Sylvias Lovers | Page 7

equal division.
Each girl wore tightly-fitting stockings, knit by her own hands, of the
blue worsted common in that country; they had on neat high-heeled
black leather shoes, coming well over the instep, and fastened as well
as ornamented with bright steel buckles. They did not walk so lightly
and freely now as they did before they were shod, but their steps were
still springy with the buoyancy of early youth; for neither of them was
twenty, indeed I believe Sylvia was not more than seventeen at this
time.
They clambered up the steep grassy path, with brambles catching at
their kilted petticoats, through the copse-wood, till they regained the
high road; and then they 'settled themselves,' as they called it; that is to
say, they took off their black felt hats, and tied up their clustering hair
afresh; they shook off every speck of wayside dust; straightened the
little shawls (or large neck-kerchiefs, call them which you will) that
were spread over their shoulders, pinned below 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 the
closely packed houses lying almost directly below the hill on which
they were. The full autumn sun brought out the ruddy colour of the
tiled gables, and deepened the shadows in the narrow streets. The
narrow harbour at the mouth of the river was crowded with small
vessels of all descriptions, making an intricate forest of masts. Beyond
lay the sea, like a flat pavement of sapphire, scarcely a ripple varying
its sunny surface, that stretched out leagues away till it blended with
the softened azure of the sky. On this blue trackless water floated
scores of white-sailed fishing boats, apparently motionless, unless you
measured their progress by some land-mark; but still, and silent, and
distant as they seemed, the consciousness that there were men on board,
each going forth into the great deep, added unspeakably to the interest
felt in watching them. Close to the bar of the river Dee a larger vessel
lay to. Sylvia, who had only recently come into the neighbourhood,
looked at this with the same quiet interest as she did at all the others;
but Molly, 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 shook both Sylvia's
hands in the fulness of her excitement. Sylvia's colour rose, and her
eyes sparkled out of sympathy.
'Is ta sure?' she asked, breathless in her turn; for though she did not
know by the aspect of the different ships on what trade they were
bound, yet she was well aware of the paramount interest attached to
whaling vessels.
'Three o'clock! and it's not high water till five!' said Molly. 'If we're
sharp we can sell our eggs, and be down to the staithes before she
comes into port. Be sharp, lass!'
And down the steep long hill they went at a pace that was almost a run.
A run they dared not make it; and as it was, the rate at which they
walked would have caused destruction among eggs less carefully
packed. When the descent was ended, there was yet the long narrow
street before them, bending and swerving from the straight line, as it
followed the course of the river. The girls felt as if they should never

come to the market-place, which was situated at the crossing of Bridge
Street and High Street. There the old stone cross was raised by the
monks long ago; now worn and mutilated, no one esteemed it as a holy
symbol, but only as the Butter Cross, where market-women clustered
on Wednesday, and whence the town crier made all his proclamations
of household sales, things lost or found, beginning with 'Oh! yes, oh!
yes, oh! yes!' and ending with 'God bless 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 colours of which marked him as a servant of the
Burnabys, the family who held manorial rights over Monkshaven.
Of course the much frequented space surrounding the Butter Cross was
the favourite centre for shops; and on this day, a fine market day, just
when good housewives begin to look over their winter store of blankets
and flannels, and discover their needs betimes, these shops ought to
have had plenty of customers. But they were empty and of even quieter
aspect than their every-day wont. The three-legged creepie-stools that
were hired out at