be inflicted by the press-gang,was wisely ordained by the higher powers (how high they placed thesepowers I will not venture to say), to prevent overhaste in gettingrich, which was a scriptural fault, and they also thought that theywere only doing their duty in backing up the Admiralty warrants byall the civil power at their disposal, whenever they were calledupon, and whenever they could do so without taking too much troublein affairs which did not after all much concern themselves.

  There was just another motive in the minds of some provident parentsof many daughters. The captains and lieutenants employed on thisservice were mostly agreeable bachelors, brought up to a genteelprofession, at the least they were very pleasant visitors, when theyhad a day to spare; who knew what might come of it?

  Indeed, these brave officers were not unpopular in Monkshavenitself, except at the time when they were brought into actualcollision with the people. They had the frank manners of theirprofession; they were known to have served in those engagements, thevery narrative of which at this day will warm the heart of a Quaker,and they themselves did not come prominently forward in the dirtywork which, nevertheless, was permitted and quietly sanctioned bythem. So while few Monkshaven people passed the low public-houseover which the navy blue-flag streamed, as a sign that it was therendezvous of the press-gang, without spitting towards it in sign ofabhorrence, yet, perhaps, the very same persons would give somerough token of respect to Lieutenant Atkinson if they met him inHigh Street. Touching their hats was an unknown gesture in thoseparts, but they would move their heads in a droll, familiar kind ofway, neither a wag nor a nod, but meant all the same to implyfriendly regard. The ship-owners, too, invited him to an occasionaldinner or supper, all the time looking forward to the chances of histurning out an active enemy, and not by any means inclined to givehim 'the run of the house,' however many unmarried daughters mightgrace their table. Still as he could tell a rattling story, drinkhard, and was seldom too busy to come at a short notice, he got onbetter than any one could have expected with the Monkshaven folk.And the principal share of the odium of his business fell on hissubordinates, who were one and all regarded in the light of meankidnappers and spies--'varmint,' as the common people esteemedthem: and as such they were ready at the first provocation to huntand to worry them, and little cared the press-gang for this.Whatever else they were, they were brave and daring. They had law toback them, therefore their business was lawful. They were servingtheir king and country. They were using all their faculties, andthat is always pleasant. There was plenty of scope for the glory andtriumph of outwitting; plenty of adventure in their life. It was alawful and loyal employment, requiring sense, readiness, courage,and besides it called out that strange love of the chase inherent inevery man. Fourteen or fifteen miles at sea lay the _Aurora_, goodman-of-war; and to her were conveyed the living cargoes of severaltenders, which were stationed at likely places along the sea-coast.One, the _Lively Lady_, might be seen from the cliffs aboveMonkshaven, not so far away, but hidden by the angle of the highlands from the constant sight of the townspeople; and there wasalways the Randyvow-house (as the public-house with the navyblue-flag was called thereabouts) for the crew of the _Lively Lady_to lounge about, and there to offer drink to unwary passers-by. Atpresent this was all that the press-gang had done at Monkshaven.