‘For good’s sake, Philip, dunnot thee bring us talk about t’ press-gang.  It’s a thing as has got hold on my measter, till thou’d think him possessed.  He’s speaking perpetual on it i’ such a way, that thou’d think he were itching to kill ’em a’ afore he tasted bread again.  He really trembles wi’ rage and passion; an’ a’ night it’s just as bad.  He starts up i’ his sleep, swearing and cursing at ‘em, till I’m sometimes afeard he’ll mak’ an end o’ me by mistake.  And what mun he do last night but open out on Charley Kinraid, and tell Sylvie he thought m’appen t’ gang had got hold on him.  It might make her cry a’ her saut tears o’er again.’

Philip spoke, by no wish of his own, but as if compelled to speak.

‘An’ who knows but what it’s true?’

The instant these words had come out of his lips he could have bitten his tongue off.  And yet afterwards it was a sort of balm to his conscience that he had so spoken.

‘What nonsense, Philip!’ said his aunt; ’why, these fearsome ships were far out o’ sight when he went away, good go wi’ him, and Sylvie just getting o’er her trouble so nicely, and even my master went on for to say if they’d getten hold on him, he were not a chap to stay wi’ ’em; he’d gi’en proofs on his hatred to ’em, time on.  He either ha’ made off—­an’ then sure enough we should ha’ heerd on him somehow—­them Corneys is full on him still and they’ve a deal to wi’ his folk beyond Newcassel—­or, as my master says, he were just t’ chap to hang or drown hissel, sooner nor do aught against his will.’

‘What did Sylvie say?’ asked Philip, in a hoarse low voice.

‘Say? why, a’ she could say was to burst out crying, and after a bit, she just repeated her feyther’s words, and said anyhow he was dead, for he’d niver live to go to sea wi’ a press-gang.  She knowed him too well for that.  Thou sees she thinks a deal on him for a spirited chap, as can do what he will.  I belie’ me she first began to think on him time o’ t’ fight aboard th’ Good Fortune, when Darley were killed, and he would seem tame-like to her if he couldn’t conquer press-gangs, and men-o’-war.  She’s sooner think on him drowned, as she’s ne’er to see him again.’

‘It’s best so,’ said Philip, and then, to calm his unusually excited aunt, he promised to avoid the subject of the press-gang as much as possible.

But it was a promise very difficult of performance, for Daniel Robson was, as his wife said, like one possessed.  He could hardly think of anything else, though he himself was occasionally weary of the same constantly recurring idea, and would fain have banished it from his mind.  He was too old a man to be likely to be taken by them; he had no son to become their victim; but the terror of them, which he had braved and defied in his youth, seemed to come back and take possession of him in his age; and with the terror came impatient hatred.  Since his wife’s illness the previous winter he had