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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.
| Dinah rides out to the gallows with Hetty. At the sight of the crowd, Hetty clings to Dinah. They pray together and keep their eyes closed. The crowd is silent and stares and Dinah in awe. As they arrive at the gallows, a huge cry goes up from the crowd because a man has arrived on horseback. Captain Donnithorne arrives, and he has with him a stay of execution | summary |
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.
| The journey Captain Donnithorne makes back to Hayslope contrasts with the journey Hetty makes in her attempts to find him. Captain Donnithorne's journey is luxurious. He rides in the fancy coach he can afford, meditating peacefully on his inheritance and on how he will improve his situation with Hetty. While his conscience is not entirely at ease, he does not make himself uncomfortable by spending too much time thinking about things that are difficult. Captain Donnithorne believes he is heading home, to the place where he is now master. Hetty's journey, by contrast, is on the road traveling by foot because she does not have the money to travel by coach. Troubled to the point of distraction, she has no real destination and no place she now considers home. The parallel shows the difference between the consequences of their affair in each of their lives. In fact, the two miss each other on the road by only a few days. The culpability for the affair probably rests more squarely with Captain Donnithorne, since he is the older of the two and because his social position makes him able to exploit Hetty. But of the two of them, Hetty is clearly the one suffering the consequences of the affair while Captain Donnithorne's life is still one of ease and luxury. Hetty's confession of her crime to Dinah simultaneously represents a softening of her heart and shows how selfish she is to the end. Prior to Dinah's arrival, Hetty's silence and denial that she was ever pregnant reflects her desire that no one who knows her should ever know about her shame. Her willingness to confess, therefore, suggests that she has finally realized the severity of her situation and that shame is not her primary problem anymore. But her confession is startling in what it leaves out. Hetty has no thought about the baby's suffering and no maternal sense of loss that her only child is dead. Hetty's only thought is for her own comfort. She wonders whether God will make the baby stop crying so that she can be more comfortable, and she admits that when she went back to find the baby the day after she abandoned it, she did not know what her intentions were. Notably, the narrator does very little to enhance sympathy for the baby. The reader does not, for example, know whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Neither Hetty nor Sarah Stone gives any description of what the baby looked like or sounded like in its short life. The bare facts certainly engender a good deal of sympathy for the child, who was left to die alone in the woods because its mother was afraid. Nevertheless, Hetty is more sympathetic. Hetty is not a monster but rather a confused, scared, imperfect young woman who has made a terrible mistake and will suffer a terrible price for it. Hetty's suffering is pitiable, and Dinah certainly pities her, but Hetty's stubborn lack of concern for herself makes it hard to love her. Dinah's decision to stay with Hetty in jail before she is executed displays a genuine and accepting love for Hetty. When they both lived together at Hall Farm, Dinah was aware of Hetty's selfish character, especially when she refuses to listen to Dinah's advice to seek out God in good and bad times. Dinah knows Hetty needs some guidance. Since their talk at Hall Farm, Dinah has been waiting for an opportunity to help her. Despite Hetty's treatment of her back then, Dinah believes in Hetty and does not give up on her. Throughout the story, Dinah's love for those around her is not judgmental, and she accepts people as they are. When Dinah grasps Hetty in her arms, she feels a rush of happiness sweep through her because Hetty has accepted her love. Dinah's inner beauty radiates as she listens to Hetty's story of murdering her baby and she does not pass judgment. By asking Adam to come see Hetty, Dinah is showing her love for both of them by having Hetty ask for Adam's forgiveness before she is hanged. Adam would have suffered more had he not conversed with Hetty before her execution, and Dinah knows this. In this scene of forgiveness, Adam and the reader are able to see that Dinah is the better woman because she exhibits inner beauty. Adam's forgiveness of Captain Donnithorne represents a major change in Adam's character. Although Adam wanted to kill Captain Donnithorne, he does not even reproach him because he sees how greatly the captain suffers. Compassion is a new trait in Adam and contrasts with his treatment of his father before his death and with his feelings about Captain Donnithorne up to this point. Adam's change of heart comes from his own suffering. He refuses to make the suffering of another person worse. This new gentleness, which remains with Adam through the end of the novel, shows Adam to be a better man for all the terrible things that have happened to him. No longer simply the proud, self-sufficient workman he was when the novel began, Adam is now worthy of Dinah and a better person for his ability to feel compassion toward others. | analysis |
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 Stontion 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 Six
