"I must, sir, if yo"re to help me wi" your counsel; and I came up here to ask for it."
Another long pause, during which Jeremiah made a feint of playing with the child, who danced and shouted with tantalized impatience at not being able to obtain possession of the seal, and at length stretched out her soft round little arms to go to the owner of the coveted possession. Surprise at this action roused Sylvia, and she made some comment upon it.
"I niver knew her t" go to any one afore. I hope she"ll not be troublesome to yo", sir?"
The old man, who had often longed for a child of his own in days gone by, was highly pleased by this mark of baby"s confidence, and almost forgot, in trying to strengthen her regard by all the winning wiles in his power, how her poor mother was still lingering over some painful story which she could not bring herself to tell.
"I"m afeared of speaking wrong again" any one, sir. And mother were so fond o" Philip; but he kept something from me as would ha" made me a different woman, and some one else, happen, a different man. I were troth-plighted wi" Kinraid the specksioneer, him as was cousin to th" Corneys o" Moss Brow, and comed back lieutenant i" t" navy last Tuesday three weeks, after ivery one had thought him dead and gone these three years."
She paused.
"Well?" said Jeremiah, with interest; although his attention appeared to be divided between the mother"s story and the eager playfulness of the baby on his knee.
"Philip knew he were alive; he"d seen him taken by t" press-gang, and Charley had sent a message to me by Philip."
Her white face was reddening, her eyes flashing at this point of her story.
"And he niver told me a word on it, not when he saw me like to break my heart in thinking as Kinraid were dead; he kept it a" to hissel"; and watched me cry, and niver said a word to comfort me wi" t"
truth. It would ha" been a great comfort, sir, only t" have had his message if I"d niver ha" been to see him again. But Philip niver let on to any one, as I iver heared on, that he"d seen Charley that morning as t" press-gang took him. Yo" know about feyther"s death, and how friendless mother and me was left? and so I married him; for he were a good friend to us then, and I were dazed like wi" sorrow, and could see naught else to do for mother. He were allays very tender and good to her, for sure."
Again a long pause of silent recollection, broken by one or two deep sighs.
"If I go on, sir, now, I mun ask yo" to promise as yo"ll niver tell.
I do so need some one to tell me what I ought to do, and I were led here, like, else I would ha" died wi" it all within my teeth. Yo"ll promise, sir?"
Jeremiah Foster looked in her face, and seeing the wistful, eager look, he was touched almost against his judgment into giving the promise required; she went on.
"Upon a Tuesday morning, three weeks ago, I think, tho" for t"
matter o" time it might ha" been three years, Kinraid come home; come back for t" claim me as his wife, and I were wed to Philip! I met him i" t" road at first; and I couldn"t tell him theere. He followed me into t" house--Philip"s house, sir, behind t" shop--and somehow I told him all, how I were a wedded wife to another. Then he up and said I"d a false heart--me false, sir, as had eaten my daily bread in bitterness, and had wept t" nights through, all for sorrow and mourning for his death! Then he said as Philip knowed all t"
time he were alive and coming back for me; and I couldn"t believe it, and I called Philip, and he come, and a" that Charley had said were true; and yet I were Philip"s wife! So I took a mighty oath, and I said as I"d niver hold Philip to be my lawful husband again, nor iver forgive him for t" evil he"d wrought us, but hold him as a stranger and one as had done me a heavy wrong."
She stopped speaking; her story seemed to her to end there. But her listener said, after a pause,
"It were a cruel wrong, I grant thee that; but thy oath were a sin, and thy words were evil, my poor la.s.s. What happened next?"
"I don"t justly remember," she said, wearily. "Kinraid went away, and mother cried out; and I went to her. She were asleep, I thought, so I lay down by her, to wish I were dead, and to think on what would come on my child if I died; and Philip came in softly, and I made as if I were asleep; and that"s t" very last as I"ve iver seen or heared of him."
