Adam Bede

by George Eliot


CONTENTS

 Book First
 Chapter I — The Workshop
 Chapter II — The Preaching
 Chapter III — After the Preaching
 Chapter IV — Home and Its Sorrows
 Chapter V — The Rector
 Chapter VI — The Hall Farm
 Chapter VII — The Dairy
 Chapter VIII — A Vocation
 Chapter IX — Hetty’s World
 Chapter X — Dinah Visits Lisbeth
 Chapter XI — In the Cottage
 Chapter XII — In the Wood
 Chapter XIII — Evening in the Wood
 Chapter XIV — The Return Home
 Chapter XV — The Two Bed-Chambers
 Chapter XVI — Links

 Book Second
 Chapter XVII — In Which the Story Pauses a Little
 Chapter XVIII — Church
 Chapter XIX — Adam on a Working Day
 Chapter XX — Adam Visits the Hall Farm
 Chapter XXI — The Night-School and the Schoolmaster

 Book Third
 Chapter XXII — Going to the Birthday Feast
 Chapter XXIII — Dinner-Time
 Chapter XXIV — The Health-Drinking
 Chapter XXV — The Games
 Chapter XXVI — The Dance

 Book Fourth
 Chapter XXVII — A Crisis
 Chapter XXVIII — A Dilemma
 Chapter XXIX — The Next Morning
 Chapter XXX — The Delivery of the Letter
 Chapter XXXI — In Hetty’s Bed-Chamber
 Chapter XXXII — Mrs. Poyser “Has Her Say Out”
 Chapter XXXIII — More Links
 Chapter XXXIV — The Betrothal
 Chapter XXXV — The Hidden Dread

 Book Fifth
 Chapter XXXVI — The Journey of Hope
 Chapter XXXVII — The Journey in Despair
 Chapter XXXVIII — The Quest
 Chapter XXXIX — The Tidings
 Chapter XL — The Bitter Waters Spread
 Chapter XLI — The Eve of the Trial
 Chapter XLII — The Morning of the Trial
 Chapter XLIII — The Verdict
 Chapter XLIV — Arthur’s Return
 Chapter XLV — In the Prison
 Chapter XLVI — The Hours of Suspense
 Chapter XLVII — The Last Moment
 Chapter XLVIII — Another Meeting in the Wood

 Book Sixth
 Chapter XLIX — At the Hall Farm
 Chapter L — In the Cottage
 Chapter LI — Sunday Morning
 Chapter LII — Adam and Dinah
 Chapter LIII — The Harvest Supper
 Chapter LIV — The Meeting on the Hill
 Chapter LV — Marriage Bells

 Epilogue




Book First




Chapter I
The Workshop


With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer
undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the
past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. With this drop of
ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy workshop of Mr.
Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the village of Hayslope, as
it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in the year of our Lord 1799.

The afternoon sun was warm on the five workmen there, busy upon doors
and window-frames and wainscoting. A scent of pine-wood from a tentlike
pile of planks outside the open door mingled itself with the scent of
the elder-bushes which were spreading their summer snow close to the
open window opposite; the slanting sunbeams shone through the
transparent shavings that flew before the steady plane, and lit up the
fine grain of the oak panelling which stood propped against the wall.
On a heap of those soft shavings a rough, grey shepherd dog had made
himself a pleasant bed, and was lying with his nose between his
fore-paws, occasionally wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the
tallest of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of
a wooden mantelpiece. It was to this workman that the strong barytone
belonged which was heard above the sound of plane and hammer singing—

Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth...


Here some measurement was to be taken which required more concentrated
attention, and the sonorous voice subsided into a low whistle; but it
presently broke out again with renewed vigour—

Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear.


Such a voice could only come from a broad chest, and the broad chest
belonged to a large-boned, muscular man nearly six feet high, with a
back so flat and a head so well poised that when he drew himself up to
take a more distant survey of his work, he had the air of a soldier
standing at ease. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm
that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long
supple hand, with its broad finger-tips, looked ready for works of
skill. In his tall stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified
his name; but the jet-black hair, made the more noticeable by its
contrast with the light paper cap, and the keen glance of the dark eyes
that shone from under strongly marked, prominent and mobile eyebrows,
indicated a mixture of Celtic blood. The face was large and roughly
hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as belongs to an
expression of good-humoured honest intelligence.

It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam’s brother. He is
nearly as tall; he has the same type of features, the same hue of hair
and complexion; but the strength of the family likeness seems only to
render more conspicuous the remarkable difference of expression both in
form and face. Seth’s broad shoulders have a slight stoop; his eyes are
grey; his eyebrows have less prominence and more repose than his
brother’s; and his glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and
benign. He has thrown off his paper cap, and you see that his hair is
not thick and straight, like Adam’s, but thin and wavy, allowing you to
discern the exact contour of a coronal arch that predominates very
decidedly over the brow.

The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth;
they scarcely ever spoke to Adam.

The concert of the tools and Adam’s voice was at last broken by Seth,
who, lifting the door at which he had been working intently, placed it
against the wall, and said, “There! I’ve finished my door to-day,
anyhow.”

The workmen all looked up; Jim Salt, a burly, red-haired man known as
Sandy Jim, paused from his planing, and Adam said to Seth, with a sharp
glance of surprise, “What! Dost think thee’st finished the door?”

“Aye, sure,” said Seth, with answering surprise; “what’s awanting
to’t?”

A loud roar of laughter from the other three workmen made Seth look
round confusedly. Adam did not join in the laughter, but there was a
slight smile on his face as he said, in a gentler tone than before,
“Why, thee’st forgot the panels.”

The laughter burst out afresh as Seth clapped his hands to his head,
and coloured over brow and crown.

“Hoorray!” shouted a small lithe fellow called Wiry Ben, running
forward and seizing the door. “We’ll hang up th’ door at fur end o’ th’
shop an’ write on’t ‘Seth Bede, the Methody, his work.’ Here, Jim,
lend’s hould o’ th’ red pot.”

“Nonsense!” said Adam. “Let it alone, Ben Cranage. You’ll mayhap be
making such a slip yourself some day; you’ll laugh o’ th’ other side o’
your mouth then.”

“Catch me at it, Adam. It’ll be a good while afore my head’s full o’
th’ Methodies,” said Ben.

“Nay, but it’s often full o’ drink, and that’s worse.”

Ben, however, had now got the “red pot” in his hand, and was about to
begin writing his inscription, making, by way of preliminary, an
imaginary S in the air.

“Let it alone, will you?” Adam called out, laying down his tools,
striding up to Ben, and seizing his right shoulder. “Let it alone, or
I’ll shake the soul out o’ your body.”

Ben shook in Adam’s iron grasp, but, like a plucky small man as he was,
he didn’t mean to give in. With his left hand he snatched the brush
from his powerless right, and made a movement as if he would perform
the feat of writing with his left. In a moment Adam turned him round,
seized his other shoulder, and, pushing him along, pinned him against
the wall. But now Seth spoke.

“Let be, Addy, let be. Ben will be joking. Why, he’s i’ the right to
laugh at me—I canna help laughing at myself.”

“I shan’t loose him till he promises to let the door alone,” said Adam.

“Come, Ben, lad,” said Seth, in a persuasive tone, “don’t let’s have a
quarrel about it. You know Adam will have his way. You may’s well try
to turn a waggon in a narrow lane. Say you’ll leave the door alone, and
make an end on’t.”

“I binna frighted at Adam,” said Ben, “but I donna mind sayin’ as I’ll
let ’t alone at your askin’, Seth.”

“Come, that’s wise of you, Ben,” said Adam, laughing and relaxing his
grasp.

They all returned to their work now; but Wiry Ben, having had the worst
in the bodily contest, was bent on retrieving that humiliation by a
success in sarcasm.

“Which was ye thinkin’ on, Seth,” he began—“the pretty parson’s face or
her sarmunt, when ye forgot the panels?”

“Come and hear her, Ben,” said Seth, good-humouredly; “she’s going to
preach on the Green to-night; happen ye’d get something to think on
yourself then, instead o’ those wicked songs you’re so fond on. Ye
might get religion, and that ’ud be the best day’s earnings y’ ever
made.”

“All i’ good time for that, Seth; I’ll think about that when I’m
a-goin’ to settle i’ life; bachelors doesn’t want such heavy earnin’s.
Happen I shall do the coortin’ an’ the religion both together, as _ye_
do, Seth; but ye wouldna ha’ me get converted an’ chop in atween ye an’
the pretty preacher, an’ carry her aff?”

“No fear o’ that, Ben; she’s neither for you nor for me to win, I
doubt. Only you come and hear her, and you won’t speak lightly on her
again.”

“Well, I’m half a mind t’ ha’ a look at her to-night, if there isn’t
good company at th’ Holly Bush. What’ll she take for her text? Happen
ye can tell me, Seth, if so be as I shouldna come up i’ time for’t.
Will’t be—what come ye out for to see? A prophetess? Yea, I say unto
you, and more than a prophetess—a uncommon pretty young woman.”

“Come, Ben,” said Adam, rather sternly, “you let the words o’ the Bible
alone; you’re going too far now.”

“What! Are _ye_ a-turnin’ roun’, Adam? I thought ye war dead again th’
women preachin’, a while agoo?”

“Nay, I’m not turnin’ noway. I said nought about the women preachin’. I
said, You let the Bible alone: you’ve got a jest-book, han’t you, as
you’re rare and proud on? Keep your dirty fingers to that.”

“Why, y’ are gettin’ as big a saint as Seth. Y’ are goin’ to th’
preachin’ to-night, I should think. Ye’ll do finely t’ lead the
singin’. But I don’ know what Parson Irwine ’ull say at his gran’
favright Adam Bede a-turnin’ Methody.”

“Never do you bother yourself about me, Ben. I’m not a-going to turn
Methodist any more nor you are—though it’s like enough you’ll turn to
something worse. Mester Irwine’s got more sense nor to meddle wi’
people’s doing as they like in religion. That’s between themselves and
God, as he’s said to me many a time.”

“Aye, aye; but he’s none so fond o’ your dissenters, for all that.”

“Maybe; I’m none so fond o’ Josh Tod’s thick ale, but I don’t hinder
you from making a fool o’ yourself wi’t.”

There was a laugh at this thrust of Adam’s, but Seth said, very
seriously. “Nay, nay, Addy, thee mustna say as anybody’s religion’s
like thick ale. Thee dostna believe but what the dissenters and the
Methodists have got the root o’ the matter as well as the church
folks.”

“Nay, Seth, lad; I’m not for laughing at no man’s religion. Let ’em
follow their consciences, that’s all. Only I think it ’ud be better if
their consciences ’ud let ’em stay quiet i’ the church—there’s a deal
to be learnt there. And there’s such a thing as being oversperitial; we
must have something beside Gospel i’ this world. Look at the canals,
an’ th’ aqueduc’s, an’ th’ coal-pit engines, and Arkwright’s mills
there at Cromford; a man must learn summat beside Gospel to make them
things, I reckon. But t’ hear some o’ them preachers, you’d think as a
man must be doing nothing all’s life but shutting’s eyes and looking
what’s agoing on inside him. I know a man must have the love o’ God in
his soul, and the Bible’s God’s word. But what does the Bible say? Why,
it says as God put his sperrit into the workman as built the
tabernacle, to make him do all the carved work and things as wanted a
nice hand. And this is my way o’ looking at it: there’s the sperrit o’
God in all things and all times—weekday as well as Sunday—and i’ the
great works and inventions, and i’ the figuring and the mechanics. And
God helps us with our headpieces and our hands as well as with our
souls; and if a man does bits o’ jobs out o’ working hours—builds a
oven for ’s wife to save her from going to the bakehouse, or scrats at
his bit o’ garden and makes two potatoes grow istead o’ one, he’s doin’
more good, and he’s just as near to God, as if he was running after
some preacher and a-praying and a-groaning.”

“Well done, Adam!” said Sandy Jim, who had paused from his planing to
shift his planks while Adam was speaking; “that’s the best sarmunt I’ve
heared this long while. By th’ same token, my wife’s been a-plaguin’ on
me to build her a oven this twelvemont.”

“There’s reason in what thee say’st, Adam,” observed Seth, gravely.
“But thee know’st thyself as it’s hearing the preachers thee find’st so
much fault with has turned many an idle fellow into an industrious un.
It’s the preacher as empties th’ alehouse; and if a man gets religion,
he’ll do his work none the worse for that.”

“On’y he’ll lave the panels out o’ th’ doors sometimes, eh, Seth?” said
Wiry Ben.

“Ah, Ben, you’ve got a joke again’ me as ’ll last you your life. But it
isna religion as was i’ fault there; it was Seth Bede, as was allays a
wool-gathering chap, and religion hasna cured him, the more’s the
pity.”

“Ne’er heed me, Seth,” said Wiry Ben, “y’ are a down-right good-hearted
chap, panels or no panels; an’ ye donna set up your bristles at every
bit o’ fun, like some o’ your kin, as is mayhap cliverer.”

“Seth, lad,” said Adam, taking no notice of the sarcasm against
himself, “thee mustna take me unkind. I wasna driving at thee in what I
said just now. Some ’s got one way o’ looking at things and some ’s got
another.”

“Nay, nay, Addy, thee mean’st me no unkindness,” said Seth, “I know
that well enough. Thee’t like thy dog Gyp—thee bark’st at me sometimes,
but thee allays lick’st my hand after.”

All hands worked on in silence for some minutes, until the church clock
began to strike six. Before the first stroke had died away, Sandy Jim
had loosed his plane and was reaching his jacket; Wiry Ben had left a
screw half driven in, and thrown his screwdriver into his tool-basket;
Mum Taft, who, true to his name, had kept silence throughout the
previous conversation, had flung down his hammer as he was in the act
of lifting it; and Seth, too, had straightened his back, and was
putting out his hand towards his paper cap. Adam alone had gone on with
his work as if nothing had happened. But observing the cessation of the
tools, he looked up, and said, in a tone of indignation, “Look there,
now! I can’t abide to see men throw away their tools i’ that way, the
minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i’ their
work and was afraid o’ doing a stroke too much.”

Seth looked a little conscious, and began to be slower in his
preparations for going, but Mum Taft broke silence, and said, “Aye,
aye, Adam lad, ye talk like a young un. When y’ are six-an’-forty like
me, istid o’ six-an’-twenty, ye wonna be so flush o’ workin’ for
nought.”

“Nonsense,” said Adam, still wrathful; “what’s age got to do with it, I
wonder? Ye arena getting stiff yet, I reckon. I hate to see a man’s
arms drop down as if he was shot, before the clock’s fairly struck,
just as if he’d never a bit o’ pride and delight in ’s work. The very
grindstone ’ull go on turning a bit after you loose it.”

“Bodderation, Adam!” exclaimed Wiry Ben; “lave a chap aloon, will ’ee?
Ye war afinding faut wi’ preachers a while agoo—y’ are fond enough o’
preachin’ yoursen. Ye may like work better nor play, but I like play
better nor work; that’ll ’commodate ye—it laves ye th’ more to do.”

With this exit speech, which he considered effective, Wiry Ben
shouldered his basket and left the workshop, quickly followed by Mum
Taft and Sandy Jim. Seth lingered, and looked wistfully at Adam, as if
he expected him to say something.

“Shalt go home before thee go’st to the preaching?” Adam asked, looking
up.

“Nay; I’ve got my hat and things at Will Maskery’s. I shan’t be home
before going for ten. I’ll happen see Dinah Morris safe home, if she’s
willing. There’s nobody comes with her from Poyser’s, thee know’st.”

“Then I’ll tell mother not to look for thee,” said Adam.

“Thee artna going to Poyser’s thyself to-night?” said Seth rather
timidly, as he turned to leave the workshop.

“Nay, I’m going to th’ school.”

Hitherto Gyp had kept his comfortable bed, only lifting up his head and
watching Adam more closely as he noticed the other workmen departing.
But no sooner did Adam put his ruler in his pocket, and begin to twist
his apron round his waist, than Gyp ran forward and looked up in his
master’s face with patient expectation. If Gyp had had a tail he would
doubtless have wagged it, but being destitute of that vehicle for his
emotions, he was like many other worthy personages, destined to appear
more phlegmatic than nature had made him.

“What! Art ready for the basket, eh, Gyp?” said Adam, with the same
gentle modulation of voice as when he spoke to Seth.

Gyp jumped and gave a short bark, as much as to say, “Of course.” Poor
fellow, he had not a great range of expression.

The basket was the one which on workdays held Adam’s and Seth’s dinner;
and no official, walking in procession, could look more resolutely
unconscious of all acquaintances than Gyp with his basket, trotting at
his master’s heels.

On leaving the workshop Adam locked the door, took the key out, and
carried it to the house on the other side of the woodyard. It was a low
house, with smooth grey thatch and buff walls, looking pleasant and
mellow in the evening light. The leaded windows were bright and
speckless, and the door-stone was as clean as a white boulder at ebb
tide. On the door-stone stood a clean old woman, in a dark-striped
linen gown, a red kerchief, and a linen cap, talking to some speckled
fowls which appeared to have been drawn towards her by an illusory
expectation of cold potatoes or barley. The old woman’s sight seemed to
be dim, for she did not recognize Adam till he said, “Here’s the key,
Dolly; lay it down for me in the house, will you?”

“Aye, sure; but wunna ye come in, Adam? Miss Mary’s i’ th’ house, and
Mester Burge ’ull be back anon; he’d be glad t’ ha’ ye to supper wi’m,
I’ll be’s warrand.”

“No, Dolly, thank you; I’m off home. Good evening.”

Adam hastened with long strides, Gyp close to his heels, out of the
workyard, and along the highroad leading away from the village and down
to the valley. As he reached the foot of the slope, an elderly
horseman, with his portmanteau strapped behind him, stopped his horse
when Adam had passed him, and turned round to have another long look at
the stalwart workman in paper cap, leather breeches, and dark-blue
worsted stockings.

Adam, unconscious of the admiration he was exciting, presently struck
across the fields, and now broke out into the tune which had all day
long been running in his head:

Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear;
For God’s all-seeing eye surveys
Thy secret thoughts, thy works and ways.




Chapter II
The Preaching


About a quarter to seven there was an unusual appearance of excitement
in the village of Hayslope, and through the whole length of its little
street, from the Donnithorne Arms to the churchyard gate, the
inhabitants had evidently been drawn out of their houses by something
more than the pleasure of lounging in the evening sunshine. The
Donnithorne Arms stood at the entrance of the village, and a small
farmyard and stackyard which flanked it, indicating that there was a
pretty take of land attached to the inn, gave the traveller a promise
of good feed for himself and his horse, which might well console him
for the ignorance in which the weather-beaten sign left him as to the
heraldic bearings of that ancient family, the Donnithornes. Mr. Casson,
the landlord, had been for some time standing at the door with his
hands in his pockets, balancing himself on his heels and toes and
looking towards a piece of unenclosed ground, with a maple in the
middle of it, which he knew to be the destination of certain
grave-looking men and women whom he had observed passing at intervals.

Mr. Casson’s person was by no means of that common type which can be
allowed to pass without description. On a front view it appeared to
consist principally of two spheres, bearing about the same relation to
each other as the earth and the moon: that is to say, the lower sphere
might be said, at a rough guess, to be thirteen times larger than the
upper which naturally performed the function of a mere satellite and
tributary. But here the resemblance ceased, for Mr. Casson’s head was
not at all a melancholy-looking satellite nor was it a “spotty globe,”
as Milton has irreverently called the moon; on the contrary, no head
and face could look more sleek and healthy, and its expression—which
was chiefly confined to a pair of round and ruddy cheeks, the slight
knot and interruptions forming the nose and eyes being scarcely worth
mention—was one of jolly contentment, only tempered by that sense of
personal dignity which usually made itself felt in his attitude and
bearing. This sense of dignity could hardly be considered excessive in
a man who had been butler to “the family” for fifteen years, and who,
in his present high position, was necessarily very much in contact with
his inferiors. How to reconcile his dignity with the satisfaction of
his curiosity by walking towards the Green was the problem that Mr.
Casson had been revolving in his mind for the last five minutes; but
when he had partly solved it by taking his hands out of his pockets,
and thrusting them into the armholes of his waistcoat, by throwing his
head on one side, and providing himself with an air of contemptuous
indifference to whatever might fall under his notice, his thoughts were
diverted by the approach of the horseman whom we lately saw pausing to
have another look at our friend Adam, and who now pulled up at the door
of the Donnithorne Arms.

“Take off the bridle and give him a drink, ostler,” said the traveller
to the lad in a smock-frock, who had come out of the yard at the sound
of the horse’s hoofs.

“Why, what’s up in your pretty village, landlord?” he continued,
getting down. “There seems to be quite a stir.”

“It’s a Methodis’ preaching, sir; it’s been gev hout as a young woman’s
a-going to preach on the Green,” answered Mr. Casson, in a treble and
wheezy voice, with a slightly mincing accent. “Will you please to step
in, sir, an’ tek somethink?”

“No, I must be getting on to Rosseter. I only want a drink for my
horse. And what does your parson say, I wonder, to a young woman
preaching just under his nose?”

“Parson Irwine, sir, doesn’t live here; he lives at Brox’on, over the
hill there. The parsonage here’s a tumble-down place, sir, not fit for
gentry to live in. He comes here to preach of a Sunday afternoon, sir,
an’ puts up his hoss here. It’s a grey cob, sir, an’ he sets great
store by’t. He’s allays put up his hoss here, sir, iver since before I
hed the Donnithorne Arms. I’m not this countryman, you may tell by my
tongue, sir. They’re cur’ous talkers i’ this country, sir; the gentry’s
hard work to hunderstand ’em. I was brought hup among the gentry, sir,
an’ got the turn o’ their tongue when I was a bye. Why, what do you
think the folks here says for ‘hevn’t you?’—the gentry, you know, says,
‘hevn’t you’—well, the people about here says ‘hanna yey.’ It’s what
they call the dileck as is spoke hereabout, sir. That’s what I’ve
heared Squire Donnithorne say many a time; it’s the dileck, says he.”

“Aye, aye,” said the stranger, smiling. “I know it very well. But
you’ve not got many Methodists about here, surely—in this agricultural
spot? I should have thought there would hardly be such a thing as a
Methodist to be found about here. You’re all farmers, aren’t you? The
Methodists can seldom lay much hold on _them_.”

“Why, sir, there’s a pretty lot o’ workmen round about, sir. There’s
Mester Burge as owns the timber-yard over there, he underteks a good
bit o’ building an’ repairs. An’ there’s the stone-pits not far off.
There’s plenty of emply i’ this countryside, sir. An’ there’s a fine
batch o’ Methodisses at Treddles’on—that’s the market town about three
mile off—you’ll maybe ha’ come through it, sir. There’s pretty nigh a
score of ’em on the Green now, as come from there. That’s where our
people gets it from, though there’s only two men of ’em in all
Hayslope: that’s Will Maskery, the wheelwright, and Seth Bede, a young
man as works at the carpenterin’.”

“The preacher comes from Treddleston, then, does she?”

“Nay, sir, she comes out o’ Stonyshire, pretty nigh thirty mile off.
But she’s a-visitin’ hereabout at Mester Poyser’s at the Hall Farm—it’s
them barns an’ big walnut-trees, right away to the left, sir. She’s own
niece to Poyser’s wife, an’ they’ll be fine an’ vexed at her for making
a fool of herself i’ that way. But I’ve heared as there’s no holding
these Methodisses when the maggit’s once got i’ their head: many of ’em
goes stark starin’ mad wi’ their religion. Though this young woman’s
quiet enough to look at, by what I can make out; I’ve not seen her
myself.”

“Well, I wish I had time to wait and see her, but I must get on. I’ve
been out of my way for the last twenty minutes to have a look at that
place in the valley. It’s Squire Donnithorne’s, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir, that’s Donnithorne Chase, that is. Fine hoaks there, isn’t
there, sir? I should know what it is, sir, for I’ve lived butler there
a-going i’ fifteen year. It’s Captain Donnithorne as is th’ heir,
sir—Squire Donnithorne’s grandson. He’ll be comin’ of hage this
’ay-’arvest, sir, an’ we shall hev fine doin’s. He owns all the land
about here, sir, Squire Donnithorne does.”

“Well, it’s a pretty spot, whoever may own it,” said the traveller,
mounting his horse; “and one meets some fine strapping fellows about
too. I met as fine a young fellow as ever I saw in my life, about half
an hour ago, before I came up the hill—a carpenter, a tall,
broad-shouldered fellow with black hair and black eyes, marching along
like a soldier. We want such fellows as he to lick the French.”

“Aye, sir, that’s Adam Bede, that is, I’ll be bound—Thias Bede’s son
everybody knows him hereabout. He’s an uncommon clever stiddy fellow,
an’ wonderful strong. Lord bless you, sir—if you’ll hexcuse me for
saying so—he can walk forty mile a-day, an’ lift a matter o’ sixty
ston’. He’s an uncommon favourite wi’ the gentry, sir: Captain
Donnithorne and Parson Irwine meks a fine fuss wi’ him. But he’s a
little lifted up an’ peppery-like.”

“Well, good evening to you, landlord; I must get on.”

“Your servant, sir; good evenin’.”

The traveller put his horse into a quick walk up the village, but when
he approached the Green, the beauty of the view that lay on his right
hand, the singular contrast presented by the groups of villagers with
the knot of Methodists near the maple, and perhaps yet more, curiosity
to see the young female preacher, proved too much for his anxiety to
get to the end of his journey, and he paused.

The Green lay at the extremity of the village, and from it the road
branched off in two directions, one leading farther up the hill by the
church, and the other winding gently down towards the valley. On the
side of the Green that led towards the church, the broken line of
thatched cottages was continued nearly to the churchyard gate; but on
the opposite northwestern side, there was nothing to obstruct the view
of gently swelling meadow, and wooded valley, and dark masses of
distant hill. That rich undulating district of Loamshire to which
Hayslope belonged lies close to a grim outskirt of Stonyshire,
overlooked by its barren hills as a pretty blooming sister may
sometimes be seen linked in the arm of a rugged, tall, swarthy brother;
and in two or three hours’ ride the traveller might exchange a bleak
treeless region, intersected by lines of cold grey stone, for one where
his road wound under the shelter of woods, or up swelling hills,
muffled with hedgerows and long meadow-grass and thick corn; and where
at every turn he came upon some fine old country-seat nestled in the
valley or crowning the slope, some homestead with its long length of
barn and its cluster of golden ricks, some grey steeple looking out
from a pretty confusion of trees and thatch and dark-red tiles. It was
just such a picture as this last that Hayslope Church had made to the
traveller as he began to mount the gentle slope leading to its pleasant
uplands, and now from his station near the Green he had before him in
one view nearly all the other typical features of this pleasant land.
High up against the horizon were the huge conical masses of hill, like
giant mounds intended to fortify this region of corn and grass against
the keen and hungry winds of the north; not distant enough to be
clothed in purple mystery, but with sombre greenish sides visibly
specked with sheep, whose motion was only revealed by memory, not
detected by sight; wooed from day to day by the changing hours, but
responding with no change in themselves—left for ever grim and sullen
after the flush of morning, the winged gleams of the April noonday, the
parting crimson glory of the ripening summer sun. And directly below
them the eye rested on a more advanced line of hanging woods, divided
by bright patches of pasture or furrowed crops, and not yet deepened
into the uniform leafy curtains of high summer, but still showing the
warm tints of the young oak and the tender green of the ash and lime.
Then came the valley, where the woods grew thicker, as if they had
rolled down and hurried together from the patches left smooth on the
slope, that they might take the better care of the tall mansion which
lifted its parapets and sent its faint blue summer smoke among them.
Doubtless there was a large sweep of park and a broad glassy pool in
front of that mansion, but the swelling slope of meadow would not let
our traveller see them from the village green. He saw instead a
foreground which was just as lovely—the level sunlight lying like
transparent gold among the gently curving stems of the feathered grass
and the tall red sorrel, and the white ambels of the hemlocks lining
the bushy hedgerows. It was that moment in summer when the sound of the
scythe being whetted makes us cast more lingering looks at the
flower-sprinkled tresses of the meadows.

He might have seen other beauties in the landscape if he had turned a
little in his saddle and looked eastward, beyond Jonathan Burge’s
pasture and woodyard towards the green corn-fields and walnut-trees of
the Hall Farm; but apparently there was more interest for him in the
living groups close at hand. Every generation in the village was there,
from old “Feyther Taft” in his brown worsted night-cap, who was bent
nearly double, but seemed tough enough to keep on his legs a long
while, leaning on his short stick, down to the babies with their little
round heads lolling forward in quilted linen caps. Now and then there
was a new arrival; perhaps a slouching labourer, who, having eaten his
supper, came out to look at the unusual scene with a slow bovine gaze,
willing to hear what any one had to say in explanation of it, but by no
means excited enough to ask a question. But all took care not to join
the Methodists on the Green, and identify themselves in that way with
the expectant audience, for there was not one of them that would not
have disclaimed the imputation of having come out to hear the “preacher
woman”—they had only come out to see “what war a-goin’ on, like.” The
men were chiefly gathered in the neighbourhood of the blacksmith’s
shop. But do not imagine them gathered in a knot. Villagers never
swarm: a whisper is unknown among them, and they seem almost as
incapable of an undertone as a cow or a stag. Your true rustic turns
his back on his interlocutor, throwing a question over his shoulder as
if he meant to run away from the answer, and walking a step or two
farther off when the interest of the dialogue culminates. So the group
in the vicinity of the blacksmith’s door was by no means a close one,
and formed no screen in front of Chad Cranage, the blacksmith himself,
who stood with his black brawny arms folded, leaning against the
door-post, and occasionally sending forth a bellowing laugh at his own
jokes, giving them a marked preference over the sarcasms of Wiry Ben,
who had renounced the pleasures of the Holly Bush for the sake of
seeing life under a new form. But both styles of wit were treated with
equal contempt by Mr. Joshua Rann. Mr. Rann’s leathern apron and
subdued griminess can leave no one in any doubt that he is the village
shoemaker; the thrusting out of his chin and stomach and the twirling
of his thumbs are more subtle indications, intended to prepare unwary
strangers for the discovery that they are in the presence of the parish
clerk. “Old Joshway,” as he is irreverently called by his neighbours,
is in a state of simmering indignation; but he has not yet opened his
lips except to say, in a resounding bass undertone, like the tuning of
a violoncello, “Sehon, King of the Amorites; for His mercy endureth for
ever; and Og the King of Basan: for His mercy endureth for ever”—a
quotation which may seem to have slight bearing on the present
occasion, but, as with every other anomaly, adequate knowledge will
show it to be a natural sequence. Mr. Rann was inwardly maintaining the
dignity of the Church in the face of this scandalous irruption of
Methodism, and as that dignity was bound up with his own sonorous
utterance of the responses, his argument naturally suggested a
quotation from the psalm he had read the last Sunday afternoon.

The stronger curiosity of the women had drawn them quite to the edge of
the Green, where they could examine more closely the Quakerlike costume
and odd deportment of the female Methodists. Underneath the maple there
was a small cart, which had been brought from the wheelwright’s to
serve as a pulpit, and round this a couple of benches and a few chairs
had been placed. Some of the Methodists were resting on these, with
their eyes closed, as if wrapt in prayer or meditation. Others chose to
continue standing, and had turned their faces towards the villagers
with a look of melancholy compassion, which was highly amusing to Bessy
Cranage, the blacksmith’s buxom daughter, known to her neighbours as
Chad’s Bess, who wondered “why the folks war amakin’ faces a that’ns.”
Chad’s Bess was the object of peculiar compassion, because her hair,
being turned back under a cap which was set at the top of her head,
exposed to view an ornament of which she was much prouder than of her
red cheeks—namely, a pair of large round ear-rings with false garnets
in them, ornaments condemned not only by the Methodists, but by her own
cousin and namesake Timothy’s Bess, who, with much cousinly feeling,
often wished “them ear-rings” might come to good.

Timothy’s Bess, though retaining her maiden appellation among her
familiars, had long been the wife of Sandy Jim, and possessed a
handsome set of matronly jewels, of which it is enough to mention the
heavy baby she was rocking in her arms, and the sturdy fellow of five
in knee-breeches, and red legs, who had a rusty milk-can round his neck
by way of drum, and was very carefully avoided by Chad’s small terrier.
This young olive-branch, notorious under the name of Timothy’s Bess’s
Ben, being of an inquiring disposition, unchecked by any false modesty,
had advanced beyond the group of women and children, and was walking
round the Methodists, looking up in their faces with his mouth wide
open, and beating his stick against the milk-can by way of musical
accompaniment. But one of the elderly women bending down to take him by
the shoulder, with an air of grave remonstrance, Timothy’s Bess’s Ben
first kicked out vigorously, then took to his heels and sought refuge
behind his father’s legs.

“Ye gallows young dog,” said Sandy Jim, with some paternal pride, “if
ye donna keep that stick quiet, I’ll tek it from ye. What dy’e mane by
kickin’ foulks?”

“Here! Gie him here to me, Jim,” said Chad Cranage; “I’ll tie hirs up
an’ shoe him as I do th’ hosses. Well, Mester Casson,” he continued, as
that personage sauntered up towards the group of men, “how are ye t’
naight? Are ye coom t’ help groon? They say folks allays groon when
they’re hearkenin’ to th’ Methodys, as if they war bad i’ th’ inside. I
mane to groon as loud as your cow did th’ other naight, an’ then the
praicher ’ull think I’m i’ th’ raight way.”

“I’d advise you not to be up to no nonsense, Chad,” said Mr. Casson,
with some dignity; “Poyser wouldn’t like to hear as his wife’s niece
was treated any ways disrespectful, for all he mayn’t be fond of her
taking on herself to preach.”

“Aye, an’ she’s a pleasant-looked un too,” said Wiry Ben. “I’ll stick
up for the pretty women preachin’; I know they’d persuade me over a
deal sooner nor th’ ugly men. I shouldna wonder if I turn Methody afore
the night’s out, an’ begin to coort the preacher, like Seth Bede.”

“Why, Seth’s looking rether too high, I should think,” said Mr. Casson.
“This woman’s kin wouldn’t like her to demean herself to a common
carpenter.”

“Tchu!” said Ben, with a long treble intonation, “what’s folks’s kin
got to do wi’t? Not a chip. Poyser’s wife may turn her nose up an’
forget bygones, but this Dinah Morris, they tell me, ’s as poor as iver
she was—works at a mill, an’s much ado to keep hersen. A strappin’
young carpenter as is a ready-made Methody, like Seth, wouldna be a bad
match for her. Why, Poysers make as big a fuss wi’ Adam Bede as if he
war a nevvy o’ their own.”

“Idle talk! idle talk!” said Mr. Joshua Rann. “Adam an’ Seth’s two men;
you wunna fit them two wi’ the same last.”

“Maybe,” said Wiry Ben, contemptuously, “but Seth’s the lad for me,
though he war a Methody twice o’er. I’m fair beat wi’ Seth, for I’ve
been teasin’ him iver sin’ we’ve been workin’ together, an’ he bears me
no more malice nor a lamb. An’ he’s a stout-hearted feller too, for
when we saw the old tree all afire a-comin’ across the fields one
night, an’ we thought as it war a boguy, Seth made no more ado, but he
up to’t as bold as a constable. Why, there he comes out o’ Will
Maskery’s; an’ there’s Will hisself, lookin’ as meek as if he couldna
knock a nail o’ the head for fear o’ hurtin’t. An’ there’s the pretty
preacher woman! My eye, she’s got her bonnet off. I mun go a bit
nearer.”

Several of the men followed Ben’s lead, and the traveller pushed his
horse on to the Green, as Dinah walked rather quickly and in advance of
her companions towards the cart under the maple-tree. While she was
near Seth’s tall figure, she looked short, but when she had mounted the
cart, and was away from all comparison, she seemed above the middle
height of woman, though in reality she did not exceed it—an effect
which was due to the slimness of her figure and the simple line of her
black stuff dress. The stranger was struck with surprise as he saw her
approach and mount the cart—surprise, not so much at the feminine
delicacy of her appearance, as at the total absence of
self-consciousness in her demeanour. He had made up his mind to see her
advance with a measured step and a demure solemnity of countenance; he
had felt sure that her face would be mantled with the smile of
conscious saintship, or else charged with denunciatory bitterness. He
knew but two types of Methodist—the ecstatic and the bilious. But Dinah
walked as simply as if she were going to market, and seemed as
unconscious of her outward appearance as a little boy: there was no
blush, no tremulousness, which said, “I know you think me a pretty
woman, too young to preach”; no casting up or down of the eyelids, no
compression of the lips, no attitude of the arms that said, “But you
must think of me as a saint.” She held no book in her ungloved hands,
but let them hang down lightly crossed before her, as she stood and
turned her grey eyes on the people. There was no keenness in the eyes;
they seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations; they
had the liquid look which tells that the mind is full of what it has to
give out, rather than impressed by external objects. She stood with her
left hand towards the descending sun, and leafy boughs screened her
from its rays; but in this sober light the delicate colouring of her
face seemed to gather a calm vividness, like flowers at evening. It was
a small oval face, of a uniform transparent whiteness, with an egg-like
line of cheek and chin, a full but firm mouth, a delicate nostril, and
a low perpendicular brow, surmounted by a rising arch of parting
between smooth locks of pale reddish hair. The hair was drawn straight
back behind the ears, and covered, except for an inch or two above the
brow, by a net Quaker cap. The eyebrows, of the same colour as the
hair, were perfectly horizontal and firmly pencilled; the eyelashes,
though no darker, were long and abundant—nothing was left blurred or
unfinished. It was one of those faces that make one think of white
flowers with light touches of colour on their pure petals. The eyes had
no peculiar beauty, beyond that of expression; they looked so simple,
so candid, so gravely loving, that no accusing scowl, no light sneer
could help melting away before their glance. Joshua Rann gave a long
cough, as if he were clearing his throat in order to come to a new
understanding with himself; Chad Cranage lifted up his leather
skull-cap and scratched his head; and Wiry Ben wondered how Seth had
the pluck to think of courting her.

“A sweet woman,” the stranger said to himself, “but surely nature never
meant her for a preacher.”

Perhaps he was one of those who think that nature has theatrical
properties and, with the considerate view of facilitating art and
psychology, “makes up,” her characters, so that there may be no mistake
about them. But Dinah began to speak.

“Dear friends,” she said in a clear but not loud voice “let us pray for
a blessing.”

She closed her eyes, and hanging her head down a little continued in
the same moderate tone, as if speaking to some one quite near her:
“Saviour of sinners! When a poor woman laden with sins, went out to the
well to draw water, she found Thee sitting at the well. She knew Thee
not; she had not sought Thee; her mind was dark; her life was unholy.
But Thou didst speak to her, Thou didst teach her, Thou didst show her
that her life lay open before Thee, and yet Thou wast ready to give her
that blessing which she had never sought. Jesus, Thou art in the midst
of us, and Thou knowest all men: if there is any here like that poor
woman—if their minds are dark, their lives unholy—if they have come out
not seeking Thee, not desiring to be taught; deal with them according
to the free mercy which Thou didst show to her. Speak to them, Lord,
open their ears to my message, bring their sins to their minds, and
make them thirst for that salvation which Thou art ready to give.

“Lord, Thou art with Thy people still: they see Thee in the
night-watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with
them by the way. And Thou art near to those who have not known Thee:
open their eyes that they may see Thee—see Thee weeping over them, and
saying ‘Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life’—see Thee
hanging on the cross and saying, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know
not what they do’—see Thee as Thou wilt come again in Thy glory to
judge them at the last. Amen.”

Dinah opened her eyes again and paused, looking at the group of
villagers, who were now gathered rather more closely on her right hand.

“Dear friends,” she began, raising her voice a little, “you have all of
you been to church, and I think you must have heard the clergyman read
these words: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.’ Jesus Christ spoke those
words—he said he came _to preach the Gospel to the poor:_ I don’t know
whether you ever thought about those words much, but I will tell you
when I remember first hearing them. It was on just such a sort of
evening as this, when I was a little girl, and my aunt as brought me up
took me to hear a good man preach out of doors, just as we are here. I
remember his face well: he was a very old man, and had very long white
hair; his voice was very soft and beautiful, not like any voice I had
ever heard before. I was a little girl and scarcely knew anything, and
this old man seemed to me such a different sort of a man from anybody I
had ever seen before that I thought he had perhaps come down from the
sky to preach to us, and I said, ‘Aunt, will he go back to the sky
to-night, like the picture in the Bible?’

“That man of God was Mr. Wesley, who spent his life in doing what our
blessed Lord did—preaching the Gospel to the poor—and he entered into
his rest eight years ago. I came to know more about him years after,
but I was a foolish thoughtless child then, and I remembered only one
thing he told us in his sermon. He told us as ‘Gospel’ meant ‘good
news.’ The Gospel, you know, is what the Bible tells us about God.

“Think of that now! Jesus Christ did really come down from heaven, as
I, like a silly child, thought Mr. Wesley did; and what he came down
for was to tell good news about God to the poor. Why, you and me, dear
friends, are poor. We have been brought up in poor cottages and have
been reared on oat-cake, and lived coarse; and we haven’t been to
school much, nor read books, and we don’t know much about anything but
what happens just round us. We are just the sort of people that want to
hear good news. For when anybody’s well off, they don’t much mind about
hearing news from distant parts; but if a poor man or woman’s in
trouble and has hard work to make out a living, they like to have a
letter to tell ’em they’ve got a friend as will help ’em. To be sure,
we can’t help knowing something about God, even if we’ve never heard
the Gospel, the good news that our Saviour brought us. For we know
everything comes from God: don’t you say almost every day, ‘This and
that will happen, please God,’ and ‘We shall begin to cut the grass
soon, please God to send us a little more sunshine’? We know very well
we are altogether in the hands of God. We didn’t bring ourselves into
the world, we can’t keep ourselves alive while we’re sleeping; the
daylight, and the wind, and the corn, and the cows to give us
milk—everything we have comes from God. And he gave us our souls and
put love between parents and children, and husband and wife. But is
that as much as we want to know about God? We see he is great and
mighty, and can do what he will: we are lost, as if we was struggling
in great waters, when we try to think of him.

“But perhaps doubts come into your mind like this: Can God take much
notice of us poor people? Perhaps he only made the world for the great
and the wise and the rich. It doesn’t cost him much to give us our
little handful of victual and bit of clothing; but how do we know he
cares for us any more than we care for the worms and things in the
garden, so as we rear our carrots and onions? Will God take care of us
when we die? And has he any comfort for us when we are lame and sick
and helpless? Perhaps, too, he is angry with us; else why does the
blight come, and the bad harvests, and the fever, and all sorts of pain
and trouble? For our life is full of trouble, and if God sends us good,
he seems to send bad too. How is it? How is it?

“Ah, dear friends, we are in sad want of good news about God; and what
does other good news signify if we haven’t that? For everything else
comes to an end, and when we die we leave it all. But God lasts when
everything else is gone. What shall we do if he is not our friend?”

Then Dinah told how the good news had been brought, and how the mind of
God towards the poor had been made manifest in the life of Jesus,
dwelling on its lowliness and its acts of mercy.

“So you see, dear friends,” she went on, “Jesus spent his time almost
all in doing good to poor people; he preached out of doors to them, and
he made friends of poor workmen, and taught them and took pains with
them. Not but what he did good to the rich too, for he was full of love
to all men, only he saw as the poor were more in want of his help. So
he cured the lame and the sick and the blind, and he worked miracles to
feed the hungry because, he said, he was sorry for them; and he was
very kind to the little children and comforted those who had lost their
friends; and he spoke very tenderly to poor sinners that were sorry for
their sins.

“Ah, wouldn’t you love such a man if you saw him—if he were here in
this village? What a kind heart he must have! What a friend he would be
to go to in trouble! How pleasant it must be to be taught by him.

“Well, dear friends, who _was_ this man? Was he only a good man—a very
good man, and no more—like our dear Mr. Wesley, who has been taken from
us?... He was the Son of God—‘in the image of the Father,’ the Bible
says; that means, just like God, who is the beginning and end of all
things—the God we want to know about. So then, all the love that Jesus
showed to the poor is the same love that God has for us. We can
understand what Jesus felt, because he came in a body like ours and
spoke words such as we speak to each other. We were afraid to think
what God was before—the God who made the world and the sky and the
thunder and lightning. We could never see him; we could only see the
things he had made; and some of these things was very terrible, so as
we might well tremble when we thought of him. But our blessed Saviour
has showed us what God is in a way us poor ignorant people can
understand; he has showed us what God’s heart is, what are his feelings
towards us.

“But let us see a little more about what Jesus came on earth for.
Another time he said, ‘I came to seek and to save that which was lost’;
and another time, ‘I came not to call the righteous but sinners to
repentance.’

“The _lost!... Sinners!_... Ah, dear friends, does that mean you and
me?”

Hitherto the traveller had been chained to the spot against his will by
the charm of Dinah’s mellow treble tones, which had a variety of
modulation like that of a fine instrument touched with the unconscious
skill of musical instinct. The simple things she said seemed like
novelties, as a melody strikes us with a new feeling when we hear it
sung by the pure voice of a boyish chorister; the quiet depth of
conviction with which she spoke seemed in itself an evidence for the
truth of her message. He saw that she had thoroughly arrested her
hearers. The villagers had pressed nearer to her, and there was no
longer anything but grave attention on all faces. She spoke slowly,
though quite fluently, often pausing after a question, or before any
transition of ideas. There was no change of attitude, no gesture; the
effect of her speech was produced entirely by the inflections of her
voice, and when she came to the question, “Will God take care of us
when we die?” she uttered it in such a tone of plaintive appeal that
the tears came into some of the hardest eyes. The stranger had ceased
to doubt, as he had done at the first glance, that she could fix the
attention of her rougher hearers, but still he wondered whether she
could have that power of rousing their more violent emotions, which
must surely be a necessary seal of her vocation as a Methodist
preacher, until she came to the words, “Lost!—Sinners!” when there was
a great change in her voice and manner. She had made a long pause
before the exclamation, and the pause seemed to be filled by agitating
thoughts that showed themselves in her features. Her pale face became
paler; the circles under her eyes deepened, as they did when tears
half-gather without falling; and the mild loving eyes took an
expression of appalled pity, as if she had suddenly discerned a
destroying angel hovering over the heads of the people. Her voice
became deep and muffled, but there was still no gesture. Nothing could
be less like the ordinary type of the Ranter than Dinah. She was not
preaching as she heard others preach, but speaking directly from her
own emotions and under the inspiration of her own simple faith.

But now she had entered into a new current of feeling. Her manner
became less calm, her utterance more rapid and agitated, as she tried
to bring home to the people their guilt, their wilful darkness, their
state of disobedience to God—as she dwelt on the hatefulness of sin,
the Divine holiness, and the sufferings of the Saviour, by which a way
had been opened for their salvation. At last it seemed as if, in her
yearning desire to reclaim the lost sheep, she could not be satisfied
by addressing her hearers as a body. She appealed first to one and then
to another, beseeching them with tears to turn to God while there was
yet time; painting to them the desolation of their souls, lost in sin,
feeding on the husks of this miserable world, far away from God their
Father; and then the love of the Saviour, who was waiting and watching
for their return.

There was many a responsive sigh and groan from her fellow-Methodists,
but the village mind does not easily take fire, and a little
smouldering vague anxiety that might easily die out again was the
utmost effect Dinah’s preaching had wrought in them at present. Yet no
one had retired, except the children and “old Feyther Taft,” who being
too deaf to catch many words, had some time ago gone back to his
inglenook. Wiry Ben was feeling very uncomfortable, and almost wishing
he had not come to hear Dinah; he thought what she said would haunt him
somehow. Yet he couldn’t help liking to look at her and listen to her,
though he dreaded every moment that she would fix her eyes on him and
address him in particular. She had already addressed Sandy Jim, who was
now holding the baby to relieve his wife, and the big soft-hearted man
had rubbed away some tears with his fist, with a confused intention of
being a better fellow, going less to the Holly Bush down by the
Stone-pits, and cleaning himself more regularly of a Sunday.

In front of Sandy Jim stood Chad’s Bess, who had shown an unwonted
quietude and fixity of attention ever since Dinah had begun to speak.
Not that the matter of the discourse had arrested her at once, for she
was lost in a puzzling speculation as to what pleasure and satisfaction
there could be in life to a young woman who wore a cap like Dinah’s.
Giving up this inquiry in despair, she took to studying Dinah’s nose,
eyes, mouth, and hair, and wondering whether it was better to have such
a sort of pale face as that, or fat red cheeks and round black eyes
like her own. But gradually the influence of the general gravity told
upon her, and she became conscious of what Dinah was saying. The gentle
tones, the loving persuasion, did not touch her, but when the more
severe appeals came she began to be frightened. Poor Bessy had always
been considered a naughty girl; she was conscious of it; if it was
necessary to be very good, it was clear she must be in a bad way. She
couldn’t find her places at church as Sally Rann could, she had often
been tittering when she “curcheyed” to Mr. Irwine; and these religious
deficiencies were accompanied by a corresponding slackness in the minor
morals, for Bessy belonged unquestionably to that unsoaped lazy class
of feminine characters with whom you may venture to “eat an egg, an
apple, or a nut.” All this she was generally conscious of, and hitherto
had not been greatly ashamed of it. But now she began to feel very much
as if the constable had come to take her up and carry her before the
justice for some undefined offence. She had a terrified sense that God,
whom she had always thought of as very far off, was very near to her,
and that Jesus was close by looking at her, though she could not see
him. For Dinah had that belief in visible manifestations of Jesus,
which is common among the Methodists, and she communicated it
irresistibly to her hearers: she made them feel that he was among them
bodily, and might at any moment show himself to them in some way that
would strike anguish and penitence into their hearts.

“See!” she exclaimed, turning to the left, with her eyes fixed on a
point above the heads of the people. “See where our blessed Lord stands
and weeps and stretches out his arms towards you. Hear what he says:
‘How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not!’... and ye would not,” she repeated,
in a tone of pleading reproach, turning her eyes on the people again.
“See the print of the nails on his dear hands and feet. It is your sins
that made them! Ah! How pale and worn he looks! He has gone through all
that great agony in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful
even unto death, and the great drops of sweat fell like blood to the
ground. They spat upon him and buffeted him, they scourged him, they
mocked him, they laid the heavy cross on his bruised shoulders. Then
they nailed him up. Ah, what pain! His lips are parched with thirst,
and they mock him still in this great agony; yet with those parched
lips he prays for them, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do.’ Then a horror of great darkness fell upon him, and he felt
what sinners feel when they are for ever shut out from God. That was
the last drop in the cup of bitterness. ‘My God, my God!’ he cries,
‘why hast Thou forsaken me?’

“All this he bore for you! For you—and you never think of him; for
you—and you turn your backs on him; you don’t care what he has gone
through for you. Yet he is not weary of toiling for you: he has risen
from the dead, he is praying for you at the right hand of God—‘Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ And he is upon this
earth too; he is among us; he is there close to you now; I see his
wounded body and his look of love.”

Here Dinah turned to Bessy Cranage, whose bonny youth and evident
vanity had touched her with pity.

“Poor child! Poor child! He is beseeching you, and you don’t listen to
him. You think of ear-rings and fine gowns and caps, and you never
think of the Saviour who died to save your precious soul. Your cheeks
will be shrivelled one day, your hair will be grey, your poor body will
be thin and tottering! Then you will begin to feel that your soul is
not saved; then you will have to stand before God dressed in your sins,
in your evil tempers and vain thoughts. And Jesus, who stands ready to
help you now, won’t help you then; because you won’t have him to be
your Saviour, he will be your judge. Now he looks at you with love and
mercy and says, ‘Come to me that you may have life’; then he will turn
away from you, and say, ‘Depart from me into ever-lasting fire!’”

Poor Bessy’s wide-open black eyes began to fill with tears, her great
red cheeks and lips became quite pale, and her face was distorted like
a little child’s before a burst of crying.

“Ah, poor blind child!” Dinah went on, “think if it should happen to
you as it once happened to a servant of God in the days of her vanity.
_She_ thought of her lace caps and saved all her money to buy ’em; she
thought nothing about how she might get a clean heart and a right
spirit—she only wanted to have better lace than other girls. And one
day when she put her new cap on and looked in the glass, she saw a
bleeding Face crowned with thorns. That face is looking at you
now”—here Dinah pointed to a spot close in front of Bessy—“Ah, tear off
those follies! Cast them away from you, as if they were stinging
adders. They _are_ stinging you—they are poisoning your soul—they are
dragging you down into a dark bottomless pit, where you will sink for
ever, and for ever, and for ever, further away from light and God.”

Bessy could bear it no longer: a great terror was upon her, and
wrenching her ear-rings from her ears, she threw them down before her,
sobbing aloud. Her father, Chad, frightened lest he should be “laid
hold on” too, this impression on the rebellious Bess striking him as
nothing less than a miracle, walked hastily away and began to work at
his anvil by way of reassuring himself. “Folks mun ha’ hoss-shoes,
praichin’ or no praichin’: the divil canna lay hould o’ me for that,”
he muttered to himself.

But now Dinah began to tell of the joys that were in store for the
penitent, and to describe in her simple way the divine peace and love
with which the soul of the believer is filled—how the sense of God’s
love turns poverty into riches and satisfies the soul so that no uneasy
desire vexes it, no fear alarms it: how, at last, the very temptation
to sin is extinguished, and heaven is begun upon earth, because no
cloud passes between the soul and God, who is its eternal sun.

“Dear friends,” she said at last, “brothers and sisters, whom I love as
those for whom my Lord has died, believe me, I know what this great
blessedness is; and because I know it, I want you to have it too. I am
poor, like you: I have to get my living with my hands; but no lord nor
lady can be so happy as me, if they haven’t got the love of God in
their souls. Think what it is—not to hate anything but sin; to be full
of love to every creature; to be frightened at nothing; to be sure that
all things will turn to good; not to mind pain, because it is our
Father’s will; to know that nothing—no, not if the earth was to be
burnt up, or the waters come and drown us—nothing could part us from
God who loves us, and who fills our souls with peace and joy, because
we are sure that whatever he wills is holy, just, and good.

“Dear friends, come and take this blessedness; it is offered to you; it
is the good news that Jesus came to preach to the poor. It is not like
the riches of this world, so that the more one gets the less the rest
can have. God is without end; his love is without end—”

Its streams the whole creation reach,
    So plenteous is the store;
Enough for all, enough for each,
    Enough for evermore.


Dinah had been speaking at least an hour, and the reddening light of
the parting day seemed to give a solemn emphasis to her closing words.
The stranger, who had been interested in the course of her sermon as if
it had been the development of a drama—for there is this sort of
fascination in all sincere unpremeditated eloquence, which opens to one
the inward drama of the speaker’s emotions—now turned his horse aside
and pursued his way, while Dinah said, “Let us sing a little, dear
friends”; and as he was still winding down the slope, the voices of the
Methodists reached him, rising and falling in that strange blending of
exultation and sadness which belongs to the cadence of a hymn.




Chapter III
After the Preaching


In less than an hour from that time, Seth Bede was walking by Dinah’s
side along the hedgerow-path that skirted the pastures and green
corn-fields which lay between the village and the Hall Farm. Dinah had
taken off her little Quaker bonnet again, and was holding it in her
hands that she might have a freer enjoyment of the cool evening
twilight, and Seth could see the expression of her face quite clearly
as he walked by her side, timidly revolving something he wanted to say
to her. It was an expression of unconscious placid gravity—of
absorption in thoughts that had no connection with the present moment
or with her own personality—an expression that is most of all
discouraging to a lover. Her very walk was discouraging: it had that
quiet elasticity that asks for no support. Seth felt this dimly; he
said to himself, “She’s too good and holy for any man, let alone me,”
and the words he had been summoning rushed back again before they had
reached his lips. But another thought gave him courage: “There’s no man
could love her better and leave her freer to follow the Lord’s work.”
They had been silent for many minutes now, since they had done talking
about Bessy Cranage; Dinah seemed almost to have forgotten Seth’s
presence, and her pace was becoming so much quicker that the sense of
their being only a few minutes’ walk from the yard-gates of the Hall
Farm at last gave Seth courage to speak.

“You’ve quite made up your mind to go back to Snowfield o’ Saturday,
Dinah?”

“Yes,” said Dinah, quietly. “I’m called there. It was borne in upon my
mind while I was meditating on Sunday night, as Sister Allen, who’s in
a decline, is in need of me. I saw her as plain as we see that bit of
thin white cloud, lifting up her poor thin hand and beckoning to me.
And this morning when I opened the Bible for direction, the first words
my eyes fell on were, ‘And after we had seen the vision, immediately we
endeavoured to go into Macedonia.’ If it wasn’t for that clear showing
of the Lord’s will, I should be loath to go, for my heart yearns over
my aunt and her little ones, and that poor wandering lamb Hetty Sorrel.
I’ve been much drawn out in prayer for her of late, and I look on it as
a token that there may be mercy in store for her.”

“God grant it,” said Seth. “For I doubt Adam’s heart is so set on her,
he’ll never turn to anybody else; and yet it ’ud go to my heart if he
was to marry her, for I canna think as she’d make him happy. It’s a
deep mystery—the way the heart of man turns to one woman out of all the
rest he’s seen i’ the world, and makes it easier for him to work seven
year for _her_, like Jacob did for Rachel, sooner than have any other
woman for th’ asking. I often think of them words, ‘And Jacob served
seven years for Rachel; and they seemed to him but a few days for the
love he had to her.’ I know those words ’ud come true with me, Dinah,
if so be you’d give me hope as I might win you after seven years was
over. I know you think a husband ’ud be taking up too much o’ your
thoughts, because St. Paul says, ‘She that’s married careth for the
things of the world how she may please her husband’; and may happen
you’ll think me overbold to speak to you about it again, after what you
told me o’ your mind last Saturday. But I’ve been thinking it over
again by night and by day, and I’ve prayed not to be blinded by my own
desires, to think what’s only good for me must be good for you too. And
it seems to me there’s more texts for your marrying than ever you can
find against it. For St. Paul says as plain as can be in another place,
‘I will that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house,
give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully’; and then
‘two are better than one’; and that holds good with marriage as well as
with other things. For we should be o’ one heart and o’ one mind,
Dinah. We both serve the same Master, and are striving after the same
gifts; and I’d never be the husband to make a claim on you as could
interfere with your doing the work God has fitted you for. I’d make a
shift, and fend indoor and out, to give you more liberty—more than you
can have now, for you’ve got to get your own living now, and I’m strong
enough to work for us both.”

When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly and
almost hurriedly, lest Dinah should speak some decisive word before he
had poured forth all the arguments he had prepared. His cheeks became
flushed as he went on, his mild grey eyes filled with tears, and his
voice trembled as he spoke the last sentence. They had reached one of
those very narrow passes between two tall stones, which performed the
office of a stile in Loamshire, and Dinah paused as she turned towards
Seth and said, in her tender but calm treble notes, “Seth Bede, I thank
you for your love towards me, and if I could think of any man as more
than a Christian brother, I think it would be you. But my heart is not
free to marry. That is good for other women, and it is a great and a
blessed thing to be a wife and mother; but ‘as God has distributed to
every man, as the Lord hath called every man, so let him walk.’ God has
called me to minister to others, not to have any joys or sorrows of my
own, but to rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with those
that weep. He has called me to speak his word, and he has greatly owned
my work. It could only be on a very clear showing that I could leave
the brethren and sisters at Snowfield, who are favoured with very
little of this world’s good; where the trees are few, so that a child
might count them, and there’s very hard living for the poor in the
winter. It has been given me to help, to comfort, and strengthen the
little flock there and to call in many wanderers; and my soul is filled
with these things from my rising up till my lying down. My life is too
short, and God’s work is too great for me to think of making a home for
myself in this world. I’ve not turned a deaf ear to your words, Seth,
for when I saw as your love was given to me, I thought it might be a
leading of Providence for me to change my way of life, and that we
should be fellow-helpers; and I spread the matter before the Lord. But
whenever I tried to fix my mind on marriage, and our living together,
other thoughts always came in—the times when I’ve prayed by the sick
and dying, and the happy hours I’ve had preaching, when my heart was
filled with love, and the Word was given to me abundantly. And when
I’ve opened the Bible for direction, I’ve always lighted on some clear
word to tell me where my work lay. I believe what you say, Seth, that
you would try to be a help and not a hindrance to my work; but I see
that our marriage is not God’s will—He draws my heart another way. I
desire to live and die without husband or children. I seem to have no
room in my soul for wants and fears of my own, it has pleased God to
fill my heart so full with the wants and sufferings of his poor
people.”

Seth was unable to reply, and they walked on in silence. At last, as
they were nearly at the yard-gate, he said, “Well, Dinah, I must seek
for strength to bear it, and to endure as seeing Him who is invisible.
But I feel now how weak my faith is. It seems as if, when you are gone,
I could never joy in anything any more. I think it’s something passing
the love of women as I feel for you, for I could be content without
your marrying me if I could go and live at Snowfield and be near you. I
trusted as the strong love God has given me towards you was a leading
for us both; but it seems it was only meant for my trial. Perhaps I
feel more for you than I ought to feel for any creature, for I often
can’t help saying of you what the hymn says—

In darkest shades if she appear,
    My dawning is begun;
She is my soul’s bright morning-star,
    And she my rising sun.


That may be wrong, and I am to be taught better. But you wouldn’t be
displeased with me if things turned out so as I could leave this
country and go to live at Snowfield?”

“No, Seth; but I counsel you to wait patiently, and not lightly to
leave your own country and kindred. Do nothing without the Lord’s clear
bidding. It’s a bleak and barren country there, not like this land of
Goshen you’ve been used to. We mustn’t be in a hurry to fix and choose
our own lot; we must wait to be guided.”

“But you’d let me write you a letter, Dinah, if there was anything I
wanted to tell you?”

“Yes, sure; let me know if you’re in any trouble. You’ll be continually
in my prayers.”

They had now reached the yard-gate, and Seth said, “I won’t go in,
Dinah, so farewell.” He paused and hesitated after she had given him
her hand, and then said, “There’s no knowing but what you may see
things different after a while. There may be a new leading.”

“Let us leave that, Seth. It’s good to live only a moment at a time, as
I’ve read in one of Mr. Wesley’s books. It isn’t for you and me to lay
plans; we’ve nothing to do but to obey and to trust. Farewell.”

Dinah pressed his hand with rather a sad look in her loving eyes, and
then passed through the gate, while Seth turned away to walk
lingeringly home. But instead of taking the direct road, he chose to
turn back along the fields through which he and Dinah had already
passed; and I think his blue linen handkerchief was very wet with tears
long before he had made up his mind that it was time for him to set his
face steadily homewards. He was but three-and-twenty, and had only just
learned what it is to love—to love with that adoration which a young
man gives to a woman whom he feels to be greater and better than
himself. Love of this sort is hardly distinguishable from religious
feeling. What deep and worthy love is so, whether of woman or child, or
art or music. Our caresses, our tender words, our still rapture under
the influence of autumn sunsets, or pillared vistas, or calm majestic
statues, or Beethoven symphonies all bring with them the consciousness
that they are mere waves and ripples in an unfathomable ocean of love
and beauty; our emotion in its keenest moment passes from expression
into silence, our love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object
and loses itself in the sense of divine mystery. And this blessed gift
of venerating love has been given to too many humble craftsmen since
the world began for us to feel any surprise that it should have existed
in the soul of a Methodist carpenter half a century ago, while there
was yet a lingering after-glow from the time when Wesley and his
fellow-labourer fed on the hips and haws of the Cornwall hedges, after
exhausting limbs and lungs in carrying a divine message to the poor.

That afterglow has long faded away; and the picture we are apt to make
of Methodism in our imagination is not an amphitheatre of green hills,
or the deep shade of broad-leaved sycamores, where a crowd of rough men
and weary-hearted women drank in a faith which was a rudimentary
culture, which linked their thoughts with the past, lifted their
imagination above the sordid details of their own narrow lives, and
suffused their souls with the sense of a pitying, loving, infinite
Presence, sweet as summer to the houseless needy. It is too possible
that to some of my readers Methodism may mean nothing more than
low-pitched gables up dingy streets, sleek grocers, sponging preachers,
and hypocritical jargon—elements which are regarded as an exhaustive
analysis of Methodism in many fashionable quarters.

That would be a pity; for I cannot pretend that Seth and Dinah were
anything else than Methodists—not indeed of that modern type which
reads quarterly reviews and attends in chapels with pillared porticoes,
but of a very old-fashioned kind. They believed in present miracles, in
instantaneous conversions, in revelations by dreams and visions; they
drew lots, and sought for Divine guidance by opening the Bible at
hazard; having a literal way of interpreting the Scriptures, which is
not at all sanctioned by approved commentators; and it is impossible
for me to represent their diction as correct, or their instruction as
liberal. Still—if I have read religious history aright—faith, hope, and
charity have not always been found in a direct ratio with a sensibility
to the three concords, and it is possible—thank Heaven!—to have very
erroneous theories and very sublime feelings. The raw bacon which
clumsy Molly spares from her own scanty store that she may carry it to
her neighbour’s child to “stop the fits,” may be a piteously
inefficacious remedy; but the generous stirring of neighbourly kindness
that prompted the deed has a beneficent radiation that is not lost.

Considering these things, we can hardly think Dinah and Seth beneath
our sympathy, accustomed as we may be to weep over the loftier sorrows
of heroines in satin boots and crinoline, and of heroes riding fiery
horses, themselves ridden by still more fiery passions.

Poor Seth! He was never on horseback in his life except once, when he
was a little lad, and Mr. Jonathan Burge took him up behind, telling
him to “hold on tight”; and instead of bursting out into wild accusing
apostrophes to God and destiny, he is resolving, as he now walks
homewards under the solemn starlight, to repress his sadness, to be
less bent on having his own will, and to live more for others, as Dinah
does.




Chapter IV
Home and Its Sorrows


A green valley with a brook running through it, full almost to
overflowing with the late rains, overhung by low stooping willows.
Across this brook a plank is thrown, and over this plank Adam Bede is
passing with his undoubting step, followed close by Gyp with the
basket; evidently making his way to the thatched house, with a stack of
timber by the side of it, about twenty yards up the opposite slope.

The door of the house is open, and an elderly woman is looking out; but
she is not placidly contemplating the evening sunshine; she has been
watching with dim eyes the gradually enlarging speck which for the last
few minutes she has been quite sure is her darling son Adam. Lisbeth
Bede loves her son with the love of a woman to whom her first-born has
come late in life. She is an anxious, spare, yet vigorous old woman,
clean as a snowdrop. Her grey hair is turned neatly back under a pure
linen cap with a black band round it; her broad chest is covered with a
buff neckerchief, and below this you see a sort of short bedgown made
of blue-checkered linen, tied round the waist and descending to the
hips, from whence there is a considerable length of linsey-woolsey
petticoat. For Lisbeth is tall, and in other points too there is a
strong likeness between her and her son Adam. Her dark eyes are
somewhat dim now—perhaps from too much crying—but her broadly marked
eyebrows are still black, her teeth are sound, and as she stands
knitting rapidly and unconsciously with her work-hardened hands, she
has as firmly upright an attitude as when she is carrying a pail of
water on her head from the spring. There is the same type of frame and
the same keen activity of temperament in mother and son, but it was not
from her that Adam got his well-filled brow and his expression of
large-hearted intelligence.

Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it. Nature, that great
tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle, and divides us
by the subtler web of our brains; blends yearning and repulsion; and
ties us by our heart-strings to the beings that jar us at every
movement. We hear a voice with the very cadence of our own uttering the
thoughts we despise; we see eyes—ah, so like our mother’s!—averted from
us in cold alienation; and our last darling child startles us with the
air and gestures of the sister we parted from in bitterness long years
ago. The father to whom we owe our best heritage—the mechanical
instinct, the keen sensibility to harmony, the unconscious skill of the
modelling hand—galls us and puts us to shame by his daily errors; the
long-lost mother, whose face we begin to see in the glass as our own
wrinkles come, once fretted our young souls with her anxious humours
and irrational persistence.

It is such a fond anxious mother’s voice that you hear, as Lisbeth
says, “Well, my lad, it’s gone seven by th’ clock. Thee’t allays stay
till the last child’s born. Thee wants thy supper, I’ll warrand.
Where’s Seth? Gone arter some o’s chapellin’, I reckon?”

“Aye, aye, Seth’s at no harm, mother, thee mayst be sure. But where’s
father?” said Adam quickly, as he entered the house and glanced into
the room on the left hand, which was used as a workshop. “Hasn’t he
done the coffin for Tholer? There’s the stuff standing just as I left
it this morning.”

“Done the coffin?” said Lisbeth, following him, and knitting
uninterruptedly, though she looked at her son very anxiously. “Eh, my
lad, he went aff to Treddles’on this forenoon, an’s niver come back. I
doubt he’s got to th’ ‘Waggin Overthrow’ again.”

A deep flush of anger passed rapidly over Adam’s face. He said nothing,
but threw off his jacket and began to roll up his shirt-sleeves again.

“What art goin’ to do, Adam?” said the mother, with a tone and look of
alarm. “Thee wouldstna go to work again, wi’out ha’in thy bit o’
supper?”

Adam, too angry to speak, walked into the workshop. But his mother
threw down her knitting, and, hurrying after him, took hold of his arm,
and said, in a tone of plaintive remonstrance, “Nay, my lad, my lad,
thee munna go wi’out thy supper; there’s the taters wi’ the gravy in
’em, just as thee lik’st ’em. I saved ’em o’ purpose for thee. Come an’
ha’ thy supper, come.”

“Let be!” said Adam impetuously, shaking her off and seizing one of the
planks that stood against the wall. “It’s fine talking about having
supper when here’s a coffin promised to be ready at Brox’on by seven
o’clock to-morrow morning, and ought to ha’ been there now, and not a
nail struck yet. My throat’s too full to swallow victuals.”

“Why, thee canstna get the coffin ready,” said Lisbeth. “Thee’t work
thyself to death. It ’ud take thee all night to do’t.”

“What signifies how long it takes me? Isn’t the coffin promised? Can
they bury the man without a coffin? I’d work my right hand off sooner
than deceive people with lies i’ that way. It makes me mad to think
on’t. I shall overrun these doings before long. I’ve stood enough of
’em.”

Poor Lisbeth did not hear this threat for the first time, and if she
had been wise she would have gone away quietly and said nothing for the
next hour. But one of the lessons a woman most rarely learns is never
to talk to an angry or a drunken man. Lisbeth sat down on the chopping
bench and began to cry, and by the time she had cried enough to make
her voice very piteous, she burst out into words.

“Nay, my lad, my lad, thee wouldstna go away an’ break thy mother’s
heart, an’ leave thy feyther to ruin. Thee wouldstna ha’ ’em carry me
to th’ churchyard, an’ thee not to follow me. I shanna rest i’ my grave
if I donna see thee at th’ last; an’ how’s they to let thee know as I’m
a-dyin’, if thee’t gone a-workin’ i’ distant parts, an’ Seth belike
gone arter thee, and thy feyther not able to hold a pen for’s hand
shakin’, besides not knowin’ where thee art? Thee mun forgie thy
feyther—thee munna be so bitter again’ him. He war a good feyther to
thee afore he took to th’ drink. He’s a clever workman, an’ taught thee
thy trade, remember, an’s niver gen me a blow nor so much as an ill
word—no, not even in ’s drink. Thee wouldstna ha’ ’m go to the
workhus—thy own feyther—an’ him as was a fine-growed man an’ handy at
everythin’ amost as thee art thysen, five-an’-twenty ’ear ago, when
thee wast a baby at the breast.”

Lisbeth’s voice became louder, and choked with sobs—a sort of wail, the
most irritating of all sounds where real sorrows are to be borne and
real work to be done. Adam broke in impatiently.

“Now, Mother, don’t cry and talk so. Haven’t I got enough to vex me
without that? What’s th’ use o’ telling me things as I only think too
much on every day? If I didna think on ’em, why should I do as I do,
for the sake o’ keeping things together here? But I hate to be talking
where it’s no use: I like to keep my breath for doing i’stead o’
talking.”

“I know thee dost things as nobody else ’ud do, my lad. But thee’t
allays so hard upo’ thy feyther, Adam. Thee think’st nothing too much
to do for Seth: thee snapp’st me up if iver I find faut wi’ th’ lad.
But thee’t so angered wi’ thy feyther, more nor wi’ anybody else.”

“That’s better than speaking soft and letting things go the wrong way,
I reckon, isn’t it? If I wasn’t sharp with him he’d sell every bit o’
stuff i’ th’ yard and spend it on drink. I know there’s a duty to be
done by my father, but it isn’t my duty to encourage him in running
headlong to ruin. And what has Seth got to do with it? The lad does no
harm as I know of. But leave me alone, Mother, and let me get on with
the work.”

Lisbeth dared not say any more; but she got up and called Gyp, thinking
to console herself somewhat for Adam’s refusal of the supper she had
spread out in the loving expectation of looking at him while he ate it,
by feeding Adam’s dog with extra liberality. But Gyp was watching his
master with wrinkled brow and ears erect, puzzled at this unusual
course of things; and though he glanced at Lisbeth when she called him,
and moved his fore-paws uneasily, well knowing that she was inviting
him to supper, he was in a divided state of mind, and remained seated
on his haunches, again fixing his eyes anxiously on his master. Adam
noticed Gyp’s mental conflict, and though his anger had made him less
tender than usual to his mother, it did not prevent him from caring as
much as usual for his dog. We are apt to be kinder to the brutes that
love us than to the women that love us. Is it because the brutes are
dumb?

“Go, Gyp; go, lad!” Adam said, in a tone of encouraging command; and
Gyp, apparently satisfied that duty and pleasure were one, followed
Lisbeth into the house-place.

But no sooner had he licked up his supper than he went back to his
master, while Lisbeth sat down alone to cry over her knitting. Women
who are never bitter and resentful are often the most querulous; and if
Solomon was as wise as he is reputed to be, I feel sure that when he
compared a contentious woman to a continual dropping on a very rainy
day, he had not a vixen in his eye—a fury with long nails, acrid and
selfish. Depend upon it, he meant a good creature, who had no joy but
in the happiness of the loved ones whom she contributed to make
uncomfortable, putting by all the tid-bits for them and spending
nothing on herself. Such a woman as Lisbeth, for example—at once
patient and complaining, self-renouncing and exacting, brooding the
livelong day over what happened yesterday and what is likely to happen
to-morrow, and crying very readily both at the good and the evil. But a
certain awe mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam, and when
he said, “Leave me alone,” she was always silenced.

So the hours passed, to the loud ticking of the old day-clock and the
sound of Adam’s tools. At last he called for a light and a draught of
water (beer was a thing only to be drunk on holidays), and Lisbeth
ventured to say as she took it in, “Thy supper stan’s ready for thee,
when thee lik’st.”

“Donna thee sit up, mother,” said Adam, in a gentle tone. He had worked
off his anger now, and whenever he wished to be especially kind to his
mother, he fell into his strongest native accent and dialect, with
which at other times his speech was less deeply tinged. “I’ll see to
Father when he comes home; maybe he wonna come at all to-night. I shall
be easier if thee’t i’ bed.”

“Nay, I’ll bide till Seth comes. He wonna be long now, I reckon.”

It was then past nine by the clock, which was always in advance of the
days, and before it had struck ten the latch was lifted and Seth
entered. He had heard the sound of the tools as he was approaching.

“Why, Mother,” he said, “how is it as Father’s working so late?”

“It’s none o’ thy feyther as is a-workin’—thee might know that well
anoof if thy head warna full o’ chapellin’—it’s thy brother as does
iverything, for there’s niver nobody else i’ th’ way to do nothin’.”

Lisbeth was going on, for she was not at all afraid of Seth, and
usually poured into his ears all the querulousness which was repressed
by her awe of Adam. Seth had never in his life spoken a harsh word to
his mother, and timid people always wreak their peevishness on the
gentle. But Seth, with an anxious look, had passed into the workshop
and said, “Addy, how’s this? What! Father’s forgot the coffin?”

“Aye, lad, th’ old tale; but I shall get it done,” said Adam, looking
up and casting one of his bright keen glances at his brother. “Why,
what’s the matter with thee? Thee’t in trouble.”

Seth’s eyes were red, and there was a look of deep depression on his
mild face.

“Yes, Addy, but it’s what must be borne, and can’t be helped. Why,
thee’st never been to the school, then?”

“School? No, that screw can wait,” said Adam, hammering away again.

“Let me take my turn now, and do thee go to bed,” said Seth.

“No, lad, I’d rather go on, now I’m in harness. Thee’t help me to carry
it to Brox’on when it’s done. I’ll call thee up at sunrise. Go and eat
thy supper, and shut the door so as I mayn’t hear Mother’s talk.”

Seth knew that Adam always meant what he said, and was not to be
persuaded into meaning anything else. So he turned, with rather a heavy
heart, into the house-place.

“Adam’s niver touched a bit o’ victual sin’ home he’s come,” said
Lisbeth. “I reckon thee’st hed thy supper at some o’ thy Methody
folks.”

“Nay, Mother,” said Seth, “I’ve had no supper yet.”

“Come, then,” said Lisbeth, “but donna thee ate the taters, for Adam
’ull happen ate ’em if I leave ’em stannin’. He loves a bit o’ taters
an’ gravy. But he’s been so sore an’ angered, he wouldn’t ate ’em, for
all I’d putten ’em by o’ purpose for him. An’ he’s been a-threatenin’
to go away again,” she went on, whimpering, “an’ I’m fast sure he’ll go
some dawnin’ afore I’m up, an’ niver let me know aforehand, an’ he’ll
niver come back again when once he’s gone. An’ I’d better niver ha’ had
a son, as is like no other body’s son for the deftness an’ th’
handiness, an’ so looked on by th’ grit folks, an’ tall an’ upright
like a poplar-tree, an’ me to be parted from him an’ niver see ’m no
more.”

“Come, Mother, donna grieve thyself in vain,” said Seth, in a soothing
voice. “Thee’st not half so good reason to think as Adam ’ull go away
as to think he’ll stay with thee. He may say such a thing when he’s in
wrath—and he’s got excuse for being wrathful sometimes—but his heart
’ud never let him go. Think how he’s stood by us all when it’s been
none so easy—paying his savings to free me from going for a soldier,
an’ turnin’ his earnin’s into wood for father, when he’s got plenty o’
uses for his money, and many a young man like him ’ud ha’ been married
and settled before now. He’ll never turn round and knock down his own
work, and forsake them as it’s been the labour of his life to stand
by.”

“Donna talk to me about’s marr’in’,” said Lisbeth, crying afresh. “He’s
set’s heart on that Hetty Sorrel, as ’ull niver save a penny, an’ ’ull
toss up her head at’s old mother. An’ to think as he might ha’ Mary
Burge, an’ be took partners, an’ be a big man wi’ workmen under him,
like Mester Burge—Dolly’s told me so o’er and o’er again—if it warna as
he’s set’s heart on that bit of a wench, as is o’ no more use nor the
gillyflower on the wall. An’ he so wise at bookin’ an’ figurin’, an’
not to know no better nor that!”

“But, Mother, thee know’st we canna love just where other folks ’ud
have us. There’s nobody but God can control the heart of man. I could
ha’ wished myself as Adam could ha’ made another choice, but I wouldn’t
reproach him for what he can’t help. And I’m not sure but what he tries
to o’ercome it. But it’s a matter as he doesn’t like to be spoke to
about, and I can only pray to the Lord to bless and direct him.”

“Aye, thee’t allays ready enough at prayin’, but I donna see as thee
gets much wi’ thy prayin’. Thee wotna get double earnin’s o’ this side
Yule. Th’ Methodies ’ll niver make thee half the man thy brother is,
for all they’re a-makin’ a preacher on thee.”

“It’s partly truth thee speak’st there, Mother,” said Seth, mildly;
“Adam’s far before me, an’s done more for me than I can ever do for
him. God distributes talents to every man according as He sees good.
But thee mustna undervally prayer. Prayer mayna bring money, but it
brings us what no money can buy—a power to keep from sin and be content
with God’s will, whatever He may please to send. If thee wouldst pray
to God to help thee, and trust in His goodness, thee wouldstna be so
uneasy about things.”

“Unaisy? I’m i’ th’ right on’t to be unaisy. It’s well seen on _thee_
what it is niver to be unaisy. Thee’t gi’ away all thy earnin’s, an’
niver be unaisy as thee’st nothin’ laid up again’ a rainy day. If Adam
had been as aisy as thee, he’d niver ha’ had no money to pay for thee.
Take no thought for the morrow—take no thought—that’s what thee’t
allays sayin’; an’ what comes on’t? Why, as Adam has to take thought
for thee.”

“Those are the words o’ the Bible, Mother,” said Seth. “They don’t mean
as we should be idle. They mean we shouldn’t be overanxious and
worreting ourselves about what’ll happen to-morrow, but do our duty and
leave the rest to God’s will.”

“Aye, aye, that’s the way wi’ thee: thee allays makes a peck o’ thy own
words out o’ a pint o’ the Bible’s. I donna see how thee’t to know as
‘take no thought for the morrow’ means all that. An’ when the Bible’s
such a big book, an’ thee canst read all thro’t, an’ ha’ the pick o’
the texes, I canna think why thee dostna pick better words as donna
mean so much more nor they say. Adam doesna pick a that’n; I can
understan’ the tex as he’s allays a-sayin’, ‘God helps them as helps
theirsens.’”

“Nay, Mother,” said Seth, “that’s no text o’ the Bible. It comes out of
a book as Adam picked up at the stall at Treddles’on. It was wrote by a
knowing man, but overworldly, I doubt. However, that saying’s partly
true; for the Bible tells us we must be workers together with God.”

“Well, how’m I to know? It sounds like a tex. But what’s th’ matter wi’
th’ lad? Thee’t hardly atin’ a bit o’ supper. Dostna mean to ha’ no
more nor that bit o’ oat-cake? An’ thee lookst as white as a flick o’
new bacon. What’s th’ matter wi’ thee?”

“Nothing to mind about, Mother; I’m not hungry. I’ll just look in at
Adam again, and see if he’ll let me go on with the coffin.”

“Ha’ a drop o’ warm broth?” said Lisbeth, whose motherly feeling now
got the better of her “nattering” habit. “I’ll set two-three sticks
a-light in a minute.”

“Nay, Mother, thank thee; thee’t very good,” said Seth, gratefully; and
encouraged by this touch of tenderness, he went on: “Let me pray a bit
with thee for Father, and Adam, and all of us—it’ll comfort thee,
happen, more than thee thinkst.”

“Well, I’ve nothin’ to say again’ it.”

Lisbeth, though disposed always to take the negative side in her
conversations with Seth, had a vague sense that there was some comfort
and safety in the fact of his piety, and that it somehow relieved her
from the trouble of any spiritual transactions on her own behalf.

So the mother and son knelt down together, and Seth prayed for the poor
wandering father and for those who were sorrowing for him at home. And
when he came to the petition that Adam might never be called to set up
his tent in a far country, but that his mother might be cheered and
comforted by his presence all the days of her pilgrimage, Lisbeth’s
ready tears flowed again, and she wept aloud.

When they rose from their knees, Seth went to Adam again and said,
“Wilt only lie down for an hour or two, and let me go on the while?”

“No, Seth, no. Make Mother go to bed, and go thyself.”

Meantime Lisbeth had dried her eyes, and now followed Seth, holding
something in her hands. It was the brown-and-yellow platter containing
the baked potatoes with the gravy in them and bits of meat which she
had cut and mixed among them. Those were dear times, when wheaten bread
and fresh meat were delicacies to working people. She set the dish down
rather timidly on the bench by Adam’s side and said, “Thee canst pick a
bit while thee’t workin’. I’ll bring thee another drop o’ water.”

“Aye, Mother, do,” said Adam, kindly; “I’m getting very thirsty.”

In half an hour all was quiet; no sound was to be heard in the house
but the loud ticking of the old day-clock and the ringing of Adam’s
tools. The night was very still: when Adam opened the door to look out
at twelve o’clock, the only motion seemed to be in the glowing,
twinkling stars; every blade of grass was asleep.

Bodily haste and exertion usually leave our thoughts very much at the
mercy of our feelings and imagination; and it was so to-night with
Adam. While his muscles were working lustily, his mind seemed as
passive as a spectator at a diorama: scenes of the sad past, and
probably sad future, floating before him and giving place one to the
other in swift succession.

He saw how it would be to-morrow morning, when he had carried the
coffin to Broxton and was at home again, having his breakfast: his
father perhaps would come in ashamed to meet his son’s glance—would sit
down, looking older and more tottering than he had done the morning
before, and hang down his head, examining the floor-quarries; while
Lisbeth would ask him how he supposed the coffin had been got ready,
that he had slinked off and left undone—for Lisbeth was always the
first to utter the word of reproach, although she cried at Adam’s
severity towards his father.

“So it will go on, worsening and worsening,” thought Adam; “there’s no
slipping uphill again, and no standing still when once you ’ve begun to
slip down.” And then the day came back to him when he was a little
fellow and used to run by his father’s side, proud to be taken out to
work, and prouder still to hear his father boasting to his
fellow-workmen how “the little chap had an uncommon notion o’
carpentering.” What a fine active fellow his father was then! When
people asked Adam whose little lad he was, he had a sense of
distinction as he answered, “I’m Thias Bede’s lad.” He was quite sure
everybody knew Thias Bede—didn’t he make the wonderful pigeon-house at
Broxton parsonage? Those were happy days, especially when Seth, who was
three years the younger, began to go out working too, and Adam began to
be a teacher as well as a learner. But then came the days of sadness,
when Adam was someway on in his teens, and Thias began to loiter at the
public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at home, and to pour forth her
plaints in the hearing of her sons. Adam remembered well the night of
shame and anguish when he first saw his father quite wild and foolish,
shouting a song out fitfully among his drunken companions at the
“Waggon Overthrown.” He had run away once when he was only eighteen,
making his escape in the morning twilight with a little blue bundle
over his shoulder, and his “mensuration book” in his pocket, and saying
to himself very decidedly that he could bear the vexations of home no
longer—he would go and seek his fortune, setting up his stick at the
crossways and bending his steps the way it fell. But by the time he got
to Stoniton, the thought of his mother and Seth, left behind to endure
everything without him, became too importunate, and his resolution
failed him. He came back the next day, but the misery and terror his
mother had gone through in those two days had haunted her ever since.

“No!” Adam said to himself to-night, “that must never happen again. It
’ud make a poor balance when my doings are cast up at the last, if my
poor old mother stood o’ the wrong side. My back’s broad enough and
strong enough; I should be no better than a coward to go away and leave
the troubles to be borne by them as aren’t half so able. ‘They that are
strong ought to bear the infirmities of those that are weak, and not to
please themselves.’ There’s a text wants no candle to show’t; it shines
by its own light. It’s plain enough you get into the wrong road i’ this
life if you run after this and that only for the sake o’ making things
easy and pleasant to yourself. A pig may poke his nose into the trough
and think o’ nothing outside it; but if you’ve got a man’s heart and
soul in you, you can’t be easy a-making your own bed an’ leaving the
rest to lie on the stones. Nay, nay, I’ll never slip my neck out o’ the
yoke, and leave the load to be drawn by the weak uns. Father’s a sore
cross to me, an’s likely to be for many a long year to come. What then?
I’ve got th’ health, and the limbs, and the sperrit to bear it.”

At this moment a smart rap, as if with a willow wand, was given at the
house door, and Gyp, instead of barking, as might have been expected,
gave a loud howl. Adam, very much startled, went at once to the door
and opened it. Nothing was there; all was still, as when he opened it
an hour before; the leaves were motionless, and the light of the stars
showed the placid fields on both sides of the brook quite empty of
visible life. Adam walked round the house, and still saw nothing except
a rat which darted into the woodshed as he passed. He went in again,
wondering; the sound was so peculiar that the moment he heard it it
called up the image of the willow wand striking the door. He could not
help a little shudder, as he remembered how often his mother had told
him of just such a sound coming as a sign when some one was dying. Adam
was not a man to be gratuitously superstitious, but he had the blood of
the peasant in him as well as of the artisan, and a peasant can no more
help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help
trembling when he sees a camel. Besides, he had that mental combination
which is at once humble in the region of mystery and keen in the region
of knowledge: it was the depth of his reverence quite as much as his
hard common sense which gave him his disinclination to doctrinal
religion, and he often checked Seth’s argumentative spiritualism by
saying, “Eh, it’s a big mystery; thee know’st but little about it.” And
so it happened that Adam was at once penetrating and credulous. If a
new building had fallen down and he had been told that this was a
divine judgment, he would have said, “May be; but the bearing o’ the
roof and walls wasn’t right, else it wouldn’t ha’ come down”; yet he
believed in dreams and prognostics, and to his dying day he bated his
breath a little when he told the story of the stroke with the willow
wand. I tell it as he told it, not attempting to reduce it to its
natural elements—in our eagerness to explain impressions, we often lose
our hold of the sympathy that comprehends them.

But he had the best antidote against imaginative dread in the necessity
for getting on with the coffin, and for the next ten minutes his hammer
was ringing so uninterruptedly, that other sounds, if there were any,
might well be overpowered. A pause came, however, when he had to take
up his ruler, and now again came the strange rap, and again Gyp howled.
Adam was at the door without the loss of a moment; but again all was
still, and the starlight showed there was nothing but the dew-laden
grass in front of the cottage.

Adam for a moment thought uncomfortably about his father; but of late
years he had never come home at dark hours from Treddleston, and there
was every reason for believing that he was then sleeping off his
drunkenness at the “Waggon Overthrown.” Besides, to Adam, the
conception of the future was so inseparable from the painful image of
his father that the fear of any fatal accident to him was excluded by
the deeply infixed fear of his continual degradation. The next thought
that occurred to him was one that made him slip off his shoes and tread
lightly upstairs, to listen at the bedroom doors. But both Seth and his
mother were breathing regularly.

Adam came down and set to work again, saying to himself, “I won’t open
the door again. It’s no use staring about to catch sight of a sound.
Maybe there’s a world about us as we can’t see, but th’ ear’s quicker
than the eye and catches a sound from’t now and then. Some people think
they get a sight on’t too, but they’re mostly folks whose eyes are not
much use to ’em at anything else. For my part, I think it’s better to
see when your perpendicular’s true than to see a ghost.”

Such thoughts as these are apt to grow stronger and stronger as
daylight quenches the candles and the birds begin to sing. By the time
the red sunlight shone on the brass nails that formed the initials on
the lid of the coffin, any lingering foreboding from the sound of the
willow wand was merged in satisfaction that the work was done and the
promise redeemed. There was no need to call Seth, for he was already
moving overhead, and presently came downstairs.

“Now, lad,” said Adam, as Seth made his appearance, “the coffin’s done,
and we can take it over to Brox’on, and be back again before half after
six. I’ll take a mouthful o’ oat-cake, and then we’ll be off.”

The coffin was soon propped on the tall shoulders of the two brothers,
and they were making their way, followed close by Gyp, out of the
little woodyard into the lane at the back of the house. It was but
about a mile and a half to Broxton over the opposite slope, and their
road wound very pleasantly along lanes and across fields, where the
pale woodbines and the dog-roses were scenting the hedgerows, and the
birds were twittering and trilling in the tall leafy boughs of oak and
elm. It was a strangely mingled picture—the fresh youth of the summer
morning, with its Edenlike peace and loveliness, the stalwart strength
of the two brothers in their rusty working clothes, and the long coffin
on their shoulders. They paused for the last time before a small
farmhouse outside the village of Broxton. By six o’clock the task was
done, the coffin nailed down, and Adam and Seth were on their way home.
They chose a shorter way homewards, which would take them across the
fields and the brook in front of the house. Adam had not mentioned to
Seth what had happened in the night, but he still retained sufficient
impression from it himself to say, “Seth, lad, if Father isn’t come
home by the time we’ve had our breakfast, I think it’ll be as well for
thee to go over to Treddles’on and look after him, and thee canst get
me the brass wire I want. Never mind about losing an hour at thy work;
we can make that up. What dost say?”

“I’m willing,” said Seth. “But see what clouds have gathered since we
set out. I’m thinking we shall have more rain. It’ll be a sore time for
th’ haymaking if the meadows are flooded again. The brook’s fine and
full now: another day’s rain ’ud cover the plank, and we should have to
go round by the road.”

They were coming across the valley now, and had entered the pasture
through which the brook ran.

“Why, what’s that sticking against the willow?” continued Seth,
beginning to walk faster. Adam’s heart rose to his mouth: the vague
anxiety about his father was changed into a great dread. He made no
answer to Seth, but ran forward preceded by Gyp, who began to bark
uneasily; and in two moments he was at the bridge.

This was what the omen meant, then! And the grey-haired father, of whom
he had thought with a sort of hardness a few hours ago, as certain to
live to be a thorn in his side was perhaps even then struggling with
that watery death! This was the first thought that flashed through
Adam’s conscience, before he had time to seize the coat and drag out
the tall heavy body. Seth was already by his side, helping him, and
when they had it on the bank, the two sons in the first moment knelt
and looked with mute awe at the glazed eyes, forgetting that there was
need for action—forgetting everything but that their father lay dead
before them. Adam was the first to speak.

“I’ll run to Mother,” he said, in a loud whisper. “I’ll be back to thee
in a minute.”

Poor Lisbeth was busy preparing her sons’ breakfast, and their porridge
was already steaming on the fire. Her kitchen always looked the pink of
cleanliness, but this morning she was more than usually bent on making
her hearth and breakfast-table look comfortable and inviting.

“The lads ’ull be fine an’ hungry,” she said, half-aloud, as she
stirred the porridge. “It’s a good step to Brox’on, an’ it’s hungry air
o’er the hill—wi’ that heavy coffin too. Eh! It’s heavier now, wi’ poor
Bob Tholer in’t. Howiver, I’ve made a drap more porridge nor common
this mornin’. The feyther ’ull happen come in arter a bit. Not as he’ll
ate much porridge. He swallers sixpenn’orth o’ ale, an’ saves a
hap’orth o’ por-ridge—that’s his way o’ layin’ by money, as I’ve told
him many a time, an’ am likely to tell him again afore the day’s out.
Eh, poor mon, he takes it quiet enough; there’s no denyin’ that.”

But now Lisbeth heard the heavy “thud” of a running footstep on the
turf, and, turning quickly towards the door, she saw Adam enter,
looking so pale and overwhelmed that she screamed aloud and rushed
towards him before he had time to speak.

“Hush, Mother,” Adam said, rather hoarsely, “don’t be frightened.
Father’s tumbled into the water. Belike we may bring him round again.
Seth and me are going to carry him in. Get a blanket and make it hot as
the fire.”

In reality Adam was convinced that his father was dead but he knew
there was no other way of repressing his mother’s impetuous wailing
grief than by occupying her with some active task which had hope in it.

He ran back to Seth, and the two sons lifted the sad burden in
heart-stricken silence. The wide-open glazed eyes were grey, like
Seth’s, and had once looked with mild pride on the boys before whom
Thias had lived to hang his head in shame. Seth’s chief feeling was awe
and distress at this sudden snatching away of his father’s soul; but
Adam’s mind rushed back over the past in a flood of relenting and pity.
When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness
that we repent of, but our severity.




Chapter V
The Rector


Before twelve o’clock there had been some heavy storms of rain, and the
water lay in deep gutters on the sides of the gravel walks in the
garden of Broxton Parsonage; the great Provence roses had been cruelly
tossed by the wind and beaten by the rain, and all the delicate-stemmed
border flowers had been dashed down and stained with the wet soil. A
melancholy morning—because it was nearly time hay-harvest should begin,
and instead of that the meadows were likely to be flooded.

But people who have pleasant homes get indoor enjoyments that they
would never think of but for the rain. If it had not been a wet
morning, Mr. Irwine would not have been in the dining-room playing at
chess with his mother, and he loves both his mother and chess quite
well enough to pass some cloudy hours very easily by their help. Let me
take you into that dining-room and show you the Rev. Adolphus Irwine,
Rector of Broxton, Vicar of Hayslope, and Vicar of Blythe, a pluralist
at whom the severest Church reformer would have found it difficult to
look sour. We will enter very softly and stand still in the open
doorway, without awaking the glossy-brown setter who is stretched
across the hearth, with her two puppies beside her; or the pug, who is
dozing, with his black muzzle aloft, like a sleepy president.

The room is a large and lofty one, with an ample mullioned oriel window
at one end; the walls, you see, are new, and not yet painted; but the
furniture, though originally of an expensive sort, is old and scanty,
and there is no drapery about the window. The crimson cloth over the
large dining-table is very threadbare, though it contrasts pleasantly
enough with the dead hue of the plaster on the walls; but on this cloth
there is a massive silver waiter with a decanter of water on it, of the
same pattern as two larger ones that are propped up on the sideboard
with a coat of arms conspicuous in their centre. You suspect at once
that the inhabitants of this room have inherited more blood than
wealth, and would not be surprised to find that Mr. Irwine had a finely
cut nostril and upper lip; but at present we can only see that he has a
broad flat back and an abundance of powdered hair, all thrown backward
and tied behind with a black ribbon—a bit of conservatism in costume
which tells you that he is not a young man. He will perhaps turn round
by and by, and in the meantime we can look at that stately old lady,
his mother, a beautiful aged brunette, whose rich-toned complexion is
well set off by the complex wrappings of pure white cambric and lace
about her head and neck. She is as erect in her comely embonpoint as a
statue of Ceres; and her dark face, with its delicate aquiline nose,
firm proud mouth, and small, intense, black eye, is so keen and
sarcastic in its expression that you instinctively substitute a pack of
cards for the chess-men and imagine her telling your fortune. The small
brown hand with which she is lifting her queen is laden with pearls,
diamonds, and turquoises; and a large black veil is very carefully
adjusted over the crown of her cap, and falls in sharp contrast on the
white folds about her neck. It must take a long time to dress that old
lady in the morning! But it seems a law of nature that she should be
dressed so: she is clearly one of those children of royalty who have
never doubted their right divine and never met with any one so absurd
as to question it.

“There, Dauphin, tell me what that is!” says this magnificent old lady,
as she deposits her queen very quietly and folds her arms. “I should be
sorry to utter a word disagreeable to your feelings.”

“Ah, you witch-mother, you sorceress! How is a Christian man to win a
game off you? I should have sprinkled the board with holy water before
we began. You’ve not won that game by fair means, now, so don’t pretend
it.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what the beaten have always said of great conquerors.
But see, there’s the sunshine falling on the board, to show you more
clearly what a foolish move you made with that pawn. Come, shall I give
you another chance?”

“No, Mother, I shall leave you to your own conscience, now it’s
clearing up. We must go and plash up the mud a little, mus’n’t we,
Juno?” This was addressed to the brown setter, who had jumped up at the
sound of the voices and laid her nose in an insinuating way on her
master’s leg. “But I must go upstairs first and see Anne. I was called
away to Tholer’s funeral just when I was going before.”

“It’s of no use, child; she can’t speak to you. Kate says she has one
of her worst headaches this morning.”

“Oh, she likes me to go and see her just the same; she’s never too ill
to care about that.”

If you know how much of human speech is mere purposeless impulse or
habit, you will not wonder when I tell you that this identical
objection had been made, and had received the same kind of answer, many
hundred times in the course of the fifteen years that Mr. Irwine’s
sister Anne had been an invalid. Splendid old ladies, who take a long
time to dress in the morning, have often slight sympathy with sickly
daughters.

But while Mr. Irwine was still seated, leaning back in his chair and
stroking Juno’s head, the servant came to the door and said, “If you
please, sir, Joshua Rann wishes to speak with you, if you are at
liberty.”

“Let him be shown in here,” said Mrs. Irwine, taking up her knitting.
“I always like to hear what Mr. Rann has got to say. His shoes will be
dirty, but see that he wipes them Carroll.”

In two minutes Mr. Rann appeared at the door with very deferential
bows, which, however, were far from conciliating Pug, who gave a sharp
bark and ran across the room to reconnoitre the stranger’s legs; while
the two puppies, regarding Mr. Rann’s prominent calf and ribbed worsted
stockings from a more sensuous point of view, plunged and growled over
them in great enjoyment. Meantime, Mr. Irwine turned round his chair
and said, “Well, Joshua, anything the matter at Hayslope, that you’ve
come over this damp morning? Sit down, sit down. Never mind the dogs;
give them a friendly kick. Here, Pug, you rascal!”

It is very pleasant to see some men turn round; pleasant as a sudden
rush of warm air in winter, or the flash of firelight in the chill
dusk. Mr. Irwine was one of those men. He bore the same sort of
resemblance to his mother that our loving memory of a friend’s face
often bears to the face itself: the lines were all more generous, the
smile brighter, the expression heartier. If the outline had been less
finely cut, his face might have been called jolly; but that was not the
right word for its mixture of bonhomie and distinction.

“Thank Your Reverence,” answered Mr. Rann, endeavouring to look
unconcerned about his legs, but shaking them alternately to keep off
the puppies; “I’ll stand, if you please, as more becoming. I hope I see
you an’ Mrs. Irwine well, an’ Miss Irwine—an’ Miss Anne, I hope’s as
well as usual.”

“Yes, Joshua, thank you. You see how blooming my mother looks. She
beats us younger people hollow. But what’s the matter?”

“Why, sir, I had to come to Brox’on to deliver some work, and I thought
it but right to call and let you know the goins-on as there’s been i’
the village, such as I hanna seen i’ my time, and I’ve lived in it man
and boy sixty year come St. Thomas, and collected th’ Easter dues for
Mr. Blick before Your Reverence come into the parish, and been at the
ringin’ o’ every bell, and the diggin’ o’ every grave, and sung i’ the
choir long afore Bartle Massey come from nobody knows where, wi’ his
counter-singin’ and fine anthems, as puts everybody out but himself—one
takin’ it up after another like sheep a-bleatin’ i’ th’ fold. I know
what belongs to bein’ a parish clerk, and I know as I should be wantin’
i’ respect to Your Reverence, an’ church, an’ king, if I was t’ allow
such goins-on wi’out speakin’. I was took by surprise, an’ knowed
nothin’ on it beforehand, an’ I was so flustered, I was clean as if I’d
lost my tools. I hanna slep’ more nor four hour this night as is past
an’ gone; an’ then it was nothin’ but nightmare, as tired me worse nor
wakin’.”

“Why, what in the world is the matter, Joshua? Have the thieves been at
the church lead again?”

“Thieves! No, sir—an’ yet, as I may say, it _is_ thieves, an’
a-thievin’ the church, too. It’s the Methodisses as is like to get th’
upper hand i’ th’ parish, if Your Reverence an’ His Honour, Squire
Donnithorne, doesna think well to say the word an’ forbid it. Not as
I’m a-dictatin’ to you, sir; I’m not forgettin’ myself so far as to be
wise above my betters. Howiver, whether I’m wise or no, that’s neither
here nor there, but what I’ve got to say I say—as the young Methodis
woman as is at Mester Poyser’s was a-preachin’ an’ a-prayin’ on the
Green last night, as sure as I’m a-stannin’ afore Your Reverence now.”

“Preaching on the Green!” said Mr. Irwine, looking surprised but quite
serene. “What, that pale pretty young woman I’ve seen at Poyser’s? I
saw she was a Methodist, or Quaker, or something of that sort, by her
dress, but I didn’t know she was a preacher.”

“It’s a true word as I say, sir,” rejoined Mr. Rann, compressing his
mouth into a semicircular form and pausing long enough to indicate
three notes of exclamation. “She preached on the Green last night; an’
she’s laid hold of Chad’s Bess, as the girl’s been i’ fits welly iver
sin’.”

“Well, Bessy Cranage is a hearty-looking lass; I daresay she’ll come
round again, Joshua. Did anybody else go into fits?”

“No, sir, I canna say as they did. But there’s no knowin’ what’ll come,
if we’re t’ have such preachin’s as that a-goin’ on ivery week—there’ll
be no livin’ i’ th’ village. For them Methodisses make folks believe as
if they take a mug o’ drink extry, an’ make theirselves a bit
comfortable, they’ll have to go to hell for’t as sure as they’re born.
I’m not a tipplin’ man nor a drunkard—nobody can say it on me—but I
like a extry quart at Easter or Christmas time, as is nat’ral when
we’re goin’ the rounds a-singin’, an’ folks offer’t you for nothin’; or
when I’m a-collectin’ the dues; an’ I like a pint wi’ my pipe, an’ a
neighbourly chat at Mester Casson’s now an’ then, for I was brought up
i’ the Church, thank God, an’ ha’ been a parish clerk this
two-an’-thirty year: I should know what the church religion is.”

“Well, what’s your advice, Joshua? What do you think should be done?”

“Well, Your Reverence, I’m not for takin’ any measures again’ the young
woman. She’s well enough if she’d let alone preachin’; an’ I hear as
she’s a-goin’ away back to her own country soon. She’s Mr. Poyser’s own
niece, an’ I donna wish to say what’s anyways disrespectful o’ th’
family at th’ Hall Farm, as I’ve measured for shoes, little an’ big,
welly iver sin’ I’ve been a shoemaker. But there’s that Will Maskery,
sir as is the rampageousest Methodis as can be, an’ I make no doubt it
was him as stirred up th’ young woman to preach last night, an’ he’ll
be a-bringin’ other folks to preach from Treddles’on, if his comb isn’t
cut a bit; an’ I think as he should be let know as he isna t’ have the
makin’ an’ mendin’ o’ church carts an’ implemen’s, let alone stayin’ i’
that house an’ yard as is Squire Donnithorne’s.”

“Well, but you say yourself, Joshua, that you never knew any one come
to preach on the Green before; why should you think they’ll come again?
The Methodists don’t come to preach in little villages like Hayslope,
where there’s only a handful of labourers, too tired to listen to them.
They might almost as well go and preach on the Binton Hills. Will
Maskery is no preacher himself, I think.”

“Nay, sir, he’s no gift at stringin’ the words together wi’out book;
he’d be stuck fast like a cow i’ wet clay. But he’s got tongue enough
to speak disrespectful about’s neebors, for he said as I was a blind
Pharisee—a-usin’ the Bible i’ that way to find nick-names for folks as
are his elders an’ betters!—and what’s worse, he’s been heard to say
very unbecomin’ words about Your Reverence; for I could bring them as
’ud swear as he called you a ‘dumb dog,’ an’ a ‘idle shepherd.’ You’ll
forgi’e me for sayin’ such things over again.”

“Better not, better not, Joshua. Let evil words die as soon as they’re
spoken. Will Maskery might be a great deal worse fellow than he is. He
used to be a wild drunken rascal, neglecting his work and beating his
wife, they told me; now he’s thrifty and decent, and he and his wife
look comfortable together. If you can bring me any proof that he
interferes with his neighbours and creates any disturbance, I shall
think it my duty as a clergyman and a magistrate to interfere. But it
wouldn’t become wise people like you and me to be making a fuss about
trifles, as if we thought the Church was in danger because Will Maskery
lets his tongue wag rather foolishly, or a young woman talks in a
serious way to a handful of people on the Green. We must ‘live and let
live,’ Joshua, in religion as well as in other things. You go on doing
your duty, as parish clerk and sexton, as well as you’ve always done
it, and making those capital thick boots for your neighbours, and
things won’t go far wrong in Hayslope, depend upon it.”

“Your Reverence is very good to say so; an’ I’m sensable as, you not
livin’ i’ the parish, there’s more upo’ my shoulders.”

“To be sure; and you must mind and not lower the Church in people’s
eyes by seeming to be frightened about it for a little thing, Joshua. I
shall trust to your good sense, now to take no notice at all of what
Will Maskery says, either about you or me. You and your neighbours can
go on taking your pot of beer soberly, when you’ve done your day’s
work, like good churchmen; and if Will Maskery doesn’t like to join
you, but to go to a prayer-meeting at Treddleston instead, let him;
that’s no business of yours, so long as he doesn’t hinder you from
doing what you like. And as to people saying a few idle words about us,
we must not mind that, any more than the old church-steeple minds the
rooks cawing about it. Will Maskery comes to church every Sunday
afternoon, and does his wheelwright’s business steadily in the
weekdays, and as long as he does that he must be let alone.”

“Ah, sir, but when he comes to church, he sits an’ shakes his head, an’
looks as sour an’ as coxy when we’re a-singin’ as I should like to
fetch him a rap across the jowl—God forgi’e me—an’ Mrs. Irwine, an’
Your Reverence too, for speakin’ so afore you. An’ he said as our
Christmas singin’ was no better nor the cracklin’ o’ thorns under a
pot.”

“Well, he’s got a bad ear for music, Joshua. When people have wooden
heads, you know, it can’t be helped. He won’t bring the other people in
Hayslope round to his opinion, while you go on singing as well as you
do.”

“Yes, sir, but it turns a man’s stomach t’ hear the Scripture misused
i’ that way. I know as much o’ the words o’ the Bible as he does, an’
could say the Psalms right through i’ my sleep if you was to pinch me;
but I know better nor to take ’em to say my own say wi’. I might as
well take the Sacriment-cup home and use it at meals.”

“That’s a very sensible remark of yours, Joshua; but, as I said
before——”

While Mr. Irwine was speaking, the sound of a booted step and the clink
of a spur were heard on the stone floor of the entrance-hall, and
Joshua Rann moved hastily aside from the doorway to make room for some
one who paused there, and said, in a ringing tenor voice,

“Godson Arthur—may he come in?”

“Come in, come in, godson!” Mrs. Irwine answered, in the deep
half-masculine tone which belongs to the vigorous old woman, and there
entered a young gentleman in a riding-dress, with his right arm in a
sling; whereupon followed that pleasant confusion of laughing
interjections, and hand-shakings, and “How are you’s?” mingled with
joyous short barks and wagging of tails on the part of the canine
members of the family, which tells that the visitor is on the best
terms with the visited. The young gentleman was Arthur Donnithorne,
known in Hayslope, variously, as “the young squire,” “the heir,” and
“the captain.” He was only a captain in the Loamshire Militia, but to
the Hayslope tenants he was more intensely a captain than all the young
gentlemen of the same rank in his Majesty’s regulars—he outshone them
as the planet Jupiter outshines the Milky Way. If you want to know more
particularly how he looked, call to your remembrance some
tawny-whiskered, brown-locked, clear-complexioned young Englishman whom
you have met with in a foreign town, and been proud of as a
fellow-countryman—well-washed, high-bred, white-handed, yet looking as
if he could deliver well from ‘the left shoulder and floor his man: I
will not be so much of a tailor as to trouble your imagination with the
difference of costume, and insist on the striped waistcoat, long-tailed
coat, and low top-boots.

Turning round to take a chair, Captain Donnithorne said, “But don’t let
me interrupt Joshua’s business—he has something to say.”

“Humbly begging Your Honour’s pardon,” said Joshua, bowing low, “there
was one thing I had to say to His Reverence as other things had drove
out o’ my head.”

“Out with it, Joshua, quickly!” said Mr. Irwine.

“Belike, sir, you havena heared as Thias Bede’s dead—drownded this
morning, or more like overnight, i’ the Willow Brook, again’ the bridge
right i’ front o’ the house.”

“Ah!” exclaimed both the gentlemen at once, as if they were a good deal
interested in the information.

“An’ Seth Bede’s been to me this morning to say he wished me to tell
Your Reverence as his brother Adam begged of you particular t’ allow
his father’s grave to be dug by the White Thorn, because his mother’s
set her heart on it, on account of a dream as she had; an’ they’d ha’
come theirselves to ask you, but they’ve so much to see after with the
crowner, an’ that; an’ their mother’s took on so, an’ wants ’em to make
sure o’ the spot for fear somebody else should take it. An’ if Your
Reverence sees well and good, I’ll send my boy to tell ’em as soon as I
get home; an’ that’s why I make bold to trouble you wi’ it, His Honour
being present.”

“To be sure, Joshua, to be sure, they shall have it. I’ll ride round to
Adam myself, and see him. Send your boy, however, to say they shall
have the grave, lest anything should happen to detain me. And now, good
morning, Joshua; go into the kitchen and have some ale.”

“Poor old Thias!” said Mr. Irwine, when Joshua was gone. “I’m afraid
the drink helped the brook to drown him. I should have been glad for
the load to have been taken off my friend Adam’s shoulders in a less
painful way. That fine fellow has been propping up his father from ruin
for the last five or six years.”

“He’s a regular trump, is Adam,” said Captain Donnithorne. “When I was
a little fellow, and Adam was a strapping lad of fifteen, and taught me
carpentering, I used to think if ever I was a rich sultan, I would make
Adam my grand-vizier. And I believe now he would bear the exaltation as
well as any poor wise man in an Eastern story. If ever I live to be a
large-acred man instead of a poor devil with a mortgaged allowance of
pocket-money, I’ll have Adam for my right hand. He shall manage my
woods for me, for he seems to have a better notion of those things than
any man I ever met with; and I know he would make twice the money of
them that my grandfather does, with that miserable old Satchell to
manage, who understands no more about timber than an old carp. I’ve
mentioned the subject to my grandfather once or twice, but for some
reason or other he has a dislike to Adam, and _I_ can do nothing. But
come, Your Reverence, are you for a ride with me? It’s splendid out of
doors now. We can go to Adam’s together, if you like; but I want to
call at the Hall Farm on my way, to look at the whelps Poyser is
keeping for me.”

“You must stay and have lunch first, Arthur,” said Mrs. Irwine. “It’s
nearly two. Carroll will bring it in directly.”

“I want to go to the Hall Farm too,” said Mr. Irwine, “to have another
look at the little Methodist who is staying there. Joshua tells me she
was preaching on the Green last night.”

“Oh, by Jove!” said Captain Donnithorne, laughing. “Why, she looks as
quiet as a mouse. There’s something rather striking about her, though.
I positively felt quite bashful the first time I saw her—she was
sitting stooping over her sewing in the sunshine outside the house,
when I rode up and called out, without noticing that she was a
stranger, ‘Is Martin Poyser at home?’ I declare, when she got up and
looked at me and just said, ‘He’s in the house, I believe: I’ll go and
call him,’ I felt quite ashamed of having spoken so abruptly to her.
She looked like St. Catherine in a Quaker dress. It’s a type of face
one rarely sees among our common people.”

“I should like to see the young woman, Dauphin,” said Mrs. Irwine.
“Make her come here on some pretext or other.”

“I don’t know how I can manage that, Mother; it will hardly do for me
to patronize a Methodist preacher, even if she would consent to be
patronized by an idle shepherd, as Will Maskery calls me. You should
have come in a little sooner, Arthur, to hear Joshua’s denunciation of
his neighbour Will Maskery. The old fellow wants me to excommunicate
the wheelwright, and then deliver him over to the civil arm—that is to
say, to your grandfather—to be turned out of house and yard. If I chose
to interfere in this business, now, I might get up as pretty a story of
hatred and persecution as the Methodists need desire to publish in the
next number of their magazine. It wouldn’t take me much trouble to
persuade Chad Cranage and half a dozen other bull-headed fellows that
they would be doing an acceptable service to the Church by hunting Will
Maskery out of the village with rope-ends and pitchforks; and then,
when I had furnished them with half a sovereign to get gloriously drunk
after their exertions, I should have put the climax to as pretty a
farce as any of my brother clergy have set going in their parishes for
the last thirty years.”

“It is really insolent of the man, though, to call you an ‘idle
shepherd’ and a ‘dumb dog,’” said Mrs. Irwine. “I should be inclined to
check him a little there. You are too easy-tempered, Dauphin.”

“Why, Mother, you don’t think it would be a good way of sustaining my
dignity to set about vindicating myself from the aspersions of Will
Maskery? Besides, I’m not so sure that they _are_ aspersions. I _am_ a
lazy fellow, and get terribly heavy in my saddle; not to mention that
I’m always spending more than I can afford in bricks and mortar, so
that I get savage at a lame beggar when he asks me for sixpence. Those
poor lean cobblers, who think they can help to regenerate mankind by
setting out to preach in the morning twilight before they begin their
day’s work, may well have a poor opinion of me. But come, let us have
our luncheon. Isn’t Kate coming to lunch?”

“Miss Irwine told Bridget to take her lunch upstairs,” said Carroll;
“she can’t leave Miss Anne.”

“Oh, very well. Tell Bridget to say I’ll go up and see Miss Anne
presently. You can use your right arm quite well now, Arthur,” Mr.
Irwine continued, observing that Captain Donnithorne had taken his arm
out of the sling.

“Yes, pretty well; but Godwin insists on my keeping it up constantly
for some time to come. I hope I shall be able to get away to the
regiment, though, in the beginning of August. It’s a desperately dull
business being shut up at the Chase in the summer months, when one can
neither hunt nor shoot, so as to make one’s self pleasantly sleepy in
the evening. However, we are to astonish the echoes on the 30th of
July. My grandfather has given me _carte blanche_ for once, and I
promise you the entertainment shall be worthy of the occasion. The
world will not see the grand epoch of my majority twice. I think I
shall have a lofty throne for you, Godmamma, or rather two, one on the
lawn and another in the ballroom, that you may sit and look down upon
us like an Olympian goddess.”

“I mean to bring out my best brocade, that I wore at your christening
twenty years ago,” said Mrs. Irwine. “Ah, I think I shall see your poor
mother flitting about in her white dress, which looked to me almost
like a shroud that very day; and it _was_ her shroud only three months
after; and your little cap and christening dress were buried with her
too. She had set her heart on that, sweet soul! Thank God you take
after your mother’s family, Arthur. If you had been a puny, wiry,
yellow baby, I wouldn’t have stood godmother to you. I should have been
sure you would turn out a Donnithorne. But you were such a broad-faced,
broad-chested, loud-screaming rascal, I knew you were every inch of you
a Tradgett.”

“But you might have been a little too hasty there, Mother,” said Mr.
Irwine, smiling. “Don’t you remember how it was with Juno’s last pups?
One of them was the very image of its mother, but it had two or three
of its father’s tricks notwithstanding. Nature is clever enough to
cheat even you, Mother.”

“Nonsense, child! Nature never makes a ferret in the shape of a
mastiff. You’ll never persuade me that I can’t tell what men are by
their outsides. If I don’t like a man’s looks, depend upon it I shall
never like _him_. I don’t want to know people that look ugly and
disagreeable, any more than I want to taste dishes that look
disagreeable. If they make me shudder at the first glance, I say, take
them away. An ugly, piggish, or fishy eye, now, makes me feel quite
ill; it’s like a bad smell.”

“Talking of eyes,” said Captain Donnithorne, “that reminds me that I’ve
got a book I meant to bring you, Godmamma. It came down in a parcel
from London the other day. I know you are fond of queer, wizardlike
stories. It’s a volume of poems, ‘Lyrical Ballads.’ Most of them seem
to be twaddling stuff, but the first is in a different style—‘The
Ancient Mariner’ is the title. I can hardly make head or tail of it as
a story, but it’s a strange, striking thing. I’ll send it over to you;
and there are some other books that _you_ may like to see,
Irwine—pamphlets about Antinomianism and Evangelicalism, whatever they
may be. I can’t think what the fellow means by sending such things to
me. I’ve written to him to desire that from henceforth he will send me
no book or pamphlet on anything that ends in _ism_.”

“Well, I don’t know that I’m very fond of _isms_ myself; but I may as
well look at the pamphlets; they let one see what is going on. I’ve a
little matter to attend to, Arthur,” continued Mr. Irwine, rising to
leave the room, “and then I shall be ready to set out with you.”

The little matter that Mr. Irwine had to attend to took him up the old
stone staircase (part of the house was very old) and made him pause
before a door at which he knocked gently. “Come in,” said a woman’s
voice, and he entered a room so darkened by blinds and curtains that
Miss Kate, the thin middle-aged lady standing by the bedside, would not
have had light enough for any other sort of work than the knitting
which lay on the little table near her. But at present she was doing
what required only the dimmest light—sponging the aching head that lay
on the pillow with fresh vinegar. It was a small face, that of the poor
sufferer; perhaps it had once been pretty, but now it was worn and
sallow. Miss Kate came towards her brother and whispered, “Don’t speak
to her; she can’t bear to be spoken to to-day.” Anne’s eyes were
closed, and her brow contracted as if from intense pain. Mr. Irwine
went to the bedside and took up one of the delicate hands and kissed
it, a slight pressure from the small fingers told him that it was
worth-while to have come upstairs for the sake of doing that. He
lingered a moment, looking at her, and then turned away and left the
room, treading very gently—he had taken off his boots and put on
slippers before he came upstairs. Whoever remembers how many things he
has declined to do even for himself, rather than have the trouble of
putting on or taking off his boots, will not think this last detail
insignificant.

And Mr. Irwine’s sisters, as any person of family within ten miles of
Broxton could have testified, were such stupid, uninteresting women! It
was quite a pity handsome, clever Mrs. Irwine should have had such
commonplace daughters. That fine old lady herself was worth driving ten
miles to see, any day; her beauty, her well-preserved faculties, and
her old-fashioned dignity made her a graceful subject for conversation
in turn with the King’s health, the sweet new patterns in cotton
dresses, the news from Egypt, and Lord Dacey’s lawsuit, which was
fretting poor Lady Dacey to death. But no one ever thought of
mentioning the Miss Irwines, except the poor people in Broxton village,
who regarded them as deep in the science of medicine, and spoke of them
vaguely as “the gentlefolks.” If any one had asked old Job Dummilow who
gave him his flannel jacket, he would have answered, “the gentlefolks,
last winter”; and widow Steene dwelt much on the virtues of the “stuff”
the gentlefolks gave her for her cough. Under this name too, they were
used with great effect as a means of taming refractory children, so
that at the sight of poor Miss Anne’s sallow face, several small
urchins had a terrified sense that she was cognizant of all their worst
misdemeanours, and knew the precise number of stones with which they
had intended to hit Farmer Britton’s ducks. But for all who saw them
through a less mythical medium, the Miss Irwines were quite superfluous
existences—inartistic figures crowding the canvas of life without
adequate effect. Miss Anne, indeed, if her chronic headaches could have
been accounted for by a pathetic story of disappointed love, might have
had some romantic interest attached to her: but no such story had
either been known or invented concerning her, and the general
impression was quite in accordance with the fact, that both the sisters
were old maids for the prosaic reason that they had never received an
eligible offer.

Nevertheless, to speak paradoxically, the existence of insignificant
people has very important consequences in the world. It can be shown to
affect the price of bread and the rate of wages, to call forth many
evil tempers from the selfish and many heroisms from the sympathetic,
and, in other ways, to play no small part in the tragedy of life. And
if that handsome, generous-blooded clergyman, the Rev. Adolphus Irwine,
had not had these two hopelessly maiden sisters, his lot would have
been shaped quite differently: he would very likely have taken a comely
wife in his youth, and now, when his hair was getting grey under the
powder, would have had tall sons and blooming daughters—such
possessions, in short, as men commonly think will repay them for all
the labour they take under the sun. As it was—having with all his three
livings no more than seven hundred a-year, and seeing no way of keeping
his splendid mother and his sickly sister, not to reckon a second
sister, who was usually spoken of without any adjective, in such
ladylike ease as became their birth and habits, and at the same time
providing for a family of his own—he remained, you see, at the age of
eight-and-forty, a bachelor, not making any merit of that renunciation,
but saying laughingly, if any one alluded to it, that he made it an
excuse for many indulgences which a wife would never have allowed him.
And perhaps he was the only person in the world who did not think his
sisters uninteresting and superfluous; for his was one of those
large-hearted, sweet-blooded natures that never know a narrow or a
grudging thought; Epicurean, if you will, with no enthusiasm, no
self-scourging sense of duty; but yet, as you have seen, of a
sufficiently subtle moral fibre to have an unwearying tenderness for
obscure and monotonous suffering. It was his large-hearted indulgence
that made him ignore his mother’s hardness towards her daughters, which
was the more striking from its contrast with her doting fondness
towards himself; he held it no virtue to frown at irremediable faults.