| The chapter opens up the day after Hetty was scheduled to be executed; Adam and Captain Donnithorne each go for a walk in the woods at the Chase. They meet each other in the spot where they had their fight several months earlier. Adam does not excoriate Captain Donnithorne because he can see that Captain Donnithorne is suffering badly. They go to the Hermitage, which has not been opened since the night of their fight. Captain Donnithorne announces to Adam that he plans to go away to join the army, and he begs Adam to stay in Hayslope and convince the Poysers to stay as well, even though they had all planned to leave. He reveals to Adam that he wants to make the situation better and is annoyed when Adam does not immediately feel sorry for him and agree. Eventually agreeing to stay, Adam attempts to convince the Poysers to stay too. Captain Donnithorne also laments that he was unable to obtain a full pardon for Hetty and that she will be sent away from England for her crime. To thank Dinah, Captain Donnithorne gives Adam a watch to give her for all she has done for Hetty. After Adam leaves, Captain Donnithorne goes to the trashcan and takes out Hetty's handkerchief from where he hid it several months earlier | summary |
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 Stontion 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 Six
| The journey Captain Donnithorne makes back to Hayslope contrasts with the journey Hetty makes in her attempts to find him. Captain Donnithorne's journey is luxurious. He rides in the fancy coach he can afford, meditating peacefully on his inheritance and on how he will improve his situation with Hetty. While his conscience is not entirely at ease, he does not make himself uncomfortable by spending too much time thinking about things that are difficult. Captain Donnithorne believes he is heading home, to the place where he is now master. Hetty's journey, by contrast, is on the road traveling by foot because she does not have the money to travel by coach. Troubled to the point of distraction, she has no real destination and no place she now considers home. The parallel shows the difference between the consequences of their affair in each of their lives. In fact, the two miss each other on the road by only a few days. The culpability for the affair probably rests more squarely with Captain Donnithorne, since he is the older of the two and because his social position makes him able to exploit Hetty. But of the two of them, Hetty is clearly the one suffering the consequences of the affair while Captain Donnithorne's life is still one of ease and luxury. Hetty's confession of her crime to Dinah simultaneously represents a softening of her heart and shows how selfish she is to the end. Prior to Dinah's arrival, Hetty's silence and denial that she was ever pregnant reflects her desire that no one who knows her should ever know about her shame. Her willingness to confess, therefore, suggests that she has finally realized the severity of her situation and that shame is not her primary problem anymore. But her confession is startling in what it leaves out. Hetty has no thought about the baby's suffering and no maternal sense of loss that her only child is dead. Hetty's only thought is for her own comfort. She wonders whether God will make the baby stop crying so that she can be more comfortable, and she admits that when she went back to find the baby the day after she abandoned it, she did not know what her intentions were. Notably, the narrator does very little to enhance sympathy for the baby. The reader does not, for example, know whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Neither Hetty nor Sarah Stone gives any description of what the baby looked like or sounded like in its short life. The bare facts certainly engender a good deal of sympathy for the child, who was left to die alone in the woods because its mother was afraid. Nevertheless, Hetty is more sympathetic. Hetty is not a monster but rather a confused, scared, imperfect young woman who has made a terrible mistake and will suffer a terrible price for it. Hetty's suffering is pitiable, and Dinah certainly pities her, but Hetty's stubborn lack of concern for herself makes it hard to love her. Dinah's decision to stay with Hetty in jail before she is executed displays a genuine and accepting love for Hetty. When they both lived together at Hall Farm, Dinah was aware of Hetty's selfish character, especially when she refuses to listen to Dinah's advice to seek out God in good and bad times. Dinah knows Hetty needs some guidance. Since their talk at Hall Farm, Dinah has been waiting for an opportunity to help her. Despite Hetty's treatment of her back then, Dinah believes in Hetty and does not give up on her. Throughout the story, Dinah's love for those around her is not judgmental, and she accepts people as they are. When Dinah grasps Hetty in her arms, she feels a rush of happiness sweep through her because Hetty has accepted her love. Dinah's inner beauty radiates as she listens to Hetty's story of murdering her baby and she does not pass judgment. By asking Adam to come see Hetty, Dinah is showing her love for both of them by having Hetty ask for Adam's forgiveness before she is hanged. Adam would have suffered more had he not conversed with Hetty before her execution, and Dinah knows this. In this scene of forgiveness, Adam and the reader are able to see that Dinah is the better woman because she exhibits inner beauty. Adam's forgiveness of Captain Donnithorne represents a major change in Adam's character. Although Adam wanted to kill Captain Donnithorne, he does not even reproach him because he sees how greatly the captain suffers. Compassion is a new trait in Adam and contrasts with his treatment of his father before his death and with his feelings about Captain Donnithorne up to this point. Adam's change of heart comes from his own suffering. He refuses to make the suffering of another person worse. This new gentleness, which remains with Adam through the end of the novel, shows Adam to be a better man for all the terrible things that have happened to him. No longer simply the proud, self-sufficient workman he was when the novel began, Adam is now worthy of Dinah and a better person for his ability to feel compassion toward others. | analysis |
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.
