Sylvia's Lovers - Page 127/290

Bell sat upright in her chair, gazing into the fire. Her milk-white

linen mob-cap fringed round and softened her face, from which the

usual apple-red was banished by illness, and the features, from the

same cause, rendered more prominent and stern. She had a clean buff

kerchief round her neck, and stuffed into the bosom of her Sunday

woollen gown of dark blue,--if she had been in working-trim she

would have worn a bedgown like Sylvia's. Her sleeves were pinned

back at the elbows, and her brown arms and hard-working hands lay

crossed in unwonted idleness on her check apron. Her knitting was by

her side; and if she had been going through any accustomed

calculation or consideration she would have had it busily clinking

in her fingers. But she had something quite beyond common to think

about, and, perhaps, to speak about; and for the minute she was not

equal to knitting.

'Sylvie,' she began at length, 'did I e'er tell thee on Nancy

Hartley as I knew when I were a child? I'm thinking a deal on her

to-night; may-be it's because I've been dreaming on yon old times.

She was a bonny lass as ever were seen, I've heerd folk say; but

that were afore I knew her. When I knew her she were crazy, poor

wench; wi' her black hair a-streaming down her back, and her eyes,

as were a'most as black, allays crying out for pity, though never a

word she spoke but "He once was here." Just that o'er and o'er

again, whether she were cold or hot, full or hungry, "He once was

here," were all her speech. She had been farm-servant to my mother's

brother--James Hepburn, thy great-uncle as was; she were a poor,

friendless wench, a parish 'prentice, but honest and gaum-like, till

a lad, as nobody knowed, come o'er the hills one sheep-shearing fra'

Whitehaven; he had summat to do wi' th' sea, though not rightly to

be called a sailor: and he made a deal on Nancy Hartley, just to

beguile the time like; and he went away and ne'er sent a thought

after her more. It's the way as lads have; and there's no holding

'em when they're fellows as nobody knows--neither where they come

fro', nor what they've been doing a' their lives, till they come

athwart some poor wench like Nancy Hartley. She were but a softy

after all: for she left off doing her work in a proper manner. I've

heerd my aunt say as she found out as summat was wrong wi' Nancy as

soon as th' milk turned bingy, for there ne'er had been such a clean

lass about her milk-cans afore that; and from bad it grew to worse,

and she would sit and do nothing but play wi' her fingers fro' morn

till night, and if they asked her what ailed her, she just said, "He

once was here;" and if they bid her go about her work, it were a'

the same. And when they scolded her, and pretty sharp too, she would

stand up and put her hair from her eyes, and look about her like a

crazy thing searching for her wits, and ne'er finding them, for all

she could think on was just, "He once was here." It were a caution

to me again thinking a man t' mean what he says when he's a-talking

to a young woman.' 'But what became on poor Nancy?' asked Sylvia.