See the difference between the impression a man makes on you when you
walk by his side in familiar talk, or look at him in his home, and the
figure he makes when seen from a lofty historical level, or even in the
eyes of a critical neighbour who thinks of him as an embodied system or
opinion rather than as a man. Mr. Roe, the “travelling preacher”
stationed at Treddleston, had included Mr. Irwine in a general
statement concerning the Church clergy in the surrounding district,
whom he described as men given up to the lusts of the flesh and the
pride of life; hunting and shooting, and adorning their own houses;
asking what shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal
shall we be clothed?—careless of dispensing the bread of life to their
flocks, preaching at best but a carnal and soul-benumbing morality, and
trafficking in the souls of men by receiving money for discharging the
pastoral office in parishes where they did not so much as look on the
faces of the people more than once a-year. The ecclesiastical
historian, too, looking into parliamentary reports of that period,
finds honourable members zealous for the Church, and untainted with any
sympathy for the “tribe of canting Methodists,” making statements
scarcely less melancholy than that of Mr. Roe. And it is impossible for
me to say that Mr. Irwine was altogether belied by the generic
classification assigned him. He really had no very lofty aims, no
theological enthusiasm: if I were closely questioned, I should be
obliged to confess that he felt no serious alarms about the souls of
his parishioners, and would have thought it a mere loss of time to talk
in a doctrinal and awakening manner to old “Feyther Taft,” or even to
Chad Cranage the blacksmith. If he had been in the habit of speaking
theoretically, he would perhaps have said that the only healthy form
religion could take in such minds was that of certain dim but strong
emotions, suffusing themselves as a hallowing influence over the family
affections and neighbourly duties. He thought the custom of baptism
more important than its doctrine, and that the religious benefits the
peasant drew from the church where his fathers worshipped and the
sacred piece of turf where they lay buried were but slightly dependent
on a clear understanding of the Liturgy or the sermon. Clearly the
rector was not what is called in these days an “earnest” man: he was
fonder of church history than of divinity, and had much more insight
into men’s characters than interest in their opinions; he was neither
laborious, nor obviously self-denying, nor very copious in alms-giving,
and his theology, you perceive, was lax. His mental palate, indeed, was
rather pagan, and found a savouriness in a quotation from Sophocles or
Theocritus that was quite absent from any text in Isaiah or Amos. But
if you feed your young setter on raw flesh, how can you wonder at its
retaining a relish for uncooked partridge in after-life? And Mr.
Irwine’s recollections of young enthusiasm and ambition were all
associated with poetry and ethics that lay aloof from the Bible.

On the other hand, I must plead, for I have an affectionate partiality
towards the rector’s memory, that he was not vindictive—and some
philanthropists have been so; that he was not intolerant—and there is a
rumour that some zealous theologians have not been altogether free from
that blemish; that although he would probably have declined to give his
body to be burned in any public cause, and was far from bestowing all
his goods to feed the poor, he had that charity which has sometimes
been lacking to very illustrious virtue—he was tender to other men’s
failings, and unwilling to impute evil. He was one of those men, and
they are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by
following them away from the marketplace, the platform, and the pulpit,
entering with them into their own homes, hearing the voice with which
they speak to the young and aged about their own hearthstone, and
witnessing their thoughtful care for the everyday wants of everyday
companions, who take all their kindness as a matter of course, and not
as a subject for panegyric.

Such men, happily, have lived in times when great abuses flourished,
and have sometimes even been the living representatives of the abuses.
That is a thought which might comfort us a little under the opposite
fact—that it is better sometimes _not_ to follow great reformers of
abuses beyond the threshold of their homes.

But whatever you may think of Mr. Irwine now, if you had met him that
June afternoon riding on his grey cob, with his dogs running beside
him—portly, upright, manly, with a good-natured smile on his finely
turned lips as he talked to his dashing young companion on the bay
mare, you must have felt that, however ill he harmonized with sound
theories of the clerical office, he somehow harmonized extremely well
with that peaceful landscape.

See them in the bright sunlight, interrupted every now and then by
rolling masses of cloud, ascending the slope from the Broxton side,
where the tall gables and elms of the rectory predominate over the tiny
whitewashed church. They will soon be in the parish of Hayslope; the
grey church-tower and village roofs lie before them to the left, and
farther on, to the right, they can just see the chimneys of the Hall
Farm.




Chapter VI
The Hall Farm


Evidently that gate is never opened, for the long grass and the great
hemlocks grow close against it, and if it were opened, it is so rusty
that the force necessary to turn it on its hinges would be likely to
pull down the square stone-built pillars, to the detriment of the two
stone lionesses which grin with a doubtful carnivorous affability above
a coat of arms surmounting each of the pillars. It would be easy
enough, by the aid of the nicks in the stone pillars, to climb over the
brick wall with its smooth stone coping; but by putting our eyes close
to the rusty bars of the gate, we can see the house well enough, and
all but the very corners of the grassy enclosure.

It is a very fine old place, of red brick, softened by a pale powdery
lichen, which has dispersed itself with happy irregularity, so as to
bring the red brick into terms of friendly companionship with the
limestone ornaments surrounding the three gables, the windows, and the
door-place. But the windows are patched with wooden panes, and the
door, I think, is like the gate—it is never opened. How it would groan
and grate against the stone floor if it were! For it is a solid, heavy,
handsome door, and must once have been in the habit of shutting with a
sonorous bang behind a liveried lackey, who had just seen his master
and mistress off the grounds in a carriage and pair.

But at present one might fancy the house in the early stage of a
chancery suit, and that the fruit from that grand double row of
walnut-trees on the right hand of the enclosure would fall and rot
among the grass, if it were not that we heard the booming bark of dogs
echoing from great buildings at the back. And now the half-weaned
calves that have been sheltering themselves in a gorse-built hovel
against the left-hand wall come out and set up a silly answer to that
terrible bark, doubtless supposing that it has reference to buckets of
milk.

Yes, the house must be inhabited, and we will see by whom; for
imagination is a licensed trespasser: it has no fear of dogs, but may
climb over walls and peep in at windows with impunity. Put your face to
one of the glass panes in the right-hand window: what do you see? A
large open fireplace, with rusty dogs in it, and a bare boarded floor;
at the far end, fleeces of wool stacked up; in the middle of the floor,
some empty corn-bags. That is the furniture of the dining-room. And
what through the left-hand window? Several clothes-horses, a pillion, a
spinning-wheel, and an old box wide open and stuffed full of coloured
rags. At the edge of this box there lies a great wooden doll, which, so
far as mutilation is concerned, bears a strong resemblance to the
finest Greek sculpture, and especially in the total loss of its nose.
Near it there is a little chair, and the butt end of a boy’s leather
long-lashed whip.

The history of the house is plain now. It was once the residence of a
country squire, whose family, probably dwindling down to mere
spinsterhood, got merged in the more territorial name of Donnithorne.
It was once the Hall; it is now the Hall Farm. Like the life in some
coast town that was once a watering-place, and is now a port, where the
genteel streets are silent and grass-grown, and the docks and
warehouses busy and resonant, the life at the Hall has changed its
focus, and no longer radiates from the parlour, but from the kitchen
and the farmyard.

Plenty of life there, though this is the drowsiest time of the year,
just before hay-harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day too,
for it is close upon three by the sun, and it is half-past three by
Mrs. Poyser’s handsome eight-day clock. But there is always a stronger
sense of life when the sun is brilliant after rain; and now he is
pouring down his beams, and making sparkles among the wet straw, and
lighting up every patch of vivid green moss on the red tiles of the
cow-shed, and turning even the muddy water that is hurrying along the
channel to the drain into a mirror for the yellow-billed ducks, who are
seizing the opportunity of getting a drink with as much body in it as
possible. There is quite a concert of noises; the great bull-dog,
chained against the stables, is thrown into furious exasperation by the
unwary approach of a cock too near the mouth of his kennel, and sends
forth a thundering bark, which is answered by two fox-hounds shut up in
the opposite cow-house; the old top-knotted hens, scratching with their
chicks among the straw, set up a sympathetic croaking as the
discomfited cock joins them; a sow with her brood, all very muddy as to
the legs, and curled as to the tail, throws in some deep staccato
notes; our friends the calves are bleating from the home croft; and,
under all, a fine ear discerns the continuous hum of human voices.

For the great barn-doors are thrown wide open, and men are busy there
mending the harness, under the superintendence of Mr. Goby, the
“whittaw,” otherwise saddler, who entertains them with the latest
Treddleston gossip. It is certainly rather an unfortunate day that
Alick, the shepherd, has chosen for having the whittaws, since the
morning turned out so wet; and Mrs. Poyser has spoken her mind pretty
strongly as to the dirt which the extra number of men’s shoes brought
into the house at dinnertime. Indeed, she has not yet recovered her
equanimity on the subject, though it is now nearly three hours since
dinner, and the house-floor is perfectly clean again; as clean as
everything else in that wonderful house-place, where the only chance of
collecting a few grains of dust would be to climb on the salt-coffer,
and put your finger on the high mantel-shelf on which the glittering
brass candlesticks are enjoying their summer sinecure; for at this time
of year, of course, every one goes to bed while it is yet light, or at
least light enough to discern the outline of objects after you have
bruised your shins against them. Surely nowhere else could an oak
clock-case and an oak table have got to such a polish by the hand:
genuine “elbow polish,” as Mrs. Poyser called it, for she thanked God
she never had any of your varnished rubbish in her house. Hetty Sorrel
often took the opportunity, when her aunt’s back was turned, of looking
at the pleasing reflection of herself in those polished surfaces, for
the oak table was usually turned up like a screen, and was more for
ornament than for use; and she could see herself sometimes in the great
round pewter dishes that were ranged on the shelves above the long deal
dinner-table, or in the hobs of the grate, which always shone like
jasper.

Everything was looking at its brightest at this moment, for the sun
shone right on the pewter dishes, and from their reflecting surfaces
pleasant jets of light were thrown on mellow oak and bright brass—and
on a still pleasanter object than these, for some of the rays fell on
Dinah’s finely moulded cheek, and lit up her pale red hair to auburn,
as she bent over the heavy household linen which she was mending for
her aunt. No scene could have been more peaceful, if Mrs. Poyser, who
was ironing a few things that still remained from the Monday’s wash,
had not been making a frequent clinking with her iron and moving to and
fro whenever she wanted it to cool; carrying the keen glance of her
blue-grey eye from the kitchen to the dairy, where Hetty was making up
the butter, and from the dairy to the back kitchen, where Nancy was
taking the pies out of the oven. Do not suppose, however, that Mrs.
Poyser was elderly or shrewish in her appearance; she was a
good-looking woman, not more than eight-and-thirty, of fair complexion
and sandy hair, well-shapen, light-footed. The most conspicuous article
in her attire was an ample checkered linen apron, which almost covered
her skirt; and nothing could be plainer or less noticeable than her cap
and gown, for there was no weakness of which she was less tolerant than
feminine vanity, and the preference of ornament to utility. The family
likeness between her and her niece Dinah Morris, with the contrast
between her keenness and Dinah’s seraphic gentleness of expression,
might have served a painter as an excellent suggestion for a Martha and
Mary. Their eyes were just of the same colour, but a striking test of
the difference in their operation was seen in the demeanour of Trip,
the black-and-tan terrier, whenever that much-suspected dog unwarily
exposed himself to the freezing arctic ray of Mrs. Poyser’s glance. Her
tongue was not less keen than her eye, and, whenever a damsel came
within earshot, seemed to take up an unfinished lecture, as a
barrel-organ takes up a tune, precisely at the point where it had left
off.

The fact that it was churning day was another reason why it was
inconvenient to have the whittaws, and why, consequently, Mrs. Poyser
should scold Molly the housemaid with unusual severity. To all
appearance Molly had got through her after-dinner work in an exemplary
manner, had “cleaned herself” with great dispatch, and now came to ask,
submissively, if she should sit down to her spinning till milking time.
But this blameless conduct, according to Mrs. Poyser, shrouded a secret
indulgence of unbecoming wishes, which she now dragged forth and held
up to Molly’s view with cutting eloquence.

“Spinning, indeed! It isn’t spinning as you’d be at, I’ll be bound, and
let you have your own way. I never knew your equals for gallowsness. To
think of a gell o’ your age wanting to go and sit with half-a-dozen
men! I’d ha’ been ashamed to let the words pass over my lips if I’d
been you. And you, as have been here ever since last Michaelmas, and I
hired you at Treddles’on stattits, without a bit o’ character—as I say,
you might be grateful to be hired in that way to a respectable place;
and you knew no more o’ what belongs to work when you come here than
the mawkin i’ the field. As poor a two-fisted thing as ever I saw, you
know you was. Who taught you to scrub a floor, I should like to know?
Why, you’d leave the dirt in heaps i’ the corners—anybody ’ud think
you’d never been brought up among Christians. And as for spinning, why,
you’ve wasted as much as your wage i’ the flax you’ve spoiled learning
to spin. And you’ve a right to feel that, and not to go about as gaping
and as thoughtless as if you was beholding to nobody. Comb the wool for
the whittaws, indeed! That’s what you’d like to be doing, is it? That’s
the way with you—that’s the road you’d all like to go, headlongs to
ruin. You’re never easy till you’ve got some sweetheart as is as big a
fool as yourself: you think you’ll be finely off when you’re married, I
daresay, and have got a three-legged stool to sit on, and never a
blanket to cover you, and a bit o’ oat-cake for your dinner, as three
children are a-snatching at.”

“I’m sure I donna want t’ go wi’ the whittaws,” said Molly, whimpering,
and quite overcome by this Dantean picture of her future, “on’y we
allays used to comb the wool for ’n at Mester Ottley’s; an’ so I just
axed ye. I donna want to set eyes on the whittaws again; I wish I may
never stir if I do.”

“Mr. Ottley’s, indeed! It’s fine talking o’ what you did at Mr.
Ottley’s. Your missis there might like her floors dirted wi’ whittaws
for what I know. There’s no knowing what people _wonna_ like—such ways
as I’ve heard of! I never had a gell come into my house as seemed to
know what cleaning was; I think people live like pigs, for my part. And
as to that Betty as was dairymaid at Trent’s before she come to me,
she’d ha’ left the cheeses without turning from week’s end to week’s
end, and the dairy thralls, I might ha’ wrote my name on ’em, when I
come downstairs after my illness, as the doctor said it was
inflammation—it was a mercy I got well of it. And to think o’ your
knowing no better, Molly, and been here a-going i’ nine months, and not
for want o’ talking to, neither—and what are you stanning there for,
like a jack as is run down, instead o’ getting your wheel out? You’re a
rare un for sitting down to your work a little while after it’s time to
put by.”

“Munny, my iron’s twite told; pease put it down to warm.”

The small chirruping voice that uttered this request came from a little
sunny-haired girl between three and four, who, seated on a high chair
at the end of the ironing table, was arduously clutching the handle of
a miniature iron with her tiny fat fist, and ironing rags with an
assiduity that required her to put her little red tongue out as far as
anatomy would allow.

“Cold, is it, my darling? Bless your sweet face!” said Mrs. Poyser, who
was remarkable for the facility with which she could relapse from her
official objurgatory to one of fondness or of friendly converse. “Never
mind! Mother’s done her ironing now. She’s going to put the ironing
things away.”

“Munny, I tould ’ike to do into de barn to Tommy, to see de whittawd.”

“No, no, no; Totty ’ud get her feet wet,” said Mrs. Poyser, carrying
away her iron. “Run into the dairy and see cousin Hetty make the
butter.”

“I tould ’ike a bit o’ pum-take,” rejoined Totty, who seemed to be
provided with several relays of requests; at the same time, taking the
opportunity of her momentary leisure to put her fingers into a bowl of
starch, and drag it down so as to empty the contents with tolerable
completeness on to the ironing sheet.

“Did ever anybody see the like?” screamed Mrs. Poyser, running towards
the table when her eye had fallen on the blue stream. “The child’s
allays i’ mischief if your back’s turned a minute. What shall I do to
you, you naughty, naughty gell?”

Totty, however, had descended from her chair with great swiftness, and
was already in retreat towards the dairy with a sort of waddling run,
and an amount of fat on the nape of her neck which made her look like
the metamorphosis of a white suckling pig.

The starch having been wiped up by Molly’s help, and the ironing
apparatus put by, Mrs. Poyser took up her knitting which always lay
ready at hand, and was the work she liked best, because she could carry
it on automatically as she walked to and fro. But now she came and sat
down opposite Dinah, whom she looked at in a meditative way, as she
knitted her grey worsted stocking.

“You look th’ image o’ your Aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing.
I could almost fancy it was thirty years back, and I was a little gell
at home, looking at Judith as she sat at her work, after she’d done the
house up; only it was a little cottage, Father’s was, and not a big
rambling house as gets dirty i’ one corner as fast as you clean it in
another—but for all that, I could fancy you was your Aunt Judith, only
her hair was a deal darker than yours, and she was stouter and broader
i’ the shoulders. Judith and me allays hung together, though she had
such queer ways, but your mother and her never could agree. Ah, your
mother little thought as she’d have a daughter just cut out after the
very pattern o’ Judith, and leave her an orphan, too, for Judith to
take care on, and bring up with a spoon when _she_ was in the graveyard
at Stoniton. I allays said that o’ Judith, as she’d bear a pound weight
any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. And she was just the
same from the first o’ my remembering her; it made no difference in
her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists, only she talked a
bit different and wore a different sort o’ cap; but she’d never in her
life spent a penny on herself more than keeping herself decent.”

“She was a blessed woman,” said Dinah; “God had given her a loving,
self-forgetting nature, and He perfected it by grace. And she was very
fond of you too, Aunt Rachel. I often heard her talk of you in the same
sort of way. When she had that bad illness, and I was only eleven years
old, she used to say, ‘You’ll have a friend on earth in your Aunt
Rachel, if I’m taken from you, for she has a kind heart,’ and I’m sure
I’ve found it so.”

“I don’t know how, child; anybody ’ud be cunning to do anything for
you, I think; you’re like the birds o’ th’ air, and live nobody knows
how. I’d ha’ been glad to behave to you like a mother’s sister, if
you’d come and live i’ this country where there’s some shelter and
victual for man and beast, and folks don’t live on the naked hills,
like poultry a-scratching on a gravel bank. And then you might get
married to some decent man, and there’d be plenty ready to have you, if
you’d only leave off that preaching, as is ten times worse than
anything your Aunt Judith ever did. And even if you’d marry Seth Bede,
as is a poor wool-gathering Methodist and’s never like to have a penny
beforehand, I know your uncle ’ud help you with a pig, and very like a
cow, for he’s allays been good-natur’d to my kin, for all they’re poor,
and made ’em welcome to the house; and ’ud do for you, I’ll be bound,
as much as ever he’d do for Hetty, though she’s his own niece. And
there’s linen in the house as I could well spare you, for I’ve got lots
o’ sheeting and table-clothing, and towelling, as isn’t made up.
There’s a piece o’ sheeting I could give you as that squinting Kitty
spun—she was a rare girl to spin, for all she squinted, and the
children couldn’t abide her; and, you know, the spinning’s going on
constant, and there’s new linen wove twice as fast as the old wears
out. But where’s the use o’ talking, if ye wonna be persuaded, and
settle down like any other woman in her senses, i’stead o’ wearing
yourself out with walking and preaching, and giving away every penny
you get, so as you’ve nothing saved against sickness; and all the
things you’ve got i’ the world, I verily believe, ’ud go into a bundle
no bigger nor a double cheese. And all because you’ve got notions i’
your head about religion more nor what’s i’ the Catechism and the
Prayer-book.”

“But not more than what’s in the Bible, Aunt,” said Dinah.

“Yes, and the Bible too, for that matter,” Mrs. Poyser rejoined, rather
sharply; “else why shouldn’t them as know best what’s in the Bible—the
parsons and people as have got nothing to do but learn it—do the same
as you do? But, for the matter o’ that, if everybody was to do like
you, the world must come to a standstill; for if everybody tried to do
without house and home, and with poor eating and drinking, and was
allays talking as we must despise the things o’ the world as you say, I
should like to know where the pick o’ the stock, and the corn, and the
best new-milk cheeses ’ud have to go. Everybody ’ud be wanting bread
made o’ tail ends and everybody ’ud be running after everybody else to
preach to ’em, istead o’ bringing up their families, and laying by
against a bad harvest. It stands to sense as that can’t be the right
religion.”

“Nay, dear aunt, you never heard me say that all people are called to
forsake their work and their families. It’s quite right the land should
be ploughed and sowed, and the precious corn stored, and the things of
this life cared for, and right that people should rejoice in their
families, and provide for them, so that this is done in the fear of the
Lord, and that they are not unmindful of the soul’s wants while they
are caring for the body. We can all be servants of God wherever our lot
is cast, but He gives us different sorts of work, according as He fits
us for it and calls us to it. I can no more help spending my life in
trying to do what I can for the souls of others, than you could help
running if you heard little Totty crying at the other end of the house;
the voice would go to your heart, you would think the dear child was in
trouble or in danger, and you couldn’t rest without running to help her
and comfort her.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Poyser, rising and walking towards the door, “I know it
’ud be just the same if I was to talk to you for hours. You’d make me
the same answer, at th’ end. I might as well talk to the running brook
and tell it to stan’ still.”

The causeway outside the kitchen door was dry enough now for Mrs.
Poyser to stand there quite pleasantly and see what was going on in the
yard, the grey worsted stocking making a steady progress in her hands
all the while. But she had not been standing there more than five
minutes before she came in again, and said to Dinah, in rather a
flurried, awe-stricken tone, “If there isn’t Captain Donnithorne and
Mr. Irwine a-coming into the yard! I’ll lay my life they’re come to
speak about your preaching on the Green, Dinah; it’s you must answer
’em, for I’m dumb. I’ve said enough a’ready about your bringing such
disgrace upo’ your uncle’s family. I wouldn’t ha’ minded if you’d been
Mr. Poyser’s own niece—folks must put up wi’ their own kin, as they put
up wi’ their own noses—it’s their own flesh and blood. But to think of
a niece o’ mine being cause o’ my husband’s being turned out of his
farm, and me brought him no fortin but my savin’s——”

“Nay, dear Aunt Rachel,” said Dinah gently, “you’ve no cause for such
fears. I’ve strong assurance that no evil will happen to you and my
uncle and the children from anything I’ve done. I didn’t preach without
direction.”

“Direction! I know very well what you mean by direction,” said Mrs.
Poyser, knitting in a rapid and agitated manner. “When there’s a bigger
maggot than usual in your head you call it ‘direction’; and then
nothing can stir you—you look like the statty o’ the outside o’
Treddles’on church, a-starin’ and a-smilin’ whether it’s fair weather
or foul. I hanna common patience with you.”

By this time the two gentlemen had reached the palings and had got down
from their horses: it was plain they meant to come in. Mrs. Poyser
advanced to the door to meet them, curtsying low and trembling between
anger with Dinah and anxiety to conduct herself with perfect propriety
on the occasion. For in those days the keenest of bucolic minds felt a
whispering awe at the sight of the gentry, such as of old men felt when
they stood on tiptoe to watch the gods passing by in tall human shape.

“Well, Mrs. Poyser, how are you after this stormy morning?” said Mr.
Irwine, with his stately cordiality. “Our feet are quite dry; we shall
not soil your beautiful floor.”

“Oh, sir, don’t mention it,” said Mrs. Poyser. “Will you and the
captain please to walk into the parlour?”

“No, indeed, thank you, Mrs. Poyser,” said the captain, looking eagerly
round the kitchen, as if his eye were seeking something it could not
find. “I delight in your kitchen. I think it is the most charming room
I know. I should like every farmer’s wife to come and look at it for a
pattern.”

“Oh, you’re pleased to say so, sir. Pray take a seat,” said Mrs.
Poyser, relieved a little by this compliment and the captain’s evident
good-humour, but still glancing anxiously at Mr. Irwine, who, she saw,
was looking at Dinah and advancing towards her.

“Poyser is not at home, is he?” said Captain Donnithorne, seating
himself where he could see along the short passage to the open
dairy-door.

“No, sir, he isn’t; he’s gone to Rosseter to see Mr. West, the factor,
about the wool. But there’s Father i’ the barn, sir, if he’d be of any
use.”

“No, thank you; I’ll just look at the whelps and leave a message about
them with your shepherd. I must come another day and see your husband;
I want to have a consultation with him about horses. Do you know when
he’s likely to be at liberty?”

“Why, sir, you can hardly miss him, except it’s o’ Treddles’on
market-day—that’s of a Friday, you know. For if he’s anywhere on the
farm we can send for him in a minute. If we’d got rid o’ the
Scantlands, we should have no outlying fields; and I should be glad of
it, for if ever anything happens, he’s sure to be gone to the
Scantlands. Things allays happen so contrairy, if they’ve a chance; and
it’s an unnat’ral thing to have one bit o’ your farm in one county and
all the rest in another.”

“Ah, the Scantlands would go much better with Choyce’s farm, especially
as he wants dairyland and you’ve got plenty. I think yours is the
prettiest farm on the estate, though; and do you know, Mrs. Poyser, if
I were going to marry and settle, I should be tempted to turn you out,
and do up this fine old house, and turn farmer myself.”

“Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Poyser, rather alarmed, “you wouldn’t like it at
all. As for farming, it’s putting money into your pocket wi’ your right
hand and fetching it out wi’ your left. As fur as I can see, it’s
raising victual for other folks and just getting a mouthful for
yourself and your children as you go along. Not as you’d be like a poor
man as wants to get his bread—you could afford to lose as much money as
you liked i’ farming—but it’s poor fun losing money, I should think,
though I understan’ it’s what the great folks i’ London play at more
than anything. For my husband heard at market as Lord Dacey’s eldest
son had lost thousands upo’ thousands to the Prince o’ Wales, and they
said my lady was going to pawn her jewels to pay for him. But you know
more about that than I do, sir. But, as for farming, sir, I canna think
as you’d like it; and this house—the draughts in it are enough to cut
you through, and it’s my opinion the floors upstairs are very rotten,
and the rats i’ the cellar are beyond anything.”

“Why, that’s a terrible picture, Mrs. Poyser. I think I should be doing
you a service to turn you out of such a place. But there’s no chance of
that. I’m not likely to settle for the next twenty years, till I’m a
stout gentleman of forty; and my grandfather would never consent to
part with such good tenants as you.”

“Well, sir, if he thinks so well o’ Mr. Poyser for a tenant I wish you
could put in a word for him to allow us some new gates for the Five
closes, for my husband’s been asking and asking till he’s tired, and to
think o’ what he’s done for the farm, and’s never had a penny allowed
him, be the times bad or good. And as I’ve said to my husband often and
often, I’m sure if the captain had anything to do with it, it wouldn’t
be so. Not as I wish to speak disrespectful o’ them as have got the
power i’ their hands, but it’s more than flesh and blood ’ull bear
sometimes, to be toiling and striving, and up early and down late, and
hardly sleeping a wink when you lie down for thinking as the cheese may
swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the wheat may grow green
again i’ the sheaf—and after all, at th’ end o’ the year, it’s like as
if you’d been cooking a feast and had got the smell of it for your
pains.”

Mrs. Poyser, once launched into conversation, always sailed along
without any check from her preliminary awe of the gentry. The
confidence she felt in her own powers of exposition was a motive force
that overcame all resistance.

“I’m afraid I should only do harm instead of good, if I were to speak
about the gates, Mrs. Poyser,” said the captain, “though I assure you
there’s no man on the estate I would sooner say a word for than your
husband. I know his farm is in better order than any other within ten
miles of us; and as for the kitchen,” he added, smiling, “I don’t
believe there’s one in the kingdom to beat it. By the by, I’ve never
seen your dairy: I must see your dairy, Mrs. Poyser.”

“Indeed, sir, it’s not fit for you to go in, for Hetty’s in the middle
o’ making the butter, for the churning was thrown late, and I’m quite
ashamed.” This Mrs. Poyser said blushing, and believing that the
captain was really interested in her milk-pans, and would adjust his
opinion of her to the appearance of her dairy.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt it’s in capital order. Take me in,” said the
captain, himself leading the way, while Mrs. Poyser followed.




Chapter VII
The Dairy


The dairy was certainly worth looking at: it was a scene to sicken for
with a sort of calenture in hot and dusty streets—such coolness, such
purity, such fresh fragrance of new-pressed cheese, of firm butter, of
wooden vessels perpetually bathed in pure water; such soft colouring of
red earthenware and creamy surfaces, brown wood and polished tin, grey
limestone and rich orange-red rust on the iron weights and hooks and
hinges. But one gets only a confused notion of these details when they
surround a distractingly pretty girl of seventeen, standing on little
pattens and rounding her dimpled arm to lift a pound of butter out of
the scale.

Hetty blushed a deep rose-colour when Captain Donnithorne entered the
dairy and spoke to her; but it was not at all a distressed blush, for
it was inwreathed with smiles and dimples, and with sparkles from under
long, curled, dark eyelashes; and while her aunt was discoursing to him
about the limited amount of milk that was to be spared for butter and
cheese so long as the calves were not all weaned, and a large quantity
but inferior quality of milk yielded by the shorthorn, which had been
bought on experiment, together with other matters which must be
interesting to a young gentleman who would one day be a landlord, Hetty
tossed and patted her pound of butter with quite a self-possessed,
coquettish air, slyly conscious that no turn of her head was lost.

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of
themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but
there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not
only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a
beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle
rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to
toddle and to engage in conscious mischief—a beauty with which you can
never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to
comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you. Hetty Sorrel’s
was that sort of beauty. Her aunt, Mrs. Poyser, who professed to
despise all personal attractions and intended to be the severest of
mentors, continually gazed at Hetty’s charms by the sly, fascinated in
spite of herself; and after administering such a scolding as naturally
flowed from her anxiety to do well by her husband’s niece—who had no
mother of her own to scold her, poor thing!—she would often confess to
her husband, when they were safe out of hearing, that she firmly
believed, “the naughtier the little huzzy behaved, the prettier she
looked.”

It is of little use for me to tell you that Hetty’s cheek was like a
rose-petal, that dimples played about her pouting lips, that her large
dark eyes hid a soft roguishness under their long lashes, and that her
curly hair, though all pushed back under her round cap while she was at
work, stole back in dark delicate rings on her forehead, and about her
white shell-like ears; it is of little use for me to say how lovely was
the contour of her pink-and-white neckerchief, tucked into her low
plum-coloured stuff bodice, or how the linen butter-making apron, with
its bib, seemed a thing to be imitated in silk by duchesses, since it
fell in such charming lines, or how her brown stockings and thick-soled
buckled shoes lost all that clumsiness which they must certainly have
had when empty of her foot and ankle—of little use, unless you have
seen a woman who affected you as Hetty affected her beholders, for
otherwise, though you might conjure up the image of a lovely woman, she
would not in the least resemble that distracting kittenlike maiden. I
might mention all the divine charms of a bright spring day, but if you
had never in your life utterly forgotten yourself in straining your
eyes after the mounting lark, or in wandering through the still lanes
when the fresh-opened blossoms fill them with a sacred silent beauty
like that of fretted aisles, where would be the use of my descriptive
catalogue? I could never make you know what I meant by a bright spring
day. Hetty’s was a spring-tide beauty; it was the beauty of young
frisking things, round-limbed, gambolling, circumventing you by a false
air of innocence—the innocence of a young star-browed calf, for
example, that, being inclined for a promenade out of bounds, leads you
a severe steeplechase over hedge and ditch, and only comes to a stand
in the middle of a bog.

And they are the prettiest attitudes and movements into which a pretty
girl is thrown in making up butter—tossing movements that give a
charming curve to the arm, and a sideward inclination of the round
white neck; little patting and rolling movements with the palm of the
hand, and nice adaptations and finishings which cannot at all be
effected without a great play of the pouting mouth and the dark eyes.
And then the butter itself seems to communicate a fresh charm—it is so
pure, so sweet-scented; it is turned off the mould with such a
beautiful firm surface, like marble in a pale yellow light! Moreover,
Hetty was particularly clever at making up the butter; it was the one
performance of hers that her aunt allowed to pass without severe
criticism; so she handled it with all the grace that belongs to
mastery.

“I hope you will be ready for a great holiday on the thirtieth of July,
Mrs. Poyser,” said Captain Donnithorne, when he had sufficiently
admired the dairy and given several improvised opinions on Swede
turnips and shorthorns. “You know what is to happen then, and I shall
expect you to be one of the guests who come earliest and leave latest.
Will you promise me your hand for two dances, Miss Hetty? If I don’t
get your promise now, I know I shall hardly have a chance, for all the
smart young farmers will take care to secure you.”

Hetty smiled and blushed, but before she could answer, Mrs. Poyser
interposed, scandalized at the mere suggestion that the young squire
could be excluded by any meaner partners.

“Indeed, sir, you are very kind to take that notice of her. And I’m
sure, whenever you’re pleased to dance with her, she’ll be proud and
thankful, if she stood still all the rest o’ th’ evening.”

“Oh no, no, that would be too cruel to all the other young fellows who
can dance. But you will promise me two dances, won’t you?” the captain
continued, determined to make Hetty look at him and speak to him.

Hetty dropped the prettiest little curtsy, and stole a half-shy,
half-coquettish glance at him as she said, “Yes, thank you, sir.”

“And you must bring all your children, you know, Mrs. Poyser; your
little Totty, as well as the boys. I want all the youngest children on
the estate to be there—all those who will be fine young men and women
when I’m a bald old fellow.”

“Oh dear, sir, that ’ull be a long time first,” said Mrs. Poyser, quite
overcome at the young squire’s speaking so lightly of himself, and
thinking how her husband would be interested in hearing her recount
this remarkable specimen of high-born humour. The captain was thought
to be “very full of his jokes,” and was a great favourite throughout
the estate on account of his free manners. Every tenant was quite sure
things would be different when the reins got into his hands—there was
to be a millennial abundance of new gates, allowances of lime, and
returns of ten per cent.

“But where _is_ Totty to-day?” he said. “I want to see her.”

“Where is the little un, Hetty?” said Mrs. Poyser. “She came in here
not long ago.”

“I don’t know. She went into the brewhouse to Nancy, I think.”

The proud mother, unable to resist the temptation to show her Totty,
passed at once into the back kitchen, in search of her, not, however,
without misgivings lest something should have happened to render her
person and attire unfit for presentation.

“And do you carry the butter to market when you’ve made it?” said the
Captain to Hetty, meanwhile.

“Oh no, sir; not when it’s so heavy. I’m not strong enough to carry it.
Alick takes it on horseback.”

“No, I’m sure your pretty arms were never meant for such heavy weights.
But you go out a walk sometimes these pleasant evenings, don’t you? Why
don’t you have a walk in the Chase sometimes, now it’s so green and
pleasant? I hardly ever see you anywhere except at home and at church.”

“Aunt doesn’t like me to go a-walking only when I’m going somewhere,”
said Hetty. “But I go through the Chase sometimes.”

“And don’t you ever go to see Mrs. Best, the housekeeper? I think I saw
you once in the housekeeper’s room.”

“It isn’t Mrs. Best, it’s Mrs. Pomfret, the lady’s maid, as I go to
see. She’s teaching me tent-stitch and the lace-mending. I’m going to
tea with her to-morrow afternoon.”

The reason why there had been space for this _tête-à-tête_ can only be
known by looking into the back kitchen, where Totty had been discovered
rubbing a stray blue-bag against her nose, and in the same moment
allowing some liberal indigo drops to fall on her afternoon pinafore.
But now she appeared holding her mother’s hand—the end of her round
nose rather shiny from a recent and hurried application of soap and
water.

“Here she is!” said the captain, lifting her up and setting her on the
low stone shelf. “Here’s Totty! By the by, what’s her other name? She
wasn’t christened Totty.”

“Oh, sir, we call her sadly out of her name. Charlotte’s her christened
name. It’s a name i’ Mr. Poyser’s family: his grandmother was named
Charlotte. But we began with calling her Lotty, and now it’s got to
Totty. To be sure it’s more like a name for a dog than a Christian
child.”

“Totty’s a capital name. Why, she looks like a Totty. Has she got a
pocket on?” said the captain, feeling in his own waistcoat pockets.

Totty immediately with great gravity lifted up her frock, and showed a
tiny pink pocket at present in a state of collapse.

“It dot notin’ in it,” she said, as she looked down at it very
earnestly.

“No! What a pity! Such a pretty pocket. Well, I think I’ve got some
things in mine that will make a pretty jingle in it. Yes! I declare
I’ve got five little round silver things, and hear what a pretty noise
they make in Totty’s pink pocket.” Here he shook the pocket with the
five sixpences in it, and Totty showed her teeth and wrinkled her nose
in great glee; but, divining that there was nothing more to be got by
staying, she jumped off the shelf and ran away to jingle her pocket in
the hearing of Nancy, while her mother called after her, “Oh for shame,
you naughty gell! Not to thank the captain for what he’s given you I’m
sure, sir, it’s very kind of you; but she’s spoiled shameful; her
father won’t have her said nay in anything, and there’s no managing
her. It’s being the youngest, and th’ only gell.”

“Oh, she’s a funny little fatty; I wouldn’t have her different. But I
must be going now, for I suppose the rector is waiting for me.”

With a “good-bye,” a bright glance, and a bow to Hetty Arthur left the
dairy. But he was mistaken in imagining himself waited for. The rector
had been so much interested in his conversation with Dinah that he
would not have chosen to close it earlier; and you shall hear now what
they had been saying to each other.




Chapter VIII
A Vocation


Dinah, who had risen when the gentlemen came in, but still kept hold of
the sheet she was mending, curtsied respectfully when she saw Mr.
Irwine looking at her and advancing towards her. He had never yet
spoken to her, or stood face to face with her, and her first thought,
as her eyes met his, was, “What a well-favoured countenance! Oh that
the good seed might fall on that soil, for it would surely flourish.”
The agreeable impression must have been mutual, for Mr. Irwine bowed to
her with a benignant deference, which would have been equally in place
if she had been the most dignified lady of his acquaintance.

“You are only a visitor in this neighbourhood, I think?” were his first
words, as he seated himself opposite to her.

“No, sir, I come from Snowfield, in Stonyshire. But my aunt was very
kind, wanting me to have rest from my work there, because I’d been ill,
and she invited me to come and stay with her for a while.”

“Ah, I remember Snowfield very well; I once had occasion to go there.
It’s a dreary bleak place. They were building a cotton-mill there; but
that’s many years ago now. I suppose the place is a good deal changed
by the employment that mill must have brought.”

“It _is_ changed so far as the mill has brought people there, who get a
livelihood for themselves by working in it, and make it better for the
tradesfolks. I work in it myself, and have reason to be grateful, for
thereby I have enough and to spare. But it’s still a bleak place, as
you say, sir—very different from this country.”

“You have relations living there, probably, so that you are attached to
the place as your home?”

“I had an aunt there once; she brought me up, for I was an orphan. But
she was taken away seven years ago, and I have no other kindred that I
know of, besides my Aunt Poyser, who is very good to me, and would have
me come and live in this country, which to be sure is a good land,
wherein they eat bread without scarceness. But I’m not free to leave
Snowfield, where I was first planted, and have grown deep into it, like
the small grass on the hill-top.”

“Ah, I daresay you have many religious friends and companions there;
you are a Methodist—a Wesleyan, I think?”

“Yes, my aunt at Snowfield belonged to the Society, and I have cause to
be thankful for the privileges I have had thereby from my earliest
childhood.”

“And have you been long in the habit of preaching? For I understand you
preached at Hayslope last night.”

“I first took to the work four years since, when I was twenty-one.”

“Your Society sanctions women’s preaching, then?”

“It doesn’t forbid them, sir, when they’ve a clear call to the work,
and when their ministry is owned by the conversion of sinners and the
strengthening of God’s people. Mrs. Fletcher, as you may have heard
about, was the first woman to preach in the Society, I believe, before
she was married, when she was Miss Bosanquet; and Mr. Wesley approved
of her undertaking the work. She had a great gift, and there are many
others now living who are precious fellow-helpers in the work of the
ministry. I understand there’s been voices raised against it in the
Society of late, but I cannot but think their counsel will come to
nought. It isn’t for men to make channels for God’s Spirit, as they
make channels for the watercourses, and say, ‘Flow here, but flow not
there.’”

“But don’t you find some danger among your people—I don’t mean to say
that it is so with you, far from it—but don’t you find sometimes that
both men and women fancy themselves channels for God’s Spirit, and are
quite mistaken, so that they set about a work for which they are unfit
and bring holy things into contempt?”

“Doubtless it is so sometimes; for there have been evil-doers among us
who have sought to deceive the brethren, and some there are who deceive
their own selves. But we are not without discipline and correction to
put a check upon these things. There’s a very strict order kept among
us, and the brethren and sisters watch for each other’s souls as they
that must give account. They don’t go every one his own way and say,
‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’”

“But tell me—if I may ask, and I am really interested in knowing it—how
you first came to think of preaching?”

“Indeed, sir, I didn’t think of it at all—I’d been used from the time I
was sixteen to talk to the little children, and teach them, and
sometimes I had had my heart enlarged to speak in class, and was much
drawn out in prayer with the sick. But I had felt no call to preach,
for when I’m not greatly wrought upon, I’m too much given to sit still
and keep by myself. It seems as if I could sit silent all day long with
the thought of God overflowing my soul—as the pebbles lie bathed in the
Willow Brook. For thoughts are so great—aren’t they, sir? They seem to
lie upon us like a deep flood; and it’s my besetment to forget where I
am and everything about me, and lose myself in thoughts that I could
give no account of, for I could neither make a beginning nor ending of
them in words. That was my way as long as I can remember; but sometimes
it seemed as if speech came to me without any will of my own, and words
were given to me that came out as the tears come, because our hearts
are full and we can’t help it. And those were always times of great
blessing, though I had never thought it could be so with me before a
congregation of people. But, sir, we are led on, like the little
children, by a way that we know not. I was called to preach quite
suddenly, and since then I have never been left in doubt about the work
that was laid upon me.”

“But tell me the circumstances—just how it was, the very day you began
to preach.”

“It was one Sunday I walked with brother Marlowe, who was an aged man,
one of the local preachers, all the way to Hetton-Deeps—that’s a
village where the people get their living by working in the lead-mines,
and where there’s no church nor preacher, but they live like sheep
without a shepherd. It’s better than twelve miles from Snowfield, so we
set out early in the morning, for it was summertime; and I had a
wonderful sense of the Divine love as we walked over the hills, where
there’s no trees, you know, sir, as there is here, to make the sky look
smaller, but you see the heavens stretched out like a tent, and you
feel the everlasting arms around you. But before we got to Hetton,
brother Marlowe was seized with a dizziness that made him afraid of
falling, for he overworked himself sadly, at his years, in watching and
praying, and walking so many miles to speak the Word, as well as
carrying on his trade of linen-weaving. And when we got to the village,
the people were expecting him, for he’d appointed the time and the
place when he was there before, and such of them as cared to hear the
Word of Life were assembled on a spot where the cottages was thickest,
so as others might be drawn to come. But he felt as he couldn’t stand
up to preach, and he was forced to lie down in the first of the
cottages we came to. So I went to tell the people, thinking we’d go
into one of the houses, and I would read and pray with them. But as I
passed along by the cottages and saw the aged and trembling women at
the doors, and the hard looks of the men, who seemed to have their eyes
no more filled with the sight of the Sabbath morning than if they had
been dumb oxen that never looked up to the sky, I felt a great movement
in my soul, and I trembled as if I was shaken by a strong spirit
entering into my weak body. And I went to where the little flock of
people was gathered together, and stepped on the low wall that was
built against the green hillside, and I spoke the words that were given
to me abundantly. And they all came round me out of all the cottages,
and many wept over their sins, and have since been joined to the Lord.
That was the beginning of my preaching, sir, and I’ve preached ever
since.”

Dinah had let her work fall during this narrative, which she uttered in
her usual simple way, but with that sincere articulate, thrilling
treble by which she always mastered her audience. She stooped now to
gather up her sewing, and then went on with it as before. Mr. Irwine
was deeply interested. He said to himself, “He must be a miserable prig
who would act the pedagogue here: one might as well go and lecture the
trees for growing in their own shape.”

“And you never feel any embarrassment from the sense of your youth—that
you are a lovely young woman on whom men’s eyes are fixed?” he said
aloud.

“No, I’ve no room for such feelings, and I don’t believe the people
ever take notice about that. I think, sir, when God makes His presence
felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any
heed what sort of bush it was—he only saw the brightness of the Lord.
I’ve preached to as rough ignorant people as can be in the villages
about Snowfield—men that looked very hard and wild—but they never said
an uncivil word to me, and often thanked me kindly as they made way for
me to pass through the midst of them.”

“_That_ I can believe—that I can well believe,” said Mr. Irwine,
emphatically. “And what did you think of your hearers last night, now?
Did you find them quiet and attentive?”

“Very quiet, sir, but I saw no signs of any great work upon them,
except in a young girl named Bessy Cranage, towards whom my heart
yearned greatly, when my eyes first fell on her blooming youth, given
up to folly and vanity. I had some private talk and prayer with her
afterwards, and I trust her heart is touched. But I’ve noticed that in
these villages where the people lead a quiet life among the green
pastures and the still waters, tilling the ground and tending the
cattle, there’s a strange deadness to the Word, as different as can be
from the great towns, like Leeds, where I once went to visit a holy
woman who preaches there. It’s wonderful how rich is the harvest of
souls up those high-walled streets, where you seemed to walk as in a
prison-yard, and the ear is deafened with the sounds of worldly toil. I
think maybe it is because the promise is sweeter when this life is so
dark and weary, and the soul gets more hungry when the body is ill at
ease.”

“Why, yes, our farm-labourers are not easily roused. They take life
almost as slowly as the sheep and cows. But we have some intelligent
workmen about here. I daresay you know the Bedes; Seth Bede, by the by,
is a Methodist.”

“Yes, I know Seth well, and his brother Adam a little. Seth is a
gracious young man—sincere and without offence; and Adam is like the
patriarch Joseph, for his great skill and knowledge and the kindness he
shows to his brother and his parents.”

“Perhaps you don’t know the trouble that has just happened to them?
Their father, Matthias Bede, was drowned in the Willow Brook last
night, not far from his own door. I’m going now to see Adam.”

“Ah, their poor aged mother!” said Dinah, dropping her hands and
looking before her with pitying eyes, as if she saw the object of her
sympathy. “She will mourn heavily, for Seth has told me she’s of an
anxious, troubled heart. I must go and see if I can give her any help.”

As she rose and was beginning to fold up her work, Captain Donnithorne,
having exhausted all plausible pretexts for remaining among the
milk-pans, came out of the dairy, followed by Mrs. Poyser. Mr. Irwine
now rose also, and, advancing towards Dinah, held out his hand, and
said, “Good-bye. I hear you are going away soon; but this will not be
the last visit you will pay your aunt—so we shall meet again, I hope.”

His cordiality towards Dinah set all Mrs. Poyser’s anxieties at rest,
and her face was brighter than usual, as she said, “I’ve never asked
after Mrs. Irwine and the Miss Irwines, sir; I hope they’re as well as
usual.”

“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Poyser, except that Miss Anne has one of her bad
headaches to-day. By the by, we all liked that nice cream-cheese you
sent us—my mother especially.”

“I’m very glad, indeed, sir. It is but seldom I make one, but I
remembered Mrs. Irwine was fond of ’em. Please to give my duty to her,
and to Miss Kate and Miss Anne. They’ve never been to look at my
poultry this long while, and I’ve got some beautiful speckled chickens,
black and white, as Miss Kate might like to have some of amongst hers.”

“Well, I’ll tell her; she must come and see them. Good-bye,” said the
rector, mounting his horse.

“Just ride slowly on, Irwine,” said Captain Donnithorne, mounting also.
“I’ll overtake you in three minutes. I’m only going to speak to the
shepherd about the whelps. Good-bye, Mrs. Poyser; tell your husband I
shall come and have a long talk with him soon.”

Mrs. Poyser curtsied duly, and watched the two horses until they had
disappeared from the yard, amidst great excitement on the part of the
pigs and the poultry, and under the furious indignation of the
bull-dog, who performed a Pyrrhic dance, that every moment seemed to
threaten the breaking of his chain. Mrs. Poyser delighted in this noisy
exit; it was a fresh assurance to her that the farm-yard was well
guarded, and that no loiterers could enter unobserved; and it was not
until the gate had closed behind the captain that she turned into the
kitchen again, where Dinah stood with her bonnet in her hand, waiting
to speak to her aunt, before she set out for Lisbeth Bede’s cottage.

Mrs. Poyser, however, though she noticed the bonnet, deferred remarking
on it until she had disburdened herself of her surprise at Mr. Irwine’s
behaviour.

“Why, Mr. Irwine wasn’t angry, then? What did he say to you, Dinah?
Didn’t he scold you for preaching?”

“No, he was not at all angry; he was very friendly to me. I was quite
drawn out to speak to him; I hardly know how, for I had always thought
of him as a worldly Sadducee. But his countenance is as pleasant as the
morning sunshine.”

“Pleasant! and what else did y’ expect to find him but pleasant?” said
Mrs. Poyser impatiently, resuming her knitting. “I should think his
countenance _is_ pleasant indeed! And him a gentleman born, and’s got a
mother like a picter. You may go the country round and not find such
another woman turned sixty-six. It’s summat-like to see such a man as
that i’ the desk of a Sunday! As I say to Poyser, it’s like looking at
a full crop o’ wheat, or a pasture with a fine dairy o’ cows in it; it
makes you think the world’s comfortable-like. But as for such creaturs
as you Methodisses run after, I’d as soon go to look at a lot o’
bare-ribbed runts on a common. Fine folks they are to tell you what’s
right, as look as if they’d never tasted nothing better than
bacon-sword and sour-cake i’ their lives. But what did Mr. Irwine say
to you about that fool’s trick o’ preaching on the Green?”

“He only said he’d heard of it; he didn’t seem to feel any displeasure
about it. But, dear aunt, don’t think any more about that. He told me
something that I’m sure will cause you sorrow, as it does me. Thias
Bede was drowned last night in the Willow Brook, and I’m thinking that
the aged mother will be greatly in need of comfort. Perhaps I can be of
use to her, so I have fetched my bonnet and am going to set out.”

“Dear heart, dear heart! But you must have a cup o’ tea first, child,”
said Mrs. Poyser, falling at once from the key of B with five sharps to
the frank and genial C. “The kettle’s boiling—we’ll have it ready in a
minute; and the young uns ’ull be in and wanting theirs directly. I’m
quite willing you should go and see th’ old woman, for you’re one as is
allays welcome in trouble, Methodist or no Methodist; but, for the
matter o’ that, it’s the flesh and blood folks are made on as makes the
difference. Some cheeses are made o’ skimmed milk and some o’ new milk,
and it’s no matter what you call ’em, you may tell which is which by
the look and the smell. But as to Thias Bede, he’s better out o’ the
way nor in—God forgi’ me for saying so—for he’s done little this ten
year but make trouble for them as belonged to him; and I think it ’ud
be well for you to take a little bottle o’ rum for th’ old woman, for I
daresay she’s got never a drop o’ nothing to comfort her inside. Sit
down, child, and be easy, for you shan’t stir out till you’ve had a cup
o’ tea, and so I tell you.”

During the latter part of this speech, Mrs. Poyser had been reaching
down the tea-things from the shelves, and was on her way towards the
pantry for the loaf (followed close by Totty, who had made her
appearance on the rattling of the tea-cups), when Hetty came out of the
dairy relieving her tired arms by lifting them up, and clasping her
hands at the back of her head.

“Molly,” she said, rather languidly, “just run out and get me a bunch
of dock-leaves: the butter’s ready to pack up now.”

“D’ you hear what’s happened, Hetty?” said her aunt.

“No; how should I hear anything?” was the answer, in a pettish tone.

“Not as you’d care much, I daresay, if you did hear; for you’re too
feather-headed to mind if everybody was dead, so as you could stay
upstairs a-dressing yourself for two hours by the clock. But anybody
besides yourself ’ud mind about such things happening to them as think
a deal more of you than you deserve. But Adam Bede and all his kin
might be drownded for what you’d care—you’d be perking at the glass the
next minute.”

“Adam Bede—drowned?” said Hetty, letting her arms fall and looking
rather bewildered, but suspecting that her aunt was as usual
exaggerating with a didactic purpose.

“No, my dear, no,” said Dinah kindly, for Mrs. Poyser had passed on to
the pantry without deigning more precise information. “Not Adam. Adam’s
father, the old man, is drowned. He was drowned last night in the
Willow Brook. Mr. Irwine has just told me about it.”

“Oh, how dreadful!” said Hetty, looking serious, but not deeply
affected; and as Molly now entered with the dock-leaves, she took them
silently and returned to the dairy without asking further questions.




Chapter IX
Hetty’s World


While she adjusted the broad leaves that set off the pale fragrant
butter as the primrose is set off by its nest of green I am afraid
Hetty was thinking a great deal more of the looks Captain Donnithorne
had cast at her than of Adam and his troubles. Bright, admiring glances
from a handsome young gentleman with white hands, a gold chain,
occasional regimentals, and wealth and grandeur immeasurable—those were
the warm rays that set poor Hetty’s heart vibrating and playing its
little foolish tunes over and over again. We do not hear that Memnon’s
statue gave forth its melody at all under the rushing of the mightiest
wind, or in response to any other influence divine or human than
certain short-lived sunbeams of morning; and we must learn to
accommodate ourselves to the discovery that some of those cunningly
fashioned instruments called human souls have only a very limited range
of music, and will not vibrate in the least under a touch that fills
others with tremulous rapture or quivering agony.

Hetty was quite used to the thought that people liked to look at her.
She was not blind to the fact that young Luke Britton of Broxton came
to Hayslope Church on a Sunday afternoon on purpose that he might see
her; and that he would have made much more decided advances if her
uncle Poyser, thinking but lightly of a young man whose father’s land
was so foul as old Luke Britton’s, had not forbidden her aunt to
encourage him by any civilities. She was aware, too, that Mr. Craig,
the gardener at the Chase, was over head and ears in love with her, and
had lately made unmistakable avowals in luscious strawberries and
hyperbolical peas. She knew still better, that Adam Bede—tall, upright,
clever, brave Adam Bede—who carried such authority with all the people
round about, and whom her uncle was always delighted to see of an
evening, saying that “Adam knew a fine sight more o’ the natur o’
things than those as thought themselves his betters”—she knew that this
Adam, who was often rather stern to other people and not much given to
run after the lasses, could be made to turn pale or red any day by a
word or a look from her. Hetty’s sphere of comparison was not large,
but she couldn’t help perceiving that Adam was “something like” a man;
always knew what to say about things, could tell her uncle how to prop
the hovel, and had mended the churn in no time; knew, with only looking
at it, the value of the chestnut-tree that was blown down, and why the
damp came in the walls, and what they must do to stop the rats; and
wrote a beautiful hand that you could read off, and could do figures in
his head—a degree of accomplishment totally unknown among the richest
farmers of that countryside. Not at all like that slouching Luke
Britton, who, when she once walked with him all the way from Broxton to
Hayslope, had only broken silence to remark that the grey goose had
begun to lay. And as for Mr. Craig, the gardener, he was a sensible man
enough, to be sure, but he was knock-kneed, and had a queer sort of
sing-song in his talk; moreover, on the most charitable supposition, he
must be far on the way to forty.

Hetty was quite certain her uncle wanted her to encourage Adam, and
would be pleased for her to marry him. For those were times when there
was no rigid demarcation of rank between the farmer and the respectable
artisan, and on the home hearth, as well as in the public house, they
might be seen taking their jug of ale together; the farmer having a
latent sense of capital, and of weight in parish affairs, which
sustained him under his conspicuous inferiority in conversation. Martin
Poyser was not a frequenter of public houses, but he liked a friendly
chat over his own home-brewed; and though it was pleasant to lay down
the law to a stupid neighbour who had no notion how to make the best of
his farm, it was also an agreeable variety to learn something from a
clever fellow like Adam Bede. Accordingly, for the last three
years—ever since he had superintended the building of the new barn—Adam
had always been made welcome at the Hall Farm, especially of a winter
evening, when the whole family, in patriarchal fashion, master and
mistress, children and servants, were assembled in that glorious
kitchen, at well-graduated distances from the blazing fire. And for the
last two years, at least, Hetty had been in the habit of hearing her
uncle say, “Adam Bede may be working for wage now, but he’ll be a
master-man some day, as sure as I sit in this chair. Mester Burge is in
the right on’t to want him to go partners and marry his daughter, if
it’s true what they say; the woman as marries him ’ull have a good
take, be’t Lady day or Michaelmas,” a remark which Mrs. Poyser always
followed up with her cordial assent. “Ah,” she would say, “it’s all
very fine having a ready-made rich man, but mayhappen he’ll be a
ready-made fool; and it’s no use filling your pocket full o’ money if
you’ve got a hole in the corner. It’ll do you no good to sit in a
spring-cart o’ your own, if you’ve got a soft to drive you: he’ll soon
turn you over into the ditch. I allays said I’d never marry a man as
had got no brains; for where’s the use of a woman having brains of her
own if she’s tackled to a geck as everybody’s a-laughing at? She might
as well dress herself fine to sit back’ards on a donkey.”

These expressions, though figurative, sufficiently indicated the bent
of Mrs. Poyser’s mind with regard to Adam; and though she and her
husband might have viewed the subject differently if Hetty had been a
daughter of their own, it was clear that they would have welcomed the
match with Adam for a penniless niece. For what could Hetty have been
but a servant elsewhere, if her uncle had not taken her in and brought
her up as a domestic help to her aunt, whose health since the birth of
Totty had not been equal to more positive labour than the
superintendence of servants and children? But Hetty had never given
Adam any steady encouragement. Even in the moments when she was most
thoroughly conscious of his superiority to her other admirers, she had
never brought herself to think of accepting him. She liked to feel that
this strong, skilful, keen-eyed man was in her power, and would have
been indignant if he had shown the least sign of slipping from under
the yoke of her coquettish tyranny and attaching himself to the gentle
Mary Burge, who would have been grateful enough for the most trifling
notice from him. “Mary Burge, indeed! Such a sallow-faced girl: if she
put on a bit of pink ribbon, she looked as yellow as a crow-flower and
her hair was as straight as a hank of cotton.” And always when Adam
stayed away for several weeks from the Hall Farm, and otherwise made
some show of resistance to his passion as a foolish one, Hetty took
care to entice him back into the net by little airs of meekness and
timidity, as if she were in trouble at his neglect. But as to marrying
Adam, that was a very different affair! There was nothing in the world
to tempt her to do that. Her cheeks never grew a shade deeper when his
name was mentioned; she felt no thrill when she saw him passing along
the causeway by the window, or advancing towards her unexpectedly in
the footpath across the meadow; she felt nothing, when his eyes rested
on her, but the cold triumph of knowing that he loved her and would not
care to look at Mary Burge. He could no more stir in her the emotions
that make the sweet intoxication of young love than the mere picture of
a sun can stir the spring sap in the subtle fibres of the plant. She
saw him as he was—a poor man with old parents to keep, who would not be
able, for a long while to come, to give her even such luxuries as she
shared in her uncle’s house. And Hetty’s dreams were all of luxuries:
to sit in a carpeted parlour, and always wear white stockings; to have
some large beautiful ear-rings, such as were all the fashion; to have
Nottingham lace round the top of her gown, and something to make her
handkerchief smell nice, like Miss Lydia Donnithorne’s when she drew it
out at church; and not to be obliged to get up early or be scolded by
anybody. She thought, if Adam had been rich and could have given her
these things, she loved him well enough to marry him.

But for the last few weeks a new influence had come over Hetty—vague,
atmospheric, shaping itself into no self-confessed hopes or prospects,
but producing a pleasant narcotic effect, making her tread the ground
and go about her work in a sort of dream, unconscious of weight or
effort, and showing her all things through a soft, liquid veil, as if
she were living not in this solid world of brick and stone, but in a
beatified world, such as the sun lights up for us in the waters. Hetty
had become aware that Mr. Arthur Donnithorne would take a good deal of
trouble for the chance of seeing her; that he always placed himself at
church so as to have the fullest view of her both sitting and standing;
that he was constantly finding reason for calling at the Hall Farm, and
always would contrive to say something for the sake of making her speak
to him and look at him. The poor child no more conceived at present the
idea that the young squire could ever be her lover than a baker’s
pretty daughter in the crowd, whom a young emperor distinguishes by an
imperial but admiring smile, conceives that she shall be made empress.
But the baker’s daughter goes home and dreams of the handsome young
emperor, and perhaps weighs the flour amiss while she is thinking what
a heavenly lot it must be to have him for a husband. And so, poor Hetty
had got a face and a presence haunting her waking and sleeping dreams;
bright, soft glances had penetrated her, and suffused her life with a
strange, happy languor. The eyes that shed those glances were really
not half so fine as Adam’s, which sometimes looked at her with a sad,
beseeching tenderness, but they had found a ready medium in Hetty’s
little silly imagination, whereas Adam’s could get no entrance through
that atmosphere. For three weeks, at least, her inward life had
consisted of little else than living through in memory the looks and
words Arthur had directed towards her—of little else than recalling the
sensations with which she heard his voice outside the house, and saw
him enter, and became conscious that his eyes were fixed on her, and
then became conscious that a tall figure, looking down on her with eyes
that seemed to touch her, was coming nearer in clothes of beautiful
texture with an odour like that of a flower-garden borne on the evening
breeze. Foolish thoughts! But all this happened, you must remember,
nearly sixty years ago, and Hetty was quite uneducated—a simple
farmer’s girl, to whom a gentleman with a white hand was dazzling as an
Olympian god. Until to-day, she had never looked farther into the
future than to the next time Captain Donnithorne would come to the
Farm, or the next Sunday when she should see him at church; but now she
thought, perhaps he would try to meet her when she went to the Chase
to-morrow—and if he should speak to her, and walk a little way, when
nobody was by! That had never happened yet; and now her imagination,
instead of retracing the past, was busy fashioning what would happen
to-morrow—whereabout in the Chase she should see him coming towards
her, how she should put her new rose-coloured ribbon on, which he had
never seen, and what he would say to her to make her return his
glance—a glance which she would be living through in her memory, over
and over again, all the rest of the day.

In this state of mind, how could Hetty give any feeling to Adam’s
troubles, or think much about poor old Thias being drowned? Young
souls, in such pleasant delirium as hers are as unsympathetic as
butterflies sipping nectar; they are isolated from all appeals by a
barrier of dreams—by invisible looks and impalpable arms.

While Hetty’s hands were busy packing up the butter, and her head
filled with these pictures of the morrow, Arthur Donnithorne, riding by
Mr. Irwine’s side towards the valley of the Willow Brook, had also
certain indistinct anticipations, running as an undercurrent in his
mind while he was listening to Mr. Irwine’s account of
Dinah—indistinct, yet strong enough to make him feel rather conscious
when Mr. Irwine suddenly said, “What fascinated you so in Mrs. Poyser’s
dairy, Arthur? Have you become an amateur of damp quarries and skimming
dishes?”

Arthur knew the rector too well to suppose that a clever invention
would be of any use, so he said, with his accustomed frankness, “No, I
went to look at the pretty butter-maker Hetty Sorrel. She’s a perfect
Hebe; and if I were an artist, I would paint her. It’s amazing what
pretty girls one sees among the farmers’ daughters, when the men are
such clowns. That common, round, red face one sees sometimes in the
men—all cheek and no features, like Martin Poyser’s—comes out in the
women of the family as the most charming phiz imaginable.”

“Well, I have no objection to your contemplating Hetty in an artistic
light, but I must not have you feeding her vanity and filling her
little noddle with the notion that she’s a great beauty, attractive to
fine gentlemen, or you will spoil her for a poor man’s wife—honest
Craig’s, for example, whom I have seen bestowing soft glances on her.
The little puss seems already to have airs enough to make a husband as
miserable as it’s a law of nature for a quiet man to be when he marries
a beauty. Apropos of marrying, I hope our friend Adam will get settled,
now the poor old man’s gone. He will only have his mother to keep in
future, and I’ve a notion that there’s a kindness between him and that
nice modest girl, Mary Burge, from something that fell from old
Jonathan one day when I was talking to him. But when I mentioned the
subject to Adam he looked uneasy and turned the conversation. I suppose
the love-making doesn’t run smooth, or perhaps Adam hangs back till
he’s in a better position. He has independence of spirit enough for two
men—rather an excess of pride, if anything.”

“That would be a capital match for Adam. He would slip into old Burge’s
shoes and make a fine thing of that building business, I’ll answer for
him. I should like to see him well settled in this parish; he would be
ready then to act as my grand-vizier when I wanted one. We could plan
no end of repairs and improvements together. I’ve never seen the girl,
though, I think—at least I’ve never looked at her.”

“Look at her next Sunday at church—she sits with her father on the left
of the reading-desk. You needn’t look quite so much at Hetty Sorrel
then. When I’ve made up my mind that I can’t afford to buy a tempting
dog, I take no notice of him, because if he took a strong fancy to me
and looked lovingly at me, the struggle between arithmetic and
inclination might become unpleasantly severe. I pique myself on my
wisdom there, Arthur, and as an old fellow to whom wisdom had become
cheap, I bestow it upon you.”

“Thank you. It may stand me in good stead some day though I don’t know
that I have any present use for it. Bless me! How the brook has
overflowed. Suppose we have a canter, now we’re at the bottom of the
hill.”

That is the great advantage of dialogue on horseback; it can be merged
any minute into a trot or a canter, and one might have escaped from
Socrates himself in the saddle. The two friends were free from the
necessity of further conversation till they pulled up in the lane
behind Adam’s cottage.




Chapter X
Dinah Visits Lisbeth


At five o’clock Lisbeth came downstairs with a large key in her hand:
it was the key of the chamber where her husband lay dead. Throughout
the day, except in her occasional outbursts of wailing grief, she had
been in incessant movement, performing the initial duties to her dead
with the awe and exactitude that belong to religious rites. She had
brought out her little store of bleached linen, which she had for long
years kept in reserve for this supreme use. It seemed but
yesterday—that time so many midsummers ago, when she had told Thias
where this linen lay, that he might be sure and reach it out for her
when _she_ died, for she was the elder of the two. Then there had been
the work of cleansing to the strictest purity every object in the
sacred chamber, and of removing from it every trace of common daily
occupation. The small window, which had hitherto freely let in the
frosty moonlight or the warm summer sunrise on the working man’s
slumber, must now be darkened with a fair white sheet, for this was the
sleep which is as sacred under the bare rafters as in ceiled houses.
Lisbeth had even mended a long-neglected and unnoticeable rent in the
checkered bit of bed-curtain; for the moments were few and precious now
in which she would be able to do the smallest office of respect or love
for the still corpse, to which in all her thoughts she attributed some
consciousness. Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten
them: they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our
penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the
kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence. And the aged
peasant woman most of all believes that her dead are conscious. Decent
burial was what Lisbeth had been thinking of for herself through years
of thrift, with an indistinct expectation that she should know when she
was being carried to the churchyard, followed by her husband and her
sons; and now she felt as if the greatest work of her life were to be
done in seeing that Thias was buried decently before her—under the
white thorn, where once, in a dream, she had thought she lay in the
coffin, yet all the while saw the sunshine above and smelt the white
blossoms that were so thick upon the thorn the Sunday she went to be
churched after Adam was born.

But now she had done everything that could be done to-day in the
chamber of death—had done it all herself, with some aid from her sons
in lifting, for she would let no one be fetched to help her from the
village, not being fond of female neighbours generally; and her
favourite Dolly, the old housekeeper at Mr. Burge’s, who had come to
condole with her in the morning as soon as she heard of Thias’s death,
was too dim-sighted to be of much use. She had locked the door, and now
held the key in her hand, as she threw herself wearily into a chair
that stood out of its place in the middle of the house floor, where in
ordinary times she would never have consented to sit. The kitchen had
had none of her attention that day; it was soiled with the tread of
muddy shoes and untidy with clothes and other objects out of place. But
what at another time would have been intolerable to Lisbeth’s habits of
order and cleanliness seemed to her now just what should be: it was
right that things should look strange and disordered and wretched, now
the old man had come to his end in that sad way; the kitchen ought not
to look as if nothing had happened. Adam, overcome with the agitations
and exertions of the day after his night of hard work, had fallen
asleep on a bench in the workshop; and Seth was in the back kitchen
making a fire of sticks that he might get the kettle to boil, and
persuade his mother to have a cup of tea, an indulgence which she
rarely allowed herself.

There was no one in the kitchen when Lisbeth entered and threw herself
into the chair. She looked round with blank eyes at the dirt and
confusion on which the bright afternoon’s sun shone dismally; it was
all of a piece with the sad confusion of her mind—that confusion which
belongs to the first hours of a sudden sorrow, when the poor human soul
is like one who has been deposited sleeping among the ruins of a vast
city, and wakes up in dreary amazement, not knowing whether it is the
growing or the dying day—not knowing why and whence came this
illimitable scene of desolation, or why he too finds himself desolate
in the midst of it.

At another time Lisbeth’s first thought would have been, “Where is
Adam?” but the sudden death of her husband had restored him in these
hours to that first place in her affections which he had held
six-and-twenty years ago. She had forgotten his faults as we forget the
sorrows of our departed childhood, and thought of nothing but the young
husband’s kindness and the old man’s patience. Her eyes continued to
wander blankly until Seth came in and began to remove some of the
scattered things, and clear the small round deal table that he might
set out his mother’s tea upon it.

“What art goin’ to do?” she said, rather peevishly.

“I want thee to have a cup of tea, Mother,” answered Seth, tenderly.
“It’ll do thee good; and I’ll put two or three of these things away,
and make the house look more comfortable.”

“Comfortable! How canst talk o’ ma’in’ things comfortable? Let a-be,
let a-be. There’s no comfort for me no more,” she went on, the tears
coming when she began to speak, “now thy poor feyther’s gone, as I’n
washed for and mended, an’ got’s victual for him for thirty ’ear, an’
him allays so pleased wi’ iverything I done for him, an’ used to be so
handy an’ do the jobs for me when I war ill an’ cumbered wi’ th’ babby,
an’ made me the posset an’ brought it upstairs as proud as could be,
an’ carried the lad as war as heavy as two children for five mile an’
ne’er grumbled, all the way to Warson Wake, ’cause I wanted to go an’
see my sister, as war dead an’ gone the very next Christmas as e’er
come. An’ him to be drownded in the brook as we passed o’er the day we
war married an’ come home together, an’ he’d made them lots o’ shelves
for me to put my plates an’ things on, an’ showed ’em me as proud as
could be, ’cause he know’d I should be pleased. An’ he war to die an’
me not to know, but to be a-sleepin’ i’ my bed, as if I caredna nought
about it. Eh! An’ me to live to see that! An’ us as war young folks
once, an’ thought we should do rarely when we war married. Let a-be,
lad, let a-be! I wonna ha’ no tay. I carena if I ne’er ate nor drink no
more. When one end o’ th’ bridge tumbles down, where’s th’ use o’ th’
other stannin’? I may’s well die, an’ foller my old man. There’s no
knowin’ but he’ll want me.”

Here Lisbeth broke from words into moans, swaying herself backwards and
forwards on her chair. Seth, always timid in his behaviour towards his
mother, from the sense that he had no influence over her, felt it was
useless to attempt to persuade or soothe her till this passion was
past; so he contented himself with tending the back kitchen fire and
folding up his father’s clothes, which had been hanging out to dry
since morning—afraid to move about in the room where his mother was,
lest he should irritate her further.

But after Lisbeth had been rocking herself and moaning for some
minutes, she suddenly paused and said aloud to herself, “I’ll go an’
see arter Adam, for I canna think where he’s gotten; an’ I want him to
go upstairs wi’ me afore it’s dark, for the minutes to look at the
corpse is like the meltin’ snow.”

Seth overheard this, and coming into the kitchen again, as his mother
rose from her chair, he said, “Adam’s asleep in the workshop, mother.
Thee’dst better not wake him. He was o’erwrought with work and
trouble.”

“Wake him? Who’s a-goin’ to wake him? I shanna wake him wi’ lookin’ at
him. I hanna seen the lad this two hour—I’d welly forgot as he’d e’er
growed up from a babby when’s feyther carried him.”

Adam was seated on a rough bench, his head supported by his arm, which
rested from the shoulder to the elbow on the long planing-table in the
middle of the workshop. It seemed as if he had sat down for a few
minutes’ rest and had fallen asleep without slipping from his first
attitude of sad, fatigued thought. His face, unwashed since yesterday,
looked pallid and clammy; his hair was tossed shaggily about his
forehead, and his closed eyes had the sunken look which follows upon
watching and sorrow. His brow was knit, and his whole face had an
expression of weariness and pain. Gyp was evidently uneasy, for he sat
on his haunches, resting his nose on his master’s stretched-out leg,
and dividing the time between licking the hand that hung listlessly
down and glancing with a listening air towards the door. The poor dog
was hungry and restless, but would not leave his master, and was
waiting impatiently for some change in the scene. It was owing to this
feeling on Gyp’s part that, when Lisbeth came into the workshop and
advanced towards Adam as noiselessly as she could, her intention not to
awaken him was immediately defeated; for Gyp’s excitement was too great
to find vent in anything short of a sharp bark, and in a moment Adam
opened his eyes and saw his mother standing before him. It was not very
unlike his dream, for his sleep had been little more than living
through again, in a fevered delirious way, all that had happened since
daybreak, and his mother with her fretful grief was present to him
through it all. The chief difference between the reality and the vision
was that in his dream Hetty was continually coming before him in bodily
presence—strangely mingling herself as an actor in scenes with which
she had nothing to do. She was even by the Willow Brook; she made his
mother angry by coming into the house; and he met her with her smart
clothes quite wet through, as he walked in the rain to Treddleston, to
tell the coroner. But wherever Hetty came, his mother was sure to
follow soon; and when he opened his eyes, it was not at all startling
to see her standing near him.

“Eh, my lad, my lad!” Lisbeth burst out immediately, her wailing
impulse returning, for grief in its freshness feels the need of
associating its loss and its lament with every change of scene and
incident, “thee’st got nobody now but thy old mother to torment thee
and be a burden to thee. Thy poor feyther ’ull ne’er anger thee no
more; an’ thy mother may’s well go arter him—the sooner the better—for
I’m no good to nobody now. One old coat ’ull do to patch another, but
it’s good for nought else. Thee’dst like to ha’ a wife to mend thy
clothes an’ get thy victual, better nor thy old mother. An’ I shall be
nought but cumber, a-sittin’ i’ th’ chimney-corner. (Adam winced and
moved uneasily; he dreaded, of all things, to hear his mother speak of
Hetty.) But if thy feyther had lived, he’d ne’er ha’ wanted me to go to
make room for another, for he could no more ha’ done wi’out me nor one
side o’ the scissars can do wi’out th’ other. Eh, we should ha’ been
both flung away together, an’ then I shouldna ha’ seen this day, an’
one buryin’ ’ud ha’ done for us both.”

Here Lisbeth paused, but Adam sat in pained silence—he could not speak
otherwise than tenderly to his mother to-day, but he could not help
being irritated by this plaint. It was not possible for poor Lisbeth to
know how it affected Adam any more than it is possible for a wounded
dog to know how his moans affect the nerves of his master. Like all
complaining women, she complained in the expectation of being soothed,
and when Adam said nothing, she was only prompted to complain more
bitterly.

“I know thee couldst do better wi’out me, for thee couldst go where
thee likedst an’ marry them as thee likedst. But I donna want to say
thee nay, let thee bring home who thee wut; I’d ne’er open my lips to
find faut, for when folks is old an’ o’ no use, they may think
theirsens well off to get the bit an’ the sup, though they’n to swallow
ill words wi’t. An’ if thee’st set thy heart on a lass as’ll bring thee
nought and waste all, when thee mightst ha’ them as ’ud make a man on
thee, I’ll say nought, now thy feyther’s dead an’ drownded, for I’m no
better nor an old haft when the blade’s gone.”

Adam, unable to bear this any longer, rose silently from the bench and
walked out of the workshop into the kitchen. But Lisbeth followed him.

“Thee wutna go upstairs an’ see thy feyther then? I’n done everythin’
now, an’ he’d like thee to go an’ look at him, for he war allays so
pleased when thee wast mild to him.”

Adam turned round at once and said, “Yes, mother; let us go upstairs.
Come, Seth, let us go together.”

They went upstairs, and for five minutes all was silence. Then the key
was turned again, and there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. But
Adam did not come down again; he was too weary and worn-out to
encounter more of his mother’s querulous grief, and he went to rest on
his bed. Lisbeth no sooner entered the kitchen and sat down than she
threw her apron over her head, and began to cry and moan and rock
herself as before. Seth thought, “She will be quieter by and by, now we
have been upstairs”; and he went into the back kitchen again, to tend
his little fire, hoping that he should presently induce her to have
some tea.

Lisbeth had been rocking herself in this way for more than five
minutes, giving a low moan with every forward movement of her body,
when she suddenly felt a hand placed gently on hers, and a sweet treble
voice said to her, “Dear sister, the Lord has sent me to see if I can
be a comfort to you.”

Lisbeth paused, in a listening attitude, without removing her apron
from her face. The voice was strange to her. Could it be her sister’s
spirit come back to her from the dead after all those years? She
trembled and dared not look.

Dinah, believing that this pause of wonder was in itself a relief for
the sorrowing woman, said no more just yet, but quietly took off her
bonnet, and then, motioning silence to Seth, who, on hearing her voice,
had come in with a beating heart, laid one hand on the back of
Lisbeth’s chair and leaned over her, that she might be aware of a
friendly presence.

Slowly Lisbeth drew down her apron, and timidly she opened her dim dark
eyes. She saw nothing at first but a face—a pure, pale face, with
loving grey eyes, and it was quite unknown to her. Her wonder
increased; perhaps it _was_ an angel. But in the same instant Dinah had
laid her hand on Lisbeth’s again, and the old woman looked down at it.
It was a much smaller hand than her own, but it was not white and
delicate, for Dinah had never worn a glove in her life, and her hand
bore the traces of labour from her childhood upwards. Lisbeth looked
earnestly at the hand for a moment, and then, fixing her eyes again on
Dinah’s face, said, with something of restored courage, but in a tone
of surprise, “Why, ye’re a workin’ woman!”

“Yes, I am Dinah Morris, and I work in the cotton-mill when I am at
home.”

“Ah!” said Lisbeth slowly, still wondering; “ye comed in so light, like
the shadow on the wall, an’ spoke i’ my ear, as I thought ye might be a
sperrit. Ye’ve got a’most the face o’ one as is a-sittin’ on the grave
i’ Adam’s new Bible.”

“I come from the Hall Farm now. You know Mrs. Poyser—she’s my aunt, and
she has heard of your great affliction, and is very sorry; and I’m come
to see if I can be any help to you in your trouble; for I know your
sons Adam and Seth, and I know you have no daughter; and when the
clergyman told me how the hand of God was heavy upon you, my heart went
out towards you, and I felt a command to come and be to you in the
place of a daughter in this grief, if you will let me.”

“Ah! I know who y’ are now; y’ are a Methody, like Seth; he’s tould me
on you,” said Lisbeth fretfully, her overpowering sense of pain
returning, now her wonder was gone. “Ye’ll make it out as trouble’s a
good thing, like _he_ allays does. But where’s the use o’ talkin’ to me
a-that’n? Ye canna make the smart less wi’ talkin’. Ye’ll ne’er make me
believe as it’s better for me not to ha’ my old man die in’s bed, if he
must die, an’ ha’ the parson to pray by him, an’ me to sit by him, an’
tell him ne’er to mind th’ ill words I’ve gi’en him sometimes when I
war angered, an’ to gi’ him a bit an’ a sup, as long as a bit an’ a sup
he’d swallow. But eh! To die i’ the cold water, an’ us close to him,
an’ ne’er to know; an’ me a-sleepin’, as if I ne’er belonged to him no
more nor if he’d been a journeyman tramp from nobody knows where!”

Here Lisbeth began to cry and rock herself again; and Dinah said, “Yes,
dear friend, your affliction is great. It would be hardness of heart to
say that your trouble was not heavy to bear. God didn’t send me to you
to make light of your sorrow, but to mourn with you, if you will let
me. If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with
your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down
and rejoice with you, because you’d think I should like to share those
good things; but I should like better to share in your trouble and your
labour, and it would seem harder to me if you denied me that. You won’t
send me away? You’re not angry with me for coming?”

“Nay, nay; angered! who said I war angered? It war good on you to come.
An’ Seth, why donna ye get her some tay? Ye war in a hurry to get some
for me, as had no need, but ye donna think o’ gettin’ ’t for them as
wants it. Sit ye down; sit ye down. I thank you kindly for comin’, for
it’s little wage ye get by walkin’ through the wet fields to see an old
woman like me.... Nay, I’n got no daughter o’ my own—ne’er had one—an’
I warna sorry, for they’re poor queechy things, gells is; I allays
wanted to ha’ lads, as could fend for theirsens. An’ the lads ’ull be
marryin’—I shall ha’ daughters eno’, an’ too many. But now, do ye make
the tay as ye like it, for I’n got no taste i’ my mouth this day—it’s
all one what I swaller—it’s all got the taste o’ sorrow wi’t.”

Dinah took care not to betray that she had had her tea, and accepted
Lisbeth’s invitation very readily, for the sake of persuading the old
woman herself to take the food and drink she so much needed after a day
of hard work and fasting.

Seth was so happy now Dinah was in the house that he could not help
thinking her presence was worth purchasing with a life in which grief
incessantly followed upon grief; but the next moment he reproached
himself—it was almost as if he were rejoicing in his father’s sad
death. Nevertheless the joy of being with Dinah _would_ triumph—it was
like the influence of climate, which no resistance can overcome. And
the feeling even suffused itself over his face so as to attract his
mother’s notice, while she was drinking her tea.

“Thee may’st well talk o’ trouble bein’ a good thing, Seth, for thee
thriv’st on’t. Thee look’st as if thee know’dst no more o’ care an’
cumber nor when thee wast a babby a-lyin’ awake i’ th’ cradle. For
thee’dst allays lie still wi’ thy eyes open, an’ Adam ne’er ’ud lie
still a minute when he wakened. Thee wast allays like a bag o’ meal as
can ne’er be bruised—though, for the matter o’ that, thy poor feyther
war just such another. But _ye_’ve got the same look too” (here Lisbeth
turned to Dinah). “I reckon it’s wi’ bein’ a Methody. Not as I’m
a-findin’ faut wi’ ye for’t, for ye’ve no call to be frettin’, an’
somehow ye looken sorry too. Eh! Well, if the Methodies are fond o’
trouble, they’re like to thrive: it’s a pity they canna ha’t all, an’
take it away from them as donna like it. I could ha’ gi’en ’em plenty;
for when I’d gotten my old man I war worreted from morn till night; and
now he’s gone, I’d be glad for the worst o’er again.”

“Yes,” said Dinah, careful not to oppose any feeling of Lisbeth’s, for
her reliance, in her smallest words and deeds, on a divine guidance,
always issued in that finest woman’s tact which proceeds from acute and
ready sympathy; “yes, I remember too, when my dear aunt died, I longed
for the sound of her bad cough in the nights, instead of the silence
that came when she was gone. But now, dear friend, drink this other cup
of tea and eat a little more.”

“What!” said Lisbeth, taking the cup and speaking in a less querulous
tone, “had ye got no feyther and mother, then, as ye war so sorry about
your aunt?”

“No, I never knew a father or mother; my aunt brought me up from a
baby. She had no children, for she was never married and she brought me
up as tenderly as if I’d been her own child.”

“Eh, she’d fine work wi’ ye, I’ll warrant, bringin’ ye up from a babby,
an’ her a lone woman—it’s ill bringin’ up a cade lamb. But I daresay ye
warna franzy, for ye look as if ye’d ne’er been angered i’ your life.
But what did ye do when your aunt died, an’ why didna ye come to live
in this country, bein’ as Mrs. Poyser’s your aunt too?”

Dinah, seeing that Lisbeth’s attention was attracted, told her the
story of her early life—how she had been brought up to work hard, and
what sort of place Snowfield was, and how many people had a hard life
there—all the details that she thought likely to interest Lisbeth. The
old woman listened, and forgot to be fretful, unconsciously subject to
the soothing influence of Dinah’s face and voice. After a while she was
persuaded to let the kitchen be made tidy; for Dinah was bent on this,
believing that the sense of order and quietude around her would help in
disposing Lisbeth to join in the prayer she longed to pour forth at her
side. Seth, meanwhile, went out to chop wood, for he surmised that
Dinah would like to be left alone with his mother.

Lisbeth sat watching her as she moved about in her still quick way, and
said at last, “Ye’ve got a notion o’ cleanin’ up. I wouldna mind ha’in
ye for a daughter, for ye wouldna spend the lad’s wage i’ fine clothes
an’ waste. Ye’re not like the lasses o’ this countryside. I reckon
folks is different at Snowfield from what they are here.”

“They have a different sort of life, many of ’em,” said Dinah; “they
work at different things—some in the mill, and many in the mines, in
the villages round about. But the heart of man is the same everywhere,
and there are the children of this world and the children of light
there as well as elsewhere. But we’ve many more Methodists there than
in this country.”

“Well, I didna know as the Methody women war like ye, for there’s Will
Maskery’s wife, as they say’s a big Methody, isna pleasant to look at,
at all. I’d as lief look at a tooad. An’ I’m thinkin’ I wouldna mind if
ye’d stay an’ sleep here, for I should like to see ye i’ th’ house i’
th’ mornin’. But mayhappen they’ll be lookin for ye at Mester
Poyser’s.”

“No,” said Dinah, “they don’t expect me, and I should like to stay, if
you’ll let me.”

“Well, there’s room; I’n got my bed laid i’ th’ little room o’er the
back kitchen, an’ ye can lie beside me. I’d be glad to ha’ ye wi’ me to
speak to i’ th’ night, for ye’ve got a nice way o’ talkin’. It puts me
i’ mind o’ the swallows as was under the thack last ’ear when they fust
begun to sing low an’ soft-like i’ th’ mornin’. Eh, but my old man war
fond o’ them birds! An’ so war Adam, but they’n ne’er comed again this
’ear. Happen they’re dead too.”

“There,” said Dinah, “now the kitchen looks tidy, and now, dear
Mother—for I’m your daughter to-night, you know—I should like you to
wash your face and have a clean cap on. Do you remember what David did,
when God took away his child from him? While the child was yet alive he
fasted and prayed to God to spare it, and he would neither eat nor
drink, but lay on the ground all night, beseeching God for the child.
But when he knew it was dead, he rose up from the ground and washed and
anointed himself, and changed his clothes, and ate and drank; and when
they asked him how it was that he seemed to have left off grieving now
the child was dead, he said, ‘While the child was yet alive, I fasted
and wept; for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me,
that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast?
Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return
to me.’”

“Eh, that’s a true word,” said Lisbeth. “Yea, my old man wonna come
back to me, but I shall go to him—the sooner the better. Well, ye may
do as ye like wi’ me: there’s a clean cap i’ that drawer, an’ I’ll go
i’ the back kitchen an’ wash my face. An’ Seth, thee may’st reach down
Adam’s new Bible wi’ th’ picters in, an’ she shall read us a chapter.
Eh, I like them words—‘I shall go to him, but he wonna come back to
me.’”

Dinah and Seth were both inwardly offering thanks for the greater
quietness of spirit that had come over Lisbeth. This was what Dinah had
been trying to bring about, through all her still sympathy and absence
from exhortation. From her girlhood upwards she had had experience
among the sick and the mourning, among minds hardened and shrivelled
through poverty and ignorance, and had gained the subtlest perception
of the mode in which they could best be touched and softened into
willingness to receive words of spiritual consolation or warning. As
Dinah expressed it, “she was never left to herself; but it was always
given her when to keep silence and when to speak.” And do we not all
agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of
inspiration? After our subtlest analysis of the mental process, we must
still say, as Dinah did, that our highest thoughts and our best deeds
are all given to us.

And so there was earnest prayer—there was faith, love, and hope pouring
forth that evening in the little kitchen. And poor, aged, fretful
Lisbeth, without grasping any distinct idea, without going through any
course of religious emotions, felt a vague sense of goodness and love,
and of something right lying underneath and beyond all this sorrowing
life. She couldn’t understand the sorrow; but, for these moments, under
the subduing influence of Dinah’s spirit, she felt that she must be
patient and still.




Chapter XI
In the Cottage


It was but half-past four the next morning when Dinah, tired of lying
awake listening to the birds and watching the growing light through the
little window in the garret roof, rose and began to dress herself very
quietly, lest she should disturb Lisbeth. But already some one else was
astir in the house, and had gone downstairs, preceded by Gyp. The dog’s
pattering step was a sure sign that it was Adam who went down; but
Dinah was not aware of this, and she thought it was more likely to be
Seth, for he had told her how Adam had stayed up working the night
before. Seth, however, had only just awakened at the sound of the
opening door. The exciting influence of the previous day, heightened at
last by Dinah’s unexpected presence, had not been counteracted by any
bodily weariness, for he had not done his ordinary amount of hard work;
and so when he went to bed; it was not till he had tired himself with
hours of tossing wakefulness that drowsiness came, and led on a heavier
morning sleep than was usual with him.

But Adam had been refreshed by his long rest, and with his habitual
impatience of mere passivity, he was eager to begin the new day and
subdue sadness by his strong will and strong arm. The white mist lay in
the valley; it was going to be a bright warm day, and he would start to
work again when he had had his breakfast.

“There’s nothing but what’s bearable as long as a man can work,” he
said to himself; “the natur o’ things doesn’t change, though it seems
as if one’s own life was nothing but change. The square o’ four is
sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight,
is as true when a man’s miserable as when he’s happy; and the best o’
working is, it gives you a grip hold o’ things outside your own lot.”

As he dashed the cold water over his head and face, he felt completely
himself again, and with his black eyes as keen as ever and his thick
black hair all glistening with the fresh moisture, he went into the
workshop to look out the wood for his father’s coffin, intending that
he and Seth should carry it with them to Jonathan Burge’s and have the
coffin made by one of the workmen there, so that his mother might not
see and hear the sad task going forward at home.

He had just gone into the workshop when his quick ear detected a light
rapid foot on the stairs—certainly not his mother’s. He had been in bed
and asleep when Dinah had come in, in the evening, and now he wondered
whose step this could be. A foolish thought came, and moved him
strangely. As if it could be Hetty! She was the last person likely to
be in the house. And yet he felt reluctant to go and look and have the
clear proof that it was some one else. He stood leaning on a plank he
had taken hold of, listening to sounds which his imagination
interpreted for him so pleasantly that the keen strong face became
suffused with a timid tenderness. The light footstep moved about the
kitchen, followed by the sound of the sweeping brush, hardly making so
much noise as the lightest breeze that chases the autumn leaves along
the dusty path; and Adam’s imagination saw a dimpled face, with dark
bright eyes and roguish smiles looking backward at this brush, and a
rounded figure just leaning a little to clasp the handle. A very
foolish thought—it could not be Hetty; but the only way of dismissing
such nonsense from his head was to go and see _who_ it was, for his
fancy only got nearer and nearer to belief while he stood there
listening. He loosed the plank and went to the kitchen door.

“How do you do, Adam Bede?” said Dinah, in her calm treble, pausing
from her sweeping and fixing her mild grave eyes upon him. “I trust you
feel rested and strengthened again to bear the burden and heat of the
day.”

It was like dreaming of the sunshine and awaking in the moonlight. Adam
had seen Dinah several times, but always at the Hall Farm, where he was
not very vividly conscious of any woman’s presence except Hetty’s, and
he had only in the last day or two begun to suspect that Seth was in
love with her, so that his attention had not hitherto been drawn
towards her for his brother’s sake. But now her slim figure, her plain
black gown, and her pale serene face impressed him with all the force
that belongs to a reality contrasted with a preoccupying fancy. For the
first moment or two he made no answer, but looked at her with the
concentrated, examining glance which a man gives to an object in which
he has suddenly begun to be interested. Dinah, for the first time in
her life, felt a painful self-consciousness; there was something in the
dark penetrating glance of this strong man so different from the
mildness and timidity of his brother Seth. A faint blush came, which
deepened as she wondered at it. This blush recalled Adam from his
forgetfulness.

“I was quite taken by surprise; it was very good of you to come and see
my mother in her trouble,” he said, in a gentle grateful tone, for his
quick mind told him at once how she came to be there. “I hope my mother
was thankful to have you,” he added, wondering rather anxiously what
had been Dinah’s reception.

“Yes,” said Dinah, resuming her work, “she seemed greatly comforted
after a while, and she’s had a good deal of rest in the night, by
times. She was fast asleep when I left her.”

“Who was it took the news to the Hall Farm?” said Adam, his thoughts
reverting to some one there; he wondered whether _she_ had felt
anything about it.

“It was Mr. Irwine, the clergyman, told me, and my aunt was grieved for
your mother when she heard it, and wanted me to come; and so is my
uncle, I’m sure, now he’s heard it, but he was gone out to Rosseter all
yesterday. They’ll look for you there as soon as you’ve got time to go,
for there’s nobody round that hearth but what’s glad to see you.”

Dinah, with her sympathetic divination, knew quite well that Adam was
longing to hear if Hetty had said anything about their trouble; she was
too rigorously truthful for benevolent invention, but she had contrived
to say something in which Hetty was tacitly included. Love has a way of
cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary
hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while
disbelieves. Adam liked what Dinah had said so much that his mind was
directly full of the next visit he should pay to the Hall Farm, when
Hetty would perhaps behave more kindly to him than she had ever done
before.

“But you won’t be there yourself any longer?” he said to Dinah.

“No, I go back to Snowfield on Saturday, and I shall have to set out to
Treddleston early, to be in time for the Oakbourne carrier. So I must
go back to the farm to-night, that I may have the last day with my aunt
and her children. But I can stay here all to-day, if your mother would
like me; and her heart seemed inclined towards me last night.”

“Ah, then, she’s sure to want you to-day. If mother takes to people at
the beginning, she’s sure to get fond of ’em; but she’s a strange way
of not liking young women. Though, to be sure,” Adam went on, smiling,
“her not liking other young women is no reason why she shouldn’t like
you.”

Hitherto Gyp had been assisting at this conversation in motionless
silence, seated on his haunches, and alternately looking up in his
master’s face to watch its expression and observing Dinah’s movements
about the kitchen. The kind smile with which Adam uttered the last
words was apparently decisive with Gyp of the light in which the
stranger was to be regarded, and as she turned round after putting
aside her sweeping-brush, he trotted towards her and put up his muzzle
against her hand in a friendly way.

“You see Gyp bids you welcome,” said Adam, “and he’s very slow to
welcome strangers.”

“Poor dog!” said Dinah, patting the rough grey coat, “I’ve a strange
feeling about the dumb things as if they wanted to speak, and it was a
trouble to ’em because they couldn’t. I can’t help being sorry for the
dogs always, though perhaps there’s no need. But they may well have
more in them than they know how to make us understand, for we can’t say
half what we feel, with all our words.”

Seth came down now, and was pleased to find Adam talking with Dinah; he
wanted Adam to know how much better she was than all other women. But
after a few words of greeting, Adam drew him into the workshop to
consult about the coffin, and Dinah went on with her cleaning.

By six o’clock they were all at breakfast with Lisbeth in a kitchen as
clean as she could have made it herself. The window and door were open,
and the morning air brought with it a mingled scent of southernwood,
thyme, and sweet-briar from the patch of garden by the side of the
cottage. Dinah did not sit down at first, but moved about, serving the
others with the warm porridge and the toasted oat-cake, which she had
got ready in the usual way, for she had asked Seth to tell her just
what his mother gave them for breakfast. Lisbeth had been unusually
silent since she came downstairs, apparently requiring some time to
adjust her ideas to a state of things in which she came down like a
lady to find all the work done, and sat still to be waited on. Her new
sensations seemed to exclude the remembrance of her grief. At last,
after tasting the porridge, she broke silence:

“Ye might ha’ made the parridge worse,” she said to Dinah; “I can ate
it wi’out its turnin’ my stomach. It might ha’ been a trifle thicker
an’ no harm, an’ I allays putten a sprig o’ mint in mysen; but how’s ye
t’ know that? The lads arena like to get folks as ’ll make their
parridge as I’n made it for ’em; it’s well if they get onybody as ’ll
make parridge at all. But ye might do, wi’ a bit o’ showin’; for ye’re
a stirrin’ body in a mornin’, an’ ye’ve a light heel, an’ ye’ve cleaned
th’ house well enough for a ma’shift.”

“Makeshift, mother?” said Adam. “Why, I think the house looks
beautiful. I don’t know how it could look better.”

“Thee dostna know? Nay; how’s thee to know? Th’ men ne’er know whether
the floor’s cleaned or cat-licked. But thee’lt know when thee gets thy
parridge burnt, as it’s like enough to be when I’n gi’en o’er makin’
it. Thee’lt think thy mother war good for summat then.”

“Dinah,” said Seth, “do come and sit down now and have your breakfast.
We’re all served now.”

“Aye, come an’ sit ye down—do,” said Lisbeth, “an’ ate a morsel; ye’d
need, arter bein’ upo’ your legs this hour an’ half a’ready. Come,
then,” she added, in a tone of complaining affection, as Dinah sat down
by her side, “I’ll be loath for ye t’ go, but ye canna stay much
longer, I doubt. I could put up wi’ ye i’ th’ house better nor wi’ most
folks.”

“I’ll stay till to-night if you’re willing,” said Dinah. “I’d stay
longer, only I’m going back to Snowfield on Saturday, and I must be
with my aunt to-morrow.”

“Eh, I’d ne’er go back to that country. My old man come from that
Stonyshire side, but he left it when he war a young un, an’ i’ the
right on’t too; for he said as there war no wood there, an’ it ’ud ha’
been a bad country for a carpenter.”

“Ah,” said Adam, “I remember father telling me when I was a little lad
that he made up his mind if ever he moved it should be south’ard. But
I’m not so sure about it. Bartle Massey says—and he knows the South—as
the northern men are a finer breed than the southern, harder-headed and
stronger-bodied, and a deal taller. And then he says in some o’ those
counties it’s as flat as the back o’ your hand, and you can see nothing
of a distance without climbing up the highest trees. I couldn’t abide
that. I like to go to work by a road that’ll take me up a bit of a
hill, and see the fields for miles round me, and a bridge, or a town,
or a bit of a steeple here and there. It makes you feel the world’s a
big place, and there’s other men working in it with their heads and
hands besides yourself.”

“I like th’ hills best,” said Seth, “when the clouds are over your head
and you see the sun shining ever so far off, over the Loamford way, as
I’ve often done o’ late, on the stormy days. It seems to me as if that
was heaven where there’s always joy and sunshine, though this life’s
dark and cloudy.”

“Oh, I love the Stonyshire side,” said Dinah; “I shouldn’t like to set
my face towards the countries where they’re rich in corn and cattle,
and the ground so level and easy to tread; and to turn my back on the
hills where the poor people have to live such a hard life and the men
spend their days in the mines away from the sunlight. It’s very blessed
on a bleak cold day, when the sky is hanging dark over the hill, to
feel the love of God in one’s soul, and carry it to the lonely, bare,
stone houses, where there’s nothing else to give comfort.”

“Eh!” said Lisbeth, “that’s very well for ye to talk, as looks welly
like the snowdrop-flowers as ha’ lived for days an’ days when I’n
gethered ’em, wi’ nothin’ but a drop o’ water an’ a peep o’ daylight;
but th’ hungry foulks had better leave th’ hungry country. It makes
less mouths for the scant cake. But,” she went on, looking at Adam,
“donna thee talk o’ goin’ south’ard or north’ard, an’ leavin’ thy
feyther and mother i’ the churchyard, an’ goin’ to a country as they
know nothin’ on. I’ll ne’er rest i’ my grave if I donna see thee i’ the
churchyard of a Sunday.”

“Donna fear, mother,” said Adam. “If I hadna made up my mind not to go,
I should ha’ been gone before now.”

He had finished his breakfast now, and rose as he was speaking.

“What art goin’ to do?” asked Lisbeth. “Set about thy feyther’s
coffin?”

“No, mother,” said Adam; “we’re going to take the wood to the village
and have it made there.”

“Nay, my lad, nay,” Lisbeth burst out in an eager, wailing tone; “thee
wotna let nobody make thy feyther’s coffin but thysen? Who’d make it so
well? An’ him as know’d what good work war, an’s got a son as is the
head o’ the village an’ all Treddles’on too, for cleverness.”

“Very well, mother, if that’s thy wish, I’ll make the coffin at home;
but I thought thee wouldstna like to hear the work going on.”

“An’ why shouldna I like ’t? It’s the right thing to be done. An’
what’s liking got to do wi’t? It’s choice o’ mislikings is all I’n got
i’ this world. One morsel’s as good as another when your mouth’s out o’
taste. Thee mun set about it now this mornin’ fust thing. I wonna ha’
nobody to touch the coffin but thee.”

Adam’s eyes met Seth’s, which looked from Dinah to him rather
wistfully.

“No, Mother,” he said, “I’ll not consent but Seth shall have a hand in
it too, if it’s to be done at home. I’ll go to the village this
forenoon, because Mr. Burge ’ull want to see me, and Seth shall stay at
home and begin the coffin. I can come back at noon, and then he can
go.”

“Nay, nay,” persisted Lisbeth, beginning to cry, “I’n set my heart on’t
as thee shalt ma’ thy feyther’s coffin. Thee’t so stiff an’ masterful,
thee’t ne’er do as thy mother wants thee. Thee wast often angered wi’
thy feyther when he war alive; thee must be the better to him now he’s
gone. He’d ha’ thought nothin’ on’t for Seth to ma’s coffin.”

“Say no more, Adam, say no more,” said Seth, gently, though his voice
told that he spoke with some effort; “Mother’s in the right. I’ll go to
work, and do thee stay at home.”

He passed into the workshop immediately, followed by Adam; while
Lisbeth, automatically obeying her old habits, began to put away the
breakfast things, as if she did not mean Dinah to take her place any
longer. Dinah said nothing, but presently used the opportunity of
quietly joining the brothers in the workshop.

They had already got on their aprons and paper caps, and Adam was
standing with his left hand on Seth’s shoulder, while he pointed with
the hammer in his right to some boards which they were looking at.
Their backs were turned towards the door by which Dinah entered, and
she came in so gently that they were not aware of her presence till
they heard her voice saying, “Seth Bede!” Seth started, and they both
turned round. Dinah looked as if she did not see Adam, and fixed her
eyes on Seth’s face, saying with calm kindness, “I won’t say farewell.
I shall see you again when you come from work. So as I’m at the farm
before dark, it will be quite soon enough.”

“Thank you, Dinah; I should like to walk home with you once more. It’ll
perhaps be the last time.”

There was a little tremor in Seth’s voice. Dinah put out her hand and
said, “You’ll have sweet peace in your mind to-day, Seth, for your
tenderness and long-suffering towards your aged mother.”

She turned round and left the workshop as quickly and quietly as she
had entered it. Adam had been observing her closely all the while, but
she had not looked at him. As soon as she was gone, he said, “I don’t
wonder at thee for loving her, Seth. She’s got a face like a lily.”

Seth’s soul rushed to his eyes and lips: he had never yet confessed his
secret to Adam, but now he felt a delicious sense of disburdenment, as
he answered, “Aye, Addy, I do love her—too much, I doubt. But she
doesna love me, lad, only as one child o’ God loves another. She’ll
never love any man as a husband—that’s my belief.”

“Nay, lad, there’s no telling; thee mustna lose heart. She’s made out
o’ stuff with a finer grain than most o’ the women; I can see that
clear enough. But if she’s better than they are in other things, I
canna think she’ll fall short of ’em in loving.”

No more was said. Seth set out to the village, and Adam began his work
on the coffin.

“God help the lad, and me too,” he thought, as he lifted the board.
“We’re like enough to find life a tough job—hard work inside and out.
It’s a strange thing to think of a man as can lift a chair with his
teeth and walk fifty mile on end, trembling and turning hot and cold at
only a look from one woman out of all the rest i’ the world. It’s a
mystery we can give no account of; but no more we can of the sprouting
o’ the seed, for that matter.”




Chapter XII
In the Wood


That same Thursday morning, as Arthur Donnithorne was moving about in
his dressing-room seeing his well-looking British person reflected in
the old-fashioned mirrors, and stared at, from a dingy olive-green
piece of tapestry, by Pharaoh’s daughter and her maidens, who ought to
have been minding the infant Moses, he was holding a discussion with
himself, which, by the time his valet was tying the black silk sling
over his shoulder, had issued in a distinct practical resolution.

“I mean to go to Eagledale and fish for a week or so,” he said aloud.
“I shall take you with me, Pym, and set off this morning; so be ready
by half-past eleven.”

The low whistle, which had assisted him in arriving at this resolution,
here broke out into his loudest ringing tenor, and the corridor, as he
hurried along it, echoed to his favourite song from the Beggar’s Opera,
“When the heart of a man is oppressed with care.” Not an heroic strain;
nevertheless Arthur felt himself very heroic as he strode towards the
stables to give his orders about the horses. His own approbation was
necessary to him, and it was not an approbation to be enjoyed quite
gratuitously; it must be won by a fair amount of merit. He had never
yet forfeited that approbation, and he had considerable reliance on his
own virtues. No young man could confess his faults more candidly;
candour was one of his favourite virtues; and how can a man’s candour
be seen in all its lustre unless he has a few failings to talk of? But
he had an agreeable confidence that his faults were all of a generous
kind—impetuous, warm-blooded, leonine; never crawling, crafty,
reptilian. It was not possible for Arthur Donnithorne to do anything
mean, dastardly, or cruel. “No! I’m a devil of a fellow for getting
myself into a hobble, but I always take care the load shall fall on my
own shoulders.” Unhappily, there is no inherent poetical justice in
hobbles, and they will sometimes obstinately refuse to inflict their
worst consequences on the prime offender, in spite of his loudly
expressed wish. It was entirely owing to this deficiency in the scheme
of things that Arthur had ever brought any one into trouble besides
himself. He was nothing if not good-natured; and all his pictures of
the future, when he should come into the estate, were made up of a
prosperous, contented tenantry, adoring their landlord, who would be
the model of an English gentleman—mansion in first-rate order, all
elegance and high taste—jolly housekeeping, finest stud in
Loamshire—purse open to all public objects—in short, everything as
different as possible from what was now associated with the name of
Donnithorne. And one of the first good actions he would perform in that
future should be to increase Irwine’s income for the vicarage of
Hayslope, so that he might keep a carriage for his mother and sisters.
His hearty affection for the rector dated from the age of frocks and
trousers. It was an affection partly filial, partly fraternal—fraternal
enough to make him like Irwine’s company better than that of most
younger men, and filial enough to make him shrink strongly from
incurring Irwine’s disapprobation.

You perceive that Arthur Donnithorne was “a good fellow”—all his
college friends thought him such. He couldn’t bear to see any one
uncomfortable; he would have been sorry even in his angriest moods for
any harm to happen to his grandfather; and his Aunt Lydia herself had
the benefit of that soft-heartedness which he bore towards the whole
sex. Whether he would have self-mastery enough to be always as harmless
and purely beneficent as his good-nature led him to desire, was a
question that no one had yet decided against him; he was but
twenty-one, you remember, and we don’t inquire too closely into
character in the case of a handsome generous young fellow, who will
have property enough to support numerous peccadilloes—who, if he should
unfortunately break a man’s legs in his rash driving, will be able to
pension him handsomely; or if he should happen to spoil a woman’s
existence for her, will make it up to her with expensive _bon-bons_,
packed up and directed by his own hand. It would be ridiculous to be
prying and analytic in such cases, as if one were inquiring into the
character of a confidential clerk. We use round, general, gentlemanly
epithets about a young man of birth and fortune; and ladies, with that
fine intuition which is the distinguishing attribute of their sex, see
at once that he is “nice.” The chances are that he will go through life
without scandalizing any one; a seaworthy vessel that no one would
refuse to insure. Ships, certainly, are liable to casualties, which
sometimes make terribly evident some flaw in their construction that
would never have been discoverable in smooth water; and many a “good
fellow,” through a disastrous combination of circumstances, has
undergone a like betrayal.

But we have no fair ground for entertaining unfavourable auguries
concerning Arthur Donnithorne, who this morning proves himself capable
of a prudent resolution founded on conscience. One thing is clear:
Nature has taken care that he shall never go far astray with perfect
comfort and satisfaction to himself; he will never get beyond that
border-land of sin, where he will be perpetually harassed by assaults
from the other side of the boundary. He will never be a courtier of
Vice, and wear her orders in his button-hole.

It was about ten o’clock, and the sun was shining brilliantly;
everything was looking lovelier for the yesterday’s rain. It is a
pleasant thing on such a morning to walk along the well-rolled gravel
on one’s way to the stables, meditating an excursion. But the scent of
the stables, which, in a natural state of things, ought to be among the
soothing influences of a man’s life, always brought with it some
irritation to Arthur. There was no having his own way in the stables;
everything was managed in the stingiest fashion. His grandfather
persisted in retaining as head groom an old dolt whom no sort of lever
could move out of his old habits, and who was allowed to hire a
succession of raw Loamshire lads as his subordinates, one of whom had
lately tested a new pair of shears by clipping an oblong patch on
Arthur’s bay mare. This state of things is naturally embittering; one
can put up with annoyances in the house, but to have the stable made a
scene of vexation and disgust is a point beyond what human flesh and
blood can be expected to endure long together without danger of
misanthropy.

Old John’s wooden, deep-wrinkled face was the first object that met
Arthur’s eyes as he entered the stable-yard, and it quite poisoned for
him the bark of the two bloodhounds that kept watch there. He could
never speak quite patiently to the old blockhead.

“You must have Meg saddled for me and brought to the door at half-past
eleven, and I shall want Rattler saddled for Pym at the same time. Do
you hear?”

“Yes, I hear, I hear, Cap’n,” said old John very deliberately,
following the young master into the stable. John considered a young
master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in
general as a poor contrivance for carrying on the world.

Arthur went in for the sake of patting Meg, declining as far as
possible to see anything in the stables, lest he should lose his temper
before breakfast. The pretty creature was in one of the inner stables,
and turned her mild head as her master came beside her. Little Trot, a
tiny spaniel, her inseparable companion in the stable, was comfortably
curled up on her back.

“Well, Meg, my pretty girl,” said Arthur, patting her neck, “we’ll have
a glorious canter this morning.”

“Nay, your honour, I donna see as that can be,” said John.

“Not be? Why not?”

“Why, she’s got lamed.”

“Lamed, confound you! What do you mean?”

“Why, th’ lad took her too close to Dalton’s hosses, an’ one on ’em
flung out at her, an’ she’s got her shank bruised o’ the near foreleg.”

The judicious historian abstains from narrating precisely what ensued.
You understand that there was a great deal of strong language, mingled
with soothing “who-ho’s” while the leg was examined; that John stood by
with quite as much emotion as if he had been a cunningly carved
crab-tree walking-stick, and that Arthur Donnithorne presently repassed
the iron gates of the pleasure-ground without singing as he went.

He considered himself thoroughly disappointed and annoyed. There was
not another mount in the stable for himself and his servant besides Meg
and Rattler. It was vexatious; just when he wanted to get out of the
way for a week or two. It seemed culpable in Providence to allow such a
combination of circumstances. To be shut up at the Chase with a broken
arm when every other fellow in his regiment was enjoying himself at
Windsor—shut up with his grandfather, who had the same sort of
affection for him as for his parchment deeds! And to be disgusted at
every turn with the management of the house and the estate! In such
circumstances a man necessarily gets in an ill humour, and works off
the irritation by some excess or other. “Salkeld would have drunk a
bottle of port every day,” he muttered to himself, “but I’m not well
seasoned enough for that. Well, since I can’t go to Eagledale, I’ll
have a gallop on Rattler to Norburne this morning, and lunch with
Gawaine.”

Behind this explicit resolution there lay an implicit one. If he
lunched with Gawaine and lingered chatting, he should not reach the
Chase again till nearly five, when Hetty would be safe out of his sight
in the housekeeper’s room; and when she set out to go home, it would be
his lazy time after dinner, so he should keep out of her way
altogether. There really would have been no harm in being kind to the
little thing, and it was worth dancing with a dozen ballroom belles
only to look at Hetty for half an hour. But perhaps he had better not
take any more notice of her; it might put notions into her head, as
Irwine had hinted; though Arthur, for his part, thought girls were not
by any means so soft and easily bruised; indeed, he had generally found
them twice as cool and cunning as he was himself. As for any real harm
in Hetty’s case, it was out of the question: Arthur Donnithorne
accepted his own bond for himself with perfect confidence.

So the twelve o’clock sun saw him galloping towards Norburne; and by
good fortune Halsell Common lay in his road and gave him some fine
leaps for Rattler. Nothing like “taking” a few bushes and ditches for
exorcising a demon; and it is really astonishing that the Centaurs,
with their immense advantages in this way, have left so bad a
reputation in history.

After this, you will perhaps be surprised to hear that although Gawaine
was at home, the hand of the dial in the courtyard had scarcely cleared
the last stroke of three when Arthur returned through the
entrance-gates, got down from the panting Rattler, and went into the
house to take a hasty luncheon. But I believe there have been men since
his day who have ridden a long way to avoid a rencontre, and then
galloped hastily back lest they should miss it. It is the favourite
stratagem of our passions to sham a retreat, and to turn sharp round
upon us at the moment we have made up our minds that the day is our
own.

“The cap’n’s been ridin’ the devil’s own pace,” said Dalton the
coachman, whose person stood out in high relief as he smoked his pipe
against the stable wall, when John brought up Rattler.

“An’ I wish he’d get the devil to do’s grooming for’n,” growled John.

“Aye; he’d hev a deal haimabler groom nor what he has now,” observed
Dalton—and the joke appeared to him so good that, being left alone upon
the scene, he continued at intervals to take his pipe from his mouth in
order to wink at an imaginary audience and shake luxuriously with a
silent, ventral laughter, mentally rehearsing the dialogue from the
beginning, that he might recite it with effect in the servants’ hall.

When Arthur went up to his dressing-room again after luncheon, it was
inevitable that the debate he had had with himself there earlier in the
day should flash across his mind; but it was impossible for him now to
dwell on the remembrance—impossible to recall the feelings and
reflections which had been decisive with him then, any more than to
recall the peculiar scent of the air that had freshened him when he
first opened his window. The desire to see Hetty had rushed back like
an ill-stemmed current; he was amazed himself at the force with which
this trivial fancy seemed to grasp him: he was even rather tremulous as
he brushed his hair—pooh! it was riding in that break-neck way. It was
because he had made a serious affair of an idle matter, by thinking of
it as if it were of any consequence. He would amuse himself by seeing
Hetty to-day, and get rid of the whole thing from his mind. It was all
Irwine’s fault. “If Irwine had said nothing, I shouldn’t have thought
half so much of Hetty as of Meg’s lameness.” However, it was just the
sort of day for lolling in the Hermitage, and he would go and finish
Dr. Moore’s _Zeluco_ there before dinner. The Hermitage stood in
Fir-tree Grove—the way Hetty was sure to come in walking from the Hall
Farm. So nothing could be simpler and more natural: meeting Hetty was a
mere circumstance of his walk, not its object.

Arthur’s shadow flitted rather faster among the sturdy oaks of the
Chase than might have been expected from the shadow of a tired man on a
warm afternoon, and it was still scarcely four o’clock when he stood
before the tall narrow gate leading into the delicious labyrinthine
wood which skirted one side of the Chase, and which was called Fir-tree
Grove, not because the firs were many, but because they were few. It
was a wood of beeches and limes, with here and there a light
silver-stemmed birch—just the sort of wood most haunted by the nymphs:
you see their white sunlit limbs gleaming athwart the boughs, or
peeping from behind the smooth-sweeping outline of a tall lime; you
hear their soft liquid laughter—but if you look with a too curious
sacrilegious eye, they vanish behind the silvery beeches, they make you
believe that their voice was only a running brooklet, perhaps they
metamorphose themselves into a tawny squirrel that scampers away and
mocks you from the topmost bough. It was not a grove with measured
grass or rolled gravel for you to tread upon, but with narrow,
hollow-shaped, earthy paths, edged with faint dashes of delicate
moss—paths which look as if they were made by the free will of the
trees and underwood, moving reverently aside to look at the tall queen
of the white-footed nymphs.

It was along the broadest of these paths that Arthur Donnithorne
passed, under an avenue of limes and beeches. It was a still
afternoon—the golden light was lingering languidly among the upper
boughs, only glancing down here and there on the purple pathway and its
edge of faintly sprinkled moss: an afternoon in which destiny disguises
her cold awful face behind a hazy radiant veil, encloses us in warm
downy wings, and poisons us with violet-scented breath. Arthur strolled
along carelessly, with a book under his arm, but not looking on the
ground as meditative men are apt to do; his eyes _would_ fix themselves
on the distant bend in the road round which a little figure must surely
appear before long. Ah! There she comes. First a bright patch of
colour, like a tropic bird among the boughs; then a tripping figure,
with a round hat on, and a small basket under her arm; then a
deep-blushing, almost frightened, but bright-smiling girl, making her
curtsy with a fluttered yet happy glance, as Arthur came up to her. If
Arthur had had time to think at all, he would have thought it strange
that he should feel fluttered too, be conscious of blushing too—in
fact, look and feel as foolish as if he had been taken by surprise
instead of meeting just what he expected. Poor things! It was a pity
they were not in that golden age of childhood when they would have
stood face to face, eyeing each other with timid liking, then given
each other a little butterfly kiss, and toddled off to play together.
Arthur would have gone home to his silk-curtained cot, and Hetty to her
home-spun pillow, and both would have slept without dreams, and
to-morrow would have been a life hardly conscious of a yesterday.

Arthur turned round and walked by Hetty’s side without giving a reason.
They were alone together for the first time. What an overpowering
presence that first privacy is! He actually dared not look at this
little butter-maker for the first minute or two. As for Hetty, her feet
rested on a cloud, and she was borne along by warm zephyrs; she had
forgotten her rose-coloured ribbons; she was no more conscious of her
limbs than if her childish soul had passed into a water-lily, resting
on a liquid bed and warmed by the midsummer sun-beams. It may seem a
contradiction, but Arthur gathered a certain carelessness and
confidence from his timidity: it was an entirely different state of
mind from what he had expected in such a meeting with Hetty; and full
as he was of vague feeling, there was room, in those moments of
silence, for the thought that his previous debates and scruples were
needless.

“You are quite right to choose this way of coming to the Chase,” he
said at last, looking down at Hetty; “it is so much prettier as well as
shorter than coming by either of the lodges.”

“Yes, sir,” Hetty answered, with a tremulous, almost whispering voice.
She didn’t know one bit how to speak to a gentleman like Mr. Arthur,
and her very vanity made her more coy of speech.

“Do you come every week to see Mrs. Pomfret?”

“Yes, sir, every Thursday, only when she’s got to go out with Miss
Donnithorne.”

“And she’s teaching you something, is she?”

“Yes, sir, the lace-mending as she learnt abroad, and the
stocking-mending—it looks just like the stocking, you can’t tell it’s
been mended; and she teaches me cutting-out too.”

“What! are _you_ going to be a lady’s maid?”

“I should like to be one very much indeed.” Hetty spoke more audibly
now, but still rather tremulously; she thought, perhaps she seemed as
stupid to Captain Donnithorne as Luke Britton did to her.

“I suppose Mrs. Pomfret always expects you at this time?”

“She expects me at four o’clock. I’m rather late to-day, because my
aunt couldn’t spare me; but the regular time is four, because that
gives us time before Miss Donnithorne’s bell rings.”

“Ah, then, I must not keep you now, else I should like to show you the
Hermitage. Did you ever see it?”

“No, sir.”

“This is the walk where we turn up to it. But we must not go now. I’ll
show it you some other time, if you’d like to see it.”

“Yes, please, sir.”

“Do you always come back this way in the evening, or are you afraid to
come so lonely a road?”

“Oh no, sir, it’s never late; I always set out by eight o’clock, and
it’s so light now in the evening. My aunt would be angry with me if I
didn’t get home before nine.”

“Perhaps Craig, the gardener, comes to take care of you?”

A deep blush overspread Hetty’s face and neck. “I’m sure he doesn’t;
I’m sure he never did; I wouldn’t let him; I don’t like him,” she said
hastily, and the tears of vexation had come so fast that before she had
done speaking a bright drop rolled down her hot cheek. Then she felt
ashamed to death that she was crying, and for one long instant her
happiness was all gone. But in the next she felt an arm steal round
her, and a gentle voice said, “Why, Hetty, what makes you cry? I didn’t
mean to vex you. I wouldn’t vex you for the world, you little blossom.
Come, don’t cry; look at me, else I shall think you won’t forgive me.”

Arthur had laid his hand on the soft arm that was nearest to him, and
was stooping towards Hetty with a look of coaxing entreaty. Hetty
lifted her long dewy lashes, and met the eyes that were bent towards
her with a sweet, timid, beseeching look. What a space of time those
three moments were while their eyes met and his arms touched her! Love
is such a simple thing when we have only one-and-twenty summers and a
sweet girl of seventeen trembles under our glance, as if she were a bud
first opening her heart with wondering rapture to the morning. Such
young unfurrowed souls roll to meet each other like two velvet peaches
that touch softly and are at rest; they mingle as easily as two
brooklets that ask for nothing but to entwine themselves and ripple
with ever-interlacing curves in the leafiest hiding-places. While
Arthur gazed into Hetty’s dark beseeching eyes, it made no difference
to him what sort of English she spoke; and even if hoops and powder had
been in fashion, he would very likely not have been sensible just then
that Hetty wanted those signs of high breeding.

But they started asunder with beating hearts: something had fallen on
the ground with a rattling noise; it was Hetty’s basket; all her little
workwoman’s matters were scattered on the path, some of them showing a
capability of rolling to great lengths. There was much to be done in
picking up, and not a word was spoken; but when Arthur hung the basket
over her arm again, the poor child felt a strange difference in his
look and manner. He just pressed her hand, and said, with a look and
tone that were almost chilling to her, “I have been hindering you; I
must not keep you any longer now. You will be expected at the house.
Good-bye.”

Without waiting for her to speak, he turned away from her and hurried
back towards the road that led to the Hermitage, leaving Hetty to
pursue her way in a strange dream that seemed to have begun in
bewildering delight and was now passing into contrarieties and sadness.
Would he meet her again as she came home? Why had he spoken almost as
if he were displeased with her? And then run away so suddenly? She
cried, hardly knowing why.

