Sylvia's Lovers - Page 44/290

Sylvia did not quite understand the state of things as regarded

politics and taxes--and politics and taxes were all one in her mind,

it must be confessed--but she saw that her innocent little scheme of

giving her father the change of society afforded by Donkin's coming

had answered; and in the gladness of her heart she went out and ran

round the corner of the house to find Kester, and obtain from him

that sympathy in her success which she dared not ask from her

mother.

'Kester, Kester, lad!' said she, in a loud whisper; but Kester was

suppering the horses, and in the clamp of their feet on the round

stable pavement, he did not hear her at first. She went a little

farther into the stable. 'Kester! he's a vast better, he'll go out

to-morrow; it's all Donkin's doing. I'm beholden to thee for

fetching him, and I'll try and spare thee waistcoat fronts out o' t'

stuff for my new red cloak. Thou'll like that, Kester, won't ta?' Kester took the notion in slowly, and weighed it.

'Na, lass,' said he, deliberately, after a pause. 'A could na' bear

to see thee wi' thy cloak scrimpit. A like t' see a wench look bonny

and smart, an' a tak' a kind o' pride in thee, an should be a'most

as much hurt i' my mind to see thee i' a pinched cloak as if old

Moll's tail here were docked too short. Na, lass, a'se niver got a

mirroring glass for t' see mysen in, so what's waistcoats to me?

Keep thy stuff to thysen, theere's a good wench; but a'se main and

glad about t' measter. Place isn't like itsen when he's shut up and

cranky.' He took up a wisp of straw and began rubbing down the old mare, and

hissing over his work as if he wished to consider the conversation

as ended. And Sylvia, who had strung herself up in a momentary

fervour of gratitude to make the generous offer, was not sorry to

have it refused, and went back planning what kindness she could show

to Kester without its involving so much sacrifice to herself. For

giving waistcoat fronts to him would deprive her of the pleasant

power of selecting a fashionable pattern in Monkshaven churchyard

next Sunday.

That wished-for day seemed long a-coming, as wished-for days most

frequently do. Her father got better by slow degrees, and her mother

was pleased by the tailor's good pieces of work; showing the

neatly-placed patches with as much pride as many matrons take in new

clothes now-a-days. And the weather cleared up into a dim kind of

autumnal fineness, into anything but an Indian summer as far as

regarded gorgeousness of colouring, for on that coast the mists and

sea fogs early spoil the brilliancy of the foliage. Yet, perhaps,

the more did the silvery grays and browns of the inland scenery

conduce to the tranquillity of the time,--the time of peace and rest

before the fierce and stormy winter comes on. It seems a time for

gathering up human forces to encounter the coming severity, as well

as of storing up the produce of harvest for the needs of winter. Old

people turn out and sun themselves in that calm St. Martin's summer,

without fear of 'the heat o' th' sun, or the coming winter's rages,'

and we may read in their pensive, dreamy eyes that they are weaning

themselves away from the earth, which probably many may never see

dressed in her summer glory again.