war, in fact.  One of the men was addressing to his townspeople, in a high pitched voice, an exhortation which few could hear, for, pressing around this nucleus of cruel wrong, were women crying aloud, throwing up their arms in imprecation, showering down abuse as hearty and rapid as if they had been a Greek chorus.  Their wild, famished eyes were strained on faces they might not kiss, their cheeks were flushed to purple with anger or else livid with impotent craving for revenge.  Some of them looked scarce human; and yet an hour ago these lips, now tightly drawn back so as to show the teeth with the unconscious action of an enraged wild animal, had been soft and gracious with the smile of hope; eyes, that were fiery and bloodshot now, had been loving and bright; hearts, never to recover from the sense of injustice and cruelty, had been trustful and glad only one short hour ago.

There were men there, too, sullen and silent, brooding on remedial revenge; but not many, the greater proportion of this class being away in the absent whalers.

The stormy multitude swelled into the market-place and formed a solid crowd there, while the press-gang steadily forced their way on into High Street, and on to the rendezvous.  A low, deep growl went up from the dense mass, as some had to wait for space to follow the others—­now and then going up, as a lion’s growl goes up, into a shriek of rage.

A woman forced her way up from the bridge.  She lived some little way in the country, and had been late in hearing of the return of the whaler after her six months’ absence; and on rushing down to the quay-side, she had been told by a score of busy, sympathizing voices, that her husband was kidnapped for the service of the Government.

She had need pause in the market-place, the outlet of which was crammed up.  Then she gave tongue for the first time in such a fearful shriek, you could hardly catch the words she said.

‘Jamie!  Jamie! will they not let you to me?’

Those were the last words Sylvia heard before her own hysterical burst of tears called every one’s attention to her.

She had been very busy about household work in the morning, and much agitated by all she had seen and heard since coming into Monkshaven; and so it ended in this.

Molly and Hester took her through the shop into the parlour beyond—­John Foster’s parlour, for Jeremiah, the elder brother, lived in a house of his own on the other side of the water.  It was a low, comfortable room, with great beams running across the ceiling, and papered with the same paper as the walls—­a piece of elegant luxury which took Molly’s fancy mightily!  This parlour looked out on the dark courtyard in which there grew two or three poplars, straining upwards to the light; and through an open door between the backs of two houses could be seen a glimpse of the dancing, heaving river, with such ships or fishing cobles as happened to be moored in the waters above the bridge.