Arthur too was very uneasy, but his feelings were lit up for him by a
more distinct consciousness. He hurried to the Hermitage, which stood
in the heart of the wood, unlocked the door with a hasty wrench,
slammed it after him, pitched _Zeluco_ into the most distant corner,
and thrusting his right hand into his pocket, first walked four or five
times up and down the scanty length of the little room, and then seated
himself on the ottoman in an uncomfortable stiff way, as we often do
when we wish not to abandon ourselves to feeling.

He was getting in love with Hetty—that was quite plain. He was ready to
pitch everything else—no matter where—for the sake of surrendering
himself to this delicious feeling which had just disclosed itself. It
was no use blinking the fact now—they would get too fond of each other,
if he went on taking notice of her—and what would come of it? He should
have to go away in a few weeks, and the poor little thing would be
miserable. He _must not_ see her alone again; he must keep out of her
way. What a fool he was for coming back from Gawaine’s!

He got up and threw open the windows, to let in the soft breath of the
afternoon, and the healthy scent of the firs that made a belt round the
Hermitage. The soft air did not help his resolution, as he leaned out
and looked into the leafy distance. But he considered his resolution
sufficiently fixed: there was no need to debate with himself any
longer. He had made up his mind not to meet Hetty again; and now he
might give himself up to thinking how immensely agreeable it would be
if circumstances were different—how pleasant it would have been to meet
her this evening as she came back, and put his arm round her again and
look into her sweet face. He wondered if the dear little thing were
thinking of him too—twenty to one she was. How beautiful her eyes were
with the tear on their lashes! He would like to satisfy his soul for a
day with looking at them, and he _must_ see her again—he must see her,
simply to remove any false impression from her mind about his manner to
her just now. He would behave in a quiet, kind way to her—just to
prevent her from going home with her head full of wrong fancies. Yes,
that would be the best thing to do after all.

It was a long while—more than an hour before Arthur had brought his
meditations to this point; but once arrived there, he could stay no
longer at the Hermitage. The time must be filled up with movement until
he should see Hetty again. And it was already late enough to go and
dress for dinner, for his grandfather’s dinner-hour was six.




Chapter XIII
Evening in the Wood


It happened that Mrs. Pomfret had had a slight quarrel with Mrs. Best,
the housekeeper, on this Thursday morning—a fact which had two
consequences highly convenient to Hetty. It caused Mrs. Pomfret to have
tea sent up to her own room, and it inspired that exemplary lady’s maid
with so lively a recollection of former passages in Mrs. Best’s
conduct, and of dialogues in which Mrs. Best had decidedly the
inferiority as an interlocutor with Mrs. Pomfret, that Hetty required
no more presence of mind than was demanded for using her needle, and
throwing in an occasional “yes” or “no.” She would have wanted to put
on her hat earlier than usual; only she had told Captain Donnithorne
that she usually set out about eight o’clock, and if he _should_ go to
the Grove again expecting to see her, and she should be gone! Would he
come? Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory
and dubious expectation. At last the minute-hand of the old-fashioned
brazen-faced timepiece was on the last quarter to eight, and there was
every reason for its being time to get ready for departure. Even Mrs.
Pomfret’s preoccupied mind did not prevent her from noticing what
looked like a new flush of beauty in the little thing as she tied on
her hat before the looking-glass.

“That child gets prettier and prettier every day, I do believe,” was
her inward comment. “The more’s the pity. She’ll get neither a place
nor a husband any the sooner for it. Sober well-to-do men don’t like
such pretty wives. When I was a girl, I was more admired than if I had
been so very pretty. However, she’s reason to be grateful to me for
teaching her something to get her bread with, better than farm-house
work. They always told me I was good-natured—and that’s the truth, and
to my hurt too, else there’s them in this house that wouldn’t be here
now to lord it over me in the housekeeper’s room.”

Hetty walked hastily across the short space of pleasure-ground which
she had to traverse, dreading to meet Mr. Craig, to whom she could
hardly have spoken civilly. How relieved she was when she had got
safely under the oaks and among the fern of the Chase! Even then she
was as ready to be startled as the deer that leaped away at her
approach. She thought nothing of the evening light that lay gently in
the grassy alleys between the fern, and made the beauty of their living
green more visible than it had been in the overpowering flood of noon:
she thought of nothing that was present. She only saw something that
was possible: Mr. Arthur Donnithorne coming to meet her again along the
Fir-tree Grove. That was the foreground of Hetty’s picture; behind it
lay a bright hazy something—days that were not to be as the other days
of her life had been. It was as if she had been wooed by a river-god,
who might any time take her to his wondrous halls below a watery
heaven. There was no knowing what would come, since this strange
entrancing delight had come. If a chest full of lace and satin and
jewels had been sent her from some unknown source, how could she but
have thought that her whole lot was going to change, and that to-morrow
some still more bewildering joy would befall her? Hetty had never read
a novel; if she had ever seen one, I think the words would have been
too hard for her; how then could she find a shape for her expectations?
They were as formless as the sweet languid odours of the garden at the
Chase, which had floated past her as she walked by the gate.

She is at another gate now—that leading into Fir-tree Grove. She enters
the wood, where it is already twilight, and at every step she takes,
the fear at her heart becomes colder. If he should not come! Oh, how
dreary it was—the thought of going out at the other end of the wood,
into the unsheltered road, without having seen him. She reaches the
first turning towards the Hermitage, walking slowly—he is not there.
She hates the leveret that runs across the path; she hates everything
that is not what she longs for. She walks on, happy whenever she is
coming to a bend in the road, for perhaps he is behind it. No. She is
beginning to cry: her heart has swelled so, the tears stand in her
eyes; she gives one great sob, while the corners of her mouth quiver,
and the tears roll down.

She doesn’t know that there is another turning to the Hermitage, that
she is close against it, and that Arthur Donnithorne is only a few
yards from her, full of one thought, and a thought of which she only is
the object. He is going to see Hetty again: that is the longing which
has been growing through the last three hours to a feverish thirst.
Not, of course, to speak in the caressing way into which he had
unguardedly fallen before dinner, but to set things right with her by a
kindness which would have the air of friendly civility, and prevent her
from running away with wrong notions about their mutual relation.

If Hetty had known he was there, she would not have cried; and it would
have been better, for then Arthur would perhaps have behaved as wisely
as he had intended. As it was, she started when he appeared at the end
of the side-alley, and looked up at him with two great drops rolling
down her cheeks. What else could he do but speak to her in a soft,
soothing tone, as if she were a bright-eyed spaniel with a thorn in her
foot?

“Has something frightened you, Hetty? Have you seen anything in the
wood? Don’t be frightened—I’ll take care of you now.”

Hetty was blushing so, she didn’t know whether she was happy or
miserable. To be crying again—what did gentlemen think of girls who
cried in that way? She felt unable even to say “no,” but could only
look away from him and wipe the tears from her cheek. Not before a
great drop had fallen on her rose-coloured strings—she knew that quite
well.

“Come, be cheerful again. Smile at me, and tell me what’s the matter.
Come, tell me.”

Hetty turned her head towards him, whispered, “I thought you wouldn’t
come,” and slowly got courage to lift her eyes to him. That look was
too much: he must have had eyes of Egyptian granite not to look too
lovingly in return.

“You little frightened bird! Little tearful rose! Silly pet! You won’t
cry again, now I’m with you, will you?”

Ah, he doesn’t know in the least what he is saying. This is not what he
meant to say. His arm is stealing round the waist again; it is
tightening its clasp; he is bending his face nearer and nearer to the
round cheek; his lips are meeting those pouting child-lips, and for a
long moment time has vanished. He may be a shepherd in Arcadia for
aught he knows, he may be the first youth kissing the first maiden, he
may be Eros himself, sipping the lips of Psyche—it is all one.

There was no speaking for minutes after. They walked along with beating
hearts till they came within sight of the gate at the end of the wood.
Then they looked at each other, not quite as they had looked before,
for in their eyes there was the memory of a kiss.

But already something bitter had begun to mingle itself with the
fountain of sweets: already Arthur was uncomfortable. He took his arm
from Hetty’s waist, and said, “Here we are, almost at the end of the
Grove. I wonder how late it is,” he added, pulling out his watch.
“Twenty minutes past eight—but my watch is too fast. However, I’d
better not go any further now. Trot along quickly with your little
feet, and get home safely. Good-bye.”

He took her hand, and looked at her half-sadly, half with a constrained
smile. Hetty’s eyes seemed to beseech him not to go away yet; but he
patted her cheek and said “Good-bye” again. She was obliged to turn
away from him and go on.

As for Arthur, he rushed back through the wood, as if he wanted to put
a wide space between himself and Hetty. He would not go to the
Hermitage again; he remembered how he had debated with himself there
before dinner, and it had all come to nothing—worse than nothing. He
walked right on into the Chase, glad to get out of the Grove, which
surely was haunted by his evil genius. Those beeches and smooth
limes—there was something enervating in the very sight of them; but the
strong knotted old oaks had no bending languor in them—the sight of
them would give a man some energy. Arthur lost himself among the narrow
openings in the fern, winding about without seeking any issue, till the
twilight deepened almost to night under the great boughs, and the hare
looked black as it darted across his path.

He was feeling much more strongly than he had done in the morning: it
was as if his horse had wheeled round from a leap and dared to dispute
his mastery. He was dissatisfied with himself, irritated, mortified. He
no sooner fixed his mind on the probable consequences of giving way to
the emotions which had stolen over him to-day—of continuing to notice
Hetty, of allowing himself any opportunity for such slight caresses as
he had been betrayed into already—than he refused to believe such a
future possible for himself. To flirt with Hetty was a very different
affair from flirting with a pretty girl of his own station: that was
understood to be an amusement on both sides, or, if it became serious,
there was no obstacle to marriage. But this little thing would be
spoken ill of directly, if she happened to be seen walking with him;
and then those excellent people, the Poysers, to whom a good name was
as precious as if they had the best blood in the land in their veins—he
should hate himself if he made a scandal of that sort, on the estate
that was to be his own some day, and among tenants by whom he liked,
above all, to be respected. He could no more believe that he should so
fall in his own esteem than that he should break both his legs and go
on crutches all the rest of his life. He couldn’t imagine himself in
that position; it was too odious, too unlike him.

And even if no one knew anything about it, they might get too fond of
each other, and then there could be nothing but the misery of parting,
after all. No gentleman, out of a ballad, could marry a farmer’s niece.
There must be an end to the whole thing at once. It was too foolish.

And yet he had been so determined this morning, before he went to
Gawaine’s; and while he was there something had taken hold of him and
made him gallop back. It seemed he couldn’t quite depend on his own
resolution, as he had thought he could; he almost wished his arm would
get painful again, and then he should think of nothing but the comfort
it would be to get rid of the pain. There was no knowing what impulse
might seize him to-morrow, in this confounded place, where there was
nothing to occupy him imperiously through the livelong day. What could
he do to secure himself from any more of this folly?

There was but one resource. He would go and tell Irwine—tell him
everything. The mere act of telling it would make it seem trivial; the
temptation would vanish, as the charm of fond words vanishes when one
repeats them to the indifferent. In every way it would help him to tell
Irwine. He would ride to Broxton Rectory the first thing after
breakfast to-morrow.

Arthur had no sooner come to this determination than he began to think
which of the paths would lead him home, and made as short a walk
thither as he could. He felt sure he should sleep now: he had had
enough to tire him, and there was no more need for him to think.




Chapter XIV
The Return Home


While that parting in the wood was happening, there was a parting in
the cottage too, and Lisbeth had stood with Adam at the door, straining
her aged eyes to get the last glimpse of Seth and Dinah, as they
mounted the opposite slope.

“Eh, I’m loath to see the last on her,” she said to Adam, as they
turned into the house again. “I’d ha’ been willin’ t’ ha’ her about me
till I died and went to lie by my old man. She’d make it easier
dyin’—she spakes so gentle an’ moves about so still. I could be fast
sure that pictur’ was drawed for her i’ thy new Bible—th’ angel
a-sittin’ on the big stone by the grave. Eh, I wouldna mind ha’in a
daughter like that; but nobody ne’er marries them as is good for
aught.”

“Well, Mother, I hope thee wilt have her for a daughter; for Seth’s got
a liking for her, and I hope she’ll get a liking for Seth in time.”

“Where’s th’ use o’ talkin’ a-that’n? She caresna for Seth. She’s goin’
away twenty mile aff. How’s she to get a likin’ for him, I’d like to
know? No more nor the cake ’ull come wi’out the leaven. Thy figurin’
books might ha’ tould thee better nor that, I should think, else thee
mightst as well read the commin print, as Seth allays does.”

“Nay, Mother,” said Adam, laughing, “the figures tell us a fine deal,
and we couldn’t go far without ’em, but they don’t tell us about
folks’s feelings. It’s a nicer job to calculate _them_. But Seth’s as
good-hearted a lad as ever handled a tool, and plenty o’ sense, and
good-looking too; and he’s got the same way o’ thinking as Dinah. He
deserves to win her, though there’s no denying she’s a rare bit o’
workmanship. You don’t see such women turned off the wheel every day.”

“Eh, thee’t allays stick up for thy brother. Thee’st been just the
same, e’er sin’ ye war little uns together. Thee wart allays for
halving iverything wi’ him. But what’s Seth got to do with marryin’, as
is on’y three-an’-twenty? He’d more need to learn an’ lay by sixpence.
An’ as for his desarving her—she’s two ’ear older nor Seth: she’s
pretty near as old as thee. But that’s the way; folks mun allays choose
by contrairies, as if they must be sorted like the pork—a bit o’ good
meat wi’ a bit o’ offal.”

To the feminine mind in some of its moods, all things that might be
receive a temporary charm from comparison with what is; and since Adam
did not want to marry Dinah himself, Lisbeth felt rather peevish on
that score—as peevish as she would have been if he _had_ wanted to
marry her, and so shut himself out from Mary Burge and the partnership
as effectually as by marrying Hetty.

It was more than half-past eight when Adam and his mother were talking
in this way, so that when, about ten minutes later, Hetty reached the
turning of the lane that led to the farmyard gate, she saw Dinah and
Seth approaching it from the opposite direction, and waited for them to
come up to her. They, too, like Hetty, had lingered a little in their
walk, for Dinah was trying to speak words of comfort and strength to
Seth in these parting moments. But when they saw Hetty, they paused and
shook hands; Seth turned homewards, and Dinah came on alone.

“Seth Bede would have come and spoken to you, my dear,” she said, as
she reached Hetty, “but he’s very full of trouble to-night.”

Hetty answered with a dimpled smile, as if she did not quite know what
had been said; and it made a strange contrast to see that sparkling
self-engrossed loveliness looked at by Dinah’s calm pitying face, with
its open glance which told that her heart lived in no cherished secrets
of its own, but in feelings which it longed to share with all the
world. Hetty liked Dinah as well as she had ever liked any woman; how
was it possible to feel otherwise towards one who always put in a kind
word for her when her aunt was finding fault, and who was always ready
to take Totty off her hands—little tiresome Totty, that was made such a
pet of by every one, and that Hetty could see no interest in at all?
Dinah had never said anything disapproving or reproachful to Hetty
during her whole visit to the Hall Farm; she had talked to her a great
deal in a serious way, but Hetty didn’t mind that much, for she never
listened: whatever Dinah might say, she almost always stroked Hetty’s
cheek after it, and wanted to do some mending for her. Dinah was a
riddle to her; Hetty looked at her much in the same way as one might
imagine a little perching bird that could only flutter from bough to
bough, to look at the swoop of the swallow or the mounting of the lark;
but she did not care to solve such riddles, any more than she cared to
know what was meant by the pictures in the Pilgrim’s Progress, or in
the old folio Bible that Marty and Tommy always plagued her about on a
Sunday.

Dinah took her hand now and drew it under her own arm.

“You look very happy to-night, dear child,” she said. “I shall think of
you often when I’m at Snowfield, and see your face before me as it is
now. It’s a strange thing—sometimes when I’m quite alone, sitting in my
room with my eyes closed, or walking over the hills, the people I’ve
seen and known, if it’s only been for a few days, are brought before
me, and I hear their voices and see them look and move almost plainer
than I ever did when they were really with me so as I could touch them.
And then my heart is drawn out towards them, and I feel their lot as if
it was my own, and I take comfort in spreading it before the Lord and
resting in His love, on their behalf as well as my own. And so I feel
sure you will come before me.”

She paused a moment, but Hetty said nothing.

“It has been a very precious time to me,” Dinah went on, “last night
and to-day—seeing two such good sons as Adam and Seth Bede. They are so
tender and thoughtful for their aged mother. And she has been telling
me what Adam has done, for these many years, to help his father and his
brother; it’s wonderful what a spirit of wisdom and knowledge he has,
and how he’s ready to use it all in behalf of them that are feeble. And
I’m sure he has a loving spirit too. I’ve noticed it often among my own
people round Snowfield, that the strong, skilful men are often the
gentlest to the women and children; and it’s pretty to see ’em carrying
the little babies as if they were no heavier than little birds. And the
babies always seem to like the strong arm best. I feel sure it would be
so with Adam Bede. Don’t you think so, Hetty?”

“Yes,” said Hetty abstractedly, for her mind had been all the while in
the wood, and she would have found it difficult to say what she was
assenting to. Dinah saw she was not inclined to talk, but there would
not have been time to say much more, for they were now at the
yard-gate.

The still twilight, with its dying western red and its few faint
struggling stars, rested on the farm-yard, where there was not a sound
to be heard but the stamping of the cart-horses in the stable. It was
about twenty minutes after sunset. The fowls were all gone to roost,
and the bull-dog lay stretched on the straw outside his kennel, with
the black-and-tan terrier by his side, when the falling-to of the gate
disturbed them and set them barking, like good officials, before they
had any distinct knowledge of the reason.

The barking had its effect in the house, for, as Dinah and Hetty
approached, the doorway was filled by a portly figure, with a ruddy
black-eyed face which bore in it the possibility of looking extremely
acute, and occasionally contemptuous, on market-days, but had now a
predominant after-supper expression of hearty good-nature. It is well
known that great scholars who have shown the most pitiless acerbity in
their criticism of other men’s scholarship have yet been of a relenting
and indulgent temper in private life; and I have heard of a learned man
meekly rocking the twins in the cradle with his left hand, while with
his right he inflicted the most lacerating sarcasms on an opponent who
had betrayed a brutal ignorance of Hebrew. Weaknesses and errors must
be forgiven—alas! they are not alien to us—but the man who takes the
wrong side on the momentous subject of the Hebrew points must be
treated as the enemy of his race. There was the same sort of antithetic
mixture in Martin Poyser: he was of so excellent a disposition that he
had been kinder and more respectful than ever to his old father since
he had made a deed of gift of all his property, and no man judged his
neighbours more charitably on all personal matters; but for a farmer,
like Luke Britton, for example, whose fallows were not well cleaned,
who didn’t know the rudiments of hedging and ditching, and showed but a
small share of judgment in the purchase of winter stock, Martin Poyser
was as hard and implacable as the north-east wind. Luke Britton could
not make a remark, even on the weather, but Martin Poyser detected in
it a taint of that unsoundness and general ignorance which was palpable
in all his farming operations. He hated to see the fellow lift the
pewter pint to his mouth in the bar of the Royal George on market-day,
and the mere sight of him on the other side of the road brought a
severe and critical expression into his black eyes, as different as
possible from the fatherly glance he bent on his two nieces as they
approached the door. Mr. Poyser had smoked his evening pipe, and now
held his hands in his pockets, as the only resource of a man who
continues to sit up after the day’s business is done.

“Why, lasses, ye’re rather late to-night,” he said, when they reached
the little gate leading into the causeway. “The mother’s begun to
fidget about you, an’ she’s got the little un ill. An’ how did you
leave the old woman Bede, Dinah? Is she much down about the old man?
He’d been but a poor bargain to her this five year.”

“She’s been greatly distressed for the loss of him,” said Dinah, “but
she’s seemed more comforted to-day. Her son Adam’s been at home all
day, working at his father’s coffin, and she loves to have him at home.
She’s been talking about him to me almost all the day. She has a loving
heart, though she’s sorely given to fret and be fearful. I wish she had
a surer trust to comfort her in her old age.”

“Adam’s sure enough,” said Mr. Poyser, misunderstanding Dinah’s wish.
“There’s no fear but he’ll yield well i’ the threshing. He’s not one o’
them as is all straw and no grain. I’ll be bond for him any day, as
he’ll be a good son to the last. Did he say he’d be coming to see us
soon? But come in, come in,” he added, making way for them; “I hadn’t
need keep y’ out any longer.”

The tall buildings round the yard shut out a good deal of the sky, but
the large window let in abundant light to show every corner of the
house-place.

Mrs. Poyser, seated in the rocking-chair, which had been brought out of
the “right-hand parlour,” was trying to soothe Totty to sleep. But
Totty was not disposed to sleep; and when her cousins entered, she
raised herself up and showed a pair of flushed cheeks, which looked
fatter than ever now they were defined by the edge of her linen
night-cap.

In the large wicker-bottomed arm-chair in the left-hand chimney-nook
sat old Martin Poyser, a hale but shrunken and bleached image of his
portly black-haired son—his head hanging forward a little, and his
elbows pushed backwards so as to allow the whole of his forearm to rest
on the arm of the chair. His blue handkerchief was spread over his
knees, as was usual indoors, when it was not hanging over his head; and
he sat watching what went forward with the quiet _outward_ glance of
healthy old age, which, disengaged from any interest in an inward
drama, spies out pins upon the floor, follows one’s minutest motions
with an unexpectant purposeless tenacity, watches the flickering of the
flame or the sun-gleams on the wall, counts the quarries on the floor,
watches even the hand of the clock, and pleases itself with detecting a
rhythm in the tick.

“What a time o’ night this is to come home, Hetty!” said Mrs. Poyser.
“Look at the clock, do; why, it’s going on for half-past nine, and I’ve
sent the gells to bed this half-hour, and late enough too; when they’ve
got to get up at half after four, and the mowers’ bottles to fill, and
the baking; and here’s this blessed child wi’ the fever for what I
know, and as wakeful as if it was dinner-time, and nobody to help me to
give her the physic but your uncle, and fine work there’s been, and
half of it spilt on her night-gown—it’s well if she’s swallowed more
nor ’ull make her worse i’stead o’ better. But folks as have no mind to
be o’ use have allays the luck to be out o’ the road when there’s
anything to be done.”

“I did set out before eight, aunt,” said Hetty, in a pettish tone, with
a slight toss of her head. “But this clock’s so much before the clock
at the Chase, there’s no telling what time it’ll be when I get here.”

“What! You’d be wanting the clock set by gentlefolks’s time, would you?
An’ sit up burnin’ candle, an’ lie a-bed wi’ the sun a-bakin’ you like
a cowcumber i’ the frame? The clock hasn’t been put forrard for the
first time to-day, I reckon.”

The fact was, Hetty had really forgotten the difference of the clocks
when she told Captain Donnithorne that she set out at eight, and this,
with her lingering pace, had made her nearly half an hour later than
usual. But here her aunt’s attention was diverted from this tender
subject by Totty, who, perceiving at length that the arrival of her
cousins was not likely to bring anything satisfactory to her in
particular, began to cry, “Munny, munny,” in an explosive manner.

“Well, then, my pet, Mother’s got her, Mother won’t leave her; Totty be
a good dilling, and go to sleep now,” said Mrs. Poyser, leaning back
and rocking the chair, while she tried to make Totty nestle against
her. But Totty only cried louder, and said, “Don’t yock!” So the
mother, with that wondrous patience which love gives to the quickest
temperament, sat up again, and pressed her cheek against the linen
night-cap and kissed it, and forgot to scold Hetty any longer.

“Come, Hetty,” said Martin Poyser, in a conciliatory tone, “go and get
your supper i’ the pantry, as the things are all put away; an’ then you
can come and take the little un while your aunt undresses herself, for
she won’t lie down in bed without her mother. An’ I reckon _you_ could
eat a bit, Dinah, for they don’t keep much of a house down there.”

“No, thank you, Uncle,” said Dinah; “I ate a good meal before I came
away, for Mrs. Bede would make a kettle-cake for me.”

“I don’t want any supper,” said Hetty, taking off her hat. “I can hold
Totty now, if Aunt wants me.”

“Why, what nonsense that is to talk!” said Mrs. Poyser. “Do you think
you can live wi’out eatin’, an’ nourish your inside wi’ stickin’ red
ribbons on your head? Go an’ get your supper this minute, child;
there’s a nice bit o’ cold pudding i’ the safe—just what you’re fond
of.”

Hetty complied silently by going towards the pantry, and Mrs. Poyser
went on speaking to Dinah.

“Sit down, my dear, an’ look as if you knowed what it was to make
yourself a bit comfortable i’ the world. I warrant the old woman was
glad to see you, since you stayed so long.”

“She seemed to like having me there at last; but her sons say she
doesn’t like young women about her commonly; and I thought just at
first she was almost angry with me for going.”

“Eh, it’s a poor look-out when th’ ould folks doesna like the young
uns,” said old Martin, bending his head down lower, and seeming to
trace the pattern of the quarries with his eye.

“Aye, it’s ill livin’ in a hen-roost for them as doesn’t like fleas,”
said Mrs. Poyser. “We’ve all had our turn at bein’ young, I reckon,
be’t good luck or ill.”

“But she must learn to ’commodate herself to young women,” said Mr.
Poyser, “for it isn’t to be counted on as Adam and Seth ’ull keep
bachelors for the next ten year to please their mother. That ’ud be
unreasonable. It isn’t right for old nor young nayther to make a
bargain all o’ their own side. What’s good for one’s good all round i’
the long run. I’m no friend to young fellows a-marrying afore they know
the difference atween a crab an’ a apple; but they may wait o’er long.”

“To be sure,” said Mrs. Poyser; “if you go past your dinner-time,
there’ll be little relish o’ your meat. You turn it o’er an’ o’er wi’
your fork, an’ don’t eat it after all. You find faut wi’ your meat, an’
the faut’s all i’ your own stomach.”

Hetty now came back from the pantry and said, “I can take Totty now,
Aunt, if you like.”

“Come, Rachel,” said Mr. Poyser, as his wife seemed to hesitate, seeing
that Totty was at last nestling quietly, “thee’dst better let Hetty
carry her upstairs, while thee tak’st thy things off. Thee’t tired.
It’s time thee wast in bed. Thee’t bring on the pain in thy side
again.”

“Well, she may hold her if the child ’ull go to her,” said Mrs. Poyser.

Hetty went close to the rocking-chair, and stood without her usual
smile, and without any attempt to entice Totty, simply waiting for her
aunt to give the child into her hands.

“Wilt go to Cousin Hetty, my dilling, while mother gets ready to go to
bed? Then Totty shall go into Mother’s bed, and sleep there all night.”

Before her mother had done speaking, Totty had given her answer in an
unmistakable manner, by knitting her brow, setting her tiny teeth
against her underlip, and leaning forward to slap Hetty on the arm with
her utmost force. Then, without speaking, she nestled to her mother
again.

“Hey, hey,” said Mr. Poyser, while Hetty stood without moving, “not go
to Cousin Hetty? That’s like a babby. Totty’s a little woman, an’ not a
babby.”

“It’s no use trying to persuade her,” said Mrs. Poyser. “She allays
takes against Hetty when she isn’t well. Happen she’ll go to Dinah.”

Dinah, having taken off her bonnet and shawl, had hitherto kept quietly
seated in the background, not liking to thrust herself between Hetty
and what was considered Hetty’s proper work. But now she came forward,
and, putting out her arms, said, “Come Totty, come and let Dinah carry
her upstairs along with Mother: poor, poor Mother! she’s so tired—she
wants to go to bed.”

Totty turned her face towards Dinah, and looked at her an instant, then
lifted herself up, put out her little arms, and let Dinah lift her from
her mother’s lap. Hetty turned away without any sign of ill humour,
and, taking her hat from the table, stood waiting with an air of
indifference, to see if she should be told to do anything else.

“You may make the door fast now, Poyser; Alick’s been come in this long
while,” said Mrs. Poyser, rising with an appearance of relief from her
low chair. “Get me the matches down, Hetty, for I must have the
rushlight burning i’ my room. Come, Father.”

The heavy wooden bolts began to roll in the house doors, and old Martin
prepared to move, by gathering up his blue handkerchief, and reaching
his bright knobbed walnut-tree stick from the corner. Mrs. Poyser then
led the way out of the kitchen, followed by the grandfather, and Dinah
with Totty in her arms—all going to bed by twilight, like the birds.
Mrs. Poyser, on her way, peeped into the room where her two boys lay;
just to see their ruddy round cheeks on the pillow, and to hear for a
moment their light regular breathing.

“Come, Hetty, get to bed,” said Mr. Poyser, in a soothing tone, as he
himself turned to go upstairs. “You didna mean to be late, I’ll be
bound, but your aunt’s been worrited to-day. Good-night, my wench,
good-night.”




Chapter XV
The Two Bed-Chambers


Hetty and Dinah both slept in the second story, in rooms adjoining each
other, meagrely furnished rooms, with no blinds to shut out the light,
which was now beginning to gather new strength from the rising of the
moon—more than enough strength to enable Hetty to move about and
undress with perfect comfort. She could see quite well the pegs in the
old painted linen-press on which she hung her hat and gown; she could
see the head of every pin on her red cloth pin-cushion; she could see a
reflection of herself in the old-fashioned looking-glass, quite as
distinct as was needful, considering that she had only to brush her
hair and put on her night-cap. A queer old looking-glass! Hetty got
into an ill temper with it almost every time she dressed. It had been
considered a handsome glass in its day, and had probably been bought
into the Poyser family a quarter of a century before, at a sale of
genteel household furniture. Even now an auctioneer could say something
for it: it had a great deal of tarnished gilding about it; it had a
firm mahogany base, well supplied with drawers, which opened with a
decided jerk and sent the contents leaping out from the farthest
corners, without giving you the trouble of reaching them; above all, it
had a brass candle-socket on each side, which would give it an
aristocratic air to the very last. But Hetty objected to it because it
had numerous dim blotches sprinkled over the mirror, which no rubbing
would remove, and because, instead of swinging backwards and forwards,
it was fixed in an upright position, so that she could only get one
good view of her head and neck, and that was to be had only by sitting
down on a low chair before her dressing-table. And the dressing-table
was no dressing-table at all, but a small old chest of drawers, the
most awkward thing in the world to sit down before, for the big brass
handles quite hurt her knees, and she couldn’t get near the glass at
all comfortably. But devout worshippers never allow inconveniences to
prevent them from performing their religious rites, and Hetty this
evening was more bent on her peculiar form of worship than usual.

Having taken off her gown and white kerchief, she drew a key from the
large pocket that hung outside her petticoat, and, unlocking one of the
lower drawers in the chest, reached from it two short bits of wax
candle—secretly bought at Treddleston—and stuck them in the two brass
sockets. Then she drew forth a bundle of matches and lighted the
candles; and last of all, a small red-framed shilling looking-glass,
without blotches. It was into this small glass that she chose to look
first after seating herself. She looked into it, smiling and turning
her head on one side, for a minute, then laid it down and took out her
brush and comb from an upper drawer. She was going to let down her
hair, and make herself look like that picture of a lady in Miss Lydia
Donnithorne’s dressing-room. It was soon done, and the dark hyacinthine
curves fell on her neck. It was not heavy, massive, merely rippling
hair, but soft and silken, running at every opportunity into delicate
rings. But she pushed it all backward to look like the picture, and
form a dark curtain, throwing into relief her round white neck. Then
she put down her brush and comb and looked at herself, folding her arms
before her, still like the picture. Even the old mottled glass couldn’t
help sending back a lovely image, none the less lovely because Hetty’s
stays were not of white satin—such as I feel sure heroines must
generally wear—but of a dark greenish cotton texture.

Oh yes! She was very pretty. Captain Donnithorne thought so. Prettier
than anybody about Hayslope—prettier than any of the ladies she had
ever seen visiting at the Chase—indeed it seemed fine ladies were
rather old and ugly—and prettier than Miss Bacon, the miller’s
daughter, who was called the beauty of Treddleston. And Hetty looked at
herself to-night with quite a different sensation from what she had
ever felt before; there was an invisible spectator whose eye rested on
her like morning on the flowers. His soft voice was saying over and
over again those pretty things she had heard in the wood; his arm was
round her, and the delicate rose-scent of his hair was with her still.
The vainest woman is never thoroughly conscious of her own beauty till
she is loved by the man who sets her own passion vibrating in return.

But Hetty seemed to have made up her mind that something was wanting,
for she got up and reached an old black lace scarf out of the
linen-press, and a pair of large ear-rings out of the sacred drawer
from which she had taken her candles. It was an old old scarf, full of
rents, but it would make a becoming border round her shoulders, and set
off the whiteness of her upper arm. And she would take out the little
ear-rings she had in her ears—oh, how her aunt had scolded her for
having her ears bored!—and put in those large ones. They were but
coloured glass and gilding, but if you didn’t know what they were made
of, they looked just as well as what the ladies wore. And so she sat
down again, with the large ear-rings in her ears, and the black lace
scarf adjusted round her shoulders. She looked down at her arms: no
arms could be prettier down to a little way below the elbow—they were
white and plump, and dimpled to match her cheeks; but towards the
wrist, she thought with vexation that they were coarsened by
butter-making and other work that ladies never did.

Captain Donnithorne couldn’t like her to go on doing work: he would
like to see her in nice clothes, and thin shoes, and white stockings,
perhaps with silk clocks to them; for he must love her very much—no one
else had ever put his arm round her and kissed her in that way. He
would want to marry her and make a lady of her; she could hardly dare
to shape the thought—yet how else could it be? Marry her quite
secretly, as Mr. James, the doctor’s assistant, married the doctor’s
niece, and nobody ever found it out for a long while after, and then it
was of no use to be angry. The doctor had told her aunt all about it in
Hetty’s hearing. She didn’t know how it would be, but it was quite
plain the old Squire could never be told anything about it, for Hetty
was ready to faint with awe and fright if she came across him at the
Chase. He might have been earth-born, for what she knew. It had never
entered her mind that he had been young like other men; he had always
been the old Squire at whom everybody was frightened. Oh, it was
impossible to think how it would be! But Captain Donnithorne would
know; he was a great gentleman, and could have his way in everything,
and could buy everything he liked. And nothing could be as it had been
again: perhaps some day she should be a grand lady, and ride in her
coach, and dress for dinner in a brocaded silk, with feathers in her
hair, and her dress sweeping the ground, like Miss Lydia and Lady
Dacey, when she saw them going into the dining-room one evening as she
peeped through the little round window in the lobby; only she should
not be old and ugly like Miss Lydia, or all the same thickness like
Lady Dacey, but very pretty, with her hair done in a great many
different ways, and sometimes in a pink dress, and sometimes in a white
one—she didn’t know which she liked best; and Mary Burge and everybody
would perhaps see her going out in her carriage—or rather, they would
_hear_ of it: it was impossible to imagine these things happening at
Hayslope in sight of her aunt. At the thought of all this splendour,
Hetty got up from her chair, and in doing so caught the little
red-framed glass with the edge of her scarf, so that it fell with a
bang on the floor; but she was too eagerly occupied with her vision to
care about picking it up; and after a momentary start, began to pace
with a pigeon-like stateliness backwards and forwards along her room,
in her coloured stays and coloured skirt, and the old black lace scarf
round her shoulders, and the great glass ear-rings in her ears.

How pretty the little puss looks in that odd dress! It would be the
easiest folly in the world to fall in love with her: there is such a
sweet babylike roundness about her face and figure; the delicate dark
rings of hair lie so charmingly about her ears and neck; her great dark
eyes with their long eye-lashes touch one so strangely, as if an
imprisoned frisky sprite looked out of them.

Ah, what a prize the man gets who wins a sweet bride like Hetty! How
the men envy him who come to the wedding breakfast, and see her hanging
on his arm in her white lace and orange blossoms. The dear, young,
round, soft, flexible thing! Her heart must be just as soft, her temper
just as free from angles, her character just as pliant. If anything
ever goes wrong, it must be the husband’s fault there: he can make her
what he likes—that is plain. And the lover himself thinks so too: the
little darling is so fond of him, her little vanities are so
bewitching, he wouldn’t consent to her being a bit wiser; those
kittenlike glances and movements are just what one wants to make one’s
hearth a paradise. Every man under such circumstances is conscious of
being a great physiognomist. Nature, he knows, has a language of her
own, which she uses with strict veracity, and he considers himself an
adept in the language. Nature has written out his bride’s character for
him in those exquisite lines of cheek and lip and chin, in those
eyelids delicate as petals, in those long lashes curled like the stamen
of a flower, in the dark liquid depths of those wonderful eyes. How she
will dote on her children! She is almost a child herself, and the
little pink round things will hang about her like florets round the
central flower; and the husband will look on, smiling benignly, able,
whenever he chooses, to withdraw into the sanctuary of his wisdom,
towards which his sweet wife will look reverently, and never lift the
curtain. It is a marriage such as they made in the golden age, when the
men were all wise and majestic and the women all lovely and loving.

It was very much in this way that our friend Adam Bede thought about
Hetty; only he put his thoughts into different words. If ever she
behaved with cold vanity towards him, he said to himself it is only
because she doesn’t love me well enough; and he was sure that her love,
whenever she gave it, would be the most precious thing a man could
possess on earth. Before you despise Adam as deficient in penetration,
pray ask yourself if you were ever predisposed to believe evil of any
pretty woman—if you ever _could_, without hard head-breaking
demonstration, believe evil of the _one_ supremely pretty woman who has
bewitched you. No: people who love downy peaches are apt not to think
of the stone, and sometimes jar their teeth terribly against it.

Arthur Donnithorne, too, had the same sort of notion about Hetty, so
far as he had thought of her nature of all. He felt sure she was a
dear, affectionate, good little thing. The man who awakes the wondering
tremulous passion of a young girl always thinks her affectionate; and
if he chances to look forward to future years, probably imagines
himself being virtuously tender to her, because the poor thing is so
clingingly fond of him. God made these dear women so—and it is a
convenient arrangement in case of sickness.

After all, I believe the wisest of us must be beguiled in this way
sometimes, and must think both better and worse of people than they
deserve. Nature has her language, and she is not unveracious; but we
don’t know all the intricacies of her syntax just yet, and in a hasty
reading we may happen to extract the very opposite of her real meaning.
Long dark eyelashes, now—what can be more exquisite? I find it
impossible not to expect some depth of soul behind a deep grey eye with
a long dark eyelash, in spite of an experience which has shown me that
they may go along with deceit, peculation, and stupidity. But if, in
the reaction of disgust, I have betaken myself to a fishy eye, there
has been a surprising similarity of result. One begins to suspect at
length that there is no direct correlation between eyelashes and
morals; or else, that the eyelashes express the disposition of the fair
one’s grandmother, which is on the whole less important to us.

No eyelashes could be more beautiful than Hetty’s; and now, while she
walks with her pigeon-like stateliness along the room and looks down on
her shoulders bordered by the old black lace, the dark fringe shows to
perfection on her pink cheek. They are but dim ill-defined pictures
that her narrow bit of an imagination can make of the future; but of
every picture she is the central figure in fine clothes; Captain
Donnithorne is very close to her, putting his arm round her, perhaps
kissing her, and everybody else is admiring and envying her—especially
Mary Burge, whose new print dress looks very contemptible by the side
of Hetty’s resplendent toilette. Does any sweet or sad memory mingle
with this dream of the future—any loving thought of her second
parents—of the children she had helped to tend—of any youthful
companion, any pet animal, any relic of her own childhood even? Not
one. There are some plants that have hardly any roots: you may tear
them from their native nook of rock or wall, and just lay them over
your ornamental flower-pot, and they blossom none the worse. Hetty
could have cast all her past life behind her and never cared to be
reminded of it again. I think she had no feeling at all towards the old
house, and did not like the Jacobb’s Ladder and the long row of
hollyhocks in the garden better than other flowers—perhaps not so well.
It was wonderful how little she seemed to care about waiting on her
uncle, who had been a good father to her—she hardly ever remembered to
reach him his pipe at the right time without being told, unless a
visitor happened to be there, who would have a better opportunity of
seeing her as she walked across the hearth. Hetty did not understand
how anybody could be very fond of middle-aged people. And as for those
tiresome children, Marty and Tommy and Totty, they had been the very
nuisance of her life—as bad as buzzing insects that will come teasing
you on a hot day when you want to be quiet. Marty, the eldest, was a
baby when she first came to the farm, for the children born before him
had died, and so Hetty had had them all three, one after the other,
toddling by her side in the meadow, or playing about her on wet days in
the half-empty rooms of the large old house. The boys were out of hand
now, but Totty was still a day-long plague, worse than either of the
others had been, because there was more fuss made about her. And there
was no end to the making and mending of clothes. Hetty would have been
glad to hear that she should never see a child again; they were worse
than the nasty little lambs that the shepherd was always bringing in to
be taken special care of in lambing time; for the lambs _were_ got rid
of sooner or later. As for the young chickens and turkeys, Hetty would
have hated the very word “hatching,” if her aunt had not bribed her to
attend to the young poultry by promising her the proceeds of one out of
every brood. The round downy chicks peeping out from under their
mother’s wing never touched Hetty with any pleasure; that was not the
sort of prettiness she cared about, but she did care about the
prettiness of the new things she would buy for herself at Treddleston
Fair with the money they fetched. And yet she looked so dimpled, so
charming, as she stooped down to put the soaked bread under the
hen-coop, that you must have been a very acute personage indeed to
suspect her of that hardness. Molly, the housemaid, with a turn-up nose
and a protuberant jaw, was really a tender-hearted girl, and, as Mrs.
Poyser said, a jewel to look after the poultry; but her stolid face
showed nothing of this maternal delight, any more than a brown
earthenware pitcher will show the light of the lamp within it.

It is generally a feminine eye that first detects the moral
deficiencies hidden under the “dear deceit” of beauty, so it is not
surprising that Mrs. Poyser, with her keenness and abundant opportunity
for observation, should have formed a tolerably fair estimate of what
might be expected from Hetty in the way of feeling, and in moments of
indignation she had sometimes spoken with great openness on the subject
to her husband.

“She’s no better than a peacock, as ’ud strut about on the wall and
spread its tail when the sun shone if all the folks i’ the parish was
dying: there’s nothing seems to give her a turn i’ th’ inside, not even
when we thought Totty had tumbled into the pit. To think o’ that dear
cherub! And we found her wi’ her little shoes stuck i’ the mud an’
crying fit to break her heart by the far horse-pit. But Hetty never
minded it, I could see, though she’s been at the nussin’ o’ the child
ever since it was a babby. It’s my belief her heart’s as hard as a
pebble.”

“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Poyser, “thee mustn’t judge Hetty too hard. Them
young gells are like the unripe grain; they’ll make good meal by and
by, but they’re squashy as yet. Thee’t see Hetty ’ll be all right when
she’s got a good husband and children of her own.”

“_I_ don’t want to be hard upo’ the gell. She’s got cliver fingers of
her own, and can be useful enough when she likes and I should miss her
wi’ the butter, for she’s got a cool hand. An’ let be what may, I’d
strive to do my part by a niece o’ yours—an’ that I’ve done, for I’ve
taught her everything as belongs to a house, an’ I’ve told her her duty
often enough, though, God knows, I’ve no breath to spare, an’ that
catchin’ pain comes on dreadful by times. Wi’ them three gells in the
house I’d need have twice the strength to keep ’em up to their work.
It’s like having roast meat at three fires; as soon as you’ve basted
one, another’s burnin’.”

Hetty stood sufficiently in awe of her aunt to be anxious to conceal
from her so much of her vanity as could be hidden without too great a
sacrifice. She could not resist spending her money in bits of finery
which Mrs. Poyser disapproved; but she would have been ready to die
with shame, vexation, and fright if her aunt had this moment opened the
door, and seen her with her bits of candle lighted, and strutting about
decked in her scarf and ear-rings. To prevent such a surprise, she
always bolted her door, and she had not forgotten to do so to-night. It
was well: for there now came a light tap, and Hetty, with a leaping
heart, rushed to blow out the candles and throw them into the drawer.
She dared not stay to take out her ear-rings, but she threw off her
scarf, and let it fall on the floor, before the light tap came again.
We shall know how it was that the light tap came, if we leave Hetty for
a short time and return to Dinah, at the moment when she had delivered
Totty to her mother’s arms, and was come upstairs to her bedroom,
adjoining Hetty’s.

Dinah delighted in her bedroom window. Being on the second story of
that tall house, it gave her a wide view over the fields. The thickness
of the wall formed a broad step about a yard below the window, where
she could place her chair. And now the first thing she did on entering
her room was to seat herself in this chair and look out on the peaceful
fields beyond which the large moon was rising, just above the hedgerow
elms. She liked the pasture best where the milch cows were lying, and
next to that the meadow where the grass was half-mown, and lay in
silvered sweeping lines. Her heart was very full, for there was to be
only one more night on which she would look out on those fields for a
long time to come; but she thought little of leaving the mere scene,
for, to her, bleak Snowfield had just as many charms. She thought of
all the dear people whom she had learned to care for among these
peaceful fields, and who would now have a place in her loving
remembrance for ever. She thought of the struggles and the weariness
that might lie before them in the rest of their life’s journey, when
she would be away from them, and know nothing of what was befalling
them; and the pressure of this thought soon became too strong for her
to enjoy the unresponding stillness of the moonlit fields. She closed
her eyes, that she might feel more intensely the presence of a Love and
Sympathy deeper and more tender than was breathed from the earth and
sky. That was often Dinah’s mode of praying in solitude. Simply to
close her eyes and to feel herself enclosed by the Divine Presence;
then gradually her fears, her yearning anxieties for others, melted
away like ice-crystals in a warm ocean. She had sat in this way
perfectly still, with her hands crossed on her lap and the pale light
resting on her calm face, for at least ten minutes when she was
startled by a loud sound, apparently of something falling in Hetty’s
room. But like all sounds that fall on our ears in a state of
abstraction, it had no distinct character, but was simply loud and
startling, so that she felt uncertain whether she had interpreted it
rightly. She rose and listened, but all was quiet afterwards, and she
reflected that Hetty might merely have knocked something down in
getting into bed. She began slowly to undress; but now, owing to the
suggestions of this sound, her thoughts became concentrated on
Hetty—that sweet young thing, with life and all its trials before
her—the solemn daily duties of the wife and mother—and her mind so
unprepared for them all, bent merely on little foolish, selfish
pleasures, like a child hugging its toys in the beginning of a long
toilsome journey in which it will have to bear hunger and cold and
unsheltered darkness. Dinah felt a double care for Hetty, because she
shared Seth’s anxious interest in his brother’s lot, and she had not
come to the conclusion that Hetty did not love Adam well enough to
marry him. She saw too clearly the absence of any warm, self-devoting
love in Hetty’s nature to regard the coldness of her behaviour towards
Adam as any indication that he was not the man she would like to have
for a husband. And this blank in Hetty’s nature, instead of exciting
Dinah’s dislike, only touched her with a deeper pity: the lovely face
and form affected her as beauty always affects a pure and tender mind,
free from selfish jealousies. It was an excellent divine gift, that
gave a deeper pathos to the need, the sin, the sorrow with which it was
mingled, as the canker in a lily-white bud is more grievous to behold
than in a common pot-herb.

By the time Dinah had undressed and put on her night-gown, this feeling
about Hetty had gathered a painful intensity; her imagination had
created a thorny thicket of sin and sorrow, in which she saw the poor
thing struggling torn and bleeding, looking with tears for rescue and
finding none. It was in this way that Dinah’s imagination and sympathy
acted and reacted habitually, each heightening the other. She felt a
deep longing to go now and pour into Hetty’s ear all the words of
tender warning and appeal that rushed into her mind. But perhaps Hetty
was already asleep. Dinah put her ear to the partition and heard still
some slight noises, which convinced her that Hetty was not yet in bed.
Still she hesitated; she was not quite certain of a divine direction;
the voice that told her to go to Hetty seemed no stronger than the
other voice which said that Hetty was weary, and that going to her now
in an unseasonable moment would only tend to close her heart more
obstinately. Dinah was not satisfied without a more unmistakable
guidance than those inward voices. There was light enough for her, if
she opened her Bible, to discern the text sufficiently to know what it
would say to her. She knew the physiognomy of every page, and could
tell on what book she opened, sometimes on what chapter, without seeing
title or number. It was a small thick Bible, worn quite round at the
edges. Dinah laid it sideways on the window ledge, where the light was
strongest, and then opened it with her forefinger. The first words she
looked at were those at the top of the left-hand page: “And they all
wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him.” That was enough for
Dinah; she had opened on that memorable parting at Ephesus, when Paul
had felt bound to open his heart in a last exhortation and warning. She
hesitated no longer, but, opening her own door gently, went and tapped
on Hetty’s. We know she had to tap twice, because Hetty had to put out
her candles and throw off her black lace scarf; but after the second
tap the door was opened immediately. Dinah said, “Will you let me come
in, Hetty?” and Hetty, without speaking, for she was confused and
vexed, opened the door wider and let her in.

What a strange contrast the two figures made, visible enough in that
mingled twilight and moonlight! Hetty, her cheeks flushed and her eyes
glistening from her imaginary drama, her beautiful neck and arms bare,
her hair hanging in a curly tangle down her back, and the baubles in
her ears. Dinah, covered with her long white dress, her pale face full
of subdued emotion, almost like a lovely corpse into which the soul has
returned charged with sublimer secrets and a sublimer love. They were
nearly of the same height; Dinah evidently a little the taller as she
put her arm round Hetty’s waist and kissed her forehead.

“I knew you were not in bed, my dear,” she said, in her sweet clear
voice, which was irritating to Hetty, mingling with her own peevish
vexation like music with jangling chains, “for I heard you moving; and
I longed to speak to you again to-night, for it is the last but one
that I shall be here, and we don’t know what may happen to-morrow to
keep us apart. Shall I sit down with you while you do up your hair?”

“Oh yes,” said Hetty, hastily turning round and reaching the second
chair in the room, glad that Dinah looked as if she did not notice her
ear-rings.

Dinah sat down, and Hetty began to brush together her hair before
twisting it up, doing it with that air of excessive indifference which
belongs to confused self-consciousness. But the expression of Dinah’s
eyes gradually relieved her; they seemed unobservant of all details.

“Dear Hetty,” she said, “It has been borne in upon my mind to-night
that you may some day be in trouble—trouble is appointed for us all
here below, and there comes a time when we need more comfort and help
than the things of this life can give. I want to tell you that if ever
you are in trouble, and need a friend that will always feel for you and
love you, you have got that friend in Dinah Morris at Snowfield, and if
you come to her, or send for her, she’ll never forget this night and
the words she is speaking to you now. Will you remember it, Hetty?”

“Yes,” said Hetty, rather frightened. “But why should you think I shall
be in trouble? Do you know of anything?”

Hetty had seated herself as she tied on her cap, and now Dinah leaned
forwards and took her hands as she answered, “Because, dear, trouble
comes to us all in this life: we set our hearts on things which it
isn’t God’s will for us to have, and then we go sorrowing; the people
we love are taken from us, and we can joy in nothing because they are
not with us; sickness comes, and we faint under the burden of our
feeble bodies; we go astray and do wrong, and bring ourselves into
trouble with our fellow-men. There is no man or woman born into this
world to whom some of these trials do not fall, and so I feel that some
of them must happen to you; and I desire for you, that while you are
young you should seek for strength from your Heavenly Father, that you
may have a support which will not fail you in the evil day.”

Dinah paused and released Hetty’s hands that she might not hinder her.
Hetty sat quite still; she felt no response within herself to Dinah’s
anxious affection; but Dinah’s words uttered with solemn pathetic
distinctness, affected her with a chill fear. Her flush had died away
almost to paleness; she had the timidity of a luxurious
pleasure-seeking nature, which shrinks from the hint of pain. Dinah saw
the effect, and her tender anxious pleading became the more earnest,
till Hetty, full of a vague fear that something evil was some time to
befall her, began to cry.

It is our habit to say that while the lower nature can never understand
the higher, the higher nature commands a complete view of the lower.
But I think the higher nature has to learn this comprehension, as we
learn the art of vision, by a good deal of hard experience, often with
bruises and gashes incurred in taking things up by the wrong end, and
fancying our space wider than it is. Dinah had never seen Hetty
affected in this way before, and, with her usual benignant hopefulness,
she trusted it was the stirring of a divine impulse. She kissed the
sobbing thing, and began to cry with her for grateful joy. But Hetty
was simply in that excitable state of mind in which there is no
calculating what turn the feelings may take from one moment to another,
and for the first time she became irritated under Dinah’s caress. She
pushed her away impatiently, and said, with a childish sobbing voice,
“Don’t talk to me so, Dinah. Why do you come to frighten me? I’ve never
done anything to you. Why can’t you let me be?”

Poor Dinah felt a pang. She was too wise to persist, and only said
mildly, “Yes, my dear, you’re tired; I won’t hinder you any longer.
Make haste and get into bed. Good-night.”

She went out of the room almost as quietly and quickly as if she had
been a ghost; but once by the side of her own bed, she threw herself on
her knees and poured out in deep silence all the passionate pity that
filled her heart.

As for Hetty, she was soon in the wood again—her waking dreams being
merged in a sleeping life scarcely more fragmentary and confused.




Chapter XVI
Links


Arthur Donnithorne, you remember, is under an engagement with himself
to go and see Mr. Irwine this Friday morning, and he is awake and
dressing so early that he determines to go before breakfast, instead of
after. The rector, he knows, breakfasts alone at half-past nine, the
ladies of the family having a different breakfast-hour; Arthur will
have an early ride over the hill and breakfast with him. One can say
everything best over a meal.

The progress of civilization has made a breakfast or a dinner an easy
and cheerful substitute for more troublesome and disagreeable
ceremonies. We take a less gloomy view of our errors now our father
confessor listens to us over his egg and coffee. We are more distinctly
conscious that rude penances are out of the question for gentlemen in
an enlightened age, and that mortal sin is not incompatible with an
appetite for muffins. An assault on our pockets, which in more
barbarous times would have been made in the brusque form of a
pistol-shot, is quite a well-bred and smiling procedure now it has
become a request for a loan thrown in as an easy parenthesis between
the second and third glasses of claret.

Still, there was this advantage in the old rigid forms, that they
committed you to the fulfilment of a resolution by some outward deed:
when you have put your mouth to one end of a hole in a stone wall and
are aware that there is an expectant ear at the other end, you are more
likely to say what you came out with the intention of saying than if
you were seated with your legs in an easy attitude under the mahogany
with a companion who will have no reason to be surprised if you have
nothing particular to say.

However, Arthur Donnithorne, as he winds among the pleasant lanes on
horseback in the morning sunshine, has a sincere determination to open
his heart to the rector, and the swirling sound of the scythe as he
passes by the meadow is all the pleasanter to him because of this
honest purpose. He is glad to see the promise of settled weather now,
for getting in the hay, about which the farmers have been fearful; and
there is something so healthful in the sharing of a joy that is general
and not merely personal, that this thought about the hay-harvest reacts
on his state of mind and makes his resolution seem an easier matter. A
man about town might perhaps consider that these influences were not to
be felt out of a child’s story-book; but when you are among the fields
and hedgerows, it is impossible to maintain a consistent superiority to
simple natural pleasures.

Arthur had passed the village of Hayslope and was approaching the
Broxton side of the hill, when, at a turning in the road, he saw a
figure about a hundred yards before him which it was impossible to
mistake for any one else than Adam Bede, even if there had been no
grey, tailless shepherd-dog at his heels. He was striding along at his
usual rapid pace, and Arthur pushed on his horse to overtake him, for
he retained too much of his boyish feeling for Adam to miss an
opportunity of chatting with him. I will not say that his love for that
good fellow did not owe some of its force to the love of patronage: our
friend Arthur liked to do everything that was handsome, and to have his
handsome deeds recognized.

Adam looked round as he heard the quickening clatter of the horse’s
heels, and waited for the horseman, lifting his paper cap from his head
with a bright smile of recognition. Next to his own brother Seth, Adam
would have done more for Arthur Donnithorne than for any other young
man in the world. There was hardly anything he would not rather have
lost than the two-feet ruler which he always carried in his pocket; it
was Arthur’s present, bought with his pocket-money when he was a
fair-haired lad of eleven, and when he had profited so well by Adam’s
lessons in carpentering and turning as to embarrass every female in the
house with gifts of superfluous thread-reels and round boxes. Adam had
quite a pride in the little squire in those early days, and the feeling
had only become slightly modified as the fair-haired lad had grown into
the whiskered young man. Adam, I confess, was very susceptible to the
influence of rank, and quite ready to give an extra amount of respect
to every one who had more advantages than himself, not being a
philosopher or a proletaire with democratic ideas, but simply a
stout-limbed clever carpenter with a large fund of reverence in his
nature, which inclined him to admit all established claims unless he
saw very clear grounds for questioning them. He had no theories about
setting the world to rights, but he saw there was a great deal of
damage done by building with ill-seasoned timber—by ignorant men in
fine clothes making plans for outhouses and workshops and the like
without knowing the bearings of things—by slovenly joiners’ work, and
by hasty contracts that could never be fulfilled without ruining
somebody; and he resolved, for his part, to set his face against such
doings. On these points he would have maintained his opinion against
the largest landed proprietor in Loamshire or Stonyshire either; but he
felt that beyond these it would be better for him to defer to people
who were more knowing than himself. He saw as plainly as possible how
ill the woods on the estate were managed, and the shameful state of the
farm-buildings; and if old Squire Donnithorne had asked him the effect
of this mismanagement, he would have spoken his opinion without
flinching, but the impulse to a respectful demeanour towards a
“gentleman” would have been strong within him all the while. The word
“gentleman” had a spell for Adam, and, as he often said, he “couldn’t
abide a fellow who thought he made himself fine by being coxy to’s
betters.” I must remind you again that Adam had the blood of the
peasant in his veins, and that since he was in his prime half a century
ago, you must expect some of his characteristics to be obsolete.

Towards the young squire this instinctive reverence of Adam’s was
assisted by boyish memories and personal regard so you may imagine that
he thought far more of Arthur’s good qualities, and attached far more
value to very slight actions of his, than if they had been the
qualities and actions of a common workman like himself. He felt sure it
would be a fine day for everybody about Hayslope when the young squire
came into the estate—such a generous open-hearted disposition as he
had, and an “uncommon” notion about improvements and repairs,
considering he was only just coming of age. Thus there was both respect
and affection in the smile with which he raised his paper cap as Arthur
Donnithorne rode up.

“Well, Adam, how are you?” said Arthur, holding out his hand. He never
shook hands with any of the farmers, and Adam felt the honour keenly.
“I could swear to your back a long way off. It’s just the same back,
only broader, as when you used to carry me on it. Do you remember?”

“Aye, sir, I remember. It ’ud be a poor look-out if folks didn’t
remember what they did and said when they were lads. We should think no
more about old friends than we do about new uns, then.”

“You’re going to Broxton, I suppose?” said Arthur, putting his horse on
at a slow pace while Adam walked by his side. “Are you going to the
rectory?”

“No, sir, I’m going to see about Bradwell’s barn. They’re afraid of the
roof pushing the walls out, and I’m going to see what can be done with
it before we send the stuff and the workmen.”

“Why, Burge trusts almost everything to you now, Adam, doesn’t he? I
should think he will make you his partner soon. He will, if he’s wise.”

“Nay, sir, I don’t see as he’d be much the better off for that. A
foreman, if he’s got a conscience and delights in his work, will do his
business as well as if he was a partner. I wouldn’t give a penny for a
man as ’ud drive a nail in slack because he didn’t get extra pay for
it.”

“I know that, Adam; I know you work for him as well as if you were
working for yourself. But you would have more power than you have now,
and could turn the business to better account perhaps. The old man must
give up his business sometime, and he has no son; I suppose he’ll want
a son-in-law who can take to it. But he has rather grasping fingers of
his own, I fancy. I daresay he wants a man who can put some money into
the business. If I were not as poor as a rat, I would gladly invest
some money in that way, for the sake of having you settled on the
estate. I’m sure I should profit by it in the end. And perhaps I shall
be better off in a year or two. I shall have a larger allowance now I’m
of age; and when I’ve paid off a debt or two, I shall be able to look
about me.”

“You’re very good to say so, sir, and I’m not unthankful. But”—Adam
continued, in a decided tone—“I shouldn’t like to make any offers to
Mr. Burge, or t’ have any made for me. I see no clear road to a
partnership. If he should ever want to dispose of the business, that
’ud be a different matter. I should be glad of some money at a fair
interest then, for I feel sure I could pay it off in time.”

“Very well, Adam,” said Arthur, remembering what Mr. Irwine had said
about a probable hitch in the love-making between Adam and Mary Burge,
“we’ll say no more about it at present. When is your father to be
buried?”

“On Sunday, sir; Mr. Irwine’s coming earlier on purpose. I shall be
glad when it’s over, for I think my mother ’ull perhaps get easier
then. It cuts one sadly to see the grief of old people; they’ve no way
o’ working it off, and the new spring brings no new shoots out on the
withered tree.”

“Ah, you’ve had a good deal of trouble and vexation in your life, Adam.
I don’t think you’ve ever been hare-brained and light-hearted, like
other youngsters. You’ve always had some care on your mind.”

“Why, yes, sir; but that’s nothing to make a fuss about. If we’re men
and have men’s feelings, I reckon we must have men’s troubles. We can’t
be like the birds, as fly from their nest as soon as they’ve got their
wings, and never know their kin when they see ’em, and get a fresh lot
every year. I’ve had enough to be thankful for: I’ve allays had health
and strength and brains to give me a delight in my work; and I count it
a great thing as I’ve had Bartle Massey’s night-school to go to. He’s
helped me to knowledge I could never ha’ got by myself.”

“What a rare fellow you are, Adam!” said Arthur, after a pause, in
which he had looked musingly at the big fellow walking by his side. “I
could hit out better than most men at Oxford, and yet I believe you
would knock me into next week if I were to have a battle with you.”

“God forbid I should ever do that, sir,” said Adam, looking round at
Arthur and smiling. “I used to fight for fun, but I’ve never done that
since I was the cause o’ poor Gil Tranter being laid up for a
fortnight. I’ll never fight any man again, only when he behaves like a
scoundrel. If you get hold of a chap that’s got no shame nor conscience
to stop him, you must try what you can do by bunging his eyes up.”

Arthur did not laugh, for he was preoccupied with some thought that
made him say presently, “I should think now, Adam, you never have any
struggles within yourself. I fancy you would master a wish that you had
made up your mind it was not quite right to indulge, as easily as you
would knock down a drunken fellow who was quarrelsome with you. I mean,
you are never shilly-shally, first making up your mind that you won’t
do a thing, and then doing it after all?”

“Well,” said Adam, slowly, after a moment’s hesitation, “no. I don’t
remember ever being see-saw in that way, when I’d made my mind up, as
you say, that a thing was wrong. It takes the taste out o’ my mouth for
things, when I know I should have a heavy conscience after ’em. I’ve
seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum, as you can never
do what’s wrong without breeding sin and trouble more than you can ever
see. It’s like a bit o’ bad workmanship—you never see th’ end o’ the
mischief it’ll do. And it’s a poor look-out to come into the world to
make your fellow-creatures worse off instead o’ better. But there’s a
difference between the things folks call wrong. I’m not for making a
sin of every little fool’s trick, or bit o’ nonsense anybody may be let
into, like some o’ them dissenters. And a man may have two minds
whether it isn’t worthwhile to get a bruise or two for the sake of a
bit o’ fun. But it isn’t my way to be see-saw about anything: I think
my fault lies th’ other way. When I’ve said a thing, if it’s only to
myself, it’s hard for me to go back.”

“Yes, that’s just what I expected of you,” said Arthur. “You’ve got an
iron will, as well as an iron arm. But however strong a man’s
resolution may be, it costs him something to carry it out, now and
then. We may determine not to gather any cherries and keep our hands
sturdily in our pockets, but we can’t prevent our mouths from
watering.”

“That’s true, sir, but there’s nothing like settling with ourselves as
there’s a deal we must do without i’ this life. It’s no use looking on
life as if it was Treddles’on Fair, where folks only go to see shows
and get fairings. If we do, we shall find it different. But where’s the
use o’ me talking to you, sir? You know better than I do.”

“I’m not so sure of that, Adam. You’ve had four or five years of
experience more than I’ve had, and I think your life has been a better
school to you than college has been to me.”

“Why, sir, you seem to think o’ college something like what Bartle
Massey does. He says college mostly makes people like bladders—just
good for nothing but t’ hold the stuff as is poured into ’em. But he’s
got a tongue like a sharp blade, Bartle has—it never touches anything
but it cuts. Here’s the turning, sir. I must bid you good-morning, as
you’re going to the rectory.”

“Good-bye, Adam, good-bye.”

Arthur gave his horse to the groom at the rectory gate, and walked
along the gravel towards the door which opened on the garden. He knew
that the rector always breakfasted in his study, and the study lay on
the left hand of this door, opposite the dining-room. It was a small
low room, belonging to the old part of the house—dark with the sombre
covers of the books that lined the walls; yet it looked very cheery
this morning as Arthur reached the open window. For the morning sun
fell aslant on the great glass globe with gold fish in it, which stood
on a scagliola pillar in front of the ready-spread bachelor
breakfast-table, and by the side of this breakfast-table was a group
which would have made any room enticing. In the crimson damask
easy-chair sat Mr. Irwine, with that radiant freshness which he always
had when he came from his morning toilet; his finely formed plump white
hand was playing along Juno’s brown curly back; and close to Juno’s
tail, which was wagging with calm matronly pleasure, the two brown pups
were rolling over each other in an ecstatic duet of worrying noises. On
a cushion a little removed sat Pug, with the air of a maiden lady, who
looked on these familiarities as animal weaknesses, which she made as
little show as possible of observing. On the table, at Mr. Irwine’s
elbow, lay the first volume of the Foulis Æschylus, which Arthur knew
well by sight; and the silver coffee-pot, which Carroll was bringing
in, sent forth a fragrant steam which completed the delights of a
bachelor breakfast.

“Hallo, Arthur, that’s a good fellow! You’re just in time,” said Mr.
Irwine, as Arthur paused and stepped in over the low window-sill.
“Carroll, we shall want more coffee and eggs, and haven’t you got some
cold fowl for us to eat with that ham? Why, this is like old days,
Arthur; you haven’t been to breakfast with me these five years.”

“It was a tempting morning for a ride before breakfast,” said Arthur;
“and I used to like breakfasting with you so when I was reading with
you. My grandfather is always a few degrees colder at breakfast than at
any other hour in the day. I think his morning bath doesn’t agree with
him.”

Arthur was anxious not to imply that he came with any special purpose.
He had no sooner found himself in Mr. Irwine’s presence than the
confidence which he had thought quite easy before, suddenly appeared
the most difficult thing in the world to him, and at the very moment of
shaking hands he saw his purpose in quite a new light. How could he
make Irwine understand his position unless he told him those little
scenes in the wood; and how could he tell them without looking like a
fool? And then his weakness in coming back from Gawaine’s, and doing
the very opposite of what he intended! Irwine would think him a
shilly-shally fellow ever after. However, it must come out in an
unpremeditated way; the conversation might lead up to it.

“I like breakfast-time better than any other moment in the day,” said
Mr. Irwine. “No dust has settled on one’s mind then, and it presents a
clear mirror to the rays of things. I always have a favourite book by
me at breakfast, and I enjoy the bits I pick up then so much, that
regularly every morning it seems to me as if I should certainly become
studious again. But presently Dent brings up a poor fellow who has
killed a hare, and when I’ve got through my ‘justicing,’ as Carroll
calls it, I’m inclined for a ride round the glebe, and on my way back I
meet with the master of the workhouse, who has got a long story of a
mutinous pauper to tell me; and so the day goes on, and I’m always the
same lazy fellow before evening sets in. Besides, one wants the
stimulus of sympathy, and I have never had that since poor D’Oyley left
Treddleston. If you had stuck to your books well, you rascal, I should
have had a pleasanter prospect before me. But scholarship doesn’t run
in your family blood.”

“No indeed. It’s well if I can remember a little inapplicable Latin to
adorn my maiden speech in Parliament six or seven years hence. ‘Cras
ingens iterabimus aequor,’ and a few shreds of that sort, will perhaps
stick to me, and I shall arrange my opinions so as to introduce them.
But I don’t think a knowledge of the classics is a pressing want to a
country gentleman; as far as I can see, he’d much better have a
knowledge of manures. I’ve been reading your friend Arthur Young’s
books lately, and there’s nothing I should like better than to carry
out some of his ideas in putting the farmers on a better management of
their land; and, as he says, making what was a wild country, all of the
same dark hue, bright and variegated with corn and cattle. My
grandfather will never let me have any power while he lives, but
there’s nothing I should like better than to undertake the Stonyshire
side of the estate—it’s in a dismal condition—and set improvements on
foot, and gallop about from one place to another and overlook them. I
should like to know all the labourers, and see them touching their hats
to me with a look of goodwill.”

“Bravo, Arthur! A man who has no feeling for the classics couldn’t make
a better apology for coming into the world than by increasing the
quantity of food to maintain scholars—and rectors who appreciate
scholars. And whenever you enter on your career of model landlord may I
be there to see. You’ll want a portly rector to complete the picture,
and take his tithe of all the respect and honour you get by your hard
work. Only don’t set your heart too strongly on the goodwill you are to
get in consequence. I’m not sure that men are the fondest of those who
try to be useful to them. You know Gawaine has got the curses of the
whole neighbourhood upon him about that enclosure. You must make it
quite clear to your mind which you are most bent upon, old
boy—popularity or usefulness—else you may happen to miss both.”

“Oh! Gawaine is harsh in his manners; he doesn’t make himself
personally agreeable to his tenants. I don’t believe there’s anything
you can’t prevail on people to do with kindness. For my part, I
couldn’t live in a neighbourhood where I was not respected and beloved.
And it’s very pleasant to go among the tenants here—they seem all so
well inclined to me I suppose it seems only the other day to them since
I was a little lad, riding on a pony about as big as a sheep. And if
fair allowances were made to them, and their buildings attended to, one
could persuade them to farm on a better plan, stupid as they are.”

“Then mind you fall in love in the right place, and don’t get a wife
who will drain your purse and make you niggardly in spite of yourself.
My mother and I have a little discussion about you sometimes: she says,
‘I’ll never risk a single prophecy on Arthur until I see the woman he
falls in love with.’ She thinks your lady-love will rule you as the
moon rules the tides. But I feel bound to stand up for you, as my pupil
you know, and I maintain that you’re not of that watery quality. So
mind you don’t disgrace my judgment.”

Arthur winced under this speech, for keen old Mrs. Irwine’s opinion
about him had the disagreeable effect of a sinister omen. This, to be
sure, was only another reason for persevering in his intention, and
getting an additional security against himself. Nevertheless, at this
point in the conversation, he was conscious of increased disinclination
to tell his story about Hetty. He was of an impressible nature, and
lived a great deal in other people’s opinions and feelings concerning
himself; and the mere fact that he was in the presence of an intimate
friend, who had not the slightest notion that he had had any such
serious internal struggle as he came to confide, rather shook his own
belief in the seriousness of the struggle. It was not, after all, a
thing to make a fuss about; and what could Irwine do for him that he
could not do for himself? He would go to Eagledale in spite of Meg’s
lameness—go on Rattler, and let Pym follow as well as he could on the
old hack. That was his thought as he sugared his coffee; but the next
minute, as he was lifting the cup to his lips, he remembered how
thoroughly he had made up his mind last night to tell Irwine. No! He
would not be vacillating again—he _would_ do what he had meant to do,
this time. So it would be well not to let the personal tone of the
conversation altogether drop. If they went to quite indifferent topics,
his difficulty would be heightened. It had required no noticeable pause
for this rush and rebound of feeling, before he answered, “But I think
it is hardly an argument against a man’s general strength of character
that he should be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution
doesn’t insure one against smallpox or any other of those inevitable
diseases. A man may be very firm in other matters and yet be under a
sort of witchery from a woman.”

“Yes; but there’s this difference between love and smallpox, or
bewitchment either—that if you detect the disease at an early stage and
try change of air, there is every chance of complete escape without any
further development of symptoms. And there are certain alternative
doses which a man may administer to himself by keeping unpleasant
consequences before his mind: this gives you a sort of smoked glass
through which you may look at the resplendent fair one and discern her
true outline; though I’m afraid, by the by, the smoked glass is apt to
be missing just at the moment it is most wanted. I daresay, now, even a
man fortified with a knowledge of the classics might be lured into an
imprudent marriage, in spite of the warning given him by the chorus in
the Prometheus.”

The smile that flitted across Arthur’s face was a faint one, and
instead of following Mr. Irwine’s playful lead, he said, quite
seriously—“Yes, that’s the worst of it. It’s a desperately vexatious
thing, that after all one’s reflections and quiet determinations, we
should be ruled by moods that one can’t calculate on beforehand. I
don’t think a man ought to be blamed so much if he is betrayed into
doing things in that way, in spite of his resolutions.”

“Ah, but the moods lie in his nature, my boy, just as much as his
reflections did, and more. A man can never do anything at variance with
his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional
action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any
particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we
carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom.”

“Well, but one may be betrayed into doing things by a combination of
circumstances, which one might never have done otherwise.”

“Why, yes, a man can’t very well steal a bank-note unless the bank-note
lies within convenient reach; but he won’t make us think him an honest
man because he begins to howl at the bank-note for falling in his way.”

“But surely you don’t think a man who struggles against a temptation
into which he falls at last as bad as the man who never struggles at
all?”

“No, certainly; I pity him in proportion to his struggles, for they
foreshadow the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis.
Consequences are unpitying. Our deeds carry their terrible
consequences, quite apart from any fluctuations that went
before—consequences that are hardly ever confined to ourselves. And it
is best to fix our minds on that certainty, instead of considering what
may be the elements of excuse for us. But I never knew you so inclined
for moral discussion, Arthur? Is it some danger of your own that you
are considering in this philosophical, general way?”

In asking this question, Mr. Irwine pushed his plate away, threw
himself back in his chair, and looked straight at Arthur. He really
suspected that Arthur wanted to tell him something, and thought of
smoothing the way for him by this direct question. But he was mistaken.
Brought suddenly and involuntarily to the brink of confession, Arthur
shrank back and felt less disposed towards it than ever. The
conversation had taken a more serious tone than he had intended—it
would quite mislead Irwine—he would imagine there was a deep passion
for Hetty, while there was no such thing. He was conscious of
colouring, and was annoyed at his boyishness.

“Oh no, no danger,” he said as indifferently as he could. “I don’t know
that I am more liable to irresolution than other people; only there are
little incidents now and then that set one speculating on what might
happen in the future.”

Was there a motive at work under this strange reluctance of Arthur’s
which had a sort of backstairs influence, not admitted to himself? Our
mental business is carried on much in the same way as the business of
the State: a great deal of hard work is done by agents who are not
acknowledged. In a piece of machinery, too, I believe there is often a
small unnoticeable wheel which has a great deal to do with the motion
of the large obvious ones. Possibly there was some such unrecognized
agent secretly busy in Arthur’s mind at this moment—possibly it was the
fear lest he might hereafter find the fact of having made a confession
to the rector a serious annoyance, in case he should _not_ be able
quite to carry out his good resolutions? I dare not assert that it was
not so. The human soul is a very complex thing.

The idea of Hetty had just crossed Mr. Irwine’s mind as he looked
inquiringly at Arthur, but his disclaiming indifferent answer confirmed
the thought which had quickly followed—that there could be nothing
serious in that direction. There was no probability that Arthur ever
saw her except at church, and at her own home under the eye of Mrs.
Poyser; and the hint he had given Arthur about her the other day had no
more serious meaning than to prevent him from noticing her so as to
rouse the little chit’s vanity, and in this way perturb the rustic
drama of her life. Arthur would soon join his regiment, and be far
away: no, there could be no danger in that quarter, even if Arthur’s
character had not been a strong security against it. His honest,
patronizing pride in the good-will and respect of everybody about him
was a safeguard even against foolish romance, still more against a
lower kind of folly. If there had been anything special on Arthur’s
mind in the previous conversation, it was clear he was not inclined to
enter into details, and Mr. Irwine was too delicate to imply even a
friendly curiosity. He perceived a change of subject would be welcome,
and said, “By the way, Arthur, at your colonel’s birthday fête there
were some transparencies that made a great effect in honour of
Britannia, and Pitt, and the Loamshire Militia, and, above all, the
‘generous youth,’ the hero of the day. Don’t you think you should get
up something of the same sort to astonish our weak minds?”

The opportunity was gone. While Arthur was hesitating, the rope to
which he might have clung had drifted away—he must trust now to his own
swimming.

In ten minutes from that time, Mr. Irwine was called for on business,
and Arthur, bidding him good-bye, mounted his horse again with a sense
of dissatisfaction, which he tried to quell by determining to set off
for Eagledale without an hour’s delay.




Book Second




Chapter XVII
In Which the Story Pauses a Little


“This Rector of Broxton is little better than a pagan!” I hear one of
my readers exclaim. “How much more edifying it would have been if you
had made him give Arthur some truly spiritual advice! You might have
put into his mouth the most beautiful things—quite as good as reading a
sermon.”

Certainly I could, if I held it the highest vocation of the novelist to
represent things as they never have been and never will be. Then, of
course, I might refashion life and character entirely after my own
liking; I might select the most unexceptionable type of clergyman and
put my own admirable opinions into his mouth on all occasions. But it
happens, on the contrary, that my strongest effort is to avoid any such
arbitrary picture, and to give a faithful account of men and things as
they have mirrored themselves in my mind. The mirror is doubtless
defective, the outlines will sometimes be disturbed, the reflection
faint or confused; but I feel as much bound to tell you as precisely as
I can what that reflection is, as if I were in the witness-box,
narrating my experience on oath.

Sixty years ago—it is a long time, so no wonder things have changed—all
clergymen were not zealous; indeed, there is reason to believe that the
number of zealous clergymen was small, and it is probable that if one
among the small minority had owned the livings of Broxton and Hayslope
in the year 1799, you would have liked him no better than you like Mr.
Irwine. Ten to one, you would have thought him a tasteless, indiscreet,
methodistical man. It is so very rarely that facts hit that nice medium
required by our own enlightened opinions and refined taste! Perhaps you
will say, “Do improve the facts a little, then; make them more
accordant with those correct views which it is our privilege to
possess. The world is not just what we like; do touch it up with a
tasteful pencil, and make believe it is not quite such a mixed
entangled affair. Let all people who hold unexceptionable opinions act
unexceptionably. Let your most faulty characters always be on the wrong
side, and your virtuous ones on the right. Then we shall see at a
glance whom we are to condemn and whom we are to approve. Then we shall
be able to admire, without the slightest disturbance of our
prepossessions: we shall hate and despise with that true ruminant
relish which belongs to undoubting confidence.”

But, my good friend, what will you do then with your fellow-parishioner
who opposes your husband in the vestry? With your newly appointed
vicar, whose style of preaching you find painfully below that of his
regretted predecessor? With the honest servant who worries your soul
with her one failing? With your neighbour, Mrs. Green, who was really
kind to you in your last illness, but has said several ill-natured
things about you since your convalescence? Nay, with your excellent
husband himself, who has other irritating habits besides that of not
wiping his shoes? These fellow-mortals, every one, must be accepted as
they are: you can neither straighten their noses, nor brighten their
wit, nor rectify their dispositions; and it is these people—amongst
whom your life is passed—that it is needful you should tolerate, pity,
and love: it is these more or less ugly, stupid, inconsistent people
whose movements of goodness you should be able to admire—for whom you
should cherish all possible hopes, all possible patience. And I would
not, even if I had the choice, be the clever novelist who could create
a world so much better than this, in which we get up in the morning to
do our daily work, that you would be likely to turn a harder, colder
eye on the dusty streets and the common green fields—on the real
breathing men and women, who can be chilled by your indifference or
injured by your prejudice; who can be cheered and helped onward by your
fellow-feeling, your forbearance, your outspoken, brave justice.

So I am content to tell my simple story, without trying to make things
seem better than they were; dreading nothing, indeed, but falsity,
which, in spite of one’s best efforts, there is reason to dread.
Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of a
delightful facility in drawing a griffin—the longer the claws, and the
larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility which we
mistook for genius is apt to forsake us when we want to draw a real
unexaggerated lion. Examine your words well, and you will find that
even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to
say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings—much harder
than to say something fine about them which is _not_ the exact truth.

It is for this rare, precious quality of truthfulness that I delight in
many Dutch paintings, which lofty-minded people despise. I find a
source of delicious sympathy in these faithful pictures of a monotonous
homely existence, which has been the fate of so many more among my
fellow-mortals than a life of pomp or of absolute indigence, of tragic
suffering or of world-stirring actions. I turn, without shrinking, from
cloud-borne angels, from prophets, sibyls, and heroic warriors, to an
old woman bending over her flower-pot, or eating her solitary dinner,
while the noonday light, softened perhaps by a screen of leaves, falls
on her mob-cap, and just touches the rim of her spinning-wheel, and her
stone jug, and all those cheap common things which are the precious
necessaries of life to her—or I turn to that village wedding, kept
between four brown walls, where an awkward bridegroom opens the dance
with a high-shouldered, broad-faced bride, while elderly and
middle-aged friends look on, with very irregular noses and lips, and
probably with quart-pots in their hands, but with an expression of
unmistakable contentment and goodwill. “Foh!” says my idealistic
friend, “what vulgar details! What good is there in taking all these
pains to give an exact likeness of old women and clowns? What a low
phase of life! What clumsy, ugly people!”

But bless us, things may be lovable that are not altogether handsome, I
hope? I am not at all sure that the majority of the human race have not
been ugly, and even among those “lords of their kind,” the British,
squat figures, ill-shapen nostrils, and dingy complexions are not
startling exceptions. Yet there is a great deal of family love amongst
us. I have a friend or two whose class of features is such that the
Apollo curl on the summit of their brows would be decidedly trying; yet
to my certain knowledge tender hearts have beaten for them, and their
miniatures—flattering, but still not lovely—are kissed in secret by
motherly lips. I have seen many an excellent matron, who could have
never in her best days have been handsome, and yet she had a packet of
yellow love-letters in a private drawer, and sweet children showered
kisses on her sallow cheeks. And I believe there have been plenty of
young heroes, of middle stature and feeble beards, who have felt quite
sure they could never love anything more insignificant than a Diana,
and yet have found themselves in middle life happily settled with a
wife who waddles. Yes! Thank God; human feeling is like the mighty
rivers that bless the earth: it does not wait for beauty—it flows with
resistless force and brings beauty with it.

All honour and reverence to the divine beauty of form! Let us cultivate
it to the utmost in men, women, and children—in our gardens and in our
houses. But let us love that other beauty too, which lies in no secret
of proportion, but in the secret of deep human sympathy. Paint us an
angel, if you can, with a floating violet robe, and a face paled by the
celestial light; paint us yet oftener a Madonna, turning her mild face
upward and opening her arms to welcome the divine glory; but do not
impose on us any aesthetic rules which shall banish from the region of
Art those old women scraping carrots with their work-worn hands, those
heavy clowns taking holiday in a dingy pot-house, those rounded backs
and stupid weather-beaten faces that have bent over the spade and done
the rough work of the world—those homes with their tin pans, their
brown pitchers, their rough curs, and their clusters of onions. In this
world there are so many of these common coarse people, who have no
picturesque sentimental wretchedness! It is so needful we should
remember their existence, else we may happen to leave them quite out of
our religion and philosophy and frame lofty theories which only fit a
world of extremes. Therefore, let Art always remind us of them;
therefore let us always have men ready to give the loving pains of a
life to the faithful representing of commonplace things—men who see
beauty in these commonplace things, and delight in showing how kindly
the light of heaven falls on them. There are few prophets in the world;
few sublimely beautiful women; few heroes. I can’t afford to give all
my love and reverence to such rarities: I want a great deal of those
feelings for my every-day fellow-men, especially for the few in the
foreground of the great multitude, whose faces I know, whose hands I
touch, for whom I have to make way with kindly courtesy. Neither are
picturesque lazzaroni or romantic criminals half so frequent as your
common labourer, who gets his own bread and eats it vulgarly but
creditably with his own pocket-knife. It is more needful that I should
have a fibre of sympathy connecting me with that vulgar citizen who
weighs out my sugar in a vilely assorted cravat and waistcoat, than
with the handsomest rascal in red scarf and green feathers—more needful
that my heart should swell with loving admiration at some trait of
gentle goodness in the faulty people who sit at the same hearth with
me, or in the clergyman of my own parish, who is perhaps rather too
corpulent and in other respects is not an Oberlin or a Tillotson, than
at the deeds of heroes whom I shall never know except by hearsay, or at
the sublimest abstract of all clerical graces that was ever conceived
by an able novelist.

And so I come back to Mr. Irwine, with whom I desire you to be in
perfect charity, far as he may be from satisfying your demands on the
clerical character. Perhaps you think he was not—as he ought to have
been—a living demonstration of the benefits attached to a national
church? But I am not sure of that; at least I know that the people in
Broxton and Hayslope would have been very sorry to part with their
clergyman, and that most faces brightened at his approach; and until it
can be proved that hatred is a better thing for the soul than love, I
must believe that Mr. Irwine’s influence in his parish was a more
wholesome one than that of the zealous Mr. Ryde, who came there twenty
years afterwards, when Mr. Irwine had been gathered to his fathers. It
is true, Mr. Ryde insisted strongly on the doctrines of the
Reformation, visited his flock a great deal in their own homes, and was
severe in rebuking the aberrations of the flesh—put a stop, indeed, to
the Christmas rounds of the church singers, as promoting drunkenness
and too light a handling of sacred things. But I gathered from Adam
Bede, to whom I talked of these matters in his old age, that few
clergymen could be less successful in winning the hearts of their
parishioners than Mr. Ryde. They learned a great many notions about
doctrine from him, so that almost every church-goer under fifty began
to distinguish as well between the genuine gospel and what did not come
precisely up to that standard, as if he had been born and bred a
Dissenter; and for some time after his arrival there seemed to be quite
a religious movement in that quiet rural district. “But,” said Adam,
“I’ve seen pretty clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion’s
something else besides notions. It isn’t notions sets people doing the
right thing—it’s feelings. It’s the same with the notions in religion
as it is with math’matics—a man may be able to work problems straight
off in’s head as he sits by the fire and smokes his pipe, but if he has
to make a machine or a building, he must have a will and a resolution
and love something else better than his own ease. Somehow, the
congregation began to fall off, and people began to speak light o’ Mr.
Ryde. I believe he meant right at bottom; but, you see, he was
sourish-tempered, and was for beating down prices with the people as
worked for him; and his preaching wouldn’t go down well with that
sauce. And he wanted to be like my lord judge i’ the parish, punishing
folks for doing wrong; and he scolded ’em from the pulpit as if he’d
been a Ranter, and yet he couldn’t abide the Dissenters, and was a deal
more set against ’em than Mr. Irwine was. And then he didn’t keep
within his income, for he seemed to think at first go-off that six
hundred a-year was to make him as big a man as Mr. Donnithorne. That’s
a sore mischief I’ve often seen with the poor curates jumping into a
bit of a living all of a sudden. Mr. Ryde was a deal thought on at a
distance, I believe, and he wrote books, but as for math’matics and the
natur o’ things, he was as ignorant as a woman. He was very knowing
about doctrines, and used to call ’em the bulwarks of the Reformation;
but I’ve always mistrusted that sort o’ learning as leaves folks
foolish and unreasonable about business. Now Mester Irwine was as
different as could be: as quick!—he understood what you meant in a
minute, and he knew all about building, and could see when you’d made a
good job. And he behaved as much like a gentleman to the farmers, and
th’ old women, and the labourers, as he did to the gentry. You never
saw _him_ interfering and scolding, and trying to play th’ emperor. Ah,
he was a fine man as ever you set eyes on; and so kind to’s mother and
sisters. That poor sickly Miss Anne—he seemed to think more of her than
of anybody else in the world. There wasn’t a soul in the parish had a
word to say against him; and his servants stayed with him till they
were so old and pottering, he had to hire other folks to do their
work.”

“Well,” I said, “that was an excellent way of preaching in the
weekdays; but I daresay, if your old friend Mr. Irwine were to come to
life again, and get into the pulpit next Sunday, you would be rather
ashamed that he didn’t preach better after all your praise of him.”

“Nay, nay,” said Adam, broadening his chest and throwing himself back
in his chair, as if he were ready to meet all inferences, “nobody has
ever heard me say Mr. Irwine was much of a preacher. He didn’t go into
deep speritial experience; and I know there s a deal in a man’s inward
life as you can’t measure by the square, and say, ‘Do this and that ’ll
follow,’ and, ‘Do that and this ’ll follow.’ There’s things go on in
the soul, and times when feelings come into you like a rushing mighty
wind, as the Scripture says, and part your life in two a’most, so you
look back on yourself as if you was somebody else. Those are things as
you can’t bottle up in a ‘do this’ and ‘do that’; and I’ll go so far
with the strongest Methodist ever you’ll find. That shows me there’s
deep speritial things in religion. You can’t make much out wi’ talking
about it, but you feel it. Mr. Irwine didn’t go into those things—he
preached short moral sermons, and that was all. But then he acted
pretty much up to what he said; he didn’t set up for being so different
from other folks one day, and then be as like ’em as two peas the next.
And he made folks love him and respect him, and that was better nor
stirring up their gall wi’ being overbusy. Mrs. Poyser used to say—you
know she would have her word about everything—she said, Mr. Irwine was
like a good meal o’ victual, you were the better for him without
thinking on it, and Mr. Ryde was like a dose o’ physic, he gripped you
and worreted you, and after all he left you much the same.”

“But didn’t Mr. Ryde preach a great deal more about that spiritual part
of religion that you talk of, Adam? Couldn’t you get more out of his
sermons than out of Mr. Irwine’s?”

“Eh, I knowna. He preached a deal about doctrines. But I’ve seen pretty
clear, ever since I was a young un, as religion’s something else
besides doctrines and notions. I look at it as if the doctrines was
like finding names for your feelings, so as you can talk of ’em when
you’ve never known ’em, just as a man may talk o’ tools when he knows
their names, though he’s never so much as seen ’em, still less handled
’em. I’ve heard a deal o’ doctrine i’ my time, for I used to go after
the Dissenting preachers along wi’ Seth, when I was a lad o’ seventeen,
and got puzzling myself a deal about th’ Arminians and the Calvinists.
The Wesleyans, you know, are strong Arminians; and Seth, who could
never abide anything harsh and was always for hoping the best, held
fast by the Wesleyans from the very first; but I thought I could pick a
hole or two in their notions, and I got disputing wi’ one o’ the class
leaders down at Treddles’on, and harassed him so, first o’ this side
and then o’ that, till at last he said, ‘Young man, it’s the devil
making use o’ your pride and conceit as a weapon to war against the
simplicity o’ the truth.’ I couldn’t help laughing then, but as I was
going home, I thought the man wasn’t far wrong. I began to see as all
this weighing and sifting what this text means and that text means, and
whether folks are saved all by God’s grace, or whether there goes an
ounce o’ their own will to’t, was no part o’ real religion at all. You
may talk o’ these things for hours on end, and you’ll only be all the
more coxy and conceited for’t. So I took to going nowhere but to
church, and hearing nobody but Mr. Irwine, for he said nothing but what
was good and what you’d be the wiser for remembering. And I found it
better for my soul to be humble before the mysteries o’ God’s dealings,
and not be making a clatter about what I could never understand. And
they’re poor foolish questions after all; for what have we got either
inside or outside of us but what comes from God? If we’ve got a
resolution to do right, He gave it us, I reckon, first or last; but I
see plain enough we shall never do it without a resolution, and that’s
enough for me.”

Adam, you perceive, was a warm admirer, perhaps a partial judge, of Mr.
Irwine, as, happily, some of us still are of the people we have known
familiarly. Doubtless it will be despised as a weakness by that lofty
order of minds who pant after the ideal, and are oppressed by a general
sense that their emotions are of too exquisite a character to find fit
objects among their everyday fellowmen. I have often been favoured with
the confidence of these select natures, and find them to concur in the
experience that great men are overestimated and small men are
insupportable; that if you would love a woman without ever looking back
on your love as a folly, she must die while you are courting her; and
if you would maintain the slightest belief in human heroism, you must
never make a pilgrimage to see the hero. I confess I have often meanly
shrunk from confessing to these accomplished and acute gentlemen what
my own experience has been. I am afraid I have often smiled with
hypocritical assent, and gratified them with an epigram on the fleeting
nature of our illusions, which any one moderately acquainted with
French literature can command at a moment’s notice. Human converse, I
think some wise man has remarked, is not rigidly sincere. But I
herewith discharge my conscience, and declare that I have had quite
enthusiastic movements of admiration towards old gentlemen who spoke
the worst English, who were occasionally fretful in their temper, and
who had never moved in a higher sphere of influence than that of parish
overseer; and that the way in which I have come to the conclusion that
human nature is lovable—the way I have learnt something of its deep
pathos, its sublime mysteries—has been by living a great deal among
people more or less commonplace and vulgar, of whom you would perhaps
hear nothing very surprising if you were to inquire about them in the
neighbourhoods where they dwelt. Ten to one most of the small
shopkeepers in their vicinity saw nothing at all in them. For I have
observed this remarkable coincidence, that the select natures who pant
after the ideal, and find nothing in pantaloons or petticoats great
enough to command their reverence and love, are curiously in unison
with the narrowest and pettiest. For example, I have often heard Mr.
Gedge, the landlord of the Royal Oak, who used to turn a bloodshot eye
on his neighbours in the village of Shepperton, sum up his opinion of
the people in his own parish—and they were all the people he knew—in
these emphatic words: “Aye, sir, I’ve said it often, and I’ll say it
again, they’re a poor lot i’ this parish—a poor lot, sir, big and
little.” I think he had a dim idea that if he could migrate to a
distant parish, he might find neighbours worthy of him; and indeed he
did subsequently transfer himself to the Saracen’s Head, which was
doing a thriving business in the back street of a neighbouring
market-town. But, oddly enough, he has found the people up that back
street of precisely the same stamp as the inhabitants of Shepperton—“a
poor lot, sir, big and little, and them as comes for a go o’ gin are no
better than them as comes for a pint o’ twopenny—a poor lot.”




Chapter XVIII
Church


“Hetty, Hetty, don’t you know church begins at two, and it’s gone half
after one a’ready? Have you got nothing better to think on this good
Sunday as poor old Thias Bede’s to be put into the ground, and him
drownded i’ th’ dead o’ the night, as it’s enough to make one’s back
run cold, but you must be ’dizening yourself as if there was a wedding
i’stid of a funeral?”

“Well, Aunt,” said Hetty, “I can’t be ready so soon as everybody else,
when I’ve got Totty’s things to put on. And I’d ever such work to make
her stand still.”

Hetty was coming downstairs, and Mrs. Poyser, in her plain bonnet and
shawl, was standing below. If ever a girl looked as if she had been
made of roses, that girl was Hetty in her Sunday hat and frock. For her
hat was trimmed with pink, and her frock had pink spots, sprinkled on a
white ground. There was nothing but pink and white about her, except in
her dark hair and eyes and her little buckled shoes. Mrs. Poyser was
provoked at herself, for she could hardly keep from smiling, as any
mortal is inclined to do at the sight of pretty round things. So she
turned without speaking, and joined the group outside the house door,
followed by Hetty, whose heart was fluttering so at the thought of some
one she expected to see at church that she hardly felt the ground she
trod on.

And now the little procession set off. Mr. Poyser was in his Sunday
suit of drab, with a red-and-green waistcoat and a green watch-ribbon
having a large cornelian seal attached, pendant like a plumb-line from
that promontory where his watch-pocket was situated; a silk
handkerchief of a yellow tone round his neck; and excellent grey ribbed
stockings, knitted by Mrs. Poyser’s own hand, setting off the
proportions of his leg. Mr. Poyser had no reason to be ashamed of his
leg, and suspected that the growing abuse of top-boots and other
fashions tending to disguise the nether limbs had their origin in a
pitiable degeneracy of the human calf. Still less had he reason to be
ashamed of his round jolly face, which was good humour itself as he
said, “Come, Hetty—come, little uns!” and giving his arm to his wife,
led the way through the causeway gate into the yard.

The “little uns” addressed were Marty and Tommy, boys of nine and
seven, in little fustian tailed coats and knee-breeches, relieved by
rosy cheeks and black eyes, looking as much like their father as a very
small elephant is like a very large one. Hetty walked between them, and
behind came patient Molly, whose task it was to carry Totty through the
yard and over all the wet places on the road; for Totty, having
speedily recovered from her threatened fever, had insisted on going to
church to-day, and especially on wearing her red-and-black necklace
outside her tippet. And there were many wet places for her to be
carried over this afternoon, for there had been heavy showers in the
morning, though now the clouds had rolled off and lay in towering
silvery masses on the horizon.

You might have known it was Sunday if you had only waked up in the
farmyard. The cocks and hens seemed to know it, and made only crooning
subdued noises; the very bull-dog looked less savage, as if he would
have been satisfied with a smaller bite than usual. The sunshine seemed
to call all things to rest and not to labour. It was asleep itself on
the moss-grown cow-shed; on the group of white ducks nestling together
with their bills tucked under their wings; on the old black sow
stretched languidly on the straw, while her largest young one found an
excellent spring-bed on his mother’s fat ribs; on Alick, the shepherd,
in his new smock-frock, taking an uneasy siesta, half-sitting,
half-standing on the granary steps. Alick was of opinion that church,
like other luxuries, was not to be indulged in often by a foreman who
had the weather and the ewes on his mind. “Church! Nay—I’n gotten
summat else to think on,” was an answer which he often uttered in a
tone of bitter significance that silenced further question. I feel sure
Alick meant no irreverence; indeed, I know that his mind was not of a
speculative, negative cast, and he would on no account have missed
going to church on Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, and “Whissuntide.” But
he had a general impression that public worship and religious
ceremonies, like other non-productive employments, were intended for
people who had leisure.

“There’s Father a-standing at the yard-gate,” said Martin Poyser. “I
reckon he wants to watch us down the field. It’s wonderful what sight
he has, and him turned seventy-five.”

“Ah, I often think it’s wi’ th’ old folks as it is wi’ the babbies,”
said Mrs. Poyser; “they’re satisfied wi’ looking, no matter what
they’re looking at. It’s God A’mighty’s way o’ quietening ’em, I
reckon, afore they go to sleep.”

Old Martin opened the gate as he saw the family procession approaching,
and held it wide open, leaning on his stick—pleased to do this bit of
work; for, like all old men whose life has been spent in labour, he
liked to feel that he was still useful—that there was a better crop of
onions in the garden because he was by at the sowing—and that the cows
would be milked the better if he stayed at home on a Sunday afternoon
to look on. He always went to church on Sacrament Sundays, but not very
regularly at other times; on wet Sundays, or whenever he had a touch of
rheumatism, he used to read the three first chapters of Genesis
instead.

“They’ll ha’ putten Thias Bede i’ the ground afore ye get to the
churchyard,” he said, as his son came up. “It ’ud ha’ been better luck
if they’d ha’ buried him i’ the forenoon when the rain was fallin’;
there’s no likelihoods of a drop now; an’ the moon lies like a boat
there, dost see? That’s a sure sign o’ fair weather—there’s a many as
is false but that’s sure.”

“Aye, aye,” said the son, “I’m in hopes it’ll hold up now.”

“Mind what the parson says, mind what the parson says, my lads,” said
Grandfather to the black-eyed youngsters in knee-breeches, conscious of
a marble or two in their pockets which they looked forward to handling,
a little, secretly, during the sermon.

“Dood-bye, Dandad,” said Totty. “Me doin’ to church. Me dot my neklace
on. Dive me a peppermint.”

Grandad, shaking with laughter at this “deep little wench,” slowly
transferred his stick to his left hand, which held the gate open, and
slowly thrust his finger into the waistcoat pocket on which Totty had
fixed her eyes with a confident look of expectation.

And when they were all gone, the old man leaned on the gate again,
watching them across the lane along the Home Close, and through the far
gate, till they disappeared behind a bend in the hedge. For the
hedgerows in those days shut out one’s view, even on the better-managed
farms; and this afternoon, the dog-roses were tossing out their pink
wreaths, the nightshade was in its yellow and purple glory, the pale
honeysuckle grew out of reach, peeping high up out of a holly bush, and
over all an ash or a sycamore every now and then threw its shadow
across the path.

There were acquaintances at other gates who had to move aside and let
them pass: at the gate of the Home Close there was half the dairy of
cows standing one behind the other, extremely slow to understand that
their large bodies might be in the way; at the far gate there was the
mare holding her head over the bars, and beside her the liver-coloured
foal with its head towards its mother’s flank, apparently still much
embarrassed by its own straddling existence. The way lay entirely
through Mr. Poyser’s own fields till they reached the main road leading
to the village, and he turned a keen eye on the stock and the crops as
they went along, while Mrs. Poyser was ready to supply a running
commentary on them all. The woman who manages a dairy has a large share
in making the rent, so she may well be allowed to have her opinion on
stock and their “keep”—an exercise which strengthens her understanding
so much that she finds herself able to give her husband advice on most
other subjects.

“There’s that shorthorned Sally,” she said, as they entered the Home
Close, and she caught sight of the meek beast that lay chewing the cud
and looking at her with a sleepy eye. “I begin to hate the sight o’ the
cow; and I say now what I said three weeks ago, the sooner we get rid
of her the better, for there’s that little yallow cow as doesn’t give
half the milk, and yet I’ve twice as much butter from her.”

“Why, thee’t not like the women in general,” said Mr. Poyser; “they
like the shorthorns, as give such a lot o’ milk. There’s Chowne’s wife
wants him to buy no other sort.”

“What’s it sinnify what Chowne’s wife likes? A poor soft thing, wi’ no
more head-piece nor a sparrow. She’d take a big cullender to strain her
lard wi’, and then wonder as the scratchin’s run through. I’ve seen
enough of her to know as I’ll niver take a servant from her house
again—all hugger-mugger—and you’d niver know, when you went in, whether
it was Monday or Friday, the wash draggin’ on to th’ end o’ the week;
and as for her cheese, I know well enough it rose like a loaf in a tin
last year. And then she talks o’ the weather bein’ i’ fault, as there’s
folks ’ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i’ their
boots.”

“Well, Chowne’s been wanting to buy Sally, so we can get rid of her if
thee lik’st,” said Mr. Poyser, secretly proud of his wife’s superior
power of putting two and two together; indeed, on recent market-days he
had more than once boasted of her discernment in this very matter of
shorthorns. “Aye, them as choose a soft for a wife may’s well buy up
the shorthorns, for if you get your head stuck in a bog, your legs
may’s well go after it. Eh! Talk o’ legs, there’s legs for you,” Mrs.
Poyser continued, as Totty, who had been set down now the road was dry,
toddled on in front of her father and mother. “There’s shapes! An’
she’s got such a long foot, she’ll be her father’s own child.”

“Aye, she’ll be welly such a one as Hetty i’ ten years’ time, on’y
she’s got _thy_ coloured eyes. I niver remember a blue eye i’ my
family; my mother had eyes as black as sloes, just like Hetty’s.”

“The child ’ull be none the worse for having summat as isn’t like
Hetty. An’ I’m none for having her so overpretty. Though for the matter
o’ that, there’s people wi’ light hair an’ blue eyes as pretty as them
wi’ black. If Dinah had got a bit o’ colour in her cheeks, an’ didn’t
stick that Methodist cap on her head, enough to frighten the cows,
folks ’ud think her as pretty as Hetty.”

“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Poyser, with rather a contemptuous emphasis, “thee
dostna know the pints of a woman. The men ’ud niver run after Dinah as
they would after Hetty.”

“What care I what the men ’ud run after? It’s well seen what choice the
most of ’em know how to make, by the poor draggle-tails o’ wives you
see, like bits o’ gauze ribbin, good for nothing when the colour’s
gone.”

“Well, well, thee canstna say but what I knowed how to make a choice
when I married thee,” said Mr. Poyser, who usually settled little
conjugal disputes by a compliment of this sort; “and thee wast twice as
buxom as Dinah ten year ago.”

“I niver said as a woman had need to be ugly to make a good missis of a
house. There’s Chowne’s wife ugly enough to turn the milk an’ save the
rennet, but she’ll niver save nothing any other way. But as for Dinah,
poor child, she’s niver likely to be buxom as long as she’ll make her
dinner o’ cake and water, for the sake o’ giving to them as want. She
provoked me past bearing sometimes; and, as I told her, she went clean
again’ the Scriptur’, for that says, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’;
‘but,’ I said, ‘if you loved your neighbour no better nor you do
yourself, Dinah, it’s little enough you’d do for him. You’d be thinking
he might do well enough on a half-empty stomach.’ Eh, I wonder where
she is this blessed Sunday! Sitting by that sick woman, I daresay, as
she’d set her heart on going to all of a sudden.”

“Ah, it was a pity she should take such megrims into her head, when she
might ha’ stayed wi’ us all summer, and eaten twice as much as she
wanted, and it ’ud niver ha’ been missed. She made no odds in th’ house
at all, for she sat as still at her sewing as a bird on the nest, and
was uncommon nimble at running to fetch anything. If Hetty gets
married, theed’st like to ha’ Dinah wi’ thee constant.”

“It’s no use thinking o’ that,” said Mrs. Poyser. “You might as well
beckon to the flying swallow as ask Dinah to come an’ live here
comfortable, like other folks. If anything could turn her, _I_ should
ha’ turned her, for I’ve talked to her for a hour on end, and scolded
her too; for she’s my own sister’s child, and it behoves me to do what
I can for her. But eh, poor thing, as soon as she’d said us ‘good-bye’
an’ got into the cart, an’ looked back at me with her pale face, as is
welly like her Aunt Judith come back from heaven, I begun to be
frightened to think o’ the set-downs I’d given her; for it comes over
you sometimes as if she’d a way o’ knowing the rights o’ things more
nor other folks have. But I’ll niver give in as that’s ’cause she’s a
Methodist, no more nor a white calf’s white ’cause it eats out o’ the
same bucket wi’ a black un.”

“Nay,” said Mr. Poyser, with as near an approach to a snarl as his
good-nature would allow; “I’m no opinion o’ the Methodists. It’s on’y
tradesfolks as turn Methodists; you nuver knew a farmer bitten wi’ them
maggots. There’s maybe a workman now an’ then, as isn’t overclever at’s
work, takes to preachin’ an’ that, like Seth Bede. But you see Adam, as
has got one o’ the best head-pieces hereabout, knows better; he’s a
good Churchman, else I’d never encourage him for a sweetheart for
Hetty.”

“Why, goodness me,” said Mrs. Poyser, who had looked back while her
husband was speaking, “look where Molly is with them lads! They’re the
field’s length behind us. How _could_ you let ’em do so, Hetty? Anybody
might as well set a pictur’ to watch the children as you. Run back and
tell ’em to come on.”

Mr. and Mrs. Poyser were now at the end of the second field, so they
set Totty on the top of one of the large stones forming the true
Loamshire stile, and awaited the loiterers; Totty observing with
complacency, “Dey naughty, naughty boys—me dood.”

The fact was that this Sunday walk through the fields was fraught with
great excitement to Marty and Tommy, who saw a perpetual drama going on
in the hedgerows, and could no more refrain from stopping and peeping
than if they had been a couple of spaniels or terriers. Marty was quite
sure he saw a yellow-hammer on the boughs of the great ash, and while
he was peeping, he missed the sight of a white-throated stoat, which
had run across the path and was described with much fervour by the
junior Tommy. Then there was a little greenfinch, just fledged,
fluttering along the ground, and it seemed quite possible to catch it,
till it managed to flutter under the blackberry bush. Hetty could not
be got to give any heed to these things, so Molly was called on for her
ready sympathy, and peeped with open mouth wherever she was told, and
said “Lawks!” whenever she was expected to wonder.

Molly hastened on with some alarm when Hetty had come back and called
to them that her aunt was angry; but Marty ran on first, shouting,
“We’ve found the speckled turkey’s nest, Mother!” with the instinctive
confidence that people who bring good news are never in fault.

“Ah,” said Mrs. Poyser, really forgetting all discipline in this
pleasant surprise, “that’s a good lad; why, where is it?”

“Down in ever such a hole, under the hedge. I saw it first, looking
after the greenfinch, and she sat on th’ nest.”

“You didn’t frighten her, I hope,” said the mother, “else she’ll
forsake it.”

“No, I went away as still as still, and whispered to Molly—didn’t I,
Molly?”

“Well, well, now come on,” said Mrs. Poyser, “and walk before Father
and Mother, and take your little sister by the hand. We must go
straight on now. Good boys don’t look after the birds of a Sunday.”

“But, Mother,” said Marty, “you said you’d give half-a-crown to find
the speckled turkey’s nest. Mayn’t I have the half-crown put into my
money-box?”

“We’ll see about that, my lad, if you walk along now, like a good boy.”

The father and mother exchanged a significant glance of amusement at
their eldest-born’s acuteness; but on Tommy’s round face there was a
cloud.

“Mother,” he said, half-crying, “Marty’s got ever so much more money in
his box nor I’ve got in mine.”

“Munny, _me_ want half-a-toun in _my_ bots,” said Totty.

“Hush, hush, hush,” said Mrs. Poyser, “did ever anybody hear such
naughty children? Nobody shall ever see their money-boxes any more, if
they don’t make haste and go on to church.”

This dreadful threat had the desired effect, and through the two
remaining fields the three pair of small legs trotted on without any
serious interruption, notwithstanding a small pond full of tadpoles,
alias “bullheads,” which the lads looked at wistfully.

The damp hay that must be scattered and turned afresh to-morrow was not
a cheering sight to Mr. Poyser, who during hay and corn harvest had
often some mental struggles as to the benefits of a day of rest; but no
temptation would have induced him to carry on any field-work, however
early in the morning, on a Sunday; for had not Michael Holdsworth had a
pair of oxen “sweltered” while he was ploughing on Good Friday? That
was a demonstration that work on sacred days was a wicked thing; and
with wickedness of any sort Martin Poyser was quite clear that he would
have nothing to do, since money got by such means would never prosper.

“It a’most makes your fingers itch to be at the hay now the sun shines
so,” he observed, as they passed through the “Big Meadow.” “But it’s
poor foolishness to think o’ saving by going against your conscience.
There’s that Jim Wakefield, as they used to call ‘Gentleman Wakefield,’
used to do the same of a Sunday as o’ weekdays, and took no heed to
right or wrong, as if there was nayther God nor devil. An’ what’s he
come to? Why, I saw him myself last market-day a-carrying a basket wi’
oranges in’t.”

“Ah, to be sure,” said Mrs. Poyser, emphatically, “you make but a poor
trap to catch luck if you go and bait it wi’ wickedness. The money as
is got so’s like to burn holes i’ your pocket. I’d niver wish us to
leave our lads a sixpence but what was got i’ the rightful way. And as
for the weather, there’s One above makes it, and we must put up wi’t:
it’s nothing of a plague to what the wenches are.”

Notwithstanding the interruption in their walk, the excellent habit
which Mrs. Poyser’s clock had of taking time by the forelock had
secured their arrival at the village while it was still a quarter to
two, though almost every one who meant to go to church was already
within the churchyard gates. Those who stayed at home were chiefly
mothers, like Timothy’s Bess, who stood at her own door nursing her
baby and feeling as women feel in that position—that nothing else can
be expected of them.

It was not entirely to see Thias Bede’s funeral that the people were
standing about the churchyard so long before service began; that was
their common practice. The women, indeed, usually entered the church at
once, and the farmers’ wives talked in an undertone to each other, over
the tall pews, about their illnesses and the total failure of doctor’s
stuff, recommending dandelion-tea, and other home-made specifics, as
far preferable—about the servants, and their growing exorbitance as to
wages, whereas the quality of their services declined from year to
year, and there was no girl nowadays to be trusted any further than you
could see her—about the bad price Mr. Dingall, the Treddleston grocer,
was giving for butter, and the reasonable doubts that might be held as
to his solvency, notwithstanding that Mrs. Dingall was a sensible
woman, and they were all sorry for _her_, for she had very good kin.
Meantime the men lingered outside, and hardly any of them except the
singers, who had a humming and fragmentary rehearsal to go through,
entered the church until Mr. Irwine was in the desk. They saw no reason
for that premature entrance—what could they do in church if they were
there before service began?—and they did not conceive that any power in
the universe could take it ill of them if they stayed out and talked a
little about “bus’ness.”

Chad Cranage looks like quite a new acquaintance to-day, for he has got
his clean Sunday face, which always makes his little granddaughter cry
at him as a stranger. But an experienced eye would have fixed on him at
once as the village blacksmith, after seeing the humble deference with
which the big saucy fellow took off his hat and stroked his hair to the
farmers; for Chad was accustomed to say that a working-man must hold a
candle to a personage understood to be as black as he was himself on
weekdays; by which evil-sounding rule of conduct he meant what was,
after all, rather virtuous than otherwise, namely, that men who had
horses to be shod must be treated with respect. Chad and the rougher
sort of workmen kept aloof from the grave under the white thorn, where
the burial was going forward; but Sandy Jim, and several of the
farm-labourers, made a group round it, and stood with their hats off,
as fellow-mourners with the mother and sons. Others held a midway
position, sometimes watching the group at the grave, sometimes
listening to the conversation of the farmers, who stood in a knot near
the church door, and were now joined by Martin Poyser, while his family
passed into the church. On the outside of this knot stood Mr. Casson,
the landlord of the Donnithorne Arms, in his most striking
attitude—that is to say, with the forefinger of his right hand thrust
between the buttons of his waistcoat, his left hand in his breeches
pocket, and his head very much on one side; looking, on the whole, like
an actor who has only a mono-syllabic part entrusted to him, but feels
sure that the audience discern his fitness for the leading business;
curiously in contrast with old Jonathan Burge, who held his hands
behind him and leaned forward, coughing asthmatically, with an inward
scorn of all knowingness that could not be turned into cash. The talk
was in rather a lower tone than usual to-day, hushed a little by the
sound of Mr. Irwine’s voice reading the final prayers of the
burial-service. They had all had their word of pity for poor Thias, but
now they had got upon the nearer subject of their own grievances
against Satchell, the Squire’s bailiff, who played the part of steward
so far as it was not performed by old Mr. Donnithorne himself, for that
gentleman had the meanness to receive his own rents and make bargains
about his own timber. This subject of conversation was an additional
reason for not being loud, since Satchell himself might presently be
walking up the paved road to the church door. And soon they became
suddenly silent; for Mr. Irwine’s voice had ceased, and the group round
the white thorn was dispersing itself towards the church.

They all moved aside, and stood with their hats off, while Mr. Irwine
passed. Adam and Seth were coming next, with their mother between them;
for Joshua Rann officiated as head sexton as well as clerk, and was not
yet ready to follow the rector into the vestry. But there was a pause
before the three mourners came on: Lisbeth had turned round to look
again towards the grave! Ah! There was nothing now but the brown earth
under the white thorn. Yet she cried less to-day than she had done any
day since her husband’s death. Along with all her grief there was mixed
an unusual sense of her own importance in having a “burial,” and in Mr.
Irwine’s reading a special service for her husband; and besides, she
knew the funeral psalm was going to be sung for him. She felt this
counter-excitement to her sorrow still more strongly as she walked with
her sons towards the church door, and saw the friendly sympathetic nods
of their fellow-parishioners.

The mother and sons passed into the church, and one by one the
loiterers followed, though some still lingered without; the sight of
Mr. Donnithorne’s carriage, which was winding slowly up the hill,
perhaps helping to make them feel that there was no need for haste.

But presently the sound of the bassoon and the key-bugles burst forth;
the evening hymn, which always opened the service, had begun, and every
one must now enter and take his place.

I cannot say that the interior of Hayslope Church was remarkable for
anything except for the grey age of its oaken pews—great square pews
mostly, ranged on each side of a narrow aisle. It was free, indeed,
from the modern blemish of galleries. The choir had two narrow pews to
themselves in the middle of the right-hand row, so that it was a short
process for Joshua Rann to take his place among them as principal bass,
and return to his desk after the singing was over. The pulpit and desk,
grey and old as the pews, stood on one side of the arch leading into
the chancel, which also had its grey square pews for Mr. Donnithorne’s
family and servants. Yet I assure you these grey pews, with the
buff-washed walls, gave a very pleasing tone to this shabby interior,
and agreed extremely well with the ruddy faces and bright waistcoats.
And there were liberal touches of crimson toward the chancel, for the
pulpit and Mr. Donnithorne’s own pew had handsome crimson cloth
cushions; and, to close the vista, there was a crimson altar-cloth,
embroidered with golden rays by Miss Lydia’s own hand.

But even without the crimson cloth, the effect must have been warm and
cheering when Mr. Irwine was in the desk, looking benignly round on
that simple congregation—on the hardy old men, with bent knees and
shoulders, perhaps, but with vigour left for much hedge-clipping and
thatching; on the tall stalwart frames and roughly cut bronzed faces of
the stone-cutters and carpenters; on the half-dozen well-to-do farmers,
with their apple-cheeked families; and on the clean old women, mostly
farm-labourers’ wives, with their bit of snow-white cap-border under
their black bonnets, and with their withered arms, bare from the elbow,
folded passively over their chests. For none of the old people held
books—why should they? Not one of them could read. But they knew a few
“good words” by heart, and their withered lips now and then moved
silently, following the service without any very clear comprehension
indeed, but with a simple faith in its efficacy to ward off harm and
bring blessing. And now all faces were visible, for all were standing
up—the little children on the seats peeping over the edge of the grey
pews, while good Bishop Ken’s evening hymn was being sung to one of
those lively psalm-tunes which died out with the last generation of
rectors and choral parish clerks. Melodies die out, like the pipe of
Pan, with the ears that love them and listen for them. Adam was not in
his usual place among the singers to-day, for he sat with his mother
and Seth, and he noticed with surprise that Bartle Massey was absent
too—all the more agreeable for Mr. Joshua Rann, who gave out his bass
notes with unusual complacency and threw an extra ray of severity into
the glances he sent over his spectacles at the recusant Will Maskery.

I beseech you to imagine Mr. Irwine looking round on this scene, in his
ample white surplice that became him so well, with his powdered hair
thrown back, his rich brown complexion, and his finely cut nostril and
upper lip; for there was a certain virtue in that benignant yet keen
countenance as there is in all human faces from which a generous soul
beams out. And over all streamed the delicious June sunshine through
the old windows, with their desultory patches of yellow, red, and blue,
that threw pleasant touches of colour on the opposite wall.

I think, as Mr. Irwine looked round to-day, his eyes rested an instant
longer than usual on the square pew occupied by Martin Poyser and his
family. And there was another pair of dark eyes that found it
impossible not to wander thither, and rest on that round pink-and-white
figure. But Hetty was at that moment quite careless of any glances—she
was absorbed in the thought that Arthur Donnithorne would soon be
coming into church, for the carriage must surely be at the church-gate
by this time. She had never seen him since she parted with him in the
wood on Thursday evening, and oh, how long the time had seemed! Things
had gone on just the same as ever since that evening; the wonders that
had happened then had brought no changes after them; they were already
like a dream. When she heard the church door swinging, her heart beat
so, she dared not look up. She felt that her aunt was curtsying; she
curtsied herself. That must be old Mr. Donnithorne—he always came
first, the wrinkled small old man, peering round with short-sighted
glances at the bowing and curtsying congregation; then she knew Miss
Lydia was passing, and though Hetty liked so much to look at her
fashionable little coal-scuttle bonnet, with the wreath of small roses
round it, she didn’t mind it to-day. But there were no more
curtsies—no, he was not come; she felt sure there was nothing else
passing the pew door but the house-keeper’s black bonnet and the lady’s
maid’s beautiful straw hat that had once been Miss Lydia’s, and then
the powdered heads of the butler and footman. No, he was not there; yet
she would look now—she might be mistaken—for, after all, she had not
looked. So she lifted up her eyelids and glanced timidly at the
cushioned pew in the chancel—there was no one but old Mr. Donnithorne
rubbing his spectacles with his white handkerchief, and Miss Lydia
opening the large gilt-edged prayer-book. The chill disappointment was
too hard to bear. She felt herself turning pale, her lips trembling;
she was ready to cry. Oh, what _should_ she do? Everybody would know
the reason; they would know she was crying because Arthur was not
there. And Mr. Craig, with the wonderful hothouse plant in his
button-hole, was staring at her, she knew. It was dreadfully long
before the General Confession began, so that she could kneel down. Two
great drops _would_ fall then, but no one saw them except good-natured
Molly, for her aunt and uncle knelt with their backs towards her.
Molly, unable to imagine any cause for tears in church except
faintness, of which she had a vague traditional knowledge, drew out of
her pocket a queer little flat blue smelling-bottle, and after much
labour in pulling the cork out, thrust the narrow neck against Hetty’s
nostrils. “It donna smell,” she whispered, thinking this was a great
advantage which old salts had over fresh ones: they did you good
without biting your nose. Hetty pushed it away peevishly; but this
little flash of temper did what the salts could not have done—it roused
her to wipe away the traces of her tears, and try with all her might
not to shed any more. Hetty had a certain strength in her vain little
nature: she would have borne anything rather than be laughed at, or
pointed at with any other feeling than admiration; she would have
pressed her own nails into her tender flesh rather than people should
know a secret she did not want them to know.

What fluctuations there were in her busy thoughts and feelings, while
Mr. Irwine was pronouncing the solemn “Absolution” in her deaf ears,
and through all the tones of petition that followed! Anger lay very
close to disappointment, and soon won the victory over the conjectures
her small ingenuity could devise to account for Arthur’s absence on the
supposition that he really wanted to come, really wanted to see her
again. And by the time she rose from her knees mechanically, because
all the rest were rising, the colour had returned to her cheeks even
with a heightened glow, for she was framing little indignant speeches
to herself, saying she hated Arthur for giving her this pain—she would
like him to suffer too. Yet while this selfish tumult was going on in
her soul, her eyes were bent down on her prayer-book, and the eyelids
with their dark fringe looked as lovely as ever. Adam Bede thought so,
as he glanced at her for a moment on rising from his knees.

But Adam’s thoughts of Hetty did not deafen him to the service; they
rather blended with all the other deep feelings for which the church
service was a channel to him this afternoon, as a certain consciousness
of our entire past and our imagined future blends itself with all our
moments of keen sensibility. And to Adam the church service was the
best channel he could have found for his mingled regret, yearning, and
resignation; its interchange of beseeching cries for help with
outbursts of faith and praise, its recurrent responses and the familiar
rhythm of its collects, seemed to speak for him as no other form of
worship could have done; as, to those early Christians who had
worshipped from their childhood upwards in catacombs, the torch-light
and shadows must have seemed nearer the Divine presence than the
heathenish daylight of the streets. The secret of our emotions never
lies in the bare object, but in its subtle relations to our own past:
no wonder the secret escapes the unsympathizing observer, who might as
well put on his spectacles to discern odours.

