For a few days after the evening mentioned in the last chapter the
weather was dull. Not in quick, sudden showers did the rain come
down, but in constant drizzle, blotting out all colour from the
surrounding landscape, and filling the air with fine gray mist,
until people breathed more water than air. At such times the
consciousness of the nearness of the vast unseen sea acted as a
dreary depression to the spirits; but besides acting on the nerves
of the excitable, such weather affected the sensitive or ailing in
material ways. Daniel Robson's fit of rheumatism incapacitated him
from stirring abroad; and to a man of his active habits, and
somewhat inactive mind, this was a great hardship. He was not
ill-tempered naturally, but this state of confinement made him more
ill-tempered than he had ever been before in his life. He sat in the
chimney-corner, abusing the weather and doubting the wisdom or
desirableness of all his wife saw fit to do in the usual daily
household matters. The 'chimney-corner' was really a corner at
Haytersbank. There were two projecting walls on each side of the
fire-place, running about six feet into the room, and a stout wooden
settle was placed against one of these, while opposite was the
circular-backed 'master's chair,' the seat of which was composed of
a square piece of wood judiciously hollowed out, and placed with one
corner to the front. Here, in full view of all the operations going
on over the fire, sat Daniel Robson for four live-long days,
advising and directing his wife in all such minor matters as the
boiling of potatoes, the making of porridge, all the work on which
she specially piqued herself, and on which she would have taken
advice--no! not from the most skilled housewife in all the three
Ridings. But, somehow, she managed to keep her tongue quiet from
telling him, as she would have done any woman, and any other man, to
mind his own business, or she would pin a dish-clout to his tail.
She even checked Sylvia when the latter proposed, as much for fun as
for anything else, that his ignorant directions should be followed,
and the consequences brought before his eyes and his nose.
'Na, na!' said Bell, 'th' feyther's feyther, and we mun respect him.
But it's dree work havin' a man i' th' house, nursing th' fire, an'
such weather too, and not a soul coming near us, not even to fall
out wi' him; for thee and me must na' do that, for th' Bible's sake,
dear; and a good stand-up wordy quarrel would do him a power of
good; stir his blood like. I wish Philip would turn up.' Bell sighed, for in these four days she had experienced somewhat of
Madame de Maintenon's difficulty (and with fewer resources to meet
it) of trying to amuse a man who was not amusable. For Bell, good
and sensible as she was, was not a woman of resources. Sylvia's
plan, undutiful as it was in her mother's eyes, would have done
Daniel more good, even though it might have made him angry, than his
wife's quiet, careful monotony of action, which, however it might
conduce to her husband's comfort when he was absent, did not amuse
him when present.