impressment.  Philip took upon himself to decide that, with such a man as the specksioneer, absence was equivalent to faithless forgetfulness.  He thought that he had just grounds for this decision in the account he had heard of Kinraid’s behaviour to Annie Coulson; to the other nameless young girl, her successor in his fickle heart; in the ribald talk of the sailors in the Newcastle public-house.  It would be well for Sylvia if she could forget as quickly; and, to promote this oblivion, the name of her lover should never be brought up, either in praise or blame.  And Philip would be patient and enduring; all the time watching over her, and labouring to win her reluctant love.

There she was!  He saw her as he stood at the top of the little hill-path leading down to the Robsons’ door.  She was out of doors, in the garden, which, at some distance from the house, sloped up the bank on the opposite side of the gully; much too far off to be spoken to—­not too far off to be gazed at by eyes that caressed her every movement.  How well Philip knew that garden; placed long ago by some tenant of the farm on a southern slope; walled in with rough moorland stones; planted with berry-bushes for use, and southernwood and sweet-briar for sweetness of smell.  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 knew how his unaccustomed hands had laboured with the spade at forming a little primitive bridge over the beck in the hollow before winter streams should make it too deep for fording; how he had cut down branches of the mountain-ash and covered them over, yet decked with their scarlet berries, with sods of green turf, beyond which the brilliancy crept out; but now it was months and years since he had been in that garden, which had lost its charm for Sylvia, as she found the bleak sea-winds came up and blighted all endeavours at cultivating more than the most useful things—­pot-herbs, marigolds, potatoes, onions, and such-like.  Why did she tarry there now, standing quite motionless up by the highest bit of wall, looking over the sea, with her hand shading her eyes?  Quite motionless; as if she were a stone statue.  He began to wish she would move—­would look at him—­but any way that she would move, and not stand gazing thus over that great dreary sea.

He went down the path with an impatient step, and entered the house-place.  There sat his aunt spinning, and apparently as well as ever.  He could hear his uncle talking to Kester in the neighbouring shippen; all was well in the household.  Why was Sylvia standing in the garden in that strange quiet way?

‘Why, lad! thou’rt a sight for sair een!’ said his aunt, as she stood up to welcome him back.  ‘An’ when didst ta come, eh?—­but thy uncle will be glad to see thee, and to hear thee talk about yon pleughs; he’s thought a deal o’ thy letters.  I’ll go call him in.’