But there was one reason why even a chance comer would have found the
service in Hayslope Church more impressive than in most other village
nooks in the kingdom—a reason of which I am sure you have not the
slightest suspicion. It was the reading of our friend Joshua Rann.
Where that good shoemaker got his notion of reading from remained a
mystery even to his most intimate acquaintances. I believe, after all,
he got it chiefly from Nature, who had poured some of her music into
this honest conceited soul, as she had been known to do into other
narrow souls before his. She had given him, at least, a fine bass voice
and a musical ear; but I cannot positively say whether these alone had
sufficed to inspire him with the rich chant in which he delivered the
responses. The way he rolled from a rich deep forte into a melancholy
cadence, subsiding, at the end of the last word, into a sort of faint
resonance, like the lingering vibrations of a fine violoncello, I can
compare to nothing for its strong calm melancholy but the rush and
cadence of the wind among the autumn boughs. This may seem a strange
mode of speaking about the reading of a parish clerk—a man in rusty
spectacles, with stubbly hair, a large occiput, and a prominent crown.
But that is Nature’s way: she will allow a gentleman of splendid
physiognomy and poetic aspirations to sing woefully out of tune, and
not give him the slightest hint of it; and takes care that some
narrow-browed fellow, trolling a ballad in the corner of a pot-house,
shall be as true to his intervals as a bird.

Joshua himself was less proud of his reading than of his singing, and
it was always with a sense of heightened importance that he passed from
the desk to the choir. Still more to-day: it was a special occasion,
for an old man, familiar to all the parish, had died a sad death—not in
his bed, a circumstance the most painful to the mind of the peasant—and
now the funeral psalm was to be sung in memory of his sudden departure.
Moreover, Bartle Massey was not at church, and Joshua’s importance in
the choir suffered no eclipse. It was a solemn minor strain they sang.
The old psalm-tunes have many a wail among them, and the words—

“Thou sweep’st us off as with a flood;
We vanish hence like dreams”—


seemed to have a closer application than usual in the death of poor
Thias. The mother and sons listened, each with peculiar feelings.
Lisbeth had a vague belief that the psalm was doing her husband good;
it was part of that decent burial which she would have thought it a
greater wrong to withhold from him than to have caused him many unhappy
days while he was living. The more there was said about her husband,
the more there was done for him, surely the safer he would be. It was
poor Lisbeth’s blind way of feeling that human love and pity are a
ground of faith in some other love. Seth, who was easily touched, shed
tears, and tried to recall, as he had done continually since his
father’s death, all that he had heard of the possibility that a single
moment of consciousness at the last might be a moment of pardon and
reconcilement; for was it not written in the very psalm they were
singing that the Divine dealings were not measured and circumscribed by
time? Adam had never been unable to join in a psalm before. He had
known plenty of trouble and vexation since he had been a lad, but this
was the first sorrow that had hemmed in his voice, and strangely enough
it was sorrow because the chief source of his past trouble and vexation
was for ever gone out of his reach. He had not been able to press his
father’s hand before their parting, and say, “Father, you know it was
all right between us; I never forgot what I owed you when I was a lad;
you forgive me if I have been too hot and hasty now and then!” Adam
thought but little to-day of the hard work and the earnings he had
spent on his father: his thoughts ran constantly on what the old man’s
feelings had been in moments of humiliation, when he had held down his
head before the rebukes of his son. When our indignation is borne in
submissive silence, we are apt to feel twinges of doubt afterwards as
to our own generosity, if not justice; how much more when the object of
our anger has gone into everlasting silence, and we have seen his face
for the last time in the meekness of death!

“Ah! I was always too hard,” Adam said to himself. “It’s a sore fault
in me as I’m so hot and out o’ patience with people when they do wrong,
and my heart gets shut up against ’em, so as I can’t bring myself to
forgive ’em. I see clear enough there’s more pride nor love in my soul,
for I could sooner make a thousand strokes with th’ hammer for my
father than bring myself to say a kind word to him. And there went
plenty o’ pride and temper to the strokes, as the devil _will_ be
having his finger in what we call our duties as well as our sins.
Mayhap the best thing I ever did in my life was only doing what was
easiest for myself. It’s allays been easier for me to work nor to sit
still, but the real tough job for me ’ud be to master my own will and
temper and go right against my own pride. It seems to me now, if I was
to find Father at home to-night, I should behave different; but there’s
no knowing—perhaps nothing ’ud be a lesson to us if it didn’t come too
late. It’s well we should feel as life’s a reckoning we can’t make
twice over; there’s no real making amends in this world, any more nor
you can mend a wrong subtraction by doing your addition right.”

This was the key-note to which Adam’s thoughts had perpetually returned
since his father’s death, and the solemn wail of the funeral psalm was
only an influence that brought back the old thoughts with stronger
emphasis. So was the sermon, which Mr. Irwine had chosen with reference
to Thias’s funeral. It spoke briefly and simply of the words, “In the
midst of life we are in death”—how the present moment is all we can
call our own for works of mercy, of righteous dealing, and of family
tenderness. All very old truths—but what we thought the oldest truth
becomes the most startling to us in the week when we have looked on the
dead face of one who has made a part of our own lives. For when men
want to impress us with the effect of a new and wonderfully vivid
light, do they not let it fall on the most familiar objects, that we
may measure its intensity by remembering the former dimness?

Then came the moment of the final blessing, when the forever sublime
words, “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding,” seemed to
blend with the calm afternoon sunshine that fell on the bowed heads of
the congregation; and then the quiet rising, the mothers tying on the
bonnets of the little maidens who had slept through the sermon, the
fathers collecting the prayer-books, until all streamed out through the
old archway into the green churchyard and began their neighbourly talk,
their simple civilities, and their invitations to tea; for on a Sunday
every one was ready to receive a guest—it was the day when all must be
in their best clothes and their best humour.

Mr. and Mrs. Poyser paused a minute at the church gate: they were
waiting for Adam to come up, not being contented to go away without
saying a kind word to the widow and her sons.

“Well, Mrs. Bede,” said Mrs. Poyser, as they walked on together, “you
must keep up your heart; husbands and wives must be content when
they’ve lived to rear their children and see one another’s hair grey.”

“Aye, aye,” said Mr. Poyser; “they wonna have long to wait for one
another then, anyhow. And ye’ve got two o’ the strapping’st sons i’ th’
country; and well you may, for I remember poor Thias as fine a
broad-shouldered fellow as need to be; and as for you, Mrs. Bede, why
you’re straighter i’ the back nor half the young women now.”

“Eh,” said Lisbeth, “it’s poor luck for the platter to wear well when
it’s broke i’ two. The sooner I’m laid under the thorn the better. I’m
no good to nobody now.”

Adam never took notice of his mother’s little unjust plaints; but Seth
said, “Nay, Mother, thee mustna say so. Thy sons ’ull never get another
mother.”

“That’s true, lad, that’s true,” said Mr. Poyser; “and it’s wrong on us
to give way to grief, Mrs. Bede; for it’s like the children cryin’ when
the fathers and mothers take things from ’em. There’s One above knows
better nor us.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Poyser, “an’ it’s poor work allays settin’ the dead
above the livin’. We shall all on us be dead some time, I reckon—it ’ud
be better if folks ’ud make much on us beforehand, i’stid o’ beginnin’
when we’re gone. It’s but little good you’ll do a-watering the last
year’s crop.”

“Well, Adam,” said Mr. Poyser, feeling that his wife’s words were, as
usual, rather incisive than soothing, and that it would be well to
change the subject, “you’ll come and see us again now, I hope. I hanna
had a talk with you this long while, and the missis here wants you to
see what can be done with her best spinning-wheel, for it’s got broke,
and it’ll be a nice job to mend it—there’ll want a bit o’ turning.
You’ll come as soon as you can now, will you?”

Mr. Poyser paused and looked round while he was speaking, as if to see
where Hetty was; for the children were running on before. Hetty was not
without a companion, and she had, besides, more pink and white about
her than ever, for she held in her hand the wonderful pink-and-white
hot-house plant, with a very long name—a Scotch name, she supposed,
since people said Mr. Craig the gardener was Scotch. Adam took the
opportunity of looking round too; and I am sure you will not require of
him that he should feel any vexation in observing a pouting expression
on Hetty’s face as she listened to the gardener’s small talk. Yet in
her secret heart she was glad to have him by her side, for she would
perhaps learn from him how it was Arthur had not come to church. Not
that she cared to ask him the question, but she hoped the information
would be given spontaneously; for Mr. Craig, like a superior man, was
very fond of giving information.

Mr. Craig was never aware that his conversation and advances were
received coldly, for to shift one’s point of view beyond certain limits
is impossible to the most liberal and expansive mind; we are none of us
aware of the impression we produce on Brazilian monkeys of feeble
understanding—it is possible they see hardly anything in us. Moreover,
Mr. Craig was a man of sober passions, and was already in his tenth
year of hesitation as to the relative advantages of matrimony and
bachelorhood. It is true that, now and then, when he had been a little
heated by an extra glass of grog, he had been heard to say of Hetty
that the “lass was well enough,” and that “a man might do worse”; but
on convivial occasions men are apt to express themselves strongly.

Martin Poyser held Mr. Craig in honour, as a man who “knew his
business” and who had great lights concerning soils and compost; but he
was less of a favourite with Mrs. Poyser, who had more than once said
in confidence to her husband, “You’re mighty fond o’ Craig, but for my
part, I think he’s welly like a cock as thinks the sun’s rose o’
purpose to hear him crow.” For the rest, Mr. Craig was an estimable
gardener, and was not without reasons for having a high opinion of
himself. He had also high shoulders and high cheek-bones and hung his
head forward a little, as he walked along with his hands in his
breeches pockets. I think it was his pedigree only that had the
advantage of being Scotch, and not his “bringing up”; for except that
he had a stronger burr in his accent, his speech differed little from
that of the Loamshire people about him. But a gardener is Scotch, as a
French teacher is Parisian.

“Well, Mr. Poyser,” he said, before the good slow farmer had time to
speak, “ye’ll not be carrying your hay to-morrow, I’m thinking. The
glass sticks at ‘change,’ and ye may rely upo’ my word as we’ll ha’
more downfall afore twenty-four hours is past. Ye see that darkish-blue
cloud there upo’ the ’rizon—ye know what I mean by the ’rizon, where
the land and sky seems to meet?”

“Aye, aye, I see the cloud,” said Mr. Poyser, “’rizon or no ’rizon.
It’s right o’er Mike Holdsworth’s fallow, and a foul fallow it is.”

“Well, you mark my words, as that cloud ’ull spread o’er the sky pretty
nigh as quick as you’d spread a tarpaulin over one o’ your hay-ricks.
It’s a great thing to ha’ studied the look o’ the clouds. Lord bless
you! Th’ met’orological almanecks can learn me nothing, but there’s a
pretty sight o’ things I could let _them_ up to, if they’d just come to
me. And how are _you_, Mrs. Poyser?—thinking o’ getherin’ the red
currants soon, I reckon. You’d a deal better gether ’em afore they’re
o’erripe, wi’ such weather as we’ve got to look forward to. How do ye
do, Mistress Bede?” Mr. Craig continued, without a pause, nodding by
the way to Adam and Seth. “I hope y’ enjoyed them spinach and
gooseberries as I sent Chester with th’ other day. If ye want
vegetables while ye’re in trouble, ye know where to come to. It’s well
known I’m not giving other folks’ things away, for when I’ve supplied
the house, the garden’s my own spekilation, and it isna every man th’
old squire could get as ’ud be equil to the undertaking, let alone
asking whether he’d be willing I’ve got to run my calkilation fine, I
can tell you, to make sure o’ getting back the money as I pay the
squire. I should like to see some o’ them fellows as make the almanecks
looking as far before their noses as I’ve got to do every year as
comes.”

“They look pretty fur, though,” said Mr. Poyser, turning his head on
one side and speaking in rather a subdued reverential tone. “Why, what
could come truer nor that pictur o’ the cock wi’ the big spurs, as has
got its head knocked down wi’ th’ anchor, an’ th’ firin’, an’ the ships
behind? Why, that pictur was made afore Christmas, and yit it’s come as
true as th’ Bible. Why, th’ cock’s France, an’ th’ anchor’s Nelson—an’
they told us that beforehand.”

“Pee—ee-eh!” said Mr. Craig. “A man doesna want to see fur to know as
th’ English ’ull beat the French. Why, I know upo’ good authority as
it’s a big Frenchman as reaches five foot high, an’ they live upo’
spoon-meat mostly. I knew a man as his father had a particular
knowledge o’ the French. I should like to know what them grasshoppers
are to do against such fine fellows as our young Captain Arthur. Why,
it ’ud astonish a Frenchman only to look at him; his arm’s thicker nor
a Frenchman’s body, I’ll be bound, for they pinch theirsells in wi’
stays; and it’s easy enough, for they’ve got nothing i’ their insides.”

“Where is the captain, as he wasna at church to-day?” said Adam. “I was
talking to him o’ Friday, and he said nothing about his going away.”

“Oh, he’s only gone to Eagledale for a bit o’ fishing; I reckon he’ll
be back again afore many days are o’er, for he’s to be at all th’
arranging and preparing o’ things for the comin’ o’ age o’ the 30th o’
July. But he’s fond o’ getting away for a bit, now and then. Him and
th’ old squire fit one another like frost and flowers.”

Mr. Craig smiled and winked slowly as he made this last observation,
but the subject was not developed farther, for now they had reached the
turning in the road where Adam and his companions must say “good-bye.”
The gardener, too, would have had to turn off in the same direction if
he had not accepted Mr. Poyser’s invitation to tea. Mrs. Poyser duly
seconded the invitation, for she would have held it a deep disgrace not
to make her neighbours welcome to her house: personal likes and
dislikes must not interfere with that sacred custom. Moreover, Mr.
Craig had always been full of civilities to the family at the Hall
Farm, and Mrs. Poyser was scrupulous in declaring that she had “nothing
to say again’ him, on’y it was a pity he couldna be hatched o’er again,
an’ hatched different.”

So Adam and Seth, with their mother between them, wound their way down
to the valley and up again to the old house, where a saddened memory
had taken the place of a long, long anxiety—where Adam would never have
to ask again as he entered, “Where’s Father?”

And the other family party, with Mr. Craig for company, went back to
the pleasant bright house-place at the Hall Farm—all with quiet minds,
except Hetty, who knew now where Arthur was gone, but was only the more
puzzled and uneasy. For it appeared that his absence was quite
voluntary; he need not have gone—he would not have gone if he had
wanted to see her. She had a sickening sense that no lot could ever be
pleasant to her again if her Thursday night’s vision was not to be
fulfilled; and in this moment of chill, bare, wintry disappointment and
doubt, she looked towards the possibility of being with Arthur again,
of meeting his loving glance, and hearing his soft words with that
eager yearning which one may call the “growing pain” of passion.




Chapter XIX
Adam on a Working Day


Notwithstanding Mr. Craig’s prophecy, the dark-blue cloud dispersed
itself without having produced the threatened consequences. “The
weather”—as he observed the next morning—“the weather, you see, ’s a
ticklish thing, an’ a fool ’ull hit on’t sometimes when a wise man
misses; that’s why the almanecks get so much credit. It’s one o’ them
chancy things as fools thrive on.”

This unreasonable behaviour of the weather, however, could displease no
one else in Hayslope besides Mr. Craig. All hands were to be out in the
meadows this morning as soon as the dew had risen; the wives and
daughters did double work in every farmhouse, that the maids might give
their help in tossing the hay; and when Adam was marching along the
lanes, with his basket of tools over his shoulder, he caught the sound
of jocose talk and ringing laughter from behind the hedges. The jocose
talk of hay-makers is best at a distance; like those clumsy bells round
the cows’ necks, it has rather a coarse sound when it comes close, and
may even grate on your ears painfully; but heard from far off, it
mingles very prettily with the other joyous sounds of nature. Men’s
muscles move better when their souls are making merry music, though
their merriment is of a poor blundering sort, not at all like the
merriment of birds.

And perhaps there is no time in a summer’s day more cheering than when
the warmth of the sun is just beginning to triumph over the freshness
of the morning—when there is just a lingering hint of early coolness to
keep off languor under the delicious influence of warmth. The reason
Adam was walking along the lanes at this time was because his work for
the rest of the day lay at a country-house about three miles off, which
was being put in repair for the son of a neighbouring squire; and he
had been busy since early morning with the packing of panels, doors,
and chimney-pieces, in a waggon which was now gone on before him, while
Jonathan Burge himself had ridden to the spot on horseback, to await
its arrival and direct the workmen.

This little walk was a rest to Adam, and he was unconsciously under the
charm of the moment. It was summer morning in his heart, and he saw
Hetty in the sunshine—a sunshine without glare, with slanting rays that
tremble between the delicate shadows of the leaves. He thought,
yesterday when he put out his hand to her as they came out of church,
that there was a touch of melancholy kindness in her face, such as he
had not seen before, and he took it as a sign that she had some
sympathy with his family trouble. Poor fellow! That touch of melancholy
came from quite another source, but how was he to know? We look at the
one little woman’s face we love as we look at the face of our mother
earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings. It was
impossible for Adam not to feel that what had happened in the last week
had brought the prospect of marriage nearer to him. Hitherto he had
felt keenly the danger that some other man might step in and get
possession of Hetty’s heart and hand, while he himself was still in a
position that made him shrink from asking her to accept him. Even if he
had had a strong hope that she was fond of him—and his hope was far
from being strong—he had been too heavily burdened with other claims to
provide a home for himself and Hetty—a home such as he could expect her
to be content with after the comfort and plenty of the Farm. Like all
strong natures, Adam had confidence in his ability to achieve something
in the future; he felt sure he should some day, if he lived, be able to
maintain a family and make a good broad path for himself; but he had
too cool a head not to estimate to the full the obstacles that were to
be overcome. And the time would be so long! And there was Hetty, like a
bright-cheeked apple hanging over the orchard wall, within sight of
everybody, and everybody must long for her! To be sure, if she loved
him very much, she would be content to wait for him: but _did_ she love
him? His hopes had never risen so high that he had dared to ask her. He
was clear-sighted enough to be aware that her uncle and aunt would have
looked kindly on his suit, and indeed, without this encouragement he
would never have persevered in going to the Farm; but it was impossible
to come to any but fluctuating conclusions about Hetty’s feelings. She
was like a kitten, and had the same distractingly pretty looks, that
meant nothing, for everybody that came near her.

But now he could not help saying to himself that the heaviest part of
his burden was removed, and that even before the end of another year
his circumstances might be brought into a shape that would allow him to
think of marrying. It would always be a hard struggle with his mother,
he knew: she would be jealous of any wife he might choose, and she had
set her mind especially against Hetty—perhaps for no other reason than
that she suspected Hetty to be the woman he _had_ chosen. It would
never do, he feared, for his mother to live in the same house with him
when he was married; and yet how hard she would think it if he asked
her to leave him! Yes, there was a great deal of pain to be gone
through with his mother, but it was a case in which he must make her
feel that his will was strong—it would be better for her in the end.
For himself, he would have liked that they should all live together
till Seth was married, and they might have built a bit themselves to
the old house, and made more room. He did not like “to part wi’ th’
lad”: they had hardly ever been separated for more than a day since
they were born.

But Adam had no sooner caught his imagination leaping forward in this
way—making arrangements for an uncertain future—than he checked
himself. “A pretty building I’m making, without either bricks or
timber. I’m up i’ the garret a’ready, and haven’t so much as dug the
foundation.” Whenever Adam was strongly convinced of any proposition,
it took the form of a principle in his mind: it was knowledge to be
acted on, as much as the knowledge that damp will cause rust. Perhaps
here lay the secret of the hardness he had accused himself of: he had
too little fellow-feeling with the weakness that errs in spite of
foreseen consequences. Without this fellow-feeling, how are we to get
enough patience and charity towards our stumbling, falling companions
in the long and changeful journey? And there is but one way in which a
strong determined soul can learn it—by getting his heart-strings bound
round the weak and erring, so that he must share not only the outward
consequence of their error, but their inward suffering. That is a long
and hard lesson, and Adam had at present only learned the alphabet of
it in his father’s sudden death, which, by annihilating in an instant
all that had stimulated his indignation, had sent a sudden rush of
thought and memory over what had claimed his pity and tenderness.

But it was Adam’s strength, not its correlative hardness, that
influenced his meditations this morning. He had long made up his mind
that it would be wrong as well as foolish for him to marry a blooming
young girl, so long as he had no other prospect than that of growing
poverty with a growing family. And his savings had been so constantly
drawn upon (besides the terrible sweep of paying for Seth’s substitute
in the militia) that he had not enough money beforehand to furnish even
a small cottage, and keep something in reserve against a rainy day. He
had good hope that he should be “firmer on his legs” by and by; but he
could not be satisfied with a vague confidence in his arm and brain; he
must have definite plans, and set about them at once. The partnership
with Jonathan Burge was not to be thought of at present—there were
things implicitly tacked to it that he could not accept; but Adam
thought that he and Seth might carry on a little business for
themselves in addition to their journeyman’s work, by buying a small
stock of superior wood and making articles of household furniture, for
which Adam had no end of contrivances. Seth might gain more by working
at separate jobs under Adam’s direction than by his journeyman’s work,
and Adam, in his overhours, could do all the “nice” work that required
peculiar skill. The money gained in this way, with the good wages he
received as foreman, would soon enable them to get beforehand with the
world, so sparingly as they would all live now. No sooner had this
little plan shaped itself in his mind than he began to be busy with
exact calculations about the wood to be bought and the particular
article of furniture that should be undertaken first—a kitchen cupboard
of his own contrivance, with such an ingenious arrangement of
sliding-doors and bolts, such convenient nooks for stowing household
provender, and such a symmetrical result to the eye, that every good
housewife would be in raptures with it, and fall through all the
gradations of melancholy longing till her husband promised to buy it
for her. Adam pictured to himself Mrs. Poyser examining it with her
keen eye and trying in vain to find out a deficiency; and, of course,
close to Mrs. Poyser stood Hetty, and Adam was again beguiled from
calculations and contrivances into dreams and hopes. Yes, he would go
and see her this evening—it was so long since he had been at the Hall
Farm. He would have liked to go to the night-school, to see why Bartle
Massey had not been at church yesterday, for he feared his old friend
was ill; but, unless he could manage both visits, this last must be put
off till to-morrow—the desire to be near Hetty and to speak to her
again was too strong.

As he made up his mind to this, he was coming very near to the end of
his walk, within the sound of the hammers at work on the refitting of
the old house. The sound of tools to a clever workman who loves his
work is like the tentative sounds of the orchestra to the violinist who
has to bear his part in the overture: the strong fibres begin their
accustomed thrill, and what was a moment before joy, vexation, or
ambition, begins its change into energy. All passion becomes strength
when it has an outlet from the narrow limits of our personal lot in the
labour of our right arm, the cunning of our right hand, or the still,
creative activity of our thought. Look at Adam through the rest of the
day, as he stands on the scaffolding with the two-feet ruler in his
hand, whistling low while he considers how a difficulty about a
floor-joist or a window-frame is to be overcome; or as he pushes one of
the younger workmen aside and takes his place in upheaving a weight of
timber, saying, “Let alone, lad! Thee’st got too much gristle i’ thy
bones yet”; or as he fixes his keen black eyes on the motions of a
workman on the other side of the room and warns him that his distances
are not right. Look at this broad-shouldered man with the bare muscular
arms, and the thick, firm, black hair tossed about like trodden
meadow-grass whenever he takes off his paper cap, and with the strong
barytone voice bursting every now and then into loud and solemn
psalm-tunes, as if seeking an outlet for superfluous strength, yet
presently checking himself, apparently crossed by some thought which
jars with the singing. Perhaps, if you had not been already in the
secret, you might not have guessed what sad memories, what warm
affection, what tender fluttering hopes, had their home in this
athletic body with the broken finger-nails—in this rough man, who knew
no better lyrics than he could find in the Old and New Version and an
occasional hymn; who knew the smallest possible amount of profane
history; and for whom the motion and shape of the earth, the course of
the sun, and the changes of the seasons lay in the region of mystery
just made visible by fragmentary knowledge. It had cost Adam a great
deal of trouble and work in overhours to know what he knew over and
above the secrets of his handicraft, and that acquaintance with
mechanics and figures, and the nature of the materials he worked with,
which was made easy to him by inborn inherited faculty—to get the
mastery of his pen, and write a plain hand, to spell without any other
mistakes than must in fairness be attributed to the unreasonable
character of orthography rather than to any deficiency in the speller,
and, moreover, to learn his musical notes and part-singing. Besides all
this, he had read his Bible, including the apocryphal books; Poor
Richard’s Almanac, Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying, The Pilgrim’s
Progress, with Bunyan’s Life and Holy War, a great deal of Bailey’s
Dictionary, Valentine and Orson, and part of a History of Babylon,
which Bartle Massey had lent him. He might have had many more books
from Bartle Massey, but he had no time for reading “the commin print,”
as Lisbeth called it, so busy as he was with figures in all the leisure
moments which he did not fill up with extra carpentry.

Adam, you perceive, was by no means a marvellous man, nor, properly
speaking, a genius, yet I will not pretend that his was an ordinary
character among workmen; and it would not be at all a safe conclusion
that the next best man you may happen to see with a basket of tools
over his shoulder and a paper cap on his head has the strong conscience
and the strong sense, the blended susceptibility and self-command, of
our friend Adam. He was not an average man. Yet such men as he are
reared here and there in every generation of our peasant artisans—with
an inheritance of affections nurtured by a simple family life of common
need and common industry, and an inheritance of faculties trained in
skilful courageous labour: they make their way upwards, rarely as
geniuses, most commonly as painstaking honest men, with the skill and
conscience to do well the tasks that lie before them. Their lives have
no discernible echo beyond the neighbourhood where they dwelt, but you
are almost sure to find there some good piece of road, some building,
some application of mineral produce, some improvement in farming
practice, some reform of parish abuses, with which their names are
associated by one or two generations after them. Their employers were
the richer for them, the work of their hands has worn well, and the
work of their brains has guided well the hands of other men. They went
about in their youth in flannel or paper caps, in coats black with
coal-dust or streaked with lime and red paint; in old age their white
hairs are seen in a place of honour at church and at market, and they
tell their well-dressed sons and daughters, seated round the bright
hearth on winter evenings, how pleased they were when they first earned
their twopence a-day. Others there are who die poor and never put off
the workman’s coat on weekdays. They have not had the art of getting
rich, but they are men of trust, and when they die before the work is
all out of them, it is as if some main screw had got loose in a
machine; the master who employed them says, “Where shall I find their
like?”




Chapter XX
Adam Visits the Hall Farm


Adam came back from his work in the empty waggon—that was why he had
changed his clothes—and was ready to set out to the Hall Farm when it
still wanted a quarter to seven.

“What’s thee got thy Sunday cloose on for?” said Lisbeth complainingly,
as he came downstairs. “Thee artna goin’ to th’ school i’ thy best
coat?”

“No, Mother,” said Adam, quietly. “I’m going to the Hall Farm, but
mayhap I may go to the school after, so thee mustna wonder if I’m a bit
late. Seth ’ull be at home in half an hour—he’s only gone to the
village; so thee wutna mind.”

“Eh, an’ what’s thee got thy best cloose on for to go to th’ Hall Farm?
The Poyser folks see’d thee in ’em yesterday, I warrand. What dost mean
by turnin’ worki’day into Sunday a-that’n? It’s poor keepin’ company
wi’ folks as donna like to see thee i’ thy workin’ jacket.”

“Good-bye, mother, I can’t stay,” said Adam, putting on his hat and
going out.

But he had no sooner gone a few paces beyond the door than Lisbeth
became uneasy at the thought that she had vexed him. Of course, the
secret of her objection to the best clothes was her suspicion that they
were put on for Hetty’s sake; but deeper than all her peevishness lay
the need that her son should love her. She hurried after him, and laid
hold of his arm before he had got half-way down to the brook, and said,
“Nay, my lad, thee wutna go away angered wi’ thy mother, an’ her got
nought to do but to sit by hersen an’ think on thee?”

“Nay, nay, Mother,” said Adam, gravely, and standing still while he put
his arm on her shoulder, “I’m not angered. But I wish, for thy own
sake, thee’dst be more contented to let me do what I’ve made up my mind
to do. I’ll never be no other than a good son to thee as long as we
live. But a man has other feelings besides what he owes to’s father and
mother, and thee oughtna to want to rule over me body and soul. And
thee must make up thy mind as I’ll not give way to thee where I’ve a
right to do what I like. So let us have no more words about it.”

“Eh,” said Lisbeth, not willing to show that she felt the real bearing
of Adam’s words, “and’ who likes to see thee i’ thy best cloose better
nor thy mother? An’ when thee’st got thy face washed as clean as the
smooth white pibble, an’ thy hair combed so nice, and thy eyes
a-sparklin’—what else is there as thy old mother should like to look at
half so well? An’ thee sha’t put on thy Sunday cloose when thee lik’st
for me—I’ll ne’er plague thee no moor about’n.”

“Well, well; good-bye, mother,” said Adam, kissing her and hurrying
away. He saw there was no other means of putting an end to the
dialogue. Lisbeth stood still on the spot, shading her eyes and looking
after him till he was quite out of sight. She felt to the full all the
meaning that had lain in Adam’s words, and, as she lost sight of him
and turned back slowly into the house, she said aloud to herself—for it
was her way to speak her thoughts aloud in the long days when her
husband and sons were at their work—“Eh, he’ll be tellin’ me as he’s
goin’ to bring her home one o’ these days; an’ she’ll be missis o’er
me, and I mun look on, belike, while she uses the blue-edged platters,
and breaks ’em, mayhap, though there’s ne’er been one broke sin’ my old
man an’ me bought ’em at the fair twenty ’ear come next Whissuntide.
Eh!” she went on, still louder, as she caught up her knitting from the
table, “but she’ll ne’er knit the lad’s stockin’s, nor foot ’em
nayther, while I live; an’ when I’m gone, he’ll bethink him as nobody
’ull ne’er fit’s leg an’ foot as his old mother did. She’ll know
nothin’ o’ narrowin’ an’ heelin’, I warrand, an’ she’ll make a long toe
as he canna get’s boot on. That’s what comes o’ marr’in’ young wenches.
I war gone thirty, an’ th’ feyther too, afore we war married; an’ young
enough too. She’ll be a poor dratchell by then _she’s_ thirty,
a-marr’in’ a-that’n, afore her teeth’s all come.”

Adam walked so fast that he was at the yard-gate before seven. Martin
Poyser and the grandfather were not yet come in from the meadow: every
one was in the meadow, even to the black-and-tan terrier—no one kept
watch in the yard but the bull-dog; and when Adam reached the
house-door, which stood wide open, he saw there was no one in the
bright clean house-place. But he guessed where Mrs. Poyser and some one
else would be, quite within hearing; so he knocked on the door and said
in his strong voice, “Mrs. Poyser within?”

“Come in, Mr. Bede, come in,” Mrs. Poyser called out from the dairy.
She always gave Adam this title when she received him in her own house.
“You may come into the dairy if you will, for I canna justly leave the
cheese.”

Adam walked into the dairy, where Mrs. Poyser and Nancy were crushing
the first evening cheese.

“Why, you might think you war come to a dead-house,” said Mrs. Poyser,
as he stood in the open doorway; “they’re all i’ the meadow; but
Martin’s sure to be in afore long, for they’re leaving the hay cocked
to-night, ready for carrying first thing to-morrow. I’ve been forced t’
have Nancy in, upo’ ’count as Hetty must gether the red currants
to-night; the fruit allays ripens so contrairy, just when every hand’s
wanted. An’ there’s no trustin’ the children to gether it, for they put
more into their own mouths nor into the basket; you might as well set
the wasps to gether the fruit.”

Adam longed to say he would go into the garden till Mr. Poyser came in,
but he was not quite courageous enough, so he said, “I could be looking
at your spinning-wheel, then, and see what wants doing to it. Perhaps
it stands in the house, where I can find it?”

“No, I’ve put it away in the right-hand parlour; but let it be till I
can fetch it and show it you. I’d be glad now if you’d go into the
garden and tell Hetty to send Totty in. The child ’ull run in if she’s
told, an’ I know Hetty’s lettin’ her eat too many currants. I’ll be
much obliged to you, Mr. Bede, if you’ll go and send her in; an’
there’s the York and Lankester roses beautiful in the garden now—you’ll
like to see ’em. But you’d like a drink o’ whey first, p’r’aps; I know
you’re fond o’ whey, as most folks is when they hanna got to crush it
out.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Poyser,” said Adam; “a drink o’ whey’s allays a treat
to me. I’d rather have it than beer any day.”

“Aye, aye,” said Mrs. Poyser, reaching a small white basin that stood
on the shelf, and dipping it into the whey-tub, “the smell o’ bread’s
sweet t’ everybody but the baker. The Miss Irwines allays say, ‘Oh,
Mrs. Poyser, I envy you your dairy; and I envy you your chickens; and
what a beautiful thing a farm-house is, to be sure!’ An’ I say, ‘Yes; a
farm-house is a fine thing for them as look on, an’ don’t know the
liftin’, an’ the stannin’, an’ the worritin’ o’ th’ inside as belongs
to’t.’”

“Why, Mrs. Poyser, you wouldn’t like to live anywhere else but in a
farm-house, so well as you manage it,” said Adam, taking the basin;
“and there can be nothing to look at pleasanter nor a fine milch cow,
standing up to’ts knees in pasture, and the new milk frothing in the
pail, and the fresh butter ready for market, and the calves, and the
poultry. Here’s to your health, and may you allays have strength to
look after your own dairy, and set a pattern t’ all the farmers’ wives
in the country.”

Mrs. Poyser was not to be caught in the weakness of smiling at a
compliment, but a quiet complacency over-spread her face like a
stealing sunbeam, and gave a milder glance than usual to her blue-grey
eyes, as she looked at Adam drinking the whey. Ah! I think I taste that
whey now—with a flavour so delicate that one can hardly distinguish it
from an odour, and with that soft gliding warmth that fills one’s
imagination with a still, happy dreaminess. And the light music of the
dropping whey is in my ears, mingling with the twittering of a bird
outside the wire network window—the window overlooking the garden, and
shaded by tall Guelder roses.

“Have a little more, Mr. Bede?” said Mrs. Poyser, as Adam set down the
basin.

“No, thank you; I’ll go into the garden now, and send in the little
lass.”

“Aye, do; and tell her to come to her mother in the dairy.”

Adam walked round by the rick-yard, at present empty of ricks, to the
little wooden gate leading into the garden—once the well-tended
kitchen-garden of a manor-house; now, but for the handsome brick wall
with stone coping that ran along one side of it, a true farmhouse
garden, with hardy perennial flowers, unpruned fruit-trees, and kitchen
vegetables growing together in careless, half-neglected abundance. In
that leafy, flowery, bushy time, to look for any one in this garden was
like playing at “hide-and-seek.” There were the tall hollyhocks
beginning to flower and dazzle the eye with their pink, white, and
yellow; there were the syringas and Guelder roses, all large and
disorderly for want of trimming; there were leafy walls of scarlet
beans and late peas; there was a row of bushy filberts in one
direction, and in another a huge apple-tree making a barren circle
under its low-spreading boughs. But what signified a barren patch or
two? The garden was so large. There was always a superfluity of broad
beans—it took nine or ten of Adam’s strides to get to the end of the
uncut grass walk that ran by the side of them; and as for other
vegetables, there was so much more room than was necessary for them
that in the rotation of crops a large flourishing bed of groundsel was
of yearly occurrence on one spot or other. The very rose-trees at which
Adam stopped to pluck one looked as if they grew wild; they were all
huddled together in bushy masses, now flaunting with wide-open petals,
almost all of them of the streaked pink-and-white kind, which doubtless
dated from the union of the houses of York and Lancaster. Adam was wise
enough to choose a compact Provence rose that peeped out half-smothered
by its flaunting scentless neighbours, and held it in his hand—he
thought he should be more at ease holding something in his hand—as he
walked on to the far end of the garden, where he remembered there was
the largest row of currant-trees, not far off from the great yew-tree
arbour.

But he had not gone many steps beyond the roses, when he heard the
shaking of a bough, and a boy’s voice saying, “Now, then, Totty, hold
out your pinny—there’s a duck.”

The voice came from the boughs of a tall cherry-tree, where Adam had no
difficulty in discerning a small blue-pinafored figure perched in a
commodious position where the fruit was thickest. Doubtless Totty was
below, behind the screen of peas. Yes—with her bonnet hanging down her
back, and her fat face, dreadfully smeared with red juice, turned up
towards the cherry-tree, while she held her little round hole of a
mouth and her red-stained pinafore to receive the promised downfall. I
am sorry to say, more than half the cherries that fell were hard and
yellow instead of juicy and red; but Totty spent no time in useless
regrets, and she was already sucking the third juiciest when Adam said,
“There now, Totty, you’ve got your cherries. Run into the house with
’em to Mother—she wants you—she’s in the dairy. Run in this
minute—there’s a good little girl.”

He lifted her up in his strong arms and kissed her as he spoke, a
ceremony which Totty regarded as a tiresome interruption to
cherry-eating; and when he set her down she trotted off quite silently
towards the house, sucking her cherries as she went along.

“Tommy, my lad, take care you’re not shot for a little thieving bird,”
said Adam, as he walked on towards the currant-trees.

He could see there was a large basket at the end of the row: Hetty
would not be far off, and Adam already felt as if she were looking at
him. Yet when he turned the corner she was standing with her back
towards him, and stooping to gather the low-hanging fruit. Strange that
she had not heard him coming! Perhaps it was because she was making the
leaves rustle. She started when she became conscious that some one was
near—started so violently that she dropped the basin with the currants
in it, and then, when she saw it was Adam, she turned from pale to deep
red. That blush made his heart beat with a new happiness. Hetty had
never blushed at seeing him before.

“I frightened you,” he said, with a delicious sense that it didn’t
signify what he said, since Hetty seemed to feel as much as he did;
“let _me_ pick the currants up.”

That was soon done, for they had only fallen in a tangled mass on the
grass-plot, and Adam, as he rose and gave her the basin again, looked
straight into her eyes with the subdued tenderness that belongs to the
first moments of hopeful love.

Hetty did not turn away her eyes; her blush had subsided, and she met
his glance with a quiet sadness, which contented Adam because it was so
unlike anything he had seen in her before.

“There’s not many more currants to get,” she said; “I shall soon ha’
done now.”

“I’ll help you,” said Adam; and he fetched the large basket, which was
nearly full of currants, and set it close to them.

Not a word more was spoken as they gathered the currants. Adam’s heart
was too full to speak, and he thought Hetty knew all that was in it.
She was not indifferent to his presence after all; she had blushed when
she saw him, and then there was that touch of sadness about her which
must surely mean love, since it was the opposite of her usual manner,
which had often impressed him as indifference. And he could glance at
her continually as she bent over the fruit, while the level evening
sunbeams stole through the thick apple-tree boughs, and rested on her
round cheek and neck as if they too were in love with her. It was to
Adam the time that a man can least forget in after-life, the time when
he believes that the first woman he has ever loved betrays by a slight
something—a word, a tone, a glance, the quivering of a lip or an
eyelid—that she is at least beginning to love him in return. The sign
is so slight, it is scarcely perceptible to the ear or eye—he could
describe it to no one—it is a mere feather-touch, yet it seems to have
changed his whole being, to have merged an uneasy yearning into a
delicious unconsciousness of everything but the present moment. So much
of our early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory: we can never
recall the joy with which we laid our heads on our mother’s bosom or
rode on our father’s back in childhood. Doubtless that joy is wrought
up into our nature, as the sunlight of long-past mornings is wrought up
in the soft mellowness of the apricot, but it is gone for ever from our
imagination, and we can only _believe_ in the joy of childhood. But the
first glad moment in our first love is a vision which returns to us to
the last, and brings with it a thrill of feeling intense and special as
the recurrent sensation of a sweet odour breathed in a far-off hour of
happiness. It is a memory that gives a more exquisite touch to
tenderness, that feeds the madness of jealousy and adds the last
keenness to the agony of despair.

Hetty bending over the red bunches, the level rays piercing the screen
of apple-tree boughs, the length of bushy garden beyond, his own
emotion as he looked at her and believed that she was thinking of him,
and that there was no need for them to talk—Adam remembered it all to
the last moment of his life.

And Hetty? You know quite well that Adam was mistaken about her. Like
many other men, he thought the signs of love for another were signs of
love towards himself. When Adam was approaching unseen by her, she was
absorbed as usual in thinking and wondering about Arthur’s possible
return. The sound of any man’s footstep would have affected her just in
the same way—she would have _felt_ it might be Arthur before she had
time to see, and the blood that forsook her cheek in the agitation of
that momentary feeling would have rushed back again at the sight of any
one else just as much as at the sight of Adam. He was not wrong in
thinking that a change had come over Hetty: the anxieties and fears of
a first passion, with which she was trembling, had become stronger than
vanity, had given her for the first time that sense of helpless
dependence on another’s feeling which awakens the clinging deprecating
womanhood even in the shallowest girl that can ever experience it, and
creates in her a sensibility to kindness which found her quite hard
before. For the first time Hetty felt that there was something soothing
to her in Adam’s timid yet manly tenderness. She wanted to be treated
lovingly—oh, it was very hard to bear this blank of absence, silence,
apparent indifference, after those moments of glowing love! She was not
afraid that Adam would tease her with love-making and flattering
speeches like her other admirers; he had always been so reserved to
her; she could enjoy without any fear the sense that this strong brave
man loved her and was near her. It never entered into her mind that
Adam was pitiable too—that Adam too must suffer one day.

Hetty, we know, was not the first woman that had behaved more gently to
the man who loved her in vain because she had herself begun to love
another. It was a very old story, but Adam knew nothing about it, so he
drank in the sweet delusion.

“That’ll do,” said Hetty, after a little while. “Aunt wants me to leave
some on the trees. I’ll take ’em in now.”

“It’s very well I came to carry the basket,” said Adam “for it ’ud ha’
been too heavy for your little arms.”

“No; I could ha’ carried it with both hands.”

“Oh, I daresay,” said Adam, smiling, “and been as long getting into the
house as a little ant carrying a caterpillar. Have you ever seen those
tiny fellows carrying things four times as big as themselves?”

“No,” said Hetty, indifferently, not caring to know the difficulties of
ant life.

“Oh, I used to watch ’em often when I was a lad. But now, you see, I
can carry the basket with one arm, as if it was an empty nutshell, and
give you th’ other arm to lean on. Won’t you? Such big arms as mine
were made for little arms like yours to lean on.”

Hetty smiled faintly and put her arm within his. Adam looked down at
her, but her eyes were turned dreamily towards another corner of the
garden.

“Have you ever been to Eagledale?” she said, as they walked slowly
along.

“Yes,” said Adam, pleased to have her ask a question about himself.
“Ten years ago, when I was a lad, I went with father to see about some
work there. It’s a wonderful sight—rocks and caves such as you never
saw in your life. I never had a right notion o’ rocks till I went
there.”

“How long did it take to get there?”

“Why, it took us the best part o’ two days’ walking. But it’s nothing
of a day’s journey for anybody as has got a first-rate nag. The captain
’ud get there in nine or ten hours, I’ll be bound, he’s such a rider.
And I shouldn’t wonder if he’s back again to-morrow; he’s too active to
rest long in that lonely place, all by himself, for there’s nothing but
a bit of a inn i’ that part where he’s gone to fish. I wish he’d got
th’ estate in his hands; that ’ud be the right thing for him, for it
’ud give him plenty to do, and he’d do’t well too, for all he’s so
young; he’s got better notions o’ things than many a man twice his age.
He spoke very handsome to me th’ other day about lending me money to
set up i’ business; and if things came round that way, I’d rather be
beholding to him nor to any man i’ the world.”

Poor Adam was led on to speak about Arthur because he thought Hetty
would be pleased to know that the young squire was so ready to befriend
him; the fact entered into his future prospects, which he would like to
seem promising in her eyes. And it was true that Hetty listened with an
interest which brought a new light into her eyes and a half-smile upon
her lips.

“How pretty the roses are now!” Adam continued, pausing to look at
them. “See! I stole the prettiest, but I didna mean to keep it myself.
I think these as are all pink, and have got a finer sort o’ green
leaves, are prettier than the striped uns, don’t you?”

He set down the basket and took the rose from his button-hole.

“It smells very sweet,” he said; “those striped uns have no smell.
Stick it in your frock, and then you can put it in water after. It ’ud
be a pity to let it fade.”

Hetty took the rose, smiling as she did so at the pleasant thought that
Arthur could so soon get back if he liked. There was a flash of hope
and happiness in her mind, and with a sudden impulse of gaiety she did
what she had very often done before—stuck the rose in her hair a little
above the left ear. The tender admiration in Adam’s face was slightly
shadowed by reluctant disapproval. Hetty’s love of finery was just the
thing that would most provoke his mother, and he himself disliked it as
much as it was possible for him to dislike anything that belonged to
her.

“Ah,” he said, “that’s like the ladies in the pictures at the Chase;
they’ve mostly got flowers or feathers or gold things i’ their hair,
but somehow I don’t like to see ’em; they allays put me i’ mind o’ the
painted women outside the shows at Treddles’on Fair. What can a woman
have to set her off better than her own hair, when it curls so, like
yours? If a woman’s young and pretty, I think you can see her good
looks all the better for her being plain dressed. Why, Dinah Morris
looks very nice, for all she wears such a plain cap and gown. It seems
to me as a woman’s face doesna want flowers; it’s almost like a flower
itself. I’m sure yours is.”

“Oh, very well,” said Hetty, with a little playful pout, taking the
rose out of her hair. “I’ll put one o’ Dinah’s caps on when we go in,
and you’ll see if I look better in it. She left one behind, so I can
take the pattern.”

“Nay, nay, I don’t want you to wear a Methodist cap like Dinah’s. I
daresay it’s a very ugly cap, and I used to think when I saw her here
as it was nonsense for her to dress different t’ other people; but I
never rightly noticed her till she came to see mother last week, and
then I thought the cap seemed to fit her face somehow as th ‘acorn-cup
fits th’ acorn, and I shouldn’t like to see her so well without it. But
you’ve got another sort o’ face; I’d have you just as you are now,
without anything t’ interfere with your own looks. It’s like when a
man’s singing a good tune—you don’t want t’ hear bells tinkling and
interfering wi’ the sound.”

He took her arm and put it within his again, looking down on her
fondly. He was afraid she should think he had lectured her, imagining,
as we are apt to do, that she had perceived all the thoughts he had
only half-expressed. And the thing he dreaded most was lest any cloud
should come over this evening’s happiness. For the world he would not
have spoken of his love to Hetty yet, till this commencing kindness
towards him should have grown into unmistakable love. In his
imagination he saw long years of his future life stretching before him,
blest with the right to call Hetty his own: he could be content with
very little at present. So he took up the basket of currants once more,
and they went on towards the house.

The scene had quite changed in the half-hour that Adam had been in the
garden. The yard was full of life now: Marty was letting the screaming
geese through the gate, and wickedly provoking the gander by hissing at
him; the granary-door was groaning on its hinges as Alick shut it,
after dealing out the corn; the horses were being led out to watering,
amidst much barking of all the three dogs and many “whups” from Tim the
ploughman, as if the heavy animals who held down their meek,
intelligent heads, and lifted their shaggy feet so deliberately, were
likely to rush wildly in every direction but the right. Everybody was
come back from the meadow; and when Hetty and Adam entered the
house-place, Mr. Poyser was seated in the three-cornered chair, and the
grandfather in the large arm-chair opposite, looking on with pleasant
expectation while the supper was being laid on the oak table. Mrs.
Poyser had laid the cloth herself—a cloth made of homespun linen, with
a shining checkered pattern on it, and of an agreeable whitey-brown
hue, such as all sensible housewives like to see—none of your bleached
“shop-rag” that would wear into holes in no time, but good homespun
that would last for two generations. The cold veal, the fresh lettuces,
and the stuffed chine might well look tempting to hungry men who had
dined at half-past twelve o’clock. On the large deal table against the
wall there were bright pewter plates and spoons and cans, ready for
Alick and his companions; for the master and servants ate their supper
not far off each other; which was all the pleasanter, because if a
remark about to-morrow morning’s work occurred to Mr. Poyser, Alick was
at hand to hear it.

“Well, Adam, I’m glad to see ye,” said Mr. Poyser. “What! ye’ve been
helping Hetty to gether the curran’s, eh? Come, sit ye down, sit ye
down. Why, it’s pretty near a three-week since y’ had your supper with
us; and the missis has got one of her rare stuffed chines. I’m glad
ye’re come.”

“Hetty,” said Mrs. Poyser, as she looked into the basket of currants to
see if the fruit was fine, “run upstairs and send Molly down. She’s
putting Totty to bed, and I want her to draw th’ ale, for Nancy’s busy
yet i’ the dairy. You can see to the child. But whativer did you let
her run away from you along wi’ Tommy for, and stuff herself wi’ fruit
as she can’t eat a bit o’ good victual?”

This was said in a lower tone than usual, while her husband was talking
to Adam; for Mrs. Poyser was strict in adherence to her own rules of
propriety, and she considered that a young girl was not to be treated
sharply in the presence of a respectable man who was courting her. That
would not be fair-play: every woman was young in her turn, and had her
chances of matrimony, which it was a point of honour for other women
not to spoil—just as one market-woman who has sold her own eggs must
not try to balk another of a customer.

Hetty made haste to run away upstairs, not easily finding an answer to
her aunt’s question, and Mrs. Poyser went out to see after Marty and
Tommy and bring them in to supper.

Soon they were all seated—the two rosy lads, one on each side, by the
pale mother, a place being left for Hetty between Adam and her uncle.
Alick too was come in, and was seated in his far corner, eating cold
broad beans out of a large dish with his pocket-knife, and finding a
flavour in them which he would not have exchanged for the finest
pineapple.

“What a time that gell is drawing th’ ale, to be sure!” said Mrs.
Poyser, when she was dispensing her slices of stuffed chine. “I think
she sets the jug under and forgets to turn the tap, as there’s nothing
you can’t believe o’ them wenches: they’ll set the empty kettle o’ the
fire, and then come an hour after to see if the water boils.”

“She’s drawin’ for the men too,” said Mr. Poyser. “Thee shouldst ha’
told her to bring our jug up first.”

“Told her?” said Mrs. Poyser. “Yes, I might spend all the wind i’ my
body, an’ take the bellows too, if I was to tell them gells everything
as their own sharpness wonna tell ’em. Mr. Bede, will you take some
vinegar with your lettuce? Aye you’re i’ the right not. It spoils the
flavour o’ the chine, to my thinking. It’s poor eating where the
flavour o’ the meat lies i’ the cruets. There’s folks as make bad
butter and trusten to the salt t’ hide it.”

Mrs. Poyser’s attention was here diverted by the appearance of Molly,
carrying a large jug, two small mugs, and four drinking-cans, all full
of ale or small beer—an interesting example of the prehensile power
possessed by the human hand. Poor Molly’s mouth was rather wider open
than usual, as she walked along with her eyes fixed on the double
cluster of vessels in her hands, quite innocent of the expression in
her mistress’s eye.

“Molly, I niver knew your equils—to think o’ your poor mother as is a
widow, an’ I took you wi’ as good as no character, an’ the times an’
times I’ve told you....”

Molly had not seen the lightning, and the thunder shook her nerves the
more for the want of that preparation. With a vague alarmed sense that
she must somehow comport herself differently, she hastened her step a
little towards the far deal table, where she might set down her
cans—caught her foot in her apron, which had become untied, and fell
with a crash and a splash into a pool of beer; whereupon a tittering
explosion from Marty and Tommy, and a serious “Ello!” from Mr. Poyser,
who saw his draught of ale unpleasantly deferred.

“There you go!” resumed Mrs. Poyser, in a cutting tone, as she rose and
went towards the cupboard while Molly began dolefully to pick up the
fragments of pottery. “It’s what I told you ’ud come, over and over
again; and there’s your month’s wage gone, and more, to pay for that
jug as I’ve had i’ the house this ten year, and nothing ever happened
to’t before; but the crockery you’ve broke sin’ here in th’ house
you’ve been ’ud make a parson swear—God forgi’ me for saying so—an’ if
it had been boiling wort out o’ the copper, it ’ud ha’ been the same,
and you’d ha’ been scalded and very like lamed for life, as there’s no
knowing but what you will be some day if you go on; for anybody ’ud
think you’d got the St. Vitus’s Dance, to see the things you’ve throwed
down. It’s a pity but what the bits was stacked up for you to see,
though it’s neither seeing nor hearing as ’ull make much odds to
you—anybody ’ud think you war case-hardened.”

Poor Molly’s tears were dropping fast by this time, and in her
desperation at the lively movement of the beer-stream towards Alick’s
legs, she was converting her apron into a mop, while Mrs. Poyser,
opening the cupboard, turned a blighting eye upon her.

“Ah,” she went on, “you’ll do no good wi’ crying an’ making more wet to
wipe up. It’s all your own wilfulness, as I tell you, for there’s
nobody no call to break anything if they’ll only go the right way to
work. But wooden folks had need ha’ wooden things t’ handle. And here
must I take the brown-and-white jug, as it’s niver been used three
times this year, and go down i’ the cellar myself, and belike catch my
death, and be laid up wi’ inflammation....”

Mrs. Poyser had turned round from the cupboard with the brown-and-white
jug in her hand, when she caught sight of something at the other end of
the kitchen; perhaps it was because she was already trembling and
nervous that the apparition had so strong an effect on her; perhaps
jug-breaking, like other crimes, has a contagious influence. However it
was, she stared and started like a ghost-seer, and the precious
brown-and-white jug fell to the ground, parting for ever with its spout
and handle.

“Did ever anybody see the like?” she said, with a suddenly lowered
tone, after a moment’s bewildered glance round the room. “The jugs are
bewitched, _I_ think. It’s them nasty glazed handles—they slip o’er the
finger like a snail.”

“Why, thee’st let thy own whip fly i’ thy face,” said her husband, who
had now joined in the laugh of the young ones.

“It’s all very fine to look on and grin,” rejoined Mrs. Poyser; “but
there’s times when the crockery seems alive an’ flies out o’ your hand
like a bird. It’s like the glass, sometimes, ’ull crack as it stands.
What is to be broke _will_ be broke, for I never dropped a thing i’ my
life for want o’ holding it, else I should never ha’ kept the crockery
all these ’ears as I bought at my own wedding. And Hetty, are you mad?
Whativer do you mean by coming down i’ that way, and making one think
as there’s a ghost a-walking i’ th’ house?”

A new outbreak of laughter, while Mrs. Poyser was speaking, was caused,
less by her sudden conversion to a fatalistic view of jug-breaking than
by that strange appearance of Hetty, which had startled her aunt. The
little minx had found a black gown of her aunt’s, and pinned it close
round her neck to look like Dinah’s, had made her hair as flat as she
could, and had tied on one of Dinah’s high-crowned borderless net caps.
The thought of Dinah’s pale grave face and mild grey eyes, which the
sight of the gown and cap brought with it, made it a laughable surprise
enough to see them replaced by Hetty’s round rosy cheeks and coquettish
dark eyes. The boys got off their chairs and jumped round her, clapping
their hands, and even Alick gave a low ventral laugh as he looked up
from his beans. Under cover of the noise, Mrs. Poyser went into the
back kitchen to send Nancy into the cellar with the great pewter
measure, which had some chance of being free from bewitchment.

“Why, Hetty, lass, are ye turned Methodist?” said Mr. Poyser, with that
comfortable slow enjoyment of a laugh which one only sees in stout
people. “You must pull your face a deal longer before you’ll do for
one; mustna she, Adam? How come you put them things on, eh?”

“Adam said he liked Dinah’s cap and gown better nor my clothes,” said
Hetty, sitting down demurely. “He says folks looks better in ugly
clothes.”

“Nay, nay,” said Adam, looking at her admiringly; “I only said they
seemed to suit Dinah. But if I’d said you’d look pretty in ’em, I
should ha’ said nothing but what was true.”

“Why, thee thought’st Hetty war a ghost, didstna?” said Mr. Poyser to
his wife, who now came back and took her seat again. “Thee look’dst as
scared as scared.”

“It little sinnifies how I looked,” said Mrs. Poyser; “looks ’ull mend
no jugs, nor laughing neither, as I see. Mr. Bede, I’m sorry you’ve to
wait so long for your ale, but it’s coming in a minute. Make yourself
at home wi’ th’ cold potatoes: I know you like ’em. Tommy, I’ll send
you to bed this minute, if you don’t give over laughing. What is there
to laugh at, I should like to know? I’d sooner cry nor laugh at the
sight o’ that poor thing’s cap; and there’s them as ’ud be better if
they could make theirselves like her i’ more ways nor putting on her
cap. It little becomes anybody i’ this house to make fun o’ my sister’s
child, an’ her just gone away from us, as it went to my heart to part
wi’ her. An’ I know one thing, as if trouble was to come, an’ I was to
be laid up i’ my bed, an’ the children was to die—as there’s no knowing
but what they will—an’ the murrain was to come among the cattle again,
an’ everything went to rack an’ ruin, I say we might be glad to get
sight o’ Dinah’s cap again, wi’ her own face under it, border or no
border. For she’s one o’ them things as looks the brightest on a rainy
day, and loves you the best when you’re most i’ need on’t.”

Mrs. Poyser, you perceive, was aware that nothing would be so likely to
expel the comic as the terrible. Tommy, who was of a susceptible
disposition, and very fond of his mother, and who had, besides, eaten
so many cherries as to have his feelings less under command than usual,
was so affected by the dreadful picture she had made of the possible
future that he began to cry; and the good-natured father, indulgent to
all weaknesses but those of negligent farmers, said to Hetty, “You’d
better take the things off again, my lass; it hurts your aunt to see
’em.”

Hetty went upstairs again, and the arrival of the ale made an agreeable
diversion; for Adam had to give his opinion of the new tap, which could
not be otherwise than complimentary to Mrs. Poyser; and then followed a
discussion on the secrets of good brewing, the folly of stinginess in
“hopping,” and the doubtful economy of a farmer’s making his own malt.
Mrs. Poyser had so many opportunities of expressing herself with weight
on these subjects that by the time supper was ended, the ale-jug
refilled, and Mr. Poyser’s pipe alight she was once more in high good
humour, and ready, at Adam’s request, to fetch the broken
spinning-wheel for his inspection.

“Ah,” said Adam, looking at it carefully, “here’s a nice bit o’ turning
wanted. It’s a pretty wheel. I must have it up at the turning-shop in
the village and do it there, for I’ve no convenence for turning at
home. If you’ll send it to Mr. Burge’s shop i’ the morning, I’ll get it
done for you by Wednesday. I’ve been turning it over in my mind,” he
continued, looking at Mr. Poyser, “to make a bit more convenence at
home for nice jobs o’ cabinet-making. I’ve always done a deal at such
little things in odd hours, and they’re profitable, for there’s more
workmanship nor material in ’em. I look for me and Seth to get a little
business for ourselves i’ that way, for I know a man at Rosseter as
’ull take as many things as we should make, besides what we could get
orders for round about.”

Mr. Poyser entered with interest into a project which seemed a step
towards Adam’s becoming a “master-man,” and Mrs. Poyser gave her
approbation to the scheme of the movable kitchen cupboard, which was to
be capable of containing grocery, pickles, crockery, and house-linen in
the utmost compactness without confusion. Hetty, once more in her own
dress, with her neckerchief pushed a little backwards on this warm
evening, was seated picking currants near the window, where Adam could
see her quite well. And so the time passed pleasantly till Adam got up
to go. He was pressed to come again soon, but not to stay longer, for
at this busy time sensible people would not run the risk of being
sleepy at five o’clock in the morning.

“I shall take a step farther,” said Adam, “and go on to see Mester
Massey, for he wasn’t at church yesterday, and I’ve not seen him for a
week past. I’ve never hardly known him to miss church before.”

“Aye,” said Mr. Poyser, “we’ve heared nothing about him, for it’s the
boys’ hollodays now, so we can give you no account.”

“But you’ll niver think o’ going there at this hour o’ the night?” said
Mrs. Poyser, folding up her knitting.

“Oh, Mester Massey sits up late,” said Adam. “An’ the night-school’s
not over yet. Some o’ the men don’t come till late—they’ve got so far
to walk. And Bartle himself’s never in bed till it’s gone eleven.”

“I wouldna have him to live wi’ me, then,” said Mrs. Poyser,
“a-dropping candle-grease about, as you’re like to tumble down o’ the
floor the first thing i’ the morning.”

“Aye, eleven o’clock’s late—it’s late,” said old Martin. “I ne’er sot
up so i’ _my_ life, not to say as it warna a marr’in’, or a
christenin’, or a wake, or th’ harvest supper. Eleven o’clock’s late.”

“Why, I sit up till after twelve often,” said Adam, laughing, “but it
isn’t t’ eat and drink extry, it’s to work extry. Good-night, Mrs.
Poyser; good-night, Hetty.”

Hetty could only smile and not shake hands, for hers were dyed and damp
with currant-juice; but all the rest gave a hearty shake to the large
palm that was held out to them, and said, “Come again, come again!”

“Aye, think o’ that now,” said Mr. Poyser, when Adam was out of on the
causeway. “Sitting up till past twelve to do extry work! Ye’ll not find
many men o’ six-an’ twenty as ’ull do to put i’ the shafts wi’ him. If
you can catch Adam for a husband, Hetty, you’ll ride i’ your own
spring-cart some day, I’ll be your warrant.”

Hetty was moving across the kitchen with the currants, so her uncle did
not see the little toss of the head with which she answered him. To
ride in a spring-cart seemed a very miserable lot indeed to her now.




Chapter XXI
The Night-School and the Schoolmaster


Bartle Massey’s was one of a few scattered houses on the edge of a
common, which was divided by the road to Treddleston. Adam reached it
in a quarter of an hour after leaving the Hall Farm; and when he had
his hand on the door-latch, he could see, through the curtainless
window, that there were eight or nine heads bending over the desks,
lighted by thin dips.

When he entered, a reading lesson was going forward and Bartle Massey
merely nodded, leaving him to take his place where he pleased. He had
not come for the sake of a lesson to-night, and his mind was too full
of personal matters, too full of the last two hours he had passed in
Hetty’s presence, for him to amuse himself with a book till school was
over; so he sat down in a corner and looked on with an absent mind. It
was a sort of scene which Adam had beheld almost weekly for years; he
knew by heart every arabesque flourish in the framed specimen of Bartle
Massey’s handwriting which hung over the schoolmaster’s head, by way of
keeping a lofty ideal before the minds of his pupils; he knew the backs
of all the books on the shelf running along the whitewashed wall above
the pegs for the slates; he knew exactly how many grains were gone out
of the ear of Indian corn that hung from one of the rafters; he had
long ago exhausted the resources of his imagination in trying to think
how the bunch of leathery seaweed had looked and grown in its native
element; and from the place where he sat, he could make nothing of the
old map of England that hung against the opposite wall, for age had
turned it of a fine yellow brown, something like that of a
well-seasoned meerschaum. The drama that was going on was almost as
familiar as the scene, nevertheless habit had not made him indifferent
to it, and even in his present self-absorbed mood, Adam felt a
momentary stirring of the old fellow-feeling, as he looked at the rough
men painfully holding pen or pencil with their cramped hands, or humbly
labouring through their reading lesson.

The reading class now seated on the form in front of the schoolmaster’s
desk consisted of the three most backward pupils. Adam would have known
it only by seeing Bartle Massey’s face as he looked over his
spectacles, which he had shifted to the ridge of his nose, not
requiring them for present purposes. The face wore its mildest
expression: the grizzled bushy eyebrows had taken their more acute
angle of compassionate kindness, and the mouth, habitually compressed
with a pout of the lower lip, was relaxed so as to be ready to speak a
helpful word or syllable in a moment. This gentle expression was the
more interesting because the schoolmaster’s nose, an irregular aquiline
twisted a little on one side, had rather a formidable character; and
his brow, moreover, had that peculiar tension which always impresses
one as a sign of a keen impatient temperament: the blue veins stood out
like cords under the transparent yellow skin, and this intimidating
brow was softened by no tendency to baldness, for the grey bristly
hair, cut down to about an inch in length, stood round it in as close
ranks as ever.

“Nay, Bill, nay,” Bartle was saying in a kind tone, as he nodded to
Adam, “begin that again, and then perhaps, it’ll come to you what d-r-y
spells. It’s the same lesson you read last week, you know.”

“Bill” was a sturdy fellow, aged four-and-twenty, an excellent
stone-sawyer, who could get as good wages as any man in the trade of
his years; but he found a reading lesson in words of one syllable a
harder matter to deal with than the hardest stone he had ever had to
saw. The letters, he complained, were so “uncommon alike, there was no
tellin’ ’em one from another,” the sawyer’s business not being
concerned with minute differences such as exist between a letter with
its tail turned up and a letter with its tail turned down. But Bill had
a firm determination that he would learn to read, founded chiefly on
two reasons: first, that Tom Hazelow, his cousin, could read anything
“right off,” whether it was print or writing, and Tom had sent him a
letter from twenty miles off, saying how he was prospering in the world
and had got an overlooker’s place; secondly, that Sam Phillips, who
sawed with him, had learned to read when he was turned twenty, and what
could be done by a little fellow like Sam Phillips, Bill considered,
could be done by himself, seeing that he could pound Sam into wet clay
if circumstances required it. So here he was, pointing his big finger
towards three words at once, and turning his head on one side that he
might keep better hold with his eye of the one word which was to be
discriminated out of the group. The amount of knowledge Bartle Massey
must possess was something so dim and vast that Bill’s imagination
recoiled before it: he would hardly have ventured to deny that the
schoolmaster might have something to do in bringing about the regular
return of daylight and the changes in the weather.

The man seated next to Bill was of a very different type: he was a
Methodist brickmaker who, after spending thirty years of his life in
perfect satisfaction with his ignorance, had lately “got religion,” and
along with it the desire to read the Bible. But with him, too, learning
was a heavy business, and on his way out to-night he had offered as
usual a special prayer for help, seeing that he had undertaken this
hard task with a single eye to the nourishment of his soul—that he
might have a greater abundance of texts and hymns wherewith to banish
evil memories and the temptations of old habit—or, in brief language,
the devil. For the brickmaker had been a notorious poacher, and was
suspected, though there was no good evidence against him, of being the
man who had shot a neighbouring gamekeeper in the leg. However that
might be, it is certain that shortly after the accident referred to,
which was coincident with the arrival of an awakening Methodist
preacher at Treddleston, a great change had been observed in the
brickmaker; and though he was still known in the neighbourhood by his
old sobriquet of “Brimstone,” there was nothing he held in so much
horror as any further transactions with that evil-smelling element. He
was a broad-chested fellow with a fervid temperament, which helped him
better in imbibing religious ideas than in the dry process of acquiring
the mere human knowledge of the alphabet. Indeed, he had been already a
little shaken in his resolution by a brother Methodist, who assured him
that the letter was a mere obstruction to the Spirit, and expressed a
fear that Brimstone was too eager for the knowledge that puffeth up.

The third beginner was a much more promising pupil. He was a tall but
thin and wiry man, nearly as old as Brimstone, with a very pale face
and hands stained a deep blue. He was a dyer, who in the course of
dipping homespun wool and old women’s petticoats had got fired with the
ambition to learn a great deal more about the strange secrets of
colour. He had already a high reputation in the district for his dyes,
and he was bent on discovering some method by which he could reduce the
expense of crimsons and scarlets. The druggist at Treddleston had given
him a notion that he might save himself a great deal of labour and
expense if he could learn to read, and so he had begun to give his
spare hours to the night-school, resolving that his “little chap”
should lose no time in coming to Mr. Massey’s day-school as soon as he
was old enough.

It was touching to see these three big men, with the marks of their
hard labour about them, anxiously bending over the worn books and
painfully making out, “The grass is green,” “The sticks are dry,” “The
corn is ripe”—a very hard lesson to pass to after columns of single
words all alike except in the first letter. It was almost as if three
rough animals were making humble efforts to learn how they might become
human. And it touched the tenderest fibre in Bartle Massey’s nature,
for such full-grown children as these were the only pupils for whom he
had no severe epithets and no impatient tones. He was not gifted with
an imperturbable temper, and on music-nights it was apparent that
patience could never be an easy virtue to him; but this evening, as he
glances over his spectacles at Bill Downes, the sawyer, who is turning
his head on one side with a desperate sense of blankness before the
letters d-r-y, his eyes shed their mildest and most encouraging light.

After the reading class, two youths between sixteen and nineteen came
up with the imaginary bills of parcels, which they had been writing out
on their slates and were now required to calculate “off-hand”—a test
which they stood with such imperfect success that Bartle Massey, whose
eyes had been glaring at them ominously through his spectacles for some
minutes, at length burst out in a bitter, high-pitched tone, pausing
between every sentence to rap the floor with a knobbed stick which
rested between his legs.

“Now, you see, you don’t do this thing a bit better than you did a
fortnight ago, and I’ll tell you what’s the reason. You want to learn
accounts—that’s well and good. But you think all you need do to learn
accounts is to come to me and do sums for an hour or so, two or three
times a-week; and no sooner do you get your caps on and turn out of
doors again than you sweep the whole thing clean out of your mind. You
go whistling about, and take no more care what you’re thinking of than
if your heads were gutters for any rubbish to swill through that
happened to be in the way; and if you get a good notion in ’em, it’s
pretty soon washed out again. You think knowledge is to be got
cheap—you’ll come and pay Bartle Massey sixpence a-week, and he’ll make
you clever at figures without your taking any trouble. But knowledge
isn’t to be got with paying sixpence, let me tell you. If you’re to
know figures, you must turn ’em over in your heads and keep your
thoughts fixed on ’em. There’s nothing you can’t turn into a sum, for
there’s nothing but what’s got number in it—even a fool. You may say to
yourselves, ‘I’m one fool, and Jack’s another; if my fool’s head
weighed four pound, and Jack’s three pound three ounces and three
quarters, how many pennyweights heavier would my head be than Jack’s?’
A man that had got his heart in learning figures would make sums for
himself and work ’em in his head. When he sat at his shoemaking, he’d
count his stitches by fives, and then put a price on his stitches, say
half a farthing, and then see how much money he could get in an hour;
and then ask himself how much money he’d get in a day at that rate; and
then how much ten workmen would get working three, or twenty, or a
hundred years at that rate—and all the while his needle would be going
just as fast as if he left his head empty for the devil to dance in.
But the long and the short of it is—I’ll have nobody in my night-school
that doesn’t strive to learn what he comes to learn, as hard as if he
was striving to get out of a dark hole into broad daylight. I’ll send
no man away because he’s stupid: if Billy Taft, the idiot, wanted to
learn anything, I’d not refuse to teach him. But I’ll not throw away
good knowledge on people who think they can get it by the sixpenn’orth,
and carry it away with ’em as they would an ounce of snuff. So never
come to me again, if you can’t show that you’ve been working with your
own heads, instead of thinking that you can pay for mine to work for
you. That’s the last word I’ve got to say to you.”

With this final sentence, Bartle Massey gave a sharper rap than ever
with his knobbed stick, and the discomfited lads got up to go with a
sulky look. The other pupils had happily only their writing-books to
show, in various stages of progress from pot-hooks to round text; and
mere pen-strokes, however perverse, were less exasperating to Bartle
than false arithmetic. He was a little more severe than usual on Jacob
Storey’s Z’s, of which poor Jacob had written a pageful, all with their
tops turned the wrong way, with a puzzled sense that they were not
right “somehow.” But he observed in apology, that it was a letter you
never wanted hardly, and he thought it had only been there “to finish
off th’ alphabet, like, though ampusand (&) would ha’ done as well, for
what he could see.”

At last the pupils had all taken their hats and said their
“Good-nights,” and Adam, knowing his old master’s habits, rose and
said, “Shall I put the candles out, Mr. Massey?”

“Yes, my boy, yes, all but this, which I’ll carry into the house; and
just lock the outer door, now you’re near it,” said Bartle, getting his
stick in the fitting angle to help him in descending from his stool. He
was no sooner on the ground than it became obvious why the stick was
necessary—the left leg was much shorter than the right. But the
school-master was so active with his lameness that it was hardly
thought of as a misfortune; and if you had seen him make his way along
the schoolroom floor, and up the step into his kitchen, you would
perhaps have understood why the naughty boys sometimes felt that his
pace might be indefinitely quickened and that he and his stick might
overtake them even in their swiftest run.

The moment he appeared at the kitchen door with the candle in his hand,
a faint whimpering began in the chimney-corner, and a
brown-and-tan-coloured bitch, of that wise-looking breed with short
legs and long body, known to an unmechanical generation as turnspits,
came creeping along the floor, wagging her tail, and hesitating at
every other step, as if her affections were painfully divided between
the hamper in the chimney-corner and the master, whom she could not
leave without a greeting.

“Well, Vixen, well then, how are the babbies?” said the schoolmaster,
making haste towards the chimney-corner and holding the candle over the
low hamper, where two extremely blind puppies lifted up their heads
towards the light from a nest of flannel and wool. Vixen could not even
see her master look at them without painful excitement: she got into
the hamper and got out again the next moment, and behaved with true
feminine folly, though looking all the while as wise as a dwarf with a
large old-fashioned head and body on the most abbreviated legs.

“Why, you’ve got a family, I see, Mr. Massey?” said Adam, smiling, as
he came into the kitchen. “How’s that? I thought it was against the law
here.”

“Law? What’s the use o’ law when a man’s once such a fool as to let a
woman into his house?” said Bartle, turning away from the hamper with
some bitterness. He always called Vixen a woman, and seemed to have
lost all consciousness that he was using a figure of speech. “If I’d
known Vixen was a woman, I’d never have held the boys from drowning
her; but when I’d got her into my hand, I was forced to take to her.
And now you see what she’s brought me to—the sly, hypocritical
wench”—Bartle spoke these last words in a rasping tone of reproach, and
looked at Vixen, who poked down her head and turned up her eyes towards
him with a keen sense of opprobrium—“and contrived to be brought to bed
on a Sunday at church-time. I’ve wished again and again I’d been a
bloody minded man, that I could have strangled the mother and the brats
with one cord.”

“I’m glad it was no worse a cause kept you from church,” said Adam. “I
was afraid you must be ill for the first time i’ your life. And I was
particularly sorry not to have you at church yesterday.”

“Ah, my boy, I know why, I know why,” said Bartle kindly, going up to
Adam and raising his hand up to the shoulder that was almost on a level
with his own head. “You’ve had a rough bit o’ road to get over since I
saw you—a rough bit o’ road. But I’m in hopes there are better times
coming for you. I’ve got some news to tell you. But I must get my
supper first, for I’m hungry, I’m hungry. Sit down, sit down.”

Bartel went into his little pantry, and brought out an excellent
home-baked loaf; for it was his one extravagance in these dear times to
eat bread once a-day instead of oat-cake; and he justified it by
observing, that what a schoolmaster wanted was brains, and oat-cake ran
too much to bone instead of brains. Then came a piece of cheese and a
quart jug with a crown of foam upon it. He placed them all on the round
deal table which stood against his large arm-chair in the
chimney-corner, with Vixen’s hamper on one side of it and a
window-shelf with a few books piled up in it on the other. The table
was as clean as if Vixen had been an excellent housewife in a checkered
apron; so was the quarry floor; and the old carved oaken press, table,
and chairs, which in these days would be bought at a high price in
aristocratic houses, though, in that period of spider-legs and inlaid
cupids, Bartle had got them for an old song, were as free from dust as
things could be at the end of a summer’s day.

“Now, then, my boy, draw up, draw up. We’ll not talk about business
till we’ve had our supper. No man can be wise on an empty stomach.
But,” said Bartle, rising from his chair again, “I must give Vixen her
supper too, confound her! Though she’ll do nothing with it but nourish
those unnecessary babbies. That’s the way with these women—they’ve got
no head-pieces to nourish, and so their food all runs either to fat or
to brats.”

He brought out of the pantry a dish of scraps, which Vixen at once
fixed her eyes on, and jumped out of her hamper to lick up with the
utmost dispatch.

“I’ve had my supper, Mr. Massey,” said Adam, “so I’ll look on while you
eat yours. I’ve been at the Hall Farm, and they always have their
supper betimes, you know: they don’t keep your late hours.”

“I know little about their hours,” said Bartle dryly, cutting his bread
and not shrinking from the crust. “It’s a house I seldom go into,
though I’m fond of the boys, and Martin Poyser’s a good fellow. There’s
too many women in the house for me: I hate the sound of women’s voices;
they’re always either a-buzz or a-squeak—always either a-buzz or
a-squeak. Mrs. Poyser keeps at the top o’ the talk like a fife; and as
for the young lasses, I’d as soon look at water-grubs. I know what
they’ll turn to—stinging gnats, stinging gnats. Here, take some ale, my
boy: it’s been drawn for you—it’s been drawn for you.”

“Nay, Mr. Massey,” said Adam, who took his old friend’s whim more
seriously than usual to-night, “don’t be so hard on the creaturs God
has made to be companions for us. A working-man ’ud be badly off
without a wife to see to th’ house and the victual, and make things
clean and comfortable.”

“Nonsense! It’s the silliest lie a sensible man like you ever believed,
to say a woman makes a house comfortable. It’s a story got up because
the women are there and something must be found for ’em to do. I tell
you there isn’t a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but
what a man can do better than a woman, unless it’s bearing children,
and they do that in a poor make-shift way; it had better ha’ been left
to the men—it had better ha’ been left to the men. I tell you, a woman
’ull bake you a pie every week of her life and never come to see that
the hotter th’ oven the shorter the time. I tell you, a woman ’ull make
your porridge every day for twenty years and never think of measuring
the proportion between the meal and the milk—a little more or less,
she’ll think, doesn’t signify. The porridge _will_ be awk’ard now and
then: if it’s wrong, it’s summat in the meal, or it’s summat in the
milk, or it’s summat in the water. Look at me! I make my own bread, and
there’s no difference between one batch and another from year’s end to
year’s end; but if I’d got any other woman besides Vixen in the house,
I must pray to the Lord every baking to give me patience if the bread
turned out heavy. And as for cleanliness, my house is cleaner than any
other house on the Common, though the half of ’em swarm with women.
Will Baker’s lad comes to help me in a morning, and we get as much
cleaning done in one hour, without any fuss, as a woman ’ud get done in
three, and all the while be sending buckets o’ water after your ankles,
and let the fender and the fire-irons stand in the middle o’ the floor
half the day for you to break your shins against ’em. Don’t tell me
about God having made such creatures to be companions for us! I don’t
say but He might make Eve to be a companion to Adam in Paradise—there
was no cooking to be spoilt there, and no other woman to cackle with
and make mischief, though you see what mischief she did as soon as
she’d an opportunity. But it’s an impious, unscriptural opinion to say
a woman’s a blessing to a man now; you might as well say adders and
wasps, and foxes and wild beasts are a blessing, when they’re only the
evils that belong to this state o’ probation, which it’s lawful for a
man to keep as clear of as he can in this life, hoping to get quit of
’em for ever in another—hoping to get quit of ’em for ever in another.”

Bartle had become so excited and angry in the course of his invective
that he had forgotten his supper, and only used the knife for the
purpose of rapping the table with the haft. But towards the close, the
raps became so sharp and frequent, and his voice so quarrelsome, that
Vixen felt it incumbent on her to jump out of the hamper and bark
vaguely.

“Quiet, Vixen!” snarled Bartle, turning round upon her. “You’re like
the rest o’ the women—always putting in _your_ word before you know
why.”

Vixen returned to her hamper again in humiliation, and her master
continued his supper in a silence which Adam did not choose to
interrupt; he knew the old man would be in a better humour when he had
had his supper and lighted his pipe. Adam was used to hear him talk in
this way, but had never learned so much of Bartle’s past life as to
know whether his view of married comfort was founded on experience. On
that point Bartle was mute, and it was even a secret where he had lived
previous to the twenty years in which happily for the peasants and
artisans of this neighbourhood he had been settled among them as their
only schoolmaster. If anything like a question was ventured on this
subject, Bartle always replied, “Oh, I’ve seen many places—I’ve been a
deal in the south,” and the Loamshire men would as soon have thought of
asking for a particular town or village in Africa as in “the south.”

“Now then, my boy,” said Bartle, at last, when he had poured out his
second mug of ale and lighted his pipe, “now then, we’ll have a little
talk. But tell me first, have you heard any particular news to-day?”

“No,” said Adam, “not as I remember.”

“Ah, they’ll keep it close, they’ll keep it close, I daresay. But I
found it out by chance; and it’s news that may concern you, Adam, else
I’m a man that don’t know a superficial square foot from a solid.”

Here Bartle gave a series of fierce and rapid puffs, looking earnestly
the while at Adam. Your impatient loquacious man has never any notion
of keeping his pipe alight by gentle measured puffs; he is always
letting it go nearly out, and then punishing it for that negligence. At
last he said, “Satchell’s got a paralytic stroke. I found it out from
the lad they sent to Treddleston for the doctor, before seven o’clock
this morning. He’s a good way beyond sixty, you know; it’s much if he
gets over it.”

“Well,” said Adam, “I daresay there’d be more rejoicing than sorrow in
the parish at his being laid up. He’s been a selfish, tale-bearing,
mischievous fellow; but, after all, there’s nobody he’s done so much
harm to as to th’ old squire. Though it’s the squire himself as is to
blame—making a stupid fellow like that a sort o’ man-of-all-work, just
to save th’ expense of having a proper steward to look after th’
estate. And he’s lost more by ill management o’ the woods, I’ll be
bound, than ’ud pay for two stewards. If he’s laid on the shelf, it’s
to be hoped he’ll make way for a better man, but I don’t see how it’s
like to make any difference to me.”

“But I see it, but I see it,” said Bartle, “and others besides me. The
captain’s coming of age now—you know that as well as I do—and it’s to
be expected he’ll have a little more voice in things. And I know, and
you know too, what ’ud be the captain’s wish about the woods, if there
was a fair opportunity for making a change. He’s said in plenty of
people’s hearing that he’d make you manager of the woods to-morrow, if
he’d the power. Why, Carroll, Mr. Irwine’s butler, heard him say so to
the parson not many days ago. Carroll looked in when we were smoking
our pipes o’ Saturday night at Casson’s, and he told us about it; and
whenever anybody says a good word for you, the parson’s ready to back
it, that I’ll answer for. It was pretty well talked over, I can tell
you, at Casson’s, and one and another had their fling at you; for if
donkeys set to work to sing, you’re pretty sure what the tune’ll be.”

“Why, did they talk it over before Mr. Burge?” said Adam; “or wasn’t he
there o’ Saturday?”

“Oh, he went away before Carroll came; and Casson—he’s always for
setting other folks right, you know—would have it Burge was the man to
have the management of the woods. ‘A substantial man,’ says he, ‘with
pretty near sixty years’ experience o’ timber: it ’ud be all very well
for Adam Bede to act under him, but it isn’t to be supposed the squire
’ud appoint a young fellow like Adam, when there’s his elders and
betters at hand!’ But I said, ‘That’s a pretty notion o’ yours, Casson.
Why, Burge is the man to _buy_ timber; would you put the woods into his
hands and let him make his own bargains? I think you don’t leave your
customers to score their own drink, do you? And as for age, what that’s
worth depends on the quality o’ the liquor. It’s pretty well known
who’s the backbone of Jonathan Burge’s business.’”

“I thank you for your good word, Mr. Massey,” said Adam. “But, for all
that, Casson was partly i’ the right for once. There’s not much
likelihood that th’ old squire ’ud ever consent t’ employ me. I
offended him about two years ago, and he’s never forgiven me.”

“Why, how was that? You never told me about it,” said Bartle.

“Oh, it was a bit o’ nonsense. I’d made a frame for a screen for Miss
Lyddy—she’s allays making something with her worsted-work, you know—and
she’d given me particular orders about this screen, and there was as
much talking and measuring as if we’d been planning a house. However,
it was a nice bit o’ work, and I liked doing it for her. But, you know,
those little friggling things take a deal o’ time. I only worked at it
in overhours—often late at night—and I had to go to Treddleston over
an’ over again about little bits o’ brass nails and such gear; and I
turned the little knobs and the legs, and carved th’ open work, after a
pattern, as nice as could be. And I was uncommon pleased with it when
it was done. And when I took it home, Miss Lyddy sent for me to bring
it into her drawing-room, so as she might give me directions about
fastening on the work—very fine needlework, Jacob and Rachel a-kissing
one another among the sheep, like a picture—and th’ old squire was
sitting there, for he mostly sits with her. Well, she was mighty
pleased with the screen, and then she wanted to know what pay she was
to give me. I didn’t speak at random—you know it’s not my way; I’d
calculated pretty close, though I hadn’t made out a bill, and I said,
‘One pound thirteen.’ That was paying for the mater’als and paying me,
but none too much, for my work. Th’ old squire looked up at this, and
peered in his way at the screen, and said, ‘One pound thirteen for a
gimcrack like that! Lydia, my dear, if you must spend money on these
things, why don’t you get them at Rosseter, instead of paying double
price for clumsy work here? Such things are not work for a carpenter
like Adam. Give him a guinea, and no more.’ Well, Miss Lyddy, I reckon,
believed what he told her, and she’s not overfond o’ parting with the
money herself—she’s not a bad woman at bottom, but she’s been brought
up under his thumb; so she began fidgeting with her purse, and turned
as red as her ribbon. But I made a bow, and said, ‘No, thank you,
madam; I’ll make you a present o’ the screen, if you please. I’ve
charged the regular price for my work, and I know it’s done well; and I
know, begging His Honour’s pardon, that you couldn’t get such a screen
at Rosseter under two guineas. I’m willing to give you my work—it’s
been done in my own time, and nobody’s got anything to do with it but
me; but if I’m paid, I can’t take a smaller price than I asked, because
that ’ud be like saying I’d asked more than was just. With your leave,
madam, I’ll bid you good-morning.’ I made my bow and went out before
she’d time to say any more, for she stood with the purse in her hand,
looking almost foolish. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful, and I spoke
as polite as I could; but I can give in to no man, if he wants to make
it out as I’m trying to overreach him. And in the evening the footman
brought me the one pound thirteen wrapped in paper. But since then I’ve
seen pretty clear as th’ old squire can’t abide me.”

“That’s likely enough, that’s likely enough,” said Bartle meditatively.
“The only way to bring him round would be to show him what was for his
own interest, and that the captain may do—that the captain may do.”

“Nay, I don’t know,” said Adam; “the squire’s ’cute enough but it takes
something else besides ’cuteness to make folks see what’ll be their
interest in the long run. It takes some conscience and belief in right
and wrong, I see that pretty clear. You’d hardly ever bring round th’
old squire to believe he’d gain as much in a straightfor’ard way as by
tricks and turns. And, besides, I’ve not much mind to work under him: I
don’t want to quarrel with any gentleman, more particular an old
gentleman turned eighty, and I know we couldn’t agree long. If the
captain was master o’ th’ estate, it ’ud be different: he’s got a
conscience and a will to do right, and I’d sooner work for him nor for
any man living.”

“Well, well, my boy, if good luck knocks at your door, don’t you put
your head out at window and tell it to be gone about its business,
that’s all. You must learn to deal with odd and even in life, as well
as in figures. I tell you now, as I told you ten years ago, when you
pommelled young Mike Holdsworth for wanting to pass a bad shilling
before you knew whether he was in jest or earnest—you’re overhasty and
proud, and apt to set your teeth against folks that don’t square to
your notions. It’s no harm for me to be a bit fiery and
stiff-backed—I’m an old schoolmaster, and shall never want to get on to
a higher perch. But where’s the use of all the time I’ve spent in
teaching you writing and mapping and mensuration, if you’re not to get
for’ard in the world and show folks there’s some advantage in having a
head on your shoulders, instead of a turnip? Do you mean to go on
turning up your nose at every opportunity because it’s got a bit of a
smell about it that nobody finds out but yourself? It’s as foolish as
that notion o’ yours that a wife is to make a working-man comfortable.
Stuff and nonsense! Stuff and nonsense! Leave that to fools that never
got beyond a sum in simple addition. Simple addition enough! Add one
fool to another fool, and in six years’ time six fools more—they’re all
of the same denomination, big and little’s nothing to do with the sum!”

During this rather heated exhortation to coolness and discretion the
pipe had gone out, and Bartle gave the climax to his speech by striking
a light furiously, after which he puffed with fierce resolution, fixing
his eye still on Adam, who was trying not to laugh.

“There’s a good deal o’ sense in what you say, Mr. Massey,” Adam began,
as soon as he felt quite serious, “as there always is. But you’ll give
in that it’s no business o’ mine to be building on chances that may
never happen. What I’ve got to do is to work as well as I can with the
tools and mater’als I’ve got in my hands. If a good chance comes to me,
I’ll think o’ what you’ve been saying; but till then, I’ve got nothing
to do but to trust to my own hands and my own head-piece. I’m turning
over a little plan for Seth and me to go into the cabinet-making a bit
by ourselves, and win a extra pound or two in that way. But it’s
getting late now—it’ll be pretty near eleven before I’m at home, and
Mother may happen to lie awake; she’s more fidgety nor usual now. So
I’ll bid you good-night.”

“Well, well, we’ll go to the gate with you—it’s a fine night,” said
Bartle, taking up his stick. Vixen was at once on her legs, and without
further words the three walked out into the starlight, by the side of
Bartle’s potato-beds, to the little gate.

“Come to the music o’ Friday night, if you can, my boy,” said the old
man, as he closed the gate after Adam and leaned against it.

“Aye, aye,” said Adam, striding along towards the streak of pale road.
He was the only object moving on the wide common. The two grey donkeys,
just visible in front of the gorse bushes, stood as still as limestone
images—as still as the grey-thatched roof of the mud cottage a little
farther on. Bartle kept his eye on the moving figure till it passed
into the darkness, while Vixen, in a state of divided affection, had
twice run back to the house to bestow a parenthetic lick on her
puppies.

“Aye, aye,” muttered the schoolmaster, as Adam disappeared, “there you
go, stalking along—stalking along; but you wouldn’t have been what you
are if you hadn’t had a bit of old lame Bartle inside you. The
strongest calf must have something to suck at. There’s plenty of these
big, lumbering fellows ’ud never have known their A B C if it hadn’t
been for Bartle Massey. Well, well, Vixen, you foolish wench, what is
it, what is it? I must go in, must I? Aye, aye, I’m never to have a
will o’ my own any more. And those pups—what do you think I’m to do
with ’em, when they’re twice as big as you? For I’m pretty sure the
father was that hulking bull-terrier of Will Baker’s—wasn’t he now, eh,
you sly hussy?”(Here Vixen tucked her tail between her legs and ran
forward into the house. Subjects are sometimes broached which a
well-bred female will ignore.)

“But where’s the use of talking to a woman with babbies?” continued
Bartle. “She’s got no conscience—no conscience; it’s all run to milk.”




Book Third




Chapter XXII
Going to the Birthday Feast


The thirtieth of July was come, and it was one of those half-dozen warm
days which sometimes occur in the middle of a rainy English summer. No
rain had fallen for the last three or four days, and the weather was
perfect for that time of the year: there was less dust than usual on
the dark-green hedge-rows and on the wild camomile that starred the
roadside, yet the grass was dry enough for the little children to roll
on it, and there was no cloud but a long dash of light, downy ripple,
high, high up in the far-off blue sky. Perfect weather for an outdoor
July merry-making, yet surely not the best time of year to be born in.
Nature seems to make a hot pause just then: all the loveliest flowers
are gone; the sweet time of early growth and vague hopes is past; and
yet the time of harvest and ingathering is not come, and we tremble at
the possible storms that may ruin the precious fruit in the moment of
its ripeness. The woods are all one dark monotonous green; the
waggon-loads of hay no longer creep along the lanes, scattering their
sweet-smelling fragments on the blackberry branches; the pastures are
often a little tanned, yet the corn has not got its last splendour of
red and gold; the lambs and calves have lost all traces of their
innocent frisky prettiness, and have become stupid young sheep and
cows. But it is a time of leisure on the farm—that pause between
hay-and corn-harvest, and so the farmers and labourers in Hayslope and
Broxton thought the captain did well to come of age just then, when
they could give their undivided minds to the flavour of the great cask
of ale which had been brewed the autumn after “the heir” was born, and
was to be tapped on his twenty-first birthday. The air had been merry
with the ringing of church-bells very early this morning, and every one
had made haste to get through the needful work before twelve, when it
would be time to think of getting ready to go to the Chase.

The midday sun was streaming into Hetty’s bedchamber, and there was no
blind to temper the heat with which it fell on her head as she looked
at herself in the old specked glass. Still, that was the only glass she
had in which she could see her neck and arms, for the small hanging
glass she had fetched out of the next room—the room that had been
Dinah’s—would show her nothing below her little chin; and that
beautiful bit of neck where the roundness of her cheek melted into
another roundness shadowed by dark delicate curls. And to-day she
thought more than usual about her neck and arms; for at the dance this
evening she was not to wear any neckerchief, and she had been busy
yesterday with her spotted pink-and-white frock, that she might make
the sleeves either long or short at will. She was dressed now just as
she was to be in the evening, with a tucker made of “real” lace, which
her aunt had lent her for this unparalleled occasion, but with no
ornaments besides; she had even taken out her small round ear-rings
which she wore every day. But there was something more to be done,
apparently, before she put on her neckerchief and long sleeves, which
she was to wear in the day-time, for now she unlocked the drawer that
held her private treasures. It is more than a month since we saw her
unlock that drawer before, and now it holds new treasures, so much more
precious than the old ones that these are thrust into the corner. Hetty
would not care to put the large coloured glass ear-rings into her ears
now; for see! she has got a beautiful pair of gold and pearls and
garnet, lying snugly in a pretty little box lined with white satin. Oh,
the delight of taking out that little box and looking at the ear-rings!
Do not reason about it, my philosphical reader, and say that Hetty,
being very pretty, must have known that it did not signify whether she
had on any ornaments or not; and that, moreover, to look at ear-rings
which she could not possibly wear out of her bedroom could hardly be a
satisfaction, the essence of vanity being a reference to the
impressions produced on others; you will never understand women’s
natures if you are so excessively rational. Try rather to divest
yourself of all your rational prejudices, as much as if you were
studying the psychology of a canary bird, and only watch the movements
of this pretty round creature as she turns her head on one side with an
unconscious smile at the ear-rings nestled in the little box. Ah, you
think, it is for the sake of the person who has given them to her, and
her thoughts are gone back now to the moment when they were put into
her hands. No; else why should she have cared to have ear-rings rather
than anything else? And I know that she had longed for ear-rings from
among all the ornaments she could imagine.

“Little, little ears!” Arthur had said, pretending to pinch them one
evening, as Hetty sat beside him on the grass without her hat. “I wish
I had some pretty ear-rings!” she said in a moment, almost before she
knew what she was saying—the wish lay so close to her lips, it _would_
flutter past them at the slightest breath. And the next day—it was only
last week—Arthur had ridden over to Rosseter on purpose to buy them.
That little wish so naively uttered seemed to him the prettiest bit of
childishness; he had never heard anything like it before; and he had
wrapped the box up in a great many covers, that he might see Hetty
unwrapping it with growing curiosity, till at last her eyes flashed
back their new delight into his.

No, she was not thinking most of the giver when she smiled at the
ear-rings, for now she is taking them out of the box, not to press them
to her lips, but to fasten them in her ears—only for one moment, to see
how pretty they look, as she peeps at them in the glass against the
wall, with first one position of the head and then another, like a
listening bird. It is impossible to be wise on the subject of ear-rings
as one looks at her; what should those delicate pearls and crystals be
made for, if not for such ears? One cannot even find fault with the
tiny round hole which they leave when they are taken out; perhaps
water-nixies, and such lovely things without souls, have these little
round holes in their ears by nature, ready to hang jewels in. And Hetty
must be one of them: it is too painful to think that she is a woman,
with a woman’s destiny before her—a woman spinning in young ignorance a
light web of folly and vain hopes which may one day close round her and
press upon her, a rancorous poisoned garment, changing all at once her
fluttering, trivial butterfly sensations into a life of deep human
anguish.

But she cannot keep in the ear-rings long, else she may make her uncle
and aunt wait. She puts them quickly into the box again and shuts them
up. Some day she will be able to wear any ear-rings she likes, and
already she lives in an invisible world of brilliant costumes,
shimmering gauze, soft satin, and velvet, such as the lady’s maid at
the Chase has shown her in Miss Lydia’s wardrobe. She feels the
bracelets on her arms, and treads on a soft carpet in front of a tall
mirror. But she has one thing in the drawer which she can venture to
wear to-day, because she can hang it on the chain of dark-brown berries
which she has been used to wear on grand days, with a tiny flat
scent-bottle at the end of it tucked inside her frock; and she _must_
put on her brown berries—her neck would look so unfinished without it.
Hetty was not quite as fond of the locket as of the ear-rings, though
it was a handsome large locket, with enamelled flowers at the back and
a beautiful gold border round the glass, which showed a light-brown
slightly waving lock, forming a background for two little dark rings.
She must keep it under her clothes, and no one would see it. But Hetty
had another passion, only a little less strong than her love of finery,
and that other passion made her like to wear the locket even hidden in
her bosom. She would always have worn it, if she had dared to encounter
her aunt’s questions about a ribbon round her neck. So now she slipped
it on along her chain of dark-brown berries, and snapped the chain
round her neck. It was not a very long chain, only allowing the locket
to hang a little way below the edge of her frock. And now she had
nothing to do but to put on her long sleeves, her new white gauze
neckerchief, and her straw hat trimmed with white to-day instead of the
pink, which had become rather faded under the July sun. That hat made
the drop of bitterness in Hetty’s cup to-day, for it was not quite
new—everybody would see that it was a little tanned against the white
ribbon—and Mary Burge, she felt sure, would have a new hat or bonnet
on. She looked for consolation at her fine white cotton stockings: they
really were very nice indeed, and she had given almost all her spare
money for them. Hetty’s dream of the future could not make her
insensible to triumph in the present. To be sure, Captain Donnithorne
loved her so that he would never care about looking at other people,
but then those other people didn’t know how he loved her, and she was
not satisfied to appear shabby and insignificant in their eyes even for
a short space.

The whole party was assembled in the house-place when Hetty went down,
all of course in their Sunday clothes; and the bells had been ringing
so this morning in honour of the captain’s twenty-first birthday, and
the work had all been got done so early, that Marty and Tommy were not
quite easy in their minds until their mother had assured them that
going to church was not part of the day’s festivities. Mr. Poyser had
once suggested that the house should be shut up and left to take care
of itself; “for,” said he, “there’s no danger of anybody’s breaking
in—everybody’ll be at the Chase, thieves an’ all. If we lock th’ house
up, all the men can go: it’s a day they wonna see twice i’ their
lives.” But Mrs. Poyser answered with great decision: “I never left the
house to take care of itself since I was a missis, and I never will.
There’s been ill-looking tramps enoo’ about the place this last week,
to carry off every ham an’ every spoon we’n got; and they all collogue
together, them tramps, as it’s a mercy they hanna come and poisoned the
dogs and murdered us all in our beds afore we knowed, some Friday night
when we’n got the money in th’ house to pay the men. And it’s like
enough the tramps know where we’re going as well as we do oursens; for
if Old Harry wants any work done, you may be sure he’ll find the
means.”

“Nonsense about murdering us in our beds,” said Mr. Poyser; “I’ve got a
gun i’ our room, hanna I? and thee’st got ears as ’ud find it out if a
mouse was gnawing the bacon. Howiver, if thee wouldstna be easy, Alick
can stay at home i’ the forepart o’ the day, and Tim can come back
tow’rds five o’clock, and let Alick have his turn. They may let Growler
loose if anybody offers to do mischief, and there’s Alick’s dog too,
ready enough to set his tooth in a tramp if Alick gives him a wink.”

Mrs. Poyser accepted this compromise, but thought it advisable to bar
and bolt to the utmost; and now, at the last moment before starting,
Nancy, the dairy-maid, was closing the shutters of the house-place,
although the window, lying under the immediate observation of Alick and
the dogs, might have been supposed the least likely to be selected for
a burglarious attempt.

The covered cart, without springs, was standing ready to carry the
whole family except the men-servants. Mr. Poyser and the grandfather
sat on the seat in front, and within there was room for all the women
and children; the fuller the cart the better, because then the jolting
would not hurt so much, and Nancy’s broad person and thick arms were an
excellent cushion to be pitched on. But Mr. Poyser drove at no more
than a walking pace, that there might be as little risk of jolting as
possible on this warm day, and there was time to exchange greetings and
remarks with the foot-passengers who were going the same way, specking
the paths between the green meadows and the golden cornfields with bits
of movable bright colour—a scarlet waistcoat to match the poppies that
nodded a little too thickly among the corn, or a dark-blue neckerchief
with ends flaunting across a brand-new white smock-frock. All Broxton
and all Hayslope were to be at the Chase, and make merry there in
honour of “th’ heir”; and the old men and women, who had never been so
far down this side of the hill for the last twenty years, were being
brought from Broxton and Hayslope in one of the farmer’s waggons, at
Mr. Irwine’s suggestion. The church-bells had struck up again now—a
last tune, before the ringers came down the hill to have their share in
the festival; and before the bells had finished, other music was heard
approaching, so that even Old Brown, the sober horse that was drawing
Mr. Poyser’s cart, began to prick up his ears. It was the band of the
Benefit Club, which had mustered in all its glory—that is to say, in
bright-blue scarfs and blue favours, and carrying its banner with the
motto, “Let brotherly love continue,” encircling a picture of a
stone-pit.

The carts, of course, were not to enter the Chase. Every one must get
down at the lodges, and the vehicles must be sent back.

“Why, the Chase is like a fair a’ready,” said Mrs. Poyser, as she got
down from the cart, and saw the groups scattered under the great oaks,
and the boys running about in the hot sunshine to survey the tall poles
surmounted by the fluttering garments that were to be the prize of the
successful climbers. “I should ha’ thought there wasna so many people
i’ the two parishes. Mercy on us! How hot it is out o’ the shade! Come
here, Totty, else your little face ’ull be burnt to a scratchin’! They
might ha’ cooked the dinners i’ that open space an’ saved the fires. I
shall go to Mrs. Best’s room an’ sit down.”

“Stop a bit, stop a bit,” said Mr. Poyser. “There’s th’ waggin coming
wi’ th’ old folks in’t; it’ll be such a sight as wonna come o’er again,
to see ’em get down an’ walk along all together. You remember some on
’em i’ their prime, eh, Father?”

“Aye, aye,” said old Martin, walking slowly under the shade of the
lodge porch, from which he could see the aged party descend. “I
remember Jacob Taft walking fifty mile after the Scotch raybels, when
they turned back from Stoniton.”

He felt himself quite a youngster, with a long life before him, as he
saw the Hayslope patriarch, old Feyther Taft, descend from the waggon
and walk towards him, in his brown nightcap, and leaning on his two
sticks.

“Well, Mester Taft,” shouted old Martin, at the utmost stretch of his
voice—for though he knew the old man was stone deaf, he could not omit
the propriety of a greeting—“you’re hearty yet. You can enjoy yoursen
to-day, for-all you’re ninety an’ better.”

“Your sarvant, mesters, your sarvant,” said Feyther Taft in a treble
tone, perceiving that he was in company.

The aged group, under care of sons or daughters, themselves worn and
grey, passed on along the least-winding carriage-road towards the
house, where a special table was prepared for them; while the Poyser
party wisely struck across the grass under the shade of the great
trees, but not out of view of the house-front, with its sloping lawn
and flower-beds, or of the pretty striped marquee at the edge of the
lawn, standing at right angles with two larger marquees on each side of
the open green space where the games were to be played. The house would
have been nothing but a plain square mansion of Queen Anne’s time, but
for the remnant of an old abbey to which it was united at one end, in
much the same way as one may sometimes see a new farmhouse rising high
and prim at the end of older and lower farm-offices. The fine old
remnant stood a little backward and under the shadow of tall beeches,
but the sun was now on the taller and more advanced front, the blinds
were all down, and the house seemed asleep in the hot midday. It made
Hetty quite sad to look at it: Arthur must be somewhere in the back
rooms, with the grand company, where he could not possibly know that
she was come, and she should not see him for a long, long while—not
till after dinner, when they said he was to come up and make a speech.

But Hetty was wrong in part of her conjecture. No grand company was
come except the Irwines, for whom the carriage had been sent early, and
Arthur was at that moment not in a back room, but walking with the
rector into the broad stone cloisters of the old abbey, where the long
tables were laid for all the cottage tenants and the farm-servants. A
very handsome young Briton he looked to-day, in high spirits and a
bright-blue frock-coat, the highest mode—his arm no longer in a sling.
So open-looking and candid, too; but candid people have their secrets,
and secrets leave no lines in young faces.

“Upon my word,” he said, as they entered the cool cloisters, “I think
the cottagers have the best of it: these cloisters make a delightful
dining-room on a hot day. That was capital advice of yours, Irwine,
about the dinners—to let them be as orderly and comfortable as
possible, and only for the tenants: especially as I had only a limited
sum after all; for though my grandfather talked of a _carte blanche_,
he couldn’t make up his mind to trust me, when it came to the point.”

“Never mind, you’ll give more pleasure in this quiet way,” said Mr.
Irwine. “In this sort of thing people are constantly confounding
liberality with riot and disorder. It sounds very grand to say that so
many sheep and oxen were roasted whole, and everybody ate who liked to
come; but in the end it generally happens that no one has had an
enjoyable meal. If the people get a good dinner and a moderate quantity
of ale in the middle of the day, they’ll be able to enjoy the games as
the day cools. You can’t hinder some of them from getting too much
towards evening, but drunkenness and darkness go better together than
drunkenness and daylight.”

“Well, I hope there won’t be much of it. I’ve kept the Treddleston
people away by having a feast for them in the town; and I’ve got Casson
and Adam Bede and some other good fellows to look to the giving out of
ale in the booths, and to take care things don’t go too far. Come, let
us go up above now and see the dinner-tables for the large tenants.”

They went up the stone staircase leading simply to the long gallery
above the cloisters, a gallery where all the dusty worthless old
pictures had been banished for the last three generations—mouldy
portraits of Queen Elizabeth and her ladies, General Monk with his eye
knocked out, Daniel very much in the dark among the lions, and Julius
Cæsar on horseback, with a high nose and laurel crown, holding his
Commentaries in his hand.

“What a capital thing it is that they saved this piece of the old
abbey!” said Arthur. “If I’m ever master here, I shall do up the
gallery in first-rate style. We’ve got no room in the house a third as
large as this. That second table is for the farmers’ wives and
children: Mrs. Best said it would be more comfortable for the mothers
and children to be by themselves. I was determined to have the
children, and make a regular family thing of it. I shall be ‘the old
squire’ to those little lads and lasses some day, and they’ll tell
their children what a much finer young fellow I was than my own son.
There’s a table for the women and children below as well. But you will
see them all—you will come up with me after dinner, I hope?”

“Yes, to be sure,” said Mr. Irwine. “I wouldn’t miss your maiden speech
to the tenantry.”

“And there will be something else you’ll like to hear,” said Arthur.
“Let us go into the library and I’ll tell you all about it while my
grandfather is in the drawing-room with the ladies. Something that will
surprise you,” he continued, as they sat down. “My grandfather has come
round after all.”

“What, about Adam?”

“Yes; I should have ridden over to tell you about it, only I was so
busy. You know I told you I had quite given up arguing the matter with
him—I thought it was hopeless—but yesterday morning he asked me to come
in here to him before I went out, and astonished me by saying that he
had decided on all the new arrangements he should make in consequence
of old Satchell being obliged to lay by work, and that he intended to
employ Adam in superintending the woods at a salary of a guinea a-week,
and the use of a pony to be kept here. I believe the secret of it is,
he saw from the first it would be a profitable plan, but he had some
particular dislike of Adam to get over—and besides, the fact that I
propose a thing is generally a reason with him for rejecting it.
There’s the most curious contradiction in my grandfather: I know he
means to leave me all the money he has saved, and he is likely enough
to have cut off poor Aunt Lydia, who has been a slave to him all her
life, with only five hundred a-year, for the sake of giving me all the
more; and yet I sometimes think he positively hates me because I’m his
heir. I believe if I were to break my neck, he would feel it the
greatest misfortune that could befall him, and yet it seems a pleasure
to him to make my life a series of petty annoyances.”

“Ah, my boy, it is not only woman’s love that is ἀπέρωτος ἒρως as old
Æschylus calls it. There’s plenty of ‘unloving love’ in the world of a
masculine kind. But tell me about Adam. Has he accepted the post? I
don’t see that it can be much more profitable than his present work,
though, to be sure, it will leave him a good deal of time on his own
hands.

“Well, I felt some doubt about it when I spoke to him and he seemed to
hesitate at first. His objection was that he thought he should not be
able to satisfy my grandfather. But I begged him as a personal favour
to me not to let any reason prevent him from accepting the place, if he
really liked the employment and would not be giving up anything that
was more profitable to him. And he assured me he should like it of all
things—it would be a great step forward for him in business, and it
would enable him to do what he had long wished to do, to give up
working for Burge. He says he shall have plenty of time to superintend
a little business of his own, which he and Seth will carry on, and will
perhaps be able to enlarge by degrees. So he has agreed at last, and I
have arranged that he shall dine with the large tenants to-day; and I
mean to announce the appointment to them, and ask them to drink Adam’s
health. It’s a little drama I’ve got up in honour of my friend Adam.
He’s a fine fellow, and I like the opportunity of letting people know
that I think so.”

“A drama in which friend Arthur piques himself on having a pretty part
to play,” said Mr. Irwine, smiling. But when he saw Arthur colour, he
went on relentingly, “My part, you know, is always that of the old fogy
who sees nothing to admire in the young folks. I don’t like to admit
that I’m proud of my pupil when he does graceful things. But I must
play the amiable old gentleman for once, and second your toast in
honour of Adam. Has your grandfather yielded on the other point too,
and agreed to have a respectable man as steward?”

“Oh no,” said Arthur, rising from his chair with an air of impatience
and walking along the room with his hands in his pockets. “He’s got
some project or other about letting the Chase Farm and bargaining for a
supply of milk and butter for the house. But I ask no questions about
it—it makes me too angry. I believe he means to do all the business
himself, and have nothing in the shape of a steward. It’s amazing what
energy he has, though.”

“Well, we’ll go to the ladies now,” said Mr. Irwine, rising too. “I
want to tell my mother what a splendid throne you’ve prepared for her
under the marquee.”

“Yes, and we must be going to luncheon too,” said Arthur. “It must be
two o’clock, for there is the gong beginning to sound for the tenants’
dinners.”




Chapter XXIII
Dinner-Time


When Adam heard that he was to dine upstairs with the large tenants, he
felt rather uncomfortable at the idea of being exalted in this way
above his mother and Seth, who were to dine in the cloisters below. But
Mr. Mills, the butler, assured him that Captain Donnithorne had given
particular orders about it, and would be very angry if Adam was not
there.

Adam nodded and went up to Seth, who was standing a few yards off.
“Seth, lad,” he said, “the captain has sent to say I’m to dine
upstairs—he wishes it particular, Mr. Mills says, so I suppose it ’ud
be behaving ill for me not to go. But I don’t like sitting up above
thee and mother, as if I was better than my own flesh and blood. Thee’t
not take it unkind, I hope?”

“Nay, nay, lad,” said Seth, “thy honour’s our honour; and if thee
get’st respect, thee’st won it by thy own deserts. The further I see
thee above me, the better, so long as thee feel’st like a brother to
me. It’s because o’ thy being appointed over the woods, and it’s
nothing but what’s right. That’s a place o’ trust, and thee’t above a
common workman now.”

“Aye,” said Adam, “but nobody knows a word about it yet. I haven’t
given notice to Mr. Burge about leaving him, and I don’t like to tell
anybody else about it before he knows, for he’ll be a good bit hurt, I
doubt. People ’ull be wondering to see me there, and they’ll like
enough be guessing the reason and asking questions, for there’s been so
much talk up and down about my having the place, this last three
weeks.”

“Well, thee canst say thee wast ordered to come without being told the
reason. That’s the truth. And mother ’ull be fine and joyful about it.
Let’s go and tell her.”

Adam was not the only guest invited to come upstairs on other grounds
than the amount he contributed to the rent-roll. There were other
people in the two parishes who derived dignity from their functions
rather than from their pocket, and of these Bartle Massey was one. His
lame walk was rather slower than usual on this warm day, so Adam
lingered behind when the bell rang for dinner, that he might walk up
with his old friend; for he was a little too shy to join the Poyser
party on this public occasion. Opportunities of getting to Hetty’s side
would be sure to turn up in the course of the day, and Adam contented
himself with that for he disliked any risk of being “joked” about
Hetty—the big, outspoken, fearless man was very shy and diffident as to
his love-making.

“Well, Mester Massey,” said Adam, as Bartle came up “I’m going to dine
upstairs with you to-day: the captain’s sent me orders.”

“Ah!” said Bartle, pausing, with one hand on his back. “Then there’s
something in the wind—there’s something in the wind. Have you heard
anything about what the old squire means to do?”

“Why, yes,” said Adam; “I’ll tell you what I know, because I believe
you can keep a still tongue in your head if you like, and I hope you’ll
not let drop a word till it’s common talk, for I’ve particular reasons
against its being known.”

“Trust to me, my boy, trust to me. I’ve got no wife to worm it out of
me and then run out and cackle it in everybody’s hearing. If you trust
a man, let him be a bachelor—let him be a bachelor.”

“Well, then, it was so far settled yesterday that I’m to take the
management o’ the woods. The captain sent for me t’ offer it me, when I
was seeing to the poles and things here and I’ve agreed to’t. But if
anybody asks any questions upstairs, just you take no notice, and turn
the talk to something else, and I’ll be obliged to you. Now, let us go
on, for we’re pretty nigh the last, I think.”

“I know what to do, never fear,” said Bartle, moving on. “The news will
be good sauce to my dinner. Aye, aye, my boy, you’ll get on. I’ll back
you for an eye at measuring and a head-piece for figures, against any
man in this county and you’ve had good teaching—you’ve had good
teaching.”

When they got upstairs, the question which Arthur had left unsettled,
as to who was to be president, and who vice, was still under
discussion, so that Adam’s entrance passed without remark.

“It stands to sense,” Mr. Casson was saying, “as old Mr. Poyser, as is
th’ oldest man i’ the room, should sit at top o’ the table. I wasn’t
butler fifteen year without learning the rights and the wrongs about
dinner.”

“Nay, nay,” said old Martin, “I’n gi’en up to my son; I’m no tenant
now: let my son take my place. Th’ ould foulks ha’ had their turn: they
mun make way for the young uns.”

“I should ha’ thought the biggest tenant had the best right, more nor
th’ oldest,” said Luke Britton, who was not fond of the critical Mr.
Poyser; “there’s Mester Holdsworth has more land nor anybody else on
th’ estate.”

“Well,” said Mr. Poyser, “suppose we say the man wi’ the foulest land
shall sit at top; then whoever gets th’ honour, there’ll be no envying
on him.”

“Eh, here’s Mester Massey,” said Mr. Craig, who, being a neutral in the
dispute, had no interest but in conciliation; “the schoolmaster ought
to be able to tell you what’s right. Who’s to sit at top o’ the table,
Mr. Massey?”

“Why, the broadest man,” said Bartle; “and then he won’t take up other
folks’ room; and the next broadest must sit at bottom.”

This happy mode of settling the dispute produced much laughter—a
smaller joke would have sufficed for that. Mr. Casson, however, did not
feel it compatible with his dignity and superior knowledge to join in
the laugh, until it turned out that he was fixed on as the second
broadest man. Martin Poyser the younger, as the broadest, was to be
president, and Mr. Casson, as next broadest, was to be vice.

Owing to this arrangement, Adam, being, of course, at the bottom of the
table, fell under the immediate observation of Mr. Casson, who, too
much occupied with the question of precedence, had not hitherto noticed
his entrance. Mr. Casson, we have seen, considered Adam “rather lifted
up and peppery-like”: he thought the gentry made more fuss about this
young carpenter than was necessary; they made no fuss about Mr. Casson,
although he had been an excellent butler for fifteen years.

“Well, Mr. Bede, you’re one o’ them as mounts hup’ards apace,” he said,
when Adam sat down. “You’ve niver dined here before, as I remember.”

“No, Mr. Casson,” said Adam, in his strong voice, that could be heard
along the table; “I’ve never dined here before, but I come by Captain
Donnithorne’s wish, and I hope it’s not disagreeable to anybody here.”

“Nay, nay,” said several voices at once, “we’re glad ye’re come. Who’s
got anything to say again’ it?”

“And ye’ll sing us ‘Over the hills and far away,’ after dinner, wonna
ye?” said Mr. Chowne. “That’s a song I’m uncommon fond on.”

“Peeh!” said Mr. Craig; “it’s not to be named by side o’ the Scotch
tunes. I’ve never cared about singing myself; I’ve had something better
to do. A man that’s got the names and the natur o’ plants in’s head
isna likely to keep a hollow place t’ hold tunes in. But a second
cousin o’ mine, a drovier, was a rare hand at remembering the Scotch
tunes. He’d got nothing else to think on.”

“The Scotch tunes!” said Bartle Massey, contemptuously; “I’ve heard
enough o’ the Scotch tunes to last me while I live. They’re fit for
nothing but to frighten the birds with—that’s to say, the English
birds, for the Scotch birds may sing Scotch for what I know. Give the
lads a bagpipe instead of a rattle, and I’ll answer for it the corn ’ll
be safe.”

“Yes, there’s folks as find a pleasure in undervallying what they know
but little about,” said Mr. Craig.

“Why, the Scotch tunes are just like a scolding, nagging woman,” Bartle
went on, without deigning to notice Mr. Craig’s remark. “They go on
with the same thing over and over again, and never come to a reasonable
end. Anybody ’ud think the Scotch tunes had always been asking a
question of somebody as deaf as old Taft, and had never got an answer
yet.”

Adam minded the less about sitting by Mr. Casson, because this position
enabled him to see Hetty, who was not far off him at the next table.
Hetty, however, had not even noticed his presence yet, for she was
giving angry attention to Totty, who insisted on drawing up her feet on
to the bench in antique fashion, and thereby threatened to make dusty
marks on Hetty’s pink-and-white frock. No sooner were the little fat
legs pushed down than up they came again, for Totty’s eyes were too
busy in staring at the large dishes to see where the plum pudding was
for her to retain any consciousness of her legs. Hetty got quite out of
patience, and at last, with a frown and pout, and gathering tears, she
said, “Oh dear, Aunt, I wish you’d speak to Totty; she keeps putting
her legs up so, and messing my frock.”

“What’s the matter wi’ the child? She can niver please you,” said the
mother. “Let her come by the side o’ me, then. _I_ can put up wi’ her.”

Adam was looking at Hetty, and saw the frown, and pout, and the dark
eyes seeming to grow larger with pettish half-gathered tears. Quiet
Mary Burge, who sat near enough to see that Hetty was cross and that
Adam’s eyes were fixed on her, thought that so sensible a man as Adam
must be reflecting on the small value of beauty in a woman whose temper
was bad. Mary was a good girl, not given to indulge in evil feelings,
but she said to herself, that, since Hetty had a bad temper, it was
better Adam should know it. And it was quite true that if Hetty had
been plain, she would have looked very ugly and unamiable at that
moment, and no one’s moral judgment upon her would have been in the
least beguiled. But really there was something quite charming in her
pettishness: it looked so much more like innocent distress than ill
humour; and the severe Adam felt no movement of disapprobation; he only
felt a sort of amused pity, as if he had seen a kitten setting up its
back, or a little bird with its feathers ruffled. He could not gather
what was vexing her, but it was impossible to him to feel otherwise
than that she was the prettiest thing in the world, and that if he
could have his way, nothing should ever vex her any more. And
presently, when Totty was gone, she caught his eye, and her face broke
into one of its brightest smiles, as she nodded to him. It was a bit of
flirtation—she knew Mary Burge was looking at them. But the smile was
like wine to Adam.




Chapter XXIV
The Health-Drinking


When the dinner was over, and the first draughts from the great cask of
birthday ale were brought up, room was made for the broad Mr. Poyser at
the side of the table, and two chairs were placed at the head. It had
been settled very definitely what Mr. Poyser was to do when the young
squire should appear, and for the last five minutes he had been in a
state of abstraction, with his eyes fixed on the dark picture opposite,
and his hands busy with the loose cash and other articles in his
breeches pockets.

When the young squire entered, with Mr. Irwine by his side, every one
stood up, and this moment of homage was very agreeable to Arthur. He
liked to feel his own importance, and besides that, he cared a great
deal for the good-will of these people: he was fond of thinking that
they had a hearty, special regard for him. The pleasure he felt was in
his face as he said, “My grandfather and I hope all our friends here
have enjoyed their dinner, and find my birthday ale good. Mr. Irwine
and I are come to taste it with you, and I am sure we shall all like
anything the better that the rector shares with us.”

All eyes were now turned on Mr. Poyser, who, with his hands still busy
in his pockets, began with the deliberateness of a slow-striking clock.
“Captain, my neighbours have put it upo’ me to speak for ’em to-day,
for where folks think pretty much alike, one spokesman’s as good as a
score. And though we’ve mayhappen got contrairy ways o’ thinking about
a many things—one man lays down his land one way an’ another
another—an’ I’ll not take it upon me to speak to no man’s farming, but
my own—this I’ll say, as we’re all o’ one mind about our young squire.
We’ve pretty nigh all on us known you when you war a little un, an’
we’ve niver known anything on you but what was good an’ honorable. You
speak fair an’ y’ act fair, an’ we’re joyful when we look forrard to
your being our landlord, for we ’lieve you mean to do right by
everybody, an’ ’ull make no man’s bread bitter to him if you can help
it. That’s what I mean, an’ that’s what we all mean; and when a man’s
said what he means, he’d better stop, for th’ ale ’ull be none the
better for stannin’. An’ I’ll not say how we like th’ ale yet, for we
couldna well taste it till we’d drunk your health in it; but the dinner
was good, an’ if there’s anybody hasna enjoyed it, it must be the fault
of his own inside. An’ as for the rector’s company, it’s well known as
that’s welcome t’ all the parish wherever he may be; an’ I hope, an’ we
all hope, as he’ll live to see us old folks, an’ our children grown to
men an’ women an’ Your Honour a family man. I’ve no more to say as
concerns the present time, an’ so we’ll drink our young squire’s
health—three times three.”

Hereupon a glorious shouting, a rapping, a jingling, a clattering, and
a shouting, with plentiful _da capo_, pleasanter than a strain of
sublimest music in the ears that receive such a tribute for the first
time. Arthur had felt a twinge of conscience during Mr. Poyser’s
speech, but it was too feeble to nullify the pleasure he felt in being
praised. Did he not deserve what was said of him on the whole? If there
was something in his conduct that Poyser wouldn’t have liked if he had
known it, why, no man’s conduct will bear too close an inspection; and
Poyser was not likely to know it; and, after all, what had he done?
Gone a little too far, perhaps, in flirtation, but another man in his
place would have acted much worse; and no harm would come—no harm
_should_ come, for the next time he was alone with Hetty, he would
explain to her that she must not think seriously of him or of what had
passed. It was necessary to Arthur, you perceive, to be satisfied with
himself. Uncomfortable thoughts must be got rid of by good intentions
for the future, which can be formed so rapidly that he had time to be
uncomfortable and to become easy again before Mr. Poyser’s slow speech
was finished, and when it was time for him to speak he was quite
light-hearted.

