Sylvias Lovers

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
LONDON:
M.DCCC.LXIII.
CHAPTER I
MONKSHAVEN

On the north-eastern shores of England there is a town called
Monkshaven, containing at the present day about fifteen thousand
inhabitants. There were, however, but half the number at the end of the
last century, and it was at that period that the events narrated in the
following pages occurred.
Monkshaven was a name not unknown in the history of England, and
traditions of its having been the landing-place of a throneless queen
were current in the town. At that time there had been a fortified castle
on the heights above it, the site of which was now occupied by a
deserted manor-house; and at an even earlier date than the arrival of the

queen and coeval with the most ancient remains of the castle, a great
monastery had stood on those cliffs, overlooking the vast ocean that
blended with the distant sky. Monkshaven itself was built by the side of
the Dee, just where the river falls into the German Ocean. The principal
street of the town ran parallel to the stream, and smaller lanes branched
out of this, and straggled up the sides of the steep hill, between which
and the river the houses were pent in. There was a bridge across the
Dee, and consequently a Bridge Street running at right angles to the
High Street; and on the south 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 town that the local aristocracy lived. And who were
the great people of this small town? Not the younger branches of the
county families that held hereditary state in their manor-houses on the
wild bleak moors, that shut in Monkshaven almost as effectually on the
land side as ever the waters did on the sea-board. No; these old families
kept aloof from the unsavoury yet adventurous trade which brought
wealth to generation after generation of certain families in
Monkshaven.
The magnates of Monkshaven were those who had the largest number
of ships engaged in the whaling-trade. Something like the following
was the course of life with a Monkshaven lad of this class:--He was
apprenticed as a sailor to one of the great ship-owners--to his own
father, possibly--along with twenty other boys, or, it might be, even
more. During the summer months he and his fellow apprentices made
voyages to the Greenland seas, returning with their cargoes in the early
autumn; and employing the winter months in watching the preparation
of the oil from the blubber in the melting-sheds, and learning
navigation from some quaint but experienced teacher, half
schoolmaster, half sailor, who seasoned his instructions by stirring
narrations of the wild adventures of his youth. The house of the
ship-owner to whom he was apprenticed was his home and that of his
companions during the idle season between October and March. The
domestic position of these boys varied according to the premium paid;
some took rank with the sons of the family, others were considered as
little better than servants. Yet once on board an equality prevailed, in
which, if any claimed superiority, it was the bravest and brightest. After

a certain number of voyages the Monkshaven lad would rise by degrees
to be captain, and as such would have a share in the venture; all these
profits, as well as all his 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. At the time of which I write, there was but little division of
labour in the Monkshaven whale fishery. The same man might be the
owner of six or seven ships, any one of which he himself was fitted by
education and experience to command; the master of a score of
apprentices, each of whom paid a pretty sufficient premium; and the
proprietor of the melting-sheds into which his cargoes of blubber and
whalebone were conveyed to be fitted for sale. It was no wonder that
large fortunes were acquired by these ship-owners, nor that their houses
on the south side of the river Dee were stately mansions, full of
handsome and substantial furniture. It was also not surprising that the
whole town had an amphibious appearance, to a degree unusual even in
a seaport. Every one depended on the whale fishery, and almost every
male inhabitant had been, or hoped to be, a sailor. Down by the river
the smell was almost intolerable to any but Monkshaven people during
certain seasons of the year; but on these unsavoury 'staithes' the old
men