| Eighteen months have passed since Adam and Captain Donnithorne talked in the Hermitage. Dinah and Mrs. Poyser quarrel because Dinah says she must go back to Snowfield to help the people there, and Mrs. Poyser wants her to stay. Adam arrives and asks Dinah to come home with him to visit Lisbeth, who is ailing and asks see her. Upon learning of Dinah's plans to leave, Adam is saddened but says he is confident that Dinah will always do what is right. Dinah blushes at his attentions and then starts to cry. She rushes off to get her bonnet, but Totty follows her and comes back announcing that Dinah is crying and praying. Adam and Mr. Poyser talk about Adam's business, which is going very well, and about his prospects of becoming sole owner now that Mr. Burge is getting older and feebler | summary |
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.
| Seth's lack of jealousy toward his brother reflects his genuine love for both Dinah and Adam, and his intense desire that they should both be happy. He also places Adam and Dinah's happiness over his feelings for Dinah because he knows she does not reciprocate his feelings and even admits to Adam that he's given up hope that Dinah will be his wife. Seth's character is unlike any other in Adam Bede. Although Lisbeth rebukes him and he is always compared unfavorably to Adam, Seth maintains a happy disposition and a gentle touch through it all. Seth is motivated by his religious feelings and his love of his family. Although he proposed to Dinah at the beginning of the novel, Seth does not let his feelings interfere with Adam's because he will do anything for his brother. When Adam approaches him and asks what he thinks about him proposing to Dinah, Seth does not even question whether Adam loves her. Seth's presence in the novel, then, may be intended as an indication that there are other good men in the world besides Adam and that goodness does not always manifest itself in the same way. After all, Adam and Seth are very different. Whereas Adam is exceptionally industrious, Seth is a constant dreamer. Whereas Adam is strong-minded and quick with numbers, Seth is easily swayed in most things and slower than his brother. Perhaps most important, although Adam's pride is easily offended, at least in the beginning of the novel, Seth is patient and extremely humble throughout. Seth is a reminder that although Adam's particular qualities make him a good man, there are other combinations of qualities that make equally good men. Adam and Dinah, instead of being separated by the love they each felt for Hetty, are influenced by it. It may seem a little odd that Adam is able to fall in love with Dinah so quickly after the disappointment of his marriage hopes with Hetty and his near total collapse at her trial. Yet Dinah is not separate from his feelings for Hetty. Instead, she was a crucial part of Hetty's last days in England. She bolstered Hetty's spirits after the trial, and by helping Hetty, she won Adam's affection. For Dinah, the conversion of Hetty is likewise important, and Adam was a major part of that chapter of her life. Adam acquitted himself admirably during the trial and ultimately showed himself to be compassionate and gentle when he spoke to Hetty at the jail. Dinah can love these qualities in him without being jealous or spiteful about his previous love of Hetty. Mutual sorrow brings Adam and Dinah together because it has changed the way they both see the world and allowed them to see the best in each other. Dinah's resistance to Adam's marriage proposal raises an unresolved question about giving up her freedom to be with Adam. Dinah's life up until her marriage is not beholden to anyone. She does as she pleases, although she does not choose to live a hedonistic existence but rather to follow the will of God. She loves everyone in the world equally, and she does not show preference to any one person. The decision to allow her life to be governed by her affection for one man is a huge change in Dinah's personality and is not one to be taken lightly. Although Dinah's decision to marry Adam does lead to her happiness at the end of the novel, Eliot's willingness to take seriously the notion that a woman might not be so eager to marry and give up her life, even for a man so wonderful as Adam, suggests a streak of early feminism in her that is way ahead of her time. Despite her sarcastic derision of women in the novel, especially of her lady reader, Eliot's presentation of women is complex and textured. She does not resolve the issues about Dinah's abdication of her freedom but rather leaves readers to decide them for themselves. | analysis |
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.