“I thank you all, my good friends and neighbours,” Arthur said, “for
the good opinion of me, and the kind feelings towards me which Mr.
Poyser has been expressing on your behalf and on his own, and it will
always be my heartiest wish to deserve them. In the course of things we
may expect that, if I live, I shall one day or other be your landlord;
indeed, it is on the ground of that expectation that my grandfather has
wished me to celebrate this day and to come among you now; and I look
forward to this position, not merely as one of power and pleasure for
myself, but as a means of benefiting my neighbours. It hardly becomes
so young a man as I am to talk much about farming to you, who are most
of you so much older, and are men of experience; still, I have
interested myself a good deal in such matters, and learned as much
about them as my opportunities have allowed; and when the course of
events shall place the estate in my hands, it will be my first desire
to afford my tenants all the encouragement a landlord can give them, in
improving their land and trying to bring about a better practice of
husbandry. It will be my wish to be looked on by all my deserving
tenants as their best friend, and nothing would make me so happy as to
be able to respect every man on the estate, and to be respected by him
in return. It is not my place at present to enter into particulars; I
only meet your good hopes concerning me by telling you that my own
hopes correspond to them—that what you expect from me I desire to
fulfil; and I am quite of Mr. Poyser’s opinion, that when a man has
said what he means, he had better stop. But the pleasure I feel in
having my own health drunk by you would not be perfect if we did not
drink the health of my grandfather, who has filled the place of both
parents to me. I will say no more, until you have joined me in drinking
his health on a day when he has wished me to appear among you as the
future representative of his name and family.”

Perhaps there was no one present except Mr. Irwine who thoroughly
understood and approved Arthur’s graceful mode of proposing his
grandfather’s health. The farmers thought the young squire knew well
enough that they hated the old squire, and Mrs. Poyser said, “he’d
better not ha’ stirred a kettle o’ sour broth.” The bucolic mind does
not readily apprehend the refinements of good taste. But the toast
could not be rejected and when it had been drunk, Arthur said, “I thank
you, both for my grandfather and myself; and now there is one more
thing I wish to tell you, that you may share my pleasure about it, as I
hope and believe you will. I think there can be no man here who has not
a respect, and some of you, I am sure, have a very high regard, for my
friend Adam Bede. It is well known to every one in this neighbourhood
that there is no man whose word can be more depended on than his; that
whatever he undertakes to do, he does well, and is as careful for the
interests of those who employ him as for his own. I’m proud to say that
I was very fond of Adam when I was a little boy, and I have never lost
my old feeling for him—I think that shows that I know a good fellow
when I find him. It has long been my wish that he should have the
management of the woods on the estate, which happen to be very
valuable, not only because I think so highly of his character, but
because he has the knowledge and the skill which fit him for the place.
And I am happy to tell you that it is my grandfather’s wish too, and it
is now settled that Adam shall manage the woods—a change which I am
sure will be very much for the advantage of the estate; and I hope you
will by and by join me in drinking his health, and in wishing him all
the prosperity in life that he deserves. But there is a still older
friend of mine than Adam Bede present, and I need not tell you that it
is Mr. Irwine. I’m sure you will agree with me that we must drink no
other person’s health until we have drunk his. I know you have all
reason to love him, but no one of his parishioners has so much reason
as I. Come, charge your glasses, and let us drink to our excellent
rector—three times three!”

This toast was drunk with all the enthusiasm that was wanting to the
last, and it certainly was the most picturesque moment in the scene
when Mr. Irwine got up to speak, and all the faces in the room were
turned towards him. The superior refinement of his face was much more
striking than that of Arthur’s when seen in comparison with the people
round them. Arthur’s was a much commoner British face, and the
splendour of his new-fashioned clothes was more akin to the young
farmer’s taste in costume than Mr. Irwine’s powder and the well-brushed
but well-worn black, which seemed to be his chosen suit for great
occasions; for he had the mysterious secret of never wearing a
new-looking coat.

“This is not the first time, by a great many,” he said, “that I have
had to thank my parishioners for giving me tokens of their goodwill,
but neighbourly kindness is among those things that are the more
precious the older they get. Indeed, our pleasant meeting to-day is a
proof that when what is good comes of age and is likely to live, there
is reason for rejoicing, and the relation between us as clergyman and
parishioners came of age two years ago, for it is three-and-twenty
years since I first came among you, and I see some tall fine-looking
young men here, as well as some blooming young women, that were far
from looking as pleasantly at me when I christened them as I am happy
to see them looking now. But I’m sure you will not wonder when I say
that among all those young men, the one in whom I have the strongest
interest is my friend Mr. Arthur Donnithorne, for whom you have just
expressed your regard. I had the pleasure of being his tutor for
several years, and have naturally had opportunities of knowing him
intimately which cannot have occurred to any one else who is present;
and I have some pride as well as pleasure in assuring you that I share
your high hopes concerning him, and your confidence in his possession
of those qualities which will make him an excellent landlord when the
time shall come for him to take that important position among you. We
feel alike on most matters on which a man who is getting towards fifty
can feel in common with a young man of one-and-twenty, and he has just
been expressing a feeling which I share very heartily, and I would not
willingly omit the opportunity of saying so. That feeling is his value
and respect for Adam Bede. People in a high station are of course more
thought of and talked about and have their virtues more praised, than
those whose lives are passed in humble everyday work; but every
sensible man knows how necessary that humble everyday work is, and how
important it is to us that it should be done well. And I agree with my
friend Mr. Arthur Donnithorne in feeling that when a man whose duty
lies in that sort of work shows a character which would make him an
example in any station, his merit should be acknowledged. He is one of
those to whom honour is due, and his friends should delight to honour
him. I know Adam Bede well—I know what he is as a workman, and what he
has been as a son and brother—and I am saying the simplest truth when I
say that I respect him as much as I respect any man living. But I am
not speaking to you about a stranger; some of you are his intimate
friends, and I believe there is not one here who does not know enough
of him to join heartily in drinking his health.”

As Mr. Irwine paused, Arthur jumped up and, filling his glass, said, “A
bumper to Adam Bede, and may he live to have sons as faithful and
clever as himself!”

No hearer, not even Bartle Massey, was so delighted with this toast as
Mr. Poyser. “Tough work” as his first speech had been, he would have
started up to make another if he had not known the extreme irregularity
of such a course. As it was, he found an outlet for his feeling in
drinking his ale unusually fast, and setting down his glass with a
swing of his arm and a determined rap. If Jonathan Burge and a few
others felt less comfortable on the occasion, they tried their best to
look contented, and so the toast was drunk with a goodwill apparently
unanimous.

Adam was rather paler than usual when he got up to thank his friends.
He was a good deal moved by this public tribute—very naturally, for he
was in the presence of all his little world, and it was uniting to do
him honour. But he felt no shyness about speaking, not being troubled
with small vanity or lack of words; he looked neither awkward nor
embarrassed, but stood in his usual firm upright attitude, with his
head thrown a little backward and his hands perfectly still, in that
rough dignity which is peculiar to intelligent, honest, well-built
workmen, who are never wondering what is their business in the world.

“I’m quite taken by surprise,” he said. “I didn’t expect anything o’
this sort, for it’s a good deal more than my wages. But I’ve the more
reason to be grateful to you, Captain, and to you, Mr. Irwine, and to
all my friends here, who’ve drunk my health and wished me well. It ’ud
be nonsense for me to be saying, I don’t at all deserve th’ opinion you
have of me; that ’ud be poor thanks to you, to say that you’ve known me
all these years and yet haven’t sense enough to find out a great deal
o’ the truth about me. You think, if I undertake to do a bit o’ work,
I’ll do it well, be my pay big or little—and that’s true. I’d be
ashamed to stand before you here if it wasna true. But it seems to me
that’s a man’s plain duty, and nothing to be conceited about, and it’s
pretty clear to me as I’ve never done more than my duty; for let us do
what we will, it’s only making use o’ the sperrit and the powers that
ha’ been given to us. And so this kindness o’ yours, I’m sure, is no
debt you owe me, but a free gift, and as such I accept it and am
thankful. And as to this new employment I’ve taken in hand, I’ll only
say that I took it at Captain Donnithorne’s desire, and that I’ll try
to fulfil his expectations. I’d wish for no better lot than to work
under him, and to know that while I was getting my own bread I was
taking care of his int’rests. For I believe he’s one o’ those gentlemen
as wishes to do the right thing, and to leave the world a bit better
than he found it, which it’s my belief every man may do, whether he’s
gentle or simple, whether he sets a good bit o’ work going and finds
the money, or whether he does the work with his own hands. There’s no
occasion for me to say any more about what I feel towards him: I hope
to show it through the rest o’ my life in my actions.”

There were various opinions about Adam’s speech: some of the women
whispered that he didn’t show himself thankful enough, and seemed to
speak as proud as could be; but most of the men were of opinion that
nobody could speak more straightfor’ard, and that Adam was as fine a
chap as need to be. While such observations were being buzzed about,
mingled with wonderings as to what the old squire meant to do for a
bailiff, and whether he was going to have a steward, the two gentlemen
had risen, and were walking round to the table where the wives and
children sat. There was none of the strong ale here, of course, but
wine and dessert—sparkling gooseberry for the young ones, and some good
sherry for the mothers. Mrs. Poyser was at the head of this table, and
Totty was now seated in her lap, bending her small nose deep down into
a wine-glass in search of the nuts floating there.

“How do you do, Mrs. Poyser?” said Arthur. “Weren’t you pleased to hear
your husband make such a good speech to-day?”

“Oh, sir, the men are mostly so tongue-tied—you’re forced partly to
guess what they mean, as you do wi’ the dumb creaturs.”

“What! you think you could have made it better for him?” said Mr.
Irwine, laughing.

“Well, sir, when I want to say anything, I can mostly find words to say
it in, thank God. Not as I’m a-finding faut wi’ my husband, for if he’s
a man o’ few words, what he says he’ll stand to.”

“I’m sure I never saw a prettier party than this,” Arthur said, looking
round at the apple-cheeked children. “My aunt and the Miss Irwines will
come up and see you presently. They were afraid of the noise of the
toasts, but it would be a shame for them not to see you at table.”

He walked on, speaking to the mothers and patting the children, while
Mr. Irwine satisfied himself with standing still and nodding at a
distance, that no one’s attention might be disturbed from the young
squire, the hero of the day. Arthur did not venture to stop near Hetty,
but merely bowed to her as he passed along the opposite side. The
foolish child felt her heart swelling with discontent; for what woman
was ever satisfied with apparent neglect, even when she knows it to be
the mask of love? Hetty thought this was going to be the most miserable
day she had had for a long while, a moment of chill daylight and
reality came across her dream: Arthur, who had seemed so near to her
only a few hours before, was separated from her, as the hero of a great
procession is separated from a small outsider in the crowd.




Chapter XXV
The Games


The great dance was not to begin until eight o’clock, but for any lads
and lasses who liked to dance on the shady grass before then, there was
music always at hand—for was not the band of the Benefit Club capable
of playing excellent jigs, reels, and hornpipes? And, besides this,
there was a grand band hired from Rosseter, who, with their wonderful
wind-instruments and puffed-out cheeks, were themselves a delightful
show to the small boys and girls. To say nothing of Joshua Rann’s
fiddle, which, by an act of generous forethought, he had provided
himself with, in case any one should be of sufficiently pure taste to
prefer dancing to a solo on that instrument.

Meantime, when the sun had moved off the great open space in front of
the house, the games began. There were, of course, well-soaped poles to
be climbed by the boys and youths, races to be run by the old women,
races to be run in sacks, heavy weights to be lifted by the strong men,
and a long list of challenges to such ambitious attempts as that of
walking as many yards possible on one leg—feats in which it was
generally remarked that Wiry Ben, being “the lissom’st, springest
fellow i’ the country,” was sure to be pre-eminent. To crown all, there
was to be a donkey-race—that sublimest of all races, conducted on the
grand socialistic idea of everybody encouraging everybody else’s
donkey, and the sorriest donkey winning.

And soon after four o’clock, splendid old Mrs. Irwine, in her damask
satin and jewels and black lace, was led out by Arthur, followed by the
whole family party, to her raised seat under the striped marquee, where
she was to give out the prizes to the victors. Staid, formal Miss Lydia
had requested to resign that queenly office to the royal old lady, and
Arthur was pleased with this opportunity of gratifying his godmother’s
taste for stateliness. Old Mr. Donnithorne, the delicately clean,
finely scented, withered old man, led out Miss Irwine, with his air of
punctilious, acid politeness; Mr. Gawaine brought Miss Lydia, looking
neutral and stiff in an elegant peach-blossom silk; and Mr. Irwine came
last with his pale sister Anne. No other friend of the family, besides
Mr. Gawaine, was invited to-day; there was to be a grand dinner for the
neighbouring gentry on the morrow, but to-day all the forces were
required for the entertainment of the tenants.

There was a sunk fence in front of the marquee, dividing the lawn from
the park, but a temporary bridge had been made for the passage of the
victors, and the groups of people standing, or seated here and there on
benches, stretched on each side of the open space from the white
marquees up to the sunk fence.

“Upon my word it’s a pretty sight,” said the old lady, in her deep
voice, when she was seated, and looked round on the bright scene with
its dark-green background; “and it’s the last fête-day I’m likely to
see, unless you make haste and get married, Arthur. But take care you
get a charming bride, else I would rather die without seeing her.”

“You’re so terribly fastidious, Godmother,” said Arthur, “I’m afraid I
should never satisfy you with my choice.”

“Well, I won’t forgive you if she’s not handsome. I can’t be put off
with amiability, which is always the excuse people are making for the
existence of plain people. And she must not be silly; that will never
do, because you’ll want managing, and a silly woman can’t manage you.
Who is that tall young man, Dauphin, with the mild face? There,
standing without his hat, and taking such care of that tall old woman
by the side of him—his mother, of course. I like to see that.”

“What, don’t you know him, Mother?” said Mr. Irwine. “That is Seth
Bede, Adam’s brother—a Methodist, but a very good fellow. Poor Seth has
looked rather down-hearted of late; I thought it was because of his
father’s dying in that sad way, but Joshua Rann tells me he wanted to
marry that sweet little Methodist preacher who was here about a month
ago, and I suppose she refused him.”

“Ah, I remember hearing about her. But there are no end of people here
that I don’t know, for they’re grown up and altered so since I used to
go about.”

“What excellent sight you have!” said old Mr. Donnithorne, who was
holding a double glass up to his eyes, “to see the expression of that
young man’s face so far off. His face is nothing but a pale blurred
spot to me. But I fancy I have the advantage of you when we come to
look close. I can read small print without spectacles.”

“Ah, my dear sir, you began with being very near-sighted, and those
near-sighted eyes always wear the best. I want very strong spectacles
to read with, but then I think my eyes get better and better for things
at a distance. I suppose if I could live another fifty years, I should
be blind to everything that wasn’t out of other people’s sight, like a
man who stands in a well and sees nothing but the stars.”

“See,” said Arthur, “the old women are ready to set out on their race
now. Which do you bet on, Gawaine?”

“The long-legged one, unless they’re going to have several heats, and
then the little wiry one may win.”

“There are the Poysers, Mother, not far off on the right hand,” said
Miss Irwine. “Mrs. Poyser is looking at you. Do take notice of her.”

“To be sure I will,” said the old lady, giving a gracious bow to Mrs.
Poyser. “A woman who sends me such excellent cream-cheese is not to be
neglected. Bless me! What a fat child that is she is holding on her
knee! But who is that pretty girl with dark eyes?”

“That is Hetty Sorrel,” said Miss Lydia Donnithorne, “Martin Poyser’s
niece—a very likely young person, and well-looking too. My maid has
taught her fine needlework, and she has mended some lace of mine very
respectably indeed—very respectably.”

“Why, she has lived with the Poysers six or seven years, Mother; you
must have seen her,” said Miss Irwine.

“No, I’ve never seen her, child—at least not as she is now,” said Mrs.
Irwine, continuing to look at Hetty. “Well-looking, indeed! She’s a
perfect beauty! I’ve never seen anything so pretty since my young days.
What a pity such beauty as that should be thrown away among the
farmers, when it’s wanted so terribly among the good families without
fortune! I daresay, now, she’ll marry a man who would have thought her
just as pretty if she had had round eyes and red hair.”

Arthur dared not turn his eyes towards Hetty while Mrs. Irwine was
speaking of her. He feigned not to hear, and to be occupied with
something on the opposite side. But he saw her plainly enough without
looking; saw her in heightened beauty, because he heard her beauty
praised—for other men’s opinion, you know, was like a native climate to
Arthur’s feelings: it was the air on which they thrived the best, and
grew strong. Yes! She _was_ enough to turn any man’s head: any man in
his place would have done and felt the same. And to give her up after
all, as he was determined to do, would be an act that he should always
look back upon with pride.

“No, Mother,” and Mr. Irwine, replying to her last words; “I can’t
agree with you there. The common people are not quite so stupid as you
imagine. The commonest man, who has his ounce of sense and feeling, is
conscious of the difference between a lovely, delicate woman and a
coarse one. Even a dog feels a difference in their presence. The man
may be no better able than the dog to explain the influence the more
refined beauty has on him, but he feels it.”

“Bless me, Dauphin, what does an old bachelor like you know about it?”

“Oh, that is one of the matters in which old bachelors are wiser than
married men, because they have time for more general contemplation.
Your fine critic of woman must never shackle his judgment by calling
one woman his own. But, as an example of what I was saying, that pretty
Methodist preacher I mentioned just now told me that she had preached
to the roughest miners and had never been treated with anything but the
utmost respect and kindness by them. The reason is—though she doesn’t
know it—that there’s so much tenderness, refinement, and purity about
her. Such a woman as that brings with her ‘airs from heaven’ that the
coarsest fellow is not insensible to.”

“Here’s a delicate bit of womanhood, or girlhood, coming to receive a
prize, I suppose,” said Mr. Gawaine. “She must be one of the racers in
the sacks, who had set off before we came.”

The “bit of womanhood” was our old acquaintance Bessy Cranage,
otherwise Chad’s Bess, whose large red cheeks and blowsy person had
undergone an exaggeration of colour, which, if she had happened to be a
heavenly body, would have made her sublime. Bessy, I am sorry to say,
had taken to her ear-rings again since Dinah’s departure, and was
otherwise decked out in such small finery as she could muster. Any one
who could have looked into poor Bessy’s heart would have seen a
striking resemblance between her little hopes and anxieties and
Hetty’s. The advantage, perhaps, would have been on Bessy’s side in the
matter of feeling. But then, you see, they were so very different
outside! You would have been inclined to box Bessy’s ears, and you
would have longed to kiss Hetty.

Bessy had been tempted to run the arduous race, partly from mere
hedonish gaiety, partly because of the prize. Some one had said there
were to be cloaks and other nice clothes for prizes, and she approached
the marquee, fanning herself with her handkerchief, but with exultation
sparkling in her round eyes.

“Here is the prize for the first sack-race,” said Miss Lydia, taking a
large parcel from the table where the prizes were laid and giving it to
Mrs. Irwine before Bessy came up, “an excellent grogram gown and a
piece of flannel.”

“You didn’t think the winner was to be so young, I suppose, Aunt?” said
Arthur. “Couldn’t you find something else for this girl, and save that
grim-looking gown for one of the older women?”

“I have bought nothing but what is useful and substantial,” said Miss
Lydia, adjusting her own lace; “I should not think of encouraging a
love of finery in young women of that class. I have a scarlet cloak,
but that is for the old woman who wins.”

This speech of Miss Lydia’s produced rather a mocking expression in
Mrs. Irwine’s face as she looked at Arthur, while Bessy came up and
dropped a series of curtsies.

“This is Bessy Cranage, mother,” said Mr. Irwine, kindly, “Chad
Cranage’s daughter. You remember Chad Cranage, the blacksmith?”

“Yes, to be sure,” said Mrs. Irwine. “Well, Bessy, here is your
prize—excellent warm things for winter. I’m sure you have had hard work
to win them this warm day.”

Bessy’s lip fell as she saw the ugly, heavy gown—which felt so hot and
disagreeable too, on this July day, and was such a great ugly thing to
carry. She dropped her curtsies again, without looking up, and with a
growing tremulousness about the corners of her mouth, and then turned
away.

“Poor girl,” said Arthur; “I think she’s disappointed. I wish it had
been something more to her taste.”

“She’s a bold-looking young person,” observed Miss Lydia. “Not at all
one I should like to encourage.”

Arthur silently resolved that he would make Bessy a present of money
before the day was over, that she might buy something more to her mind;
but she, not aware of the consolation in store for her, turned out of
the open space, where she was visible from the marquee, and throwing
down the odious bundle under a tree, began to cry—very much tittered at
the while by the small boys. In this situation she was descried by her
discreet matronly cousin, who lost no time in coming up, having just
given the baby into her husband’s charge.

“What’s the matter wi’ ye?” said Bess the matron, taking up the bundle
and examining it. “Ye’n sweltered yoursen, I reckon, running that
fool’s race. An’ here, they’n gi’en you lots o’ good grogram and
flannel, as should ha’ been gi’en by good rights to them as had the
sense to keep away from such foolery. Ye might spare me a bit o’ this
grogram to make clothes for the lad—ye war ne’er ill-natured, Bess; I
ne’er said that on ye.”

“Ye may take it all, for what I care,” said Bess the maiden, with a
pettish movement, beginning to wipe away her tears and recover herself.

“Well, I could do wi’t, if so be ye want to get rid on’t,” said the
disinterested cousin, walking quickly away with the bundle, lest Chad’s
Bess should change her mind.

But that bonny-cheeked lass was blessed with an elasticity of spirits
that secured her from any rankling grief; and by the time the grand
climax of the donkey-race came on, her disappointment was entirely lost
in the delightful excitement of attempting to stimulate the last donkey
by hisses, while the boys applied the argument of sticks. But the
strength of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as the
arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental
force as the direct sequence; and the present donkey proved the
first-rate order of his intelligence by coming to a dead standstill
just when the blows were thickest. Great was the shouting of the crowd,
radiant the grinning of Bill Downes the stone-sawyer and the fortunate
rider of this superior beast, which stood calm and stiff-legged in the
midst of its triumph.

Arthur himself had provided the prizes for the men, and Bill was made
happy with a splendid pocket-knife, supplied with blades and gimlets
enough to make a man at home on a desert island. He had hardly returned
from the marquee with the prize in his hand, when it began to be
understood that Wiry Ben proposed to amuse the company, before the
gentry went to dinner, with an impromptu and gratuitous
performance—namely, a hornpipe, the main idea of which was doubtless
borrowed; but this was to be developed by the dancer in so peculiar and
complex a manner that no one could deny him the praise of originality.
Wiry Ben’s pride in his dancing—an accomplishment productive of great
effect at the yearly Wake—had needed only slightly elevating by an
extra quantity of good ale to convince him that the gentry would be
very much struck with his performance of his hornpipe; and he had been
decidedly encouraged in this idea by Joshua Rann, who observed that it
was nothing but right to do something to please the young squire, in
return for what he had done for them. You will be the less surprised at
this opinion in so grave a personage when you learn that Ben had
requested Mr. Rann to accompany him on the fiddle, and Joshua felt
quite sure that though there might not be much in the dancing, the
music would make up for it. Adam Bede, who was present in one of the
large marquees, where the plan was being discussed, told Ben he had
better not make a fool of himself—a remark which at once fixed Ben’s
determination: he was not going to let anything alone because Adam Bede
turned up his nose at it.

“What’s this, what’s this?” said old Mr. Donnithorne. “Is it something
you’ve arranged, Arthur? Here’s the clerk coming with his fiddle, and a
smart fellow with a nosegay in his button-hole.”

“No,” said Arthur; “I know nothing about it. By Jove, he’s going to
dance! It’s one of the carpenters—I forget his name at this moment.”

“It’s Ben Cranage—Wiry Ben, they call him,” said Mr. Irwine; “rather a
loose fish, I think. Anne, my dear, I see that fiddle-scraping is too
much for you: you’re getting tired. Let me take you in now, that you
may rest till dinner.”

Miss Anne rose assentingly, and the good brother took her away, while
Joshua’s preliminary scrapings burst into the “White Cockade,” from
which he intended to pass to a variety of tunes, by a series of
transitions which his good ear really taught him to execute with some
skill. It would have been an exasperating fact to him, if he had known
it, that the general attention was too thoroughly absorbed by Ben’s
dancing for any one to give much heed to the music.

Have you ever seen a real English rustic perform a solo dance? Perhaps
you have only seen a ballet rustic, smiling like a merry countryman in
crockery, with graceful turns of the haunch and insinuating movements
of the head. That is as much like the real thing as the “Bird Waltz” is
like the song of birds. Wiry Ben never smiled: he looked as serious as
a dancing monkey—as serious as if he had been an experimental
philosopher ascertaining in his own person the amount of shaking and
the varieties of angularity that could be given to the human limbs.

To make amends for the abundant laughter in the striped marquee, Arthur
clapped his hands continually and cried “Bravo!” But Ben had one
admirer whose eyes followed his movements with a fervid gravity that
equalled his own. It was Martin Poyser, who was seated on a bench, with
Tommy between his legs.

“What dost think o’ that?” he said to his wife. “He goes as pat to the
music as if he was made o’ clockwork. I used to be a pretty good un at
dancing myself when I was lighter, but I could niver ha’ hit it just to
th’ hair like that.”

“It’s little matter what his limbs are, to my thinking,” re-turned Mrs.
Poyser. “He’s empty enough i’ the upper story, or he’d niver come
jigging an’ stamping i’ that way, like a mad grasshopper, for the
gentry to look at him. They’re fit to die wi’ laughing, I can see.”

“Well, well, so much the better, it amuses ’em,” said Mr. Poyser, who
did not easily take an irritable view of things. “But they’re going
away now, t’ have their dinner, I reckon. We’ll move about a bit, shall
we, and see what Adam Bede’s doing. He’s got to look after the drinking
and things: I doubt he hasna had much fun.”




Chapter XXVI
The Dance


Arthur had chosen the entrance-hall for the ballroom: very wisely, for
no other room could have been so airy, or would have had the advantage
of the wide doors opening into the garden, as well as a ready entrance
into the other rooms. To be sure, a stone floor was not the pleasantest
to dance on, but then, most of the dancers had known what it was to
enjoy a Christmas dance on kitchen quarries. It was one of those
entrance-halls which make the surrounding rooms look like closets—with
stucco angels, trumpets, and flower-wreaths on the lofty ceiling, and
great medallions of miscellaneous heroes on the walls, alternating with
statues in niches. Just the sort of place to be ornamented well with
green boughs, and Mr. Craig had been proud to show his taste and his
hothouse plants on the occasion. The broad steps of the stone staircase
were covered with cushions to serve as seats for the children, who were
to stay till half-past nine with the servant-maids to see the dancing,
and as this dance was confined to the chief tenants, there was abundant
room for every one. The lights were charmingly disposed in
coloured-paper lamps, high up among green boughs, and the farmers’
wives and daughters, as they peeped in, believed no scene could be more
splendid; they knew now quite well in what sort of rooms the king and
queen lived, and their thoughts glanced with some pity towards cousins
and acquaintances who had not this fine opportunity of knowing how
things went on in the great world. The lamps were already lit, though
the sun had not long set, and there was that calm light out of doors in
which we seem to see all objects more distinctly than in the broad day.

It was a pretty scene outside the house: the farmers and their families
were moving about the lawn, among the flowers and shrubs, or along the
broad straight road leading from the east front, where a carpet of
mossy grass spread on each side, studded here and there with a dark
flat-boughed cedar, or a grand pyramidal fir sweeping the ground with
its branches, all tipped with a fringe of paler green. The groups of
cottagers in the park were gradually diminishing, the young ones being
attracted towards the lights that were beginning to gleam from the
windows of the gallery in the abbey, which was to be their
dancing-room, and some of the sober elder ones thinking it time to go
home quietly. One of these was Lisbeth Bede, and Seth went with her—not
from filial attention only, for his conscience would not let him join
in dancing. It had been rather a melancholy day to Seth: Dinah had
never been more constantly present with him than in this scene, where
everything was so unlike her. He saw her all the more vividly after
looking at the thoughtless faces and gay-coloured dresses of the young
women—just as one feels the beauty and the greatness of a pictured
Madonna the more when it has been for a moment screened from us by a
vulgar head in a bonnet. But this presence of Dinah in his mind only
helped him to bear the better with his mother’s mood, which had been
becoming more and more querulous for the last hour. Poor Lisbeth was
suffering from a strange conflict of feelings. Her joy and pride in the
honour paid to her darling son Adam was beginning to be worsted in the
conflict with the jealousy and fretfulness which had revived when Adam
came to tell her that Captain Donnithorne desired him to join the
dancers in the hall. Adam was getting more and more out of her reach;
she wished all the old troubles back again, for then it mattered more
to Adam what his mother said and did.

“Eh, it’s fine talkin’ o’ dancin’,” she said, “an’ thy father not a
five week in’s grave. An’ I wish I war there too, i’stid o’ bein’ left
to take up merrier folks’s room above ground.”

“Nay, don’t look at it i’ that way, Mother,” said Adam, who was
determined to be gentle to her to-day. “I don’t mean to dance—I shall
only look on. And since the captain wishes me to be there, it ’ud look
as if I thought I knew better than him to say as I’d rather not stay.
And thee know’st how he’s behaved to me to-day.”

“Eh, thee’t do as thee lik’st, for thy old mother’s got no right t’
hinder thee. She’s nought but th’ old husk, and thee’st slipped away
from her, like the ripe nut.”

“Well, Mother,” said Adam, “I’ll go and tell the captain as it hurts
thy feelings for me to stay, and I’d rather go home upo’ that account:
he won’t take it ill then, I daresay, and I’m willing.” He said this
with some effort, for he really longed to be near Hetty this evening.

“Nay, nay, I wonna ha’ thee do that—the young squire ’ull be angered.
Go an’ do what thee’t ordered to do, an’ me and Seth ’ull go whome. I
know it’s a grit honour for thee to be so looked on—an’ who’s to be
prouder on it nor thy mother? Hadna she the cumber o’ rearin’ thee an’
doin’ for thee all these ’ears?”

“Well, good-bye, then, Mother—good-bye, lad—remember Gyp when you get
home,” said Adam, turning away towards the gate of the
pleasure-grounds, where he hoped he might be able to join the Poysers,
for he had been so occupied throughout the afternoon that he had had no
time to speak to Hetty. His eye soon detected a distant group, which he
knew to be the right one, returning to the house along the broad gravel
road, and he hastened on to meet them.

“Why, Adam, I’m glad to get sight on y’ again,” said Mr. Poyser, who
was carrying Totty on his arm. “You’re going t’ have a bit o’ fun, I
hope, now your work’s all done. And here’s Hetty has promised no end o’
partners, an’ I’ve just been askin’ her if she’d agreed to dance wi’
you, an’ she says no.”

“Well, I didn’t think o’ dancing to-night,” said Adam, already tempted
to change his mind, as he looked at Hetty.

“Nonsense!” said Mr. Poyser. “Why, everybody’s goin’ to dance to-night,
all but th’ old squire and Mrs. Irwine. Mrs. Best’s been tellin’ us as
Miss Lyddy and Miss Irwine ’ull dance, an’ the young squire ’ull pick
my wife for his first partner, t’ open the ball: so she’ll be forced to
dance, though she’s laid by ever sin’ the Christmas afore the little un
was born. You canna for shame stand still, Adam, an’ you a fine young
fellow and can dance as well as anybody.”

“Nay, nay,” said Mrs. Poyser, “it ’ud be unbecomin’. I know the
dancin’s nonsense, but if you stick at everything because it’s
nonsense, you wonna go far i’ this life. When your broth’s ready-made
for you, you mun swallow the thickenin’, or else let the broth alone.”

“Then if Hetty ’ull dance with me,” said Adam, yielding either to Mrs.
Poyser’s argument or to something else, “I’ll dance whichever dance
she’s free.”

“I’ve got no partner for the fourth dance,” said Hetty; “I’ll dance
that with you, if you like.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Poyser, “but you mun dance the first dance, Adam, else
it’ll look partic’ler. There’s plenty o’ nice partners to pick an’
choose from, an’ it’s hard for the gells when the men stan’ by and
don’t ask ’em.”

Adam felt the justice of Mr. Poyser’s observation: it would not do for
him to dance with no one besides Hetty; and remembering that Jonathan
Burge had some reason to feel hurt to-day, he resolved to ask Miss Mary
to dance with him the first dance, if she had no other partner.

“There’s the big clock strikin’ eight,” said Mr. Poyser; “we must make
haste in now, else the squire and the ladies ’ull be in afore us, an’
that wouldna look well.”

When they had entered the hall, and the three children under Molly’s
charge had been seated on the stairs, the folding-doors of the
drawing-room were thrown open, and Arthur entered in his regimentals,
leading Mrs. Irwine to a carpet-covered dais ornamented with hot-house
plants, where she and Miss Anne were to be seated with old Mr.
Donnithorne, that they might look on at the dancing, like the kings and
queens in the plays. Arthur had put on his uniform to please the
tenants, he said, who thought as much of his militia dignity as if it
had been an elevation to the premiership. He had not the least
objection to gratify them in that way: his uniform was very
advantageous to his figure.

The old squire, before sitting down, walked round the hall to greet the
tenants and make polite speeches to the wives: he was always polite;
but the farmers had found out, after long puzzling, that this polish
was one of the signs of hardness. It was observed that he gave his most
elaborate civility to Mrs. Poyser to-night, inquiring particularly
about her health, recommending her to strengthen herself with cold
water as he did, and avoid all drugs. Mrs. Poyser curtsied and thanked
him with great self-command, but when he had passed on, she whispered
to her husband, “I’ll lay my life he’s brewin’ some nasty turn against
us. Old Harry doesna wag his tail so for nothin’.” Mr. Poyser had no
time to answer, for now Arthur came up and said, “Mrs. Poyser, I’m come
to request the favour of your hand for the first dance; and, Mr.
Poyser, you must let me take you to my aunt, for she claims you as her
partner.”

The wife’s pale cheek flushed with a nervous sense of unwonted honour
as Arthur led her to the top of the room; but Mr. Poyser, to whom an
extra glass had restored his youthful confidence in his good looks and
good dancing, walked along with them quite proudly, secretly flattering
himself that Miss Lydia had never had a partner in _her_ life who could
lift her off the ground as he would. In order to balance the honours
given to the two parishes, Miss Irwine danced with Luke Britton, the
largest Broxton farmer, and Mr. Gawaine led out Mrs. Britton. Mr.
Irwine, after seating his sister Anne, had gone to the abbey gallery,
as he had agreed with Arthur beforehand, to see how the merriment of
the cottagers was prospering. Meanwhile, all the less distinguished
couples had taken their places: Hetty was led out by the inevitable Mr.
Craig, and Mary Burge by Adam; and now the music struck up, and the
glorious country-dance, best of all dances, began.

Pity it was not a boarded floor! Then the rhythmic stamping of the
thick shoes would have been better than any drums. That merry stamping,
that gracious nodding of the head, that waving bestowal of the
hand—where can we see them now? That simple dancing of well-covered
matrons, laying aside for an hour the cares of house and dairy,
remembering but not affecting youth, not jealous but proud of the young
maidens by their side—that holiday sprightliness of portly husbands
paying little compliments to their wives, as if their courting days
were come again—those lads and lasses a little confused and awkward
with their partners, having nothing to say—it would be a pleasant
variety to see all that sometimes, instead of low dresses and large
skirts, and scanning glances exploring costumes, and languid men in
lacquered boots smiling with double meaning.

There was but one thing to mar Martin Poyser’s pleasure in this dance:
it was that he was always in close contact with Luke Britton, that
slovenly farmer. He thought of throwing a little glazed coldness into
his eye in the crossing of hands; but then, as Miss Irwine was opposite
to him instead of the offensive Luke, he might freeze the wrong person.
So he gave his face up to hilarity, unchilled by moral judgments.

How Hetty’s heart beat as Arthur approached her! He had hardly looked
at her to-day: now he _must_ take her hand. Would he press it? Would he
look at her? She thought she would cry if he gave her no sign of
feeling. Now he was there—he had taken her hand—yes, he was pressing
it. Hetty turned pale as she looked up at him for an instant and met
his eyes, before the dance carried him away. That pale look came upon
Arthur like the beginning of a dull pain, which clung to him, though he
must dance and smile and joke all the same. Hetty would look so, when
he told her what he had to tell her; and he should never be able to
bear it—he should be a fool and give way again. Hetty’s look did not
really mean so much as he thought: it was only the sign of a struggle
between the desire for him to notice her and the dread lest she should
betray the desire to others. But Hetty’s face had a language that
transcended her feelings. There are faces which nature charges with a
meaning and pathos not belonging to the single human soul that flutters
beneath them, but speaking the joys and sorrows of foregone
generations—eyes that tell of deep love which doubtless has been and is
somewhere, but not paired with these eyes—perhaps paired with pale eyes
that can say nothing; just as a national language may be instinct with
poetry unfelt by the lips that use it. That look of Hetty’s oppressed
Arthur with a dread which yet had something of a terrible unconfessed
delight in it, that she loved him too well. There was a hard task
before him, for at that moment he felt he would have given up three
years of his youth for the happiness of abandoning himself without
remorse to his passion for Hetty.

These were the incongruous thoughts in his mind as he led Mrs. Poyser,
who was panting with fatigue, and secretly resolving that neither judge
nor jury should force her to dance another dance, to take a quiet rest
in the dining-room, where supper was laid out for the guests to come
and take it as they chose.

“I’ve desired Hetty to remember as she’s got to dance wi’ you, sir,”
said the good innocent woman; “for she’s so thoughtless, she’d be like
enough to go an’ engage herself for ivery dance. So I told her not to
promise too many.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Poyser,” said Arthur, not without a twinge. “Now, sit
down in this comfortable chair, and here is Mills ready to give you
what you would like best.”

He hurried away to seek another matronly partner, for due honour must
be paid to the married women before he asked any of the young ones; and
the country-dances, and the stamping, and the gracious nodding, and the
waving of the hands, went on joyously.

At last the time had come for the fourth dance—longed for by the
strong, grave Adam, as if he had been a delicate-handed youth of
eighteen; for we are all very much alike when we are in our first love;
and Adam had hardly ever touched Hetty’s hand for more than a transient
greeting—had never danced with her but once before. His eyes had
followed her eagerly to-night in spite of himself, and had taken in
deeper draughts of love. He thought she behaved so prettily, so
quietly; she did not seem to be flirting at all, she smiled less than
usual; there was almost a sweet sadness about her. “God bless her!” he
said inwardly; “I’d make her life a happy ’un, if a strong arm to work
for her, and a heart to love her, could do it.”

And then there stole over him delicious thoughts of coming home from
work, and drawing Hetty to his side, and feeling her cheek softly
pressed against his, till he forgot where he was, and the music and the
tread of feet might have been the falling of rain and the roaring of
the wind, for what he knew.

But now the third dance was ended, and he might go up to her and claim
her hand. She was at the far end of the hall near the staircase,
whispering with Molly, who had just given the sleeping Totty into her
arms before running to fetch shawls and bonnets from the landing. Mrs.
Poyser had taken the two boys away into the dining-room to give them
some cake before they went home in the cart with Grandfather and Molly
was to follow as fast as possible.

“Let me hold her,” said Adam, as Molly turned upstairs; “the children
are so heavy when they’re asleep.”

Hetty was glad of the relief, for to hold Totty in her arms, standing,
was not at all a pleasant variety to her. But this second transfer had
the unfortunate effect of rousing Totty, who was not behind any child
of her age in peevishness at an unseasonable awaking. While Hetty was
in the act of placing her in Adam’s arms, and had not yet withdrawn her
own, Totty opened her eyes, and forthwith fought out with her left fist
at Adam’s arm, and with her right caught at the string of brown beads
round Hetty’s neck. The locket leaped out from her frock, and the next
moment the string was broken, and Hetty, helpless, saw beads and locket
scattered wide on the floor.

“My locket, my locket!” she said, in a loud frightened whisper to Adam;
“never mind the beads.”

Adam had already seen where the locket fell, for it had attracted his
glance as it leaped out of her frock. It had fallen on the raised
wooden dais where the band sat, not on the stone floor; and as Adam
picked it up, he saw the glass with the dark and light locks of hair
under it. It had fallen that side upwards, so the glass was not broken.
He turned it over on his hand, and saw the enamelled gold back.

“It isn’t hurt,” he said, as he held it towards Hetty, who was unable
to take it because both her hands were occupied with Totty.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, I don’t mind about it,” said Hetty, who had
been pale and was now red.

“Not matter?” said Adam, gravely. “You seemed very frightened about it.
I’ll hold it till you’re ready to take it,” he added, quietly closing
his hand over it, that she might not think he wanted to look at it
again.

By this time Molly had come with bonnet and shawl, and as soon as she
had taken Totty, Adam placed the locket in Hetty’s hand. She took it
with an air of indifference and put it in her pocket, in her heart
vexed and angry with Adam because he had seen it, but determined now
that she would show no more signs of agitation.

“See,” she said, “they’re taking their places to dance; let us go.”

Adam assented silently. A puzzled alarm had taken possession of him.
Had Hetty a lover he didn’t know of? For none of her relations, he was
sure, would give her a locket like that; and none of her admirers, with
whom he was acquainted, was in the position of an accepted lover, as
the giver of that locket must be. Adam was lost in the utter
impossibility of finding any person for his fears to alight on. He
could only feel with a terrible pang that there was something in
Hetty’s life unknown to him; that while he had been rocking himself in
the hope that she would come to love him, she was already loving
another. The pleasure of the dance with Hetty was gone; his eyes, when
they rested on her, had an uneasy questioning expression in them; he
could think of nothing to say to her; and she too was out of temper and
disinclined to speak. They were both glad when the dance was ended.

Adam was determined to stay no longer; no one wanted him, and no one
would notice if he slipped away. As soon as he got out of doors, he
began to walk at his habitual rapid pace, hurrying along without
knowing why, busy with the painful thought that the memory of this day,
so full of honour and promise to him, was poisoned for ever. Suddenly,
when he was far on through the Chase, he stopped, startled by a flash
of reviving hope. After all, he might be a fool, making a great misery
out of a trifle. Hetty, fond of finery as she was, might have bought
the thing herself. It looked too expensive for that—it looked like the
things on white satin in the great jeweller’s shop at Rosseter. But
Adam had very imperfect notions of the value of such things, and he
thought it could certainly not cost more than a guinea. Perhaps Hetty
had had as much as that in Christmas boxes, and there was no knowing
but she might have been childish enough to spend it in that way; she
was such a young thing, and she couldn’t help loving finery! But then,
why had she been so frightened about it at first, and changed colour
so, and afterwards pretended not to care? Oh, that was because she was
ashamed of his seeing that she had such a smart thing—she was conscious
that it was wrong for her to spend her money on it, and she knew that
Adam disapproved of finery. It was a proof she cared about what he
liked and disliked. She must have thought from his silence and gravity
afterwards that he was very much displeased with her, that he was
inclined to be harsh and severe towards her foibles. And as he walked
on more quietly, chewing the cud of this new hope, his only uneasiness
was that he had behaved in a way which might chill Hetty’s feeling
towards him. For this last view of the matter _must_ be the true one.
How could Hetty have an accepted lover, quite unknown to him? She was
never away from her uncle’s house for more than a day; she could have
no acquaintances that did not come there, and no intimacies unknown to
her uncle and aunt. It would be folly to believe that the locket was
given to her by a lover. The little ring of dark hair he felt sure was
her own; he could form no guess about the light hair under it, for he
had not seen it very distinctly. It might be a bit of her father’s or
mother’s, who had died when she was a child, and she would naturally
put a bit of her own along with it.

And so Adam went to bed comforted, having woven for himself an
ingenious web of probabilities—the surest screen a wise man can place
between himself and the truth. His last waking thoughts melted into a
dream that he was with Hetty again at the Hall Farm, and that he was
asking her to forgive him for being so cold and silent.

And while he was dreaming this, Arthur was leading Hetty to the dance
and saying to her in low hurried tones, “I shall be in the wood the day
after to-morrow at seven; come as early as you can.” And Hetty’s
foolish joys and hopes, which had flown away for a little space, scared
by a mere nothing, now all came fluttering back, unconscious of the
real peril. She was happy for the first time this long day, and wished
that dance would last for hours. Arthur wished it too; it was the last
weakness he meant to indulge in; and a man never lies with more
delicious languor under the influence of a passion than when he has
persuaded himself that he shall subdue it to-morrow.

But Mrs. Poyser’s wishes were quite the reverse of this, for her mind
was filled with dreary forebodings as to the retardation of to-morrow
morning’s cheese in consequence of these late hours. Now that Hetty had
done her duty and danced one dance with the young squire, Mr. Poyser
must go out and see if the cart was come back to fetch them, for it was
half-past ten o’clock, and notwithstanding a mild suggestion on his
part that it would be bad manners for them to be the first to go, Mrs.
Poyser was resolute on the point, “manners or no manners.”

“What! Going already, Mrs. Poyser?” said old Mr. Donnithorne, as she
came to curtsy and take leave; “I thought we should not part with any
of our guests till eleven. Mrs. Irwine and I, who are elderly people,
think of sitting out the dance till then.”

“Oh, Your Honour, it’s all right and proper for gentlefolks to stay up
by candlelight—they’ve got no cheese on their minds. We’re late enough
as it is, an’ there’s no lettin’ the cows know as they mustn’t want to
be milked so early to-morrow mornin’. So, if you’ll please t’ excuse
us, we’ll take our leave.”

“Eh!” she said to her husband, as they set off in the cart, “I’d sooner
ha’ brewin’ day and washin’ day together than one o’ these pleasurin’
days. There’s no work so tirin’ as danglin’ about an’ starin’ an’ not
rightly knowin’ what you’re goin’ to do next; and keepin’ your face i’
smilin’ order like a grocer o’ market-day for fear people shouldna
think you civil enough. An’ you’ve nothing to show for’t when it’s
done, if it isn’t a yallow face wi’ eatin’ things as disagree.”

“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Poyser, who was in his merriest mood, and felt
that he had had a great day, “a bit o’ pleasuring’s good for thee
sometimes. An’ thee danc’st as well as any of ’em, for I’ll back thee
against all the wives i’ the parish for a light foot an’ ankle. An’ it
was a great honour for the young squire to ask thee first—I reckon it
was because I sat at th’ head o’ the table an’ made the speech. An’
Hetty too—_she_ never had such a partner before—a fine young gentleman
in reg’mentals. It’ll serve you to talk on, Hetty, when you’re an old
woman—how you danced wi’ th’ young squire the day he come o’ age.”




Book Fourth




Chapter XXVII
A crisis


It was beyond the middle of August—nearly three weeks after the
birthday feast. The reaping of the wheat had begun in our north midland
county of Loamshire, but the harvest was likely still to be retarded by
the heavy rains, which were causing inundations and much damage
throughout the country. From this last trouble the Broxton and Hayslope
farmers, on their pleasant uplands and in their brook-watered valleys,
had not suffered, and as I cannot pretend that they were such
exceptional farmers as to love the general good better than their own,
you will infer that they were not in very low spirits about the rapid
rise in the price of bread, so long as there was hope of gathering in
their own corn undamaged; and occasional days of sunshine and drying
winds flattered this hope.

The eighteenth of August was one of these days when the sunshine looked
brighter in all eyes for the gloom that went before. Grand masses of
cloud were hurried across the blue, and the great round hills behind
the Chase seemed alive with their flying shadows; the sun was hidden
for a moment, and then shone out warm again like a recovered joy; the
leaves, still green, were tossed off the hedgerow trees by the wind;
around the farmhouses there was a sound of clapping doors; the apples
fell in the orchards; and the stray horses on the green sides of the
lanes and on the common had their manes blown about their faces. And
yet the wind seemed only part of the general gladness because the sun
was shining. A merry day for the children, who ran and shouted to see
if they could top the wind with their voices; and the grown-up people
too were in good spirits, inclined to believe in yet finer days, when
the wind had fallen. If only the corn were not ripe enough to be blown
out of the husk and scattered as untimely seed!

And yet a day on which a blighting sorrow may fall upon a man. For if
it be true that Nature at certain moments seems charged with a
presentiment of one individual lot must it not also be true that she
seems unmindful, unconscious of another? For there is no hour that has
not its births of gladness and despair, no morning brightness that does
not bring new sickness to desolation as well as new forces to genius
and love. There are so many of us, and our lots are so different, what
wonder that Nature’s mood is often in harsh contrast with the great
crisis of our lives? We are children of a large family, and must learn,
as such children do, not to expect that our hurts will be made much
of—to be content with little nurture and caressing, and help each other
the more.

It was a busy day with Adam, who of late had done almost double work,
for he was continuing to act as foreman for Jonathan Burge, until some
satisfactory person could be found to supply his place, and Jonathan
was slow to find that person. But he had done the extra work
cheerfully, for his hopes were buoyant again about Hetty. Every time
she had seen him since the birthday, she had seemed to make an effort
to behave all the more kindly to him, that she might make him
understand she had forgiven his silence and coldness during the dance.
He had never mentioned the locket to her again; too happy that she
smiled at him—still happier because he observed in her a more subdued
air, something that he interpreted as the growth of womanly tenderness
and seriousness. “Ah!” he thought, again and again, “she’s only
seventeen; she’ll be thoughtful enough after a while. And her aunt
allays says how clever she is at the work. She’ll make a wife as
Mother’ll have no occasion to grumble at, after all.” To be sure, he
had only seen her at home twice since the birthday; for one Sunday,
when he was intending to go from church to the Hall Farm, Hetty had
joined the party of upper servants from the Chase and had gone home
with them—almost as if she were inclined to encourage Mr. Craig. “She’s
takin’ too much likin’ to them folks i’ the housekeeper’s room,” Mrs.
Poyser remarked. “For my part, I was never overfond o’ gentlefolks’s
servants—they’re mostly like the fine ladies’ fat dogs, nayther good
for barking nor butcher’s meat, but on’y for show.” And another evening
she was gone to Treddleston to buy some things; though, to his great
surprise, as he was returning home, he saw her at a distance getting
over a stile quite out of the Treddleston road. But, when he hastened
to her, she was very kind, and asked him to go in again when he had
taken her to the yard gate. She had gone a little farther into the
fields after coming from Treddleston because she didn’t want to go in,
she said: it was so nice to be out of doors, and her aunt always made
such a fuss about it if she wanted to go out. “Oh, do come in with me!”
she said, as he was going to shake hands with her at the gate, and he
could not resist that. So he went in, and Mrs. Poyser was contented
with only a slight remark on Hetty’s being later than was expected;
while Hetty, who had looked out of spirits when he met her, smiled and
talked and waited on them all with unusual promptitude.

That was the last time he had seen her; but he meant to make leisure
for going to the Farm to-morrow. To-day, he knew, was her day for going
to the Chase to sew with the lady’s maid, so he would get as much work
done as possible this evening, that the next might be clear.

One piece of work that Adam was superintending was some slight repairs
at the Chase Farm, which had been hitherto occupied by Satchell, as
bailiff, but which it was now rumoured that the old squire was going to
let to a smart man in top-boots, who had been seen to ride over it one
day. Nothing but the desire to get a tenant could account for the
squire’s undertaking repairs, though the Saturday-evening party at Mr.
Casson’s agreed over their pipes that no man in his senses would take
the Chase Farm unless there was a bit more ploughland laid to it.
However that might be, the repairs were ordered to be executed with all
dispatch, and Adam, acting for Mr. Burge, was carrying out the order
with his usual energy. But to-day, having been occupied elsewhere, he
had not been able to arrive at the Chase Farm till late in the
afternoon, and he then discovered that some old roofing, which he had
calculated on preserving, had given way. There was clearly no good to
be done with this part of the building without pulling it all down, and
Adam immediately saw in his mind a plan for building it up again, so as
to make the most convenient of cow-sheds and calf-pens, with a hovel
for implements; and all without any great expense for materials. So,
when the workmen were gone, he sat down, took out his pocket-book, and
busied himself with sketching a plan, and making a specification of the
expenses that he might show it to Burge the next morning, and set him
on persuading the squire to consent. To “make a good job” of anything,
however small, was always a pleasure to Adam, and he sat on a block,
with his book resting on a planing-table, whistling low every now and
then and turning his head on one side with a just perceptible smile of
gratification—of pride, too, for if Adam loved a bit of good work, he
loved also to think, “I did it!” And I believe the only people who are
free from that weakness are those who have no work to call their own.
It was nearly seven before he had finished and put on his jacket again;
and on giving a last look round, he observed that Seth, who had been
working here to-day, had left his basket of tools behind him. “Why, th’
lad’s forgot his tools,” thought Adam, “and he’s got to work up at the
shop to-morrow. There never was such a chap for wool-gathering; he’d
leave his head behind him, if it was loose. However, it’s lucky I’ve
seen ’em; I’ll carry ’em home.”

The buildings of the Chase Farm lay at one extremity of the Chase, at
about ten minutes’ walking distance from the Abbey. Adam had come
thither on his pony, intending to ride to the stables and put up his
nag on his way home. At the stables he encountered Mr. Craig, who had
come to look at the captain’s new horse, on which he was to ride away
the day after to-morrow; and Mr. Craig detained him to tell how all the
servants were to collect at the gate of the courtyard to wish the young
squire luck as he rode out; so that by the time Adam had got into the
Chase, and was striding along with the basket of tools over his
shoulder, the sun was on the point of setting, and was sending level
crimson rays among the great trunks of the old oaks, and touching every
bare patch of ground with a transient glory that made it look like a
jewel dropt upon the grass. The wind had fallen now, and there was only
enough breeze to stir the delicate-stemmed leaves. Any one who had been
sitting in the house all day would have been glad to walk now; but Adam
had been quite enough in the open air to wish to shorten his way home,
and he bethought himself that he might do so by striking across the
Chase and going through the Grove, where he had never been for years.
He hurried on across the Chase, stalking along the narrow paths between
the fern, with Gyp at his heels, not lingering to watch the magnificent
changes of the light—hardly once thinking of it—yet feeling its
presence in a certain calm happy awe which mingled itself with his busy
working-day thoughts. How could he help feeling it? The very deer felt
it, and were more timid.

Presently Adam’s thoughts recurred to what Mr. Craig had said about
Arthur Donnithorne, and pictured his going away, and the changes that
might take place before he came back; then they travelled back
affectionately over the old scenes of boyish companionship, and dwelt
on Arthur’s good qualities, which Adam had a pride in, as we all have
in the virtues of the superior who honours us. A nature like Adam’s,
with a great need of love and reverence in it, depends for so much of
its happiness on what it can believe and feel about others! And he had
no ideal world of dead heroes; he knew little of the life of men in the
past; he must find the beings to whom he could cling with loving
admiration among those who came within speech of him. These pleasant
thoughts about Arthur brought a milder expression than usual into his
keen rough face: perhaps they were the reason why, when he opened the
old green gate leading into the Grove, he paused to pat Gyp and say a
kind word to him.

After that pause, he strode on again along the broad winding path
through the Grove. What grand beeches! Adam delighted in a fine tree of
all things; as the fisherman’s sight is keenest on the sea, so Adam’s
perceptions were more at home with trees than with other objects. He
kept them in his memory, as a painter does, with all the flecks and
knots in their bark, all the curves and angles of their boughs, and had
often calculated the height and contents of a trunk to a nicety, as he
stood looking at it. No wonder that, not-withstanding his desire to get
on, he could not help pausing to look at a curious large beech which he
had seen standing before him at a turning in the road, and convince
himself that it was not two trees wedded together, but only one. For
the rest of his life he remembered that moment when he was calmly
examining the beech, as a man remembers his last glimpse of the home
where his youth was passed, before the road turned, and he saw it no
more. The beech stood at the last turning before the Grove ended in an
archway of boughs that let in the eastern light; and as Adam stepped
away from the tree to continue his walk, his eyes fell on two figures
about twenty yards before him.

He remained as motionless as a statue, and turned almost as pale. The
two figures were standing opposite to each other, with clasped hands
about to part; and while they were bending to kiss, Gyp, who had been
running among the brushwood, came out, caught sight of them, and gave a
sharp bark. They separated with a start—one hurried through the gate
out of the Grove, and the other, turning round, walked slowly, with a
sort of saunter, towards Adam who still stood transfixed and pale,
clutching tighter the stick with which he held the basket of tools over
his shoulder, and looking at the approaching figure with eyes in which
amazement was fast turning to fierceness.

Arthur Donnithorne looked flushed and excited; he had tried to make
unpleasant feelings more bearable by drinking a little more wine than
usual at dinner to-day, and was still enough under its flattering
influence to think more lightly of this unwished-for rencontre with
Adam than he would otherwise have done. After all, Adam was the best
person who could have happened to see him and Hetty together—he was a
sensible fellow, and would not babble about it to other people. Arthur
felt confident that he could laugh the thing off and explain it away.
And so he sauntered forward with elaborate carelessness—his flushed
face, his evening dress of fine cloth and fine linen, his hands
half-thrust into his waistcoat pockets, all shone upon by the strange
evening light which the light clouds had caught up even to the zenith,
and were now shedding down between the topmost branches above him.

Adam was still motionless, looking at him as he came up. He understood
it all now—the locket and everything else that had been doubtful to
him: a terrible scorching light showed him the hidden letters that
changed the meaning of the past. If he had moved a muscle, he must
inevitably have sprung upon Arthur like a tiger; and in the conflicting
emotions that filled those long moments, he had told himself that he
would not give loose to passion, he would only speak the right thing.
He stood as if petrified by an unseen force, but the force was his own
strong will.

“Well, Adam,” said Arthur, “you’ve been looking at the fine old
beeches, eh? They’re not to be come near by the hatchet, though; this
is a sacred grove. I overtook pretty little Hetty Sorrel as I was
coming to my den—the Hermitage, there. She ought not to come home this
way so late. So I took care of her to the gate, and asked for a kiss
for my pains. But I must get back now, for this road is confoundedly
damp. Good-night, Adam. I shall see you to-morrow—to say good-bye, you
know.”

Arthur was too much preoccupied with the part he was playing himself to
be thoroughly aware of the expression in Adam’s face. He did not look
directly at Adam, but glanced carelessly round at the trees and then
lifted up one foot to look at the sole of his boot. He cared to say no
more—he had thrown quite dust enough into honest Adam’s eyes—and as he
spoke the last words, he walked on.

“Stop a bit, sir,” said Adam, in a hard peremptory voice, without
turning round. “I’ve got a word to say to you.”

Arthur paused in surprise. Susceptible persons are more affected by a
change of tone than by unexpected words, and Arthur had the
susceptibility of a nature at once affectionate and vain. He was still
more surprised when he saw that Adam had not moved, but stood with his
back to him, as if summoning him to return. What did he mean? He was
going to make a serious business of this affair. Arthur felt his temper
rising. A patronising disposition always has its meaner side, and in
the confusion of his irritation and alarm there entered the feeling
that a man to whom he had shown so much favour as to Adam was not in a
position to criticize his conduct. And yet he was dominated, as one who
feels himself in the wrong always is, by the man whose good opinion he
cares for. In spite of pride and temper, there was as much deprecation
as anger in his voice when he said, “What do you mean, Adam?”

“I mean, sir”—answered Adam, in the same harsh voice, still without
turning round—“I mean, sir, that you don’t deceive me by your light
words. This is not the first time you’ve met Hetty Sorrel in this
grove, and this is not the first time you’ve kissed her.”

Arthur felt a startled uncertainty how far Adam was speaking from
knowledge, and how far from mere inference. And this uncertainty, which
prevented him from contriving a prudent answer, heightened his
irritation. He said, in a high sharp tone, “Well, sir, what then?”

“Why, then, instead of acting like th’ upright, honourable man we’ve
all believed you to be, you’ve been acting the part of a selfish
light-minded scoundrel. You know as well as I do what it’s to lead to
when a gentleman like you kisses and makes love to a young woman like
Hetty, and gives her presents as she’s frightened for other folks to
see. And I say it again, you’re acting the part of a selfish
light-minded scoundrel though it cuts me to th’ heart to say so, and
I’d rather ha’ lost my right hand.”

“Let me tell you, Adam,” said Arthur, bridling his growing anger and
trying to recur to his careless tone, “you’re not only devilishly
impertinent, but you’re talking nonsense. Every pretty girl is not such
a fool as you, to suppose that when a gentleman admires her beauty and
pays her a little attention, he must mean something particular. Every
man likes to flirt with a pretty girl, and every pretty girl likes to
be flirted with. The wider the distance between them, the less harm
there is, for then she’s not likely to deceive herself.”

“I don’t know what you mean by flirting,” said Adam, “but if you mean
behaving to a woman as if you loved her, and yet not loving her all the
while, I say that’s not th’ action of an honest man, and what isn’t
honest does come t’ harm. I’m not a fool, and you’re not a fool, and
you know better than what you’re saying. You know it couldn’t be made
public as you’ve behaved to Hetty as y’ have done without her losing
her character and bringing shame and trouble on her and her relations.
What if you meant nothing by your kissing and your presents? Other
folks won’t believe as you’ve meant nothing; and don’t tell me about
her not deceiving herself. I tell you as you’ve filled her mind so with
the thought of you as it’ll mayhap poison her life, and she’ll never
love another man as ’ud make her a good husband.”

Arthur had felt a sudden relief while Adam was speaking; he perceived
that Adam had no positive knowledge of the past, and that there was no
irrevocable damage done by this evening’s unfortunate rencontre. Adam
could still be deceived. The candid Arthur had brought himself into a
position in which successful lying was his only hope. The hope allayed
his anger a little.

“Well, Adam,” he said, in a tone of friendly concession, “you’re
perhaps right. Perhaps I’ve gone a little too far in taking notice of
the pretty little thing and stealing a kiss now and then. You’re such a
grave, steady fellow, you don’t understand the temptation to such
trifling. I’m sure I wouldn’t bring any trouble or annoyance on her and
the good Poysers on any account if I could help it. But I think you
look a little too seriously at it. You know I’m going away immediately,
so I shan’t make any more mistakes of the kind. But let us say
good-night”—Arthur here turned round to walk on—“and talk no more about
the matter. The whole thing will soon be forgotten.”

“No, by God!” Adam burst out with rage that could be controlled no
longer, throwing down the basket of tools and striding forward till he
was right in front of Arthur. All his jealousy and sense of personal
injury, which he had been hitherto trying to keep under, had leaped up
and mastered him. What man of us, in the first moments of a sharp
agony, could ever feel that the fellow-man who has been the medium of
inflicting it did not mean to hurt us? In our instinctive rebellion
against pain, we are children again, and demand an active will to wreak
our vengeance on. Adam at this moment could only feel that he had been
robbed of Hetty—robbed treacherously by the man in whom he had
trusted—and he stood close in front of Arthur, with fierce eyes glaring
at him, with pale lips and clenched hands, the hard tones in which he
had hitherto been constraining himself to express no more than a just
indignation giving way to a deep agitated voice that seemed to shake
him as he spoke.

“No, it’ll not be soon forgot, as you’ve come in between her and me,
when she might ha’ loved me—it’ll not soon be forgot as you’ve robbed
me o’ my happiness, while I thought you was my best friend, and a
noble-minded man, as I was proud to work for. And you’ve been kissing
her, and meaning nothing, have you? And I never kissed her i’ my
life—but I’d ha’ worked hard for years for the right to kiss her. And
you make light of it. You think little o’ doing what may damage other
folks, so as you get your bit o’ trifling, as means nothing. I throw
back your favours, for you’re not the man I took you for. I’ll never
count you my friend any more. I’d rather you’d act as my enemy, and
fight me where I stand—it’s all th’ amends you can make me.”

Poor Adam, possessed by rage that could find no other vent, began to
throw off his coat and his cap, too blind with passion to notice the
change that had taken place in Arthur while he was speaking. Arthur’s
lips were now as pale as Adam’s; his heart was beating violently. The
discovery that Adam loved Hetty was a shock which made him for the
moment see himself in the light of Adam’s indignation, and regard
Adam’s suffering as not merely a consequence, but an element of his
error. The words of hatred and contempt—the first he had ever heard in
his life—seemed like scorching missiles that were making ineffaceable
scars on him. All screening self-excuse, which rarely falls quite away
while others respect us, forsook him for an instant, and he stood face
to face with the first great irrevocable evil he had ever committed. He
was only twenty-one, and three months ago—nay, much later—he had
thought proudly that no man should ever be able to reproach him justly.
His first impulse, if there had been time for it, would perhaps have
been to utter words of propitiation; but Adam had no sooner thrown off
his coat and cap than he became aware that Arthur was standing pale and
motionless, with his hands still thrust in his waistcoat pockets.

“What!” he said, “won’t you fight me like a man? You know I won’t
strike you while you stand so.”

“Go away, Adam,” said Arthur, “I don’t want to fight you.”

“No,” said Adam, bitterly; “you don’t want to fight me—you think I’m a
common man, as you can injure without answering for it.”

“I never meant to injure you,” said Arthur, with returning anger. “I
didn’t know you loved her.”

“But you’ve made her love _you_,” said Adam. “You’re a double-faced
man—I’ll never believe a word you say again.”

“Go away, I tell you,” said Arthur, angrily, “or we shall both repent.”

“No,” said Adam, with a convulsed voice, “I swear I won’t go away
without fighting you. Do you want provoking any more? I tell you you’re
a coward and a scoundrel, and I despise you.”

The colour had all rushed back to Arthur’s face; in a moment his right
hand was clenched, and dealt a blow like lightning, which sent Adam
staggering backward. His blood was as thoroughly up as Adam’s now, and
the two men, forgetting the emotions that had gone before, fought with
the instinctive fierceness of panthers in the deepening twilight
darkened by the trees. The delicate-handed gentleman was a match for
the workman in everything but strength, and Arthur’s skill enabled him
to protract the struggle for some long moments. But between unarmed men
the battle is to the strong, where the strong is no blunderer, and
Arthur must sink under a well-planted blow of Adam’s as a steel rod is
broken by an iron bar. The blow soon came, and Arthur fell, his head
lying concealed in a tuft of fern, so that Adam could only discern his
darkly clad body.

He stood still in the dim light waiting for Arthur to rise.

The blow had been given now, towards which he had been straining all
the force of nerve and muscle—and what was the good of it? What had he
done by fighting? Only satisfied his own passion, only wreaked his own
vengeance. He had not rescued Hetty, nor changed the past—there it was,
just as it had been, and he sickened at the vanity of his own rage.

But why did not Arthur rise? He was perfectly motionless, and the time
seemed long to Adam. Good God! had the blow been too much for him? Adam
shuddered at the thought of his own strength, as with the oncoming of
this dread he knelt down by Arthur’s side and lifted his head from
among the fern. There was no sign of life: the eyes and teeth were set.
The horror that rushed over Adam completely mastered him, and forced
upon him its own belief. He could feel nothing but that death was in
Arthur’s face, and that he was helpless before it. He made not a single
movement, but knelt like an image of despair gazing at an image of
death.




Chapter XXVIII
A Dilemma


It was only a few minutes measured by the clock—though Adam always
thought it had been a long while—before he perceived a gleam of
consciousness in Arthur’s face and a slight shiver through his frame.
The intense joy that flooded his soul brought back some of the old
affection with it.

“Do you feel any pain, sir?” he said, tenderly, loosening Arthur’s
cravat.

Arthur turned his eyes on Adam with a vague stare which gave way to a
slightly startled motion as if from the shock of returning memory. But
he only shivered again and said nothing.

“Do you feel any hurt, sir?” Adam said again, with a trembling in his
voice.

Arthur put his hand up to his waistcoat buttons, and when Adam had
unbuttoned it, he took a longer breath. “Lay my head down,” he said,
faintly, “and get me some water if you can.”

Adam laid the head down gently on the fern again, and emptying the
tools out of the flag-basket, hurried through the trees to the edge of
the Grove bordering on the Chase, where a brook ran below the bank.

When he returned with his basket leaking, but still half-full, Arthur
looked at him with a more thoroughly reawakened consciousness.

“Can you drink a drop out o’ your hand, sir?” said Adam, kneeling down
again to lift up Arthur’s head.

“No,” said Arthur, “dip my cravat in and souse it on my head.”

The water seemed to do him some good, for he presently raised himself a
little higher, resting on Adam’s arm.

“Do you feel any hurt inside sir?” Adam asked again

“No—no hurt,” said Arthur, still faintly, “but rather done up.”

After a while he said, “I suppose I fainted away when you knocked me
down.”

“Yes, sir, thank God,” said Adam. “I thought it was worse.”

“What! You thought you’d done for me, eh? Come help me on my legs.”

“I feel terribly shaky and dizzy,” Arthur said, as he stood leaning on
Adam’s arm; “that blow of yours must have come against me like a
battering-ram. I don’t believe I can walk alone.”

“Lean on me, sir; I’ll get you along,” said Adam. “Or, will you sit
down a bit longer, on my coat here, and I’ll prop y’ up. You’ll perhaps
be better in a minute or two.”

“No,” said Arthur. “I’ll go to the Hermitage—I think I’ve got some
brandy there. There’s a short road to it a little farther on, near the
gate. If you’ll just help me on.”

They walked slowly, with frequent pauses, but without speaking again.
In both of them, the concentration in the present which had attended
the first moments of Arthur’s revival had now given way to a vivid
recollection of the previous scene. It was nearly dark in the narrow
path among the trees, but within the circle of fir-trees round the
Hermitage there was room for the growing moonlight to enter in at the
windows. Their steps were noiseless on the thick carpet of fir-needles,
and the outward stillness seemed to heighten their inward
consciousness, as Arthur took the key out of his pocket and placed it
in Adam’s hand, for him to open the door. Adam had not known before
that Arthur had furnished the old Hermitage and made it a retreat for
himself, and it was a surprise to him when he opened the door to see a
snug room with all the signs of frequent habitation.

Arthur loosed Adam’s arm and threw himself on the ottoman. “You’ll see
my hunting-bottle somewhere,” he said. “A leather case with a bottle
and glass in.”

Adam was not long in finding the case. “There’s very little brandy in
it, sir,” he said, turning it downwards over the glass, as he held it
before the window; “hardly this little glassful.”

“Well, give me that,” said Arthur, with the peevishness of physical
depression. When he had taken some sips, Adam said, “Hadn’t I better
run to th’ house, sir, and get some more brandy? I can be there and
back pretty soon. It’ll be a stiff walk home for you, if you don’t have
something to revive you.”

“Yes—go. But don’t say I’m ill. Ask for my man Pym, and tell him to get
it from Mills, and not to say I’m at the Hermitage. Get some water
too.”

Adam was relieved to have an active task—both of them were relieved to
be apart from each other for a short time. But Adam’s swift pace could
not still the eager pain of thinking—of living again with concentrated
suffering through the last wretched hour, and looking out from it over
all the new sad future.

Arthur lay still for some minutes after Adam was gone, but presently he
rose feebly from the ottoman and peered about slowly in the broken
moonlight, seeking something. It was a short bit of wax candle that
stood amongst a confusion of writing and drawing materials. There was
more searching for the means of lighting the candle, and when that was
done, he went cautiously round the room, as if wishing to assure
himself of the presence or absence of something. At last he had found a
slight thing, which he put first in his pocket, and then, on a second
thought, took out again and thrust deep down into a waste-paper basket.
It was a woman’s little, pink, silk neckerchief. He set the candle on
the table, and threw himself down on the ottoman again, exhausted with
the effort.

When Adam came back with his supplies, his entrance awoke Arthur from a
doze.

“That’s right,” Arthur said; “I’m tremendously in want of some
brandy-vigour.”

“I’m glad to see you’ve got a light, sir,” said Adam. “I’ve been
thinking I’d better have asked for a lanthorn.”

“No, no; the candle will last long enough—I shall soon be up to walking
home now.”

“I can’t go before I’ve seen you safe home, sir,” said Adam,
hesitatingly.

“No: it will be better for you to stay—sit down.”

Adam sat down, and they remained opposite to each other in uneasy
silence, while Arthur slowly drank brandy-and-water, with visibly
renovating effect. He began to lie in a more voluntary position, and
looked as if he were less overpowered by bodily sensations. Adam was
keenly alive to these indications, and as his anxiety about Arthur’s
condition began to be allayed, he felt more of that impatience which
every one knows who has had his just indignation suspended by the
physical state of the culprit. Yet there was one thing on his mind to
be done before he could recur to remonstrance: it was to confess what
had been unjust in his own words. Perhaps he longed all the more to
make this confession, that his indignation might be free again; and as
he saw the signs of returning ease in Arthur, the words again and again
came to his lips and went back, checked by the thought that it would be
better to leave everything till to-morrow. As long as they were silent
they did not look at each other, and a foreboding came across Adam that
if they began to speak as though they remembered the past—if they
looked at each other with full recognition—they must take fire again.
So they sat in silence till the bit of wax candle flickered low in the
socket, the silence all the while becoming more irksome to Adam. Arthur
had just poured out some more brandy-and-water, and he threw one arm
behind his head and drew up one leg in an attitude of recovered ease,
which was an irresistible temptation to Adam to speak what was on his
mind.

“You begin to feel more yourself again, sir,” he said, as the candle
went out and they were half-hidden from each other in the faint
moonlight.

“Yes: I don’t feel good for much—very lazy, and not inclined to move;
but I’ll go home when I’ve taken this dose.”

There was a slight pause before Adam said, “My temper got the better of
me, and I said things as wasn’t true. I’d no right to speak as if you’d
known you was doing me an injury: you’d no grounds for knowing it; I’ve
always kept what I felt for her as secret as I could.”

He paused again before he went on.

“And perhaps I judged you too harsh—I’m apt to be harsh—and you may
have acted out o’ thoughtlessness more than I should ha’ believed was
possible for a man with a heart and a conscience. We’re not all put
together alike, and we may misjudge one another. God knows, it’s all
the joy I could have now, to think the best of you.”

Arthur wanted to go home without saying any more—he was too painfully
embarrassed in mind, as well as too weak in body, to wish for any
further explanation to-night. And yet it was a relief to him that Adam
reopened the subject in a way the least difficult for him to answer.
Arthur was in the wretched position of an open, generous man who has
committed an error which makes deception seem a necessity. The native
impulse to give truth in return for truth, to meet trust with frank
confession, must be suppressed, and duty was becoming a question of
tactics. His deed was reacting upon him—was already governing him
tyrannously and forcing him into a course that jarred with his habitual
feelings. The only aim that seemed admissible to him now was to deceive
Adam to the utmost: to make Adam think better of him than he deserved.
And when he heard the words of honest retractation—when he heard the
sad appeal with which Adam ended—he was obliged to rejoice in the
remains of ignorant confidence it implied. He did not answer
immediately, for he had to be judicious and not truthful.

“Say no more about our anger, Adam,” he said, at last, very languidly,
for the labour of speech was unwelcome to him; “I forgive your
momentary injustice—it was quite natural, with the exaggerated notions
you had in your mind. We shall be none the worse friends in future, I
hope, because we’ve fought. You had the best of it, and that was as it
should be, for I believe I’ve been most in the wrong of the two. Come,
let us shake hands.”

Arthur held out his hand, but Adam sat still.

“I don’t like to say ‘No’ to that, sir,” he said, “but I can’t shake
hands till it’s clear what we mean by’t. I was wrong when I spoke as if
you’d done me an injury knowingly, but I wasn’t wrong in what I said
before, about your behaviour t’ Hetty, and I can’t shake hands with you
as if I held you my friend the same as ever till you’ve cleared that up
better.”

Arthur swallowed his pride and resentment as he drew back his hand. He
was silent for some moments, and then said, as indifferently as he
could, “I don’t know what you mean by clearing up, Adam. I’ve told you
already that you think too seriously of a little flirtation. But if you
are right in supposing there is any danger in it—I’m going away on
Saturday, and there will be an end of it. As for the pain it has given
you, I’m heartily sorry for it. I can say no more.”

Adam said nothing, but rose from his chair and stood with his face
towards one of the windows, as if looking at the blackness of the
moonlit fir-trees; but he was in reality conscious of nothing but the
conflict within him. It was of no use now—his resolution not to speak
till to-morrow. He must speak there and then. But it was several
minutes before he turned round and stepped nearer to Arthur, standing
and looking down on him as he lay.

“It’ll be better for me to speak plain,” he said, with evident effort,
“though it’s hard work. You see, sir, this isn’t a trifle to me,
whatever it may be to you. I’m none o’ them men as can go making love
first to one woman and then t’ another, and don’t think it much odds
which of ’em I take. What I feel for Hetty’s a different sort o’ love,
such as I believe nobody can know much about but them as feel it and
God as has given it to ’em. She’s more nor everything else to me, all
but my conscience and my good name. And if it’s true what you’ve been
saying all along—and if it’s only been trifling and flirting as you
call it, as ’ll be put an end to by your going away—why, then, I’d
wait, and hope her heart ’ud turn to me after all. I’m loath to think
you’d speak false to me, and I’ll believe your word, however things may
look.”

“You would be wronging Hetty more than me not to believe it,” said
Arthur, almost violently, starting up from the ottoman and moving away.
But he threw himself into a chair again directly, saying, more feebly,
“You seem to forget that, in suspecting me, you are casting imputations
upon her.”

“Nay, sir,” Adam said, in a calmer voice, as if he were
half-relieved—for he was too straightforward to make a distinction
between a direct falsehood and an indirect one—“Nay, sir, things don’t
lie level between Hetty and you. You’re acting with your eyes open,
whatever you may do; but how do you know what’s been in her mind? She’s
all but a child—as any man with a conscience in him ought to feel bound
to take care on. And whatever you may think, I know you’ve disturbed
her mind. I know she’s been fixing her heart on you, for there’s a many
things clear to me now as I didn’t understand before. But you seem to
make light o’ what _she_ may feel—you don’t think o’ that.”

“Good God, Adam, let me alone!” Arthur burst out impetuously; “I feel
it enough without your worrying me.”

He was aware of his indiscretion as soon as the words had escaped him.

“Well, then, if you feel it,” Adam rejoined, eagerly; “if you feel as
you may ha’ put false notions into her mind, and made her believe as
you loved her, when all the while you meant nothing, I’ve this demand
to make of you—I’m not speaking for myself, but for her. I ask you t’
undeceive her before you go away. Y’aren’t going away for ever, and if
you leave her behind with a notion in her head o’ your feeling about
her the same as she feels about you, she’ll be hankering after you, and
the mischief may get worse. It may be a smart to her now, but it’ll
save her pain i’ th’ end. I ask you to write a letter—you may trust to
my seeing as she gets it. Tell her the truth, and take blame to
yourself for behaving as you’d no right to do to a young woman as isn’t
your equal. I speak plain, sir, but I can’t speak any other way.
There’s nobody can take care o’ Hetty in this thing but me.”

“I can do what I think needful in the matter,” said Arthur, more and
more irritated by mingled distress and perplexity, “without giving
promises to you. I shall take what measures I think proper.”

“No,” said Adam, in an abrupt decided tone, “that won’t do. I must know
what ground I’m treading on. I must be safe as you’ve put an end to
what ought never to ha’ been begun. I don’t forget what’s owing to you
as a gentleman, but in this thing we’re man and man, and I can’t give
up.”

There was no answer for some moments. Then Arthur said, “I’ll see you
to-morrow. I can bear no more now; I’m ill.” He rose as he spoke, and
reached his cap, as if intending to go.

“You won’t see her again!” Adam exclaimed, with a flash of recurring
anger and suspicion, moving towards the door and placing his back
against it. “Either tell me she can never be my wife—tell me you’ve
been lying—or else promise me what I’ve said.”

Adam, uttering this alternative, stood like a terrible fate before
Arthur, who had moved forward a step or two, and now stopped, faint,
shaken, sick in mind and body. It seemed long to both of them—that
inward struggle of Arthur’s—before he said, feebly, “I promise; let me
go.”

Adam moved away from the door and opened it, but when Arthur reached
the step, he stopped again and leaned against the door-post.

“You’re not well enough to walk alone, sir,” said Adam. “Take my arm
again.”

Arthur made no answer, and presently walked on, Adam following. But,
after a few steps, he stood still again, and said, coldly, “I believe I
must trouble you. It’s getting late now, and there may be an alarm set
up about me at home.”

Adam gave his arm, and they walked on without uttering a word, till
they came where the basket and the tools lay.

“I must pick up the tools, sir,” Adam said. “They’re my brother’s. I
doubt they’ll be rusted. If you’ll please to wait a minute.”

Arthur stood still without speaking, and no other word passed between
them till they were at the side entrance, where he hoped to get in
without being seen by any one. He said then, “Thank you; I needn’t
trouble you any further.”

“What time will it be conven’ent for me to see you to-morrow, sir?”
said Adam.

“You may send me word that you’re here at five o’clock,” said Arthur;
“not before.”

“Good-night, sir,” said Adam. But he heard no reply; Arthur had turned
into the house.




Chapter XXIX
The Next Morning


Arthur did not pass a sleepless night; he slept long and well. For
sleep comes to the perplexed—if the perplexed are only weary enough.
But at seven he rang his bell and astonished Pym by declaring he was
going to get up, and must have breakfast brought to him at eight.

“And see that my mare is saddled at half-past eight, and tell my
grandfather when he’s down that I’m better this morning and am gone for
a ride.”

He had been awake an hour, and could rest in bed no longer. In bed our
yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up, though it be
but to whistle or to smoke, he has a present which offers some
resistance to the past—sensations which assert themselves against
tyrannous memories. And if there were such a thing as taking averages
of feeling, it would certainly be found that in the hunting and
shooting seasons regret, self-reproach, and mortified pride weigh
lighter on country gentlemen than in late spring and summer. Arthur
felt that he should be more of a man on horseback. Even the presence of
Pym, waiting on him with the usual deference, was a reassurance to him
after the scenes of yesterday. For, with Arthur’s sensitiveness to
opinion, the loss of Adam’s respect was a shock to his self-contentment
which suffused his imagination with the sense that he had sunk in all
eyes—as a sudden shock of fear from some real peril makes a nervous
woman afraid even to step, because all her perceptions are suffused
with a sense of danger.

Arthur’s, as you know, was a loving nature. Deeds of kindness were as
easy to him as a bad habit: they were the common issue of his
weaknesses and good qualities, of his egoism and his sympathy. He
didn’t like to witness pain, and he liked to have grateful eyes beaming
on him as the giver of pleasure. When he was a lad of seven, he one day
kicked down an old gardener’s pitcher of broth, from no motive but a
kicking impulse, not reflecting that it was the old man’s dinner; but
on learning that sad fact, he took his favourite pencil-case and a
silver-hafted knife out of his pocket and offered them as compensation.
He had been the same Arthur ever since, trying to make all offences
forgotten in benefits. If there were any bitterness in his nature, it
could only show itself against the man who refused to be conciliated by
him. And perhaps the time was come for some of that bitterness to rise.
At the first moment, Arthur had felt pure distress and self-reproach at
discovering that Adam’s happiness was involved in his relation to
Hetty. If there had been a possibility of making Adam tenfold amends—if
deeds of gift, or any other deeds, could have restored Adam’s
contentment and regard for him as a benefactor, Arthur would not only
have executed them without hesitation, but would have felt bound all
the more closely to Adam, and would never have been weary of making
retribution. But Adam could receive no amends; his suffering could not
be cancelled; his respect and affection could not be recovered by any
prompt deeds of atonement. He stood like an immovable obstacle against
which no pressure could avail; an embodiment of what Arthur most shrank
from believing in—the irrevocableness of his own wrongdoing. The words
of scorn, the refusal to shake hands, the mastery asserted over him in
their last conversation in the Hermitage—above all, the sense of having
been knocked down, to which a man does not very well reconcile himself,
even under the most heroic circumstances—pressed on him with a galling
pain which was stronger than compunction. Arthur would so gladly have
persuaded himself that he had done no harm! And if no one had told him
the contrary, he could have persuaded himself so much better. Nemesis
can seldom forge a sword for herself out of our consciences—out of the
suffering we feel in the suffering we may have caused: there is rarely
metal enough there to make an effective weapon. Our moral sense learns
the manners of good society and smiles when others smile, but when some
rude person gives rough names to our actions, she is apt to take part
against us. And so it was with Arthur: Adam’s judgment of him, Adam’s
grating words, disturbed his self-soothing arguments.

Not that Arthur had been at ease before Adam’s discovery. Struggles and
resolves had transformed themselves into compunction and anxiety. He
was distressed for Hetty’s sake, and distressed for his own, that he
must leave her behind. He had always, both in making and breaking
resolutions, looked beyond his passion and seen that it must speedily
end in separation; but his nature was too ardent and tender for him not
to suffer at this parting; and on Hetty’s account he was filled with
uneasiness. He had found out the dream in which she was living—that she
was to be a lady in silks and satins—and when he had first talked to
her about his going away, she had asked him tremblingly to let her go
with him and be married. It was his painful knowledge of this which had
given the most exasperating sting to Adam’s reproaches. He had said no
word with the purpose of deceiving her—her vision was all spun by her
own childish fancy—but he was obliged to confess to himself that it was
spun half out of his own actions. And to increase the mischief, on this
last evening he had not dared to hint the truth to Hetty; he had been
obliged to soothe her with tender, hopeful words, lest he should throw
her into violent distress. He felt the situation acutely, felt the
sorrow of the dear thing in the present, and thought with a darker
anxiety of the tenacity which her feelings might have in the future.
That was the one sharp point which pressed against him; every other he
could evade by hopeful self-persuasion. The whole thing had been
secret; the Poysers had not the shadow of a suspicion. No one, except
Adam, knew anything of what had passed—no one else was likely to know;
for Arthur had impressed on Hetty that it would be fatal to betray, by
word or look, that there had been the least intimacy between them; and
Adam, who knew half their secret, would rather help them to keep it
than betray it. It was an unfortunate business altogether, but there
was no use in making it worse than it was by imaginary exaggerations
and forebodings of evil that might never come. The temporary sadness
for Hetty was the worst consequence; he resolutely turned away his eyes
from any bad consequence that was not demonstrably inevitable. But—but
Hetty might have had the trouble in some other way if not in this. And
perhaps hereafter he might be able to do a great deal for her and make
up to her for all the tears she would shed about him. She would owe the
advantage of his care for her in future years to the sorrow she had
incurred now. _So_ good comes out of evil. Such is the beautiful
arrangement of things!

Are you inclined to ask whether this can be the same Arthur who, two
months ago, had that freshness of feeling, that delicate honour which
shrinks from wounding even a sentiment, and does not contemplate any
more positive offence as possible for it?—who thought that his own
self-respect was a higher tribunal than any external opinion? The same,
I assure you, only under different conditions. Our deeds determine us,
as much as we determine our deeds, and until we know what has been or
will be the peculiar combination of outward with inward facts, which
constitutes a man’s critical actions, it will be better not to think
ourselves wise about his character. There is a terrible coercion in our
deeds, which may first turn the honest man into a deceiver and then
reconcile him to the change, for this reason—that the second wrong
presents itself to him in the guise of the only practicable right. The
action which before commission has been seen with that blended common
sense and fresh untarnished feeling which is the healthy eye of the
soul, is looked at afterwards with the lens of apologetic ingenuity,
through which all things that men call beautiful and ugly are seen to
be made up of textures very much alike. Europe adjusts itself to a
_fait accompli_, and so does an individual character—until the placid
adjustment is disturbed by a convulsive retribution.

No man can escape this vitiating effect of an offence against his own
sentiment of right, and the effect was the stronger in Arthur because
of that very need of self-respect which, while his conscience was still
at ease, was one of his best safeguards. Self-accusation was too
painful to him—he could not face it. He must persuade himself that he
had not been very much to blame; he began even to pity himself for the
necessity he was under of deceiving Adam—it was a course so opposed to
the honesty of his own nature. But then, it was the only right thing to
do.

Well, whatever had been amiss in him, he was miserable enough in
consequence: miserable about Hetty; miserable about this letter that he
had promised to write, and that seemed at one moment to be a gross
barbarity, at another perhaps the greatest kindness he could do to her.
And across all this reflection would dart every now and then a sudden
impulse of passionate defiance towards all consequences. He would carry
Hetty away, and all other considerations might go to....

In this state of mind the four walls of his room made an intolerable
prison to him; they seemed to hem in and press down upon him all the
crowd of contradictory thoughts and conflicting feelings, some of which
would fly away in the open air. He had only an hour or two to make up
his mind in, and he must get clear and calm. Once on Meg’s back, in the
fresh air of that fine morning, he should be more master of the
situation.

The pretty creature arched her bay neck in the sunshine, and pawed the
gravel, and trembled with pleasure when her master stroked her nose,
and patted her, and talked to her even in a more caressing tone than
usual. He loved her the better because she knew nothing of his secrets.
But Meg was quite as well acquainted with her master’s mental state as
many others of her sex with the mental condition of the nice young
gentlemen towards whom their hearts are in a state of fluttering
expectation.

Arthur cantered for five miles beyond the Chase, till he was at the
foot of a hill where there were no hedges or trees to hem in the road.
Then he threw the bridle on Meg’s neck and prepared to make up his
mind.

Hetty knew that their meeting yesterday must be the last before Arthur
went away—there was no possibility of their contriving another without
exciting suspicion—and she was like a frightened child, unable to think
of anything, only able to cry at the mention of parting, and then put
her face up to have the tears kissed away. He _could_ do nothing but
comfort her, and lull her into dreaming on. A letter would be a
dreadfully abrupt way of awakening her! Yet there was truth in what
Adam said—that it would save her from a lengthened delusion, which
might be worse than a sharp immediate pain. And it was the only way of
satisfying Adam, who _must_ be satisfied, for more reasons than one. If
he could have seen her again! But that was impossible; there was such a
thorny hedge of hindrances between them, and an imprudence would be
fatal. And yet, if he _could_ see her again, what good would it do?
Only cause him to suffer more from the sight of her distress and the
remembrance of it. Away from him she was surrounded by all the motives
to self-control.

A sudden dread here fell like a shadow across his imagination—the dread
lest she should do something violent in her grief; and close upon that
dread came another, which deepened the shadow. But he shook them off
with the force of youth and hope. What was the ground for painting the
future in that dark way? It was just as likely to be the reverse.
Arthur told himself he did not deserve that things should turn out
badly. He had never meant beforehand to do anything his conscience
disapproved; he had been led on by circumstances. There was a sort of
implicit confidence in him that he was really such a good fellow at
bottom, Providence would not treat him harshly.

At all events, he couldn’t help what would come now: all he could do
was to take what seemed the best course at the present moment. And he
persuaded himself that that course was to make the way open between
Adam and Hetty. Her heart might really turn to Adam, as he said, after
a while; and in that case there would have been no great harm done,
since it was still Adam’s ardent wish to make her his wife. To be sure,
Adam was deceived—deceived in a way that Arthur would have resented as
a deep wrong if it had been practised on himself. That was a reflection
that marred the consoling prospect. Arthur’s cheeks even burned in
mingled shame and irritation at the thought. But what could a man do in
such a dilemma? He was bound in honour to say no word that could injure
Hetty: his first duty was to guard _her_. He would never have told or
acted a lie on his own account. Good God! What a miserable fool he was
to have brought himself into such a dilemma; and yet, if ever a man had
excuses, he had. (Pity that consequences are determined not by excuses
but by actions!)

Well, the letter must be written; it was the only means that promised a
solution of the difficulty. The tears came into Arthur’s eyes as he
thought of Hetty reading it; but it would be almost as hard for him to
write it; he was not doing anything easy to himself; and this last
thought helped him to arrive at a conclusion. He could never
deliberately have taken a step which inflicted pain on another and left
himself at ease. Even a movement of jealousy at the thought of giving
up Hetty to Adam went to convince him that he was making a sacrifice.

When once he had come to this conclusion, he turned Meg round and set
off home again in a canter. The letter should be written the first
thing, and the rest of the day would be filled up with other business:
he should have no time to look behind him. Happily, Irwine and Gawaine
were coming to dinner, and by twelve o’clock the next day he should
have left the Chase miles behind him. There was some security in this
constant occupation against an uncontrollable impulse seizing him to
rush to Hetty and thrust into her hand some mad proposition that would
undo everything. Faster and faster went the sensitive Meg, at every
slight sign from her rider, till the canter had passed into a swift
gallop.

“I thought they said th’ young mester war took ill last night,” said
sour old John, the groom, at dinner-time in the servants’ hall. “He’s
been ridin’ fit to split the mare i’ two this forenoon.”

“That’s happen one o’ the symptims, John,” said the facetious coachman.

“Then I wish he war let blood for ’t, that’s all,” said John, grimly.

Adam had been early at the Chase to know how Arthur was, and had been
relieved from all anxiety about the effects of his blow by learning
that he was gone out for a ride. At five o’clock he was punctually
there again, and sent up word of his arrival. In a few minutes Pym came
down with a letter in his hand and gave it to Adam, saying that the
captain was too busy to see him, and had written everything he had to
say. The letter was directed to Adam, but he went out of doors again
before opening it. It contained a sealed enclosure directed to Hetty.
On the inside of the cover Adam read:

“In the enclosed letter I have written everything you wish. I leave it
to you to decide whether you will be doing best to deliver it to Hetty
or to return it to me. Ask yourself once more whether you are not
taking a measure which may pain her more than mere silence.
    “There is no need for our seeing each other again now. We shall
    meet with better feelings some months hence.


“A.D.”


“Perhaps he’s i’ th’ right on ’t not to see me,” thought Adam. “It’s no
use meeting to say more hard words, and it’s no use meeting to shake
hands and say we’re friends again. We’re not friends, an’ it’s better
not to pretend it. I know forgiveness is a man’s duty, but, to my
thinking, that can only mean as you’re to give up all thoughts o’
taking revenge: it can never mean as you’re t’ have your old feelings
back again, for that’s not possible. He’s not the same man to me, and I
can’t _feel_ the same towards him. God help me! I don’t know whether I
feel the same towards anybody: I seem as if I’d been measuring my work
from a false line, and had got it all to measure over again.”

But the question about delivering the letter to Hetty soon absorbed
Adam’s thoughts. Arthur had procured some relief to himself by throwing
the decision on Adam with a warning; and Adam, who was not given to
hesitation, hesitated here. He determined to feel his way—to ascertain
as well as he could what was Hetty’s state of mind before he decided on
delivering the letter.




Chapter XXX
The Delivery of the Letter


The next Sunday Adam joined the Poysers on their way out of church,
hoping for an invitation to go home with them. He had the letter in his
pocket, and was anxious to have an opportunity of talking to Hetty
alone. He could not see her face at church, for she had changed her
seat, and when he came up to her to shake hands, her manner was
doubtful and constrained. He expected this, for it was the first time
she had met him since she had been aware that he had seen her with
Arthur in the Grove.

“Come, you’ll go on with us, Adam,” Mr. Poyser said when they reached
the turning; and as soon as they were in the fields Adam ventured to
offer his arm to Hetty. The children soon gave them an opportunity of
lingering behind a little, and then Adam said:

“Will you contrive for me to walk out in the garden a bit with you this
evening, if it keeps fine, Hetty? I’ve something partic’lar to talk to
you about.”

Hetty said, “Very well.” She was really as anxious as Adam was that she
should have some private talk with him. She wondered what he thought of
her and Arthur. He must have seen them kissing, she knew, but she had
no conception of the scene that had taken place between Arthur and
Adam. Her first feeling had been that Adam would be very angry with
her, and perhaps would tell her aunt and uncle, but it never entered
her mind that he would dare to say anything to Captain Donnithorne. It
was a relief to her that he behaved so kindly to her to-day, and wanted
to speak to _her_ alone; for she had trembled when she found he was
going home with them lest he should mean “to tell.” But, now he wanted
to talk to her by herself, she should learn what he thought and what he
meant to do. She felt a certain confidence that she could persuade him
not to do anything she did not want him to do; she could perhaps even
make him believe that she didn’t care for Arthur; and as long as Adam
thought there was any hope of her having him, he would do just what she
liked, she knew. Besides, she _must_ go on seeming to encourage Adam,
lest her uncle and aunt should be angry and suspect her of having some
secret lover.

Hetty’s little brain was busy with this combination as she hung on
Adam’s arm and said “yes” or “no” to some slight observations of his
about the many hawthorn-berries there would be for the birds this next
winter, and the low-hanging clouds that would hardly hold up till
morning. And when they rejoined her aunt and uncle, she could pursue
her thoughts without interruption, for Mr. Poyser held that though a
young man might like to have the woman he was courting on his arm, he
would nevertheless be glad of a little reasonable talk about business
the while; and, for his own part, he was curious to hear the most
recent news about the Chase Farm. So, through the rest of the walk, he
claimed Adam’s conversation for himself, and Hetty laid her small plots
and imagined her little scenes of cunning blandishment, as she walked
along by the hedgerows on honest Adam’s arm, quite as well as if she
had been an elegantly clad coquette alone in her boudoir. For if a
country beauty in clumsy shoes be only shallow-hearted enough, it is
astonishing how closely her mental processes may resemble those of a
lady in society and crinoline, who applies her refined intellect to the
problem of committing indiscretions without compromising herself.
Perhaps the resemblance was not much the less because Hetty felt very
unhappy all the while. The parting with Arthur was a double pain to
her—mingling with the tumult of passion and vanity there was a dim
undefined fear that the future might shape itself in some way quite
unlike her dream. She clung to the comforting hopeful words Arthur had
uttered in their last meeting—“I shall come again at Christmas, and
then we will see what can be done.” She clung to the belief that he was
so fond of her, he would never be happy without her; and she still
hugged her secret—that a great gentleman loved her—with gratified
pride, as a superiority over all the girls she knew. But the
uncertainty of the future, the possibilities to which she could give no
shape, began to press upon her like the invisible weight of air; she
was alone on her little island of dreams, and all around her was the
dark unknown water where Arthur was gone. She could gather no elation
of spirits now by looking forward, but only by looking backward to
build confidence on past words and caresses. But occasionally, since
Thursday evening, her dim anxieties had been almost lost behind the
more definite fear that Adam might betray what he knew to her uncle and
aunt, and his sudden proposition to talk with her alone had set her
thoughts to work in a new way. She was eager not to lose this evening’s
opportunity; and after tea, when the boys were going into the garden
and Totty begged to go with them, Hetty said, with an alacrity that
surprised Mrs. Poyser, “I’ll go with her, Aunt.”

It did not seem at all surprising that Adam said he would go too, and
soon he and Hetty were left alone together on the walk by the
filbert-trees, while the boys were busy elsewhere gathering the large
unripe nuts to play at “cob-nut” with, and Totty was watching them with
a puppylike air of contemplation. It was but a short time—hardly two
months—since Adam had had his mind filled with delicious hopes as he
stood by Hetty’s side in this garden. The remembrance of that scene had
often been with him since Thursday evening: the sunlight through the
apple-tree boughs, the red bunches, Hetty’s sweet blush. It came
importunately now, on this sad evening, with the low-hanging clouds,
but he tried to suppress it, lest some emotion should impel him to say
more than was needful for Hetty’s sake.

“After what I saw on Thursday night, Hetty,” he began, “you won’t think
me making too free in what I’m going to say. If you was being courted
by any man as ’ud make you his wife, and I’d known you was fond of him
and meant to have him, I should have no right to speak a word to you
about it; but when I see you’re being made love to by a gentleman as
can never marry you, and doesna think o’ marrying you, I feel bound t’
interfere for you. I can’t speak about it to them as are i’ the place
o’ your parents, for that might bring worse trouble than’s needful.”

Adam’s words relieved one of Hetty’s fears, but they also carried a
meaning which sickened her with a strengthened foreboding. She was pale
and trembling, and yet she would have angrily contradicted Adam, if she
had dared to betray her feelings. But she was silent.

“You’re so young, you know, Hetty,” he went on, almost tenderly, “and
y’ haven’t seen much o’ what goes on in the world. It’s right for me to
do what I can to save you from getting into trouble for want o’ your
knowing where you’re being led to. If anybody besides me knew what I
know about your meeting a gentleman and having fine presents from him,
they’d speak light on you, and you’d lose your character. And besides
that, you’ll have to suffer in your feelings, wi’ giving your love to a
man as can never marry you, so as he might take care of you all your
life.”

Adam paused and looked at Hetty, who was plucking the leaves from the
filbert-trees and tearing them up in her hand. Her little plans and
preconcerted speeches had all forsaken her, like an ill-learnt lesson,
under the terrible agitation produced by Adam’s words. There was a
cruel force in their calm certainty which threatened to grapple and
crush her flimsy hopes and fancies. She wanted to resist them—she
wanted to throw them off with angry contradiction—but the determination
to conceal what she felt still governed her. It was nothing more than a
blind prompting now, for she was unable to calculate the effect of her
words.

“You’ve no right to say as I love him,” she said, faintly, but
impetuously, plucking another rough leaf and tearing it up. She was
very beautiful in her paleness and agitation, with her dark childish
eyes dilated and her breath shorter than usual. Adam’s heart yearned
over her as he looked at her. Ah, if he could but comfort her, and
soothe her, and save her from this pain; if he had but some sort of
strength that would enable him to rescue her poor troubled mind, as he
would have rescued her body in the face of all danger!

“I doubt it must be so, Hetty,” he said, tenderly; “for I canna believe
you’d let any man kiss you by yourselves, and give you a gold box with
his hair, and go a-walking i’ the Grove to meet him, if you didna love
him. I’m not blaming you, for I know it ’ud begin by little and little,
till at last you’d not be able to throw it off. It’s him I blame for
stealing your love i’ that way, when he knew he could never make you
the right amends. He’s been trifling with you, and making a plaything
of you, and caring nothing about you as a man ought to care.”

“Yes, he does care for me; I know better nor you,” Hetty burst out.
Everything was forgotten but the pain and anger she felt at Adam’s
words.

“Nay, Hetty,” said Adam, “if he’d cared for you rightly, he’d never ha’
behaved so. He told me himself he meant nothing by his kissing and
presents, and he wanted to make me believe as you thought light of ’em
too. But I know better nor that. I can’t help thinking as you’ve been
trusting to his loving you well enough to marry you, for all he’s a
gentleman. And that’s why I must speak to you about it, Hetty, for fear
you should be deceiving yourself. It’s never entered his head the
thought o’ marrying you.”

“How do you know? How durst you say so?” said Hetty, pausing in her
walk and trembling. The terrible decision of Adam’s tone shook her with
fear. She had no presence of mind left for the reflection that Arthur
would have his reasons for not telling the truth to Adam. Her words and
look were enough to determine Adam: he must give her the letter.

“Perhaps you can’t believe me, Hetty, because you think too well of
him—because you think he loves you better than he does. But I’ve got a
letter i’ my pocket, as he wrote himself for me to give you. I’ve not
read the letter, but he says he’s told you the truth in it. But before
I give you the letter, consider, Hetty, and don’t let it take too much
hold on you. It wouldna ha’ been good for you if he’d wanted to do such
a mad thing as marry you: it ’ud ha’ led to no happiness i’ th’ end.”

Hetty said nothing; she felt a revival of hope at the mention of a
letter which Adam had not read. There would be something quite
different in it from what he thought.

Adam took out the letter, but he held it in his hand still, while he
said, in a tone of tender entreaty, “Don’t you bear me ill will, Hetty,
because I’m the means o’ bringing you this pain. God knows I’d ha’
borne a good deal worse for the sake o’ sparing it you. And
think—there’s nobody but me knows about this, and I’ll take care of you
as if I was your brother. You’re the same as ever to me, for I don’t
believe you’ve done any wrong knowingly.”

Hetty had laid her hand on the letter, but Adam did not loose it till
he had done speaking. She took no notice of what he said—she had not
listened; but when he loosed the letter, she put it into her pocket,
without opening it, and then began to walk more quickly, as if she
wanted to go in.

“You’re in the right not to read it just yet,” said Adam. “Read it when
you’re by yourself. But stay out a little bit longer, and let us call
the children: you look so white and ill, your aunt may take notice of
it.”

Hetty heard the warning. It recalled to her the necessity of rallying
her native powers of concealment, which had half given way under the
shock of Adam’s words. And she had the letter in her pocket: she was
sure there was comfort in that letter in spite of Adam. She ran to find
Totty, and soon reappeared with recovered colour, leading Totty, who
was making a sour face because she had been obliged to throw away an
unripe apple that she had set her small teeth in.

“Hegh, Totty,” said Adam, “come and ride on my shoulder—ever so
high—you’ll touch the tops o’ the trees.”

What little child ever refused to be comforted by that glorious sense
of being seized strongly and swung upward? I don’t believe Ganymede
cried when the eagle carried him away, and perhaps deposited him on
Jove’s shoulder at the end. Totty smiled down complacently from her
secure height, and pleasant was the sight to the mother’s eyes, as she
stood at the house door and saw Adam coming with his small burden.

“Bless your sweet face, my pet,” she said, the mother’s strong love
filling her keen eyes with mildness, as Totty leaned forward and put
out her arms. She had no eyes for Hetty at that moment, and only said,
without looking at her, “You go and draw some ale, Hetty; the gells are
both at the cheese.”

After the ale had been drawn and her uncle’s pipe lighted, there was
Totty to be taken to bed, and brought down again in her night-gown
because she would cry instead of going to sleep. Then there was supper
to be got ready, and Hetty must be continually in the way to give help.
Adam stayed till he knew Mrs. Poyser expected him to go, engaging her
and her husband in talk as constantly as he could, for the sake of
leaving Hetty more at ease. He lingered, because he wanted to see her
safely through that evening, and he was delighted to find how much
self-command she showed. He knew she had not had time to read the
letter, but he did not know she was buoyed up by a secret hope that the
letter would contradict everything he had said. It was hard work for
him to leave her—hard to think that he should not know for days how she
was bearing her trouble. But he must go at last, and all he could do
was to press her hand gently as he said “Good-bye,” and hope she would
take that as a sign that if his love could ever be a refuge for her, it
was there the same as ever. How busy his thoughts were, as he walked
home, in devising pitying excuses for her folly, in referring all her
weakness to the sweet lovingness of her nature, in blaming Arthur, with
less and less inclination to admit that _his_ conduct might be
extenuated too! His exasperation at Hetty’s suffering—and also at the
sense that she was possibly thrust for ever out of his own
reach—deafened him to any plea for the miscalled friend who had wrought
this misery. Adam was a clear-sighted, fair-minded man—a fine fellow,
indeed, morally as well as physically. But if Aristides the Just was
ever in love and jealous, he was at that moment not perfectly
magnanimous. And I cannot pretend that Adam, in these painful days,
felt nothing but righteous indignation and loving pity. He was bitterly
jealous, and in proportion as his love made him indulgent in his
judgment of Hetty, the bitterness found a vent in his feeling towards
Arthur.

“Her head was allays likely to be turned,” he thought, “when a
gentleman, with his fine manners, and fine clothes, and his white
hands, and that way o’ talking gentlefolks have, came about her, making
up to her in a bold way, as a man couldn’t do that was only her equal;
and it’s much if she’ll ever like a common man now.” He could not help
drawing his own hands out of his pocket and looking at them—at the hard
palms and the broken finger-nails. “I’m a roughish fellow, altogether;
I don’t know, now I come to think on’t, what there is much for a woman
to like about me; and yet I might ha’ got another wife easy enough, if
I hadn’t set my heart on her. But it’s little matter what other women
think about me, if she can’t love me. She might ha’ loved me, perhaps,
as likely as any other man—there’s nobody hereabouts as I’m afraid of,
if _he_ hadn’t come between us; but now I shall belike be hateful to
her because I’m so different to him. And yet there’s no telling—she may
turn round the other way, when she finds he’s made light of her all the
while. She may come to feel the vally of a man as ’ud be thankful to be
bound to her all his life. But I must put up with it whichever way it
is—I’ve only to be thankful it’s been no worse. I am not th’ only man
that’s got to do without much happiness i’ this life. There’s many a
good bit o’ work done with a bad heart. It’s God’s will, and that’s
enough for us: we shouldn’t know better how things ought to be than He
does, I reckon, if we was to spend our lives i’ puzzling. But it ’ud
ha’ gone near to spoil my work for me, if I’d seen her brought to
sorrow and shame, and through the man as I’ve always been proud to
think on. Since I’ve been spared that, I’ve no right to grumble. When a
man’s got his limbs whole, he can bear a smart cut or two.”

As Adam was getting over a stile at this point in his reflections, he
perceived a man walking along the field before him. He knew it was
Seth, returning from an evening preaching, and made haste to overtake
him.

“I thought thee’dst be at home before me,” he said, as Seth turned
round to wait for him, “for I’m later than usual to-night.”

“Well, I’m later too, for I got into talk, after meeting, with John
Barnes, who has lately professed himself in a state of perfection, and
I’d a question to ask him about his experience. It’s one o’ them
subjects that lead you further than y’ expect—they don’t lie along the
straight road.”

They walked along together in silence two or three minutes. Adam was
not inclined to enter into the subtleties of religious experience, but
he was inclined to interchange a word or two of brotherly affection and
confidence with Seth. That was a rare impulse in him, much as the
brothers loved each other. They hardly ever spoke of personal matters,
or uttered more than an allusion to their family troubles. Adam was by
nature reserved in all matters of feeling, and Seth felt a certain
timidity towards his more practical brother.

“Seth, lad,” Adam said, putting his arm on his brother’s shoulder,
“hast heard anything from Dinah Morris since she went away?”

“Yes,” said Seth. “She told me I might write her word after a while,
how we went on, and how mother bore up under her trouble. So I wrote to
her a fortnight ago, and told her about thee having a new employment,
and how Mother was more contented; and last Wednesday, when I called at
the post at Treddles’on, I found a letter from her. I think thee’dst
perhaps like to read it, but I didna say anything about it because
thee’st seemed so full of other things. It’s quite easy t’ read—she
writes wonderful for a woman.”

Seth had drawn the letter from his pocket and held it out to Adam, who
said, as he took it, “Aye, lad, I’ve got a tough load to carry just
now—thee mustna take it ill if I’m a bit silenter and crustier nor
usual. Trouble doesna make me care the less for thee. I know we shall
stick together to the last.”

“I take nought ill o’ thee, Adam. I know well enough what it means if
thee’t a bit short wi’ me now and then.”

“There’s Mother opening the door to look out for us,” said Adam, as
they mounted the slope. “She’s been sitting i’ the dark as usual. Well,
Gyp, well, art glad to see me?”

Lisbeth went in again quickly and lighted a candle, for she had heard
the welcome rustling of footsteps on the grass, before Gyp’s joyful
bark.

“Eh, my lads! Th’ hours war ne’er so long sin’ I war born as they’n
been this blessed Sunday night. What can ye both ha’ been doin’ till
this time?”

“Thee shouldstna sit i’ the dark, Mother,” said Adam; “that makes the
time seem longer.”

“Eh, what am I to do wi’ burnin’ candle of a Sunday, when there’s on’y
me an’ it’s sin to do a bit o’ knittin’? The daylight’s long enough for
me to stare i’ the booke as I canna read. It ’ud be a fine way o’
shortenin’ the time, to make it waste the good candle. But which on
you’s for ha’in’ supper? Ye mun ayther be clemmed or full, I should
think, seein’ what time o’ night it is.”

“I’m hungry, Mother,” said Seth, seating himself at the little table,
which had been spread ever since it was light.

“I’ve had my supper,” said Adam. “Here, Gyp,” he added, taking some
cold potato from the table and rubbing the rough grey head that looked
up towards him.

“Thee needstna be gi’in’ th’ dog,” said Lisbeth; “I’n fed him well
a’ready. I’m not like to forget him, I reckon, when he’s all o’ thee I
can get sight on.”

“Come, then, Gyp,” said Adam, “we’ll go to bed. Good-night, Mother; I’m
very tired.”

“What ails him, dost know?” Lisbeth said to Seth, when Adam was gone
upstairs. “He’s like as if he was struck for death this day or two—he’s
so cast down. I found him i’ the shop this forenoon, arter thee wast
gone, a-sittin’ an’ doin’ nothin’—not so much as a booke afore him.”

“He’s a deal o’ work upon him just now, Mother,” said Seth, “and I
think he’s a bit troubled in his mind. Don’t you take notice of it,
because it hurts him when you do. Be as kind to him as you can, Mother,
and don’t say anything to vex him.”

“Eh, what dost talk o’ my vexin’ him? An’ what am I like to be but
kind? I’ll ma’ him a kettle-cake for breakfast i’ the mornin’.”

Adam, meanwhile, was reading Dinah’s letter by the light of his dip
candle.

DEAR BROTHER SETH—Your letter lay three days beyond my knowing of it at
the post, for I had not money enough by me to pay the carriage, this
being a time of great need and sickness here, with the rains that have
fallen, as if the windows of heaven were opened again; and to lay by
money, from day to day, in such a time, when there are so many in
present need of all things, would be a want of trust like the laying up
of the manna. I speak of this, because I would not have you think me
slow to answer, or that I had small joy in your rejoicing at the
worldly good that has befallen your brother Adam. The honour and love
you bear him is nothing but meet, for God has given him great gifts,
and he uses them as the patriarch Joseph did, who, when he was exalted
to a place of power and trust, yet yearned with tenderness towards his
parent and his younger brother.

“My heart is knit to your aged mother since it was granted me to be
near her in the day of trouble. Speak to her of me, and tell her I
often bear her in my thoughts at evening time, when I am sitting in the
dim light as I did with her, and we held one another’s hands, and I
spoke the words of comfort that were given to me. Ah, that is a blessed
time, isn’t it, Seth, when the outward light is fading, and the body is
a little wearied with its work and its labour. Then the inward light
shines the brighter, and we have a deeper sense of resting on the
Divine strength. I sit on my chair in the dark room and close my eyes,
and it is as if I was out of the body and could feel no want for
evermore. For then, the very hardship, and the sorrow, and the
blindness, and the sin I have beheld and been ready to weep over—yea,
all the anguish of the children of men, which sometimes wraps me round
like sudden darkness—I can bear with a willing pain, as if I was
sharing the Redeemer’s cross. For I feel it, I feel it—infinite love is
suffering too—yea, in the fulness of knowledge it suffers, it yearns,
it mourns; and that is a blind self-seeking which wants to be freed
from the sorrow wherewith the whole creation groaneth and travaileth.
Surely it is not true blessedness to be free from sorrow, while there
is sorrow and sin in the world: sorrow is then a part of love, and love
does not seek to throw it off. It is not the spirit only that tells me
this—I see it in the whole work and word of the Gospel. Is there not
pleading in heaven? Is not the Man of Sorrows there in that crucified
body wherewith he ascended? And is He not one with the Infinite Love
itself—as our love is one with our sorrow?

“These thoughts have been much borne in on me of late, and I have seen
with new clearness the meaning of those words, ‘If any man love me, let
him take up my cross.’ I have heard this enlarged on as if it meant the
troubles and persecutions we bring on ourselves by confessing Jesus.
But surely that is a narrow thought. The true cross of the Redeemer was
the sin and sorrow of this world—_that_ was what lay heavy on his
heart—and that is the cross we shall share with him, that is the cup we
must drink of with him, if we would have any part in that Divine Love
which is one with his sorrow.

“In my outward lot, which you ask about, I have all things and abound.
I have had constant work in the mill, though some of the other hands
have been turned off for a time, and my body is greatly strengthened,
so that I feel little weariness after long walking and speaking. What
you say about staying in your own country with your mother and brother
shows me that you have a true guidance; your lot is appointed there by
a clear showing, and to seek a greater blessing elsewhere would be like
laying a false offering on the altar and expecting the fire from heaven
to kindle it. My work and my joy are here among the hills, and I
sometimes think I cling too much to my life among the people here, and
should be rebellious if I was called away.

“I was thankful for your tidings about the dear friends at the Hall
Farm, for though I sent them a letter, by my aunt’s desire, after I
came back from my sojourn among them, I have had no word from them. My
aunt has not the pen of a ready writer, and the work of the house is
sufficient for the day, for she is weak in body. My heart cleaves to
her and her children as the nearest of all to me in the flesh—yea, and
to all in that house. I am carried away to them continually in my
sleep, and often in the midst of work, and even of speech, the thought
of them is borne in on me as if they were in need and trouble, which
yet is dark to me. There may be some leading here; but I wait to be
taught. You say they are all well.

“We shall see each other again in the body, I trust, though, it may be,
not for a long while; for the brethren and sisters at Leeds are
desirous to have me for a short space among them, when I have a door
opened me again to leave Snowfield.

“Farewell, dear brother—and yet not farewell. For those children of God
whom it has been granted to see each other face to face, and to hold
communion together, and to feel the same spirit working in both can
never more be sundered though the hills may lie between. For their
souls are enlarged for evermore by that union, and they bear one
another about in their thoughts continually as it were a new
strength.—Your faithful Sister and fellow-worker in Christ,

“DINAH MORRIS.”


“I have not skill to write the words so small as you do and my pen
moves slow. And so I am straitened, and say but little of what is in my
mind. Greet your mother for me with a kiss. She asked me to kiss her
twice when we parted.”

Adam had refolded the letter, and was sitting meditatively with his
head resting on his arm at the head of the bed, when Seth came
upstairs.

“Hast read the letter?” said Seth.

“Yes,” said Adam. “I don’t know what I should ha’ thought of her and
her letter if I’d never seen her: I daresay I should ha’ thought a
preaching woman hateful. But she’s one as makes everything seem right
she says and does, and I seemed to see her and hear her speaking when I
read the letter. It’s wonderful how I remember her looks and her voice.
She’d make thee rare and happy, Seth; she’s just the woman for thee.”

“It’s no use thinking o’ that,” said Seth, despondingly. “She spoke so
firm, and she’s not the woman to say one thing and mean another.”

“Nay, but her feelings may grow different. A woman may get to love by
degrees—the best fire dosna flare up the soonest. I’d have thee go and
see her by and by: I’d make it convenient for thee to be away three or
four days, and it ’ud be no walk for thee—only between twenty and
thirty mile.”

“I should like to see her again, whether or no, if she wouldna be
displeased with me for going,” said Seth.

“She’ll be none displeased,” said Adam emphatically, getting up and
throwing off his coat. “It might be a great happiness to us all if
she’d have thee, for mother took to her so wonderful and seemed so
contented to be with her.”

“Aye,” said Seth, rather timidly, “and Dinah’s fond o’ Hetty too; she
thinks a deal about her.”

Adam made no reply to that, and no other word but “good-night” passed
between them.




Chapter XXXI
In Hetty’s Bed-Chamber


It was no longer light enough to go to bed without a candle, even in
Mrs. Poyser’s early household, and Hetty carried one with her as she
went up at last to her bedroom soon after Adam was gone, and bolted the
door behind her.

_Now_ she would read her letter. It must—it must have comfort in it.
How was Adam to know the truth? It was always likely he should say what
he did say.

She set down the candle and took out the letter. It had a faint scent
of roses, which made her feel as if Arthur were close to her. She put
it to her lips, and a rush of remembered sensations for a moment or two
swept away all fear. But her heart began to flutter strangely, and her
hands to tremble as she broke the seal. She read slowly; it was not
easy for her to read a gentleman’s handwriting, though Arthur had taken
pains to write plainly.

“DEAREST HETTY—I have spoken truly when I have said that I loved you,
and I shall never forget our love. I shall be your true friend as long
as life lasts, and I hope to prove this to you in many ways. If I say
anything to pain you in this letter, do not believe it is for want of
love and tenderness towards you, for there is nothing I would not do
for you, if I knew it to be really for your happiness. I cannot bear to
think of my little Hetty shedding tears when I am not there to kiss
them away; and if I followed only my own inclinations, I should be with
her at this moment instead of writing. It is very hard for me to part
from her—harder still for me to write words which may seem unkind,
though they spring from the truest kindness.

“Dear, dear Hetty, sweet as our love has been to me, sweet as it would
be to me for you to love me always, I feel that it would have been
better for us both if we had never had that happiness, and that it is
my duty to ask you to love me and care for me as little as you can. The
fault has all been mine, for though I have been unable to resist the
longing to be near you, I have felt all the while that your affection
for me might cause you grief. I ought to have resisted my feelings. I
should have done so, if I had been a better fellow than I am; but now,
since the past cannot be altered, I am bound to save you from any evil
that I have power to prevent. And I feel it would be a great evil for
you if your affections continued so fixed on me that you could think of
no other man who might be able to make you happier by his love than I
ever can, and if you continued to look towards something in the future
which cannot possibly happen. For, dear Hetty, if I were to do what you
one day spoke of, and make you my wife, I should do what you yourself
would come to feel was for your misery instead of your welfare. I know
you can never be happy except by marrying a man in your own station;
and if I were to marry you now, I should only be adding to any wrong I
have done, besides offending against my duty in the other relations of
life. You know nothing, dear Hetty, of the world in which I must always
live, and you would soon begin to dislike me, because there would be so
little in which we should be alike.

“And since I cannot marry you, we must part—we must try not to feel
like lovers any more. I am miserable while I say this, but nothing else
can be. Be angry with me, my sweet one, I deserve it; but do not
believe that I shall not always care for you—always be grateful to
you—always remember my Hetty; and if any trouble should come that we do
not now foresee, trust in me to do everything that lies in my power.

“I have told you where you are to direct a letter to, if you want to
write, but I put it down below lest you should have forgotten. Do not
write unless there is something I can really do for you; for, dear
Hetty, we must try to think of each other as little as we can. Forgive
me, and try to forget everything about me, except that I shall be, as
long as I live, your affectionate friend,

“ARTHUR DONNITHORNE.”


Slowly Hetty had read this letter; and when she looked up from it there
was the reflection of a blanched face in the old dim glass—a white
marble face with rounded childish forms, but with something sadder than
a child’s pain in it. Hetty did not see the face—she saw nothing—she
only felt that she was cold and sick and trembling. The letter shook
and rustled in her hand. She laid it down. It was a horrible
sensation—this cold and trembling. It swept away the very ideas that
produced it, and Hetty got up to reach a warm cloak from her
clothes-press, wrapped it round her, and sat as if she were thinking of
nothing but getting warm. Presently she took up the letter with a
firmer hand, and began to read it through again. The tears came this
time—great rushing tears that blinded her and blotched the paper. She
felt nothing but that Arthur was cruel—cruel to write so, cruel not to
marry her. Reasons why he could not marry her had no existence for her
mind; how could she believe in any misery that could come to her from
the fulfilment of all she had been longing for and dreaming of? She had
not the ideas that could make up the notion of that misery.

As she threw down the letter again, she caught sight of her face in the
glass; it was reddened now, and wet with tears; it was almost like a
companion that she might complain to—that would pity her. She leaned
forward on her elbows, and looked into those dark overflooding eyes and
at the quivering mouth, and saw how the tears came thicker and thicker,
and how the mouth became convulsed with sobs.

