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Updated: June 27, 2025
He had never confided his attachment to his cousin to any one, it was not his way; but he sometimes thought that if Coulson had not taken his present appointment to a confidential piece of employment so ill, he would have written to him and asked him to go up to Haytersbank Farm, and let him know how they all were.
He had a sort of delicacy of his own which kept him from going to see her too often, even when he was stationary at Monkshaven; but he looked forward to the times when he allowed himself this pleasure as a child at school looks forward to its holidays. The time of his service at Haytersbank had, on the whole, been the happiest in all his long monotonous years of daily labour.
As it was, however, the facts to him were simply these. He was going and she was going. The day before, he had hurried off to Haytersbank Farm with a small paper parcel in his pocket a ribbon with a little briar-rose pattern running upon it for Sylvia.
Sitting alone over his fire in the long winter evenings, the scenes of his past life rose before him; his childhood; his aunt Robson's care of him; his first going to Foster's shop in Monkshaven; Haytersbank Farm, and the spelling lessons in the bright warm kitchen there; Kinraid's appearance; the miserable night of the Corneys' party; the farewell he had witnessed on Monkshaven sands; the press-gang, and all the long consequences of that act of concealment; poor Daniel Robson's trial and execution; his own marriage; his child's birth; and then he came to that last day at Monkshaven: and he went over and over again the torturing details, the looks of contempt and anger, the words of loathing indignation, till he almost brought himself, out of his extreme sympathy with Sylvia, to believe that he was indeed the wretch she had considered him to be.
'It's a' t' same I care not. But thou might as well tell truth. I'll be bound thou's been at Haytersbank Farm some day this week? Philip reddened; in fact, he had forgotten how he had got to consider his frequent visits to the farm as a regular piece of occupation. He kept silence. Alice looked at him with a sharp intelligence that read his silence through. 'I thought so.
She stopped for a moment. 'Ay, lass! Philip read it thee, and whatten might it say? 'Only that he had an offer for Haytersbank Farm, and would set mother free to go as soon as t' crops was off t' ground. She sighed a little as she said this. "'Only!" sayst ta?
When the Robsons had first come to Haytersbank, and Sylvia was scarcely more than a pretty child, how well he remembered helping her with the arrangement of this garden; laying out his few spare pence in hen-and-chicken daisies at one time, in flower-seeds at another; again in a rose-tree in a pot.
He started up from dreams of her; of her, angry. He saw her there, rather pale with her night's watch and anxiety, but looking meek, and a little beseeching. 'Mother has had such a bad night! she fancied once as some balm-tea would do her good it allays used to: but my dried balm is all gone, and I thought there'd be sure to be some in t' old garden at Haytersbank.
He moved his head a little, so as to turn towards Haytersbank, where Sylvia must be quickly, if sadly, going about her simple daily work; and then his quick eye caught Hepburn's face, blanched with excitement rather than fear, watching eagerly from behind the rock, where he had sat breathless during the affray and the impressment of his rival.
'He'll be gone to his aunt's at Haytersbank. I met him at t' top o' t' Brow, with his cousin and Molly Corney. 'He's a deal there, said William. 'Yes, said Hester. 'It's likely; him and his aunt come from Carlisle-way, and must needs cling together in these strange parts. 'I saw him at the burying of yon Darley, said William. 'It were a vast o' people went past th' entry end, said Alice.
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