| Adam and Dinah walk to the Bedes together. On the way, Adam tells Dinah that he wishes she would stay and marry Seth, but he apologizes when Dinah becomes very agitated. Dinah instead asks after Captain Donnithorne, and Adam reports that Mr. Irwine read him part of a letter from him. Captain Donnithorne is very sad and has decided not to come home just yet. When they reach the Bedes, Lisbeth and Seth both notice that Dinah is upset, but neither of them knows why. The brothers retreat to the workshop, where Adam works and Seth daydreams. Adam does not chastise his brother. Since the sorrow of Hetty's disgraceful trial, he has grown gentler toward everyone. In the morning, Dinah tidies up the cottage before breakfast, and Adam comes down. When they both clean up his workshop, Dinah becomes very flustered when he is near her | summary |
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.
| Seth's lack of jealousy toward his brother reflects his genuine love for both Dinah and Adam, and his intense desire that they should both be happy. He also places Adam and Dinah's happiness over his feelings for Dinah because he knows she does not reciprocate his feelings and even admits to Adam that he's given up hope that Dinah will be his wife. Seth's character is unlike any other in Adam Bede. Although Lisbeth rebukes him and he is always compared unfavorably to Adam, Seth maintains a happy disposition and a gentle touch through it all. Seth is motivated by his religious feelings and his love of his family. Although he proposed to Dinah at the beginning of the novel, Seth does not let his feelings interfere with Adam's because he will do anything for his brother. When Adam approaches him and asks what he thinks about him proposing to Dinah, Seth does not even question whether Adam loves her. Seth's presence in the novel, then, may be intended as an indication that there are other good men in the world besides Adam and that goodness does not always manifest itself in the same way. After all, Adam and Seth are very different. Whereas Adam is exceptionally industrious, Seth is a constant dreamer. Whereas Adam is strong-minded and quick with numbers, Seth is easily swayed in most things and slower than his brother. Perhaps most important, although Adam's pride is easily offended, at least in the beginning of the novel, Seth is patient and extremely humble throughout. Seth is a reminder that although Adam's particular qualities make him a good man, there are other combinations of qualities that make equally good men. Adam and Dinah, instead of being separated by the love they each felt for Hetty, are influenced by it. It may seem a little odd that Adam is able to fall in love with Dinah so quickly after the disappointment of his marriage hopes with Hetty and his near total collapse at her trial. Yet Dinah is not separate from his feelings for Hetty. Instead, she was a crucial part of Hetty's last days in England. She bolstered Hetty's spirits after the trial, and by helping Hetty, she won Adam's affection. For Dinah, the conversion of Hetty is likewise important, and Adam was a major part of that chapter of her life. Adam acquitted himself admirably during the trial and ultimately showed himself to be compassionate and gentle when he spoke to Hetty at the jail. Dinah can love these qualities in him without being jealous or spiteful about his previous love of Hetty. Mutual sorrow brings Adam and Dinah together because it has changed the way they both see the world and allowed them to see the best in each other. Dinah's resistance to Adam's marriage proposal raises an unresolved question about giving up her freedom to be with Adam. Dinah's life up until her marriage is not beholden to anyone. She does as she pleases, although she does not choose to live a hedonistic existence but rather to follow the will of God. She loves everyone in the world equally, and she does not show preference to any one person. The decision to allow her life to be governed by her affection for one man is a huge change in Dinah's personality and is not one to be taken lightly. Although Dinah's decision to marry Adam does lead to her happiness at the end of the novel, Eliot's willingness to take seriously the notion that a woman might not be so eager to marry and give up her life, even for a man so wonderful as Adam, suggests a streak of early feminism in her that is way ahead of her time. Despite her sarcastic derision of women in the novel, especially of her lady reader, Eliot's presentation of women is complex and textured. She does not resolve the issues about Dinah's abdication of her freedom but rather leaves readers to decide them for themselves. | analysis |
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."