The shattering of all her little dream-world, the crushing blow on her
new-born passion, afflicted her pleasure-craving nature with an
overpowering pain that annihilated all impulse to resistance, and
suspended her anger. She sat sobbing till the candle went out, and
then, wearied, aching, stupefied with crying, threw herself on the bed
without undressing and went to sleep.

There was a feeble dawn in the room when Hetty awoke, a little after
four o’clock, with a sense of dull misery, the cause of which broke
upon her gradually as she began to discern the objects round her in the
dim light. And then came the frightening thought that she had to
conceal her misery as well as to bear it, in this dreary daylight that
was coming. She could lie no longer. She got up and went towards the
table: there lay the letter. She opened her treasure-drawer: there lay
the ear-rings and the locket—the signs of all her short happiness—the
signs of the lifelong dreariness that was to follow it. Looking at the
little trinkets which she had once eyed and fingered so fondly as the
earnest of her future paradise of finery, she lived back in the moments
when they had been given to her with such tender caresses, such
strangely pretty words, such glowing looks, which filled her with a
bewildering delicious surprise—they were so much sweeter than she had
thought anything could be. And the Arthur who had spoken to her and
looked at her in this way, who was present with her now—whose arm she
felt round her, his cheek against hers, his very breath upon her—was
the cruel, cruel Arthur who had written that letter, that letter which
she snatched and crushed and then opened again, that she might read it
once more. The half-benumbed mental condition which was the effect of
the last night’s violent crying made it necessary to her to look again
and see if her wretched thoughts were actually true—if the letter was
really so cruel. She had to hold it close to the window, else she could
not have read it by the faint light. Yes! It was worse—it was more
cruel. She crushed it up again in anger. She hated the writer of that
letter—hated him for the very reason that she hung upon him with all
her love—all the girlish passion and vanity that made up her love.

She had no tears this morning. She had wept them all away last night,
and now she felt that dry-eyed morning misery, which is worse than the
first shock because it has the future in it as well as the present.
Every morning to come, as far as her imagination could stretch, she
would have to get up and feel that the day would have no joy for her.
For there is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first
moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it
is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have
recovered hope. As Hetty began languidly to take off the clothes she
had worn all the night, that she might wash herself and brush her hair,
she had a sickening sense that her life would go on in this way. She
should always be doing things she had no pleasure in, getting up to the
old tasks of work, seeing people she cared nothing about, going to
church, and to Treddleston, and to tea with Mrs. Best, and carrying no
happy thought with her. For her short poisonous delights had spoiled
for ever all the little joys that had once made the sweetness of her
life—the new frock ready for Treddleston Fair, the party at Mr.
Britton’s at Broxton wake, the beaux that she would say “No” to for a
long while, and the prospect of the wedding that was to come at last
when she would have a silk gown and a great many clothes all at once.
These things were all flat and dreary to her now; everything would be a
weariness, and she would carry about for ever a hopeless thirst and
longing.

She paused in the midst of her languid undressing and leaned against
the dark old clothes-press. Her neck and arms were bare, her hair hung
down in delicate rings—and they were just as beautiful as they were
that night two months ago, when she walked up and down this bed-chamber
glowing with vanity and hope. She was not thinking of her neck and arms
now; even her own beauty was indifferent to her. Her eyes wandered
sadly over the dull old chamber, and then looked out vacantly towards
the growing dawn. Did a remembrance of Dinah come across her mind? Of
her foreboding words, which had made her angry? Of Dinah’s affectionate
entreaty to think of her as a friend in trouble? No, the impression had
been too slight to recur. Any affection or comfort Dinah could have
given her would have been as indifferent to Hetty this morning as
everything else was except her bruised passion. She was only thinking
she could never stay here and go on with the old life—she could better
bear something quite new than sinking back into the old everyday round.
She would like to run away that very morning, and never see any of the
old faces again. But Hetty’s was not a nature to face difficulties—to
dare to loose her hold on the familiar and rush blindly on some unknown
condition. Hers was a luxurious and vain nature—not a passionate
one—and if she were ever to take any violent measure, she must be urged
to it by the desperation of terror. There was not much room for her
thoughts to travel in the narrow circle of her imagination, and she
soon fixed on the one thing she would do to get away from her old life:
she would ask her uncle to let her go to be a lady’s maid. Miss Lydia’s
maid would help her to get a situation, if she knew Hetty had her
uncle’s leave.

When she had thought of this, she fastened up her hair and began to
wash: it seemed more possible to her to go downstairs and try to behave
as usual. She would ask her uncle this very day. On Hetty’s blooming
health it would take a great deal of such mental suffering as hers to
leave any deep impress; and when she was dressed as neatly as usual in
her working-dress, with her hair tucked up under her little cap, an
indifferent observer would have been more struck with the young
roundness of her cheek and neck and the darkness of her eyes and
eyelashes than with any signs of sadness about her. But when she took
up the crushed letter and put it in her drawer, that she might lock it
out of sight, hard smarting tears, having no relief in them as the
great drops had that fell last night, forced their way into her eyes.
She wiped them away quickly: she must not cry in the day-time. Nobody
should find out how miserable she was, nobody should know she was
disappointed about anything; and the thought that the eyes of her aunt
and uncle would be upon her gave her the self-command which often
accompanies a great dread. For Hetty looked out from her secret misery
towards the possibility of their ever knowing what had happened, as the
sick and weary prisoner might think of the possible pillory. They would
think her conduct shameful, and shame was torture. That was poor little
Hetty’s conscience.

So she locked up her drawer and went away to her early work.

In the evening, when Mr. Poyser was smoking his pipe, and his
good-nature was therefore at its superlative moment, Hetty seized the
opportunity of her aunt’s absence to say, “Uncle, I wish you’d let me
go for a lady’s maid.”

Mr. Poyser took the pipe from his mouth and looked at Hetty in mild
surprise for some moments. She was sewing, and went on with her work
industriously.

“Why, what’s put that into your head, my wench?” he said at last, after
he had given one conservative puff.

“I should like it—I should like it better than farm-work.”

“Nay, nay; you fancy so because you donna know it, my wench. It
wouldn’t be half so good for your health, nor for your luck i’ life.
I’d like you to stay wi’ us till you’ve got a good husband: you’re my
own niece, and I wouldn’t have you go to service, though it was a
gentleman’s house, as long as I’ve got a home for you.”

Mr. Poyser paused, and puffed away at his pipe.

“I like the needlework,” said Hetty, “and I should get good wages.”

“Has your aunt been a bit sharp wi’ you?” said Mr. Poyser, not noticing
Hetty’s further argument. “You mustna mind that, my wench—she does it
for your good. She wishes you well; an’ there isn’t many aunts as are
no kin to you ’ud ha’ done by you as she has.”

“No, it isn’t my aunt,” said Hetty, “but I should like the work
better.”

“It was all very well for you to learn the work a bit—an’ I gev my
consent to that fast enough, sin’ Mrs. Pomfret was willing to teach
you. For if anything was t’ happen, it’s well to know how to turn your
hand to different sorts o’ things. But I niver meant you to go to
service, my wench; my family’s ate their own bread and cheese as fur
back as anybody knows, hanna they, Father? You wouldna like your
grand-child to take wage?”

“Na-a-y,” said old Martin, with an elongation of the word, meant to
make it bitter as well as negative, while he leaned forward and looked
down on the floor. “But the wench takes arter her mother. I’d hard work
t’ hould _her_ in, an’ she married i’ spite o’ me—a feller wi’ on’y two
head o’ stock when there should ha’ been ten on’s farm—she might well
die o’ th’ inflammation afore she war thirty.”

It was seldom the old man made so long a speech, but his son’s question
had fallen like a bit of dry fuel on the embers of a long
unextinguished resentment, which had always made the grandfather more
indifferent to Hetty than to his son’s children. Her mother’s fortune
had been spent by that good-for-nought Sorrel, and Hetty had Sorrel’s
blood in her veins.

“Poor thing, poor thing!” said Martin the younger, who was sorry to
have provoked this retrospective harshness. “She’d but bad luck. But
Hetty’s got as good a chance o’ getting a solid, sober husband as any
gell i’ this country.”

After throwing out this pregnant hint, Mr. Poyser recurred to his pipe
and his silence, looking at Hetty to see if she did not give some sign
of having renounced her ill-advised wish. But instead of that, Hetty,
in spite of herself, began to cry, half out of ill temper at the
denial, half out of the day’s repressed sadness.

“Hegh, hegh!” said Mr. Poyser, meaning to check her playfully, “don’t
let’s have any crying. Crying’s for them as ha’ got no home, not for
them as want to get rid o’ one. What dost think?” he continued to his
wife, who now came back into the house-place, knitting with fierce
rapidity, as if that movement were a necessary function, like the
twittering of a crab’s antennæ.

“Think? Why, I think we shall have the fowl stole before we are much
older, wi’ that gell forgetting to lock the pens up o’ nights. What’s
the matter now, Hetty? What are you crying at?”

“Why, she’s been wanting to go for a lady’s maid,” said Mr. Poyser. “I
tell her we can do better for her nor that.”

“I thought she’d got some maggot in her head, she’s gone about wi’ her
mouth buttoned up so all day. It’s all wi’ going so among them servants
at the Chase, as we war fools for letting her. She thinks it ’ud be a
finer life than being wi’ them as are akin to her and ha’ brought her
up sin’ she war no bigger nor Marty. She thinks there’s nothing belongs
to being a lady’s maid but wearing finer clothes nor she was born to,
I’ll be bound. It’s what rag she can get to stick on her as she’s
thinking on from morning till night, as I often ask her if she wouldn’t
like to be the mawkin i’ the field, for then she’d be made o’ rags
inside and out. I’ll never gi’ my consent to her going for a lady’s
maid, while she’s got good friends to take care on her till she’s
married to somebody better nor one o’ them valets, as is neither a
common man nor a gentleman, an’ must live on the fat o’ the land, an’s
like enough to stick his hands under his coat-tails and expect his wife
to work for him.”

“Aye, aye,” said Mr. Poyser, “we must have a better husband for her nor
that, and there’s better at hand. Come, my wench, give over crying and
get to bed. I’ll do better for you nor letting you go for a lady’s
maid. Let’s hear no more on’t.”

When Hetty was gone upstairs he said, “I canna make it out as she
should want to go away, for I thought she’d got a mind t’ Adam Bede.
She’s looked like it o’ late.”

“Eh, there’s no knowing what she’s got a liking to, for things take no
more hold on her than if she was a dried pea. I believe that gell,
Molly—as is aggravatin’ enough, for the matter o’ that—but I believe
she’d care more about leaving us and the children, for all she’s been
here but a year come Michaelmas, nor Hetty would. But she’s got this
notion o’ being a lady’s maid wi’ going among them servants—we might
ha’ known what it ’ud lead to when we let her go to learn the fine
work. But I’ll put a stop to it pretty quick.”

“Thee’dst be sorry to part wi’ her, if it wasn’t for her good,” said
Mr. Poyser. “She’s useful to thee i’ the work.”

“Sorry? Yes, I’m fonder on her nor she deserves—a little hard-hearted
hussy, wanting to leave us i’ that way. I can’t ha’ had her about me
these seven year, I reckon, and done for her, and taught her everything
wi’out caring about her. An’ here I’m having linen spun, an’ thinking
all the while it’ll make sheeting and table-clothing for her when she’s
married, an’ she’ll live i’ the parish wi’ us, and never go out of our
sights—like a fool as I am for thinking aught about her, as is no
better nor a cherry wi’ a hard stone inside it.”

“Nay, nay, thee mustna make much of a trifle,” said Mr. Poyser,
soothingly. “She’s fond on us, I’ll be bound; but she’s young, an’ gets
things in her head as she can’t rightly give account on. Them young
fillies ’ull run away often wi’out knowing why.”

Her uncle’s answers, however, had had another effect on Hetty besides
that of disappointing her and making her cry. She knew quite well whom
he had in his mind in his allusions to marriage, and to a sober, solid
husband; and when she was in her bedroom again, the possibility of her
marrying Adam presented itself to her in a new light. In a mind where
no strong sympathies are at work, where there is no supreme sense of
right to which the agitated nature can cling and steady itself to quiet
endurance, one of the first results of sorrow is a desperate vague
clutching after any deed that will change the actual condition. Poor
Hetty’s vision of consequences, at no time more than a narrow fantastic
calculation of her own probable pleasures and pains, was now quite shut
out by reckless irritation under present suffering, and she was ready
for one of those convulsive, motiveless actions by which wretched men
and women leap from a temporary sorrow into a lifelong misery.

Why should she not marry Adam? She did not care what she did, so that
it made some change in her life. She felt confident that he would still
want to marry her, and any further thought about Adam’s happiness in
the matter had never yet visited her.

“Strange!” perhaps you will say, “this rush of impulse towards a course
that might have seemed the most repugnant to her present state of mind,
and in only the second night of her sadness!”

Yes, the actions of a little trivial soul like Hetty’s, struggling
amidst the serious sad destinies of a human being, _are_ strange. So
are the motions of a little vessel without ballast tossed about on a
stormy sea. How pretty it looked with its parti-coloured sail in the
sunlight, moored in the quiet bay!

“Let that man bear the loss who loosed it from its moorings.”

But that will not save the vessel—the pretty thing that might have been
a lasting joy.




Chapter XXXII
Mrs. Poyser “Has Her Say Out”


The next Saturday evening there was much excited discussion at the
Donnithorne Arms concerning an incident which had occurred that very
day—no less than a second appearance of the smart man in top-boots said
by some to be a mere farmer in treaty for the Chase Farm, by others to
be the future steward, but by Mr. Casson himself, the personal witness
to the stranger’s visit, pronounced contemptuously to be nothing better
than a bailiff, such as Satchell had been before him. No one had
thought of denying Mr. Casson’s testimony to the fact that he had seen
the stranger; nevertheless, he proffered various corroborating
circumstances.

“I see him myself,” he said; “I see him coming along by the Crab-tree
Meadow on a bald-faced hoss. I’d just been t’ hev a pint—it was half
after ten i’ the fore-noon, when I hev my pint as reg’lar as the
clock—and I says to Knowles, as druv up with his waggon, ‘You’ll get a
bit o’ barley to-day, Knowles,’ I says, ‘if you look about you’; and
then I went round by the rick-yard, and towart the Treddles’on road,
and just as I come up by the big ash-tree, I see the man i’ top-boots
coming along on a bald-faced hoss—I wish I may never stir if I didn’t.
And I stood still till he come up, and I says, ‘Good morning, sir,’ I
says, for I wanted to hear the turn of his tongue, as I might know
whether he was a this-country man; so I says, ‘Good morning, sir: it
’ll ’old hup for the barley this morning, I think. There’ll be a bit
got hin, if we’ve good luck.’ And he says, ‘Eh, ye may be raight,
there’s noo tallin’,’ he says, and I knowed by that”—here Mr. Casson
gave a wink—“as he didn’t come from a hundred mile off. I daresay he’d
think me a hodd talker, as you Loamshire folks allays does hany one as
talks the right language.”

“The right language!” said Bartle Massey, contemptuously. “You’re about
as near the right language as a pig’s squeaking is like a tune played
on a key-bugle.”

“Well, I don’t know,” answered Mr. Casson, with an angry smile. “I
should think a man as has lived among the gentry from a by, is likely
to know what’s the right language pretty nigh as well as a
schoolmaster.”

“Ay, ay, man,” said Bartle, with a tone of sarcastic consolation, “you
talk the right language for _you_. When Mike Holdsworth’s goat says
ba-a-a, it’s all right—it ’ud be unnatural for it to make any other
noise.”

The rest of the party being Loamshire men, Mr. Casson had the laugh
strongly against him, and wisely fell back on the previous question,
which, far from being exhausted in a single evening, was renewed in the
churchyard, before service, the next day, with the fresh interest
conferred on all news when there is a fresh person to hear it; and that
fresh hearer was Martin Poyser, who, as his wife said, “never went
boozin’ with that set at Casson’s, a-sittin’ soakin’ in drink, and
looking as wise as a lot o’ cod-fish wi’ red faces.”

It was probably owing to the conversation she had had with her husband
on their way from church concerning this problematic stranger that Mrs.
Poyser’s thoughts immediately reverted to him when, a day or two
afterwards, as she was standing at the house-door with her knitting, in
that eager leisure which came to her when the afternoon cleaning was
done, she saw the old squire enter the yard on his black pony, followed
by John the groom. She always cited it afterwards as a case of
prevision, which really had something more in it than her own
remarkable penetration, that the moment she set eyes on the squire she
said to herself, “I shouldna wonder if he’s come about that man as is
a-going to take the Chase Farm, wanting Poyser to do something for him
without pay. But Poyser’s a fool if he does.”

Something unwonted must clearly be in the wind, for the old squire’s
visits to his tenantry were rare; and though Mrs. Poyser had during the
last twelvemonth recited many imaginary speeches, meaning even more
than met the ear, which she was quite determined to make to him the
next time he appeared within the gates of the Hall Farm, the speeches
had always remained imaginary.

“Good-day, Mrs. Poyser,” said the old squire, peering at her with his
short-sighted eyes—a mode of looking at her which, as Mrs. Poyser
observed, “allays aggravated me: it was as if you was a insect, and he
was going to dab his finger-nail on you.”

However, she said, “Your servant, sir,” and curtsied with an air of
perfect deference as she advanced towards him: she was not the woman to
misbehave towards her betters, and fly in the face of the catechism,
without severe provocation.

“Is your husband at home, Mrs. Poyser?”

“Yes, sir; he’s only i’ the rick-yard. I’ll send for him in a minute,
if you’ll please to get down and step in.”

“Thank you; I will do so. I want to consult him about a little matter;
but you are quite as much concerned in it, if not more. I must have
your opinion too.”

“Hetty, run and tell your uncle to come in,” said Mrs. Poyser, as they
entered the house, and the old gentleman bowed low in answer to Hetty’s
curtsy; while Totty, conscious of a pinafore stained with gooseberry
jam, stood hiding her face against the clock and peeping round
furtively.

“What a fine old kitchen this is!” said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round
admiringly. He always spoke in the same deliberate, well-chiselled,
polite way, whether his words were sugary or venomous. “And you keep it
so exquisitely clean, Mrs. Poyser. I like these premises, do you know,
beyond any on the estate.”

“Well, sir, since you’re fond of ’em, I should be glad if you’d let a
bit o’ repairs be done to ’em, for the boarding’s i’ that state as
we’re like to be eaten up wi’ rats and mice; and the cellar, you may
stan’ up to your knees i’ water in’t, if you like to go down; but
perhaps you’d rather believe my words. Won’t you please to sit down,
sir?”

“Not yet; I must see your dairy. I have not seen it for years, and I
hear on all hands about your fine cheese and butter,” said the squire,
looking politely unconscious that there could be any question on which
he and Mrs. Poyser might happen to disagree. “I think I see the door
open, there. You must not be surprised if I cast a covetous eye on your
cream and butter. I don’t expect that Mrs. Satchell’s cream and butter
will bear comparison with yours.”

“I can’t say, sir, I’m sure. It’s seldom I see other folks’s butter,
though there’s some on it as one’s no need to see—the smell’s enough.”

“Ah, now this I like,” said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round at the damp
temple of cleanliness, but keeping near the door. “I’m sure I should
like my breakfast better if I knew the butter and cream came from this
dairy. Thank you, that really is a pleasant sight. Unfortunately, my
slight tendency to rheumatism makes me afraid of damp: I’ll sit down in
your comfortable kitchen. Ah, Poyser, how do you do? In the midst of
business, I see, as usual. I’ve been looking at your wife’s beautiful
dairy—the best manager in the parish, is she not?”

Mr. Poyser had just entered in shirt-sleeves and open waistcoat, with a
face a shade redder than usual, from the exertion of “pitching.” As he
stood, red, rotund, and radiant, before the small, wiry, cool old
gentleman, he looked like a prize apple by the side of a withered crab.

“Will you please to take this chair, sir?” he said, lifting his
father’s arm-chair forward a little: “you’ll find it easy.”

“No, thank you, I never sit in easy-chairs,” said the old gentleman,
seating himself on a small chair near the door. “Do you know, Mrs.
Poyser—sit down, pray, both of you—I’ve been far from contented, for
some time, with Mrs. Satchell’s dairy management. I think she has not a
good method, as you have.”

“Indeed, sir, I can’t speak to that,” said Mrs. Poyser in a hard voice,
rolling and unrolling her knitting and looking icily out of the window,
as she continued to stand opposite the squire. Poyser might sit down if
he liked, she thought; _she_ wasn’t going to sit down, as if she’d give
in to any such smooth-tongued palaver. Mr. Poyser, who looked and felt
the reverse of icy, did sit down in his three-cornered chair.

“And now, Poyser, as Satchell is laid up, I am intending to let the
Chase Farm to a respectable tenant. I’m tired of having a farm on my
own hands—nothing is made the best of in such cases, as you know. A
satisfactory bailiff is hard to find; and I think you and I, Poyser,
and your excellent wife here, can enter into a little arrangement in
consequence, which will be to our mutual advantage.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Poyser, with a good-natured blankness of imagination as
to the nature of the arrangement.

“If I’m called upon to speak, sir,” said Mrs. Poyser, after glancing at
her husband with pity at his softness, “you know better than me; but I
don’t see what the Chase Farm is t’ us—we’ve cumber enough wi’ our own
farm. Not but what I’m glad to hear o’ anybody respectable coming into
the parish; there’s some as ha’ been brought in as hasn’t been looked
on i’ that character.”

“You’re likely to find Mr. Thurle an excellent neighbour, I assure
you—such a one as you will feel glad to have accommodated by the little
plan I’m going to mention, especially as I hope you will find it as
much to your own advantage as his.”

“Indeed, sir, if it’s anything t’ our advantage, it’ll be the first
offer o’ the sort I’ve heared on. It’s them as take advantage that get
advantage i’ this world, _I_ think: folks have to wait long enough
afore it’s brought to ’em.”

“The fact is, Poyser,” said the squire, ignoring Mrs. Poyser’s theory
of worldly prosperity, “there is too much dairy land, and too little
plough land, on the Chase Farm to suit Thurle’s purpose—indeed, he will
only take the farm on condition of some change in it: his wife, it
appears, is not a clever dairy-woman, like yours. Now, the plan I’m
thinking of is to effect a little exchange. If you were to have the
Hollow Pastures, you might increase your dairy, which must be so
profitable under your wife’s management; and I should request you, Mrs.
Poyser, to supply my house with milk, cream, and butter at the market
prices. On the other hand, Poyser, you might let Thurle have the Lower
and Upper Ridges, which really, with our wet seasons, would be a good
riddance for you. There is much less risk in dairy land than corn
land.”

Mr. Poyser was leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees, his head
on one side, and his mouth screwed up—apparently absorbed in making the
tips of his fingers meet so as to represent with perfect accuracy the
ribs of a ship. He was much too acute a man not to see through the
whole business, and to foresee perfectly what would be his wife’s view
of the subject; but he disliked giving unpleasant answers. Unless it
was on a point of farming practice, he would rather give up than have a
quarrel, any day; and, after all, it mattered more to his wife than to
him. So, after a few moments’ silence, he looked up at her and said
mildly, “What dost say?”

Mrs. Poyser had had her eyes fixed on her husband with cold severity
during his silence, but now she turned away her head with a toss,
looked icily at the opposite roof of the cow-shed, and spearing her
knitting together with the loose pin, held it firmly between her
clasped hands.

“Say? Why, I say you may do as you like about giving up any o’ your
corn-land afore your lease is up, which it won’t be for a year come
next Michaelmas, but I’ll not consent to take more dairy work into my
hands, either for love or money; and there’s nayther love nor money
here, as I can see, on’y other folks’s love o’ theirselves, and the
money as is to go into other folks’s pockets. I know there’s them as is
born t’ own the land, and them as is born to sweat on’t”—here Mrs.
Poyser paused to gasp a little—“and I know it’s christened folks’s duty
to submit to their betters as fur as flesh and blood ’ull bear it; but
I’ll not make a martyr o’ myself, and wear myself to skin and bone, and
worret myself as if I was a churn wi’ butter a-coming in’t, for no
landlord in England, not if he was King George himself.”

“No, no, my dear Mrs. Poyser, certainly not,” said the squire, still
confident in his own powers of persuasion, “you must not overwork
yourself; but don’t you think your work will rather be lessened than
increased in this way? There is so much milk required at the Abbey that
you will have little increase of cheese and butter making from the
addition to your dairy; and I believe selling the milk is the most
profitable way of disposing of dairy produce, is it not?”

“Aye, that’s true,” said Mr. Poyser, unable to repress an opinion on a
question of farming profits, and forgetting that it was not in this
case a purely abstract question.

“I daresay,” said Mrs. Poyser bitterly, turning her head half-way
towards her husband and looking at the vacant arm-chair—“I daresay it’s
true for men as sit i’ th’ chimney-corner and make believe as
everything’s cut wi’ ins an’ outs to fit int’ everything else. If you
could make a pudding wi’ thinking o’ the batter, it ’ud be easy getting
dinner. How do I know whether the milk ’ull be wanted constant? What’s
to make me sure as the house won’t be put o’ board wage afore we’re
many months older, and then I may have to lie awake o’ nights wi’
twenty gallons o’ milk on my mind—and Dingall ’ull take no more butter,
let alone paying for it; and we must fat pigs till we’re obliged to beg
the butcher on our knees to buy ’em, and lose half of ’em wi’ the
measles. And there’s the fetching and carrying, as ’ud be welly half a
day’s work for a man an’ hoss—_that’s_ to be took out o’ the profits, I
reckon? But there’s folks ’ud hold a sieve under the pump and expect to
carry away the water.”

“That difficulty—about the fetching and carrying—you will not have,
Mrs. Poyser,” said the squire, who thought that this entrance into
particulars indicated a distant inclination to compromise on Mrs.
Poyser’s part. “Bethell will do that regularly with the cart and pony.”

“Oh, sir, begging your pardon, I’ve never been used t’ having
gentlefolks’s servants coming about my back places, a-making love to
both the gells at once and keeping ’em with their hands on their hips
listening to all manner o’ gossip when they should be down on their
knees a-scouring. If we’re to go to ruin, it shanna be wi’ having our
back kitchen turned into a public.”

“Well, Poyser,” said the squire, shifting his tactics and looking as if
he thought Mrs. Poyser had suddenly withdrawn from the proceedings and
left the room, “you can turn the Hollows into feeding-land. I can
easily make another arrangement about supplying my house. And I shall
not forget your readiness to accommodate your landlord as well as a
neighbour. I know you will be glad to have your lease renewed for three
years, when the present one expires; otherwise, I daresay Thurle, who
is a man of some capital, would be glad to take both the farms, as they
could be worked so well together. But I don’t want to part with an old
tenant like you.”

To be thrust out of the discussion in this way would have been enough
to complete Mrs. Poyser’s exasperation, even without the final threat.
Her husband, really alarmed at the possibility of their leaving the old
place where he had been bred and born—for he believed the old squire
had small spite enough for anything—was beginning a mild remonstrance
explanatory of the inconvenience he should find in having to buy and
sell more stock, with, “Well, sir, I think as it’s rether hard...” when
Mrs. Poyser burst in with the desperate determination to have her say
out this once, though it were to rain notices to quit and the only
shelter were the work-house.

“Then, sir, if I may speak—as, for all I’m a woman, and there’s folks
as thinks a woman’s fool enough to stan’ by an’ look on while the men
sign her soul away, I’ve a right to speak, for I make one quarter o’
the rent, and save another quarter—I say, if Mr. Thurle’s so ready to
take farms under you, it’s a pity but what he should take this, and see
if he likes to live in a house wi’ all the plagues o’ Egypt in’t—wi’
the cellar full o’ water, and frogs and toads hoppin’ up the steps by
dozens—and the floors rotten, and the rats and mice gnawing every bit
o’ cheese, and runnin’ over our heads as we lie i’ bed till we expect
’em to eat us up alive—as it’s a mercy they hanna eat the children long
ago. I should like to see if there’s another tenant besides Poyser as
’ud put up wi’ never having a bit o’ repairs done till a place tumbles
down—and not then, on’y wi’ begging and praying and having to pay
half—and being strung up wi’ the rent as it’s much if he gets enough
out o’ the land to pay, for all he’s put his own money into the ground
beforehand. See if you’ll get a stranger to lead such a life here as
that: a maggot must be born i’ the rotten cheese to like it, I reckon.
You may run away from my words, sir,” continued Mrs. Poyser, following
the old squire beyond the door—for after the first moments of stunned
surprise he had got up, and, waving his hand towards her with a smile,
had walked out towards his pony. But it was impossible for him to get
away immediately, for John was walking the pony up and down the yard,
and was some distance from the causeway when his master beckoned.

“You may run away from my words, sir, and you may go spinnin’ underhand
ways o’ doing us a mischief, for you’ve got Old Harry to your friend,
though nobody else is, but I tell you for once as we’re not dumb
creatures to be abused and made money on by them as ha’ got the lash i’
their hands, for want o’ knowing how t’ undo the tackle. An’ if I’m th’
only one as speaks my mind, there’s plenty o’ the same way o’ thinking
i’ this parish and the next to ’t, for your name’s no better than a
brimstone match in everybody’s nose—if it isna two-three old folks as
you think o’ saving your soul by giving ’em a bit o’ flannel and a drop
o’ porridge. An’ you may be right i’ thinking it’ll take but little to
save your soul, for it’ll be the smallest savin’ y’ iver made, wi’ all
your scrapin’.”

There are occasions on which two servant-girls and a waggoner may be a
formidable audience, and as the squire rode away on his black pony,
even the gift of short-sightedness did not prevent him from being aware
that Molly and Nancy and Tim were grinning not far from him. Perhaps he
suspected that sour old John was grinning behind him—which was also the
fact. Meanwhile the bull-dog, the black-and-tan terrier, Alick’s
sheep-dog, and the gander hissing at a safe distance from the pony’s
heels carried out the idea of Mrs. Poyser’s solo in an impressive
quartet.

Mrs. Poyser, however, had no sooner seen the pony move off than she
turned round, gave the two hilarious damsels a look which drove them
into the back kitchen, and unspearing her knitting, began to knit again
with her usual rapidity as she re-entered the house.

“Thee’st done it now,” said Mr. Poyser, a little alarmed and uneasy,
but not without some triumphant amusement at his wife’s outbreak.

“Yes, I know I’ve done it,” said Mrs. Poyser; “but I’ve had my say out,
and I shall be th’ easier for’t all my life. There’s no pleasure i’
living if you’re to be corked up for ever, and only dribble your mind
out by the sly, like a leaky barrel. I shan’t repent saying what I
think, if I live to be as old as th’ old squire; and there’s little
likelihood—for it seems as if them as aren’t wanted here are th’ only
folks as aren’t wanted i’ th’ other world.”

“But thee wutna like moving from th’ old place, this Michaelmas
twelvemonth,” said Mr. Poyser, “and going into a strange parish, where
thee know’st nobody. It’ll be hard upon us both, and upo’ Father too.”

“Eh, it’s no use worreting; there’s plenty o’ things may happen between
this and Michaelmas twelvemonth. The captain may be master afore them,
for what we know,” said Mrs. Poyser, inclined to take an unusually
hopeful view of an embarrassment which had been brought about by her
own merit and not by other people’s fault.

“_I’m_ none for worreting,” said Mr. Poyser, rising from his
three-cornered chair and walking slowly towards the door; “but I should
be loath to leave th’ old place, and the parish where I was bred and
born, and Father afore me. We should leave our roots behind us, I
doubt, and niver thrive again.”




Chapter XXXIII
More Links


The barley was all carried at last, and the harvest suppers went by
without waiting for the dismal black crop of beans. The apples and nuts
were gathered and stored; the scent of whey departed from the
farm-houses, and the scent of brewing came in its stead. The woods
behind the Chase, and all the hedgerow trees, took on a solemn
splendour under the dark low-hanging skies. Michaelmas was come, with
its fragrant basketfuls of purple damsons, and its paler purple
daisies, and its lads and lasses leaving or seeking service and winding
along between the yellow hedges, with their bundles under their arms.
But though Michaelmas was come, Mr. Thurle, that desirable tenant, did
not come to the Chase Farm, and the old squire, after all, had been
obliged to put in a new bailiff. It was known throughout the two
parishes that the squire’s plan had been frustrated because the Poysers
had refused to be “put upon,” and Mrs. Poyser’s outbreak was discussed
in all the farm-houses with a zest which was only heightened by
frequent repetition. The news that “Bony” was come back from Egypt was
comparatively insipid, and the repulse of the French in Italy was
nothing to Mrs. Poyser’s repulse of the old squire. Mr. Irwine had
heard a version of it in every parishioner’s house, with the one
exception of the Chase. But since he had always, with marvellous skill,
avoided any quarrel with Mr. Donnithorne, he could not allow himself
the pleasure of laughing at the old gentleman’s discomfiture with any
one besides his mother, who declared that if she were rich she should
like to allow Mrs. Poyser a pension for life, and wanted to invite her
to the parsonage that she might hear an account of the scene from Mrs.
Poyser’s own lips.

“No, no, Mother,” said Mr. Irwine; “it was a little bit of irregular
justice on Mrs. Poyser’s part, but a magistrate like me must not
countenance irregular justice. There must be no report spread that I
have taken notice of the quarrel, else I shall lose the little good
influence I have over the old man.”

“Well, I like that woman even better than her cream-cheeses,” said Mrs.
Irwine. “She has the spirit of three men, with that pale face of hers.
And she says such sharp things too.”

“Sharp! Yes, her tongue is like a new-set razor. She’s quite original
in her talk too; one of those untaught wits that help to stock a
country with proverbs. I told you that capital thing I heard her say
about Craig—that he was like a cock, who thought the sun had risen to
hear him crow. Now that’s an Æsop’s fable in a sentence.”

“But it will be a bad business if the old gentleman turns them out of
the farm next Michaelmas, eh?” said Mrs. Irwine.

“Oh, that must not be; and Poyser is such a good tenant that
Donnithorne is likely to think twice, and digest his spleen rather than
turn them out. But if he should give them notice at Lady Day, Arthur
and I must move heaven and earth to mollify him. Such old parishioners
as they are must not go.”

“Ah, there’s no knowing what may happen before Lady day,” said Mrs.
Irwine. “It struck me on Arthur’s birthday that the old man was a
little shaken: he’s eighty-three, you know. It’s really an
unconscionable age. It’s only women who have a right to live as long as
that.”

“When they’ve got old-bachelor sons who would be forlorn without them,”
said Mr. Irwine, laughing, and kissing his mother’s hand.

Mrs. Poyser, too, met her husband’s occasional forebodings of a notice
to quit with “There’s no knowing what may happen before Lady day”—one
of those undeniable general propositions which are usually intended to
convey a particular meaning very far from undeniable. But it is really
too hard upon human nature that it should be held a criminal offence to
imagine the death even of the king when he is turned eighty-three. It
is not to be believed that any but the dullest Britons can be good
subjects under that hard condition.

Apart from this foreboding, things went on much as usual in the Poyser
household. Mrs. Poyser thought she noticed a surprising improvement in
Hetty. To be sure, the girl got “closer tempered, and sometimes she
seemed as if there’d be no drawing a word from her with cart-ropes,”
but she thought much less about her dress, and went after the work
quite eagerly, without any telling. And it was wonderful how she never
wanted to go out now—indeed, could hardly be persuaded to go; and she
bore her aunt’s putting a stop to her weekly lesson in fine-work at the
Chase without the least grumbling or pouting. It must be, after all,
that she had set her heart on Adam at last, and her sudden freak of
wanting to be a lady’s maid must have been caused by some little pique
or misunderstanding between them, which had passed by. For whenever
Adam came to the Hall Farm, Hetty seemed to be in better spirits and to
talk more than at other times, though she was almost sullen when Mr.
Craig or any other admirer happened to pay a visit there.

Adam himself watched her at first with trembling anxiety, which gave
way to surprise and delicious hope. Five days after delivering Arthur’s
letter, he had ventured to go to the Hall Farm again—not without dread
lest the sight of him might be painful to her. She was not in the
house-place when he entered, and he sat talking to Mr. and Mrs. Poyser
for a few minutes with a heavy fear on his heart that they might
presently tell him Hetty was ill. But by and by there came a light step
that he knew, and when Mrs. Poyser said, “Come, Hetty, where have you
been?” Adam was obliged to turn round, though he was afraid to see the
changed look there must be in her face. He almost started when he saw
her smiling as if she were pleased to see him—looking the same as ever
at a first glance, only that she had her cap on, which he had never
seen her in before when he came of an evening. Still, when he looked at
her again and again as she moved about or sat at her work, there was a
change: the cheeks were as pink as ever, and she smiled as much as she
had ever done of late, but there was something different in her eyes,
in the expression of her face, in all her movements, Adam
thought—something harder, older, less child-like. “Poor thing!” he said
to himself, “that’s allays likely. It’s because she’s had her first
heartache. But she’s got a spirit to bear up under it. Thank God for
that.”

As the weeks went by, and he saw her always looking pleased to see
him—turning up her lovely face towards him as if she meant him to
understand that she was glad for him to come—and going about her work
in the same equable way, making no sign of sorrow, he began to believe
that her feeling towards Arthur must have been much slighter than he
had imagined in his first indignation and alarm, and that she had been
able to think of her girlish fancy that Arthur was in love with her and
would marry her as a folly of which she was timely cured. And it
perhaps was, as he had sometimes in his more cheerful moments hoped it
would be—her heart was really turning with all the more warmth towards
the man she knew to have a serious love for her.

Possibly you think that Adam was not at all sagacious in his
interpretations, and that it was altogether extremely unbecoming in a
sensible man to behave as he did—falling in love with a girl who really
had nothing more than her beauty to recommend her, attributing
imaginary virtues to her, and even condescending to cleave to her after
she had fallen in love with another man, waiting for her kind looks as
a patient trembling dog waits for his master’s eye to be turned upon
him. But in so complex a thing as human nature, we must consider, it is
hard to find rules without exceptions. Of course, I know that, as a
rule, sensible men fall in love with the most sensible women of their
acquaintance, see through all the pretty deceits of coquettish beauty,
never imagine themselves loved when they are not loved, cease loving on
all proper occasions, and marry the woman most fitted for them in every
respect—indeed, so as to compel the approbation of all the maiden
ladies in their neighbourhood. But even to this rule an exception will
occur now and then in the lapse of centuries, and my friend Adam was
one. For my own part, however, I respect him none the less—nay, I think
the deep love he had for that sweet, rounded, blossom-like, dark-eyed
Hetty, of whose inward self he was really very ignorant, came out of
the very strength of his nature and not out of any inconsistent
weakness. Is it any weakness, pray, to be wrought on by exquisite
music? To feel its wondrous harmonies searching the subtlest windings
of your soul, the delicate fibres of life where no memory can
penetrate, and binding together your whole being past and present in
one unspeakable vibration, melting you in one moment with all the
tenderness, all the love that has been scattered through the toilsome
years, concentrating in one emotion of heroic courage or resignation
all the hard-learnt lessons of self-renouncing sympathy, blending your
present joy with past sorrow and your present sorrow with all your past
joy? If not, then neither is it a weakness to be so wrought upon by the
exquisite curves of a woman’s cheek and neck and arms, by the liquid
depths of her beseeching eyes, or the sweet childish pout of her lips.
For the beauty of a lovely woman is like music: what can one say more?
Beauty has an expression beyond and far above the one woman’s soul that
it clothes, as the words of genius have a wider meaning than the
thought that prompted them. It is more than a woman’s love that moves
us in a woman’s eyes—it seems to be a far-off mighty love that has come
near to us, and made speech for itself there; the rounded neck, the
dimpled arm, move us by something more than their prettiness—by their
close kinship with all we have known of tenderness and peace. The
noblest nature sees the most of this _impersonal_ expression in beauty
(it is needless to say that there are gentlemen with whiskers dyed and
undyed who see none of it whatever), and for this reason, the noblest
nature is often the most blinded to the character of the one woman’s
soul that the beauty clothes. Whence, I fear, the tragedy of human life
is likely to continue for a long time to come, in spite of mental
philosophers who are ready with the best receipts for avoiding all
mistakes of the kind.

Our good Adam had no fine words into which he could put his feeling for
Hetty: he could not disguise mystery in this way with the appearance of
knowledge; he called his love frankly a mystery, as you have heard him.
He only knew that the sight and memory of her moved him deeply,
touching the spring of all love and tenderness, all faith and courage
within him. How could he imagine narrowness, selfishness, hardness in
her? He created the mind he believed in out of his own, which was
large, unselfish, tender.

The hopes he felt about Hetty softened a little his feeling towards
Arthur. Surely his attentions to Hetty must have been of a slight kind;
they were altogether wrong, and such as no man in Arthur’s position
ought to have allowed himself, but they must have had an air of
playfulness about them, which had probably blinded him to their danger
and had prevented them from laying any strong hold on Hetty’s heart. As
the new promise of happiness rose for Adam, his indignation and
jealousy began to die out. Hetty was not made unhappy; he almost
believed that she liked him best; and the thought sometimes crossed his
mind that the friendship which had once seemed dead for ever might
revive in the days to come, and he would not have to say “good-bye” to
the grand old woods, but would like them better because they were
Arthur’s. For this new promise of happiness following so quickly on the
shock of pain had an intoxicating effect on the sober Adam, who had all
his life been used to much hardship and moderate hope. Was he really
going to have an easy lot after all? It seemed so, for at the beginning
of November, Jonathan Burge, finding it impossible to replace Adam, had
at last made up his mind to offer him a share in the business, without
further condition than that he should continue to give his energies to
it and renounce all thought of having a separate business of his own.
Son-in-law or no son-in-law, Adam had made himself too necessary to be
parted with, and his headwork was so much more important to Burge than
his skill in handicraft that his having the management of the woods
made little difference in the value of his services; and as to the
bargains about the squire’s timber, it would be easy to call in a third
person. Adam saw here an opening into a broadening path of prosperous
work such as he had thought of with ambitious longing ever since he was
a lad: he might come to build a bridge, or a town hall, or a factory,
for he had always said to himself that Jonathan Burge’s building
business was like an acorn, which might be the mother of a great tree.
So he gave his hand to Burge on that bargain, and went home with his
mind full of happy visions, in which (my refined reader will perhaps be
shocked when I say it) the image of Hetty hovered, and smiled over
plans for seasoning timber at a trifling expense, calculations as to
the cheapening of bricks per thousand by water-carriage, and a
favourite scheme for the strengthening of roofs and walls with a
peculiar form of iron girder. What then? Adam’s enthusiasm lay in these
things; and our love is inwrought in our enthusiasm as electricity is
inwrought in the air, exalting its power by a subtle presence.

Adam would be able to take a separate house now, and provide for his
mother in the old one; his prospects would justify his marrying very
soon, and if Dinah consented to have Seth, their mother would perhaps
be more contented to live apart from Adam. But he told himself that he
would not be hasty—he would not try Hetty’s feeling for him until it
had had time to grow strong and firm. However, tomorrow, after church,
he would go to the Hall Farm and tell them the news. Mr. Poyser, he
knew, would like it better than a five-pound note, and he should see if
Hetty’s eyes brightened at it. The months would be short with all he
had to fill his mind, and this foolish eagerness which had come over
him of late must not hurry him into any premature words. Yet when he
got home and told his mother the good news, and ate his supper, while
she sat by almost crying for joy and wanting him to eat twice as much
as usual because of this good-luck, he could not help preparing her
gently for the coming change by talking of the old house being too
small for them all to go on living in it always.




Chapter XXXIV
The Betrothal


It was a dry Sunday, and really a pleasant day for the 2d of November.
There was no sunshine, but the clouds were high, and the wind was so
still that the yellow leaves which fluttered down from the hedgerow
elms must have fallen from pure decay. Nevertheless, Mrs. Poyser did
not go to church, for she had taken a cold too serious to be neglected;
only two winters ago she had been laid up for weeks with a cold; and
since his wife did not go to church, Mr. Poyser considered that on the
whole it would be as well for him to stay away too and “keep her
company.” He could perhaps have given no precise form to the reasons
that determined this conclusion, but it is well known to all
experienced minds that our firmest convictions are often dependent on
subtle impressions for which words are quite too coarse a medium.
However it was, no one from the Poyser family went to church that
afternoon except Hetty and the boys; yet Adam was bold enough to join
them after church, and say that he would walk home with them, though
all the way through the village he appeared to be chiefly occupied with
Marty and Tommy, telling them about the squirrels in Binton Coppice,
and promising to take them there some day. But when they came to the
fields he said to the boys, “Now, then, which is the stoutest walker?
Him as gets to th’ home-gate first shall be the first to go with me to
Binton Coppice on the donkey. But Tommy must have the start up to the
next stile, because he’s the smallest.”

Adam had never behaved so much like a determined lover before. As soon
as the boys had both set off, he looked down at Hetty and said, “Won’t
you hang on my arm, Hetty?” in a pleading tone, as if he had already
asked her and she had refused. Hetty looked up at him smilingly and put
her round arm through his in a moment. It was nothing to her, putting
her arm through Adam’s, but she knew he cared a great deal about having
her arm through his, and she wished him to care. Her heart beat no
faster, and she looked at the half-bare hedgerows and the ploughed
field with the same sense of oppressive dulness as before. But Adam
scarcely felt that he was walking. He thought Hetty must know that he
was pressing her arm a little—a very little. Words rushed to his lips
that he dared not utter—that he had made up his mind not to utter
yet—and so he was silent for the length of that field. The calm
patience with which he had once waited for Hetty’s love, content only
with her presence and the thought of the future, had forsaken him since
that terrible shock nearly three months ago. The agitations of jealousy
had given a new restlessness to his passion—had made fear and
uncertainty too hard almost to bear. But though he might not speak to
Hetty of his love, he would tell her about his new prospects and see if
she would be pleased. So when he was enough master of himself to talk,
he said, “I’m going to tell your uncle some news that’ll surprise him,
Hetty; and I think he’ll be glad to hear it too.”

“What’s that?” Hetty said indifferently.

“Why, Mr. Burge has offered me a share in his business, and I’m going
to take it.”

There was a change in Hetty’s face, certainly not produced by any
agreeable impression from this news. In fact she felt a momentary
annoyance and alarm, for she had so often heard it hinted by her uncle
that Adam might have Mary Burge and a share in the business any day, if
he liked, that she associated the two objects now, and the thought
immediately occurred that perhaps Adam had given her up because of what
had happened lately, and had turned towards Mary Burge. With that
thought, and before she had time to remember any reasons why it could
not be true, came a new sense of forsakenness and disappointment. The
one thing—the one person—her mind had rested on in its dull weariness,
had slipped away from her, and peevish misery filled her eyes with
tears. She was looking on the ground, but Adam saw her face, saw the
tears, and before he had finished saying, “Hetty, dear Hetty, what are
you crying for?” his eager rapid thought had flown through all the
causes conceivable to him, and had at last alighted on half the true
one. Hetty thought he was going to marry Mary Burge—she didn’t like him
to marry—perhaps she didn’t like him to marry any one but herself? All
caution was swept away—all reason for it was gone, and Adam could feel
nothing but trembling joy. He leaned towards her and took her hand, as
he said:

“I could afford to be married now, Hetty—I could make a wife
comfortable; but I shall never want to be married if you won’t have
me.”

Hetty looked up at him and smiled through her tears, as she had done to
Arthur that first evening in the wood, when she had thought he was not
coming, and yet he came. It was a feebler relief, a feebler triumph she
felt now, but the great dark eyes and the sweet lips were as beautiful
as ever, perhaps more beautiful, for there was a more luxuriant
womanliness about Hetty of late. Adam could hardly believe in the
happiness of that moment. His right hand held her left, and he pressed
her arm close against his heart as he leaned down towards her.

“Do you really love me, Hetty? Will you be my own wife, to love and
take care of as long as I live?”

Hetty did not speak, but Adam’s face was very close to hers, and she
put up her round cheek against his, like a kitten. She wanted to be
caressed—she wanted to feel as if Arthur were with her again.

Adam cared for no words after that, and they hardly spoke through the
rest of the walk. He only said, “I may tell your uncle and aunt, mayn’t
I, Hetty?” and she said, “Yes.”

The red fire-light on the hearth at the Hall Farm shone on joyful faces
that evening, when Hetty was gone upstairs and Adam took the
opportunity of telling Mr. and Mrs. Poyser and the grandfather that he
saw his way to maintaining a wife now, and that Hetty had consented to
have him.

“I hope you have no objections against me for her husband,” said Adam;
“I’m a poor man as yet, but she shall want nothing as I can work for.”

“Objections?” said Mr. Poyser, while the grandfather leaned forward and
brought out his long “Nay, nay.” “What objections can we ha’ to you,
lad? Never mind your being poorish as yet; there’s money in your
head-piece as there’s money i’ the sown field, but it must ha’ time.
You’n got enough to begin on, and we can do a deal tow’rt the bit o’
furniture you’ll want. Thee’st got feathers and linen to spare—plenty,
eh?”

This question was of course addressed to Mrs. Poyser, who was wrapped
up in a warm shawl and was too hoarse to speak with her usual facility.
At first she only nodded emphatically, but she was presently unable to
resist the temptation to be more explicit.

“It ud be a poor tale if I hadna feathers and linen,” she said,
hoarsely, “when I never sell a fowl but what’s plucked, and the wheel’s
a-going every day o’ the week.”

“Come, my wench,” said Mr. Poyser, when Hetty came down, “come and kiss
us, and let us wish you luck.”

Hetty went very quietly and kissed the big good-natured man.

“There!” he said, patting her on the back, “go and kiss your aunt and
your grandfather. I’m as wishful t’ have you settled well as if you was
my own daughter; and so’s your aunt, I’ll be bound, for she’s done by
you this seven ’ear, Hetty, as if you’d been her own. Come, come, now,”
he went on, becoming jocose, as soon as Hetty had kissed her aunt and
the old man, “Adam wants a kiss too, I’ll warrant, and he’s a right to
one now.”

Hetty turned away, smiling, towards her empty chair.

“Come, Adam, then, take one,” persisted Mr. Poyser, “else y’ arena half
a man.”

Adam got up, blushing like a small maiden—great strong fellow as he
was—and, putting his arm round Hetty stooped down and gently kissed her
lips.

It was a pretty scene in the red fire-light; for there were no
candles—why should there be, when the fire was so bright and was
reflected from all the pewter and the polished oak? No one wanted to
work on a Sunday evening. Even Hetty felt something like contentment in
the midst of all this love. Adam’s attachment to her, Adam’s caress,
stirred no passion in her, were no longer enough to satisfy her vanity,
but they were the best her life offered her now—they promised her some
change.

There was a great deal of discussion before Adam went away, about the
possibility of his finding a house that would do for him to settle in.
No house was empty except the one next to Will Maskery’s in the
village, and that was too small for Adam now. Mr. Poyser insisted that
the best plan would be for Seth and his mother to move and leave Adam
in the old home, which might be enlarged after a while, for there was
plenty of space in the woodyard and garden; but Adam objected to
turning his mother out.

“Well, well,” said Mr. Poyser at last, “we needna fix everything
to-night. We must take time to consider. You canna think o’ getting
married afore Easter. I’m not for long courtships, but there must be a
bit o’ time to make things comfortable.”

“Aye, to be sure,” said Mrs. Poyser, in a hoarse whisper; “Christian
folks can’t be married like cuckoos, I reckon.”

“I’m a bit daunted, though,” said Mr. Poyser, “when I think as we may
have notice to quit, and belike be forced to take a farm twenty mile
off.”

“Eh,” said the old man, staring at the floor and lifting his hands up
and down, while his arms rested on the elbows of his chair, “it’s a
poor tale if I mun leave th’ ould spot an be buried in a strange
parish. An’ you’ll happen ha’ double rates to pay,” he added, looking
up at his son.

“Well, thee mustna fret beforehand, father,” said Martin the younger.
“Happen the captain ’ull come home and make our peace wi’ th’ old
squire. I build upo’ that, for I know the captain ’ll see folks righted
if he can.”




Chapter XXXV
The Hidden Dread


It was a busy time for Adam—the time between the beginning of November
and the beginning of February, and he could see little of Hetty, except
on Sundays. But a happy time, nevertheless, for it was taking him
nearer and nearer to March, when they were to be married, and all the
little preparations for their new housekeeping marked the progress
towards the longed-for day. Two new rooms had been “run up” to the old
house, for his mother and Seth were to live with them after all.
Lisbeth had cried so piteously at the thought of leaving Adam that he
had gone to Hetty and asked her if, for the love of him, she would put
up with his mother’s ways and consent to live with her. To his great
delight, Hetty said, “Yes; I’d as soon she lived with us as not.”
Hetty’s mind was oppressed at that moment with a worse difficulty than
poor Lisbeth’s ways; she could not care about them. So Adam was
consoled for the disappointment he had felt when Seth had come back
from his visit to Snowfield and said “it was no use—Dinah’s heart wasna
turned towards marrying.” For when he told his mother that Hetty was
willing they should all live together and there was no more need of
them to think of parting, she said, in a more contented tone than he
had heard her speak in since it had been settled that he was to be
married, “Eh, my lad, I’ll be as still as th’ ould tabby, an’ ne’er
want to do aught but th’ offal work, as _she_ wonna like t’ do. An’
then we needna part the platters an’ things, as ha’ stood on the shelf
together sin’ afore thee wast born.”

There was only one cloud that now and then came across Adam’s sunshine:
Hetty seemed unhappy sometimes. But to all his anxious, tender
questions, she replied with an assurance that she was quite contented
and wished nothing different; and the next time he saw her she was more
lively than usual. It might be that she was a little overdone with work
and anxiety now, for soon after Christmas Mrs. Poyser had taken another
cold, which had brought on inflammation, and this illness had confined
her to her room all through January. Hetty had to manage everything
downstairs, and half-supply Molly’s place too, while that good damsel
waited on her mistress, and she seemed to throw herself so entirely
into her new functions, working with a grave steadiness which was new
in her, that Mr. Poyser often told Adam she was wanting to show him
what a good housekeeper he would have; but he “doubted the lass was
o’erdoing it—she must have a bit o’ rest when her aunt could come
downstairs.”

This desirable event of Mrs. Poyser’s coming downstairs happened in the
early part of February, when some mild weather thawed the last patch of
snow on the Binton Hills. On one of these days, soon after her aunt
came down, Hetty went to Treddleston to buy some of the wedding things
which were wanting, and which Mrs. Poyser had scolded her for
neglecting, observing that she supposed “it was because they were not
for th’ outside, else she’d ha’ bought ’em fast enough.”

It was about ten o’clock when Hetty set off, and the slight hoar-frost
that had whitened the hedges in the early morning had disappeared as
the sun mounted the cloudless sky. Bright February days have a stronger
charm of hope about them than any other days in the year. One likes to
pause in the mild rays of the sun, and look over the gates at the
patient plough-horses turning at the end of the furrow, and think that
the beautiful year is all before one. The birds seem to feel just the
same: their notes are as clear as the clear air. There are no leaves on
the trees and hedgerows, but how green all the grassy fields are! And
the dark purplish brown of the ploughed earth and of the bare branches
is beautiful too. What a glad world this looks like, as one drives or
rides along the valleys and over the hills! I have often thought so
when, in foreign countries, where the fields and woods have looked to
me like our English Loamshire—the rich land tilled with just as much
care, the woods rolling down the gentle slopes to the green meadows—I
have come on something by the roadside which has reminded me that I am
not in Loamshire: an image of a great agony—the agony of the Cross. It
has stood perhaps by the clustering apple-blossoms, or in the broad
sunshine by the cornfield, or at a turning by the wood where a clear
brook was gurgling below; and surely, if there came a traveller to this
world who knew nothing of the story of man’s life upon it, this image
of agony would seem to him strangely out of place in the midst of this
joyous nature. He would not know that hidden behind the apple-blossoms,
or among the golden corn, or under the shrouding boughs of the wood,
there might be a human heart beating heavily with anguish—perhaps a
young blooming girl, not knowing where to turn for refuge from
swift-advancing shame, understanding no more of this life of ours than
a foolish lost lamb wandering farther and farther in the nightfall on
the lonely heath, yet tasting the bitterest of life’s bitterness.

Such things are sometimes hidden among the sunny fields and behind the
blossoming orchards; and the sound of the gurgling brook, if you came
close to one spot behind a small bush, would be mingled for your ear
with a despairing human sob. No wonder man’s religion has much sorrow
in it: no wonder he needs a suffering God.

Hetty, in her red cloak and warm bonnet, with her basket in her hand,
is turning towards a gate by the side of the Treddleston road, but not
that she may have a more lingering enjoyment of the sunshine and think
with hope of the long unfolding year. She hardly knows that the sun is
shining; and for weeks, now, when she has hoped at all, it has been for
something at which she herself trembles and shudders. She only wants to
be out of the high-road, that she may walk slowly and not care how her
face looks, as she dwells on wretched thoughts; and through this gate
she can get into a field-path behind the wide thick hedgerows. Her
great dark eyes wander blankly over the fields like the eyes of one who
is desolate, homeless, unloved, not the promised bride of a brave
tender man. But there are no tears in them: her tears were all wept
away in the weary night, before she went to sleep. At the next stile
the pathway branches off: there are two roads before her—one along by
the hedgerow, which will by and by lead her into the road again, the
other across the fields, which will take her much farther out of the
way into the Scantlands, low shrouded pastures where she will see
nobody. She chooses this and begins to walk a little faster, as if she
had suddenly thought of an object towards which it was worth while to
hasten. Soon she is in the Scantlands, where the grassy land slopes
gradually downwards, and she leaves the level ground to follow the
slope. Farther on there is a clump of trees on the low ground, and she
is making her way towards it. No, it is not a clump of trees, but a
dark shrouded pool, so full with the wintry rains that the under boughs
of the elder-bushes lie low beneath the water. She sits down on the
grassy bank, against the stooping stem of the great oak that hangs over
the dark pool. She has thought of this pool often in the nights of the
month that has just gone by, and now at last she is come to see it. She
clasps her hands round her knees, and leans forward, and looks
earnestly at it, as if trying to guess what sort of bed it would make
for her young round limbs.

No, she has not courage to jump into that cold watery bed, and if she
had, they might find her—they might find out why she had drowned
herself. There is but one thing left to her: she must go away, go where
they can’t find her.

After the first on-coming of her great dread, some weeks after her
betrothal to Adam, she had waited and waited, in the blind vague hope
that something would happen to set her free from her terror; but she
could wait no longer. All the force of her nature had been concentrated
on the one effort of concealment, and she had shrunk with irresistible
dread from every course that could tend towards a betrayal of her
miserable secret. Whenever the thought of writing to Arthur had
occurred to her, she had rejected it. He could do nothing for her that
would shelter her from discovery and scorn among the relatives and
neighbours who once more made all her world, now her airy dream had
vanished. Her imagination no longer saw happiness with Arthur, for he
could do nothing that would satisfy or soothe her pride. No, something
else would happen—something _must_ happen—to set her free from this
dread. In young, childish, ignorant souls there is constantly this
blind trust in some unshapen chance: it is as hard to a boy or girl to
believe that a great wretchedness will actually befall them as to
believe that they will die.

But now necessity was pressing hard upon her—now the time of her
marriage was close at hand—she could no longer rest in this blind
trust. She must run away; she must hide herself where no familiar eyes
could detect her; and then the terror of wandering out into the world,
of which she knew nothing, made the possibility of going to Arthur a
thought which brought some comfort with it. She felt so helpless now,
so unable to fashion the future for herself, that the prospect of
throwing herself on him had a relief in it which was stronger than her
pride. As she sat by the pool and shuddered at the dark cold water, the
hope that he would receive her tenderly—that he would care for her and
think for her—was like a sense of lulling warmth, that made her for the
moment indifferent to everything else; and she began now to think of
nothing but the scheme by which she should get away.

She had had a letter from Dinah lately, full of kind words about the
coming marriage, which she had heard of from Seth; and when Hetty had
read this letter aloud to her uncle, he had said, “I wish Dinah ’ud
come again now, for she’d be a comfort to your aunt when you’re gone.
What do you think, my wench, o’ going to see her as soon as you can be
spared and persuading her to come back wi’ you? You might happen
persuade her wi’ telling her as her aunt wants her, for all she writes
o’ not being able to come.” Hetty had not liked the thought of going to
Snowfield, and felt no longing to see Dinah, so she only said, “It’s so
far off, Uncle.” But now she thought this proposed visit would serve as
a pretext for going away. She would tell her aunt when she got home
again that she should like the change of going to Snowfield for a week
or ten days. And then, when she got to Stoniton, where nobody knew her,
she would ask for the coach that would take her on the way to Windsor.
Arthur was at Windsor, and she would go to him.

As soon as Hetty had determined on this scheme, she rose from the
grassy bank of the pool, took up her basket, and went on her way to
Treddleston, for she must buy the wedding things she had come out for,
though she would never want them. She must be careful not to raise any
suspicion that she was going to run away.

Mrs. Poyser was quite agreeably surprised that Hetty wished to go and
see Dinah and try to bring her back to stay over the wedding. The
sooner she went the better, since the weather was pleasant now; and
Adam, when he came in the evening, said, if Hetty could set off
to-morrow, he would make time to go with her to Treddleston and see her
safe into the Stoniton coach.

“I wish I could go with you and take care of you, Hetty,” he said, the
next morning, leaning in at the coach door; “but you won’t stay much
beyond a week—the time ’ull seem long.”

He was looking at her fondly, and his strong hand held hers in its
grasp. Hetty felt a sense of protection in his presence—she was used to
it now: if she could have had the past undone and known no other love
than her quiet liking for Adam! The tears rose as she gave him the last
look.

“God bless her for loving me,” said Adam, as he went on his way to work
again, with Gyp at his heels.

But Hetty’s tears were not for Adam—not for the anguish that would come
upon him when he found she was gone from him for ever. They were for
the misery of her own lot, which took her away from this brave tender
man who offered up his whole life to her, and threw her, a poor
helpless suppliant, on the man who would think it a misfortune that she
was obliged to cling to him.

At three o’clock that day, when Hetty was on the coach that was to take
her, they said, to Leicester—part of the long, long way to Windsor—she
felt dimly that she might be travelling all this weary journey towards
the beginning of new misery.

Yet Arthur was at Windsor; he would surely not be angry with her. If he
did not mind about her as he used to do, he had promised to be good to
her.




Book Fifth




Chapter XXXVI
The Journey of Hope


A long, lonely journey, with sadness in the heart; away from the
familiar to the strange: that is a hard and dreary thing even to the
rich, the strong, the instructed; a hard thing, even when we are called
by duty, not urged by dread.

What was it then to Hetty? With her poor narrow thoughts, no longer
melting into vague hopes, but pressed upon by the chill of definite
fear, repeating again and again the same small round of
memories—shaping again and again the same childish, doubtful images of
what was to come—seeing nothing in this wide world but the little
history of her own pleasures and pains; with so little money in her
pocket, and the way so long and difficult. Unless she could afford
always to go in the coaches—and she felt sure she could not, for the
journey to Stoniton was more expensive than she had expected—it was
plain that she must trust to carriers’ carts or slow waggons; and what
a time it would be before she could get to the end of her journey! The
burly old coachman from Oakbourne, seeing such a pretty young woman
among the outside passengers, had invited her to come and sit beside
him; and feeling that it became him as a man and a coachman to open the
dialogue with a joke, he applied himself as soon as they were off the
stones to the elaboration of one suitable in all respects. After many
cuts with his whip and glances at Hetty out of the corner of his eye,
he lifted his lips above the edge of his wrapper and said, “He’s pretty
nigh six foot, I’ll be bound, isna he, now?”

“Who?” said Hetty, rather startled.

“Why, the sweetheart as you’ve left behind, or else him as you’re goin’
arter—which is it?”

Hetty felt her face flushing and then turning pale. She thought this
coachman must know something about her. He must know Adam, and might
tell him where she was gone, for it is difficult to country people to
believe that those who make a figure in their own parish are not known
everywhere else, and it was equally difficult to Hetty to understand
that chance words could happen to apply closely to her circumstances.
She was too frightened to speak.

“Hegh, hegh!” said the coachman, seeing that his joke was not so
gratifying as he had expected, “you munna take it too ser’ous; if he’s
behaved ill, get another. Such a pretty lass as you can get a
sweetheart any day.”

Hetty’s fear was allayed by and by, when she found that the coachman
made no further allusion to her personal concerns; but it still had the
effect of preventing her from asking him what were the places on the
road to Windsor. She told him she was only going a little way out of
Stoniton, and when she got down at the inn where the coach stopped, she
hastened away with her basket to another part of the town. When she had
formed her plan of going to Windsor, she had not foreseen any
difficulties except that of getting away, and after she had overcome
this by proposing the visit to Dinah, her thoughts flew to the meeting
with Arthur and the question how he would behave to her—not resting on
any probable incidents of the journey. She was too entirely ignorant of
traveling to imagine any of its details, and with all her store of
money—her three guineas—in her pocket, she thought herself amply
provided. It was not until she found how much it cost her to get to
Stoniton that she began to be alarmed about the journey, and then, for
the first time, she felt her ignorance as to the places that must be
passed on her way. Oppressed with this new alarm, she walked along the
grim Stoniton streets, and at last turned into a shabby little inn,
where she hoped to get a cheap lodging for the night. Here she asked
the landlord if he could tell her what places she must go to, to get to
Windsor.

“Well, I can’t rightly say. Windsor must be pretty nigh London, for
it’s where the king lives,” was the answer. “Anyhow, you’d best go t’
Ashby next—that’s south’ard. But there’s as many places from here to
London as there’s houses in Stoniton, by what I can make out. I’ve
never been no traveller myself. But how comes a lone young woman like
you to be thinking o’ taking such a journey as that?”

“I’m going to my brother—he’s a soldier at Windsor,” said Hetty,
frightened at the landlord’s questioning look. “I can’t afford to go by
the coach; do you think there’s a cart goes toward Ashby in the
morning?”

“Yes, there may be carts if anybody knowed where they started from; but
you might run over the town before you found out. You’d best set off
and walk, and trust to summat overtaking you.”

Every word sank like lead on Hetty’s spirits; she saw the journey
stretch bit by bit before her now. Even to get to Ashby seemed a hard
thing: it might take the day, for what she knew, and that was nothing
to the rest of the journey. But it must be done—she must get to Arthur.
Oh, how she yearned to be again with somebody who would care for her!
She who had never got up in the morning without the certainty of seeing
familiar faces, people on whom she had an acknowledged claim; whose
farthest journey had been to Rosseter on the pillion with her uncle;
whose thoughts had always been taking holiday in dreams of pleasure,
because all the business of her life was managed for her—this
kittenlike Hetty, who till a few months ago had never felt any other
grief than that of envying Mary Burge a new ribbon, or being girded at
by her aunt for neglecting Totty, must now make her toilsome way in
loneliness, her peaceful home left behind for ever, and nothing but a
tremulous hope of distant refuge before her. Now for the first time, as
she lay down to-night in the strange hard bed, she felt that her home
had been a happy one, that her uncle had been very good to her, that
her quiet lot at Hayslope among the things and people she knew, with
her little pride in her one best gown and bonnet, and nothing to hide
from any one, was what she would like to wake up to as a reality, and
find that all the feverish life she had known besides was a short
nightmare. She thought of all she had left behind with yearning regret
for her own sake. Her own misery filled her heart—there was no room in
it for other people’s sorrow. And yet, before the cruel letter, Arthur
had been so tender and loving. The memory of that had still a charm for
her, though it was no more than a soothing draught that just made pain
bearable. For Hetty could conceive no other existence for herself in
future than a hidden one, and a hidden life, even with love, would have
had no delights for her; still less a life mingled with shame. She knew
no romances, and had only a feeble share in the feelings which are the
source of romance, so that well-read ladies may find it difficult to
understand her state of mind. She was too ignorant of everything beyond
the simple notions and habits in which she had been brought up to have
any more definite idea of her probable future than that Arthur would
take care of her somehow, and shelter her from anger and scorn. He
would not marry her and make her a lady; and apart from that she could
think of nothing he could give towards which she looked with longing
and ambition.

The next morning she rose early, and taking only some milk and bread
for her breakfast, set out to walk on the road towards Ashby, under a
leaden-coloured sky, with a narrowing streak of yellow, like a
departing hope, on the edge of the horizon. Now in her faintness of
heart at the length and difficulty of her journey, she was most of all
afraid of spending her money, and becoming so destitute that she would
have to ask people’s charity; for Hetty had the pride not only of a
proud nature but of a proud class—the class that pays the most
poor-rates, and most shudders at the idea of profiting by a poor-rate.
It had not yet occurred to her that she might get money for her locket
and earrings which she carried with her, and she applied all her small
arithmetic and knowledge of prices to calculating how many meals and
how many rides were contained in her two guineas, and the odd
shillings, which had a melancholy look, as if they were the pale ashes
of the other bright-flaming coin.

For the first few miles out of Stoniton, she walked on bravely, always
fixing on some tree or gate or projecting bush at the most distant
visible point in the road as a goal, and feeling a faint joy when she
had reached it. But when she came to the fourth milestone, the first
she had happened to notice among the long grass by the roadside, and
read that she was still only four miles beyond Stoniton, her courage
sank. She had come only this little way, and yet felt tired, and almost
hungry again in the keen morning air; for though Hetty was accustomed
to much movement and exertion indoors, she was not used to long walks
which produced quite a different sort of fatigue from that of household
activity. As she was looking at the milestone she felt some drops
falling on her face—it was beginning to rain. Here was a new trouble
which had not entered into her sad thoughts before, and quite weighed
down by this sudden addition to her burden, she sat down on the step of
a stile and began to sob hysterically. The beginning of hardship is
like the first taste of bitter food—it seems for a moment unbearable;
yet, if there is nothing else to satisfy our hunger, we take another
bite and find it possible to go on. When Hetty recovered from her burst
of weeping, she rallied her fainting courage: it was raining, and she
must try to get on to a village where she might find rest and shelter.
Presently, as she walked on wearily, she heard the rumbling of heavy
wheels behind her; a covered waggon was coming, creeping slowly along
with a slouching driver cracking his whip beside the horses. She waited
for it, thinking that if the waggoner were not a very sour-looking man,
she would ask him to take her up. As the waggon approached her, the
driver had fallen behind, but there was something in the front of the
big vehicle which encouraged her. At any previous moment in her life
she would not have noticed it, but now, the new susceptibility that
suffering had awakened in her caused this object to impress her
strongly. It was only a small white-and-liver-coloured spaniel which
sat on the front ledge of the waggon, with large timid eyes, and an
incessant trembling in the body, such as you may have seen in some of
these small creatures. Hetty cared little for animals, as you know, but
at this moment she felt as if the helpless timid creature had some
fellowship with her, and without being quite aware of the reason, she
was less doubtful about speaking to the driver, who now came forward—a
large ruddy man, with a sack over his shoulders, by way of scarf or
mantle.

“Could you take me up in your waggon, if you’re going towards Ashby?”
said Hetty. “I’ll pay you for it.”

“Aw,” said the big fellow, with that slowly dawning smile which belongs
to heavy faces, “I can take y’ up fawst enough wi’out bein’ paid for’t
if you dooant mind lyin’ a bit closish a-top o’ the wool-packs. Where
do you coom from? And what do you want at Ashby?”

“I come from Stoniton. I’m going a long way—to Windsor.”

“What! Arter some service, or what?”

“Going to my brother—he’s a soldier there.”

“Well, I’m going no furder nor Leicester—and fur enough too—but I’ll
take you, if you dooant mind being a bit long on the road. Th’ hosses
wooant feel _your_ weight no more nor they feel the little doog there,
as I puck up on the road a fortni’t agoo. He war lost, I b’lieve, an’s
been all of a tremble iver sin’. Come, gi’ us your basket an’ come
behind and let me put y’ in.”

To lie on the wool-packs, with a cranny left between the curtains of
the awning to let in the air, was luxury to Hetty now, and she
half-slept away the hours till the driver came to ask her if she wanted
to get down and have “some victual”; he himself was going to eat his
dinner at this “public.” Late at night they reached Leicester, and so
this second day of Hetty’s journey was past. She had spent no money
except what she had paid for her food, but she felt that this slow
journeying would be intolerable for her another day, and in the morning
she found her way to a coach-office to ask about the road to Windsor,
and see if it would cost her too much to go part of the distance by
coach again. Yes! The distance was too great—the coaches were too
dear—she must give them up; but the elderly clerk at the office,
touched by her pretty anxious face, wrote down for her the names of the
chief places she must pass through. This was the only comfort she got
in Leicester, for the men stared at her as she went along the street,
and for the first time in her life Hetty wished no one would look at
her. She set out walking again; but this day she was fortunate, for she
was soon overtaken by a carrier’s cart which carried her to Hinckley,
and by the help of a return chaise, with a drunken postilion—who
frightened her by driving like Jehu the son of Nimshi, and shouting
hilarious remarks at her, twisting himself backwards on his saddle—she
was before night in the heart of woody Warwickshire: but still almost a
hundred miles from Windsor, they told her. Oh what a large world it
was, and what hard work for her to find her way in it! She went by
mistake to Stratford-on-Avon, finding Stratford set down in her list of
places, and then she was told she had come a long way out of the right
road. It was not till the fifth day that she got to Stony Stratford.
That seems but a slight journey as you look at the map, or remember
your own pleasant travels to and from the meadowy banks of the Avon.
But how wearily long it was to Hetty! It seemed to her as if this
country of flat fields, and hedgerows, and dotted houses, and villages,
and market-towns—all so much alike to her indifferent eyes—must have no
end, and she must go on wandering among them for ever, waiting tired at
toll-gates for some cart to come, and then finding the cart went only a
little way—a very little way—to the miller’s a mile off perhaps; and
she hated going into the public houses, where she must go to get food
and ask questions, because there were always men lounging there, who
stared at her and joked her rudely. Her body was very weary too with
these days of new fatigue and anxiety; they had made her look more pale
and worn than all the time of hidden dread she had gone through at
home. When at last she reached Stony Stratford, her impatience and
weariness had become too strong for her economical caution; she
determined to take the coach for the rest of the way, though it should
cost her all her remaining money. She would need nothing at Windsor but
to find Arthur. When she had paid the fare for the last coach, she had
only a shilling; and as she got down at the sign of the Green Man in
Windsor at twelve o’clock in the middle of the seventh day, hungry and
faint, the coachman came up, and begged her to “remember him.” She put
her hand in her pocket and took out the shilling, but the tears came
with the sense of exhaustion and the thought that she was giving away
her last means of getting food, which she really required before she
could go in search of Arthur. As she held out the shilling, she lifted
up her dark tear-filled eyes to the coachman’s face and said, “Can you
give me back sixpence?”

“No, no,” he said, gruffly, “never mind—put the shilling up again.”

The landlord of the Green Man had stood near enough to witness this
scene, and he was a man whose abundant feeding served to keep his good
nature, as well as his person, in high condition. And that lovely
tearful face of Hetty’s would have found out the sensitive fibre in
most men.

“Come, young woman, come in,” he said, “and have a drop o’ something;
you’re pretty well knocked up, I can see that.”

He took her into the bar and said to his wife, “Here, missis, take this
young woman into the parlour; she’s a little overcome”—for Hetty’s
tears were falling fast. They were merely hysterical tears: she thought
she had no reason for weeping now, and was vexed that she was too weak
and tired to help it. She was at Windsor at last, not far from Arthur.

She looked with eager, hungry eyes at the bread and meat and beer that
the landlady brought her, and for some minutes she forgot everything
else in the delicious sensations of satisfying hunger and recovering
from exhaustion. The landlady sat opposite to her as she ate, and
looked at her earnestly. No wonder: Hetty had thrown off her bonnet,
and her curls had fallen down. Her face was all the more touching in
its youth and beauty because of its weary look, and the good woman’s
eyes presently wandered to her figure, which in her hurried dressing on
her journey she had taken no pains to conceal; moreover, the stranger’s
eye detects what the familiar unsuspecting eye leaves unnoticed.

“Why, you’re not very fit for travelling,” she said, glancing while she
spoke at Hetty’s ringless hand. “Have you come far?”

“Yes,” said Hetty, roused by this question to exert more self-command,
and feeling the better for the food she had taken. “I’ve come a good
long way, and it’s very tiring. But I’m better now. Could you tell me
which way to go to this place?” Here Hetty took from her pocket a bit
of paper: it was the end of Arthur’s letter on which he had written his
address.

While she was speaking, the landlord had come in and had begun to look
at her as earnestly as his wife had done. He took up the piece of paper
which Hetty handed across the table, and read the address.

“Why, what do you want at this house?” he said. It is in the nature of
innkeepers and all men who have no pressing business of their own to
ask as many questions as possible before giving any information.

“I want to see a gentleman as is there,” said Hetty.

“But there’s no gentleman there,” returned the landlord. “It’s shut
up—been shut up this fortnight. What gentleman is it you want? Perhaps
I can let you know where to find him.”

“It’s Captain Donnithorne,” said Hetty tremulously, her heart beginning
to beat painfully at this disappointment of her hope that she should
find Arthur at once.

“Captain Donnithorne? Stop a bit,” said the landlord, slowly. “Was he
in the Loamshire Militia? A tall young officer with a fairish skin and
reddish whiskers—and had a servant by the name o’ Pym?”

“Oh yes,” said Hetty; “you know him—where is he?”

“A fine sight o’ miles away from here. The Loamshire Militia’s gone to
Ireland; it’s been gone this fortnight.”

“Look there! She’s fainting,” said the landlady, hastening to support
Hetty, who had lost her miserable consciousness and looked like a
beautiful corpse. They carried her to the sofa and loosened her dress.

“Here’s a bad business, I suspect,” said the landlord, as he brought in
some water.

“Ah, it’s plain enough what sort of business it is,” said the wife.
“She’s not a common flaunting dratchell, I can see that. She looks like
a respectable country girl, and she comes from a good way off, to judge
by her tongue. She talks something like that ostler we had that come
from the north. He was as honest a fellow as we ever had about the
house—they’re all honest folks in the north.”

“I never saw a prettier young woman in my life,” said the husband.
“She’s like a pictur in a shop-winder. It goes to one’s ’eart to look
at her.”

“It ’ud have been a good deal better for her if she’d been uglier and
had more conduct,” said the landlady, who on any charitable
construction must have been supposed to have more “conduct” than
beauty. “But she’s coming to again. Fetch a drop more water.”




Chapter XXXVII
The Journey in Despair


Hetty was too ill through the rest of that day for any questions to be
addressed to her—too ill even to think with any distinctness of the
evils that were to come. She only felt that all her hope was crushed,
and that instead of having found a refuge she had only reached the
borders of a new wilderness where no goal lay before her. The
sensations of bodily sickness, in a comfortable bed, and with the
tendance of the good-natured landlady, made a sort of respite for her;
such a respite as there is in the faint weariness which obliges a man
to throw himself on the sand instead of toiling onward under the
scorching sun.

But when sleep and rest had brought back the strength necessary for the
keenness of mental suffering—when she lay the next morning looking at
the growing light which was like a cruel task-master returning to urge
from her a fresh round of hated hopeless labour—she began to think what
course she must take, to remember that all her money was gone, to look
at the prospect of further wandering among strangers with the new
clearness shed on it by the experience of her journey to Windsor. But
which way could she turn? It was impossible for her to enter into any
service, even if she could obtain it. There was nothing but immediate
beggary before her. She thought of a young woman who had been found
against the church wall at Hayslope one Sunday, nearly dead with cold
and hunger—a tiny infant in her arms. The woman was rescued and taken
to the parish. “The parish!” You can perhaps hardly understand the
effect of that word on a mind like Hetty’s, brought up among people who
were somewhat hard in their feelings even towards poverty, who lived
among the fields, and had little pity for want and rags as a cruel
inevitable fate such as they sometimes seem in cities, but held them a
mark of idleness and vice—and it was idleness and vice that brought
burdens on the parish. To Hetty the “parish” was next to the prison in
obloquy, and to ask anything of strangers—to beg—lay in the same
far-off hideous region of intolerable shame that Hetty had all her life
thought it impossible she could ever come near. But now the remembrance
of that wretched woman whom she had seen herself, on her way from
church, being carried into Joshua Rann’s, came back upon her with the
new terrible sense that there was very little now to divide _her_ from
the same lot. And the dread of bodily hardship mingled with the dread
of shame; for Hetty had the luxurious nature of a round soft-coated pet
animal.

How she yearned to be back in her safe home again, cherished and cared
for as she had always been! Her aunt’s scolding about trifles would
have been music to her ears now; she longed for it; she used to hear it
in a time when she had only trifles to hide. Could she be the same
Hetty that used to make up the butter in the dairy with the Guelder
roses peeping in at the window—she, a runaway whom her friends would
not open their doors to again, lying in this strange bed, with the
knowledge that she had no money to pay for what she received, and must
offer those strangers some of the clothes in her basket? It was then
she thought of her locket and ear-rings, and seeing her pocket lie
near, she reached it and spread the contents on the bed before her.
There were the locket and ear-rings in the little velvet-lined boxes,
and with them there was a beautiful silver thimble which Adam had
bought her, the words “Remember me” making the ornament of the border;
a steel purse, with her one shilling in it; and a small red-leather
case, fastening with a strap. Those beautiful little ear-rings, with
their delicate pearls and garnet, that she had tried in her ears with
such longing in the bright sunshine on the 30th of July! She had no
longing to put them in her ears now: her head with its dark rings of
hair lay back languidly on the pillow, and the sadness that rested
about her brow and eyes was something too hard for regretful memory.
Yet she put her hands up to her ears: it was because there were some
thin gold rings in them, which were also worth a little money. Yes, she
could surely get some money for her ornaments: those Arthur had given
her must have cost a great deal of money. The landlord and landlady had
been good to her; perhaps they would help her to get the money for
these things.

But this money would not keep her long. What should she do when it was
gone? Where should she go? The horrible thought of want and beggary
drove her once to think she would go back to her uncle and aunt and ask
them to forgive her and have pity on her. But she shrank from that idea
again, as she might have shrunk from scorching metal. She could never
endure that shame before her uncle and aunt, before Mary Burge, and the
servants at the Chase, and the people at Broxton, and everybody who
knew her. They should never know what had happened to her. What _could_
she do? She would go away from Windsor—travel again as she had done the
last week, and get among the flat green fields with the high hedges
round them, where nobody could see her or know her; and there, perhaps,
when there was nothing else she could do, she should get courage to
drown herself in some pond like that in the Scantlands. Yes, she would
get away from Windsor as soon as possible: she didn’t like these people
at the inn to know about her, to know that she had come to look for
Captain Donnithorne. She must think of some reason to tell them why she
had asked for him.

With this thought she began to put the things back into her pocket,
meaning to get up and dress before the landlady came to her. She had
her hand on the red-leather case, when it occurred to her that there
might be something in this case which she had forgotten—something worth
selling; for without knowing what she should do with her life, she
craved the means of living as long as possible; and when we desire
eagerly to find something, we are apt to search for it in hopeless
places. No, there was nothing but common needles and pins, and dried
tulip-petals between the paper leaves where she had written down her
little money-accounts. But on one of these leaves there was a name,
which, often as she had seen it before, now flashed on Hetty’s mind
like a newly discovered message. The name was—_Dinah Morris,
Snowfield_. There was a text above it, written, as well as the name, by
Dinah’s own hand with a little pencil, one evening that they were
sitting together and Hetty happened to have the red case lying open
before her. Hetty did not read the text now: she was only arrested by
the name. Now, for the first time, she remembered without indifference
the affectionate kindness Dinah had shown her, and those words of Dinah
in the bed-chamber—that Hetty must think of her as a friend in trouble.
Suppose she were to go to Dinah, and ask her to help her? Dinah did not
think about things as other people did. She was a mystery to Hetty, but
Hetty knew she was always kind. She couldn’t imagine Dinah’s face
turning away from her in dark reproof or scorn, Dinah’s voice willingly
speaking ill of her, or rejoicing in her misery as a punishment. Dinah
did not seem to belong to that world of Hetty’s, whose glance she
dreaded like scorching fire. But even to her Hetty shrank from
beseeching and confession. She could not prevail on herself to say, “I
will go to Dinah”: she only thought of that as a possible alternative,
if she had not courage for death.

The good landlady was amazed when she saw Hetty come downstairs soon
after herself, neatly dressed, and looking resolutely self-possessed.
Hetty told her she was quite well this morning. She had only been very
tired and overcome with her journey, for she had come a long way to ask
about her brother, who had run away, and they thought he was gone for a
soldier, and Captain Donnithorne might know, for he had been very kind
to her brother once. It was a lame story, and the landlady looked
doubtfully at Hetty as she told it; but there was a resolute air of
self-reliance about her this morning, so different from the helpless
prostration of yesterday, that the landlady hardly knew how to make a
remark that might seem like prying into other people’s affairs. She
only invited her to sit down to breakfast with them, and in the course
of it Hetty brought out her ear-rings and locket, and asked the
landlord if he could help her to get money for them. Her journey, she
said, had cost her much more than she expected, and now she had no
money to get back to her friends, which she wanted to do at once.

It was not the first time the landlady had seen the ornaments, for she
had examined the contents of Hetty’s pocket yesterday, and she and her
husband had discussed the fact of a country girl having these beautiful
things, with a stronger conviction than ever that Hetty had been
miserably deluded by the fine young officer.

“Well,” said the landlord, when Hetty had spread the precious trifles
before him, “we might take ’em to the jeweller’s shop, for there’s one
not far off; but Lord bless you, they wouldn’t give you a quarter o’
what the things are worth. And you wouldn’t like to part with ’em?” he
added, looking at her inquiringly.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Hetty, hastily, “so as I can get money to go
back.”

“And they might think the things were stolen, as you wanted to sell
’em,” he went on, “for it isn’t usual for a young woman like you to
have fine jew’llery like that.”

The blood rushed to Hetty’s face with anger. “I belong to respectable
folks,” she said; “I’m not a thief.”

“No, that you aren’t, I’ll be bound,” said the landlady; “and you’d no
call to say that,” looking indignantly at her husband. “The things were
gev to her: that’s plain enough to be seen.”

“I didn’t mean as I thought so,” said the husband, apologetically, “but
I said it was what the jeweller might think, and so he wouldn’t be
offering much money for ’em.”

“Well,” said the wife, “suppose you were to advance some money on the
things yourself, and then if she liked to redeem ’em when she got home,
she could. But if we heard nothing from her after two months, we might
do as we liked with ’em.”

I will not say that in this accommodating proposition the landlady had
no regard whatever to the possible reward of her good nature in the
ultimate possession of the locket and ear-rings: indeed, the effect
they would have in that case on the mind of the grocer’s wife had
presented itself with remarkable vividness to her rapid imagination.
The landlord took up the ornaments and pushed out his lips in a
meditative manner. He wished Hetty well, doubtless; but pray, how many
of your well-wishers would decline to make a little gain out of you?
Your landlady is sincerely affected at parting with you, respects you
highly, and will really rejoice if any one else is generous to you; but
at the same time she hands you a bill by which she gains as high a
percentage as possible.

“How much money do you want to get home with, young woman?” said the
well-wisher, at length.

“Three guineas,” answered Hetty, fixing on the sum she set out with,
for want of any other standard, and afraid of asking too much.

“Well, I’ve no objections to advance you three guineas,” said the
landlord; “and if you like to send it me back and get the jewellery
again, you can, you know. The Green Man isn’t going to run away.”

“Oh yes, I’ll be very glad if you’ll give me that,” said Hetty,
relieved at the thought that she would not have to go to the jeweller’s
and be stared at and questioned.

“But if you want the things again, you’ll write before long,” said the
landlady, “because when two months are up, we shall make up our minds
as you don’t want ’em.”

“Yes,” said Hetty indifferently.

The husband and wife were equally content with this arrangement. The
husband thought, if the ornaments were not redeemed, he could make a
good thing of it by taking them to London and selling them. The wife
thought she would coax the good man into letting her keep them. And
they were accommodating Hetty, poor thing—a pretty, respectable-looking
young woman, apparently in a sad case. They declined to take anything
for her food and bed: she was quite welcome. And at eleven o’clock
Hetty said “Good-bye” to them with the same quiet, resolute air she had
worn all the morning, mounting the coach that was to take her twenty
miles back along the way she had come.

There is a strength of self-possession which is the sign that the last
hope has departed. Despair no more leans on others than perfect
contentment, and in despair pride ceases to be counteracted by the
sense of dependence.

Hetty felt that no one could deliver her from the evils that would make
life hateful to her; and no one, she said to herself, should ever know
her misery and humiliation. No; she would not confess even to Dinah.
She would wander out of sight, and drown herself where her body would
never be found, and no one should know what had become of her.

When she got off this coach, she began to walk again, and take cheap
rides in carts, and get cheap meals, going on and on without distinct
purpose, yet strangely, by some fascination, taking the way she had
come, though she was determined not to go back to her own country.
Perhaps it was because she had fixed her mind on the grassy
Warwickshire fields, with the bushy tree-studded hedgerows that made a
hiding-place even in this leafless season. She went more slowly than
she came, often getting over the stiles and sitting for hours under the
hedgerows, looking before her with blank, beautiful eyes; fancying
herself at the edge of a hidden pool, low down, like that in the
Scantlands; wondering if it were very painful to be drowned, and if
there would be anything worse after death than what she dreaded in
life. Religious doctrines had taken no hold on Hetty’s mind. She was
one of those numerous people who have had godfathers and godmothers,
learned their catechism, been confirmed, and gone to church every
Sunday, and yet, for any practical result of strength in life, or trust
in death, have never appropriated a single Christian idea or Christian
feeling. You would misunderstand her thoughts during these wretched
days, if you imagined that they were influenced either by religious
fears or religious hopes.

She chose to go to Stratford-on-Avon again, where she had gone before
by mistake, for she remembered some grassy fields on her former way
towards it—fields among which she thought she might find just the sort
of pool she had in her mind. Yet she took care of her money still; she
carried her basket; death seemed still a long way off, and life was so
strong in her. She craved food and rest—she hastened towards them at
the very moment she was picturing to herself the bank from which she
would leap towards death. It was already five days since she had left
Windsor, for she had wandered about, always avoiding speech or
questioning looks, and recovering her air of proud self-dependence
whenever she was under observation, choosing her decent lodging at
night, and dressing herself neatly in the morning, and setting off on
her way steadily, or remaining under shelter if it rained, as if she
had a happy life to cherish.

And yet, even in her most self-conscious moments, the face was sadly
different from that which had smiled at itself in the old specked
glass, or smiled at others when they glanced at it admiringly. A hard
and even fierce look had come in the eyes, though their lashes were as
long as ever, and they had all their dark brightness. And the cheek was
never dimpled with smiles now. It was the same rounded, pouting,
childish prettiness, but with all love and belief in love departed from
it—the sadder for its beauty, like that wondrous Medusa-face, with the
passionate, passionless lips.

At last she was among the fields she had been dreaming of, on a long
narrow pathway leading towards a wood. If there should be a pool in
that wood! It would be better hidden than one in the fields. No, it was
not a wood, only a wild brake, where there had once been gravel-pits,
leaving mounds and hollows studded with brushwood and small trees. She
roamed up and down, thinking there was perhaps a pool in every hollow
before she came to it, till her limbs were weary, and she sat down to
rest. The afternoon was far advanced, and the leaden sky was darkening,
as if the sun were setting behind it. After a little while Hetty
started up again, feeling that darkness would soon come on; and she
must put off finding the pool till to-morrow, and make her way to some
shelter for the night. She had quite lost her way in the fields, and
might as well go in one direction as another, for aught she knew. She
walked through field after field, and no village, no house was in
sight; but _there_, at the corner of this pasture, there was a break in
the hedges; the land seemed to dip down a little, and two trees leaned
towards each other across the opening. Hetty’s heart gave a great beat
as she thought there must be a pool there. She walked towards it
heavily over the tufted grass, with pale lips and a sense of trembling.
It was as if the thing were come in spite of herself, instead of being
the object of her search.

There it was, black under the darkening sky: no motion, no sound near.
She set down her basket, and then sank down herself on the grass,
trembling. The pool had its wintry depth now: by the time it got
shallow, as she remembered the pools did at Hayslope, in the summer, no
one could find out that it was her body. But then there was her
basket—she must hide that too. She must throw it into the water—make it
heavy with stones first, and then throw it in. She got up to look about
for stones, and soon brought five or six, which she laid down beside
her basket, and then sat down again. There was no need to hurry—there
was all the night to drown herself in. She sat leaning her elbow on the
basket. She was weary, hungry. There were some buns in her
basket—three, which she had supplied herself with at the place where
she ate her dinner. She took them out now and ate them eagerly, and
then sat still again, looking at the pool. The soothed sensation that
came over her from the satisfaction of her hunger, and this fixed
dreamy attitude, brought on drowsiness, and presently her head sank
down on her knees. She was fast asleep.

When she awoke it was deep night, and she felt chill. She was
frightened at this darkness—frightened at the long night before her. If
she _could_ but throw herself into the water! No, not yet. She began to
walk about that she might get warm again, as if she would have more
resolution then. Oh how long the time was in that darkness! The bright
hearth and the warmth and the voices of home, the secure uprising and
lying down, the familiar fields, the familiar people, the Sundays and
holidays with their simple joys of dress and feasting—all the sweets of
her young life rushed before her now, and she seemed to be stretching
her arms towards them across a great gulf. She set her teeth when she
thought of Arthur. She cursed him, without knowing what her cursing
would do. She wished he too might know desolation, and cold, and a life
of shame that he dared not end by death.

The horror of this cold, and darkness, and solitude—out of all human
reach—became greater every long minute. It was almost as if she were
dead already, and knew that she was dead, and longed to get back to
life again. But no: she was alive still; she had not taken the dreadful
leap. She felt a strange contradictory wretchedness and exultation:
wretchedness, that she did not dare to face death; exultation, that she
was still in life—that she might yet know light and warmth again. She
walked backwards and forwards to warm herself, beginning to discern
something of the objects around her, as her eyes became accustomed to
the night—the darker line of the hedge, the rapid motion of some living
creature—perhaps a field-mouse—rushing across the grass. She no longer
felt as if the darkness hedged her in. She thought she could walk back
across the field, and get over the stile; and then, in the very next
field, she thought she remembered there was a hovel of furze near a
sheepfold. If she could get into that hovel, she would be warmer. She
could pass the night there, for that was what Alick did at Hayslope in
lambing-time. The thought of this hovel brought the energy of a new
hope. She took up her basket and walked across the field, but it was
some time before she got in the right direction for the stile. The
exercise and the occupation of finding the stile were a stimulus to
her, however, and lightened the horror of the darkness and solitude.
There were sheep in the next field, and she startled a group as she set
down her basket and got over the stile; and the sound of their movement
comforted her, for it assured her that her impression was right—this
_was_ the field where she had seen the hovel, for it was the field
where the sheep were. Right on along the path, and she would get to it.
She reached the opposite gate, and felt her way along its rails and the
rails of the sheep-fold, till her hand encountered the pricking of the
gorsy wall. Delicious sensation! She had found the shelter. She groped
her way, touching the prickly gorse, to the door, and pushed it open.
It was an ill-smelling close place, but warm, and there was straw on
the ground. Hetty sank down on the straw with a sense of escape. Tears
came—she had never shed tears before since she left Windsor—tears and
sobs of hysterical joy that she had still hold of life, that she was
still on the familiar earth, with the sheep near her. The very
consciousness of her own limbs was a delight to her: she turned up her
sleeves, and kissed her arms with the passionate love of life. Soon
warmth and weariness lulled her in the midst of her sobs, and she fell
continually into dozing, fancying herself at the brink of the pool
again—fancying that she had jumped into the water, and then awaking
with a start, and wondering where she was. But at last deep dreamless
sleep came; her head, guarded by her bonnet, found a pillow against the
gorsy wall, and the poor soul, driven to and fro between two equal
terrors, found the one relief that was possible to it—the relief of
unconsciousness.

Alas! That relief seems to end the moment it has begun. It seemed to
Hetty as if those dozen dreams had only passed into another dream—that
she was in the hovel, and her aunt was standing over her with a candle
in her hand. She trembled under her aunt’s glance, and opened her eyes.
There was no candle, but there was light in the hovel—the light of
early morning through the open door. And there was a face looking down
on her; but it was an unknown face, belonging to an elderly man in a
smock-frock.

“Why, what do you do here, young woman?” the man said roughly.

Hetty trembled still worse under this real fear and shame than she had
done in her momentary dream under her aunt’s glance. She felt that she
was like a beggar already—found sleeping in that place. But in spite of
her trembling, she was so eager to account to the man for her presence
here, that she found words at once.

“I lost my way,” she said. “I’m travelling—north’ard, and I got away
from the road into the fields, and was overtaken by the dark. Will you
tell me the way to the nearest village?”

She got up as she was speaking, and put her hands to her bonnet to
adjust it, and then laid hold of her basket.

The man looked at her with a slow bovine gaze, without giving her any
answer, for some seconds. Then he turned away and walked towards the
door of the hovel, but it was not till he got there that he stood
still, and, turning his shoulder half-round towards her, said, “Aw, I
can show you the way to Norton, if you like. But what do you do gettin’
out o’ the highroad?” he added, with a tone of gruff reproof. “Y’ull be
gettin’ into mischief, if you dooant mind.”

“Yes,” said Hetty, “I won’t do it again. I’ll keep in the road, if
you’ll be so good as show me how to get to it.”

“Why dooant you keep where there’s a finger-poasses an’ folks to ax the
way on?” the man said, still more gruffly. “Anybody ’ud think you was a
wild woman, an’ look at yer.”

Hetty was frightened at this gruff old man, and still more at this last
suggestion that she looked like a wild woman. As she followed him out
of the hovel she thought she would give him a sixpence for telling her
the way, and then he would not suppose she was wild. As he stopped to
point out the road to her, she put her hand in her pocket to get the
six-pence ready, and when he was turning away, without saying
good-morning, she held it out to him and said, “Thank you; will you
please to take something for your trouble?”

He looked slowly at the sixpence, and then said, “I want none o’ your
money. You’d better take care on’t, else you’ll get it stool from yer,
if you go trapesin’ about the fields like a mad woman a-thatway.”

The man left her without further speech, and Hetty held on her way.
Another day had risen, and she must wander on. It was no use to think
of drowning herself—she could not do it, at least while she had money
left to buy food and strength to journey on. But the incident on her
waking this morning heightened her dread of that time when her money
would be all gone; she would have to sell her basket and clothes then,
and she would really look like a beggar or a wild woman, as the man had
said. The passionate joy in life she had felt in the night, after
escaping from the brink of the black cold death in the pool, was gone
now. Life now, by the morning light, with the impression of that man’s
hard wondering look at her, was as full of dread as death—it was worse;
it was a dread to which she felt chained, from which she shrank and
shrank as she did from the black pool, and yet could find no refuge
from it.

She took out her money from her purse, and looked at it. She had still
two-and-twenty shillings; it would serve her for many days more, or it
would help her to get on faster to Stonyshire, within reach of Dinah.
The thought of Dinah urged itself more strongly now, since the
experience of the night had driven her shuddering imagination away from
the pool. If it had been only going to Dinah—if nobody besides Dinah
would ever know—Hetty could have made up her mind to go to her. The
soft voice, the pitying eyes, would have drawn her. But afterwards the
other people must know, and she could no more rush on that shame than
she could rush on death.

She must wander on and on, and wait for a lower depth of despair to
give her courage. Perhaps death would come to her, for she was getting
less and less able to bear the day’s weariness. And yet—such is the
strange action of our souls, drawing us by a lurking desire towards the
very ends we dread—Hetty, when she set out again from Norton, asked the
straightest road northwards towards Stonyshire, and kept it all that
day.

Poor wandering Hetty, with the rounded childish face and the hard,
unloving, despairing soul looking out of it—with the narrow heart and
narrow thoughts, no room in them for any sorrows but her own, and
tasting that sorrow with the more intense bitterness! My heart bleeds
for her as I see her toiling along on her weary feet, or seated in a
cart, with her eyes fixed vacantly on the road before her, never
thinking or caring whither it tends, till hunger comes and makes her
desire that a village may be near.

What will be the end, the end of her objectless wandering, apart from
all love, caring for human beings only through her pride, clinging to
life only as the hunted wounded brute clings to it?

God preserve you and me from being the beginners of such misery!




Chapter XXXVIII
The Quest


The first ten days after Hetty’s departure passed as quietly as any
other days with the family at the Hall Farm, and with Adam at his daily
work. They had expected Hetty to stay away a week or ten days at least,
perhaps a little longer if Dinah came back with her, because there
might then be something to detain them at Snowfield. But when a
fortnight had passed they began to feel a little surprise that Hetty
did not return; she must surely have found it pleasanter to be with
Dinah than any one could have supposed. Adam, for his part, was getting
very impatient to see her, and he resolved that, if she did not appear
the next day (Saturday), he would set out on Sunday morning to fetch
her. There was no coach on a Sunday, but by setting out before it was
light, and perhaps getting a lift in a cart by the way, he would arrive
pretty early at Snowfield, and bring back Hetty the next day—Dinah too,
if she were coming. It was quite time Hetty came home, and he would
afford to lose his Monday for the sake of bringing her.

His project was quite approved at the Farm when he went there on
Saturday evening. Mrs. Poyser desired him emphatically not to come back
without Hetty, for she had been quite too long away, considering the
things she had to get ready by the middle of March, and a week was
surely enough for any one to go out for their health. As for Dinah,
Mrs. Poyser had small hope of their bringing her, unless they could
make her believe the folks at Hayslope were twice as miserable as the
folks at Snowfield. “Though,” said Mrs. Poyser, by way of conclusion,
“you might tell her she’s got but one aunt left, and _she’s_ wasted
pretty nigh to a shadder; and we shall p’rhaps all be gone twenty mile
farther off her next Michaelmas, and shall die o’ broken hearts among
strange folks, and leave the children fatherless and motherless.”

“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Poyser, who certainly had the air of a man
perfectly heart-whole, “it isna so bad as that. Thee’t looking rarely
now, and getting flesh every day. But I’d be glad for Dinah t’ come,
for she’d help thee wi’ the little uns: they took t’ her wonderful.”

So at daybreak, on Sunday, Adam set off. Seth went with him the first
mile or two, for the thought of Snowfield and the possibility that
Dinah might come again made him restless, and the walk with Adam in the
cold morning air, both in their best clothes, helped to give him a
sense of Sunday calm. It was the last morning in February, with a low
grey sky, and a slight hoar-frost on the green border of the road and
on the black hedges. They heard the gurgling of the full brooklet
hurrying down the hill, and the faint twittering of the early birds.
For they walked in silence, though with a pleased sense of
companionship.

“Good-bye, lad,” said Adam, laying his hand on Seth’s shoulder and
looking at him affectionately as they were about to part. “I wish thee
wast going all the way wi’ me, and as happy as I am.”

“I’m content, Addy, I’m content,” said Seth cheerfully. “I’ll be an old
bachelor, belike, and make a fuss wi’ thy children.”

They turned away from each other, and Seth walked leisurely homeward,
mentally repeating one of his favourite hymns—he was very fond of
hymns:

“Dark and cheerless is the morn
    Unaccompanied by thee:
Joyless is the day’s return
    Till thy mercy’s beams I see:
Till thou inward light impart,
Glad my eyes and warm my heart.

Visit, then, this soul of mine,
    Pierce the gloom of sin and grief—
Fill me, Radiancy Divine,
    Scatter all my unbelief.
More and more thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.”


Adam walked much faster, and any one coming along the Oakbourne road at
sunrise that morning must have had a pleasant sight in this tall
broad-chested man, striding along with a carriage as upright and firm
as any soldier’s, glancing with keen glad eyes at the dark-blue hills
as they began to show themselves on his way. Seldom in Adam’s life had
his face been so free from any cloud of anxiety as it was this morning;
and this freedom from care, as is usual with constructive practical
minds like his, made him all the more observant of the objects round
him and all the more ready to gather suggestions from them towards his
own favourite plans and ingenious contrivances. His happy love—the
knowledge that his steps were carrying him nearer and nearer to Hetty,
who was so soon to be his—was to his thoughts what the sweet morning
air was to his sensations: it gave him a consciousness of well-being
that made activity delightful. Every now and then there was a rush of
more intense feeling towards her, which chased away other images than
Hetty; and along with that would come a wondering thankfulness that all
this happiness was given to him—that this life of ours had such
sweetness in it. For Adam had a devout mind, though he was perhaps
rather impatient of devout words, and his tenderness lay very close to
his reverence, so that the one could hardly be stirred without the
other. But after feeling had welled up and poured itself out in this
way, busy thought would come back with the greater vigour; and this
morning it was intent on schemes by which the roads might be improved
that were so imperfect all through the country, and on picturing all
the benefits that might come from the exertions of a single country
gentleman, if he would set himself to getting the roads made good in
his own district.

It seemed a very short walk, the ten miles to Oakbourne, that pretty
town within sight of the blue hills, where he break-fasted. After this,
the country grew barer and barer: no more rolling woods, no more
wide-branching trees near frequent homesteads, no more bushy hedgerows,
but greystone walls intersecting the meagre pastures, and dismal
wide-scattered greystone houses on broken lands where mines had been
and were no longer. “A hungry land,” said Adam to himself. “I’d rather
go south’ard, where they say it’s as flat as a table, than come to live
here; though if Dinah likes to live in a country where she can be the
most comfort to folks, she’s i’ the right to live o’ this side; for she
must look as if she’d come straight from heaven, like th’ angels in the
desert, to strengthen them as ha’ got nothing t’ eat.” And when at last
he came in sight of Snowfield, he thought it looked like a town that
was “fellow to the country,” though the stream through the valley where
the great mill stood gave a pleasant greenness to the lower fields. The
town lay, grim, stony, and unsheltered, up the side of a steep hill,
and Adam did not go forward to it at present, for Seth had told him
where to find Dinah. It was at a thatched cottage outside the town, a
little way from the mill—an old cottage, standing sideways towards the
road, with a little bit of potato-ground before it. Here Dinah lodged
with an elderly couple; and if she and Hetty happened to be out, Adam
could learn where they were gone, or when they would be at home again.
Dinah might be out on some preaching errand, and perhaps she would have
left Hetty at home. Adam could not help hoping this, and as he
recognized the cottage by the roadside before him, there shone out in
his face that involuntary smile which belongs to the expectation of a
near joy.

He hurried his step along the narrow causeway, and rapped at the door.
It was opened by a very clean old woman, with a slow palsied shake of
the head.

“Is Dinah Morris at home?” said Adam.

“Eh?... no,” said the old woman, looking up at this tall stranger with
a wonder that made her slower of speech than usual. “Will you please to
come in?” she added, retiring from the door, as if recollecting
herself. “Why, ye’re brother to the young man as come afore, arena ye?”

“Yes,” said Adam, entering. “That was Seth Bede. I’m his brother Adam.
He told me to give his respects to you and your good master.”

“Aye, the same t’ him. He was a gracious young man. An’ ye feature him,
on’y ye’re darker. Sit ye down i’ th’ arm-chair. My man isna come home
from meeting.”

Adam sat down patiently, not liking to hurry the shaking old woman with
questions, but looking eagerly towards the narrow twisting stairs in
one corner, for he thought it was possible Hetty might have heard his
voice and would come down them.

“So you’re come to see Dinah Morris?” said the old woman, standing
opposite to him. “An’ you didn’ know she was away from home, then?”

“No,” said Adam, “but I thought it likely she might be away, seeing as
it’s Sunday. But the other young woman—is she at home, or gone along
with Dinah?”

The old woman looked at Adam with a bewildered air.

“Gone along wi’ her?” she said. “Eh, Dinah’s gone to Leeds, a big town
ye may ha’ heared on, where there’s a many o’ the Lord’s people. She’s
been gone sin’ Friday was a fortnight: they sent her the money for her
journey. You may see her room here,” she went on, opening a door and
not noticing the effect of her words on Adam. He rose and followed her,
and darted an eager glance into the little room with its narrow bed,
the portrait of Wesley on the wall, and the few books lying on the
large Bible. He had had an irrational hope that Hetty might be there.
He could not speak in the first moment after seeing that the room was
empty; an undefined fear had seized him—something had happened to Hetty
on the journey. Still the old woman was so slow of speech and
apprehension, that Hetty might be at Snowfield after all.

“It’s a pity ye didna know,” she said. “Have ye come from your own
country o’ purpose to see her?”

“But Hetty—Hetty Sorrel,” said Adam, abruptly; “Where is _she?_”

“I know nobody by that name,” said the old woman, wonderingly. “Is it
anybody ye’ve heared on at Snowfield?”

“Did there come no young woman here—very young and pretty—Friday was a
fortnight, to see Dinah Morris?”

“Nay; I’n seen no young woman.”

“Think; are you quite sure? A girl, eighteen years old, with dark eyes
and dark curly hair, and a red cloak on, and a basket on her arm? You
couldn’t forget her if you saw her.”

“Nay; Friday was a fortnight—it was the day as Dinah went away—there
come nobody. There’s ne’er been nobody asking for her till you come,
for the folks about know as she’s gone. Eh dear, eh dear, is there
summat the matter?”

The old woman had seen the ghastly look of fear in Adam’s face. But he
was not stunned or confounded: he was thinking eagerly where he could
inquire about Hetty.

“Yes; a young woman started from our country to see Dinah, Friday was a
fortnight. I came to fetch her back. I’m afraid something has happened
to her. I can’t stop. Good-bye.”

He hastened out of the cottage, and the old woman followed him to the
gate, watching him sadly with her shaking head as he almost ran towards
the town. He was going to inquire at the place where the Oakbourne
coach stopped.

No! No young woman like Hetty had been seen there. Had any accident
happened to the coach a fortnight ago? No. And there was no coach to
take him back to Oakbourne that day. Well, he would walk: he couldn’t
stay here, in wretched inaction. But the innkeeper, seeing that Adam
was in great anxiety, and entering into this new incident with the
eagerness of a man who passes a great deal of time with his hands in
his pockets looking into an obstinately monotonous street, offered to
take him back to Oakbourne in his own “taxed cart” this very evening.
It was not five o’clock; there was plenty of time for Adam to take a
meal and yet to get to Oakbourne before ten o’clock. The innkeeper
declared that he really wanted to go to Oakbourne, and might as well go
to-night; he should have all Monday before him then. Adam, after making
an ineffectual attempt to eat, put the food in his pocket, and,
drinking a draught of ale, declared himself ready to set off. As they
approached the cottage, it occurred to him that he would do well to
learn from the old woman where Dinah was to be found in Leeds: if there
was trouble at the Hall Farm—he only half-admitted the foreboding that
there would be—the Poysers might like to send for Dinah. But Dinah had
not left any address, and the old woman, whose memory for names was
infirm, could not recall the name of the “blessed woman” who was
Dinah’s chief friend in the Society at Leeds.

During that long, long journey in the taxed cart, there was time for
all the conjectures of importunate fear and struggling hope. In the
very first shock of discovering that Hetty had not been to Snowfield,
the thought of Arthur had darted through Adam like a sharp pang, but he
tried for some time to ward off its return by busying himself with
modes of accounting for the alarming fact, quite apart from that
intolerable thought. Some accident had happened. Hetty had, by some
strange chance, got into a wrong vehicle from Oakbourne: she had been
taken ill, and did not want to frighten them by letting them know. But
this frail fence of vague improbabilities was soon hurled down by a
rush of distinct agonizing fears. Hetty had been deceiving herself in
thinking that she could love and marry him: she had been loving Arthur
all the while; and now, in her desperation at the nearness of their
marriage, she had run away. And she was gone to _him_. The old
indignation and jealousy rose again, and prompted the suspicion that
Arthur had been dealing falsely—had written to Hetty—had tempted her to
come to him—being unwilling, after all, that she should belong to
another man besides himself. Perhaps the whole thing had been contrived
by him, and he had given her directions how to follow him to
Ireland—for Adam knew that Arthur had been gone thither three weeks
ago, having recently learnt it at the Chase. Every sad look of Hetty’s,
since she had been engaged to Adam, returned upon him now with all the
exaggeration of painful retrospect. He had been foolishly sanguine and
confident. The poor thing hadn’t perhaps known her own mind for a long
while; had thought that she could forget Arthur; had been momentarily
drawn towards the man who offered her a protecting, faithful love. He
couldn’t bear to blame her: she never meant to cause him this dreadful
pain. The blame lay with that man who had selfishly played with her
heart—had perhaps even deliberately lured her away.

At Oakbourne, the ostler at the Royal Oak remembered such a young woman
as Adam described getting out of the Treddleston coach more than a
fortnight ago—wasn’t likely to forget such a pretty lass as that in a
hurry—was sure she had not gone on by the Buxton coach that went
through Snowfield, but had lost sight of her while he went away with
the horses and had never set eyes on her again. Adam then went straight
to the house from which the Stoniton coach started: Stoniton was the
most obvious place for Hetty to go to first, whatever might be her
destination, for she would hardly venture on any but the chief
coach-roads. She had been noticed here too, and was remembered to have
sat on the box by the coachman; but the coachman could not be seen, for
another man had been driving on that road in his stead the last three
or four days. He could probably be seen at Stoniton, through inquiry at
the inn where the coach put up. So the anxious heart-stricken Adam must
of necessity wait and try to rest till morning—nay, till eleven
o’clock, when the coach started.

At Stoniton another delay occurred, for the old coachman who had driven
Hetty would not be in the town again till night. When he did come he
remembered Hetty well, and remembered his own joke addressed to her,
quoting it many times to Adam, and observing with equal frequency that
he thought there was something more than common, because Hetty had not
laughed when he joked her. But he declared, as the people had done at
the inn, that he had lost sight of Hetty directly she got down. Part of
the next morning was consumed in inquiries at every house in the town
from which a coach started—(all in vain, for you know Hetty did not
start from Stoniton by coach, but on foot in the grey morning)—and then
in walking out to the first toll-gates on the different lines of road,
in the forlorn hope of finding some recollection of her there. No, she
was not to be traced any farther; and the next hard task for Adam was
to go home and carry the wretched tidings to the Hall Farm. As to what
he should do beyond that, he had come to two distinct resolutions
amidst the tumult of thought and feeling which was going on within him
while he went to and fro. He would not mention what he knew of Arthur
Donnithorne’s behaviour to Hetty till there was a clear necessity for
it: it was still possible Hetty might come back, and the disclosure
might be an injury or an offence to her. And as soon as he had been
home and done what was necessary there to prepare for his further
absence, he would start off to Ireland: if he found no trace of Hetty
on the road, he would go straight to Arthur Donnithorne and make
himself certain how far he was acquainted with her movements. Several
times the thought occurred to him that he would consult Mr. Irwine, but
that would be useless unless he told him all, and so betrayed the
secret about Arthur. It seems strange that Adam, in the incessant
occupation of his mind about Hetty, should never have alighted on the
probability that she had gone to Windsor, ignorant that Arthur was no
longer there. Perhaps the reason was that he could not conceive Hetty’s
throwing herself on Arthur uncalled; he imagined no cause that could
have driven her to such a step, after that letter written in August.
There were but two alternatives in his mind: either Arthur had written
to her again and enticed her away, or she had simply fled from her
approaching marriage with himself because she found, after all, she
could not love him well enough, and yet was afraid of her friends’
anger if she retracted.

With this last determination on his mind, of going straight to Arthur,
the thought that he had spent two days in inquiries which had proved to
be almost useless, was torturing to Adam; and yet, since he would not
tell the Poysers his conviction as to where Hetty was gone, or his
intention to follow her thither, he must be able to say to them that he
had traced her as far as possible.

It was after twelve o’clock on Tuesday night when Adam reached
Treddleston; and, unwilling to disturb his mother and Seth, and also to
encounter their questions at that hour, he threw himself without
undressing on a bed at the “Waggon Overthrown,” and slept hard from
pure weariness. Not more than four hours, however, for before five
o’clock he set out on his way home in the faint morning twilight. He
always kept a key of the workshop door in his pocket, so that he could
let himself in; and he wished to enter without awaking his mother, for
he was anxious to avoid telling her the new trouble himself by seeing
Seth first, and asking him to tell her when it should be necessary. He
walked gently along the yard, and turned the key gently in the door;
but, as he expected, Gyp, who lay in the workshop, gave a sharp bark.
It subsided when he saw Adam, holding up his finger at him to impose
silence, and in his dumb, tailless joy he must content himself with
rubbing his body against his master’s legs.

Adam was too heart-sick to take notice of Gyp’s fondling. He threw
himself on the bench and stared dully at the wood and the signs of work
around him, wondering if he should ever come to feel pleasure in them
again, while Gyp, dimly aware that there was something wrong with his
master, laid his rough grey head on Adam’s knee and wrinkled his brows
to look up at him. Hitherto, since Sunday afternoon, Adam had been
constantly among strange people and in strange places, having no
associations with the details of his daily life, and now that by the
light of this new morning he was come back to his home and surrounded
by the familiar objects that seemed for ever robbed of their charm, the
reality—the hard, inevitable reality of his troubles pressed upon him
with a new weight. Right before him was an unfinished chest of drawers,
which he had been making in spare moments for Hetty’s use, when his
home should be hers.

Seth had not heard Adam’s entrance, but he had been roused by Gyp’s
bark, and Adam heard him moving about in the room above, dressing
himself. Seth’s first thoughts were about his brother: he would come
home to-day, surely, for the business would be wanting him sadly by
to-morrow, but it was pleasant to think he had had a longer holiday
than he had expected. And would Dinah come too? Seth felt that that was
the greatest happiness he could look forward to for himself, though he
had no hope left that she would ever love him well enough to marry him;
but he had often said to himself, it was better to be Dinah’s friend
and brother than any other woman’s husband. If he could but be always
near her, instead of living so far off!

He came downstairs and opened the inner door leading from the kitchen
into the workshop, intending to let out Gyp; but he stood still in the
doorway, smitten with a sudden shock at the sight of Adam seated
listlessly on the bench, pale, unwashed, with sunken blank eyes, almost
like a drunkard in the morning. But Seth felt in an instant what the
marks meant—not drunkenness, but some great calamity. Adam looked up at
him without speaking, and Seth moved forward towards the bench, himself
trembling so that speech did not come readily.

“God have mercy on us, Addy,” he said, in a low voice, sitting down on
the bench beside Adam, “what is it?”

Adam was unable to speak. The strong man, accustomed to suppress the
signs of sorrow, had felt his heart swell like a child’s at this first
approach of sympathy. He fell on Seth’s neck and sobbed.

Seth was prepared for the worst now, for, even in his recollections of
their boyhood, Adam had never sobbed before.

“Is it death, Adam? Is she dead?” he asked, in a low tone, when Adam
raised his head and was recovering himself.

“No, lad; but she’s gone—gone away from us. She’s never been to
Snowfield. Dinah’s been gone to Leeds ever since last Friday was a
fortnight, the very day Hetty set out. I can’t find out where she went
after she got to Stoniton.”

Seth was silent from utter astonishment: he knew nothing that could
suggest to him a reason for Hetty’s going away.

“Hast any notion what she’s done it for?” he said, at last.

“She can’t ha’ loved me. She didn’t like our marriage when it came
nigh—that must be it,” said Adam. He had determined to mention no
further reason.

“I hear Mother stirring,” said Seth. “Must we tell her?”

“No, not yet,” said Adam, rising from the bench and pushing the hair
from his face, as if he wanted to rouse himself. “I can’t have her told
yet; and I must set out on another journey directly, after I’ve been to
the village and th’ Hall Farm. I can’t tell thee where I’m going, and
thee must say to her I’m gone on business as nobody is to know anything
about. I’ll go and wash myself now.” Adam moved towards the door of the
workshop, but after a step or two he turned round, and, meeting Seth’s
eyes with a calm sad glance, he said, “I must take all the money out o’
the tin box, lad; but if anything happens to me, all the rest ’ll be
thine, to take care o’ Mother with.”

Seth was pale and trembling: he felt there was some terrible secret
under all this. “Brother,” he said, faintly—he never called Adam
“Brother” except in solemn moments—“I don’t believe you’ll do anything
as you can’t ask God’s blessing on.”

“Nay, lad,” said Adam, “don’t be afraid. I’m for doing nought but
what’s a man’s duty.”

The thought that if he betrayed his trouble to his mother, she would
only distress him by words, half of blundering affection, half of
irrepressible triumph that Hetty proved as unfit to be his wife as she
had always foreseen, brought back some of his habitual firmness and
self-command. He had felt ill on his journey home—he told her when she
came down—had stayed all night at Tredddleston for that reason; and a
bad headache, that still hung about him this morning, accounted for his
paleness and heavy eyes.

He determined to go to the village, in the first place, attend to his
business for an hour, and give notice to Burge of his being obliged to
go on a journey, which he must beg him not to mention to any one; for
he wished to avoid going to the Hall Farm near breakfast-time, when the
children and servants would be in the house-place, and there must be
exclamations in their hearing about his having returned without Hetty.
He waited until the clock struck nine before he left the work-yard at
the village, and set off, through the fields, towards the Farm. It was
an immense relief to him, as he came near the Home Close, to see Mr.
Poyser advancing towards him, for this would spare him the pain of
going to the house. Mr. Poyser was walking briskly this March morning,
with a sense of spring business on his mind: he was going to cast the
master’s eye on the shoeing of a new cart-horse, carrying his spud as a
useful companion by the way. His surprise was great when he caught
sight of Adam, but he was not a man given to presentiments of evil.

“Why, Adam, lad, is’t you? Have ye been all this time away and not
brought the lasses back, after all? Where are they?”

“No, I’ve not brought ’em,” said Adam, turning round, to indicate that
he wished to walk back with Mr. Poyser.

“Why,” said Martin, looking with sharper attention at Adam, “ye look
bad. Is there anything happened?”

“Yes,” said Adam, heavily. “A sad thing’s happened. I didna find Hetty
at Snowfield.”

Mr. Poyser’s good-natured face showed signs of troubled astonishment.
“Not find her? What’s happened to her?” he said, his thoughts flying at
once to bodily accident.

“That I can’t tell, whether anything’s happened to her. She never went
to Snowfield—she took the coach to Stoniton, but I can’t learn nothing
of her after she got down from the Stoniton coach.”

“Why, you donna mean she’s run away?” said Martin, standing still, so
puzzled and bewildered that the fact did not yet make itself felt as a
trouble by him.

“She must ha’ done,” said Adam. “She didn’t like our marriage when it
came to the point—that must be it. She’d mistook her feelings.”

Martin was silent for a minute or two, looking on the ground and
rooting up the grass with his spud, without knowing what he was doing.
His usual slowness was always trebled when the subject of speech was
painful. At last he looked up, right in Adam’s face, saying, “Then she
didna deserve t’ ha’ ye, my lad. An’ I feel i’ fault myself, for she
was my niece, and I was allays hot for her marr’ing ye. There’s no
amends I can make ye, lad—the more’s the pity: it’s a sad cut-up for
ye, I doubt.”

Adam could say nothing; and Mr. Poyser, after pursuing his walk for a
little while, went on, “I’ll be bound she’s gone after trying to get a
lady’s maid’s place, for she’d got that in her head half a year ago,
and wanted me to gi’ my consent. But I’d thought better on her”—he
added, shaking his head slowly and sadly—“I’d thought better on her,
nor to look for this, after she’d gi’en y’ her word, an’ everything
been got ready.”

