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.

They placed Sylvia on the broad, old-fashioned sofa, and gave her water to drink, and tried to still her sobbing and choking.  They loosed her hat, and copiously splashed her face and clustering chestnut hair, till at length she came to herself; restored, but dripping wet.  She sate up and looked at them, smoothing back her tangled curls off her brow, as if to clear both her eyes and her intellect.

’Where am I?—­oh, I know!  Thank you.  It was very silly, but somehow it seemed so sad!’

And here she was nearly going off again, but Hester said—­

’Ay, it were sad, my poor lass—­if I may call you so, for I don’t rightly know your name—­but it’s best not think on it for we can do no mak’ o’ good, and it’ll mebbe set you off again.  Yo’re Philip Hepburn’s cousin, I reckon, and yo’ bide at Haytersbank Farm?’

‘Yes; she’s Sylvia Robson,’ put in Molly, not seeing that Hester’s purpose was to make Sylvia speak, and so to divert her attention from the subject which had set her off into hysterics.  ’And we came in for market,’ continued Molly, ‘and for t’ buy t’ new cloak as her feyther’s going to give her; and, for sure, I thought we was i’ luck’s way when we saw t’ first whaler, and niver dreaming as t’ press-gang ‘ud be so marred.’

She, too, began to cry, but her little whimper was stopped by the sound of the opening door behind her.  It was Philip, asking Hester by a silent gesture if he might come in.