r when she was
by to hear. But Sylvia's quick sense caught up the manner in which
Mrs. Corney would apply the way in which her mother's housewifery had
been exalted, and stepping forwards out of the shadow, she said,--

'Mother thought, maybe, you hadn't killed a pig yet, and sausages is
always a bit savoury for any one who is na' well, and----'

She might have gone on but that she caught Kinraid's eyes looking at
her with kindly admiration. She stopped speaking, and Mrs. Corney
took up the word--

'As for sausages, I ha' niver had a chance this year, else I stand
again any one for t' making of 'em. Yorkshire hams 's a vast thought
on, and I'll niver let another county woman say as she can make
better sausages nor me. But, as I'm saying, I'd niver a chance; for
our pig, as I were sa fond on, and fed mysel', and as would ha' been
fourteen stone by now if he were an ounce, and as knew me as well as
any Christian, and a pig, as I may say, that I just idolized, went
and took a fit a week after Michaelmas Day, and died, as if it had
been to spite me; and t' next is na' ready for killing, nor wunnot
be this six week. So I'm much beholden to your missus, and so's
Charley, I'm sure; though he's ta'en a turn to betterin' sin' he
came out here to be nursed.'

'I'm a deal better,' said Kinraid; 'a'most ready for t' press-gang
to give chase to again.'

'But folk say they're gone off this coast for one while,' added
Daniel.

'They're gone down towards Hull, as I've been told,' said Kinraid.
'But they're a deep set, they'll be here before we know where we
are, some of these days.'

'See thee here!' said Daniel, exhibiting his maimed hand; 'a reckon
a served 'em out time o' t' Ameriky war.' And he began the story
Sylvia knew so well; for her father never made a new acquaintance
but what he told him of his self-mutilation to escape the
press-gang. It had been done, as he would himself have owned, to
spite himself as well as them; for it had obliged him to leave a
sea-life, to which, in comparison, all life spent on shore was worse
than nothing for dulness. For Robson had never reached that rank
aboard ship which made his being unable to run up the rigging, or to
throw a harpoon, or to fire off a gun, of no great consequence; so
he had to be thankful that an opportune legacy enabled him to turn
farmer, a great degradation in his opinion. But his blood warmed, as
he told the specksioneer, towards a sailor, and he pressed Kinrai