Adam had the strongest motives for encouraging this supposition in Mr.
Poyser, and he even tried to believe that it might possibly be true. He
had no warrant for the _certainty_ that she was gone to Arthur.

“It was better it should be so,” he said, as quietly as he could, “if
she felt she couldn’t like me for a husband. Better run away before
than repent after. I hope you won’t look harshly on her if she comes
back, as she may do if she finds it hard to get on away from home.”

“I canna look on her as I’ve done before,” said Martin decisively.
“She’s acted bad by you, and by all of us. But I’ll not turn my back on
her: she’s but a young un, and it’s the first harm I’ve knowed on her.
It’ll be a hard job for me to tell her aunt. Why didna Dinah come back
wi’ ye? She’d ha’ helped to pacify her aunt a bit.”

“Dinah wasn’t at Snowfield. She’s been gone to Leeds this fortnight,
and I couldn’t learn from th’ old woman any direction where she is at
Leeds, else I should ha’ brought it you.”

“She’d a deal better be staying wi’ her own kin,” said Mr. Poyser,
indignantly, “than going preaching among strange folks a-that’n.”

“I must leave you now, Mr. Poyser,” said Adam, “for I’ve a deal to see
to.”

“Aye, you’d best be after your business, and I must tell the missis
when I go home. It’s a hard job.”

“But,” said Adam, “I beg particular, you’ll keep what’s happened quiet
for a week or two. I’ve not told my mother yet, and there’s no knowing
how things may turn out.”

“Aye, aye; least said, soonest mended. We’n no need to say why the
match is broke off, an’ we may hear of her after a bit. Shake hands wi’
me, lad: I wish I could make thee amends.”

There was something in Martin Poyser’s throat at that moment which
caused him to bring out those scanty words in rather a broken fashion.
Yet Adam knew what they meant all the better, and the two honest men
grasped each other’s hard hands in mutual understanding.

There was nothing now to hinder Adam from setting off. He had told Seth
to go to the Chase and leave a message for the squire, saying that Adam
Bede had been obliged to start off suddenly on a journey—and to say as
much, and no more, to any one else who made inquiries about him. If the
Poysers learned that he was gone away again, Adam knew they would infer
that he was gone in search of Hetty.

He had intended to go right on his way from the Hall Farm, but now the
impulse which had frequently visited him before—to go to Mr. Irwine,
and make a confidant of him—recurred with the new force which belongs
to a last opportunity. He was about to start on a long journey—a
difficult one—by sea—and no soul would know where he was gone. If
anything happened to him? Or, if he absolutely needed help in any
matter concerning Hetty? Mr. Irwine was to be trusted; and the feeling
which made Adam shrink from telling anything which was _her_ secret
must give way before the need there was that she should have some one
else besides himself who would be prepared to defend her in the worst
extremity. Towards Arthur, even though he might have incurred no new
guilt, Adam felt that he was not bound to keep silence when Hetty’s
interest called on him to speak.

“I must do it,” said Adam, when these thoughts, which had spread
themselves through hours of his sad journeying, now rushed upon him in
an instant, like a wave that had been slowly gathering; “it’s the right
thing. I can’t stand alone in this way any longer.”




Chapter XXXIX
The Tidings


Adam turned his face towards Broxton and walked with his swiftest
stride, looking at his watch with the fear that Mr. Irwine might be
gone out—hunting, perhaps. The fear and haste together produced a state
of strong excitement before he reached the rectory gate, and outside it
he saw the deep marks of a recent hoof on the gravel.

But the hoofs were turned towards the gate, not away from it, and
though there was a horse against the stable door, it was not Mr.
Irwine’s: it had evidently had a journey this morning, and must belong
to some one who had come on business. Mr. Irwine was at home, then; but
Adam could hardly find breath and calmness to tell Carroll that he
wanted to speak to the rector. The double suffering of certain and
uncertain sorrow had begun to shake the strong man. The butler looked
at him wonderingly, as he threw himself on a bench in the passage and
stared absently at the clock on the opposite wall. The master had
somebody with him, he said, but he heard the study door open—the
stranger seemed to be coming out, and as Adam was in a hurry, he would
let the master know at once.

Adam sat looking at the clock: the minute-hand was hurrying along the
last five minutes to ten with a loud, hard, indifferent tick, and Adam
watched the movement and listened to the sound as if he had had some
reason for doing so. In our times of bitter suffering there are almost
always these pauses, when our consciousness is benumbed to everything
but some trivial perception or sensation. It is as if semi-idiocy came
to give us rest from the memory and the dread which refuse to leave us
in our sleep.

Carroll, coming back, recalled Adam to the sense of his burden. He was
to go into the study immediately. “I can’t think what that strange
person’s come about,” the butler added, from mere incontinence of
remark, as he preceded Adam to the door, “he’s gone i’ the dining-room.
And master looks unaccountable—as if he was frightened.” Adam took no
notice of the words: he could not care about other people’s business.
But when he entered the study and looked in Mr. Irwine’s face, he felt
in an instant that there was a new expression in it, strangely
different from the warm friendliness it had always worn for him before.
A letter lay open on the table, and Mr. Irwine’s hand was on it, but
the changed glance he cast on Adam could not be owing entirely to
preoccupation with some disagreeable business, for he was looking
eagerly towards the door, as if Adam’s entrance were a matter of
poignant anxiety to him.

“You want to speak to me, Adam,” he said, in that low constrainedly
quiet tone which a man uses when he is determined to suppress
agitation. “Sit down here.” He pointed to a chair just opposite to him,
at no more than a yard’s distance from his own, and Adam sat down with
a sense that this cold manner of Mr. Irwine’s gave an additional
unexpected difficulty to his disclosure. But when Adam had made up his
mind to a measure, he was not the man to renounce it for any but
imperative reasons.

“I come to you, sir,” he said, “as the gentleman I look up to most of
anybody. I’ve something very painful to tell you—something as it’ll
pain you to hear as well as me to tell. But if I speak o’ the wrong
other people have done, you’ll see I didn’t speak till I’d good
reason.”

Mr. Irwine nodded slowly, and Adam went on rather tremulously, “You was
t’ ha’ married me and Hetty Sorrel, you know, sir, o’ the fifteenth o’
this month. I thought she loved me, and I was th’ happiest man i’ the
parish. But a dreadful blow’s come upon me.”

Mr. Irwine started up from his chair, as if involuntarily, but then,
determined to control himself, walked to the window and looked out.

“She’s gone away, sir, and we don’t know where. She said she was going
to Snowfield o’ Friday was a fortnight, and I went last Sunday to fetch
her back; but she’d never been there, and she took the coach to
Stoniton, and beyond that I can’t trace her. But now I’m going a long
journey to look for her, and I can’t trust t’ anybody but you where I’m
going.”

Mr. Irwine came back from the window and sat down.

“Have you no idea of the reason why she went away?” he said.

“It’s plain enough she didn’t want to marry me, sir,” said Adam. “She
didn’t like it when it came so near. But that isn’t all, I doubt.
There’s something else I must tell you, sir. There’s somebody else
concerned besides me.”

A gleam of something—it was almost like relief or joy—came across the
eager anxiety of Mr. Irwine’s face at that moment. Adam was looking on
the ground, and paused a little: the next words were hard to speak. But
when he went on, he lifted up his head and looked straight at Mr.
Irwine. He would do the thing he had resolved to do, without flinching.

“You know who’s the man I’ve reckoned my greatest friend,” he said,
“and used to be proud to think as I should pass my life i’ working for
him, and had felt so ever since we were lads....”

Mr. Irwine, as if all self-control had forsaken him, grasped Adam’s
arm, which lay on the table, and, clutching it tightly like a man in
pain, said, with pale lips and a low hurried voice, “No, Adam, no—don’t
say it, for God’s sake!”

Adam, surprised at the violence of Mr. Irwine’s feeling, repented of
the words that had passed his lips and sat in distressed silence. The
grasp on his arm gradually relaxed, and Mr. Irwine threw himself back
in his chair, saying, “Go on—I must know it.”

“That man played with Hetty’s feelings, and behaved to her as he’d no
right to do to a girl in her station o’ life—made her presents and used
to go and meet her out a-walking. I found it out only two days before
he went away—found him a-kissing her as they were parting in the Grove.
There’d been nothing said between me and Hetty then, though I’d loved
her for a long while, and she knew it. But I reproached him with his
wrong actions, and words and blows passed between us; and he said
solemnly to me, after that, as it had been all nonsense and no more
than a bit o’ flirting. But I made him write a letter to tell Hetty
he’d meant nothing, for I saw clear enough, sir, by several things as I
hadn’t understood at the time, as he’d got hold of her heart, and I
thought she’d belike go on thinking of him and never come to love
another man as wanted to marry her. And I gave her the letter, and she
seemed to bear it all after a while better than I’d expected... and she
behaved kinder and kinder to me... I daresay she didn’t know her own
feelings then, poor thing, and they came back upon her when it was too
late... I don’t want to blame her... I can’t think as she meant to
deceive me. But I was encouraged to think she loved me, and—you know
the rest, sir. But it’s on my mind as he’s been false to me, and ’ticed
her away, and she’s gone to him—and I’m going now to see, for I can
never go to work again till I know what’s become of her.”

During Adam’s narrative, Mr. Irwine had had time to recover his
self-mastery in spite of the painful thoughts that crowded upon him. It
was a bitter remembrance to him now—that morning when Arthur
breakfasted with him and seemed as if he were on the verge of a
confession. It was plain enough _now_ what he had wanted to confess.
And if their words had taken another turn... if he himself had been
less fastidious about intruding on another man’s secrets... it was
cruel to think how thin a film had shut out rescue from all this guilt
and misery. He saw the whole history now by that terrible illumination
which the present sheds back upon the past. But every other feeling as
it rushed upon him was thrown into abeyance by pity, deep respectful
pity, for the man who sat before him—already so bruised, going forth
with sad blind resignedness to an unreal sorrow, while a real one was
close upon him, too far beyond the range of common trial for him ever
to have feared it. His own agitation was quelled by a certain awe that
comes over us in the presence of a great anguish, for the anguish he
must inflict on Adam was already present to him. Again he put his hand
on the arm that lay on the table, but very gently this time, as he said
solemnly:

“Adam, my dear friend, you have had some hard trials in your life. You
can bear sorrow manfully, as well as act manfully. God requires both
tasks at our hands. And there is a heavier sorrow coming upon you than
any you have yet known. But you are not guilty—you have not the worst
of all sorrows. God help him who has!”

The two pale faces looked at each other; in Adam’s there was trembling
suspense, in Mr. Irwine’s hesitating, shrinking pity. But he went on.

“I have had news of Hetty this morning. She is not gone to _him_. She
is in Stonyshire—at Stoniton.”

Adam started up from his chair, as if he thought he could have leaped
to her that moment. But Mr. Irwine laid hold of his arm again and said,
persuasively, “Wait, Adam, wait.” So he sat down.

“She is in a very unhappy position—one which will make it worse for you
to find her, my poor friend, than to have lost her for ever.”

Adam’s lips moved tremulously, but no sound came. They moved again, and
he whispered, “Tell me.”

“She has been arrested... she is in prison.”

It was as if an insulting blow had brought back the spirit of
resistance into Adam. The blood rushed to his face, and he said, loudly
and sharply, “For what?”

“For a great crime—the murder of her child.”

“It _can’t be!_” Adam almost shouted, starting up from his chair and
making a stride towards the door; but he turned round again, setting
his back against the bookcase, and looking fiercely at Mr. Irwine. “It
isn’t possible. She never had a child. She can’t be guilty. _Who_ says
it?”

“God grant she may be innocent, Adam. We can still hope she is.”

“But who says she is guilty?” said Adam violently. “Tell me
everything.”

“Here is a letter from the magistrate before whom she was taken, and
the constable who arrested her is in the dining-room. She will not
confess her name or where she comes from; but I fear, I fear, there can
be no doubt it is Hetty. The description of her person corresponds,
only that she is said to look very pale and ill. She had a small
red-leather pocket-book in her pocket with two names written in it—one
at the beginning, ‘Hetty Sorrel, Hayslope,’ and the other near the end,
‘Dinah Morris, Snowfield.’ She will not say which is her own name—she
denies everything, and will answer no questions, and application has
been made to me, as a magistrate, that I may take measures for
identifying her, for it was thought probable that the name which stands
first is her own name.”

“But what proof have they got against her, if it _is_ Hetty?” said
Adam, still violently, with an effort that seemed to shake his whole
frame. “I’ll not believe it. It couldn’t ha’ been, and none of us know
it.”

“Terrible proof that she was under the temptation to commit the crime;
but we have room to hope that she did not really commit it. Try and
read that letter, Adam.”

Adam took the letter between his shaking hands and tried to fix his
eyes steadily on it. Mr. Irwine meanwhile went out to give some orders.
When he came back, Adam’s eyes were still on the first page—he couldn’t
read—he could not put the words together and make out what they meant.
He threw it down at last and clenched his fist.

“It’s _his_ doing,” he said; “if there’s been any crime, it’s at his
door, not at hers. _He_ taught her to deceive—_he_ deceived me first.
Let ’em put _him_ on his trial—let him stand in court beside her, and
I’ll tell ’em how he got hold of her heart, and ’ticed her t’ evil, and
then lied to me. Is _he_ to go free, while they lay all the punishment
on her... so weak and young?”

The image called up by these last words gave a new direction to poor
Adam’s maddened feelings. He was silent, looking at the corner of the
room as if he saw something there. Then he burst out again, in a tone
of appealing anguish,

“I _can’t_ bear it... O God, it’s too hard to lay upon me—it’s too hard
to think she’s wicked.”

Mr. Irwine had sat down again in silence. He was too wise to utter
soothing words at present, and indeed, the sight of Adam before him,
with that look of sudden age which sometimes comes over a young face in
moments of terrible emotion—the hard bloodless look of the skin, the
deep lines about the quivering mouth, the furrows in the brow—the sight
of this strong firm man shattered by the invisible stroke of sorrow,
moved him so deeply that speech was not easy. Adam stood motionless,
with his eyes vacantly fixed in this way for a minute or two; in that
short space he was living through all his love again.

“She can’t ha’ done it,” he said, still without moving his eyes, as if
he were only talking to himself: “it was fear made her hide it... I
forgive her for deceiving me... I forgive thee, Hetty... thee wast
deceived too... it’s gone hard wi’ thee, my poor Hetty... but they’ll
never make me believe it.”

He was silent again for a few moments, and then he said, with fierce
abruptness, “I’ll go to him—I’ll bring him back—I’ll make him go and
look at her in her misery—he shall look at her till he can’t forget
it—it shall follow him night and day—as long as he lives it shall
follow him—he shan’t escape wi’ lies this time—I’ll fetch him, I’ll
drag him myself.”

In the act of going towards the door, Adam paused automatically and
looked about for his hat, quite unconscious where he was or who was
present with him. Mr. Irwine had followed him, and now took him by the
arm, saying, in a quiet but decided tone,

“No, Adam, no; I’m sure you will wish to stay and see what good can be
done for _her_, instead of going on a useless errand of vengeance. The
punishment will surely fall without your aid. Besides, he is no longer
in Ireland. He must be on his way home—or would be, long before you
arrived, for his grandfather, I know, wrote for him to come at least
ten days ago. I want you now to go with me to Stoniton. I have ordered
a horse for you to ride with us, as soon as you can compose yourself.”

While Mr. Irwine was speaking, Adam recovered his consciousness of the
actual scene. He rubbed his hair off his forehead and listened.

“Remember,” Mr. Irwine went on, “there are others to think of, and act
for, besides yourself, Adam: there are Hetty’s friends, the good
Poysers, on whom this stroke will fall more heavily than I can bear to
think. I expect it from your strength of mind, Adam—from your sense of
duty to God and man—that you will try to act as long as action can be
of any use.”

In reality, Mr. Irwine proposed this journey to Stoniton for Adam’s own
sake. Movement, with some object before him, was the best means of
counteracting the violence of suffering in these first hours.

“You _will_ go with me to Stoniton, Adam?” he said again, after a
moment’s pause. “We have to see if it is really Hetty who is there, you
know.”

“Yes, sir,” said Adam, “I’ll do what you think right. But the folks at
th’ Hall Farm?”

“I wish them not to know till I return to tell them myself. I shall
have ascertained things then which I am uncertain about now, and I
shall return as soon as possible. Come now, the horses are ready.”




Chapter XL
The Bitter Waters Spread


Mr. Irwine returned from Stoniton in a post-chaise that night, and the
first words Carroll said to him, as he entered the house, were, that
Squire Donnithorne was dead—found dead in his bed at ten o’clock that
morning—and that Mrs. Irwine desired him to say she should be awake
when Mr. Irwine came home, and she begged him not to go to bed without
seeing her.

“Well, Dauphin,” Mrs. Irwine said, as her son entered her room, “you’re
come at last. So the old gentleman’s fidgetiness and low spirits, which
made him send for Arthur in that sudden way, really meant something. I
suppose Carroll has told you that Donnithorne was found dead in his bed
this morning. You will believe my prognostications another time, though
I daresay I shan’t live to prognosticate anything but my own death.”

“What have they done about Arthur?” said Mr. Irwine. “Sent a messenger
to await him at Liverpool?”

“Yes, Ralph was gone before the news was brought to us. Dear Arthur, I
shall live now to see him master at the Chase, and making good times on
the estate, like a generous-hearted fellow as he is. He’ll be as happy
as a king now.”

Mr. Irwine could not help giving a slight groan: he was worn with
anxiety and exertion, and his mother’s light words were almost
intolerable.

“What are you so dismal about, Dauphin? Is there any bad news? Or are
you thinking of the danger for Arthur in crossing that frightful Irish
Channel at this time of year?”

“No, Mother, I’m not thinking of that; but I’m not prepared to rejoice
just now.”

“You’ve been worried by this law business that you’ve been to Stoniton
about. What in the world is it, that you can’t tell me?”

“You will know by and by, mother. It would not be right for me to tell
you at present. Good-night: you’ll sleep now you have no longer
anything to listen for.”

Mr. Irwine gave up his intention of sending a letter to meet Arthur,
since it would not now hasten his return: the news of his grandfather’s
death would bring him as soon as he could possibly come. He could go to
bed now and get some needful rest, before the time came for the
morning’s heavy duty of carrying his sickening news to the Hall Farm
and to Adam’s home.

Adam himself was not come back from Stoniton, for though he shrank from
seeing Hetty, he could not bear to go to a distance from her again.

“It’s no use, sir,” he said to the rector, “it’s no use for me to go
back. I can’t go to work again while she’s here, and I couldn’t bear
the sight o’ the things and folks round home. I’ll take a bit of a room
here, where I can see the prison walls, and perhaps I shall get, in
time, to bear seeing _her_.”

Adam had not been shaken in his belief that Hetty was innocent of the
crime she was charged with, for Mr. Irwine, feeling that the belief in
her guilt would be a crushing addition to Adam’s load, had kept from
him the facts which left no hope in his own mind. There was not any
reason for thrusting the whole burden on Adam at once, and Mr. Irwine,
at parting, only said, “If the evidence should tell too strongly
against her, Adam, we may still hope for a pardon. Her youth and other
circumstances will be a plea for her.”

“Ah, and it’s right people should know how she was tempted into the
wrong way,” said Adam, with bitter earnestness. “It’s right they should
know it was a fine gentleman made love to her, and turned her head wi’
notions. You’ll remember, sir, you’ve promised to tell my mother, and
Seth, and the people at the farm, who it was as led her wrong, else
they’ll think harder of her than she deserves. You’ll be doing her a
hurt by sparing him, and I hold him the guiltiest before God, let her
ha’ done what she may. If you spare him, I’ll expose him!”

“I think your demand is just, Adam,” said Mr. Irwine, “but when you are
calmer, you will judge Arthur more mercifully. I say nothing now, only
that his punishment is in other hands than ours.”

Mr. Irwine felt it hard upon him that he should have to tell of
Arthur’s sad part in the story of sin and sorrow—he who cared for
Arthur with fatherly affection, who had cared for him with fatherly
pride. But he saw clearly that the secret must be known before long,
even apart from Adam’s determination, since it was scarcely to be
supposed that Hetty would persist to the end in her obstinate silence.
He made up his mind to withhold nothing from the Poysers, but to tell
them the worst at once, for there was no time to rob the tidings of
their suddenness. Hetty’s trial must come on at the Lent assizes, and
they were to be held at Stoniton the next week. It was scarcely to be
hoped that Martin Poyser could escape the pain of being called as a
witness, and it was better he should know everything as long beforehand
as possible.

Before ten o’clock on Thursday morning the home at the Hall Farm was a
house of mourning for a misfortune felt to be worse than death. The
sense of family dishonour was too keen even in the kind-hearted Martin
Poyser the younger to leave room for any compassion towards Hetty. He
and his father were simple-minded farmers, proud of their untarnished
character, proud that they came of a family which had held up its head
and paid its way as far back as its name was in the parish register;
and Hetty had brought disgrace on them all—disgrace that could never be
wiped out. That was the all-conquering feeling in the mind both of
father and son—the scorching sense of disgrace, which neutralised all
other sensibility—and Mr. Irwine was struck with surprise to observe
that Mrs. Poyser was less severe than her husband. We are often
startled by the severity of mild people on exceptional occasions; the
reason is, that mild people are most liable to be under the yoke of
traditional impressions.

“I’m willing to pay any money as is wanted towards trying to bring her
off,” said Martin the younger when Mr. Irwine was gone, while the old
grandfather was crying in the opposite chair, “but I’ll not go nigh
her, nor ever see her again, by my own will. She’s made our bread
bitter to us for all our lives to come, an’ we shall ne’er hold up our
heads i’ this parish nor i’ any other. The parson talks o’ folks
pitying us: it’s poor amends pity ’ull make us.”

“Pity?” said the grandfather, sharply. “I ne’er wanted folks’s pity i’
_my_ life afore... an’ I mun begin to be looked down on now, an’ me
turned seventy-two last St. Thomas’s, an’ all th’ underbearers and
pall-bearers as I’n picked for my funeral are i’ this parish and the
next to ’t.... It’s o’ no use now... I mun be ta’en to the grave by
strangers.”

“Don’t fret so, father,” said Mrs. Poyser, who had spoken very little,
being almost overawed by her husband’s unusual hardness and decision.
“You’ll have your children wi’ you; an’ there’s the lads and the little
un ’ull grow up in a new parish as well as i’ th’ old un.”

“Ah, there’s no staying i’ this country for us now,” said Mr. Poyser,
and the hard tears trickled slowly down his round cheeks. “We thought
it ’ud be bad luck if the old squire gave us notice this Lady day, but
I must gi’ notice myself now, an’ see if there can anybody be got to
come an’ take to the crops as I’n put i’ the ground; for I wonna stay
upo’ that man’s land a day longer nor I’m forced to’t. An’ me, as
thought him such a good upright young man, as I should be glad when he
come to be our landlord. I’ll ne’er lift my hat to him again, nor sit
i’ the same church wi’ him... a man as has brought shame on respectable
folks... an’ pretended to be such a friend t’ everybody.... Poor Adam
there... a fine friend he’s been t’ Adam, making speeches an’ talking
so fine, an’ all the while poisoning the lad’s life, as it’s much if he
can stay i’ this country any more nor we can.”

“An’ you t’ ha’ to go into court, and own you’re akin t’ her,” said the
old man. “Why, they’ll cast it up to the little un, as isn’t four ’ear
old, some day—they’ll cast it up t’ her as she’d a cousin tried at the
’sizes for murder.”

“It’ll be their own wickedness, then,” said Mrs. Poyser, with a sob in
her voice. “But there’s One above ’ull take care o’ the innicent child,
else it’s but little truth they tell us at church. It’ll be harder nor
ever to die an’ leave the little uns, an’ nobody to be a mother to
’em.”

“We’d better ha’ sent for Dinah, if we’d known where she is,” said Mr.
Poyser; “but Adam said she’d left no direction where she’d be at
Leeds.”

“Why, she’d be wi’ that woman as was a friend t’ her Aunt Judith,” said
Mrs. Poyser, comforted a little by this suggestion of her husband.
“I’ve often heard Dinah talk of her, but I can’t remember what name she
called her by. But there’s Seth Bede; he’s like enough to know, for
she’s a preaching woman as the Methodists think a deal on.”

“I’ll send to Seth,” said Mr. Poyser. “I’ll send Alick to tell him to
come, or else to send up word o’ the woman’s name, an’ thee canst write
a letter ready to send off to Treddles’on as soon as we can make out a
direction.”

“It’s poor work writing letters when you want folks to come to you i’
trouble,” said Mrs. Poyser. “Happen it’ll be ever so long on the road,
an’ never reach her at last.”

Before Alick arrived with the message, Lisbeth’s thoughts too had
already flown to Dinah, and she had said to Seth, “Eh, there’s no
comfort for us i’ this world any more, wi’out thee couldst get Dinah
Morris to come to us, as she did when my old man died. I’d like her to
come in an’ take me by th’ hand again, an’ talk to me. She’d tell me
the rights on’t, belike—she’d happen know some good i’ all this trouble
an’ heart-break comin’ upo’ that poor lad, as ne’er done a bit o’ wrong
in’s life, but war better nor anybody else’s son, pick the country
round. Eh, my lad... Adam, my poor lad!”

“Thee wouldstna like me to leave thee, to go and fetch Dinah?” said
Seth, as his mother sobbed and rocked herself to and fro.

“Fetch her?” said Lisbeth, looking up and pausing from her grief, like
a crying child who hears some promise of consolation. “Why, what place
is’t she’s at, do they say?”

“It’s a good way off, mother—Leeds, a big town. But I could be back in
three days, if thee couldst spare me.”

“Nay, nay, I canna spare thee. Thee must go an’ see thy brother, an’
bring me word what he’s a-doin’. Mester Irwine said he’d come an’ tell
me, but I canna make out so well what it means when he tells me. Thee
must go thysen, sin’ Adam wonna let me go to him. Write a letter to
Dinah canstna? Thee’t fond enough o’ writin’ when nobody wants thee.”

“I’m not sure where she’d be i’ that big town,” said Seth. “If I’d gone
myself, I could ha’ found out by asking the members o’ the Society. But
perhaps if I put Sarah Williamson, Methodist preacher, Leeds, o’ th’
outside, it might get to her; for most like she’d be wi’ Sarah
Williamson.”

Alick came now with the message, and Seth, finding that Mrs. Poyser was
writing to Dinah, gave up the intention of writing himself; but he went
to the Hall Farm to tell them all he could suggest about the address of
the letter, and warn them that there might be some delay in the
delivery, from his not knowing an exact direction.

On leaving Lisbeth, Mr. Irwine had gone to Jonathan Burge, who had also
a claim to be acquainted with what was likely to keep Adam away from
business for some time; and before six o’clock that evening there were
few people in Broxton and Hayslope who had not heard the sad news. Mr.
Irwine had not mentioned Arthur’s name to Burge, and yet the story of
his conduct towards Hetty, with all the dark shadows cast upon it by
its terrible consequences, was presently as well known as that his
grandfather was dead, and that he was come into the estate. For Martin
Poyser felt no motive to keep silence towards the one or two neighbours
who ventured to come and shake him sorrowfully by the hand on the first
day of his trouble; and Carroll, who kept his ears open to all that
passed at the rectory, had framed an inferential version of the story,
and found early opportunities of communicating it.

One of those neighbours who came to Martin Poyser and shook him by the
hand without speaking for some minutes was Bartle Massey. He had shut
up his school, and was on his way to the rectory, where he arrived
about half-past seven in the evening, and, sending his duty to Mr.
Irwine, begged pardon for troubling him at that hour, but had something
particular on his mind. He was shown into the study, where Mr. Irwine
soon joined him.

“Well, Bartle?” said Mr. Irwine, putting out his hand. That was not his
usual way of saluting the schoolmaster, but trouble makes us treat all
who feel with us very much alike. “Sit down.”

“You know what I’m come about as well as I do, sir, I daresay,” said
Bartle.

“You wish to know the truth about the sad news that has reached you...
about Hetty Sorrel?”

“Nay, sir, what I wish to know is about Adam Bede. I understand you
left him at Stoniton, and I beg the favour of you to tell me what’s the
state of the poor lad’s mind, and what he means to do. For as for that
bit o’ pink-and-white they’ve taken the trouble to put in jail, I don’t
value her a rotten nut—not a rotten nut—only for the harm or good that
may come out of her to an honest man—a lad I’ve set such store
by—trusted to, that he’d make my bit o’ knowledge go a good way in the
world.... Why, sir, he’s the only scholar I’ve had in this stupid
country that ever had the will or the head-piece for mathematics. If he
hadn’t had so much hard work to do, poor fellow, he might have gone
into the higher branches, and then this might never have happened—might
never have happened.”

Bartle was heated by the exertion of walking fast in an agitated frame
of mind, and was not able to check himself on this first occasion of
venting his feelings. But he paused now to rub his moist forehead, and
probably his moist eyes also.

“You’ll excuse me, sir,” he said, when this pause had given him time to
reflect, “for running on in this way about my own feelings, like that
foolish dog of mine howling in a storm, when there’s nobody wants to
listen to me. I came to hear you speak, not to talk myself—if you’ll
take the trouble to tell me what the poor lad’s doing.”

“Don’t put yourself under any restraint, Bartle,” said Mr. Irwine. “The
fact is, I’m very much in the same condition as you just now; I’ve a
great deal that’s painful on my mind, and I find it hard work to be
quite silent about my own feelings and only attend to others. I share
your concern for Adam, though he is not the only one whose sufferings I
care for in this affair. He intends to remain at Stoniton till after
the trial: it will come on probably a week to-morrow. He has taken a
room there, and I encouraged him to do so, because I think it better he
should be away from his own home at present; and, poor fellow, he still
believes Hetty is innocent—he wants to summon up courage to see her if
he can; he is unwilling to leave the spot where she is.”

“Do you think the creatur’s guilty, then?” said Bartle. “Do you think
they’ll hang her?”

“I’m afraid it will go hard with her. The evidence is very strong. And
one bad symptom is that she denies everything—denies that she has had a
child in the face of the most positive evidence. I saw her myself, and
she was obstinately silent to me; she shrank up like a frightened
animal when she saw me. I was never so shocked in my life as at the
change in her. But I trust that, in the worst case, we may obtain a
pardon for the sake of the innocent who are involved.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” said Bartle, forgetting in his irritation to whom
he was speaking. “I beg your pardon, sir, I mean it’s stuff and
nonsense for the innocent to care about her being hanged. For my own
part, I think the sooner such women are put out o’ the world the
better; and the men that help ’em to do mischief had better go along
with ’em for that matter. What good will you do by keeping such vermin
alive, eating the victual that ’ud feed rational beings? But if Adam’s
fool enough to care about it, I don’t want him to suffer more than’s
needful.... Is he very much cut up, poor fellow?” Bartle added, taking
out his spectacles and putting them on, as if they would assist his
imagination.

“Yes, I’m afraid the grief cuts very deep,” said Mr. Irwine. “He looks
terribly shattered, and a certain violence came over him now and then
yesterday, which made me wish I could have remained near him. But I
shall go to Stoniton again to-morrow, and I have confidence enough in
the strength of Adam’s principle to trust that he will be able to
endure the worst without being driven to anything rash.”

Mr. Irwine, who was involuntarily uttering his own thoughts rather than
addressing Bartle Massey in the last sentence, had in his mind the
possibility that the spirit of vengeance towards Arthur, which was the
form Adam’s anguish was continually taking, might make him seek an
encounter that was likely to end more fatally than the one in the
Grove. This possibility heightened the anxiety with which he looked
forward to Arthur’s arrival. But Bartle thought Mr. Irwine was
referring to suicide, and his face wore a new alarm.

“I’ll tell you what I have in my head, sir,” he said, “and I hope
you’ll approve of it. I’m going to shut up my school—if the scholars
come, they must go back again, that’s all—and I shall go to Stoniton
and look after Adam till this business is over. I’ll pretend I’m come
to look on at the assizes; he can’t object to that. What do you think
about it, sir?”

“Well,” said Mr. Irwine, rather hesitatingly, “there would be some real
advantages in that... and I honour you for your friendship towards him,
Bartle. But... you must be careful what you say to him, you know. I’m
afraid you have too little fellow-feeling in what you consider his
weakness about Hetty.”

“Trust to me, sir—trust to me. I know what you mean. I’ve been a fool
myself in my time, but that’s between you and me. I shan’t thrust
myself on him only keep my eye on him, and see that he gets some good
food, and put in a word here and there.”

“Then,” said Mr. Irwine, reassured a little as to Bartle’s discretion,
“I think you’ll be doing a good deed; and it will be well for you to
let Adam’s mother and brother know that you’re going.”

“Yes, sir, yes,” said Bartle, rising, and taking off his spectacles,
“I’ll do that, I’ll do that; though the mother’s a whimpering thing—I
don’t like to come within earshot of her; however, she’s a
straight-backed, clean woman, none of your slatterns. I wish you
good-bye, sir, and thank you for the time you’ve spared me. You’re
everybody’s friend in this business—everybody’s friend. It’s a heavy
weight you’ve got on your shoulders.”

“Good-bye, Bartle, till we meet at Stoniton, as I daresay we shall.”

Bartle hurried away from the rectory, evading Carroll’s conversational
advances, and saying in an exasperated tone to Vixen, whose short legs
pattered beside him on the gravel, “Now, I shall be obliged to take you
with me, you good-for-nothing woman. You’d go fretting yourself to
death if I left you—you know you would, and perhaps get snapped up by
some tramp. And you’ll be running into bad company, I expect, putting
your nose in every hole and corner where you’ve no business! But if you
do anything disgraceful, I’ll disown you—mind that, madam, mind that!”




Chapter XLI
The Eve of the Trial


An upper room in a dull Stoniton street, with two beds in it—one laid
on the floor. It is ten o’clock on Thursday night, and the dark wall
opposite the window shuts out the moonlight that might have struggled
with the light of the one dip candle by which Bartle Massey is
pretending to read, while he is really looking over his spectacles at
Adam Bede, seated near the dark window.

You would hardly have known it was Adam without being told. His face
has got thinner this last week: he has the sunken eyes, the neglected
beard of a man just risen from a sick-bed. His heavy black hair hangs
over his forehead, and there is no active impulse in him which inclines
him to push it off, that he may be more awake to what is around him. He
has one arm over the back of the chair, and he seems to be looking down
at his clasped hands. He is roused by a knock at the door.

“There he is,” said Bartle Massey, rising hastily and unfastening the
door. It was Mr. Irwine.

Adam rose from his chair with instinctive respect, as Mr. Irwine
approached him and took his hand.

“I’m late, Adam,” he said, sitting down on the chair which Bartle
placed for him, “but I was later in setting off from Broxton than I
intended to be, and I have been incessantly occupied since I arrived. I
have done everything now, however—everything that can be done to-night,
at least. Let us all sit down.”

Adam took his chair again mechanically, and Bartle, for whom there was
no chair remaining, sat on the bed in the background.

“Have you seen her, sir?” said Adam tremulously.

“Yes, Adam; I and the chaplain have both been with her this evening.”

“Did you ask her, sir... did you say anything about me?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Irwine, with some hesitation, “I spoke of you. I said
you wished to see her before the trial, if she consented.”

As Mr. Irwine paused, Adam looked at him with eager, questioning eyes.

“You know she shrinks from seeing any one, Adam. It is not only
you—some fatal influence seems to have shut up her heart against her
fellow-creatures. She has scarcely said anything more than ‘No’ either
to me or the chaplain. Three or four days ago, before you were
mentioned to her, when I asked her if there was any one of her family
whom she would like to see—to whom she could open her mind—she said,
with a violent shudder, ‘Tell them not to come near me—I won’t see any
of them.’”

Adam’s head was hanging down again, and he did not speak. There was
silence for a few minutes, and then Mr. Irwine said, “I don’t like to
advise you against your own feelings, Adam, if they now urge you
strongly to go and see her to-morrow morning, even without her consent.
It is just possible, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, that
the interview might affect her favourably. But I grieve to say I have
scarcely any hope of that. She didn’t seem agitated when I mentioned
your name; she only said ‘No,’ in the same cold, obstinate way as
usual. And if the meeting had no good effect on her, it would be pure,
useless suffering to you—severe suffering, I fear. She is very much
changed...”

Adam started up from his chair and seized his hat, which lay on the
table. But he stood still then, and looked at Mr. Irwine, as if he had
a question to ask which it was yet difficult to utter. Bartle Massey
rose quietly, turned the key in the door, and put it in his pocket.

“Is he come back?” said Adam at last.

“No, he is not,” said Mr. Irwine, quietly. “Lay down your hat, Adam,
unless you like to walk out with me for a little fresh air. I fear you
have not been out again to-day.”

“You needn’t deceive me, sir,” said Adam, looking hard at Mr. Irwine
and speaking in a tone of angry suspicion. “You needn’t be afraid of
me. I only want justice. I want him to feel what she feels. It’s his
work... she was a child as it ’ud ha’ gone t’ anybody’s heart to look
at... I don’t care what she’s done... it was him brought her to it. And
he shall know it... he shall feel it... if there’s a just God, he shall
feel what it is t’ ha’ brought a child like her to sin and misery.”

“I’m not deceiving you, Adam,” said Mr. Irwine. “Arthur Donnithorne is
not come back—was not come back when I left. I have left a letter for
him: he will know all as soon as he arrives.”

“But you don’t mind about it,” said Adam indignantly. “You think it
doesn’t matter as she lies there in shame and misery, and he knows
nothing about it—he suffers nothing.”

“Adam, he _will_ know—he _will_ suffer, long and bitterly. He has a
heart and a conscience: I can’t be entirely deceived in his character.
I am convinced—I am sure he didn’t fall under temptation without a
struggle. He may be weak, but he is not callous, not coldly selfish. I
am persuaded that this will be a shock of which he will feel the
effects all his life. Why do you crave vengeance in this way? No amount
of torture that you could inflict on _him_ could benefit _her_.”

“No—O God, no,” Adam groaned out, sinking on his chair again; “but
then, that’s the deepest curse of all... that’s what makes the
blackness of it... _it can never be undone_. My poor Hetty... she can
never be my sweet Hetty again... the prettiest thing God had
made—smiling up at me... I thought she loved me... and was good...”

Adam’s voice had been gradually sinking into a hoarse undertone, as if
he were only talking to himself; but now he said abruptly, looking at
Mr. Irwine, “But she isn’t as guilty as they say? You don’t think she
is, sir? She can’t ha’ done it.”

“That perhaps can never be known with certainty, Adam,” Mr. Irwine
answered gently. “In these cases we sometimes form our judgment on what
seems to us strong evidence, and yet, for want of knowing some small
fact, our judgment is wrong. But suppose the worst: you have no right
to say that the guilt of her crime lies with him, and that he ought to
bear the punishment. It is not for us men to apportion the shares of
moral guilt and retribution. We find it impossible to avoid mistakes
even in determining who has committed a single criminal act, and the
problem how far a man is to be held responsible for the unforeseen
consequences of his own deed is one that might well make us tremble to
look into it. The evil consequences that may lie folded in a single act
of selfish indulgence is a thought so awful that it ought surely to
awaken some feeling less presumptuous than a rash desire to punish. You
have a mind that can understand this fully, Adam, when you are calm.
Don’t suppose I can’t enter into the anguish that drives you into this
state of revengeful hatred. But think of this: if you were to obey your
passion—for it _is_ passion, and you deceive yourself in calling it
justice—it might be with you precisely as it has been with Arthur; nay,
worse; your passion might lead you yourself into a horrible crime.”

“No—not worse,” said Adam, bitterly; “I don’t believe it’s worse—I’d
sooner do it—I’d sooner do a wickedness as I could suffer for by myself
than ha’ brought _her_ to do wickedness and then stand by and see ’em
punish her while they let me alone; and all for a bit o’ pleasure, as,
if he’d had a man’s heart in him, he’d ha’ cut his hand off sooner than
he’d ha’ taken it. What if he didn’t foresee what’s happened? He
foresaw enough; he’d no right to expect anything but harm and shame to
her. And then he wanted to smooth it off wi’ lies. No—there’s plenty o’
things folks are hanged for not half so hateful as that. Let a man do
what he will, if he knows he’s to bear the punishment himself, he isn’t
half so bad as a mean selfish coward as makes things easy t’ himself
and knows all the while the punishment ’ll fall on somebody else.”

“There again you partly deceive yourself, Adam. There is no sort of
wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone; you can’t
isolate yourself and say that the evil which is in you shall not
spread. Men’s lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the
air they breathe: evil spreads as necessarily as disease. I know, I
feel the terrible extent of suffering this sin of Arthur’s has caused
to others; but so does every sin cause suffering to others besides
those who commit it. An act of vengeance on your part against Arthur
would simply be another evil added to those we are suffering under: you
could not bear the punishment alone; you would entail the worst sorrows
on every one who loves you. You would have committed an act of blind
fury that would leave all the present evils just as they were and add
worse evils to them. You may tell me that you meditate no fatal act of
vengeance, but the feeling in your mind is what gives birth to such
actions, and as long as you indulge it, as long as you do not see that
to fix your mind on Arthur’s punishment is revenge, and not justice,
you are in danger of being led on to the commission of some great
wrong. Remember what you told me about your feelings after you had
given that blow to Arthur in the Grove.”

Adam was silent: the last words had called up a vivid image of the
past, and Mr. Irwine left him to his thoughts, while he spoke to Bartle
Massey about old Mr. Donnithorne’s funeral and other matters of an
indifferent kind. But at length Adam turned round and said, in a more
subdued tone, “I’ve not asked about ’em at th’ Hall Farm, sir. Is Mr.
Poyser coming?”

“He is come; he is in Stoniton to-night. But I could not advise him to
see you, Adam. His own mind is in a very perturbed state, and it is
best he should not see you till you are calmer.”

“Is Dinah Morris come to ’em, sir? Seth said they’d sent for her.”

“No. Mr. Poyser tells me she was not come when he left. They’re afraid
the letter has not reached her. It seems they had no exact address.”

Adam sat ruminating a little while, and then said, “I wonder if Dinah
’ud ha’ gone to see her. But perhaps the Poysers would ha’ been sorely
against it, since they won’t come nigh her themselves. But I think she
would, for the Methodists are great folks for going into the prisons;
and Seth said he thought she would. She’d a very tender way with her,
Dinah had; I wonder if she could ha’ done any good. You never saw her,
sir, did you?”

“Yes, I did. I had a conversation with her—she pleased me a good deal.
And now you mention it, I wish she would come, for it is possible that
a gentle mild woman like her might move Hetty to open her heart. The
jail chaplain is rather harsh in his manner.”

“But it’s o’ no use if she doesn’t come,” said Adam sadly.

“If I’d thought of it earlier, I would have taken some measures for
finding her out,” said Mr. Irwine, “but it’s too late now, I fear...
Well, Adam, I must go now. Try to get some rest to-night. God bless
you. I’ll see you early to-morrow morning.”




Chapter XLII
The Morning of the Trial


At one o’clock the next day, Adam was alone in his dull upper room; his
watch lay before him on the table, as if he were counting the long
minutes. He had no knowledge of what was likely to be said by the
witnesses on the trial, for he had shrunk from all the particulars
connected with Hetty’s arrest and accusation. This brave active man,
who would have hastened towards any danger or toil to rescue Hetty from
an apprehended wrong or misfortune, felt himself powerless to
contemplate irremediable evil and suffering. The susceptibility which
would have been an impelling force where there was any possibility of
action became helpless anguish when he was obliged to be passive, or
else sought an active outlet in the thought of inflicting justice on
Arthur. Energetic natures, strong for all strenuous deeds, will often
rush away from a hopeless sufferer, as if they were hard-hearted. It is
the overmastering sense of pain that drives them. They shrink by an
ungovernable instinct, as they would shrink from laceration. Adam had
brought himself to think of seeing Hetty, if she would consent to see
him, because he thought the meeting might possibly be a good to
her—might help to melt away this terrible hardness they told him of. If
she saw he bore her no ill will for what she had done to him, she might
open her heart to him. But this resolution had been an immense
effort—he trembled at the thought of seeing her changed face, as a
timid woman trembles at the thought of the surgeon’s knife, and he
chose now to bear the long hours of suspense rather than encounter what
seemed to him the more intolerable agony of witnessing her trial.

Deep unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a
regeneration, the initiation into a new state. The yearning memories,
the bitter regret, the agonized sympathy, the struggling appeals to the
Invisible Right—all the intense emotions which had filled the days and
nights of the past week, and were compressing themselves again like an
eager crowd into the hours of this single morning, made Adam look back
on all the previous years as if they had been a dim sleepy existence,
and he had only now awaked to full consciousness. It seemed to him as
if he had always before thought it a light thing that men should
suffer, as if all that he had himself endured and called sorrow before
was only a moment’s stroke that had never left a bruise. Doubtless a
great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that
baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity.

“O God,” Adam groaned, as he leaned on the table and looked blankly at
the face of the watch, “and men have suffered like this before... and
poor helpless young things have suffered like her.... Such a little
while ago looking so happy and so pretty... kissing ’em all, her
grandfather and all of ’em, and they wishing her luck.... O my poor,
poor Hetty... dost think on it now?”

Adam started and looked round towards the door. Vixen had begun to
whimper, and there was a sound of a stick and a lame walk on the
stairs. It was Bartle Massey come back. Could it be all over?

Bartle entered quietly, and, going up to Adam, grasped his hand and
said, “I’m just come to look at you, my boy, for the folks are gone out
of court for a bit.”

Adam’s heart beat so violently he was unable to speak—he could only
return the pressure of his friend’s hand—and Bartle, drawing up the
other chair, came and sat in front of him, taking off his hat and his
spectacles.

“That’s a thing never happened to me before,” he observed, “to go out
o’ the door with my spectacles on. I clean forgot to take ’em off.”

The old man made this trivial remark, thinking it better not to respond
at all to Adam’s agitation: he would gather, in an indirect way, that
there was nothing decisive to communicate at present.

“And now,” he said, rising again, “I must see to your having a bit of
the loaf, and some of that wine Mr. Irwine sent this morning. He’ll be
angry with me if you don’t have it. Come, now,” he went on, bringing
forward the bottle and the loaf and pouring some wine into a cup, “I
must have a bit and a sup myself. Drink a drop with me, my lad—drink
with me.”

Adam pushed the cup gently away and said, entreatingly, “Tell me about
it, Mr. Massey—tell me all about it. Was she there? Have they begun?”

“Yes, my boy, yes—it’s taken all the time since I first went; but
they’re slow, they’re slow; and there’s the counsel they’ve got for her
puts a spoke in the wheel whenever he can, and makes a deal to do with
cross-examining the witnesses and quarrelling with the other lawyers.
That’s all he can do for the money they give him; and it’s a big
sum—it’s a big sum. But he’s a ’cute fellow, with an eye that ’ud pick
the needles out of the hay in no time. If a man had got no feelings, it
’ud be as good as a demonstration to listen to what goes on in court;
but a tender heart makes one stupid. I’d have given up figures for ever
only to have had some good news to bring to you, my poor lad.”

“But does it seem to be going against her?” said Adam. “Tell me what
they’ve said. I must know it now—I must know what they have to bring
against her.”

“Why, the chief evidence yet has been the doctors; all but Martin
Poyser—poor Martin. Everybody in court felt for him—it was like one
sob, the sound they made when he came down again. The worst was when
they told him to look at the prisoner at the bar. It was hard work,
poor fellow—it was hard work. Adam, my boy, the blow falls heavily on
him as well as you; you must help poor Martin; you must show courage.
Drink some wine now, and show me you mean to bear it like a man.”

Bartle had made the right sort of appeal. Adam, with an air of quiet
obedience, took up the cup and drank a little.

“Tell me how _she_ looked,” he said presently.

“Frightened, very frightened, when they first brought her in; it was
the first sight of the crowd and the judge, poor creatur. And there’s a
lot o’ foolish women in fine clothes, with gewgaws all up their arms
and feathers on their heads, sitting near the judge: they’ve dressed
themselves out in that way, one ’ud think, to be scarecrows and
warnings against any man ever meddling with a woman again. They put up
their glasses, and stared and whispered. But after that she stood like
a white image, staring down at her hands and seeming neither to hear
nor see anything. And she’s as white as a sheet. She didn’t speak when
they asked her if she’d plead ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty,’ and they
pleaded ‘not guilty’ for her. But when she heard her uncle’s name,
there seemed to go a shiver right through her; and when they told him
to look at her, she hung her head down, and cowered, and hid her face
in her hands. He’d much ado to speak poor man, his voice trembled so.
And the counsellors—who look as hard as nails mostly—I saw, spared him
as much as they could. Mr. Irwine put himself near him and went with
him out o’ court. Ah, it’s a great thing in a man’s life to be able to
stand by a neighbour and uphold him in such trouble as that.”

“God bless him, and you too, Mr. Massey,” said Adam, in a low voice,
laying his hand on Bartle’s arm.

“Aye, aye, he’s good metal; he gives the right ring when you try him,
our parson does. A man o’ sense—says no more than’s needful. He’s not
one of those that think they can comfort you with chattering, as if
folks who stand by and look on knew a deal better what the trouble was
than those who have to bear it. I’ve had to do with such folks in my
time—in the south, when I was in trouble myself. Mr. Irwine is to be a
witness himself, by and by, on her side, you know, to speak to her
character and bringing up.”

“But the other evidence... does it go hard against her!” said Adam.
“What do you think, Mr. Massey? Tell me the truth.”

“Yes, my lad, yes. The truth is the best thing to tell. It must come at
last. The doctors’ evidence is heavy on her—is heavy. But she’s gone on
denying she’s had a child from first to last. These poor silly
women-things—they’ve not the sense to know it’s no use denying what’s
proved. It’ll make against her with the jury, I doubt, her being so
obstinate: they may be less for recommending her to mercy, if the
verdict’s against her. But Mr. Irwine ’ull leave no stone unturned with
the judge—you may rely upon that, Adam.”

“Is there nobody to stand by her and seem to care for her in the
court?” said Adam.

“There’s the chaplain o’ the jail sits near her, but he’s a sharp
ferrety-faced man—another sort o’ flesh and blood to Mr. Irwine. They
say the jail chaplains are mostly the fag-end o’ the clergy.”

“There’s one man as ought to be there,” said Adam bitterly. Presently
he drew himself up and looked fixedly out of the window, apparently
turning over some new idea in his mind.

“Mr. Massey,” he said at last, pushing the hair off his forehead, “I’ll
go back with you. I’ll go into court. It’s cowardly of me to keep away.
I’ll stand by her—I’ll own her—for all she’s been deceitful. They
oughtn’t to cast her off—her own flesh and blood. We hand folks over to
God’s mercy, and show none ourselves. I used to be hard sometimes: I’ll
never be hard again. I’ll go, Mr. Massey—I’ll go with you.”

There was a decision in Adam’s manner which would have prevented Bartle
from opposing him, even if he had wished to do so. He only said, “Take
a bit, then, and another sup, Adam, for the love of me. See, I must
stop and eat a morsel. Now, you take some.”

Nerved by an active resolution, Adam took a morsel of bread and drank
some wine. He was haggard and unshaven, as he had been yesterday, but
he stood upright again, and looked more like the Adam Bede of former
days.




Chapter XLIII
The Verdict


The place fitted up that day as a court of justice was a grand old
hall, now destroyed by fire. The midday light that fell on the close
pavement of human heads was shed through a line of high pointed
windows, variegated with the mellow tints of old painted glass. Grim
dusty armour hung in high relief in front of the dark oaken gallery at
the farther end, and under the broad arch of the great mullioned window
opposite was spread a curtain of old tapestry, covered with dim
melancholy figures, like a dozing indistinct dream of the past. It was
a place that through the rest of the year was haunted with the shadowy
memories of old kings and queens, unhappy, discrowned, imprisoned; but
to-day all those shadows had fled, and not a soul in the vast hall felt
the presence of any but a living sorrow, which was quivering in warm
hearts.

But that sorrow seemed to have made it itself feebly felt hitherto, now
when Adam Bede’s tall figure was suddenly seen being ushered to the
side of the prisoner’s dock. In the broad sunlight of the great hall,
among the sleek shaven faces of other men, the marks of suffering in
his face were startling even to Mr. Irwine, who had last seen him in
the dim light of his small room; and the neighbours from Hayslope who
were present, and who told Hetty Sorrel’s story by their firesides in
their old age, never forgot to say how it moved them when Adam Bede,
poor fellow, taller by the head than most of the people round him, came
into court and took his place by her side.

But Hetty did not see him. She was standing in the same position Bartle
Massey had described, her hands crossed over each other and her eyes
fixed on them. Adam had not dared to look at her in the first moments,
but at last, when the attention of the court was withdrawn by the
proceedings he turned his face towards her with a resolution not to
shrink.

Why did they say she was so changed? In the corpse we love, it is the
_likeness_ we see—it is the likeness, which makes itself felt the more
keenly because something else _was_ and _is not_. There they were—the
sweet face and neck, with the dark tendrils of hair, the long dark
lashes, the rounded cheek and the pouting lips—pale and thin, yes, but
like Hetty, and only Hetty. Others thought she looked as if some demon
had cast a blighting glance upon her, withered up the woman’s soul in
her, and left only a hard despairing obstinacy. But the mother’s
yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the
essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child
even in the debased, degraded man; and to Adam, this pale, hard-looking
culprit was the Hetty who had smiled at him in the garden under the
apple-tree boughs—she was that Hetty’s corpse, which he had trembled to
look at the first time, and then was unwilling to turn away his eyes
from.

But presently he heard something that compelled him to listen, and made
the sense of sight less absorbing. A woman was in the witness-box, a
middle-aged woman, who spoke in a firm distinct voice. She said, “My
name is Sarah Stone. I am a widow, and keep a small shop licensed to
sell tobacco, snuff, and tea in Church Lane, Stoniton. The prisoner at
the bar is the same young woman who came, looking ill and tired, with a
basket on her arm, and asked for a lodging at my house on Saturday
evening, the 27th of February. She had taken the house for a public,
because there was a figure against the door. And when I said I didn’t
take in lodgers, the prisoner began to cry, and said she was too tired
to go anywhere else, and she only wanted a bed for one night. And her
prettiness, and her condition, and something respectable about her
clothes and looks, and the trouble she seemed to be in made me as I
couldn’t find in my heart to send her away at once. I asked her to sit
down, and gave her some tea, and asked her where she was going, and
where her friends were. She said she was going home to her friends:
they were farming folks a good way off, and she’d had a long journey
that had cost her more money than she expected, so as she’d hardly any
money left in her pocket, and was afraid of going where it would cost
her much. She had been obliged to sell most of the things out of her
basket, but she’d thankfully give a shilling for a bed. I saw no reason
why I shouldn’t take the young woman in for the night. I had only one
room, but there were two beds in it, and I told her she might stay with
me. I thought she’d been led wrong, and got into trouble, but if she
was going to her friends, it would be a good work to keep her out of
further harm.”

The witness then stated that in the night a child was born, and she
identified the baby-clothes then shown to her as those in which she had
herself dressed the child.

“Those are the clothes. I made them myself, and had kept them by me
ever since my last child was born. I took a deal of trouble both for
the child and the mother. I couldn’t help taking to the little thing
and being anxious about it. I didn’t send for a doctor, for there
seemed no need. I told the mother in the day-time she must tell me the
name of her friends, and where they lived, and let me write to them.
She said, by and by she would write herself, but not to-day. She would
have no nay, but she would get up and be dressed, in spite of
everything I could say. She said she felt quite strong enough; and it
was wonderful what spirit she showed. But I wasn’t quite easy what I
should do about her, and towards evening I made up my mind I’d go,
after Meeting was over, and speak to our minister about it. I left the
house about half-past eight o’clock. I didn’t go out at the shop door,
but at the back door, which opens into a narrow alley. I’ve only got
the ground-floor of the house, and the kitchen and bedroom both look
into the alley. I left the prisoner sitting up by the fire in the
kitchen with the baby on her lap. She hadn’t cried or seemed low at
all, as she did the night before. I thought she had a strange look with
her eyes, and she got a bit flushed towards evening. I was afraid of
the fever, and I thought I’d call and ask an acquaintance of mine, an
experienced woman, to come back with me when I went out. It was a very
dark night. I didn’t fasten the door behind me; there was no lock; it
was a latch with a bolt inside, and when there was nobody in the house
I always went out at the shop door. But I thought there was no danger
in leaving it unfastened that little while. I was longer than I meant
to be, for I had to wait for the woman that came back with me. It was
an hour and a half before we got back, and when we went in, the candle
was standing burning just as I left it, but the prisoner and the baby
were both gone. She’d taken her cloak and bonnet, but she’d left the
basket and the things in it.... I was dreadful frightened, and angry
with her for going. I didn’t go to give information, because I’d no
thought she meant to do any harm, and I knew she had money in her
pocket to buy her food and lodging. I didn’t like to set the constable
after her, for she’d a right to go from me if she liked.”

The effect of this evidence on Adam was electrical; it gave him new
force. Hetty could not be guilty of the crime—her heart must have clung
to her baby—else why should she have taken it with her? She might have
left it behind. The little creature had died naturally, and then she
had hidden it. Babies were so liable to death—and there might be the
strongest suspicions without any proof of guilt. His mind was so
occupied with imaginary arguments against such suspicions, that he
could not listen to the cross-examination by Hetty’s counsel, who
tried, without result, to elicit evidence that the prisoner had shown
some movements of maternal affection towards the child. The whole time
this witness was being examined, Hetty had stood as motionless as
before: no word seemed to arrest her ear. But the sound of the next
witness’s voice touched a chord that was still sensitive, she gave a
start and a frightened look towards him, but immediately turned away
her head and looked down at her hands as before. This witness was a
man, a rough peasant. He said:

“My name is John Olding. I am a labourer, and live at Tedd’s Hole, two
miles out of Stoniton. A week last Monday, towards one o’clock in the
afternoon, I was going towards Hetton Coppice, and about a quarter of a
mile from the coppice I saw the prisoner, in a red cloak, sitting under
a bit of a haystack not far off the stile. She got up when she saw me,
and seemed as if she’d be walking on the other way. It was a regular
road through the fields, and nothing very uncommon to see a young woman
there, but I took notice of her because she looked white and scared. I
should have thought she was a beggar-woman, only for her good clothes.
I thought she looked a bit crazy, but it was no business of mine. I
stood and looked back after her, but she went right on while she was in
sight. I had to go to the other side of the coppice to look after some
stakes. There’s a road right through it, and bits of openings here and
there, where the trees have been cut down, and some of ’em not carried
away. I didn’t go straight along the road, but turned off towards the
middle, and took a shorter way towards the spot I wanted to get to. I
hadn’t got far out of the road into one of the open places before I
heard a strange cry. I thought it didn’t come from any animal I knew,
but I wasn’t for stopping to look about just then. But it went on, and
seemed so strange to me in that place, I couldn’t help stopping to
look. I began to think I might make some money of it, if it was a new
thing. But I had hard work to tell which way it came from, and for a
good while I kept looking up at the boughs. And then I thought it came
from the ground; and there was a lot of timber-choppings lying about,
and loose pieces of turf, and a trunk or two. And I looked about among
them, but could find nothing, and at last the cry stopped. So I was for
giving it up, and I went on about my business. But when I came back the
same way pretty nigh an hour after, I couldn’t help laying down my
stakes to have another look. And just as I was stooping and laying down
the stakes, I saw something odd and round and whitish lying on the
ground under a nut-bush by the side of me. And I stooped down on hands
and knees to pick it up. And I saw it was a little baby’s hand.”

At these words a thrill ran through the court. Hetty was visibly
trembling; now, for the first time, she seemed to be listening to what
a witness said.

“There was a lot of timber-choppings put together just where the ground
went hollow, like, under the bush, and the hand came out from among
them. But there was a hole left in one place and I could see down it
and see the child’s head; and I made haste and did away the turf and
the choppings, and took out the child. It had got comfortable clothes
on, but its body was cold, and I thought it must be dead. I made haste
back with it out of the wood, and took it home to my wife. She said it
was dead, and I’d better take it to the parish and tell the constable.
And I said, ‘I’ll lay my life it’s that young woman’s child as I met
going to the coppice.’ But she seemed to be gone clean out of sight.
And I took the child on to Hetton parish and told the constable, and we
went on to Justice Hardy. And then we went looking after the young
woman till dark at night, and we went and gave information at Stoniton,
as they might stop her. And the next morning, another constable came to
me, to go with him to the spot where I found the child. And when we got
there, there was the prisoner a-sitting against the bush where I found
the child; and she cried out when she saw us, but she never offered to
move. She’d got a big piece of bread on her lap.”

Adam had given a faint groan of despair while this witness was
speaking. He had hidden his face on his arm, which rested on the
boarding in front of him. It was the supreme moment of his suffering:
Hetty was guilty; and he was silently calling to God for help. He heard
no more of the evidence, and was unconscious when the case for the
prosecution had closed—unconscious that Mr. Irwine was in the
witness-box, telling of Hetty’s unblemished character in her own parish
and of the virtuous habits in which she had been brought up. This
testimony could have no influence on the verdict, but it was given as
part of that plea for mercy which her own counsel would have made if he
had been allowed to speak for her—a favour not granted to criminals in
those stern times.

At last Adam lifted up his head, for there was a general movement round
him. The judge had addressed the jury, and they were retiring. The
decisive moment was not far off. Adam felt a shuddering horror that
would not let him look at Hetty, but she had long relapsed into her
blank hard indifference. All eyes were strained to look at her, but she
stood like a statue of dull despair.

There was a mingled rustling, whispering, and low buzzing throughout
the court during this interval. The desire to listen was suspended, and
every one had some feeling or opinion to express in undertones. Adam
sat looking blankly before him, but he did not see the objects that
were right in front of his eyes—the counsel and attorneys talking with
an air of cool business, and Mr. Irwine in low earnest conversation
with the judge—did not see Mr. Irwine sit down again in agitation and
shake his head mournfully when somebody whispered to him. The inward
action was too intense for Adam to take in outward objects until some
strong sensation roused him.

It was not very long, hardly more than a quarter of an hour, before the
knock which told that the jury had come to their decision fell as a
signal for silence on every ear. It is sublime—that sudden pause of a
great multitude which tells that one soul moves in them all. Deeper and
deeper the silence seemed to become, like the deepening night, while
the jurymen’s names were called over, and the prisoner was made to hold
up her hand, and the jury were asked for their verdict.

“Guilty.”

It was the verdict every one expected, but there was a sigh of
disappointment from some hearts that it was followed by no
recommendation to mercy. Still the sympathy of the court was not with
the prisoner. The unnaturalness of her crime stood out the more harshly
by the side of her hard immovability and obstinate silence. Even the
verdict, to distant eyes, had not appeared to move her, but those who
were near saw her trembling.

The stillness was less intense until the judge put on his black cap,
and the chaplain in his canonicals was observed behind him. Then it
deepened again, before the crier had had time to command silence. If
any sound were heard, it must have been the sound of beating hearts.
The judge spoke, “Hester Sorrel....”

The blood rushed to Hetty’s face, and then fled back again as she
looked up at the judge and kept her wide-open eyes fixed on him, as if
fascinated by fear. Adam had not yet turned towards her, there was a
deep horror, like a great gulf, between them. But at the words “and
then to be hanged by the neck till you be dead,” a piercing shriek rang
through the hall. It was Hetty’s shriek. Adam started to his feet and
stretched out his arms towards her. But the arms could not reach her:
she had fallen down in a fainting-fit, and was carried out of court.




Chapter XLIV
Arthur’s Return


When Arthur Donnithorne landed at Liverpool and read the letter from
his Aunt Lydia, briefly announcing his grand-father’s death, his first
feeling was, “Poor Grandfather! I wish I could have got to him to be
with him when he died. He might have felt or wished something at the
last that I shall never know now. It was a lonely death.”

It is impossible to say that his grief was deeper than that. Pity and
softened memory took place of the old antagonism, and in his busy
thoughts about the future, as the chaise carried him rapidly along
towards the home where he was now to be master, there was a continually
recurring effort to remember anything by which he could show a regard
for his grandfather’s wishes, without counteracting his own cherished
aims for the good of the tenants and the estate. But it is not in human
nature—only in human pretence—for a young man like Arthur, with a fine
constitution and fine spirits, thinking well of himself, believing that
others think well of him, and having a very ardent intention to give
them more and more reason for that good opinion—it is not possible for
such a young man, just coming into a splendid estate through the death
of a very old man whom he was not fond of, to feel anything very
different from exultant joy. _Now_ his real life was beginning; now he
would have room and opportunity for action, and he would use them. He
would show the Loamshire people what a fine country gentleman was; he
would not exchange that career for any other under the sun. He felt
himself riding over the hills in the breezy autumn days, looking after
favourite plans of drainage and enclosure; then admired on sombre
mornings as the best rider on the best horse in the hunt; spoken well
of on market-days as a first-rate landlord; by and by making speeches
at election dinners, and showing a wonderful knowledge of agriculture;
the patron of new ploughs and drills, the severe upbraider of negligent
landowners, and withal a jolly fellow that everybody must like—happy
faces greeting him everywhere on his own estate, and the neighbouring
families on the best terms with him. The Irwines should dine with him
every week, and have their own carriage to come in, for in some very
delicate way that Arthur would devise, the lay-impropriator of the
Hayslope tithes would insist on paying a couple of hundreds more to the
vicar; and his aunt should be as comfortable as possible, and go on
living at the Chase, if she liked, in spite of her old-maidish ways—at
least until he was married, and that event lay in the indistinct
background, for Arthur had not yet seen the woman who would play the
lady-wife to the first-rate country gentleman.

These were Arthur’s chief thoughts, so far as a man’s thoughts through
hours of travelling can be compressed into a few sentences, which are
only like the list of names telling you what are the scenes in a long
long panorama full of colour, of detail, and of life. The happy faces
Arthur saw greeting him were not pale abstractions, but real ruddy
faces, long familiar to him: Martin Poyser was there—the whole Poyser
family.

What—Hetty?

Yes; for Arthur was at ease about Hetty—not quite at ease about the
past, for a certain burning of the ears would come whenever he thought
of the scenes with Adam last August, but at ease about her present lot.
Mr. Irwine, who had been a regular correspondent, telling him all the
news about the old places and people, had sent him word nearly three
months ago that Adam Bede was not to marry Mary Burge, as he had
thought, but pretty Hetty Sorrel. Martin Poyser and Adam himself had
both told Mr. Irwine all about it—that Adam had been deeply in love
with Hetty these two years, and that now it was agreed they were to be
married in March. That stalwart rogue Adam was more susceptible than
the rector had thought; it was really quite an idyllic love affair; and
if it had not been too long to tell in a letter, he would have liked to
describe to Arthur the blushing looks and the simple strong words with
which the fine honest fellow told his secret. He knew Arthur would like
to hear that Adam had this sort of happiness in prospect.

Yes, indeed! Arthur felt there was not air enough in the room to
satisfy his renovated life, when he had read that passage in the
letter. He threw up the windows, he rushed out of doors into the
December air, and greeted every one who spoke to him with an eager
gaiety, as if there had been news of a fresh Nelson victory. For the
first time that day since he had come to Windsor, he was in true boyish
spirits. The load that had been pressing upon him was gone, the
haunting fear had vanished. He thought he could conquer his bitterness
towards Adam now—could offer him his hand, and ask to be his friend
again, in spite of that painful memory which would still make his ears
burn. He had been knocked down, and he had been forced to tell a lie:
such things make a scar, do what we will. But if Adam were the same
again as in the old days, Arthur wished to be the same too, and to have
Adam mixed up with his business and his future, as he had always
desired before the accursed meeting in August. Nay, he would do a great
deal more for Adam than he should otherwise have done, when he came
into the estate; Hetty’s husband had a special claim on him—Hetty
herself should feel that any pain she had suffered through Arthur in
the past was compensated to her a hundredfold. For really she could not
have felt much, since she had so soon made up her mind to marry Adam.

You perceive clearly what sort of picture Adam and Hetty made in the
panorama of Arthur’s thoughts on his journey homeward. It was March
now; they were soon to be married: perhaps they were already married.
And _now_ it was actually in his power to do a great deal for them.
Sweet—sweet little Hetty! The little puss hadn’t cared for him half as
much as he cared for her; for he was a great fool about her still—was
almost afraid of seeing her—indeed, had not cared much to look at any
other woman since he parted from her. That little figure coming towards
him in the Grove, those dark-fringed childish eyes, the lovely lips put
up to kiss him—that picture had got no fainter with the lapse of
months. And she would look just the same. It was impossible to think
how he could meet her: he should certainly tremble. Strange, how long
this sort of influence lasts, for he was certainly not in love with
Hetty now. He had been earnestly desiring, for months, that she should
marry Adam, and there was nothing that contributed more to his
happiness in these moments than the thought of their marriage. It was
the exaggerating effect of imagination that made his heart still beat a
little more quickly at the thought of her. When he saw the little thing
again as she really was, as Adam’s wife, at work quite prosaically in
her new home, he should perhaps wonder at the possibility of his past
feelings. Thank heaven it had turned out so well! He should have plenty
of affairs and interests to fill his life now, and not be in danger of
playing the fool again.

Pleasant the crack of the post-boy’s whip! Pleasant the sense of being
hurried along in swift ease through English scenes, so like those round
his own home, only not quite so charming. Here was a market-town—very
much like Treddleston—where the arms of the neighbouring lord of the
manor were borne on the sign of the principal inn; then mere fields and
hedges, their vicinity to a market-town carrying an agreeable
suggestion of high rent, till the land began to assume a trimmer look,
the woods were more frequent, and at length a white or red mansion
looked down from a moderate eminence, or allowed him to be aware of its
parapet and chimneys among the dense-looking masses of oaks and
elms—masses reddened now with early buds. And close at hand came the
village: the small church, with its red-tiled roof, looking humble even
among the faded half-timbered houses; the old green gravestones with
nettles round them; nothing fresh and bright but the children, opening
round eyes at the swift post-chaise; nothing noisy and busy but the
gaping curs of mysterious pedigree. What a much prettier village
Hayslope was! And it should not be neglected like this place: vigorous
repairs should go on everywhere among farm-buildings and cottages, and
travellers in post-chaises, coming along the Rosseter road, should do
nothing but admire as they went. And Adam Bede should superintend all
the repairs, for he had a share in Burge’s business now, and, if he
liked, Arthur would put some money into the concern and buy the old man
out in another year or two. That was an ugly fault in Arthur’s life,
that affair last summer, but the future should make amends. Many men
would have retained a feeling of vindictiveness towards Adam, but _he_
would not—he would resolutely overcome all littleness of that kind, for
he had certainly been very much in the wrong; and though Adam had been
harsh and violent, and had thrust on him a painful dilemma, the poor
fellow was in love, and had real provocation. No, Arthur had not an
evil feeling in his mind towards any human being: he was happy, and
would make every one else happy that came within his reach.

And here was dear old Hayslope at last, sleeping, on the hill, like a
quiet old place as it was, in the late afternoon sunlight, and opposite
to it the great shoulders of the Binton Hills, below them the purplish
blackness of the hanging woods, and at last the pale front of the
Abbey, looking out from among the oaks of the Chase, as if anxious for
the heir’s return. “Poor Grandfather! And he lies dead there. _He_ was
a young fellow once, coming into the estate and making his plans. So
the world goes round! Aunt Lydia must feel very desolate, poor thing;
but she shall be indulged as much as she indulges her fat Fido.”

The wheels of Arthur’s chaise had been anxiously listened for at the
Chase, for to-day was Friday, and the funeral had already been deferred
two days. Before it drew up on the gravel of the courtyard, all the
servants in the house were assembled to receive him with a grave,
decent welcome, befitting a house of death. A month ago, perhaps, it
would have been difficult for them to have maintained a suitable
sadness in their faces, when Mr. Arthur was come to take possession;
but the hearts of the head-servants were heavy that day for another
cause than the death of the old squire, and more than one of them was
longing to be twenty miles away, as Mr. Craig was, knowing what was to
become of Hetty Sorrel—pretty Hetty Sorrel—whom they used to see every
week. They had the partisanship of household servants who like their
places, and were not inclined to go the full length of the severe
indignation felt against him by the farming tenants, but rather to make
excuses for him; nevertheless, the upper servants, who had been on
terms of neighbourly intercourse with the Poysers for many years, could
not help feeling that the longed-for event of the young squire’s coming
into the estate had been robbed of all its pleasantness.

To Arthur it was nothing surprising that the servants looked grave and
sad: he himself was very much touched on seeing them all again, and
feeling that he was in a new relation to them. It was that sort of
pathetic emotion which has more pleasure than pain in it—which is
perhaps one of the most delicious of all states to a good-natured man,
conscious of the power to satisfy his good nature. His heart swelled
agreeably as he said, “Well, Mills, how is my aunt?”

But now Mr. Bygate, the lawyer, who had been in the house ever since
the death, came forward to give deferential greetings and answer all
questions, and Arthur walked with him towards the library, where his
Aunt Lydia was expecting him. Aunt Lydia was the only person in the
house who knew nothing about Hetty. Her sorrow as a maiden daughter was
unmixed with any other thoughts than those of anxiety about funeral
arrangements and her own future lot; and, after the manner of women,
she mourned for the father who had made her life important, all the
more because she had a secret sense that there was little mourning for
him in other hearts.

But Arthur kissed her tearful face more tenderly than he had ever done
in his life before.

“Dear Aunt,” he said affectionately, as he held her hand, “_your_ loss
is the greatest of all, but you must tell me how to try and make it up
to you all the rest of your life.”

“It was so sudden and so dreadful, Arthur,” poor Miss Lydia began,
pouring out her little plaints, and Arthur sat down to listen with
impatient patience. When a pause came, he said:

“Now, Aunt, I’ll leave you for a quarter of an hour just to go to my
own room, and then I shall come and give full attention to everything.”

“My room is all ready for me, I suppose, Mills?” he said to the butler,
who seemed to be lingering uneasily about the entrance-hall.

“Yes, sir, and there are letters for you; they are all laid on the
writing-table in your dressing-room.”

On entering the small anteroom which was called a dressing-room, but
which Arthur really used only to lounge and write in, he just cast his
eyes on the writing-table, and saw that there were several letters and
packets lying there; but he was in the uncomfortable dusty condition of
a man who has had a long hurried journey, and he must really refresh
himself by attending to his toilette a little, before he read his
letters. Pym was there, making everything ready for him, and soon, with
a delightful freshness about him, as if he were prepared to begin a new
day, he went back into his dressing-room to open his letters. The level
rays of the low afternoon sun entered directly at the window, and as
Arthur seated himself in his velvet chair with their pleasant warmth
upon him, he was conscious of that quiet well-being which perhaps you
and I have felt on a sunny afternoon when, in our brightest youth and
health, life has opened a new vista for us, and long to-morrows of
activity have stretched before us like a lovely plain which there was
no need for hurrying to look at, because it was all our own.

The top letter was placed with its address upwards: it was in Mr.
Irwine’s handwriting, Arthur saw at once; and below the address was
written, “To be delivered as soon as he arrives.” Nothing could have
been less surprising to him than a letter from Mr. Irwine at that
moment: of course, there was something he wished Arthur to know earlier
than it was possible for them to see each other. At such a time as that
it was quite natural that Irwine should have something pressing to say.
Arthur broke the seal with an agreeable anticipation of soon seeing the
writer.

_“I send this letter to meet you on your arrival, Arthur, because I may
then be at Stoniton, whither I am called by the most painful duty it
has ever been given me to perform, and it is right that you should know
what I have to tell you without delay.
    “I will not attempt to add by one word of reproach to the
    retribution that is now falling on you: any other words that I
    could write at this moment must be weak and unmeaning by the side
    of those in which I must tell you the simple fact.
    “Hetty Sorrel is in prison, and will be tried on Friday for the
    crime of child-murder.”..._


Arthur read no more. He started up from his chair and stood for a
single minute with a sense of violent convulsion in his whole frame, as
if the life were going out of him with horrible throbs; but the next
minute he had rushed out of the room, still clutching the letter—he was
hurrying along the corridor, and down the stairs into the hall. Mills
was still there, but Arthur did not see him, as he passed like a hunted
man across the hall and out along the gravel. The butler hurried out
after him as fast as his elderly limbs could run: he guessed, he knew,
where the young squire was going.

When Mills got to the stables, a horse was being saddled, and Arthur
was forcing himself to read the remaining words of the letter. He
thrust it into his pocket as the horse was led up to him, and at that
moment caught sight of Mills’ anxious face in front of him.

“Tell them I’m gone—gone to Stoniton,” he said in a muffled tone of
agitation—sprang into the saddle, and set off at a gallop.




Chapter XLV
In the Prison


Near sunset that evening an elderly gentleman was standing with his
back against the smaller entrance-door of Stoniton jail, saying a few
last words to the departing chaplain. The chaplain walked away, but the
elderly gentleman stood still, looking down on the pavement and
stroking his chin with a ruminating air, when he was roused by a sweet
clear woman’s voice, saying, “Can I get into the prison, if you
please?”

He turned his head and looked fixedly at the speaker for a few moments
without answering.

“I have seen you before,” he said at last. “Do you remember preaching
on the village green at Hayslope in Loamshire?”

“Yes, sir, surely. Are you the gentleman that stayed to listen on
horseback?”

“Yes. Why do you want to go into the prison?”

“I want to go to Hetty Sorrel, the young woman who has been condemned
to death—and to stay with her, if I may be permitted. Have you power in
the prison, sir?”

“Yes; I am a magistrate, and can get admittance for you. But did you
know this criminal, Hetty Sorrel?”

“Yes, we are kin. My own aunt married her uncle, Martin Poyser. But I
was away at Leeds, and didn’t know of this great trouble in time to get
here before to-day. I entreat you, sir, for the love of our heavenly
Father, to let me go to her and stay with her.”

“How did you know she was condemned to death, if you are only just come
from Leeds?”

“I have seen my uncle since the trial, sir. He is gone back to his home
now, and the poor sinner is forsaken of all. I beseech you to get leave
for me to be with her.”

“What! Have you courage to stay all night in the prison? She is very
sullen, and will scarcely make answer when she is spoken to.”

“Oh, sir, it may please God to open her heart still. Don’t let us
delay.”

“Come, then,” said the elderly gentleman, ringing and gaining
admission, “I know you have a key to unlock hearts.”

Dinah mechanically took off her bonnet and shawl as soon as they were
within the prison court, from the habit she had of throwing them off
when she preached or prayed, or visited the sick; and when they entered
the jailer’s room, she laid them down on a chair unthinkingly. There
was no agitation visible in her, but a deep concentrated calmness, as
if, even when she was speaking, her soul was in prayer reposing on an
unseen support.

After speaking to the jailer, the magistrate turned to her and said,
“The turnkey will take you to the prisoner’s cell and leave you there
for the night, if you desire it, but you can’t have a light during the
night—it is contrary to rules. My name is Colonel Townley: if I can
help you in anything, ask the jailer for my address and come to me. I
take some interest in this Hetty Sorrel, for the sake of that fine
fellow, Adam Bede. I happened to see him at Hayslope the same evening I
heard you preach, and recognized him in court to-day, ill as he
looked.”

“Ah, sir, can you tell me anything about him? Can you tell me where he
lodges? For my poor uncle was too much weighed down with trouble to
remember.”

“Close by here. I inquired all about him of Mr. Irwine. He lodges over
a tinman’s shop, in the street on the right hand as you entered the
prison. There is an old school-master with him. Now, good-bye: I wish
you success.”

“Farewell, sir. I am grateful to you.”

As Dinah crossed the prison court with the turnkey, the solemn evening
light seemed to make the walls higher than they were by day, and the
sweet pale face in the cap was more than ever like a white flower on
this background of gloom. The turnkey looked askance at her all the
while, but never spoke. He somehow felt that the sound of his own rude
voice would be grating just then. He struck a light as they entered the
dark corridor leading to the condemned cell, and then said in his most
civil tone, “It’ll be pretty nigh dark in the cell a’ready, but I can
stop with my light a bit, if you like.”

“Nay, friend, thank you,” said Dinah. “I wish to go in alone.”

“As you like,” said the jailer, turning the harsh key in the lock and
opening the door wide enough to admit Dinah. A jet of light from his
lantern fell on the opposite corner of the cell, where Hetty was
sitting on her straw pallet with her face buried in her knees. It
seemed as if she were asleep, and yet the grating of the lock would
have been likely to waken her.

The door closed again, and the only light in the cell was that of the
evening sky, through the small high grating—enough to discern human
faces by. Dinah stood still for a minute, hesitating to speak because
Hetty might be asleep, and looking at the motionless heap with a
yearning heart. Then she said, softly, “Hetty!”

There was a slight movement perceptible in Hetty’s frame—a start such
as might have been produced by a feeble electrical shock—but she did
not look up. Dinah spoke again, in a tone made stronger by
irrepressible emotion, “Hetty... it’s Dinah.”

Again there was a slight startled movement through Hetty’s frame, and
without uncovering her face, she raised her head a little, as if
listening.

“Hetty... Dinah is come to you.”

After a moment’s pause, Hetty lifted her head slowly and timidly from
her knees and raised her eyes. The two pale faces were looking at each
other: one with a wild hard despair in it, the other full of sad
yearning love. Dinah unconsciously opened her arms and stretched them
out.

“Don’t you know me, Hetty? Don’t you remember Dinah? Did you think I
wouldn’t come to you in trouble?”

Hetty kept her eyes fixed on Dinah’s face—at first like an animal that
gazes, and gazes, and keeps aloof.

“I’m come to be with you, Hetty—not to leave you—to stay with you—to be
your sister to the last.”

Slowly, while Dinah was speaking, Hetty rose, took a step forward, and
was clasped in Dinah’s arms.

They stood so a long while, for neither of them felt the impulse to
move apart again. Hetty, without any distinct thought of it, hung on
this something that was come to clasp her now, while she was sinking
helpless in a dark gulf; and Dinah felt a deep joy in the first sign
that her love was welcomed by the wretched lost one. The light got
fainter as they stood, and when at last they sat down on the straw
pallet together, their faces had become indistinct.

Not a word was spoken. Dinah waited, hoping for a spontaneous word from
Hetty, but she sat in the same dull despair, only clutching the hand
that held hers and leaning her cheek against Dinah’s. It was the human
contact she clung to, but she was not the less sinking into the dark
gulf.

Dinah began to doubt whether Hetty was conscious who it was that sat
beside her. She thought suffering and fear might have driven the poor
sinner out of her mind. But it was borne in upon her, as she afterwards
said, that she must not hurry God’s work: we are overhasty to speak—as
if God did not manifest himself by our silent feeling, and make his
love felt through ours. She did not know how long they sat in that way,
but it got darker and darker, till there was only a pale patch of light
on the opposite wall: all the rest was darkness. But she felt the
Divine presence more and more—nay, as if she herself were a part of it,
and it was the Divine pity that was beating in her heart and was
willing the rescue of this helpless one. At last she was prompted to
speak and find out how far Hetty was conscious of the present.

“Hetty,” she said gently, “do you know who it is that sits by your
side?”

“Yes,” Hetty answered slowly, “it’s Dinah.”

“And do you remember the time when we were at the Hall Farm together,
and that night when I told you to be sure and think of me as a friend
in trouble?”

“Yes,” said Hetty. Then, after a pause, she added, “But you can do
nothing for me. You can’t make ’em do anything. They’ll hang me o’
Monday—it’s Friday now.”

As Hetty said the last words, she clung closer to Dinah, shuddering.

“No, Hetty, I can’t save you from that death. But isn’t the suffering
less hard when you have somebody with you, that feels for you—that you
can speak to, and say what’s in your heart?... Yes, Hetty: you lean on
me: you are glad to have me with you.”

“You won’t leave me, Dinah? You’ll keep close to me?”

“No, Hetty, I won’t leave you. I’ll stay with you to the last.... But,
Hetty, there is some one else in this cell besides me, some one close
to you.”

Hetty said, in a frightened whisper, “Who?”

“Some one who has been with you through all your hours of sin and
trouble—who has known every thought you have had—has seen where you
went, where you lay down and rose up again, and all the deeds you have
tried to hide in darkness. And on Monday, when I can’t follow you—when
my arms can’t reach you—when death has parted us—He who is with us now,
and knows all, will be with you then. It makes no difference—whether we
live or die, we are in the presence of God.”

“Oh, Dinah, won’t nobody do anything for me? _Will_ they hang me for
certain?... I wouldn’t mind if they’d let me live.”

“My poor Hetty, death is very dreadful to you. I know it’s dreadful.
But if you had a friend to take care of you after death—in that other
world—some one whose love is greater than mine—who can do
everything?... If God our Father was your friend, and was willing to
save you from sin and suffering, so as you should neither know wicked
feelings nor pain again? If you could believe he loved you and would
help you, as you believe I love you and will help you, it wouldn’t be
so hard to die on Monday, would it?”

“But I can’t know anything about it,” Hetty said, with sullen sadness.

“Because, Hetty, you are shutting up your soul against him, by trying
to hide the truth. God’s love and mercy can overcome all things—our
ignorance, and weakness, and all the burden of our past wickedness—all
things but our wilful sin, sin that we cling to, and will not give up.
You believe in my love and pity for you, Hetty, but if you had not let
me come near you, if you wouldn’t have looked at me or spoken to me,
you’d have shut me out from helping you. I couldn’t have made you feel
my love; I couldn’t have told you what I felt for you. Don’t shut God’s
love out in that way, by clinging to sin.... He can’t bless you while
you have one falsehood in your soul; his pardoning mercy can’t reach
you until you open your heart to him, and say, ‘I have done this great
wickedness; O God, save me, make me pure from sin.’ While you cling to
one sin and will not part with it, it must drag you down to misery
after death, as it has dragged you to misery here in this world, my
poor, poor Hetty. It is sin that brings dread, and darkness, and
despair: there is light and blessedness for us as soon as we cast it
off. God enters our souls then, and teaches us, and brings us strength
and peace. Cast it off now, Hetty—now: confess the wickedness you have
done—the sin you have been guilty of against your Heavenly Father. Let
us kneel down together, for we are in the presence of God.”

Hetty obeyed Dinah’s movement, and sank on her knees. They still held
each other’s hands, and there was long silence. Then Dinah said,
“Hetty, we are before God. He is waiting for you to tell the truth.”

Still there was silence. At last Hetty spoke, in a tone of beseeching—

“Dinah... help me... I can’t feel anything like you...my heart is
hard.”

Dinah held the clinging hand, and all her soul went forth in her voice:

“Jesus, thou present Saviour! Thou hast known the depths of all sorrow:
thou hast entered that black darkness where God is not, and hast
uttered the cry of the forsaken. Come Lord, and gather of the fruits of
thy travail and thy pleading. Stretch forth thy hand, thou who art
mighty to save to the uttermost, and rescue this lost one. She is
clothed round with thick darkness. The fetters of her sin are upon her,
and she cannot stir to come to thee. She can only feel her heart is
hard, and she is helpless. She cries to me, thy weak creature....
Saviour! It is a blind cry to thee. Hear it! Pierce the darkness! Look
upon her with thy face of love and sorrow that thou didst turn on him
who denied thee, and melt her hard heart.

“See, Lord, I bring her, as they of old brought the sick and helpless,
and thou didst heal them. I bear her on my arms and carry her before
thee. Fear and trembling have taken hold on her, but she trembles only
at the pain and death of the body. Breathe upon her thy life-giving
Spirit, and put a new fear within her—the fear of her sin. Make her
dread to keep the accursed thing within her soul. Make her feel the
presence of the living God, who beholds all the past, to whom the
darkness is as noonday; who is waiting now, at the eleventh hour, for
her to turn to him, and confess her sin, and cry for mercy—now, before
the night of death comes, and the moment of pardon is for ever fled,
like yesterday that returneth not.

“Saviour! It is yet time—time to snatch this poor soul from everlasting
darkness. I believe—I believe in thy infinite love. What is _my_ love
or _my_ pleading? It is quenched in thine. I can only clasp her in my
weak arms and urge her with my weak pity. Thou—thou wilt breathe on the
dead soul, and it shall arise from the unanswering sleep of death.

“Yea, Lord, I see thee, coming through the darkness, coming, like the
morning, with healing on thy wings. The marks of thy agony are upon
thee—I see, I see thou art able and willing to save—thou wilt not let
her perish for ever. Come, mighty Saviour! Let the dead hear thy voice.
Let the eyes of the blind be opened. Let her see that God encompasses
her. Let her tremble at nothing but at the sin that cuts her off from
him. Melt the hard heart. Unseal the closed lips: make her cry with her
whole soul, ‘Father, I have sinned.’...”

“Dinah,” Hetty sobbed out, throwing her arms round Dinah’s neck, “I
will speak... I will tell... I won’t hide it any more.”

But the tears and sobs were too violent. Dinah raised her gently from
her knees and seated her on the pallet again, sitting down by her side.
It was a long time before the convulsed throat was quiet, and even then
they sat some time in stillness and darkness, holding each other’s
hands. At last Hetty whispered, “I did do it, Dinah... I buried it in
the wood... the little baby... and it cried... I heard it cry... ever
such a way off... all night... and I went back because it cried.”

She paused, and then spoke hurriedly in a louder, pleading tone.

“But I thought perhaps it wouldn’t die—there might somebody find it. I
didn’t kill it—I didn’t kill it myself. I put it down there and covered
it up, and when I came back it was gone.... It was because I was so
very miserable, Dinah... I didn’t know where to go... and I tried to
kill myself before, and I couldn’t. Oh, I tried so to drown myself in
the pool, and I couldn’t. I went to Windsor—I ran away—did you know? I
went to find him, as he might take care of me; and he was gone; and
then I didn’t know what to do. I daredn’t go back home again—I couldn’t
bear it. I couldn’t have bore to look at anybody, for they’d have
scorned me. I thought o’ you sometimes, and thought I’d come to you,
for I didn’t think you’d be cross with me, and cry shame on me. I
thought I could tell you. But then the other folks ’ud come to know it
at last, and I couldn’t bear that. It was partly thinking o’ you made
me come toward Stoniton; and, besides, I was so frightened at going
wandering about till I was a beggar-woman, and had nothing; and
sometimes it seemed as if I must go back to the farm sooner than that.
Oh, it was so dreadful, Dinah... I was so miserable... I wished I’d
never been born into this world. I should never like to go into the
green fields again—I hated ’em so in my misery.”

Hetty paused again, as if the sense of the past were too strong upon
her for words.

“And then I got to Stoniton, and I began to feel frightened that night,
because I was so near home. And then the little baby was born, when I
didn’t expect it; and the thought came into my mind that I might get
rid of it and go home again. The thought came all of a sudden, as I was
lying in the bed, and it got stronger and stronger... I longed so to go
back again... I couldn’t bear being so lonely and coming to beg for
want. And it gave me strength and resolution to get up and dress
myself. I felt I must do it... I didn’t know how... I thought I’d find
a pool, if I could, like that other, in the corner of the field, in the
dark. And when the woman went out, I felt as if I was strong enough to
do anything... I thought I should get rid of all my misery, and go back
home, and never let ’em know why I ran away. I put on my bonnet and
shawl, and went out into the dark street, with the baby under my cloak;
and I walked fast till I got into a street a good way off, and there
was a public, and I got some warm stuff to drink and some bread. And I
walked on and on, and I hardly felt the ground I trod on; and it got
lighter, for there came the moon—oh, Dinah, it frightened me when it
first looked at me out o’ the clouds—it never looked so before; and I
turned out of the road into the fields, for I was afraid o’ meeting
anybody with the moon shining on me. And I came to a haystack, where I
thought I could lie down and keep myself warm all night. There was a
place cut into it, where I could make me a bed, and I lay comfortable,
and the baby was warm against me; and I must have gone to sleep for a
good while, for when I woke it was morning, but not very light, and the
baby was crying. And I saw a wood a little way off... I thought there’d
perhaps be a ditch or a pond there... and it was so early I thought I
could hide the child there, and get a long way off before folks was up.
And then I thought I’d go home—I’d get rides in carts and go home and
tell ’em I’d been to try and see for a place, and couldn’t get one. I
longed so for it, Dinah, I longed so to be safe at home. I don’t know
how I felt about the baby. I seemed to hate it—it was like a heavy
weight hanging round my neck; and yet its crying went through me, and I
daredn’t look at its little hands and face. But I went on to the wood,
and I walked about, but there was no water....”

Hetty shuddered. She was silent for some moments, and when she began
again, it was in a whisper.

“I came to a place where there was lots of chips and turf, and I sat
down on the trunk of a tree to think what I should do. And all of a
sudden I saw a hole under the nut-tree, like a little grave. And it
darted into me like lightning—I’d lay the baby there and cover it with
the grass and the chips. I couldn’t kill it any other way. And I’d done
it in a minute; and, oh, it cried so, Dinah—I _couldn’t_ cover it quite
up—I thought perhaps somebody ’ud come and take care of it, and then it
wouldn’t die. And I made haste out of the wood, but I could hear it
crying all the while; and when I got out into the fields, it was as if
I was held fast—I couldn’t go away, for all I wanted so to go. And I
sat against the haystack to watch if anybody ’ud come. I was very
hungry, and I’d only a bit of bread left, but I couldn’t go away. And
after ever such a while—hours and hours—the man came—him in a
smock-frock, and he looked at me so, I was frightened, and I made haste
and went on. I thought he was going to the wood and would perhaps find
the baby. And I went right on, till I came to a village, a long way off
from the wood, and I was very sick, and faint, and hungry. I got
something to eat there, and bought a loaf. But I was frightened to
stay. I heard the baby crying, and thought the other folks heard it
too—and I went on. But I was so tired, and it was getting towards dark.
And at last, by the roadside there was a barn—ever such a way off any
house—like the barn in Abbot’s Close, and I thought I could go in there
and hide myself among the hay and straw, and nobody ’ud be likely to
come. I went in, and it was half full o’ trusses of straw, and there
was some hay too. And I made myself a bed, ever so far behind, where
nobody could find me; and I was so tired and weak, I went to sleep....
But oh, the baby’s crying kept waking me, and I thought that man as
looked at me so was come and laying hold of me. But I must have slept a
long while at last, though I didn’t know, for when I got up and went
out of the barn, I didn’t know whether it was night or morning. But it
was morning, for it kept getting lighter, and I turned back the way I’d
come. I couldn’t help it, Dinah; it was the baby’s crying made me
go—and yet I was frightened to death. I thought that man in the
smock-frock ’ud see me and know I put the baby there. But I went on,
for all that. I’d left off thinking about going home—it had gone out o’
my mind. I saw nothing but that place in the wood where I’d buried the
baby... I see it now. Oh Dinah! shall I allays see it?”

Hetty clung round Dinah and shuddered again. The silence seemed long
before she went on.

“I met nobody, for it was very early, and I got into the wood.... I
knew the way to the place... the place against the nut-tree; and I
could hear it crying at every step.... I thought it was alive.... I
don’t know whether I was frightened or glad... I don’t know what I
felt. I only know I was in the wood and heard the cry. I don’t know
what I felt till I saw the baby was gone. And when I’d put it there, I
thought I should like somebody to find it and save it from dying; but
when I saw it was gone, I was struck like a stone, with fear. I never
thought o’ stirring, I felt so weak. I knew I couldn’t run away, and
everybody as saw me ’ud know about the baby. My heart went like a
stone. I couldn’t wish or try for anything; it seemed like as if I
should stay there for ever, and nothing ’ud ever change. But they came
and took me away.”

Hetty was silent, but she shuddered again, as if there was still
something behind; and Dinah waited, for her heart was so full that
tears must come before words. At last Hetty burst out, with a sob,
“Dinah, do you think God will take away that crying and the place in
the wood, now I’ve told everything?”

“Let us pray, poor sinner. Let us fall on our knees again, and pray to
the God of all mercy.”




Chapter XLVI
The Hours of Suspense


On Sunday morning, when the church bells in Stoniton were ringing for
morning service, Bartle Massey re-entered Adam’s room, after a short
absence, and said, “Adam, here’s a visitor wants to see you.”

Adam was seated with his back towards the door, but he started up and
turned round instantly, with a flushed face and an eager look. His face
was even thinner and more worn than we have seen it before, but he was
washed and shaven this Sunday morning.

“Is it any news?” he said.

“Keep yourself quiet, my lad,” said Bartle; “keep quiet. It’s not what
you’re thinking of. It’s the young Methodist woman come from the
prison. She’s at the bottom o’ the stairs, and wants to know if you
think well to see her, for she has something to say to you about that
poor castaway; but she wouldn’t come in without your leave, she said.
She thought you’d perhaps like to go out and speak to her. These
preaching women are not so back’ard commonly,” Bartle muttered to
himself.

“Ask her to come in,” said Adam.

He was standing with his face towards the door, and as Dinah entered,
lifting up her mild grey eyes towards him, she saw at once the great
change that had come since the day when she had looked up at the tall
man in the cottage. There was a trembling in her clear voice as she put
her hand into his and said, “Be comforted, Adam Bede, the Lord has not
forsaken her.”

“Bless you for coming to her,” Adam said. “Mr. Massey brought me word
yesterday as you was come.”

They could neither of them say any more just yet, but stood before each
other in silence; and Bartle Massey, too, who had put on his
spectacles, seemed transfixed, examining Dinah’s face. But he recovered
himself first, and said, “Sit down, young woman, sit down,” placing the
chair for her and retiring to his old seat on the bed.

“Thank you, friend; I won’t sit down,” said Dinah, “for I must hasten
back. She entreated me not to stay long away. What I came for, Adam
Bede, was to pray you to go and see the poor sinner and bid her
farewell. She desires to ask your forgiveness, and it is meet you
should see her to-day, rather than in the early morning, when the time
will be short.”

Adam stood trembling, and at last sank down on his chair again.

“It won’t be,” he said, “it’ll be put off—there’ll perhaps come a
pardon. Mr. Irwine said there was hope. He said, I needn’t quite give
it up.”

“That’s a blessed thought to me,” said Dinah, her eyes filling with
tears. “It’s a fearful thing hurrying her soul away so fast.”

“But let what will be,” she added presently. “You will surely come, and
let her speak the words that are in her heart. Although her poor soul
is very dark and discerns little beyond the things of the flesh, she is
no longer hard. She is contrite, she has confessed all to me. The pride
of her heart has given way, and she leans on me for help and desires to
be taught. This fills me with trust, for I cannot but think that the
brethren sometimes err in measuring the Divine love by the sinner’s
knowledge. She is going to write a letter to the friends at the Hall
Farm for me to give them when she is gone, and when I told her you were
here, she said, ‘I should like to say good-bye to Adam and ask him to
forgive me.’ You will come, Adam? Perhaps you will even now come back
with me.”

“I can’t,” Adam said. “I can’t say good-bye while there’s any hope. I’m
listening, and listening—I can’t think o’ nothing but that. It can’t be
as she’ll die that shameful death—I can’t bring my mind to it.”

He got up from his chair again and looked away out of the window, while
Dinah stood with compassionate patience. In a minute or two he turned
round and said,

“I _will_ come, Dinah... to-morrow morning... if it must be. I may have
more strength to bear it, if I know it _must_ be. Tell her, I forgive
her; tell her I will come—at the very last.”

“I will not urge you against the voice of your own heart,” said Dinah.
“I must hasten back to her, for it is wonderful how she clings now, and
was not willing to let me out of her sight. She used never to make any
return to my affection before, but now tribulation has opened her
heart. Farewell, Adam. Our heavenly Father comfort you and strengthen
you to bear all things.” Dinah put out her hand, and Adam pressed it in
silence.

Bartle Massey was getting up to lift the stiff latch of the door for
her, but before he could reach it, she had said gently, “Farewell,
friend,” and was gone, with her light step down the stairs.

“Well,” said Bartle, taking off his spectacles and putting them into
his pocket, “if there must be women to make trouble in the world, it’s
but fair there should be women to be comforters under it; and she’s
one—she’s one. It’s a pity she’s a Methodist; but there’s no getting a
woman without some foolishness or other.”

Adam never went to bed that night. The excitement of suspense,
heightening with every hour that brought him nearer the fatal moment,
was too great, and in spite of his entreaties, in spite of his promises
that he would be perfectly quiet, the schoolmaster watched too.

“What does it matter to me, lad?” Bartle said: “a night’s sleep more or
less? I shall sleep long enough, by and by, underground. Let me keep
thee company in trouble while I can.”

It was a long and dreary night in that small chamber. Adam would
sometimes get up and tread backwards and forwards along the short space
from wall to wall; then he would sit down and hide his face, and no
sound would be heard but the ticking of the watch on the table, or the
falling of a cinder from the fire which the schoolmaster carefully
tended. Sometimes he would burst out into vehement speech,

“If I could ha’ done anything to save her—if my bearing anything would
ha’ done any good... but t’ have to sit still, and know it, and do
nothing... it’s hard for a man to bear... and to think o’ what might
ha’ been now, if it hadn’t been for _him_.... O God, it’s the very day
we should ha’ been married.”

“Aye, my lad,” said Bartle tenderly, “it’s heavy—it’s heavy. But you
must remember this: when you thought of marrying her, you’d a notion
she’d got another sort of a nature inside her. You didn’t think she
could have got hardened in that little while to do what she’s done.”

“I know—I know that,” said Adam. “I thought she was loving and
tender-hearted, and wouldn’t tell a lie, or act deceitful. How could I
think any other way? And if he’d never come near her, and I’d married
her, and been loving to her, and took care of her, she might never ha’
done anything bad. What would it ha’ signified—my having a bit o’
trouble with her? It ’ud ha’ been nothing to this.”

“There’s no knowing, my lad—there’s no knowing what might have come.
The smart’s bad for you to bear now: you must have time—you must have
time. But I’ve that opinion of you, that you’ll rise above it all and
be a man again, and there may good come out of this that we don’t see.”

“Good come out of it!” said Adam passionately. “That doesn’t alter th’
evil: _her_ ruin can’t be undone. I hate that talk o’ people, as if
there was a way o’ making amends for everything. They’d more need be
brought to see as the wrong they do can never be altered. When a man’s
spoiled his fellow-creatur’s life, he’s no right to comfort himself
with thinking good may come out of it. Somebody else’s good doesn’t
alter her shame and misery.”

“Well, lad, well,” said Bartle, in a gentle tone, strangely in contrast
with his usual peremptoriness and impatience of contradiction, “it’s
likely enough I talk foolishness. I’m an old fellow, and it’s a good
many years since I was in trouble myself. It’s easy finding reasons why
other folks should be patient.”

“Mr. Massey,” said Adam penitently, “I’m very hot and hasty. I owe you
something different; but you mustn’t take it ill of me.”

“Not I, lad—not I.”

So the night wore on in agitation till the chill dawn and the growing
light brought the tremulous quiet that comes on the brink of despair.
There would soon be no more suspense.

“Let us go to the prison now, Mr. Massey,” said Adam, when he saw the
hand of his watch at six. “If there’s any news come, we shall hear
about it.”

The people were astir already, moving rapidly, in one direction,
through the streets. Adam tried not to think where they were going, as
they hurried past him in that short space between his lodging and the
prison gates. He was thankful when the gates shut him in from seeing
those eager people.

No; there was no news come—no pardon—no reprieve.

Adam lingered in the court half an hour before he could bring himself
to send word to Dinah that he was come. But a voice caught his ear: he
could not shut out the words.

“The cart is to set off at half-past seven.”

It must be said—the last good-bye: there was no help.

In ten minutes from that time, Adam was at the door of the cell. Dinah
had sent him word that she could not come to him; she could not leave
Hetty one moment; but Hetty was prepared for the meeting.

He could not see her when he entered, for agitation deadened his
senses, and the dim cell was almost dark to him. He stood a moment
after the door closed behind him, trembling and stupefied.

But he began to see through the dimness—to see the dark eyes lifted up
to him once more, but with no smile in them. O God, how sad they
looked! The last time they had met his was when he parted from her with
his heart full of joyous hopeful love, and they looked out with a
tearful smile from a pink, dimpled, childish face. The face was marble
now; the sweet lips were pallid and half-open and quivering; the
dimples were all gone—all but one, that never went; and the eyes—O, the
worst of all was the likeness they had to Hetty’s. They were Hetty’s
eyes looking at him with that mournful gaze, as if she had come back to
him from the dead to tell him of her misery.

She was clinging close to Dinah; her cheek was against Dinah’s. It
seemed as if her last faint strength and hope lay in that contact, and
the pitying love that shone out from Dinah’s face looked like a visible
pledge of the Invisible Mercy.

When the sad eyes met—when Hetty and Adam looked at each other—she felt
the change in him too, and it seemed to strike her with fresh fear. It
was the first time she had seen any being whose face seemed to reflect
the change in herself: Adam was a new image of the dreadful past and
the dreadful present. She trembled more as she looked at him.

“Speak to him, Hetty,” Dinah said; “tell him what is in your heart.”

Hetty obeyed her, like a little child.

“Adam... I’m very sorry... I behaved very wrong to you... will you
forgive me... before I die?”

Adam answered with a half-sob, “Yes, I forgive thee Hetty. I forgave
thee long ago.”

It had seemed to Adam as if his brain would burst with the anguish of
meeting Hetty’s eyes in the first moments, but the sound of her voice
uttering these penitent words touched a chord which had been less
strained. There was a sense of relief from what was becoming
unbearable, and the rare tears came—they had never come before, since
he had hung on Seth’s neck in the beginning of his sorrow.

Hetty made an involuntary movement towards him, some of the love that
she had once lived in the midst of was come near her again. She kept
hold of Dinah’s hand, but she went up to Adam and said timidly, “Will
you kiss me again, Adam, for all I’ve been so wicked?”

Adam took the blanched wasted hand she put out to him, and they gave
each other the solemn unspeakable kiss of a lifelong parting.

“And tell him,” Hetty said, in rather a stronger voice, “tell him...
for there’s nobody else to tell him... as I went after him and couldn’t
find him... and I hated him and cursed him once... but Dinah says I
should forgive him... and I try... for else God won’t forgive me.”

There was a noise at the door of the cell now—the key was being turned
in the lock, and when the door opened, Adam saw indistinctly that there
were several faces there. He was too agitated to see more—even to see
that Mr. Irwine’s face was one of them. He felt that the last
preparations were beginning, and he could stay no longer. Room was
silently made for him to depart, and he went to his chamber in
loneliness, leaving Bartle Massey to watch and see the end.




Chapter XLVII
The Last Moment


It was a sight that some people remembered better even than their own
sorrows—the sight in that grey clear morning, when the fatal cart with
the two young women in it was descried by the waiting watching
multitude, cleaving its way towards the hideous symbol of a
deliberately inflicted sudden death.

All Stoniton had heard of Dinah Morris, the young Methodist woman who
had brought the obstinate criminal to confess, and there was as much
eagerness to see her as to see the wretched Hetty.

But Dinah was hardly conscious of the multitude. When Hetty had caught
sight of the vast crowd in the distance, she had clutched Dinah
convulsively.

“Close your eyes, Hetty,” Dinah said, “and let us pray without ceasing
to God.”

And in a low voice, as the cart went slowly along through the midst of
the gazing crowd, she poured forth her soul with the wrestling
intensity of a last pleading, for the trembling creature that clung to
her and clutched her as the only visible sign of love and pity.

Dinah did not know that the crowd was silent, gazing at her with a sort
of awe—she did not even know how near they were to the fatal spot, when
the cart stopped, and she shrank appalled at a loud shout hideous to
her ear, like a vast yell of demons. Hetty’s shriek mingled with the
sound, and they clasped each other in mutual horror.

But it was not a shout of execration—not a yell of exultant cruelty.

It was a shout of sudden excitement at the appearance of a horseman
cleaving the crowd at full gallop. The horse is hot and distressed, but
answers to the desperate spurring; the rider looks as if his eyes were
glazed by madness, and he saw nothing but what was unseen by others.
See, he has something in his hand—he is holding it up as if it were a
signal.

The Sheriff knows him: it is Arthur Donnithorne, carrying in his hand a
hard-won release from death.




Chapter XLVIII
Another Meeting in the Wood


The next day, at evening, two men were walking from opposite points
towards the same scene, drawn thither by a common memory. The scene was
the Grove by Donnithorne Chase: you know who the men were.

The old squire’s funeral had taken place that morning, the will had
been read, and now in the first breathing-space, Arthur Donnithorne had
come out for a lonely walk, that he might look fixedly at the new
future before him and confirm himself in a sad resolution. He thought
he could do that best in the Grove.

Adam too had come from Stoniton on Monday evening, and to-day he had
not left home, except to go to the family at the Hall Farm and tell
them everything that Mr. Irwine had left untold. He had agreed with the
Poysers that he would follow them to their new neighbourhood, wherever
that might be, for he meant to give up the management of the woods,
and, as soon as it was practicable, he would wind up his business with
Jonathan Burge and settle with his mother and Seth in a home within
reach of the friends to whom he felt bound by a mutual sorrow.

“Seth and me are sure to find work,” he said. “A man that’s got our
trade at his finger-ends is at home everywhere; and we must make a new
start. My mother won’t stand in the way, for she’s told me, since I
came home, she’d made up her mind to being buried in another parish, if
I wished it, and if I’d be more comfortable elsewhere. It’s wonderful
how quiet she’s been ever since I came back. It seems as if the very
greatness o’ the trouble had quieted and calmed her. We shall all be
better in a new country, though there’s some I shall be loath to leave
behind. But I won’t part from you and yours, if I can help it, Mr.
Poyser. Trouble’s made us kin.”

“Aye, lad,” said Martin. “We’ll go out o’ hearing o’ that man’s name.
But I doubt we shall ne’er go far enough for folks not to find out as
we’ve got them belonging to us as are transported o’er the seas, and
were like to be hanged. We shall have that flyin’ up in our faces, and
our children’s after us.”

That was a long visit to the Hall Farm, and drew too strongly on Adam’s
energies for him to think of seeing others, or re-entering on his old
occupations till the morrow. “But to-morrow,” he said to himself, “I’ll
go to work again. I shall learn to like it again some time, maybe; and
it’s right whether I like it or not.”

This evening was the last he would allow to be absorbed by sorrow:
suspense was gone now, and he must bear the unalterable. He was
resolved not to see Arthur Donnithorne again, if it were possible to
avoid him. He had no message to deliver from Hetty now, for Hetty had
seen Arthur. And Adam distrusted himself—he had learned to dread the
violence of his own feeling. That word of Mr. Irwine’s—that he must
remember what he had felt after giving the last blow to Arthur in the
Grove—had remained with him.

These thoughts about Arthur, like all thoughts that are charged with
strong feeling, were continually recurring, and they always called up
the image of the Grove—of that spot under the overarching boughs where
he had caught sight of the two bending figures, and had been possessed
by sudden rage.

“I’ll go and see it again to-night for the last time,” he said; “it’ll
do me good; it’ll make me feel over again what I felt when I’d knocked
him down. I felt what poor empty work it was, as soon as I’d done it,
_before_ I began to think he might be dead.”

In this way it happened that Arthur and Adam were walking towards the
same spot at the same time.

Adam had on his working-dress again, now, for he had thrown off the
other with a sense of relief as soon as he came home; and if he had had
the basket of tools over his shoulder, he might have been taken, with
his pale wasted face, for the spectre of the Adam Bede who entered the
Grove on that August evening eight months ago. But he had no basket of
tools, and he was not walking with the old erectness, looking keenly
round him; his hands were thrust in his side pockets, and his eyes
rested chiefly on the ground. He had not long entered the Grove, and
now he paused before a beech. He knew that tree well; it was the
boundary mark of his youth—the sign, to him, of the time when some of
his earliest, strongest feelings had left him. He felt sure they would
never return. And yet, at this moment, there was a stirring of
affection at the remembrance of that Arthur Donnithorne whom he had
believed in before he had come up to this beech eight months ago. It
was affection for the dead: _that_ Arthur existed no longer.

He was disturbed by the sound of approaching footsteps, but the beech
stood at a turning in the road, and he could not see who was coming
until the tall slim figure in deep mourning suddenly stood before him
at only two yards’ distance. They both started, and looked at each
other in silence. Often, in the last fortnight, Adam had imagined
himself as close to Arthur as this, assailing him with words that
should be as harrowing as the voice of remorse, forcing upon him a just
share in the misery he had caused; and often, too, he had told himself
that such a meeting had better not be. But in imagining the meeting he
had always seen Arthur, as he had met him on that evening in the Grove,
florid, careless, light of speech; and the figure before him touched
him with the signs of suffering. Adam knew what suffering was—he could
not lay a cruel finger on a bruised man. He felt no impulse that he
needed to resist. Silence was more just than reproach. Arthur was the
first to speak.

“Adam,” he said, quietly, “it may be a good thing that we have met
here, for I wished to see you. I should have asked to see you
to-morrow.”

He paused, but Adam said nothing.

“I know it is painful to you to meet me,” Arthur went on, “but it is
not likely to happen again for years to come.”

“No, sir,” said Adam, coldly, “that was what I meant to write to you
to-morrow, as it would be better all dealings should be at an end
between us, and somebody else put in my place.”

Arthur felt the answer keenly, and it was not without an effort that he
spoke again.

“It was partly on that subject I wished to speak to you. I don’t want
to lessen your indignation against me, or ask you to do anything for my
sake. I only wish to ask you if you will help me to lessen the evil
consequences of the past, which is unchangeable. I don’t mean
consequences to myself, but to others. It is but little I can do, I
know. I know the worst consequences will remain; but something may be
done, and you can help me. Will you listen to me patiently?”

“Yes, sir,” said Adam, after some hesitation; “I’ll hear what it is. If
I can help to mend anything, I will. Anger ’ull mend nothing, I know.
We’ve had enough o’ that.”

“I was going to the Hermitage,” said Arthur. “Will you go there with me
and sit down? We can talk better there.”

The Hermitage had never been entered since they left it together, for
Arthur had locked up the key in his desk. And now, when he opened the
door, there was the candle burnt out in the socket; there was the chair
in the same place where Adam remembered sitting; there was the
waste-paper basket full of scraps, and deep down in it, Arthur felt in
an instant, there was the little pink silk handkerchief. It would have
been painful to enter this place if their previous thoughts had been
less painful.

They sat down opposite each other in the old places, and Arthur said,
“I’m going away, Adam; I’m going into the army.”

Poor Arthur felt that Adam ought to be affected by this
announcement—ought to have a movement of sympathy towards him. But
Adam’s lips remained firmly closed, and the expression of his face
unchanged.

“What I want to say to you,” Arthur continued, “is this: one of my
reasons for going away is that no one else may leave Hayslope—may leave
their home on my account. I would do anything, there is no sacrifice I
would not make, to prevent any further injury to others through
my—through what has happened.”

Arthur’s words had precisely the opposite effect to that he had
anticipated. Adam thought he perceived in them that notion of
compensation for irretrievable wrong, that self-soothing attempt to
make evil bear the same fruits as good, which most of all roused his
indignation. He was as strongly impelled to look painful facts right in
the face as Arthur was to turn away his eyes from them. Moreover, he
had the wakeful suspicious pride of a poor man in the presence of a
rich man. He felt his old severity returning as he said, “The time’s
past for that, sir. A man should make sacrifices to keep clear of doing
a wrong; sacrifices won’t undo it when it’s done. When people’s
feelings have got a deadly wound, they can’t be cured with favours.”

“Favours!” said Arthur, passionately; “no; how can you suppose I meant
that? But the Poysers—Mr. Irwine tells me the Poysers mean to leave the
place where they have lived so many years—for generations. Don’t you
see, as Mr. Irwine does, that if they could be persuaded to overcome
the feeling that drives them away, it would be much better for them in
the end to remain on the old spot, among the friends and neighbours who
know them?”

“That’s true,” said Adam coldly. “But then, sir, folks’s feelings are
not so easily overcome. It’ll be hard for Martin Poyser to go to a
strange place, among strange faces, when he’s been bred up on the Hall
Farm, and his father before him; but then it ’ud be harder for a man
with his feelings to stay. I don’t see how the thing’s to be made any
other than hard. There’s a sort o’ damage, sir, that can’t be made up
for.”

Arthur was silent some moments. In spite of other feelings dominant in
him this evening, his pride winced under Adam’s mode of treating him.
Wasn’t he himself suffering? Was not he too obliged to renounce his
most cherished hopes? It was now as it had been eight months ago—Adam
was forcing Arthur to feel more intensely the irrevocableness of his
own wrong-doing. He was presenting the sort of resistance that was the
most irritating to Arthur’s eager ardent nature. But his anger was
subdued by the same influence that had subdued Adam’s when they first
confronted each other—by the marks of suffering in a long familiar
face. The momentary struggle ended in the feeling that he could bear a
great deal from Adam, to whom he had been the occasion of bearing so
much; but there was a touch of pleading, boyish vexation in his tone as
he said, “But people may make injuries worse by unreasonable conduct—by
giving way to anger and satisfying that for the moment, instead of
thinking what will be the effect in the future.

“If I were going to stay here and act as landlord,” he added presently,
with still more eagerness—“if I were careless about what I’ve done—what
I’ve been the cause of, you would have some excuse, Adam, for going
away and encouraging others to go. You would have some excuse then for
trying to make the evil worse. But when I tell you I’m going away for
years—when you know what that means for me, how it cuts off every plan
of happiness I’ve ever formed—it is impossible for a sensible man like
you to believe that there is any real ground for the Poysers refusing
to remain. I know their feeling about disgrace—Mr. Irwine has told me
all; but he is of opinion that they might be persuaded out of this idea
that they are disgraced in the eyes of their neighbours, and that they
can’t remain on my estate, if you would join him in his efforts—if you
would stay yourself and go on managing the old woods.”

Arthur paused a moment and then added, pleadingly, “You know that’s a
good work to do for the sake of other people, besides the owner. And
you don’t know but that they may have a better owner soon, whom you
will like to work for. If I die, my cousin Tradgett will have the
estate and take my name. He is a good fellow.”

Adam could not help being moved: it was impossible for him not to feel
that this was the voice of the honest warm-hearted Arthur whom he had
loved and been proud of in old days; but nearer memories would not be
thrust away. He was silent; yet Arthur saw an answer in his face that
induced him to go on, with growing earnestness.

“And then, if you would talk to the Poysers—if you would talk the
matter over with Mr. Irwine—he means to see you to-morrow—and then if
you would join your arguments to his to prevail on them not to go.... I
know, of course, that they would not accept any favour from me—I mean
nothing of that kind—but I’m sure they would suffer less in the end.
Irwine thinks so too. And Mr. Irwine is to have the chief authority on
the estate—he has consented to undertake that. They will really be
under no man but one whom they respect and like. It would be the same
with you, Adam, and it could be nothing but a desire to give me worse
pain that could incline you to go.”

Arthur was silent again for a little while, and then said, with some
agitation in his voice, “I wouldn’t act so towards you, I know. If you
were in my place and I in yours, I should try to help you to do the
best.”

Adam made a hasty movement on his chair and looked on the ground.
Arthur went on, “Perhaps you’ve never done anything you’ve had bitterly
to repent of in your life, Adam; if you had, you would be more
generous. You would know then that it’s worse for me than for you.”

Arthur rose from his seat with the last words, and went to one of the
windows, looking out and turning his back on Adam, as he continued,
passionately,

“Haven’t _I_ loved her too? Didn’t I see her yesterday? Shan’t I carry
the thought of her about with me as much as you will? And don’t you
think you would suffer more if you’d been in fault?”

There was silence for several minutes, for the struggle in Adam’s mind
was not easily decided. Facile natures, whose emotions have little
permanence, can hardly understand how much inward resistance he
overcame before he rose from his seat and turned towards Arthur. Arthur
heard the movement, and turning round, met the sad but softened look
with which Adam said,

“It’s true what you say, sir. I’m hard—it’s in my nature. I was too
hard with my father, for doing wrong. I’ve been a bit hard t’ everybody
but _her_. I felt as if nobody pitied her enough—her suffering cut into
me so; and when I thought the folks at the farm were too hard with her,
I said I’d never be hard to anybody myself again. But feeling overmuch
about her has perhaps made me unfair to you. I’ve known what it is in
my life to repent and feel it’s too late. I felt I’d been too harsh to
my father when he was gone from me—I feel it now, when I think of him.
I’ve no right to be hard towards them as have done wrong and repent.”

Adam spoke these words with the firm distinctness of a man who is
resolved to leave nothing unsaid that he is bound to say; but he went
on with more hesitation.

“I wouldn’t shake hands with you once, sir, when you asked me—but if
you’re willing to do it now, for all I refused then...”

Arthur’s white hand was in Adam’s large grasp in an instant, and with
that action there was a strong rush, on both sides, of the old, boyish
affection.

“Adam,” Arthur said, impelled to full confession now, “it would never
have happened if I’d known you loved her. That would have helped to
save me from it. And I _did_ struggle: I never meant to injure her. I
deceived you afterwards—and that led on to worse; but I thought it was
forced upon me, I thought it was the best thing I could do. And in that
letter I told her to let me know if she were in any trouble: don’t
think I would not have done everything I could. But I was all wrong
from the very first, and horrible wrong has come of it. God knows, I’d
give my life if I could undo it.”

They sat down again opposite each other, and Adam said, tremulously,
“How did she seem when you left her, sir?”

“Don’t ask me, Adam,” Arthur said; “I feel sometimes as if I should go
mad with thinking of her looks and what she said to me, and then, that
I couldn’t get a full pardon—that I couldn’t save her from that
wretched fate of being transported—that I can do nothing for her all
those years; and she may die under it, and never know comfort any
more.”

“Ah, sir,” said Adam, for the first time feeling his own pain merged in
sympathy for Arthur, “you and me’ll often be thinking o’ the same
thing, when we’re a long way off one another. I’ll pray God to help
you, as I pray him to help me.”

“But there’s that sweet woman—that Dinah Morris,” Arthur said, pursuing
his own thoughts and not knowing what had been the sense of Adam’s
words, “she says she shall stay with her to the very last moment—till
she goes; and the poor thing clings to her as if she found some comfort
in her. I could worship that woman; I don’t know what I should do if
she were not there. Adam, you will see her when she comes back. I could
say nothing to her yesterday—nothing of what I felt towards her. Tell
her,” Arthur went on hurriedly, as if he wanted to hide the emotion
with which he spoke, while he took off his chain and watch, “tell her I
asked you to give her this in remembrance of me—of the man to whom she
is the one source of comfort, when he thinks of... I know she doesn’t
care about such things—or anything else I can give her for its own
sake. But she will use the watch—I shall like to think of her using
it.”

“I’ll give it to her, sir,” Adam said, “and tell her your words. She
told me she should come back to the people at the Hall Farm.”

“And you _will_ persuade the Poysers to stay, Adam?” said Arthur,
reminded of the subject which both of them had forgotten in the first
interchange of revived friendship. “You _will_ stay yourself, and help
Mr. Irwine to carry out the repairs and improvements on the estate?”

“There’s one thing, sir, that perhaps you don’t take account of,” said
Adam, with hesitating gentleness, “and that was what made me hang back
longer. You see, it’s the same with both me and the Poysers: if we
stay, it’s for our own worldly interest, and it looks as if we’d put up
with anything for the sake o’ that. I know that’s what they’ll feel,
and I can’t help feeling a little of it myself. When folks have got an
honourable independent spirit, they don’t like to do anything that
might make ’em seem base-minded.”

