s hat, and brushing it round and
round with the sleeve of his coat, said,--

'I think I'll just go back, and see how matters stand.' He had a
more distinct plan in his head than these words implied, but it
depended on so many contingencies of which he was ignorant that he
said only these few words; and with a silent resolution to see them
again that day, but a dread of being compelled to express his fears,
so far beyond theirs, he went off without saying anything more. Then
Sylvia lifted up her voice with a great cry. Somehow she had
expected him to do something--what, she did not know; but he was
gone, and they were left without stay or help.

'Hush thee, hush thee,' said her mother, trembling all over herself;
'it's for the best. The Lord knows.'

'But I niver thought he'd leave us,' moaned Sylvia, half in her
mother's arms, and thinking of Philip. Her mother took the words as
applied to Daniel.

'And he'd niver ha' left us, my wench, if he could ha' stayed.'

'Oh, mother, mother, it's Philip as has left us, and he could ha'
stayed.'

'He'll come back, or mebbe send, I'll be bound. Leastways he'll be
gone to see feyther, and he'll need comfort most on all, in a fremd
place--in Bridewell--and niver a morsel of victual or a piece o'
money.' And now she sate down, and wept the dry hot tears that come
with such difficulty to the eyes of the aged. And so--first one
grieving, and then the other, and each draining her own heart of
every possible hope by way of comfort, alternately trying to cheer
and console--the February afternoon passed away; the continuous rain
closing in the daylight even earlier than usual, and adding to the
dreariness, with the natural accompaniments of wailing winds, coming
with long sweeps over the moors, and making the sobbings at the
windows that always sound like the gasps of some one in great agony.
Meanwhile Philip had hastened back to Monkshaven. He had no
umbrella, he had to face the driving rain for the greater part of
the way; but he was thankful to the weather, for it kept men
indoors, and he wanted to meet no one, but to have time to think and
mature his plans. The town itself was, so to speak, in mourning. The
rescue of the sailors was a distinctly popular movement; the
subsequent violence (which had, indeed, gone much further than has
been described, after Daniel left it) was, in general, considered as
only a kind of due punishment inflicted in wild justice on the
press-gang and