Jeremiah Foster groaned as she ended her story. Then he pulled himself up, and said, in a cheerful tone of voice,
"He"ll come back, Sylvia Hepburn. He"ll think better of it: never fear!"
"I fear his coming back!" said she. "That"s what I"m feared on; I would wish as I knew on his well-doing i" some other place; but him and me can niver live together again."
"Nay," pleaded Jeremiah. "Thee art sorry what thee said; thee were sore put about, or thee wouldn"t have said it."
He was trying to be a peace-maker, and to heal over conjugal differences; but he did not go deep enough.
"I"m not sorry," said she, slowly. "I were too deeply wronged to be "put about"; that would go off wi" a night"s sleep. It"s only the thought of mother (she"s dead and happy, and knows nought of all this, I trust) that comes between me and hating Philip. I"m not sorry for what I said."
Jeremiah had never met with any one so frank and undisguised in expressions of wrong feeling, and he scarcely knew what to say.
He looked extremely grieved, and not a little shocked. So pretty and delicate a young creature to use such strong relentless language!
She seemed to read his thoughts, for she made answer to them.
"I dare say you think I"m very wicked, sir, not to be sorry. Perhaps I am. I can"t think o" that for remembering how I"ve suffered; and he knew how miserable I was, and might ha" cleared my misery away wi" a word; and he held his peace, and now it"s too late! I"m sick o" men and their cruel, deceitful ways. I wish I were dead."
She was crying before she had ended this speech, and seeing her tears, the child began to cry too, stretching out its little arms to go back to its mother. The hard stony look on her face melted away into the softest, tenderest love as she clasped the little one to her, and tried to soothe its frightened sobs.
A bright thought came into the old man"s mind.
He had been taking a complete dislike to her till her pretty way with her baby showed him that she had a heart of flesh within her.
"Poor little one!" said he, "thy mother had need love thee, for she"s deprived thee of thy father"s love. Thou"rt half-way to being an orphan; yet I cannot call thee one of the fatherless to whom G.o.d will be a father. Thou"rt a desolate babe, thou may"st well cry; thine earthly parents have forsaken thee, and I know not if the Lord will take thee up."
Sylvia looked up at him affrighted; holding her baby tighter to her, she exclaimed.
"Don"t speak so, sir! it"s cursing, sir! I haven"t forsaken her! Oh, sir! those are awful sayings."
"Thee hast sworn never to forgive thy husband, nor to live with him again. Dost thee know that by the law of the land, he may claim his child; and then thou wilt have to forsake it, or to be forsworn?
Poor little maiden!" continued he, once more luring the baby to him with the temptation of the watch and chain.
Sylvia thought for a while before speaking. Then she said,
"I cannot tell what ways to take. Whiles I think my head is crazed.
It were a cruel turn he did me!"
"It was. I couldn"t have thought him guilty of such baseness."
This acquiescence, which was perfectly honest on Jeremiah"s part, almost took Sylvia by surprise. Why might she not hate one who had been both cruel and base in his treatment of her? And yet she recoiled from the application of such hard terms by another to Philip, by a cool-judging and indifferent person, as she esteemed Jeremiah to be. From some inscrutable turn in her thoughts, she began to defend him, or at least to palliate the harsh judgment which she herself had been the first to p.r.o.nounce.
"He were so tender to mother; she were dearly fond on him; he niver spared aught he could do for her, else I would niver ha" married him."
"He was a good and kind-hearted lad from the time he was fifteen.
And I never found him out in any falsehood, no more did my brother."
"But it were all the same as a lie," said Sylvia, swiftly changing her ground, "to leave me to think as Charley were dead, when he knowed all t" time he were alive."
"It was. It was a self-seeking lie; putting thee to pain to get his own ends. And the end of it has been that he is driven forth like Cain."
"I niver told him to go, sir."
"But thy words sent him forth, Sylvia."
"I cannot unsay them, sir; and I believe as I should say them again."
But she said this as one who rather hopes for a contradiction.
All Jeremiah replied, however, was, "Poor wee child!" in a pitiful tone, addressed to the baby.