“But no one who knows you will think that, Adam. That is not a reason
strong enough against a course that is really more generous, more
unselfish than the other. And it will be known—it shall be made known,
that both you and the Poysers stayed at my entreaty. Adam, don’t try to
make things worse for me; I’m punished enough without that.”

“No, sir, no,” Adam said, looking at Arthur with mournful affection.
“God forbid I should make things worse for you. I used to wish I could
do it, in my passion—but that was when I thought you didn’t feel
enough. I’ll stay, sir, I’ll do the best I can. It’s all I’ve got to
think of now—to do my work well and make the world a bit better place
for them as can enjoy it.”

“Then we’ll part now, Adam. You will see Mr. Irwine to-morrow, and
consult with him about everything.”

“Are you going soon, sir?” said Adam.

“As soon as possible—after I’ve made the necessary arrangements.
Good-bye, Adam. I shall think of you going about the old place.”

“Good-bye, sir. God bless you.”

The hands were clasped once more, and Adam left the Hermitage, feeling
that sorrow was more bearable now hatred was gone.

As soon as the door was closed behind him, Arthur went to the
waste-paper basket and took out the little pink silk handkerchief.




Book Sixth




Chapter XLIX
At the Hall Farm


The first autumnal afternoon sunshine of 1801—more than eighteen months
after that parting of Adam and Arthur in the Hermitage—was on the yard
at the Hall Farm; and the bull-dog was in one of his most excited
moments, for it was that hour of the day when the cows were being
driven into the yard for their afternoon milking. No wonder the patient
beasts ran confusedly into the wrong places, for the alarming din of
the bull-dog was mingled with more distant sounds which the timid
feminine creatures, with pardonable superstition, imagined also to have
some relation to their own movements—with the tremendous crack of the
waggoner’s whip, the roar of his voice, and the booming thunder of the
waggon, as it left the rick-yard empty of its golden load.

The milking of the cows was a sight Mrs. Poyser loved, and at this hour
on mild days she was usually standing at the house door, with her
knitting in her hands, in quiet contemplation, only heightened to a
keener interest when the vicious yellow cow, who had once kicked over a
pailful of precious milk, was about to undergo the preventive
punishment of having her hinder-legs strapped.

To-day, however, Mrs. Poyser gave but a divided attention to the
arrival of the cows, for she was in eager discussion with Dinah, who
was stitching Mr. Poyser’s shirt-collars, and had borne patiently to
have her thread broken three times by Totty pulling at her arm with a
sudden insistence that she should look at “Baby,” that is, at a large
wooden doll with no legs and a long skirt, whose bald head Totty,
seated in her small chair at Dinah’s side, was caressing and pressing
to her fat cheek with much fervour. Totty is larger by more than two
years’ growth than when you first saw her, and she has on a black frock
under her pinafore. Mrs. Poyser too has on a black gown, which seems to
heighten the family likeness between her and Dinah. In other respects
there is little outward change now discernible in our old friends, or
in the pleasant house-place, bright with polished oak and pewter.

“I never saw the like to you, Dinah,” Mrs. Poyser was saying, “when
you’ve once took anything into your head: there’s no more moving you
than the rooted tree. You may say what you like, but I don’t believe
_that’s_ religion; for what’s the Sermon on the Mount about, as you’re
so fond o’ reading to the boys, but doing what other folks ’ud have you
do? But if it was anything unreasonable they wanted you to do, like
taking your cloak off and giving it to ’em, or letting ’em slap you i’
the face, I daresay you’d be ready enough. It’s only when one ’ud have
you do what’s plain common sense and good for yourself, as you’re
obstinate th’ other way.”

“Nay, dear Aunt,” said Dinah, smiling slightly as she went on with her
work, “I’m sure your wish ’ud be a reason for me to do anything that I
didn’t feel it was wrong to do.”

“Wrong! You drive me past bearing. What is there wrong, I should like
to know, i’ staying along wi’ your own friends, as are th’ happier for
having you with ’em an’ are willing to provide for you, even if your
work didn’t more nor pay ’em for the bit o’ sparrow’s victual y’ eat
and the bit o’ rag you put on? An’ who is it, I should like to know, as
you’re bound t’ help and comfort i’ the world more nor your own flesh
and blood—an’ me th’ only aunt you’ve got above-ground, an’ am brought
to the brink o’ the grave welly every winter as comes, an’ there’s the
child as sits beside you ’ull break her little heart when you go, an’
the grandfather not been dead a twelvemonth, an’ your uncle ’ull miss
you so as never was—a-lighting his pipe an’ waiting on him, an’ now I
can trust you wi’ the butter, an’ have had all the trouble o’ teaching
you, and there’s all the sewing to be done, an’ I must have a strange
gell out o’ Treddles’on to do it—an’ all because you must go back to
that bare heap o’ stones as the very crows fly over an’ won’t stop at.”

“Dear Aunt Rachel,” said Dinah, looking up in Mrs. Poyser’s face, “it’s
your kindness makes you say I’m useful to you. You don’t really want me
now, for Nancy and Molly are clever at their work, and you’re in good
health now, by the blessing of God, and my uncle is of a cheerful
countenance again, and you have neighbours and friends not a few—some
of them come to sit with my uncle almost daily. Indeed, you will not
miss me; and at Snowfield there are brethren and sisters in great need,
who have none of those comforts you have around you. I feel that I am
called back to those amongst whom my lot was first cast. I feel drawn
again towards the hills where I used to be blessed in carrying the word
of life to the sinful and desolate.”

“You feel! Yes,” said Mrs. Poyser, returning from a parenthetic glance
at the cows, “that’s allays the reason I’m to sit down wi’, when you’ve
a mind to do anything contrairy. What do you want to be preaching for
more than you’re preaching now? Don’t you go off, the Lord knows where,
every Sunday a-preaching and praying? An’ haven’t you got Methodists
enow at Treddles’on to go and look at, if church-folks’s faces are too
handsome to please you? An’ isn’t there them i’ this parish as you’ve
got under hand, and they’re like enough to make friends wi’ Old Harry
again as soon as your back’s turned? There’s that Bessy Cranage—she’ll
be flaunting i’ new finery three weeks after you’re gone, I’ll be
bound. She’ll no more go on in her new ways without you than a dog ’ull
stand on its hind-legs when there’s nobody looking. But I suppose it
doesna matter so much about folks’s souls i’ this country, else you’d
be for staying with your own aunt, for she’s none so good but what you
might help her to be better.”

There was a certain something in Mrs. Poyser’s voice just then, which
she did not wish to be noticed, so she turned round hastily to look at
the clock, and said: “See there! It’s tea-time; an’ if Martin’s i’ the
rick-yard, he’ll like a cup. Here, Totty, my chicken, let mother put
your bonnet on, and then you go out into the rick-yard and see if
Father’s there, and tell him he mustn’t go away again without coming t’
have a cup o’ tea; and tell your brothers to come in too.”

Totty trotted off in her flapping bonnet, while Mrs. Poyser set out the
bright oak table and reached down the tea-cups.

“You talk o’ them gells Nancy and Molly being clever i’ their work,”
she began again; “it’s fine talking. They’re all the same, clever or
stupid—one can’t trust ’em out o’ one’s sight a minute. They want
somebody’s eye on ’em constant if they’re to be kept to their work. An’
suppose I’m ill again this winter, as I was the winter before last?
Who’s to look after ’em then, if you’re gone? An’ there’s that blessed
child—something’s sure t’ happen to her—they’ll let her tumble into the
fire, or get at the kettle wi’ the boiling lard in’t, or some mischief
as ’ull lame her for life; an’ it’ll be all your fault, Dinah.”

“Aunt,” said Dinah, “I promise to come back to you in the winter if
you’re ill. Don’t think I will ever stay away from you if you’re in
real want of me. But, indeed, it is needful for my own soul that I
should go away from this life of ease and luxury in which I have all
things too richly to enjoy—at least that I should go away for a short
space. No one can know but myself what are my inward needs, and the
besetments I am most in danger from. Your wish for me to stay is not a
call of duty which I refuse to hearken to because it is against my own
desires; it is a temptation that I must resist, lest the love of the
creature should become like a mist in my soul shutting out the heavenly
light.”

“It passes my cunning to know what you mean by ease and luxury,” said
Mrs. Poyser, as she cut the bread and butter. “It’s true there’s good
victual enough about you, as nobody shall ever say I don’t provide
enough and to spare, but if there’s ever a bit o’ odds an’ ends as
nobody else ’ud eat, you’re sure to pick it out... but look there!
There’s Adam Bede a-carrying the little un in. I wonder how it is he’s
come so early.”

Mrs. Poyser hastened to the door for the pleasure of looking at her
darling in a new position, with love in her eyes but reproof on her
tongue.

“Oh for shame, Totty! Little gells o’ five year old should be ashamed
to be carried. Why, Adam, she’ll break your arm, such a big gell as
that; set her down—for shame!”

“Nay, nay,” said Adam, “I can lift her with my hand—I’ve no need to
take my arm to it.”

Totty, looking as serenely unconscious of remark as a fat white puppy,
was set down at the door-place, and the mother enforced her reproof
with a shower of kisses.

“You’re surprised to see me at this hour o’ the day,” said Adam.

“Yes, but come in,” said Mrs. Poyser, making way for him; “there’s no
bad news, I hope?”

“No, nothing bad,” Adam answered, as he went up to Dinah and put out
his hand to her. She had laid down her work and stood up,
instinctively, as he approached her. A faint blush died away from her
pale cheek as she put her hand in his and looked up at him timidly.

“It’s an errand to you brought me, Dinah,” said Adam, apparently
unconscious that he was holding her hand all the while; “mother’s a bit
ailing, and she’s set her heart on your coming to stay the night with
her, if you’ll be so kind. I told her I’d call and ask you as I came
from the village. She overworks herself, and I can’t persuade her to
have a little girl t’ help her. I don’t know what’s to be done.”

Adam released Dinah’s hand as he ceased speaking, and was expecting an
answer, but before she had opened her lips Mrs. Poyser said, “Look
there now! I told you there was folks enow t’ help i’ this parish,
wi’out going further off. There’s Mrs. Bede getting as old and cas’alty
as can be, and she won’t let anybody but you go a-nigh her hardly. The
folks at Snowfield have learnt by this time to do better wi’out you nor
she can.”

“I’ll put my bonnet on and set off directly, if you don’t want anything
done first, Aunt,” said Dinah, folding up her work.

“Yes, I do want something done. I want you t’ have your tea, child;
it’s all ready—and you’ll have a cup, Adam, if y’ arena in too big a
hurry.”

“Yes, I’ll have a cup, please; and then I’ll walk with Dinah. I’m going
straight home, for I’ve got a lot o’ timber valuations to write out.”

“Why, Adam, lad, are you here?” said Mr. Poyser, entering warm and
coatless, with the two black-eyed boys behind him, still looking as
much like him as two small elephants are like a large one. “How is it
we’ve got sight o’ you so long before foddering-time?”

“I came on an errand for Mother,” said Adam. “She’s got a touch of her
old complaint, and she wants Dinah to go and stay with her a bit.”

“Well, we’ll spare her for your mother a little while,” said Mr.
Poyser. “But we wonna spare her for anybody else, on’y her husband.”

“Husband!” said Marty, who was at the most prosaic and literal period
of the boyish mind. “Why, Dinah hasn’t got a husband.”

“Spare her?” said Mrs. Poyser, placing a seed-cake on the table and
then seating herself to pour out the tea. “But we must spare her, it
seems, and not for a husband neither, but for her own megrims. Tommy,
what are you doing to your little sister’s doll? Making the child
naughty, when she’d be good if you’d let her. You shanna have a morsel
o’ cake if you behave so.”

Tommy, with true brotherly sympathy, was amusing himself by turning
Dolly’s skirt over her bald head and exhibiting her truncated body to
the general scorn—an indignity which cut Totty to the heart.

“What do you think Dinah’s been a-telling me since dinner-time?” Mrs.
Poyser continued, looking at her husband.

“Eh! I’m a poor un at guessing,” said Mr. Poyser.

“Why, she means to go back to Snowfield again, and work i’ the mill,
and starve herself, as she used to do, like a creatur as has got no
friends.”

Mr. Poyser did not readily find words to express his unpleasant
astonishment; he only looked from his wife to Dinah, who had now seated
herself beside Totty, as a bulwark against brotherly playfulness, and
was busying herself with the children’s tea. If he had been given to
making general reflections, it would have occurred to him that there
was certainly a change come over Dinah, for she never used to change
colour; but, as it was, he merely observed that her face was flushed at
that moment. Mr. Poyser thought she looked the prettier for it: it was
a flush no deeper than the petal of a monthly rose. Perhaps it came
because her uncle was looking at her so fixedly; but there is no
knowing, for just then Adam was saying, with quiet surprise, “Why, I
hoped Dinah was settled among us for life. I thought she’d given up the
notion o’ going back to her old country.”

“Thought! Yes,” said Mrs. Poyser, “and so would anybody else ha’
thought, as had got their right end up’ards. But I suppose you must
_be_ a Methodist to know what a Methodist ’ull do. It’s ill guessing
what the bats are flying after.”

“Why, what have we done to you. Dinah, as you must go away from us?”
said Mr. Poyser, still pausing over his tea-cup. “It’s like breaking
your word, welly, for your aunt never had no thought but you’d make
this your home.”

“Nay, Uncle,” said Dinah, trying to be quite calm. “When I first came,
I said it was only for a time, as long as I could be of any comfort to
my aunt.”

“Well, an’ who said you’d ever left off being a comfort to me?” said
Mrs. Poyser. “If you didna mean to stay wi’ me, you’d better never ha’
come. Them as ha’ never had a cushion don’t miss it.”

“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Poyser, who objected to exaggerated views. “Thee
mustna say so; we should ha’ been ill off wi’out her, Lady day was a
twelvemont’. We mun be thankful for that, whether she stays or no. But
I canna think what she mun leave a good home for, to go back int’ a
country where the land, most on’t, isna worth ten shillings an acre,
rent and profits.”

“Why, that’s just the reason she wants to go, as fur as she can give a
reason,” said Mrs. Poyser. “She says this country’s too comfortable,
an’ there’s too much t’ eat, an’ folks arena miserable enough. And
she’s going next week. I canna turn her, say what I will. It’s allays
the way wi’ them meek-faced people; you may’s well pelt a bag o’
feathers as talk to ’em. But I say it isna religion, to be so
obstinate—is it now, Adam?”

Adam saw that Dinah was more disturbed than he had ever seen her by any
matter relating to herself, and, anxious to relieve her, if possible,
he said, looking at her affectionately, “Nay, I can’t find fault with
anything Dinah does. I believe her thoughts are better than our
guesses, let ’em be what they may. I should ha’ been thankful for her
to stay among us, but if she thinks well to go, I wouldn’t cross her,
or make it hard to her by objecting. We owe her something different to
that.”

As it often happens, the words intended to relieve her were just too
much for Dinah’s susceptible feelings at this moment. The tears came
into the grey eyes too fast to be hidden and she got up hurriedly,
meaning it to be understood that she was going to put on her bonnet.

“Mother, what’s Dinah crying for?” said Totty. “She isn’t a naughty
dell.”

“Thee’st gone a bit too fur,” said Mr. Poyser. “We’ve no right t’
interfere with her doing as she likes. An’ thee’dst be as angry as
could be wi’ me, if I said a word against anything she did.”

“Because you’d very like be finding fault wi’out reason,” said Mrs.
Poyser. “But there’s reason i’ what I say, else I shouldna say it. It’s
easy talking for them as can’t love her so well as her own aunt does.
An’ me got so used to her! I shall feel as uneasy as a new sheared
sheep when she’s gone from me. An’ to think of her leaving a parish
where she’s so looked on. There’s Mr. Irwine makes as much of her as if
she was a lady, for all her being a Methodist, an’ wi’ that maggot o’
preaching in her head—God forgi’e me if I’m i’ the wrong to call it
so.”

“Aye,” said Mr. Poyser, looking jocose; “but thee dostna tell Adam what
he said to thee about it one day. The missis was saying, Adam, as the
preaching was the only fault to be found wi’ Dinah, and Mr. Irwine
says, ‘But you mustn’t find fault with her for that, Mrs. Poyser; you
forget she’s got no husband to preach to. I’ll answer for it, you give
Poyser many a good sermon.’ The parson had thee there,” Mr. Poyser
added, laughing unctuously. “I told Bartle Massey on it, an’ he laughed
too.”

“Yes, it’s a small joke sets men laughing when they sit a-staring at
one another with a pipe i’ their mouths,” said Mrs. Poyser. “Give
Bartle Massey his way and he’d have all the sharpness to himself. If
the chaff-cutter had the making of us, we should all be straw, I
reckon. Totty, my chicken, go upstairs to cousin Dinah, and see what
she’s doing, and give her a pretty kiss.”

This errand was devised for Totty as a means of checking certain
threatening symptoms about the corners of the mouth; for Tommy, no
longer expectant of cake, was lifting up his eyelids with his
forefingers and turning his eyeballs towards Totty in a way that she
felt to be disagreeably personal.

“You’re rare and busy now—eh, Adam?” said Mr. Poyser. “Burge’s getting
so bad wi’ his asthmy, it’s well if he’ll ever do much riding about
again.”

“Yes, we’ve got a pretty bit o’ building on hand now,” said Adam, “what
with the repairs on th’ estate, and the new houses at Treddles’on.”

“I’ll bet a penny that new house Burge is building on his own bit o’
land is for him and Mary to go to,” said Mr. Poyser. “He’ll be for
laying by business soon, I’ll warrant, and be wanting you to take to it
all and pay him so much by th’ ’ear. We shall see you living on th’
hill before another twelvemont’s over.”

“Well,” said Adam, “I should like t’ have the business in my own hands.
It isn’t as I mind much about getting any more money. We’ve enough and
to spare now, with only our two selves and mother; but I should like t’
have my own way about things—I could try plans then, as I can’t do
now.”

“You get on pretty well wi’ the new steward, I reckon?” said Mr.
Poyser.

“Yes, yes; he’s a sensible man enough; understands farming—he’s
carrying on the draining, and all that, capital. You must go some day
towards the Stonyshire side and see what alterations they’re making.
But he’s got no notion about buildings. You can so seldom get hold of a
man as can turn his brains to more nor one thing; it’s just as if they
wore blinkers like th’ horses and could see nothing o’ one side of ’em.
Now, there’s Mr. Irwine has got notions o’ building more nor most
architects; for as for th’ architects, they set up to be fine fellows,
but the most of ’em don’t know where to set a chimney so as it shan’t
be quarrelling with a door. My notion is, a practical builder that’s
got a bit o’ taste makes the best architect for common things; and I’ve
ten times the pleasure i’ seeing after the work when I’ve made the plan
myself.”

Mr. Poyser listened with an admiring interest to Adam’s discourse on
building, but perhaps it suggested to him that the building of his
corn-rick had been proceeding a little too long without the control of
the master’s eye, for when Adam had done speaking, he got up and said,
“Well, lad, I’ll bid you good-bye now, for I’m off to the rick-yard
again.”

Adam rose too, for he saw Dinah entering, with her bonnet on and a
little basket in her hand, preceded by Totty.

“You’re ready, I see, Dinah,” Adam said; “so we’ll set off, for the
sooner I’m at home the better.”

“Mother,” said Totty, with her treble pipe, “Dinah was saying her
prayers and crying ever so.”

“Hush, hush,” said the mother, “little gells mustn’t chatter.”

Whereupon the father, shaking with silent laughter, set Totty on the
white deal table and desired her to kiss him. Mr. and Mrs. Poyser, you
perceive, had no correct principles of education.

“Come back to-morrow if Mrs. Bede doesn’t want you, Dinah,” said Mrs.
Poyser: “but you can stay, you know, if she’s ill.”

So, when the good-byes had been said, Dinah and Adam left the Hall Farm
together.




Chapter L
In the Cottage


Adam did not ask Dinah to take his arm when they got out into the lane.
He had never yet done so, often as they had walked together, for he had
observed that she never walked arm-in-arm with Seth, and he thought,
perhaps, that kind of support was not agreeable to her. So they walked
apart, though side by side, and the close poke of her little black
bonnet hid her face from him.

“You can’t be happy, then, to make the Hall Farm your home, Dinah?”
Adam said, with the quiet interest of a brother, who has no anxiety for
himself in the matter. “It’s a pity, seeing they’re so fond of you.”

“You know, Adam, my heart is as their heart, so far as love for them
and care for their welfare goes, but they are in no present need. Their
sorrows are healed, and I feel that I am called back to my old work, in
which I found a blessing that I have missed of late in the midst of too
abundant worldly good. I know it is a vain thought to flee from the
work that God appoints us, for the sake of finding a greater blessing
to our own souls, as if we could choose for ourselves where we shall
find the fulness of the Divine Presence, instead of seeking it where
alone it is to be found, in loving obedience. But now, I believe, I
have a clear showing that my work lies elsewhere—at least for a time.
In the years to come, if my aunt’s health should fail, or she should
otherwise need me, I shall return.”

“You know best, Dinah,” said Adam. “I don’t believe you’d go against
the wishes of them that love you, and are akin to you, without a good
and sufficient reason in your own conscience. I’ve no right to say
anything about my being sorry: you know well enough what cause I have
to put you above every other friend I’ve got; and if it had been
ordered so that you could ha’ been my sister, and lived with us all our
lives, I should ha’ counted it the greatest blessing as could happen to
us now. But Seth tells me there’s no hope o’ that: your feelings are
different, and perhaps I’m taking too much upon me to speak about it.”

Dinah made no answer, and they walked on in silence for some yards,
till they came to the stone stile, where, as Adam had passed through
first and turned round to give her his hand while she mounted the
unusually high step, she could not prevent him from seeing her face. It
struck him with surprise, for the grey eyes, usually so mild and grave,
had the bright uneasy glance which accompanies suppressed agitation,
and the slight flush in her cheeks, with which she had come downstairs,
was heightened to a deep rose-colour. She looked as if she were only
sister to Dinah. Adam was silent with surprise and conjecture for some
moments, and then he said, “I hope I’ve not hurt or displeased you by
what I’ve said, Dinah. Perhaps I was making too free. I’ve no wish
different from what you see to be best, and I’m satisfied for you to
live thirty mile off, if you think it right. I shall think of you just
as much as I do now, for you’re bound up with what I can no more help
remembering than I can help my heart beating.”

Poor Adam! Thus do men blunder. Dinah made no answer, but she presently
said, “Have you heard any news from that poor young man, since we last
spoke of him?”

Dinah always called Arthur so; she had never lost the image of him as
she had seen him in the prison.

“Yes,” said Adam. “Mr. Irwine read me part of a letter from him
yesterday. It’s pretty certain, they say, that there’ll be a peace
soon, though nobody believes it’ll last long; but he says he doesn’t
mean to come home. He’s no heart for it yet, and it’s better for others
that he should keep away. Mr. Irwine thinks he’s in the right not to
come. It’s a sorrowful letter. He asks about you and the Poysers, as he
always does. There’s one thing in the letter cut me a good deal: ‘You
can’t think what an old fellow I feel,’ he says; ‘I make no schemes
now. I’m the best when I’ve a good day’s march or fighting before me.’”

“He’s of a rash, warm-hearted nature, like Esau, for whom I have always
felt great pity,” said Dinah. “That meeting between the brothers, where
Esau is so loving and generous, and Jacob so timid and distrustful,
notwithstanding his sense of the Divine favour, has always touched me
greatly. Truly, I have been tempted sometimes to say that Jacob was of
a mean spirit. But that is our trial: we must learn to see the good in
the midst of much that is unlovely.”

“Ah,” said Adam, “I like to read about Moses best, in th’ Old
Testament. He carried a hard business well through, and died when other
folks were going to reap the fruits. A man must have courage to look at
his life so, and think what’ll come of it after he’s dead and gone. A
good solid bit o’ work lasts: if it’s only laying a floor down,
somebody’s the better for it being done well, besides the man as does
it.”

They were both glad to talk of subjects that were not personal, and in
this way they went on till they passed the bridge across the Willow
Brook, when Adam turned round and said, “Ah, here’s Seth. I thought
he’d be home soon. Does he know of you’re going, Dinah?”

“Yes, I told him last Sabbath.”

Adam remembered now that Seth had come home much depressed on Sunday
evening, a circumstance which had been very unusual with him of late,
for the happiness he had in seeing Dinah every week seemed long to have
outweighed the pain of knowing she would never marry him. This evening
he had his habitual air of dreamy benignant contentment, until he came
quite close to Dinah and saw the traces of tears on her delicate
eyelids and eyelashes. He gave one rapid glance at his brother, but
Adam was evidently quite outside the current of emotion that had shaken
Dinah: he wore his everyday look of unexpectant calm. Seth tried not to
let Dinah see that he had noticed her face, and only said, “I’m
thankful you’re come, Dinah, for Mother’s been hungering after the
sight of you all day. She began to talk of you the first thing in the
morning.”

When they entered the cottage, Lisbeth was seated in her arm-chair, too
tired with setting out the evening meal, a task she always performed a
long time beforehand, to go and meet them at the door as usual, when
she heard the approaching footsteps.

“Coom, child, thee’t coom at last,” she said, when Dinah went towards
her. “What dost mane by lavin’ me a week an’ ne’er coomin’ a-nigh me?”

“Dear friend,” said Dinah, taking her hand, “you’re not well. If I’d
known it sooner, I’d have come.”

“An’ how’s thee t’ know if thee dostna coom? Th’ lads on’y know what I
tell ’em. As long as ye can stir hand and foot the men think ye’re
hearty. But I’m none so bad, on’y a bit of a cold sets me achin’. An’
th’ lads tease me so t’ ha’ somebody wi’ me t’ do the work—they make me
ache worse wi’ talkin’. If thee’dst come and stay wi’ me, they’d let me
alone. The Poysers canna want thee so bad as I do. But take thy bonnet
off, an’ let me look at thee.”

Dinah was moving away, but Lisbeth held her fast, while she was taking
off her bonnet, and looked at her face as one looks into a newly
gathered snowdrop, to renew the old impressions of purity and
gentleness.

“What’s the matter wi’ thee?” said Lisbeth, in astonishment; “thee’st
been a-cryin’.”

“It’s only a grief that’ll pass away,” said Dinah, who did not wish
just now to call forth Lisbeth’s remonstrances by disclosing her
intention to leave Hayslope. “You shall know about it shortly—we’ll
talk of it to-night. I shall stay with you to-night.”

Lisbeth was pacified by this prospect. And she had the whole evening to
talk with Dinah alone; for there was a new room in the cottage, you
remember, built nearly two years ago, in the expectation of a new
inmate; and here Adam always sat when he had writing to do or plans to
make. Seth sat there too this evening, for he knew his mother would
like to have Dinah all to herself.

There were two pretty pictures on the two sides of the wall in the
cottage. On one side there was the broad-shouldered, large-featured,
hardy old woman, in her blue jacket and buff kerchief, with her
dim-eyed anxious looks turned continually on the lily face and the
slight form in the black dress that were either moving lightly about in
helpful activity, or seated close by the old woman’s arm-chair, holding
her withered hand, with eyes lifted up towards her to speak a language
which Lisbeth understood far better than the Bible or the hymn-book.
She would scarcely listen to reading at all to-night. “Nay, nay, shut
the book,” she said. “We mun talk. I want t’ know what thee was cryin’
about. Hast got troubles o’ thy own, like other folks?”

On the other side of the wall there were the two brothers so like each
other in the midst of their unlikeness: Adam with knit brows, shaggy
hair, and dark vigorous colour, absorbed in his “figuring”; Seth, with
large rugged features, the close copy of his brother’s, but with thin,
wavy, brown hair and blue dreamy eyes, as often as not looking vaguely
out of the window instead of at his book, although it was a newly
bought book—Wesley’s abridgment of Madame Guyon’s life, which was full
of wonder and interest for him. Seth had said to Adam, “Can I help thee
with anything in here to-night? I don’t want to make a noise in the
shop.”

“No, lad,” Adam answered, “there’s nothing but what I must do myself.
Thee’st got thy new book to read.”

And often, when Seth was quite unconscious, Adam, as he paused after
drawing a line with his ruler, looked at his brother with a kind smile
dawning in his eyes. He knew “th’ lad liked to sit full o’ thoughts he
could give no account of; they’d never come t’ anything, but they made
him happy,” and in the last year or so, Adam had been getting more and
more indulgent to Seth. It was part of that growing tenderness which
came from the sorrow at work within him.

For Adam, though you see him quite master of himself, working hard and
delighting in his work after his inborn inalienable nature, had not
outlived his sorrow—had not felt it slip from him as a temporary
burden, and leave him the same man again. Do any of us? God forbid. It
would be a poor result of all our anguish and our wrestling if we won
nothing but our old selves at the end of it—if we could return to the
same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light
thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted
human lives, the same feeble sense of that Unknown towards which we
have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness. Let us rather be
thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an indestructible force, only
changing its form, as forces do, and passing from pain into
sympathy—the one poor word which includes all our best insight and our
best love. Not that this transformation of pain into sympathy had
completely taken place in Adam yet. There was still a great remnant of
pain, and this he felt would subsist as long as _her_ pain was not a
memory, but an existing thing, which he must think of as renewed with
the light of every new morning. But we get accustomed to mental as well
as bodily pain, without, for all that, losing our sensibility to it. It
becomes a habit of our lives, and we cease to imagine a condition of
perfect ease as possible for us. Desire is chastened into submission,
and we are contented with our day when we have been able to bear our
grief in silence and act as if we were not suffering. For it is at such
periods that the sense of our lives having visible and invisible
relations, beyond any of which either our present or prospective self
is the centre, grows like a muscle that we are obliged to lean on and
exert.

That was Adam’s state of mind in this second autumn of his sorrow. His
work, as you know, had always been part of his religion, and from very
early days he saw clearly that good carpentry was God’s will—was that
form of God’s will that most immediately concerned him. But now there
was no margin of dreams for him beyond this daylight reality, no
holiday-time in the working-day world, no moment in the distance when
duty would take off her iron glove and breast-plate and clasp him
gently into rest. He conceived no picture of the future but one made up
of hard-working days such as he lived through, with growing contentment
and intensity of interest, every fresh week. Love, he thought, could
never be anything to him but a living memory—a limb lopped off, but not
gone from consciousness. He did not know that the power of loving was
all the while gaining new force within him; that the new sensibilities
bought by a deep experience were so many new fibres by which it was
possible, nay, necessary to him, that his nature should intertwine with
another. Yet he was aware that common affection and friendship were
more precious to him than they used to be—that he clung more to his
mother and Seth, and had an unspeakable satisfaction in the sight or
imagination of any small addition to their happiness. The Poysers,
too—hardly three or four days passed but he felt the need of seeing
them and interchanging words and looks of friendliness with them. He
would have felt this, probably, even if Dinah had not been with them,
but he had only said the simplest truth in telling Dinah that he put
her above all other friends in the world. Could anything be more
natural? For in the darkest moments of memory the thought of her always
came as the first ray of returning comfort. The early days of gloom at
the Hall Farm had been gradually turned into soft moonlight by her
presence; and in the cottage, too, for she had come at every spare
moment to soothe and cheer poor Lisbeth, who had been stricken with a
fear that subdued even her querulousness at the sight of her darling
Adam’s grief-worn face. He had become used to watching her light quiet
movements, her pretty loving ways to the children, when he went to the
Hall Farm; to listen for her voice as for a recurrent music; to think
everything she said and did was just right, and could not have been
better. In spite of his wisdom, he could not find fault with her for
her overindulgence of the children, who had managed to convert Dinah
the preacher, before whom a circle of rough men had often trembled a
little, into a convenient household slave—though Dinah herself was
rather ashamed of this weakness, and had some inward conflict as to her
departure from the precepts of Solomon. Yes, there was one thing that
might have been better; she might have loved Seth and consented to
marry him. He felt a little vexed, for his brother’s sake, and he could
not help thinking regretfully how Dinah, as Seth’s wife, would have
made their home as happy as it could be for them all—how she was the
one being that would have soothed their mother’s last days into
peacefulness and rest.

“It’s wonderful she doesn’t love th’ lad,” Adam had said sometimes to
himself, “for anybody ’ud think he was just cut out for her. But her
heart’s so taken up with other things. She’s one o’ those women that
feel no drawing towards having a husband and children o’ their own. She
thinks she should be filled up with her own life then, and she’s been
used so to living in other folks’s cares, she can’t bear the thought of
her heart being shut up from ’em. I see how it is, well enough. She’s
cut out o’ different stuff from most women: I saw that long ago. She’s
never easy but when she’s helping somebody, and marriage ’ud interfere
with her ways—that’s true. I’ve no right to be contriving and thinking
it ’ud be better if she’d have Seth, as if I was wiser than she is—or
than God either, for He made her what she is, and that’s one o’ the
greatest blessings I’ve ever had from His hands, and others besides
me.”

This self-reproof had recurred strongly to Adam’s mind when he gathered
from Dinah’s face that he had wounded her by referring to his wish that
she had accepted Seth, and so he had endeavoured to put into the
strongest words his confidence in her decision as right—his resignation
even to her going away from them and ceasing to make part of their life
otherwise than by living in their thoughts, if that separation were
chosen by herself. He felt sure she knew quite well enough how much he
cared to see her continually—to talk to her with the silent
consciousness of a mutual great remembrance. It was not possible she
should hear anything but self-renouncing affection and respect in his
assurance that he was contented for her to go away; and yet there
remained an uneasy feeling in his mind that he had not said quite the
right thing—that, somehow, Dinah had not understood him.

Dinah must have risen a little before the sun the next morning, for she
was downstairs about five o’clock. So was Seth, for, through Lisbeth’s
obstinate refusal to have any woman-helper in the house, he had learned
to make himself, as Adam said, “very handy in the housework,” that he
might save his mother from too great weariness; on which ground I hope
you will not think him unmanly, any more than you can have thought the
gallant Colonel Bath unmanly when he made the gruel for his invalid
sister. Adam, who had sat up late at his writing, was still asleep, and
was not likely, Seth said, to be down till breakfast-time. Often as
Dinah had visited Lisbeth during the last eighteen months, she had
never slept in the cottage since that night after Thias’s death, when,
you remember, Lisbeth praised her deft movements and even gave a
modified approval to her porridge. But in that long interval Dinah had
made great advances in household cleverness, and this morning, since
Seth was there to help, she was bent on bringing everything to a pitch
of cleanliness and order that would have satisfied her Aunt Poyser. The
cottage was far from that standard at present, for Lisbeth’s rheumatism
had forced her to give up her old habits of dilettante scouring and
polishing. When the kitchen was to her mind, Dinah went into the new
room, where Adam had been writing the night before, to see what
sweeping and dusting were needed there. She opened the window and let
in the fresh morning air, and the smell of the sweet-brier, and the
bright low-slanting rays of the early sun, which made a glory about her
pale face and pale auburn hair as she held the long brush, and swept,
singing to herself in a very low tone—like a sweet summer murmur that
you have to listen for very closely—one of Charles Wesley’s hymns:

Eternal Beam of Light Divine,
    Fountain of unexhausted love,
In whom the Father’s glories shine,
    Through earth beneath and heaven above;

Jesus! the weary wanderer’s rest,
    Give me thy easy yoke to bear;
With steadfast patience arm my breast,
    With spotless love and holy fear.

Speak to my warring passions, “Peace!”
    Say to my trembling heart, “Be still!”
Thy power my strength and fortress is,
    For all things serve thy sovereign will.


She laid by the brush and took up the duster; and if you had ever lived
in Mrs. Poyser’s household, you would know how the duster behaved in
Dinah’s hand—how it went into every small corner, and on every ledge in
and out of sight—how it went again and again round every bar of the
chairs, and every leg, and under and over everything that lay on the
table, till it came to Adam’s papers and rulers and the open desk near
them. Dinah dusted up to the very edge of these and then hesitated,
looking at them with a longing but timid eye. It was painful to see how
much dust there was among them. As she was looking in this way, she
heard Seth’s step just outside the open door, towards which her back
was turned, and said, raising her clear treble, “Seth, is your brother
wrathful when his papers are stirred?”

“Yes, very, when they are not put back in the right places,” said a
deep strong voice, not Seth’s.

It was as if Dinah had put her hands unawares on a vibrating chord. She
was shaken with an intense thrill, and for the instant felt nothing
else; then she knew her cheeks were glowing, and dared not look round,
but stood still, distressed because she could not say good-morning in a
friendly way. Adam, finding that she did not look round so as to see
the smile on his face, was afraid she had thought him serious about his
wrathfulness, and went up to her, so that she was obliged to look at
him.

“What! You think I’m a cross fellow at home, Dinah?” he said,
smilingly.

“Nay,” said Dinah, looking up with timid eyes, “not so. But you might
be put about by finding things meddled with; and even the man Moses,
the meekest of men, was wrathful sometimes.”

“Come, then,” said Adam, looking at her affectionately, “I’ll help you
move the things, and put ’em back again, and then they can’t get wrong.
You’re getting to be your aunt’s own niece, I see, for particularness.”

They began their little task together, but Dinah had not recovered
herself sufficiently to think of any remark, and Adam looked at her
uneasily. Dinah, he thought, had seemed to disapprove him somehow
lately; she had not been so kind and open to him as she used to be. He
wanted her to look at him, and be as pleased as he was himself with
doing this bit of playful work. But Dinah did not look at him—it was
easy for her to avoid looking at the tall man—and when at last there
was no more dusting to be done and no further excuse for him to linger
near her, he could bear it no longer, and said, in rather a pleading
tone, “Dinah, you’re not displeased with me for anything, are you? I’ve
not said or done anything to make you think ill of me?”

The question surprised her, and relieved her by giving a new course to
her feeling. She looked up at him now, quite earnestly, almost with the
tears coming, and said, “Oh, no, Adam! how could you think so?”

“I couldn’t bear you not to feel as much a friend to me as I do to
you,” said Adam. “And you don’t know the value I set on the very
thought of you, Dinah. That was what I meant yesterday, when I said I’d
be content for you to go, if you thought right. I meant, the thought of
you was worth so much to me, I should feel I ought to be thankful, and
not grumble, if you see right to go away. You know I do mind parting
with you, Dinah?”

“Yes, dear friend,” said Dinah, trembling, but trying to speak calmly,
“I know you have a brother’s heart towards me, and we shall often be
with one another in spirit; but at this season I am in heaviness
through manifold temptations. You must not mark me. I feel called to
leave my kindred for a while; but it is a trial—the flesh is weak.”

Adam saw that it pained her to be obliged to answer.

“I hurt you by talking about it, Dinah,” he said. “I’ll say no more.
Let’s see if Seth’s ready with breakfast now.”

That is a simple scene, reader. But it is almost certain that you, too,
have been in love—perhaps, even, more than once, though you may not
choose to say so to all your feminine friends. If so, you will no more
think the slight words, the timid looks, the tremulous touches, by
which two human souls approach each other gradually, like two little
quivering rain-streams, before they mingle into one—you will no more
think these things trivial than you will think the first-detected signs
of coming spring trivial, though they be but a faint indescribable
something in the air and in the song of the birds, and the tiniest
perceptible budding on the hedge-row branches. Those slight words and
looks and touches are part of the soul’s language; and the finest
language, I believe, is chiefly made up of unimposing words, such as
“light,” “sound,” “stars,” “music”—words really not worth looking at,
or hearing, in themselves, any more than “chips” or “sawdust.” It is
only that they happen to be the signs of something unspeakably great
and beautiful. I am of opinion that love is a great and beautiful thing
too, and if you agree with me, the smallest signs of it will not be
chips and sawdust to you: they will rather be like those little words,
“light” and “music,” stirring the long-winding fibres of your memory
and enriching your present with your most precious past.




Chapter LI
Sunday Morning


Lisbeth’s touch of rheumatism could not be made to appear serious
enough to detain Dinah another night from the Hall Farm, now she had
made up her mind to leave her aunt so soon, and at evening the friends
must part. “For a long while,” Dinah had said, for she had told Lisbeth
of her resolve.

“Then it’ll be for all my life, an’ I shall ne’er see thee again,” said
Lisbeth. “Long while! I’n got no long while t’ live. An’ I shall be
took bad an’ die, an’ thee canst ne’er come a-nigh me, an’ I shall die
a-longing for thee.”

That had been the key-note of her wailing talk all day; for Adam was
not in the house, and so she put no restraint on her complaining. She
had tried poor Dinah by returning again and again to the question, why
she must go away; and refusing to accept reasons, which seemed to her
nothing but whim and “contrairiness”; and still more, by regretting
that she “couldna’ ha’ one o’ the lads” and be her daughter.

“Thee couldstna put up wi’ Seth,” she said. “He isna cliver enough for
thee, happen, but he’d ha’ been very good t’ thee—he’s as handy as can
be at doin’ things for me when I’m bad, an’ he’s as fond o’ the Bible
an’ chappellin’ as thee art thysen. But happen, thee’dst like a husband
better as isna just the cut o’ thysen: the runnin’ brook isna athirst
for th’ rain. Adam ’ud ha’ done for thee—I know he would—an’ he might
come t’ like thee well enough, if thee’dst stop. But he’s as stubborn
as th’ iron bar—there’s no bending him no way but’s own. But he’d be a
fine husband for anybody, be they who they will, so looked-on an’ so
cliver as he is. And he’d be rare an’ lovin’: it does me good on’y a
look o’ the lad’s eye when he means kind tow’rt me.”

Dinah tried to escape from Lisbeth’s closest looks and questions by
finding little tasks of housework that kept her moving about, and as
soon as Seth came home in the evening she put on her bonnet to go. It
touched Dinah keenly to say the last good-bye, and still more to look
round on her way across the fields and see the old woman still standing
at the door, gazing after her till she must have been the faintest
speck in the dim aged eyes. “The God of love and peace be with them,”
Dinah prayed, as she looked back from the last stile. “Make them glad
according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted them, and the years
wherein they have seen evil. It is thy will that I should part from
them; let me have no will but thine.”

Lisbeth turned into the house at last and sat down in the workshop near
Seth, who was busying himself there with fitting some bits of turned
wood he had brought from the village into a small work-box, which he
meant to give to Dinah before she went away.

“Thee’t see her again o’ Sunday afore she goes,” were her first words.
“If thee wast good for anything, thee’dst make her come in again o’
Sunday night wi’ thee, and see me once more.”

“Nay, Mother,” said Seth. “Dinah ’ud be sure to come again if she saw
right to come. I should have no need to persuade her. She only thinks
it ’ud be troubling thee for nought, just to come in to say good-bye
over again.”

“She’d ne’er go away, I know, if Adam ’ud be fond on her an’ marry her,
but everything’s so contrairy,” said Lisbeth, with a burst of vexation.

Seth paused a moment and looked up, with a slight blush, at his
mother’s face. “What! Has she said anything o’ that sort to thee,
Mother?” he said, in a lower tone.

“Said? Nay, she’ll say nothin’. It’s on’y the men as have to wait till
folks say things afore they find ’em out.”

“Well, but what makes thee think so, Mother? What’s put it into thy
head?”

“It’s no matter what’s put it into my head. My head’s none so hollow as
it must get in, an’ nought to put it there. I know she’s fond on him,
as I know th’ wind’s comin’ in at the door, an’ that’s anoof. An’ he
might be willin’ to marry her if he know’d she’s fond on him, but he’ll
ne’er think on’t if somebody doesna put it into’s head.”

His mother’s suggestion about Dinah’s feeling towards Adam was not
quite a new thought to Seth, but her last words alarmed him, lest she
should herself undertake to open Adam’s eyes. He was not sure about
Dinah’s feeling, and he thought he _was_ sure about Adam’s.

“Nay, Mother, nay,” he said, earnestly, “thee mustna think o’ speaking
o’ such things to Adam. Thee’st no right to say what Dinah’s feelings
are if she hasna told thee, and it ’ud do nothing but mischief to say
such things to Adam. He feels very grateful and affectionate toward
Dinah, but he’s no thoughts towards her that ’ud incline him to make
her his wife, and I don’t believe Dinah ’ud marry him either. I don’t
think she’ll marry at all.”

“Eh,” said Lisbeth, impatiently. “Thee think’st so ’cause she wouldna
ha’ thee. She’ll ne’er marry thee; thee mightst as well like her t’ ha’
thy brother.”

Seth was hurt. “Mother,” he said, in a remonstrating tone, “don’t think
that of me. I should be as thankful t’ have her for a sister as thee
wouldst t’ have her for a daughter. I’ve no more thoughts about myself
in that thing, and I shall take it hard if ever thee say’st it again.”

“Well, well, then thee shouldstna cross me wi’ sayin’ things arena as I
say they are.”

“But, Mother,” said Seth, “thee’dst be doing Dinah a wrong by telling
Adam what thee think’st about her. It ’ud do nothing but mischief, for
it ’ud make Adam uneasy if he doesna feel the same to her. And I’m
pretty sure he feels nothing o’ the sort.”

“Eh, donna tell me what thee’t sure on; thee know’st nought about it.
What’s he allays goin’ to the Poysers’ for, if he didna want t’ see
her? He goes twice where he used t’ go once. Happen he knowsna as he
wants t’ see her; he knowsna as I put salt in’s broth, but he’d miss it
pretty quick if it warna there. He’ll ne’er think o’ marrying if it
isna put into’s head, an’ if thee’dst any love for thy mother, thee’dst
put him up to’t an’ not let her go away out o’ my sight, when I might
ha’ her to make a bit o’ comfort for me afore I go to bed to my old man
under the white thorn.”

“Nay, Mother,” said Seth, “thee mustna think me unkind, but I should be
going against my conscience if I took upon me to say what Dinah’s
feelings are. And besides that, I think I should give offence to Adam
by speaking to him at all about marrying; and I counsel thee not to
do’t. Thee may’st be quite deceived about Dinah. Nay, I’m pretty sure,
by words she said to me last Sabbath, as she’s no mind to marry.”

“Eh, thee’t as contrairy as the rest on ’em. If it war summat I didna
want, it ’ud be done fast enough.”

Lisbeth rose from the bench at this, and went out of the workshop,
leaving Seth in much anxiety lest she should disturb Adam’s mind about
Dinah. He consoled himself after a time with reflecting that, since
Adam’s trouble, Lisbeth had been very timid about speaking to him on
matters of feeling, and that she would hardly dare to approach this
tenderest of all subjects. Even if she did, he hoped Adam would not
take much notice of what she said.

Seth was right in believing that Lisbeth would be held in restraint by
timidity, and during the next three days, the intervals in which she
had an opportunity of speaking to Adam were too rare and short to cause
her any strong temptation. But in her long solitary hours she brooded
over her regretful thoughts about Dinah, till they had grown very near
that point of unmanageable strength when thoughts are apt to take wing
out of their secret nest in a startling manner. And on Sunday morning,
when Seth went away to chapel at Treddleston, the dangerous opportunity
came.

Sunday morning was the happiest time in all the week to Lisbeth, for as
there was no service at Hayslope church till the afternoon, Adam was
always at home, doing nothing but reading, an occupation in which she
could venture to interrupt him. Moreover, she had always a better
dinner than usual to prepare for her sons—very frequently for Adam and
herself alone, Seth being often away the entire day—and the smell of
the roast meat before the clear fire in the clean kitchen, the clock
ticking in a peaceful Sunday manner, her darling Adam seated near her
in his best clothes, doing nothing very important, so that she could go
and stroke her hand across his hair if she liked, and see him look up
at her and smile, while Gyp, rather jealous, poked his muzzle up
between them—all these things made poor Lisbeth’s earthly paradise.

The book Adam most often read on a Sunday morning was his large
pictured Bible, and this morning it lay open before him on the round
white deal table in the kitchen; for he sat there in spite of the fire,
because he knew his mother liked to have him with her, and it was the
only day in the week when he could indulge her in that way. You would
have liked to see Adam reading his Bible. He never opened it on a
weekday, and so he came to it as a holiday book, serving him for
history, biography, and poetry. He held one hand thrust between his
waistcoat buttons, and the other ready to turn the pages, and in the
course of the morning you would have seen many changes in his face.
Sometimes his lips moved in semi-articulation—it was when he came to a
speech that he could fancy himself uttering, such as Samuel’s dying
speech to the people; then his eyebrows would be raised, and the
corners of his mouth would quiver a little with sad sympathy—something,
perhaps old Isaac’s meeting with his son, touched him closely; at other
times, over the New Testament, a very solemn look would come upon his
face, and he would every now and then shake his head in serious assent,
or just lift up his hand and let it fall again. And on some mornings,
when he read in the Apocrypha, of which he was very fond, the son of
Sirach’s keen-edged words would bring a delighted smile, though he also
enjoyed the freedom of occasionally differing from an Apocryphal
writer. For Adam knew the Articles quite well, as became a good
churchman.

Lisbeth, in the pauses of attending to her dinner, always sat opposite
to him and watched him, till she could rest no longer without going up
to him and giving him a caress, to call his attention to her. This
morning he was reading the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and Lisbeth
had been standing close by him for some minutes, stroking his hair,
which was smoother than usual this morning, and looking down at the
large page with silent wonderment at the mystery of letters. She was
encouraged to continue this caress, because when she first went up to
him, he had thrown himself back in his chair to look at her
affectionately and say, “Why, Mother, thee look’st rare and hearty this
morning. Eh, Gyp wants me t’ look at him. He can’t abide to think I
love thee the best.” Lisbeth said nothing, because she wanted to say so
many things. And now there was a new leaf to be turned over, and it was
a picture—that of the angel seated on the great stone that has been
rolled away from the sepulchre. This picture had one strong association
in Lisbeth’s memory, for she had been reminded of it when she first saw
Dinah, and Adam had no sooner turned the page, and lifted the book
sideways that they might look at the angel, than she said, “That’s
her—that’s Dinah.”

Adam smiled, and, looking more intently at the angel’s face, said,

“It _is_ a bit like her; but Dinah’s prettier, I think.”

“Well, then, if thee think’st her so pretty, why arn’t fond on her?”

Adam looked up in surprise. “Why, Mother, dost think I don’t set store
by Dinah?”

“Nay,” said Lisbeth, frightened at her own courage, yet feeling that
she had broken the ice, and the waters must flow, whatever mischief
they might do. “What’s th’ use o’ settin’ store by things as are thirty
mile off? If thee wast fond enough on her, thee wouldstna let her go
away.”

“But I’ve no right t’ hinder her, if she thinks well,” said Adam,
looking at his book as if he wanted to go on reading. He foresaw a
series of complaints tending to nothing. Lisbeth sat down again in the
chair opposite to him, as she said:

“But she wouldna think well if thee wastna so contrairy.” Lisbeth dared
not venture beyond a vague phrase yet.

“Contrairy, mother?” Adam said, looking up again in some anxiety. “What
have I done? What dost mean?”

“Why, thee’t never look at nothin’, nor think o’ nothin’, but thy
figurin, an’ thy work,” said Lisbeth, half-crying. “An’ dost think thee
canst go on so all thy life, as if thee wast a man cut out o’ timber?
An’ what wut do when thy mother’s gone, an’ nobody to take care on thee
as thee gett’st a bit o’ victual comfortable i’ the mornin’?”

“What hast got i’ thy mind, Mother?” said Adam, vexed at this
whimpering. “I canna see what thee’t driving at. Is there anything I
could do for thee as I don’t do?”

“Aye, an’ that there is. Thee might’st do as I should ha’ somebody wi’
me to comfort me a bit, an’ wait on me when I’m bad, an’ be good to
me.”

“Well, Mother, whose fault is it there isna some tidy body i’ th’ house
t’ help thee? It isna by my wish as thee hast a stroke o’ work to do.
We can afford it—I’ve told thee often enough. It ’ud be a deal better
for us.”

“Eh, what’s the use o’ talking o’ tidy bodies, when thee mean’st one o’
th’ wenches out o’ th’ village, or somebody from Treddles’on as I ne’er
set eyes on i’ my life? I’d sooner make a shift an’ get into my own
coffin afore I die, nor ha’ them folks to put me in.”

Adam was silent, and tried to go on reading. That was the utmost
severity he could show towards his mother on a Sunday morning. But
Lisbeth had gone too far now to check herself, and after scarcely a
minute’s quietness she began again.

“Thee mightst know well enough who ’tis I’d like t’ ha’ wi’ me. It isna
many folks I send for t’ come an’ see me. I reckon. An’ thee’st had the
fetchin’ on her times enow.”

“Thee mean’st Dinah, Mother, I know,” said Adam. “But it’s no use
setting thy mind on what can’t be. If Dinah ’ud be willing to stay at
Hayslope, it isn’t likely she can come away from her aunt’s house,
where they hold her like a daughter, and where she’s more bound than
she is to us. If it had been so that she could ha’ married Seth, that
’ud ha’ been a great blessing to us, but we can’t have things just as
we like in this life. Thee must try and make up thy mind to do without
her.”

“Nay, but I canna ma’ up my mind, when she’s just cut out for thee; an’
nought shall ma’ me believe as God didna make her an’ send her there o’
purpose for thee. What’s it sinnify about her bein’ a Methody! It ’ud
happen wear out on her wi’ marryin’.”

Adam threw himself back in his chair and looked at his mother. He
understood now what she had been aiming at from the beginning of the
conversation. It was as unreasonable, impracticable a wish as she had
ever urged, but he could not help being moved by so entirely new an
idea. The chief point, however, was to chase away the notion from his
mother’s mind as quickly as possible.

“Mother,” he said, gravely, “thee’t talking wild. Don’t let me hear
thee say such things again. It’s no good talking o’ what can never be.
Dinah’s not for marrying; she’s fixed her heart on a different sort o’
life.”

“Very like,” said Lisbeth, impatiently, “very like she’s none for
marr’ing, when them as she’d be willin’ t’ marry wonna ax her. I
shouldna ha’ been for marr’ing thy feyther if he’d ne’er axed me; an’
she’s as fond o’ thee as e’er I war o’ Thias, poor fellow.”

The blood rushed to Adam’s face, and for a few moments he was not quite
conscious where he was. His mother and the kitchen had vanished for
him, and he saw nothing but Dinah’s face turned up towards his. It
seemed as if there were a resurrection of his dead joy. But he woke up
very speedily from that dream (the waking was chill and sad), for it
would have been very foolish in him to believe his mother’s words—she
could have no ground for them. He was prompted to express his disbelief
very strongly—perhaps that he might call forth the proofs, if there
were any to be offered.

“What dost say such things for, Mother, when thee’st got no foundation
for ’em? Thee know’st nothing as gives thee a right to say that.”

“Then I knowna nought as gi’es me a right to say as the year’s turned,
for all I feel it fust thing when I get up i’ th’ morning. She isna
fond o’ Seth, I reckon, is she? She doesna want to marry _him?_ But I
can see as she doesna behave tow’rt thee as she daes tow’rt Seth. She
makes no more o’ Seth’s coming a-nigh her nor if he war Gyp, but she’s
all of a tremble when thee’t a-sittin’ down by her at breakfast an’
a-looking at her. Thee think’st thy mother knows nought, but she war
alive afore thee wast born.”

“But thee canstna be sure as the trembling means love?” said Adam
anxiously.

“Eh, what else should it mane? It isna hate, I reckon. An’ what should
she do but love thee? Thee’t made to be loved—for where’s there a
straighter cliverer man? An’ what’s it sinnify her bein’ a Methody?
It’s on’y the marigold i’ th’ parridge.”

Adam had thrust his hands in his pockets, and was looking down at the
book on the table, without seeing any of the letters. He was trembling
like a gold-seeker who sees the strong promise of gold but sees in the
same moment a sickening vision of disappointment. He could not trust
his mother’s insight; she had seen what she wished to see. And yet—and
yet, now the suggestion had been made to him, he remembered so many
things, very slight things, like the stirring of the water by an
imperceptible breeze, which seemed to him some confirmation of his
mother’s words.

Lisbeth noticed that he was moved. She went on, “An’ thee’t find out as
thee’t poorly aff when she’s gone. Thee’t fonder on her nor thee
know’st. Thy eyes follow her about, welly as Gyp’s follow thee.”

Adam could sit still no longer. He rose, took down his hat, and went
out into the fields.

The sunshine was on them: that early autumn sunshine which we should
know was not summer’s, even if there were not the touches of yellow on
the lime and chestnut; the Sunday sunshine too, which has more than
autumnal calmness for the working man; the morning sunshine, which
still leaves the dew-crystals on the fine gossamer webs in the shadow
of the bushy hedgerows.

Adam needed the calm influence; he was amazed at the way in which this
new thought of Dinah’s love had taken possession of him, with an
overmastering power that made all other feelings give way before the
impetuous desire to know that the thought was true. Strange, that till
that moment the possibility of their ever being lovers had never
crossed his mind, and yet now, all his longing suddenly went out
towards that possibility. He had no more doubt or hesitation as to his
own wishes than the bird that flies towards the opening through which
the daylight gleams and the breath of heaven enters.

The autumnal Sunday sunshine soothed him, but not by preparing him with
resignation to the disappointment if his mother—if he himself—proved to
be mistaken about Dinah. It soothed him by gentle encouragement of his
hopes. Her love was so like that calm sunshine that they seemed to make
one presence to him, and he believed in them both alike. And Dinah was
so bound up with the sad memories of his first passion that he was not
forsaking them, but rather giving them a new sacredness by loving her.
Nay, his love for her had grown out of that past: it was the noon of
that morning.

But Seth? Would the lad be hurt? Hardly; for he had seemed quite
contented of late, and there was no selfish jealousy in him; he had
never been jealous of his mother’s fondness for Adam. But had _he_ seen
anything of what their mother talked about? Adam longed to know this,
for he thought he could trust Seth’s observation better than his
mother’s. He must talk to Seth before he went to see Dinah, and, with
this intention in his mind, he walked back to the cottage and said to
his mother, “Did Seth say anything to thee about when he was coming
home? Will he be back to dinner?”

“Aye, lad, he’ll be back for a wonder. He isna gone to Treddles’on.
He’s gone somewhere else a-preachin’ and a-prayin’.”

“Hast any notion which way he’s gone?” said Adam.

“Nay, but he aften goes to th’ Common. Thee know’st more o’s goings nor
I do.”

Adam wanted to go and meet Seth, but he must content himself with
walking about the near fields and getting sight of him as soon as
possible. That would not be for more than an hour to come, for Seth
would scarcely be at home much before their dinner-time, which was
twelve o’clock. But Adam could not sit down to his reading again, and
he sauntered along by the brook and stood leaning against the stiles,
with eager intense eyes, which looked as if they saw something very
vividly; but it was not the brook or the willows, not the fields or the
sky. Again and again his vision was interrupted by wonder at the
strength of his own feeling, at the strength and sweetness of this new
love—almost like the wonder a man feels at the added power he finds in
himself for an art which he had laid aside for a space. How is it that
the poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few
about our later love? Are their first poems their best? Or are not
those the best which come from their fuller thought, their larger
experience, their deeper-rooted affections? The boy’s flutelike voice
has its own spring charm; but the man should yield a richer deeper
music.

At last, there was Seth, visible at the farthest stile, and Adam
hastened to meet him. Seth was surprised, and thought something unusual
must have happened, but when Adam came up, his face said plainly enough
that it was nothing alarming.

“Where hast been?” said Adam, when they were side by side.

“I’ve been to the Common,” said Seth. “Dinah’s been speaking the Word
to a little company of hearers at Brimstone’s, as they call him.
They’re folks as never go to church hardly—them on the Common—but
they’ll go and hear Dinah a bit. She’s been speaking with power this
forenoon from the words, ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance.’ And there was a little thing happened as was pretty to
see. The women mostly bring their children with ’em, but to-day there
was one stout curly headed fellow about three or four year old, that I
never saw there before. He was as naughty as could be at the beginning
while I was praying, and while we was singing, but when we all sat down
and Dinah began to speak, th’ young un stood stock still all at once,
and began to look at her with’s mouth open, and presently he ran away
from’s mother and went to Dinah, and pulled at her, like a little dog,
for her to take notice of him. So Dinah lifted him up and held th’ lad
on her lap, while she went on speaking; and he was as good as could be
till he went to sleep—and the mother cried to see him.”

“It’s a pity she shouldna be a mother herself,” said Adam, “so fond as
the children are of her. Dost think she’s quite fixed against marrying,
Seth? Dost think nothing ’ud turn her?”

There was something peculiar in his brother’s tone, which made Seth
steal a glance at his face before he answered.

“It ’ud be wrong of me to say nothing ’ud turn her,” he answered. “But
if thee mean’st it about myself, I’ve given up all thoughts as she can
ever be _my_ wife. She calls me her brother, and that’s enough.”

“But dost think she might ever get fond enough of anybody else to be
willing to marry ’em?” said Adam rather shyly.

“Well,” said Seth, after some hesitation, “it’s crossed my mind
sometimes o’ late as she might; but Dinah ’ud let no fondness for the
creature draw her out o’ the path as she believed God had marked out
for her. If she thought the leading was not from Him, she’s not one to
be brought under the power of it. And she’s allays seemed clear about
that—as her work was to minister t’ others, and make no home for
herself i’ this world.”

“But suppose,” said Adam, earnestly, “suppose there was a man as ’ud
let her do just the same and not interfere with her—she might do a good
deal o’ what she does now, just as well when she was married as when
she was single. Other women of her sort have married—that’s to say, not
just like her, but women as preached and attended on the sick and
needy. There’s Mrs. Fletcher as she talks of.”

A new light had broken in on Seth. He turned round, and laying his hand
on Adam’s shoulder, said, “Why, wouldst like her to marry _thee_,
brother?”

Adam looked doubtfully at Seth’s inquiring eyes and said, “Wouldst be
hurt if she was to be fonder o’ me than o’ thee?”

“Nay,” said Seth warmly, “how canst think it? Have I felt thy trouble
so little that I shouldna feel thy joy?”

There was silence a few moments as they walked on, and then Seth said,
“I’d no notion as thee’dst ever think of her for a wife.”

“But is it o’ any use to think of her?” said Adam. “What dost say?
Mother’s made me as I hardly know where I am, with what she’s been
saying to me this forenoon. She says she’s sure Dinah feels for me more
than common, and ’ud be willing t’ have me. But I’m afraid she speaks
without book. I want to know if thee’st seen anything.”

“It’s a nice point to speak about,” said Seth, “and I’m afraid o’ being
wrong; besides, we’ve no right t’ intermeddle with people’s feelings
when they wouldn’t tell ’em themselves.”

Seth paused.

“But thee mightst ask her,” he said presently. “She took no offence at
_me_ for asking, and thee’st more right than I had, only thee’t not in
the Society. But Dinah doesn’t hold wi’ them as are for keeping the
Society so strict to themselves. She doesn’t mind about making folks
enter the Society, so as they’re fit t’ enter the kingdom o’ God. Some
o’ the brethren at Treddles’on are displeased with her for that.”

“Where will she be the rest o’ the day?” said Adam.

“She said she shouldn’t leave the farm again to-day,” said Seth,
“because it’s her last Sabbath there, and she’s going t’ read out o’
the big Bible wi’ the children.”

Adam thought—but did not say—“Then I’ll go this afternoon; for if I go
to church, my thoughts ’ull be with her all the while. They must sing
th’ anthem without me to-day.”




Chapter LII
Adam and Dinah


It was about three o’clock when Adam entered the farmyard and roused
Alick and the dogs from their Sunday dozing. Alick said everybody was
gone to church “but th’ young missis”—so he called Dinah—but this did
not disappoint Adam, although the “everybody” was so liberal as to
include Nancy the dairymaid, whose works of necessity were not
unfrequently incompatible with church-going.

There was perfect stillness about the house. The doors were all closed,
and the very stones and tubs seemed quieter than usual. Adam heard the
water gently dripping from the pump—that was the only sound—and he
knocked at the house door rather softly, as was suitable in that
stillness.

The door opened, and Dinah stood before him, colouring deeply with the
great surprise of seeing Adam at this hour, when she knew it was his
regular practice to be at church. Yesterday he would have said to her
without any difficulty, “I came to see you, Dinah: I knew the rest were
not at home.” But to-day something prevented him from saying that, and
he put out his hand to her in silence. Neither of them spoke, and yet
both wished they could speak, as Adam entered, and they sat down. Dinah
took the chair she had just left; it was at the corner of the table
near the window, and there was a book lying on the table, but it was
not open. She had been sitting perfectly still, looking at the small
bit of clear fire in the bright grate. Adam sat down opposite her, in
Mr. Poyser’s three-cornered chair.

“Your mother is not ill again, I hope, Adam?” Dinah said, recovering
herself. “Seth said she was well this morning.”

“No, she’s very hearty to-day,” said Adam, happy in the signs of
Dinah’s feeling at the sight of him, but shy.

“There’s nobody at home, you see,” Dinah said; “but you’ll wait. You’ve
been hindered from going to church to-day, doubtless.”

“Yes,” Adam said, and then paused, before he added, “I was thinking
about you: that was the reason.”

This confession was very awkward and sudden, Adam felt, for he thought
Dinah must understand all he meant. But the frankness of the words
caused her immediately to interpret them into a renewal of his
brotherly regrets that she was going away, and she answered calmly, “Do
not be careful and troubled for me, Adam. I have all things and abound
at Snowfield. And my mind is at rest, for I am not seeking my own will
in going.”

“But if things were different, Dinah,” said Adam, hesitatingly. “If you
knew things that perhaps you don’t know now....”

Dinah looked at him inquiringly, but instead of going on, he reached a
chair and brought it near the corner of the table where she was
sitting. She wondered, and was afraid—and the next moment her thoughts
flew to the past: was it something about those distant unhappy ones
that she didn’t know?

Adam looked at her. It was so sweet to look at her eyes, which had now
a self-forgetful questioning in them—for a moment he forgot that he
wanted to say anything, or that it was necessary to tell her what he
meant.

“Dinah,” he said suddenly, taking both her hands between his, “I love
you with my whole heart and soul. I love you next to God who made me.”

Dinah’s lips became pale, like her cheeks, and she trembled violently
under the shock of painful joy. Her hands were cold as death between
Adam’s. She could not draw them away, because he held them fast.

“Don’t tell me you can’t love me, Dinah. Don’t tell me we must part and
pass our lives away from one another.”

The tears were trembling in Dinah’s eyes, and they fell before she
could answer. But she spoke in a quiet low voice.

“Yes, dear Adam, we must submit to another Will. We must part.”

“Not if you love me, Dinah—not if you love me,” Adam said passionately.
“Tell me—tell me if you can love me better than a brother?”

Dinah was too entirely reliant on the Supreme guidance to attempt to
achieve any end by a deceptive concealment. She was recovering now from
the first shock of emotion, and she looked at Adam with simple sincere
eyes as she said, “Yes, Adam, my heart is drawn strongly towards you;
and of my own will, if I had no clear showing to the contrary, I could
find my happiness in being near you and ministering to you continually.
I fear I should forget to rejoice and weep with others; nay, I fear I
should forget the Divine presence, and seek no love but yours.”

Adam did not speak immediately. They sat looking at each other in
delicious silence—for the first sense of mutual love excludes other
feelings; it will have the soul all to itself.

“Then, Dinah,” Adam said at last, “how can there be anything contrary
to what’s right in our belonging to one another and spending our lives
together? Who put this great love into our hearts? Can anything be
holier than that? For we can help one another in everything as is good.
I’d never think o’ putting myself between you and God, and saying you
oughtn’t to do this and you oughtn’t to do that. You’d follow your
conscience as much as you do now.”

“Yes, Adam,” Dinah said, “I know marriage is a holy state for those who
are truly called to it, and have no other drawing; but from my
childhood upwards I have been led towards another path; all my peace
and my joy have come from having no life of my own, no wants, no wishes
for myself, and living only in God and those of his creatures whose
sorrows and joys he has given me to know. Those have been very blessed
years to me, and I feel that if I was to listen to any voice that would
draw me aside from that path, I should be turning my back on the light
that has shone upon me, and darkness and doubt would take hold of me.
We could not bless each other, Adam, if there were doubts in my soul,
and if I yearned, when it was too late, after that better part which
had once been given me and I had put away from me.”

“But if a new feeling has come into your mind, Dinah, and if you love
me so as to be willing to be nearer to me than to other people, isn’t
that a sign that it’s right for you to change your life? Doesn’t the
love make it right when nothing else would?”

“Adam, my mind is full of questionings about that; for now, since you
tell me of your strong love towards me, what was clear to me has become
dark again. I felt before that my heart was too strongly drawn towards
you, and that your heart was not as mine; and the thought of you had
taken hold of me, so that my soul had lost its freedom, and was
becoming enslaved to an earthly affection, which made me anxious and
careful about what should befall myself. For in all other affection I
had been content with any small return, or with none; but my heart was
beginning to hunger after an equal love from you. And I had no doubt
that I must wrestle against that as a great temptation, and the command
was clear that I must go away.”

“But now, dear, dear Dinah, now you know I love you better than you
love me... it’s all different now. You won’t think o’ going. You’ll
stay, and be my dear wife, and I shall thank God for giving me my life
as I never thanked him before.”

“Adam, it’s hard to me to turn a deaf ear... you know it’s hard; but a
great fear is upon me. It seems to me as if you were stretching out
your arms to me, and beckoning me to come and take my ease and live for
my own delight, and Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, was standing looking
towards me, and pointing to the sinful, and suffering, and afflicted. I
have seen that again and again when I have been sitting in stillness
and darkness, and a great terror has come upon me lest I should become
hard, and a lover of self, and no more bear willingly the Redeemer’s
cross.”

Dinah had closed her eyes, and a faint shudder went through her.
“Adam,” she went on, “you wouldn’t desire that we should seek a good
through any unfaithfulness to the light that is in us; you wouldn’t
believe that could be a good. We are of one mind in that.”

“Yes, Dinah,” said Adam sadly, “I’ll never be the man t’ urge you
against your conscience. But I can’t give up the hope that you may come
to see different. I don’t believe your loving me could shut up your
heart—it’s only adding to what you’ve been before, not taking away from
it. For it seems to me it’s the same with love and happiness as with
sorrow—the more we know of it the better we can feel what other
people’s lives are or might be, and so we shall only be more tender to
’em, and wishful to help ’em. The more knowledge a man has, the better
he’ll do’s work; and feeling’s a sort o’ knowledge.”

Dinah was silent; her eyes were fixed in contemplation of something
visible only to herself. Adam went on presently with his pleading, “And
you can do almost as much as you do now. I won’t ask you to go to
church with me of a Sunday. You shall go where you like among the
people, and teach ’em; for though I like church best, I don’t put my
soul above yours, as if my words was better for you to follow than your
own conscience. And you can help the sick just as much, and you’ll have
more means o’ making ’em a bit comfortable; and you’ll be among all
your own friends as love you, and can help ’em and be a blessing to ’em
till their dying day. Surely, Dinah, you’d be as near to God as if you
was living lonely and away from me.”

Dinah made no answer for some time. Adam was still holding her hands
and looking at her with almost trembling anxiety, when she turned her
grave loving eyes on his and said, in rather a sad voice, “Adam there
is truth in what you say, and there’s many of the brethren and sisters
who have greater strength than I have, and find their hearts enlarged
by the cares of husband and kindred. But I have not faith that it would
be so with me, for since my affections have been set above measure on
you, I have had less peace and joy in God. I have felt as it were a
division in my heart. And think how it is with me, Adam. That life I
have led is like a land I have trodden in blessedness since my
childhood; and if I long for a moment to follow the voice which calls
me to another land that I know not, I cannot but fear that my soul
might hereafter yearn for that early blessedness which I had forsaken;
and where doubt enters there is not perfect love. I must wait for
clearer guidance. I must go from you, and we must submit ourselves
entirely to the Divine Will. We are sometimes required to lay our
natural lawful affections on the altar.”

Adam dared not plead again, for Dinah’s was not the voice of caprice or
insincerity. But it was very hard for him; his eyes got dim as he
looked at her.

“But you may come to feel satisfied... to feel that you may come to me
again, and we may never part, Dinah?”

“We must submit ourselves, Adam. With time, our duty will be made
clear. It may be when I have entered on my former life, I shall find
all these new thoughts and wishes vanish, and become as things that
were not. Then I shall know that my calling is not towards marriage.
But we must wait.”

“Dinah,” said Adam mournfully, “you can’t love me so well as I love
you, else you’d have no doubts. But it’s natural you shouldn’t, for I’m
not so good as you. I can’t doubt it’s right for me to love the best
thing God’s ever given me to know.”

“Nay, Adam. It seems to me that my love for you is not weak, for my
heart waits on your words and looks, almost as a little child waits on
the help and tenderness of the strong on whom it depends. If the
thought of you took slight hold of me, I should not fear that it would
be an idol in the temple. But you will strengthen me—you will not
hinder me in seeking to obey to the uttermost.”

“Let us go out into the sunshine, Dinah, and walk together. I’ll speak
no word to disturb you.”

They went out and walked towards the fields, where they would meet the
family coming from church. Adam said, “Take my arm, Dinah,” and she
took it. That was the only change in their manner to each other since
they were last walking together. But no sadness in the prospect of her
going away—in the uncertainty of the issue—could rob the sweetness from
Adam’s sense that Dinah loved him. He thought he would stay at the Hall
Farm all that evening. He would be near her as long as he could.

“Hey-day! There’s Adam along wi’ Dinah,” said Mr. Poyser, as he opened
the far gate into the Home Close. “I couldna think how he happened away
from church. Why,” added good Martin, after a moment’s pause, “what
dost think has just jumped into my head?”

“Summat as hadna far to jump, for it’s just under our nose. You mean as
Adam’s fond o’ Dinah.”

“Aye! hast ever had any notion of it before?”

“To be sure I have,” said Mrs. Poyser, who always declined, if
possible, to be taken by surprise. “I’m not one o’ those as can see the
cat i’ the dairy an’ wonder what she’s come after.”

“Thee never saidst a word to me about it.”

“Well, I aren’t like a bird-clapper, forced to make a rattle when the
wind blows on me. I can keep my own counsel when there’s no good i’
speaking.”

“But Dinah ’ll ha’ none o’ him. Dost think she will?”

“Nay,” said Mrs. Poyser, not sufficiently on her guard against a
possible surprise, “she’ll never marry anybody, if he isn’t a Methodist
and a cripple.”

“It ’ud ha’ been a pretty thing though for ’em t’ marry,” said Martin,
turning his head on one side, as if in pleased contemplation of his new
idea. “Thee’dst ha’ liked it too, wouldstna?”

“Ah! I should. I should ha’ been sure of her then, as she wouldn’t go
away from me to Snowfield, welly thirty mile off, and me not got a
creatur to look to, only neighbours, as are no kin to me, an’ most of
’em women as I’d be ashamed to show my face, if _my_ dairy things war
like their’n. There may well be streaky butter i’ the market. An’ I
should be glad to see the poor thing settled like a Christian woman,
with a house of her own over her head; and we’d stock her well wi’
linen and feathers, for I love her next to my own children. An’ she
makes one feel safer when she’s i’ the house, for she’s like the driven
snow: anybody might sin for two as had her at their elbow.”

“Dinah,” said Tommy, running forward to meet her, “mother says you’ll
never marry anybody but a Methodist cripple. What a silly you must be!”
a comment which Tommy followed up by seizing Dinah with both arms, and
dancing along by her side with incommodious fondness.

“Why, Adam, we missed you i’ the singing to-day,” said Mr. Poyser. “How
was it?”

“I wanted to see Dinah—she’s going away so soon,” said Adam.

“Ah, lad! Can you persuade her to stop somehow? Find her a good husband
somewhere i’ the parish. If you’ll do that, we’ll forgive you for
missing church. But, anyway, she isna going before the harvest supper
o’ Wednesday, and you must come then. There’s Bartle Massey comin’, an’
happen Craig. You’ll be sure an’ come, now, at seven? The missis wunna
have it a bit later.”

“Aye,” said Adam, “I’ll come if I can. But I can’t often say what I’ll
do beforehand, for the work often holds me longer than I expect. You’ll
stay till the end o’ the week, Dinah?”

“Yes, yes!” said Mr. Poyser. “We’ll have no nay.”

“She’s no call to be in a hurry,” observed Mrs. Poyser. “Scarceness o’
victual ’ull keep: there’s no need to be hasty wi’ the cooking. An’
scarceness is what there’s the biggest stock of i’ that country.”

Dinah smiled, but gave no promise to stay, and they talked of other
things through the rest of the walk, lingering in the sunshine to look
at the great flock of geese grazing, at the new corn-ricks, and at the
surprising abundance of fruit on the old pear-tree; Nancy and Molly
having already hastened home, side by side, each holding, carefully
wrapped in her pocket-handkerchief, a prayer-book, in which she could
read little beyond the large letters and the Amens.

Surely all other leisure is hurry compared with a sunny walk through
the fields from “afternoon church”—as such walks used to be in those
old leisurely times, when the boat, gliding sleepily along the canal,
was the newest locomotive wonder; when Sunday books had most of them
old brown-leather covers, and opened with remarkable precision always
in one place. Leisure is gone—gone where the spinning-wheels are gone,
and the pack-horses, and the slow waggons, and the pedlars, who brought
bargains to the door on sunny afternoons. Ingenious philosophers tell
you, perhaps, that the great work of the steam-engine is to create
leisure for mankind. Do not believe them: it only creates a vacuum for
eager thought to rush in. Even idleness is eager now—eager for
amusement; prone to excursion-trains, art museums, periodical
literature, and exciting novels; prone even to scientific theorizing
and cursory peeps through microscopes. Old Leisure was quite a
different personage. He only read one newspaper, innocent of leaders,
and was free from that periodicity of sensations which we call
post-time. He was a contemplative, rather stout gentleman, of excellent
digestion; of quiet perceptions, undiseased by hypothesis; happy in his
inability to know the causes of things, preferring the things
themselves. He lived chiefly in the country, among pleasant seats and
homesteads, and was fond of sauntering by the fruit-tree wall and
scenting the apricots when they were warmed by the morning sunshine, or
of sheltering himself under the orchard boughs at noon, when the summer
pears were falling. He knew nothing of weekday services, and thought
none the worse of the Sunday sermon if it allowed him to sleep from the
text to the blessing; liking the afternoon service best, because the
prayers were the shortest, and not ashamed to say so; for he had an
easy, jolly conscience, broad-backed like himself, and able to carry a
great deal of beer or port-wine, not being made squeamish by doubts and
qualms and lofty aspirations. Life was not a task to him, but a
sinecure. He fingered the guineas in his pocket, and ate his dinners,
and slept the sleep of the irresponsible, for had he not kept up his
character by going to church on the Sunday afternoons?

Fine old Leisure! Do not be severe upon him, and judge him by our
modern standard. He never went to Exeter Hall, or heard a popular
preacher, or read _Tracts for the Times_ or _Sartor Resartus_.




Chapter LIII
The Harvest Supper


As Adam was going homeward, on Wednesday evening, in the six o’clock
sunlight, he saw in the distance the last load of barley winding its
way towards the yard-gate of the Hall Farm, and heard the chant of
“Harvest Home!” rising and sinking like a wave. Fainter and fainter,
and more musical through the growing distance, the falling dying sound
still reached him, as he neared the Willow Brook. The low westering sun
shone right on the shoulders of the old Binton Hills, turning the
unconscious sheep into bright spots of light; shone on the windows of
the cottage too, and made them a-flame with a glory beyond that of
amber or amethyst. It was enough to make Adam feel that he was in a
great temple, and that the distant chant was a sacred song.

“It’s wonderful,” he thought, “how that sound goes to one’s heart
almost like a funeral bell, for all it tells one o’ the joyfullest time
o’ the year, and the time when men are mostly the thankfullest. I
suppose it’s a bit hard to us to think anything’s over and gone in our
lives; and there’s a parting at the root of all our joys. It’s like
what I feel about Dinah. I should never ha’ come to know that her love
’ud be the greatest o’ blessings to me, if what I counted a blessing
hadn’t been wrenched and torn away from me, and left me with a greater
need, so as I could crave and hunger for a greater and a better
comfort.”

He expected to see Dinah again this evening, and get leave to accompany
her as far as Oakbourne; and then he would ask her to fix some time
when he might go to Snowfield, and learn whether the last best hope
that had been born to him must be resigned like the rest. The work he
had to do at home, besides putting on his best clothes, made it seven
before he was on his way again to the Hall Farm, and it was
questionable whether, with his longest and quickest strides, he should
be there in time even for the roast beef, which came after the plum
pudding, for Mrs. Poyser’s supper would be punctual.

Great was the clatter of knives and pewter plates and tin cans when
Adam entered the house, but there was no hum of voices to this
accompaniment: the eating of excellent roast beef, provided free of
expense, was too serious a business to those good farm-labourers to be
performed with a divided attention, even if they had had anything to
say to each other—which they had not. And Mr. Poyser, at the head of
the table, was too busy with his carving to listen to Bartle Massey’s
or Mr. Craig’s ready talk.

“Here, Adam,” said Mrs. Poyser, who was standing and looking on to see
that Molly and Nancy did their duty as waiters, “here’s a place kept
for you between Mr. Massey and the boys. It’s a poor tale you couldn’t
come to see the pudding when it was whole.”

Adam looked anxiously round for a fourth woman’s figure, but Dinah was
not there. He was almost afraid of asking about her; besides, his
attention was claimed by greetings, and there remained the hope that
Dinah was in the house, though perhaps disinclined to festivities on
the eve of her departure.

It was a goodly sight—that table, with Martin Poyser’s round
good-humoured face and large person at the head of it helping his
servants to the fragrant roast beef and pleased when the empty plates
came again. Martin, though usually blest with a good appetite, really
forgot to finish his own beef to-night—it was so pleasant to him to
look on in the intervals of carving and see how the others enjoyed
their supper; for were they not men who, on all the days of the year
except Christmas Day and Sundays, ate their cold dinner, in a makeshift
manner, under the hedgerows, and drank their beer out of wooden
bottles—with relish certainly, but with their mouths towards the
zenith, after a fashion more endurable to ducks than to human bipeds.
Martin Poyser had some faint conception of the flavour such men must
find in hot roast beef and fresh-drawn ale. He held his head on one
side and screwed up his mouth, as he nudged Bartle Massey, and watched
half-witted Tom Tholer, otherwise known as “Tom Saft,” receiving his
second plateful of beef. A grin of delight broke over Tom’s face as the
plate was set down before him, between his knife and fork, which he
held erect, as if they had been sacred tapers. But the delight was too
strong to continue smouldering in a grin—it burst out the next instant
in a long-drawn “haw, haw!” followed by a sudden collapse into utter
gravity, as the knife and fork darted down on the prey. Martin Poyser’s
large person shook with his silent unctuous laugh. He turned towards
Mrs. Poyser to see if she too had been observant of Tom, and the eyes
of husband and wife met in a glance of good-natured amusement.

“Tom Saft” was a great favourite on the farm, where he played the part
of the old jester, and made up for his practical deficiencies by his
success in repartee. His hits, I imagine, were those of the flail,
which falls quite at random, but nevertheless smashes an insect now and
then. They were much quoted at sheep-shearing and haymaking times, but
I refrain from recording them here, lest Tom’s wit should prove to be
like that of many other bygone jesters eminent in their day—rather of a
temporary nature, not dealing with the deeper and more lasting
relations of things.

Tom excepted, Martin Poyser had some pride in his servants and
labourers, thinking with satisfaction that they were the best worth
their pay of any set on the estate. There was Kester Bale, for example
(Beale, probably, if the truth were known, but he was called Bale, and
was not conscious of any claim to a fifth letter), the old man with the
close leather cap and the network of wrinkles on his sun-browned face.
Was there any man in Loamshire who knew better the “natur” of all
farming work? He was one of those invaluable labourers who can not only
turn their hand to everything, but excel in everything they turn their
hand to. It is true Kester’s knees were much bent outward by this time,
and he walked with a perpetual curtsy, as if he were among the most
reverent of men. And so he was; but I am obliged to admit that the
object of his reverence was his own skill, towards which he performed
some rather affecting acts of worship. He always thatched the ricks—for
if anything were his forte more than another, it was thatching—and when
the last touch had been put to the last beehive rick, Kester, whose
home lay at some distance from the farm, would take a walk to the
rick-yard in his best clothes on a Sunday morning and stand in the
lane, at a due distance, to contemplate his own thatching, walking
about to get each rick from the proper point of view. As he curtsied
along, with his eyes upturned to the straw knobs imitative of golden
globes at the summits of the beehive ricks, which indeed were gold of
the best sort, you might have imagined him to be engaged in some pagan
act of adoration. Kester was an old bachelor and reputed to have
stockings full of coin, concerning which his master cracked a joke with
him every pay-night: not a new unseasoned joke, but a good old one,
that had been tried many times before and had worn well. “Th’ young
measter’s a merry mon,” Kester frequently remarked; for having begun
his career by frightening away the crows under the last Martin Poyser
but one, he could never cease to account the reigning Martin a young
master. I am not ashamed of commemorating old Kester. You and I are
indebted to the hard hands of such men—hands that have long ago mingled
with the soil they tilled so faithfully, thriftily making the best they
could of the earth’s fruits, and receiving the smallest share as their
own wages.

Then, at the end of the table, opposite his master, there was Alick,
the shepherd and head-man, with the ruddy face and broad shoulders, not
on the best terms with old Kester; indeed, their intercourse was
confined to an occasional snarl, for though they probably differed
little concerning hedging and ditching and the treatment of ewes, there
was a profound difference of opinion between them as to their own
respective merits. When Tityrus and Meliboeus happen to be on the same
farm, they are not sentimentally polite to each other. Alick, indeed,
was not by any means a honeyed man. His speech had usually something of
a snarl in it, and his broad-shouldered aspect something of the
bull-dog expression—“Don’t you meddle with me, and I won’t meddle with
you.” But he was honest even to the splitting of an oat-grain rather
than he would take beyond his acknowledged share, and as “close-fisted”
with his master’s property as if it had been his own—throwing very
small handfuls of damaged barley to the chickens, because a large
handful affected his imagination painfully with a sense of profusion.
Good-tempered Tim, the waggoner, who loved his horses, had his grudge
against Alick in the matter of corn. They rarely spoke to each other,
and never looked at each other, even over their dish of cold potatoes;
but then, as this was their usual mode of behaviour towards all
mankind, it would be an unsafe conclusion that they had more than
transient fits of unfriendliness. The bucolic character at Hayslope,
you perceive, was not of that entirely genial, merry, broad-grinning
sort, apparently observed in most districts visited by artists. The
mild radiance of a smile was a rare sight on a field-labourer’s face,
and there was seldom any gradation between bovine gravity and a laugh.
Nor was every labourer so honest as our friend Alick. At this very
table, among Mr. Poyser’s men, there is that big Ben Tholoway, a very
powerful thresher, but detected more than once in carrying away his
master’s corn in his pockets—an action which, as Ben was not a
philosopher, could hardly be ascribed to absence of mind. However, his
master had forgiven him, and continued to employ him, for the Tholoways
had lived on the Common time out of mind, and had always worked for the
Poysers. And on the whole, I daresay, society was not much the worse
because Ben had not six months of it at the treadmill, for his views of
depredation were narrow, and the House of Correction might have
enlarged them. As it was, Ben ate his roast beef to-night with a serene
sense of having stolen nothing more than a few peas and beans as seed
for his garden since the last harvest supper, and felt warranted in
thinking that Alick’s suspicious eye, for ever upon him, was an injury
to his innocence.

But _now_ the roast beef was finished and the cloth was drawn, leaving
a fair large deal table for the bright drinking-cans, and the foaming
brown jugs, and the bright brass candlesticks, pleasant to behold.
_Now_, the great ceremony of the evening was to begin—the harvest-song,
in which every man must join. He might be in tune, if he liked to be
singular, but he must not sit with closed lips. The movement was
obliged to be in triple time; the rest was _ad libitum_.

As to the origin of this song—whether it came in its actual state from
the brain of a single rhapsodist, or was gradually perfected by a
school or succession of rhapsodists, I am ignorant. There is a stamp of
unity, of individual genius upon it, which inclines me to the former
hypothesis, though I am not blind to the consideration that this unity
may rather have arisen from that consensus of many minds which was a
condition of primitive thought, foreign to our modern consciousness.
Some will perhaps think that they detect in the first quatrain an
indication of a lost line, which later rhapsodists, failing in
imaginative vigour, have supplied by the feeble device of iteration.
Others, however, may rather maintain that this very iteration is an
original felicity, to which none but the most prosaic minds can be
insensible.

The ceremony connected with the song was a drinking ceremony. (That is
perhaps a painful fact, but then, you know, we cannot reform our
forefathers.) During the first and second quatrain, sung decidedly
_forte_, no can was filled.

“Here’s a health unto our master,
    The founder of the feast;
Here’s a health unto our master
    And to our mistress!

And may his doings prosper,
    Whate’er he takes in hand,
For we are all his servants,
    And are at his command.”


But now, immediately before the third quatrain or chorus, sung
_fortissimo_, with emphatic raps of the table, which gave the effect of
cymbals and drum together, Alick’s can was filled, and he was bound to
empty it before the chorus ceased.

“Then drink, boys, drink!
    And see ye do not spill,
For if ye do, ye shall drink two,
    For ’tis our master’s will.”


When Alick had gone successfully through this test of steady-handed
manliness, it was the turn of old Kester, at his right hand—and so on,
till every man had drunk his initiatory pint under the stimulus of the
chorus. Tom Saft—the rogue—took care to spill a little by accident; but
Mrs. Poyser (too officiously, Tom thought) interfered to prevent the
exaction of the penalty.

To any listener outside the door it would have been the reverse of
obvious why the “Drink, boys, drink!” should have such an immediate and
often-repeated encore; but once entered, he would have seen that all
faces were at present sober, and most of them serious—it was the
regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to do,
as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over their
wine-glasses. Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, had gone
out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in the
ceremony, and had not finished his contemplation until a silence of
five minutes declared that “Drink, boys, drink!” was not likely to
begin again for the next twelvemonth. Much to the regret of the boys
and Totty: on them the stillness fell rather flat, after that glorious
thumping of the table, towards which Totty, seated on her father’s
knee, contributed with her small might and small fist.

When Bartle re-entered, however, there appeared to be a general desire
for solo music after the choral. Nancy declared that Tim the waggoner
knew a song and was “allays singing like a lark i’ the stable,”
whereupon Mr. Poyser said encouragingly, “Come, Tim, lad, let’s hear
it.” Tim looked sheepish, tucked down his head, and said he couldn’t
sing, but this encouraging invitation of the master’s was echoed all
round the table. It was a conversational opportunity: everybody could
say, “Come, Tim,” except Alick, who never relaxed into the frivolity of
unnecessary speech. At last, Tim’s next neighbour, Ben Tholoway, began
to give emphasis to his speech by nudges, at which Tim, growing rather
savage, said, “Let me alooan, will ye? Else I’ll ma’ ye sing a toon ye
wonna like.” A good-tempered waggoner’s patience has limits, and Tim
was not to be urged further.

“Well, then, David, ye’re the lad to sing,” said Ben, willing to show
that he was not discomfited by this check. “Sing ‘My loove’s a roos
wi’out a thorn.’”

The amatory David was a young man of an unconscious abstracted
expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity
rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent to
Ben’s invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve over
his mouth in a way that was regarded as a symptom of yielding. And for
some time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the desire
to hear David’s song. But in vain. The lyricism of the evening was in
the cellar at present, and was not to be drawn from that retreat just
yet.

Meanwhile the conversation at the head of the table had taken a
political turn. Mr. Craig was not above talking politics occasionally,
though he piqued himself rather on a wise insight than on specific
information. He saw so far beyond the mere facts of a case that really
it was superfluous to know them.

“I’m no reader o’ the paper myself,” he observed to-night, as he filled
his pipe, “though I might read it fast enough if I liked, for there’s
Miss Lyddy has ’em and ’s done with ’em i’ no time. But there’s Mills,
now, sits i’ the chimney-corner and reads the paper pretty nigh from
morning to night, and when he’s got to th’ end on’t he’s more
addle-headed than he was at the beginning. He’s full o’ this peace now,
as they talk on; he’s been reading and reading, and thinks he’s got to
the bottom on’t. ‘Why, Lor’ bless you, Mills,’ says I, ‘you see no more
into this thing nor you can see into the middle of a potato. I’ll tell
you what it is: you think it’ll be a fine thing for the country. And
I’m not again’ it—mark my words—I’m not again’ it. But it’s my opinion
as there’s them at the head o’ this country as are worse enemies to us
nor Bony and all the mounseers he’s got at ’s back; for as for the
mounseers, you may skewer half-a-dozen of ’em at once as if they war
frogs.’”

“Aye, aye,” said Martin Poyser, listening with an air of much
intelligence and edification, “they ne’er ate a bit o’ beef i’ their
lives. Mostly sallet, I reckon.”

“And says I to Mills,” continued Mr. Craig, “‘Will _you_ try to make me
believe as furriners like them can do us half th’ harm them ministers
do with their bad government? If King George ’ud turn ’em all away and
govern by himself, he’d see everything righted. He might take on Billy
Pitt again if he liked; but I don’t see myself what we want wi’ anybody
besides King and Parliament. It’s that nest o’ ministers does the
mischief, I tell you.’”

“Ah, it’s fine talking,” observed Mrs. Poyser, who was now seated near
her husband, with Totty on her lap—“it’s fine talking. It’s hard work
to tell which is Old Harry when everybody’s got boots on.”

“As for this peace,” said Mr. Poyser, turning his head on one side in a
dubitative manner and giving a precautionary puff to his pipe between
each sentence, “I don’t know. Th’ war’s a fine thing for the country,
an’ how’ll you keep up prices wi’out it? An’ them French are a wicked
sort o’ folks, by what I can make out. What can you do better nor fight
’em?”

“Ye’re partly right there, Poyser,” said Mr. Craig, “but I’m not again’
the peace—to make a holiday for a bit. We can break it when we like,
an’ _I’m_ in no fear o’ Bony, for all they talk so much o’ his
cliverness. That’s what I says to Mills this morning. Lor’ bless you,
he sees no more through Bony!... why, I put him up to more in three
minutes than he gets from’s paper all the year round. Says I, ‘Am I a
gardener as knows his business, or arn’t I, Mills? Answer me that.’ ‘To
be sure y’ are, Craig,’ says he—he’s not a bad fellow, Mills isn’t, for
a butler, but weak i’ the head. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘you talk o’ Bony’s
cliverness; would it be any use my being a first-rate gardener if I’d
got nought but a quagmire to work on?’ ‘No,’ says he. ‘Well,’ I says,
‘that’s just what it is wi’ Bony. I’ll not deny but he may be a bit
cliver—he’s no Frenchman born, as I understand—but what’s he got at’s
back but mounseers?’”

Mr. Craig paused a moment with an emphatic stare after this triumphant
specimen of Socratic argument, and then added, thumping the table
rather fiercely, “Why, it’s a sure thing—and there’s them ’ull bear
witness to’t—as i’ one regiment where there was one man a-missing, they
put the regimentals on a big monkey, and they fit him as the shell fits
the walnut, and you couldn’t tell the monkey from the mounseers!”

“Ah! Think o’ that, now!” said Mr. Poyser, impressed at once with the
political bearings of the fact and with its striking interest as an
anecdote in natural history.

“Come, Craig,” said Adam, “that’s a little too strong. You don’t
believe that. It’s all nonsense about the French being such poor
sticks. Mr. Irwine’s seen ’em in their own country, and he says they’ve
plenty o’ fine fellows among ’em. And as for knowledge, and
contrivances, and manufactures, there’s a many things as we’re a fine
sight behind ’em in. It’s poor foolishness to run down your enemies.
Why, Nelson and the rest of ’em ’ud have no merit i’ beating ’em, if
they were such offal as folks pretend.”

Mr. Poyser looked doubtfully at Mr. Craig, puzzled by this opposition
of authorities. Mr. Irwine’s testimony was not to be disputed; but, on
the other hand, Craig was a knowing fellow, and his view was less
startling. Martin had never “heard tell” of the French being good for
much. Mr. Craig had found no answer but such as was implied in taking a
long draught of ale and then looking down fixedly at the proportions of
his own leg, which he turned a little outward for that purpose, when
Bartle Massey returned from the fireplace, where he had been smoking
his first pipe in quiet, and broke the silence by saying, as he thrust
his forefinger into the canister, “Why, Adam, how happened you not to
be at church on Sunday? Answer me that, you rascal. The anthem went
limping without you. Are you going to disgrace your schoolmaster in his
old age?”

“No, Mr. Massey,” said Adam. “Mr. and Mrs. Poyser can tell you where I
was. I was in no bad company.”

“She’s gone, Adam—gone to Snowfield,” said Mr. Poyser, reminded of
Dinah for the first time this evening. “I thought you’d ha’ persuaded
her better. Nought ’ud hold her, but she must go yesterday forenoon.
The missis has hardly got over it. I thought she’d ha’ no sperrit for
th’ harvest supper.”

Mrs. Poyser had thought of Dinah several times since Adam had come in,
but she had had “no heart” to mention the bad news.

“What!” said Bartle, with an air of disgust. “Was there a woman
concerned? Then I give you up, Adam.”

“But it’s a woman you’n spoke well on, Bartle,” said Mr. Poyser. “Come
now, you canna draw back; you said once as women wouldna ha’ been a bad
invention if they’d all been like Dinah.”

“I meant her voice, man—I meant her voice, that was all,” said Bartle.
“I can bear to hear her speak without wanting to put wool in my ears.
As for other things, I daresay she’s like the rest o’ the women—thinks
two and two ’ll come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough
about it.”

“Aye, aye!” said Mrs. Poyser; “one ’ud think, an’ hear some folks talk,
as the men war ’cute enough to count the corns in a bag o’ wheat wi’
only smelling at it. They can see through a barn-door, _they_ can.
Perhaps that’s the reason they can see so little o’ this side on’t.”

Martin Poyser shook with delighted laughter and winked at Adam, as much
as to say the schoolmaster was in for it now.

“Ah!” said Bartle sneeringly, “the women are quick enough—they’re quick
enough. They know the rights of a story before they hear it, and can
tell a man what his thoughts are before he knows ’em himself.”

“Like enough,” said Mrs. Poyser, “for the men are mostly so slow, their
thoughts overrun ’em, an’ they can only catch ’em by the tail. I can
count a stocking-top while a man’s getting’s tongue ready an’ when he
outs wi’ his speech at last, there’s little broth to be made on’t. It’s
your dead chicks take the longest hatchin’. Howiver, I’m not denyin’
the women are foolish: God Almighty made ’em to match the men.”

“Match!” said Bartle. “Aye, as vinegar matches one’s teeth. If a man
says a word, his wife ’ll match it with a contradiction; if he’s a mind
for hot meat, his wife ’ll match it with cold bacon; if he laughs,
she’ll match him with whimpering. She’s such a match as the horse-fly
is to th’ horse: she’s got the right venom to sting him with—the right
venom to sting him with.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Poyser, “I know what the men like—a poor soft, as ’ud
simper at ’em like the picture o’ the sun, whether they did right or
wrong, an’ say thank you for a kick, an’ pretend she didna know which
end she stood uppermost, till her husband told her. That’s what a man
wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure o’ one fool as ’ull tell
him he’s wise. But there’s some men can do wi’out that—they think so
much o’ themselves a’ready. An’ that’s how it is there’s old
bachelors.”

“Come, Craig,” said Mr. Poyser jocosely, “you mun get married pretty
quick, else you’ll be set down for an old bachelor; an’ you see what
the women ’ull think on you.”

“Well,” said Mr. Craig, willing to conciliate Mrs. Poyser and setting a
high value on his own compliments, “_I_ like a cleverish woman—a woman
o’ sperrit—a managing woman.”

“You’re out there, Craig,” said Bartle, dryly; “you’re out there. You
judge o’ your garden-stuff on a better plan than that. You pick the
things for what they can excel in—for what they can excel in. You don’t
value your peas for their roots, or your carrots for their flowers.
Now, that’s the way you should choose women. Their cleverness ’ll never
come to much—never come to much—but they make excellent simpletons,
ripe and strong-flavoured.”

“What dost say to that?” said Mr. Poyser, throwing himself back and
looking merrily at his wife.

“Say!” answered Mrs. Poyser, with dangerous fire kindling in her eye.
“Why, I say as some folks’ tongues are like the clocks as run on
strikin’, not to tell you the time o’ the day, but because there’s
summat wrong i’ their own inside...”

Mrs. Poyser would probably have brought her rejoinder to a further
climax, if every one’s attention had not at this moment been called to
the other end of the table, where the lyricism, which had at first only
manifested itself by David’s _sotto voce_ performance of “My love’s a
rose without a thorn,” had gradually assumed a rather deafening and
complex character. Tim, thinking slightly of David’s vocalization, was
impelled to supersede that feeble buzz by a spirited commencement of
“Three Merry Mowers,” but David was not to be put down so easily, and
showed himself capable of a copious crescendo, which was rendering it
doubtful whether the rose would not predominate over the mowers, when
old Kester, with an entirely unmoved and immovable aspect, suddenly set
up a quavering treble—as if he had been an alarum, and the time was
come for him to go off.

The company at Alick’s end of the table took this form of vocal
entertainment very much as a matter of course, being free from musical
prejudices; but Bartle Massey laid down his pipe and put his fingers in
his ears; and Adam, who had been longing to go ever since he had heard
Dinah was not in the house, rose and said he must bid good-night.

“I’ll go with you, lad,” said Bartle; “I’ll go with you before my ears
are split.”

“I’ll go round by the Common and see you home, if you like, Mr.
Massey,” said Adam.

“Aye, aye!” said Bartle; “then we can have a bit o’ talk together. I
never get hold of you now.”

“Eh! It’s a pity but you’d sit it out,” said Martin Poyser. “They’ll
all go soon, for th’ missis niver lets ’em stay past ten.”

But Adam was resolute, so the good-nights were said, and the two
friends turned out on their starlight walk together.

“There’s that poor fool, Vixen, whimpering for me at home,” said
Bartle. “I can never bring her here with me for fear she should be
struck with Mrs. Poyser’s eye, and the poor bitch might go limping for
ever after.”

“I’ve never any need to drive Gyp back,” said Adam, laughing. “He
always turns back of his own head when he finds out I’m coming here.”

“Aye, aye,” said Bartle. “A terrible woman!—made of needles, made of
needles. But I stick to Martin—I shall always stick to Martin. And he
likes the needles, God help him! He’s a cushion made on purpose for
’em.”

“But she’s a downright good-natur’d woman, for all that,” said Adam,
“and as true as the daylight. She’s a bit cross wi’ the dogs when they
offer to come in th’ house, but if they depended on her, she’d take
care and have ’em well fed. If her tongue’s keen, her heart’s tender:
I’ve seen that in times o’ trouble. She’s one o’ those women as are
better than their word.”

“Well, well,” said Bartle, “I don’t say th’ apple isn’t sound at the
core; but it sets my teeth on edge—it sets my teeth on edge.”




Chapter LIV
The Meeting on the Hill


Adam understood Dinah’s haste to go away, and drew hope rather than
discouragement from it. She was fearful lest the strength of her
feeling towards him should hinder her from waiting and listening
faithfully for the ultimate guiding voice from within.

“I wish I’d asked her to write to me, though,” he thought. “And yet
even that might disturb her a bit, perhaps. She wants to be quite quiet
in her old way for a while. And I’ve no right to be impatient and
interrupting her with my wishes. She’s told me what her mind is, and
she’s not a woman to say one thing and mean another. I’ll wait
patiently.”

That was Adam’s wise resolution, and it throve excellently for the
first two or three weeks on the nourishment it got from the remembrance
of Dinah’s confession that Sunday afternoon. There is a wonderful
amount of sustenance in the first few words of love. But towards the
middle of October the resolution began to dwindle perceptibly, and
showed dangerous symptoms of exhaustion. The weeks were unusually long:
Dinah must surely have had more than enough time to make up her mind.
Let a woman say what she will after she has once told a man that she
loves him, he is a little too flushed and exalted with that first
draught she offers him to care much about the taste of the second. He
treads the earth with a very elastic step as he walks away from her,
and makes light of all difficulties. But that sort of glow dies out:
memory gets sadly diluted with time, and is not strong enough to revive
us. Adam was no longer so confident as he had been. He began to fear
that perhaps Dinah’s old life would have too strong a grasp upon her
for any new feeling to triumph. If she had not felt this, she would
surely have written to him to give him some comfort; but it appeared
that she held it right to discourage him. As Adam’s confidence waned,
his patience waned with it, and he thought he must write himself. He
must ask Dinah not to leave him in painful doubt longer than was
needful. He sat up late one night to write her a letter, but the next
morning he burnt it, afraid of its effect. It would be worse to have a
discouraging answer by letter than from her own lips, for her presence
reconciled him to her will.

You perceive how it was: Adam was hungering for the sight of Dinah, and
when that sort of hunger reaches a certain stage, a lover is likely to
still it though he may have to put his future in pawn.

But what harm could he do by going to Snowfield? Dinah could not be
displeased with him for it. She had not forbidden him to go. She must
surely expect that he would go before long. By the second Sunday in
October this view of the case had become so clear to Adam that he was
already on his way to Snowfield, on horseback this time, for his hours
were precious now, and he had borrowed Jonathan Burge’s good nag for
the journey.

What keen memories went along the road with him! He had often been to
Oakbourne and back since that first journey to Snowfield, but beyond
Oakbourne the greystone walls, the broken country, the meagre trees,
seemed to be telling him afresh the story of that painful past which he
knew so well by heart. But no story is the same to us after a lapse of
time—or rather, we who read it are no longer the same interpreters—and
Adam this morning brought with him new thoughts through that grey
country, thoughts which gave an altered significance to its story of
the past.

That is a base and selfish, even a blasphemous, spirit which rejoices
and is thankful over the past evil that has blighted or crushed
another, because it has been made a source of unforeseen good to
ourselves. Adam could never cease to mourn over that mystery of human
sorrow which had been brought so close to him; he could never thank God
for another’s misery. And if I were capable of that narrow-sighted joy
in Adam’s behalf, I should still know he was not the man to feel it for
himself. He would have shaken his head at such a sentiment and said,
“Evil’s evil, and sorrow’s sorrow, and you can’t alter it’s natur by
wrapping it up in other words. Other folks were not created for my
sake, that I should think all square when things turn out well for me.”

But it is not ignoble to feel that the fuller life which a sad
experience has brought us is worth our own personal share of pain.
Surely it is not possible to feel otherwise, any more than it would be
possible for a man with cataract to regret the painful process by which
his dim blurred sight of men as trees walking had been exchanged for
clear outline and effulgent day. The growth of higher feeling within us
is like the growth of faculty, bringing with it a sense of added
strength. We can no more wish to return to a narrower sympathy than a
painter or a musician can wish to return to his cruder manner, or a
philosopher to his less complete formula.

Something like this sense of enlarged being was in Adam’s mind this
Sunday morning, as he rode along in vivid recollection of the past. His
feeling towards Dinah, the hope of passing his life with her, had been
the distant unseen point towards which that hard journey from Snowfield
eighteen months ago had been leading him. Tender and deep as his love
for Hetty had been—so deep that the roots of it would never be torn
away—his love for Dinah was better and more precious to him, for it was
the outgrowth of that fuller life which had come to him from his
acquaintance with deep sorrow. “It’s like as if it was a new strength
to me,” he said to himself, “to love her and know as she loves me. I
shall look t’ her to help me to see things right. For she’s better than
I am—there’s less o’ self in her, and pride. And it’s a feeling as
gives you a sort o’ liberty, as if you could walk more fearless, when
you’ve more trust in another than y’ have in yourself. I’ve always been
thinking I knew better than them as belonged to me, and that’s a poor
sort o’ life, when you can’t look to them nearest to you t’ help you
with a bit better thought than what you’ve got inside you a’ready.”

It was more than two o’clock in the afternoon when Adam came in sight
of the grey town on the hill-side and looked searchingly towards the
green valley below, for the first glimpse of the old thatched roof near
the ugly red mill. The scene looked less harsh in the soft October
sunshine than it had in the eager time of early spring, and the one
grand charm it possessed in common with all wide-stretching woodless
regions—that it filled you with a new consciousness of the overarching
sky—had a milder, more soothing influence than usual, on this almost
cloudless day. Adam’s doubts and fears melted under this influence as
the delicate weblike clouds had gradually melted away into the clear
blue above him. He seemed to see Dinah’s gentle face assuring him, with
its looks alone, of all he longed to know.

He did not expect Dinah to be at home at this hour, but he got down
from his horse and tied it at the little gate, that he might ask where
she was gone to-day. He had set his mind on following her and bringing
her home. She was gone to Sloman’s End, a hamlet about three miles off,
over the hill, the old woman told him—had set off directly after
morning chapel, to preach in a cottage there, as her habit was. Anybody
at the town would tell him the way to Sloman’s End. So Adam got on his
horse again and rode to the town, putting up at the old inn and taking
a hasty dinner there in the company of the too chatty landlord, from
whose friendly questions and reminiscences he was glad to escape as
soon as possible and set out towards Sloman’s End. With all his haste
it was nearly four o’clock before he could set off, and he thought that
as Dinah had gone so early, she would perhaps already be near
returning. The little, grey, desolate-looking hamlet, unscreened by
sheltering trees, lay in sight long before he reached it, and as he
came near he could hear the sound of voices singing a hymn. “Perhaps
that’s the last hymn before they come away,” Adam thought. “I’ll walk
back a bit and turn again to meet her, farther off the village.” He
walked back till he got nearly to the top of the hill again, and seated
himself on a loose stone, against the low wall, to watch till he should
see the little black figure leaving the hamlet and winding up the hill.
He chose this spot, almost at the top of the hill, because it was away
from all eyes—no house, no cattle, not even a nibbling sheep near—no
presence but the still lights and shadows and the great embracing sky.

She was much longer coming than he expected. He waited an hour at least
watching for her and thinking of her, while the afternoon shadows
lengthened and the light grew softer. At last he saw the little black
figure coming from between the grey houses and gradually approaching
the foot of the hill. Slowly, Adam thought, but Dinah was really
walking at her usual pace, with a light quiet step. Now she was
beginning to wind along the path up the hill, but Adam would not move
yet; he would not meet her too soon; he had set his heart on meeting
her in this assured loneliness. And now he began to fear lest he should
startle her too much. “Yet,” he thought, “she’s not one to be
overstartled; she’s always so calm and quiet, as if she was prepared
for anything.”

What was she thinking of as she wound up the hill? Perhaps she had
found complete repose without him, and had ceased to feel any need of
his love. On the verge of a decision we all tremble: hope pauses with
fluttering wings.

But now at last she was very near, and Adam rose from the stone wall.
It happened that just as he walked forward, Dinah had paused and turned
round to look back at the village—who does not pause and look back in
mounting a hill? Adam was glad, for, with the fine instinct of a lover,
he felt that it would be best for her to hear his voice before she saw
him. He came within three paces of her and then said, “Dinah!” She
started without looking round, as if she connected the sound with no
place. “Dinah!” Adam said again. He knew quite well what was in her
mind. She was so accustomed to think of impressions as purely spiritual
monitions that she looked for no material visible accompaniment of the
voice.

But this second time she looked round. What a look of yearning love it
was that the mild grey eyes turned on the strong dark-eyed man! She did
not start again at the sight of him; she said nothing, but moved
towards him so that his arm could clasp her round.

And they walked on so in silence, while the warm tears fell. Adam was
content, and said nothing. It was Dinah who spoke first.

“Adam,” she said, “it is the Divine Will. My soul is so knit to yours
that it is but a divided life I live without you. And this moment, now
you are with me, and I feel that our hearts are filled with the same
love. I have a fulness of strength to bear and do our heavenly Father’s
Will that I had lost before.”

Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.

“Then we’ll never part any more, Dinah, till death parts us.”

And they kissed each other with a deep joy.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they
are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on
each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be
one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the
last parting?




Chapter LV
Marriage Bells


In little more than a month after that meeting on the hill—on a rimy
morning in departing November—Adam and Dinah were married.

It was an event much thought of in the village. All Mr. Burge’s men had
a holiday, and all Mr. Poyser’s, and most of those who had a holiday
appeared in their best clothes at the wedding. I think there was hardly
an inhabitant of Hayslope specially mentioned in this history and still
resident in the parish on this November morning who was not either in
church to see Adam and Dinah married, or near the church door to greet
them as they came forth. Mrs. Irwine and her daughters were waiting at
the churchyard gates in their carriage (for they had a carriage now) to
shake hands with the bride and bridegroom and wish them well; and in
the absence of Miss Lydia Donnithorne at Bath, Mrs. Best, Mr. Mills,
and Mr. Craig had felt it incumbent on them to represent “the family”
at the Chase on the occasion. The churchyard walk was quite lined with
familiar faces, many of them faces that had first looked at Dinah when
she preached on the Green. And no wonder they showed this eager
interest on her marriage morning, for nothing like Dinah and the
history which had brought her and Adam Bede together had been known at
Hayslope within the memory of man.

Bessy Cranage, in her neatest cap and frock, was crying, though she did
not exactly know why; for, as her cousin Wiry Ben, who stood near her,
judiciously suggested, Dinah was not going away, and if Bessy was in
low spirits, the best thing for her to do was to follow Dinah’s example
and marry an honest fellow who was ready to have her. Next to Bessy,
just within the church door, there were the Poyser children, peeping
round the corner of the pews to get a sight of the mysterious ceremony;
Totty’s face wearing an unusual air of anxiety at the idea of seeing
cousin Dinah come back looking rather old, for in Totty’s experience no
married people were young.

I envy them all the sight they had when the marriage was fairly ended
and Adam led Dinah out of church. She was not in black this morning,
for her Aunt Poyser would by no means allow such a risk of incurring
bad luck, and had herself made a present of the wedding dress, made all
of grey, though in the usual Quaker form, for on this point Dinah could
not give way. So the lily face looked out with sweet gravity from under
a grey Quaker bonnet, neither smiling nor blushing, but with lips
trembling a little under the weight of solemn feelings. Adam, as he
pressed her arm to his side, walked with his old erectness and his head
thrown rather backward as if to face all the world better. But it was
not because he was particularly proud this morning, as is the wont of
bridegrooms, for his happiness was of a kind that had little reference
to men’s opinion of it. There was a tinge of sadness in his deep joy;
Dinah knew it, and did not feel aggrieved.

There were three other couples, following the bride and bridegroom:
first, Martin Poyser, looking as cheery as a bright fire on this rimy
morning, led quiet Mary Burge, the bridesmaid; then came Seth serenely
happy, with Mrs. Poyser on his arm; and last of all Bartle Massey, with
Lisbeth—Lisbeth in a new gown and bonnet, too busy with her pride in
her son and her delight in possessing the one daughter she had desired
to devise a single pretext for complaint.

Bartle Massey had consented to attend the wedding at Adam’s earnest
request, under protest against marriage in general and the marriage of
a sensible man in particular. Nevertheless, Mr. Poyser had a joke
against him after the wedding dinner, to the effect that in the vestry
he had given the bride one more kiss than was necessary.

Behind this last couple came Mr. Irwine, glad at heart over this good
morning’s work of joining Adam and Dinah. For he had seen Adam in the
worst moments of his sorrow; and what better harvest from that painful
seed-time could there be than this? The love that had brought hope and
comfort in the hour of despair, the love that had found its way to the
dark prison cell and to poor Hetty’s darker soul—this strong gentle
love was to be Adam’s companion and helper till death.

There was much shaking of hands mingled with “God bless you’s” and
other good wishes to the four couples, at the churchyard gate, Mr.
Poyser answering for the rest with unwonted vivacity of tongue, for he
had all the appropriate wedding-day jokes at his command. And the
women, he observed, could never do anything but put finger in eye at a
wedding. Even Mrs. Poyser could not trust herself to speak as the
neighbours shook hands with her, and Lisbeth began to cry in the face
of the very first person who told her she was getting young again.

Mr. Joshua Rann, having a slight touch of rheumatism, did not join in
the ringing of the bells this morning, and, looking on with some
contempt at these informal greetings which required no official
co-operation from the clerk, began to hum in his musical bass, “Oh what
a joyful thing it is,” by way of preluding a little to the effect he
intended to produce in the wedding psalm next Sunday.

“That’s a bit of good news to cheer Arthur,” said Mr. Irwine to his
mother, as they drove off. “I shall write to him the first thing when
we get home.”




Epilogue


It is near the end of June, in 1807. The workshops have been shut up
half an hour or more in Adam Bede’s timber-yard, which used to be
Jonathan Burge’s, and the mellow evening light is falling on the
pleasant house with the buff walls and the soft grey thatch, very much
as it did when we saw Adam bringing in the keys on that June evening
nine years ago.

There is a figure we know well, just come out of the house, and shading
her eyes with her hands as she looks for something in the distance, for
the rays that fall on her white borderless cap and her pale auburn hair
are very dazzling. But now she turns away from the sunlight and looks
towards the door.

We can see the sweet pale face quite well now: it is scarcely at all
altered—only a little fuller, to correspond to her more matronly
figure, which still seems light and active enough in the plain black
dress.

“I see him, Seth,” Dinah said, as she looked into the house. “Let us go
and meet him. Come, Lisbeth, come with Mother.”

The last call was answered immediately by a small fair creature with
pale auburn hair and grey eyes, little more than four years old, who
ran out silently and put her hand into her mother’s.

“Come, Uncle Seth,” said Dinah.

“Aye, aye, we’re coming,” Seth answered from within, and presently
appeared stooping under the doorway, being taller than usual by the
black head of a sturdy two-year-old nephew, who had caused some delay
by demanding to be carried on uncle’s shoulder.

“Better take him on thy arm, Seth,” said Dinah, looking fondly at the
stout black-eyed fellow. “He’s troublesome to thee so.”

“Nay, nay: Addy likes a ride on my shoulder. I can carry him so for a
bit.” A kindness which young Addy acknowledged by drumming his heels
with promising force against Uncle Seth’s chest. But to walk by Dinah’s
side, and be tyrannized over by Dinah’s and Adam’s children, was Uncle
Seth’s earthly happiness.

“Where didst see him?” asked Seth, as they walked on into the adjoining
field. “I can’t catch sight of him anywhere.”

“Between the hedges by the roadside,” said Dinah. “I saw his hat and
his shoulder. There he is again.”

“Trust thee for catching sight of him if he’s anywhere to be seen,”
said Seth, smiling. “Thee’t like poor mother used to be. She was always
on the look out for Adam, and could see him sooner than other folks,
for all her eyes got dim.”

“He’s been longer than he expected,” said Dinah, taking Arthur’s watch
from a small side pocket and looking at it; “it’s nigh upon seven now.”

“Aye, they’d have a deal to say to one another,” said Seth, “and the
meeting ’ud touch ’em both pretty closish. Why, it’s getting on towards
eight years since they parted.”

“Yes,” said Dinah, “Adam was greatly moved this morning at the thought
of the change he should see in the poor young man, from the sickness he
has undergone, as well as the years which have changed us all. And the
death of the poor wanderer, when she was coming back to us, has been
sorrow upon sorrow.”

“See, Addy,” said Seth, lowering the young one to his arm now and
pointing, “there’s Father coming—at the far stile.”

Dinah hastened her steps, and little Lisbeth ran on at her utmost speed
till she clasped her father’s leg. Adam patted her head and lifted her
up to kiss her, but Dinah could see the marks of agitation on his face
as she approached him, and he put her arm within his in silence.

“Well, youngster, must I take you?” he said, trying to smile, when Addy
stretched out his arms—ready, with the usual baseness of infancy, to
give up his Uncle Seth at once, now there was some rarer patronage at
hand.

“It’s cut me a good deal, Dinah,” Adam said at last, when they were
walking on.

“Didst find him greatly altered?” said Dinah.

“Why, he’s altered and yet not altered. I should ha’ known him
anywhere. But his colour’s changed, and he looks sadly. However, the
doctors say he’ll soon be set right in his own country air. He’s all
sound in th’ inside; it’s only the fever shattered him so. But he
speaks just the same, and smiles at me just as he did when he was a
lad. It’s wonderful how he’s always had just the same sort o’ look when
he smiles.”

“I’ve never seen him smile, poor young man,” said Dinah.

“But thee _wilt_ see him smile, to-morrow,” said Adam. “He asked after
thee the first thing when he began to come round, and we could talk to
one another. ‘I hope she isn’t altered,’ he said, ‘I remember her face
so well.’ I told him ‘no,’” Adam continued, looking fondly at the eyes
that were turned towards his, “only a bit plumper, as thee’dst a right
to be after seven year. ‘I may come and see her to-morrow, mayn’t I?’
he said; ‘I long to tell her how I’ve thought of her all these years.’”

“Didst tell him I’d always used the watch?” said Dinah.

“Aye; and we talked a deal about thee, for he says he never saw a woman
a bit like thee. ‘I shall turn Methodist some day,’ he said, ‘when she
preaches out of doors, and go to hear her.’ And I said, ‘Nay, sir, you
can’t do that, for Conference has forbid the women preaching, and she’s
given it up, all but talking to the people a bit in their houses.’”

“Ah,” said Seth, who could not repress a comment on this point, “and a
sore pity it was o’ Conference; and if Dinah had seen as I did, we’d
ha’ left the Wesleyans and joined a body that ’ud put no bonds on
Christian liberty.”

“Nay, lad, nay,” said Adam, “she was right and thee wast wrong. There’s
no rules so wise but what it’s a pity for somebody or other. Most o’
the women do more harm nor good with their preaching—they’ve not got
Dinah’s gift nor her sperrit—and she’s seen that, and she thought it
right to set th’ example o’ submitting, for she’s not held from other
sorts o’ teaching. And I agree with her, and approve o’ what she did.”

Seth was silent. This was a standing subject of difference rarely
alluded to, and Dinah, wishing to quit it at once, said, “Didst
remember, Adam, to speak to Colonel Donnithorne the words my uncle and
aunt entrusted to thee?”

“Yes, and he’s going to the Hall Farm with Mr. Irwine the day after
to-morrow. Mr. Irwine came in while we were talking about it, and he
would have it as the Colonel must see nobody but thee to-morrow. He
said—and he’s in the right of it—as it’ll be bad for him t’ have his
feelings stirred with seeing many people one after another. ‘We must
get you strong and hearty,’ he said, ‘that’s the first thing to be done
Arthur, and then you shall have your own way. But I shall keep you
under your old tutor’s thumb till then.’ Mr. Irwine’s fine and joyful
at having him home again.”

Adam was silent a little while, and then said, “It was very cutting
when we first saw one another. He’d never heard about poor Hetty till
Mr. Irwine met him in London, for the letters missed him on his
journey. The first thing he said to me, when we’d got hold o’ one
another’s hands was, ‘I could never do anything for her, Adam—she lived
long enough for all the suffering—and I’d thought so of the time when I
might do something for her. But you told me the truth when you said to
me once, “There’s a sort of wrong that can never be made up for.”’”

“Why, there’s Mr. and Mrs. Poyser coming in at the yard gate,” said
Seth.

“So there is,” said Dinah. “Run, Lisbeth, run to meet Aunt Poyser. Come
in, Adam, and rest; it has been a hard day for thee.”