noane so easy fumblin’ for your knife i’ t’ pocket o’ your drawers, when yo’ve t’ hold hard wi’ t’ other hand on t’ back of a whale, swimmin’ fourteen knots an hour.  At last a thinks to mysel’ a can’t get free o’ t’ line, and t’ line is fast to t’ harpoon, and t’ harpoon is fast to t’ whale; and t’ whale may go down fathoms deep wheniver t’ maggot stirs i’ her head; an’ t’ watter’s cold, an noane good for drownin’ in; a can’t get free o’ t’ line, and a connot get my knife out o’ my breeches pocket though t’ captain should ca’ it mutiny to disobey orders, and t’ line’s fast to t’ harpoon—­let’s see if t’ harpoon’s fast to t’ whale.  So a tugged, and a lugged, and t’ whale didn’t mistake it for ticklin’, but she cocks up her tail, and throws out showers o’ water as were ice or iver it touched me; but a pulls on at t’ shank, an’ a were only afeard as she wouldn’t keep at t’ top wi’ it sticking in her; but at last t’ harpoon broke, an’ just i’ time, for a reckon she was near as tired o’ me as a were on her, and down she went; an’ a had hard work to make for t’ boats as was near enough to catch me; for what wi’ t’ whale’s being but slippery an’ t’ watter being cold, an’ me hampered wi’ t’ line an’ t’ piece o’ harpoon, it’s a chance, missus, as thou had stopped an oud maid.’

‘Eh dear a’ me!’ said Bell, ’how well I mind yo’r telling me that tale!  It were twenty-four year ago come October.  I thought I never could think enough on a man as had rode on a whale’s back!’

‘Yo’ may learn t’ way of winnin’ t’ women,’ said Daniel, winking at the specksioneer.

And Kinraid immediately looked at Sylvia.  It was no premeditated action; it came as naturally as wakening in the morning when his sleep was ended; but Sylvia coloured as red as any rose at his sudden glance,—­coloured so deeply that he looked away until he thought she had recovered her composure, and then he sat gazing at her again.  But not for long, for Bell suddenly starting up, did all but turn him out of the house.  It was late, she said, and her master was tired, and they had a hard day before them next day; and it was keeping Ellen Corney up; and they had had enough to drink,—­more than was good for them, she was sure, for they had both been taking her in with their stories, which she had been foolish enough to believe.  No one saw the real motive of all this almost inhospitable haste to dismiss her guest, how the sudden fear had taken possession of her that he and Sylvia were ‘fancying each other’.  Kinraid had said early in the evening that he had come to thank her for her kindness in sending the sausages, as he was off to his own home near Newcastle in a day or two.  But now he said, in reply to Daniel Robson, that he would step in another night before long and hear some more of the old man’s yarns.

Daniel had just had enough drink to make him very good-tempered, or else his wife would not have dared to have acted as she did; and this maudlin amiability took the shape of hospitable urgency that Kinraid should come as often as he liked to Haytersbank; come and make it his home when he was in these parts; stay there altogether, and so on, till Bell fairly shut the outer door to, and locked it before the specksioneer had well got out of the shadow of their roof.