| Dinah takes her leave of Lisbeth. After bidding farewell, Lisbeth goes into the workshop where Seth is working on a box for Dinah, and she begins to berate him because Dinah is going away. Ignoring Seth's feelings for Dinah, she says she knows Dinah would stay if only Adam would marry her. Seth is appalled at the idea and feels confident that Adam does not love Dinah. Lisbeth accuses Seth of jealousy, and he is hurt. On Sunday, Lisbeth approaches Adam and suggests that he propose to Dinah. Adam is suddenly struck by the idea but does not trust his mother's belief that Dinah loves him. Puzzled, he goes out to meet Seth and asks him what he thinks. Seth does not think Dinah wants to marry anyone but assures Adam that it would be wonderful to have Dinah as a sister-in-law and that he would not be jealous. Seth also suggests that Adam might as well ask Dinah. She took no offense, after all, when Seth asked her, even though her answer was no | summary |
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.
| Adam goes to Hall Farm while the others are at church so he can see Dinah alone. After he confesses his love for her, she admits that she loves him too. When he proposes, however, she says that she cannot marry him because she does not think it is God's will. Her fear is that if she lives with him, she will cease to feel compassion for the poor and will not be able to help those in need. Adam argues that she will be able to help others better because she will be more filled with love, just as a worker can do better work with more knowledge. They agree that she will go back to Snowfield for a time to see whether God's will becomes clearer to her. Adam and Dinah walk out together in the fields, and they encounter the Poysers. Mr. Poyser tells Mrs. Poyser that he believes Adam loves Dinah. Mrs. Poyser claims to have known this all along but says she does not believe Dinah will marry him. Everyone urges Adam to come to the Harvest Supper and Dinah to stay at least that long. Adam promises to come, but Dinah does not promise to stay | summary |
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.
| Seth's lack of jealousy toward his brother reflects his genuine love for both Dinah and Adam, and his intense desire that they should both be happy. He also places Adam and Dinah's happiness over his feelings for Dinah because he knows she does not reciprocate his feelings and even admits to Adam that he's given up hope that Dinah will be his wife. Seth's character is unlike any other in Adam Bede. Although Lisbeth rebukes him and he is always compared unfavorably to Adam, Seth maintains a happy disposition and a gentle touch through it all. Seth is motivated by his religious feelings and his love of his family. Although he proposed to Dinah at the beginning of the novel, Seth does not let his feelings interfere with Adam's because he will do anything for his brother. When Adam approaches him and asks what he thinks about him proposing to Dinah, Seth does not even question whether Adam loves her. Seth's presence in the novel, then, may be intended as an indication that there are other good men in the world besides Adam and that goodness does not always manifest itself in the same way. After all, Adam and Seth are very different. Whereas Adam is exceptionally industrious, Seth is a constant dreamer. Whereas Adam is strong-minded and quick with numbers, Seth is easily swayed in most things and slower than his brother. Perhaps most important, although Adam's pride is easily offended, at least in the beginning of the novel, Seth is patient and extremely humble throughout. Seth is a reminder that although Adam's particular qualities make him a good man, there are other combinations of qualities that make equally good men. Adam and Dinah, instead of being separated by the love they each felt for Hetty, are influenced by it. It may seem a little odd that Adam is able to fall in love with Dinah so quickly after the disappointment of his marriage hopes with Hetty and his near total collapse at her trial. Yet Dinah is not separate from his feelings for Hetty. Instead, she was a crucial part of Hetty's last days in England. She bolstered Hetty's spirits after the trial, and by helping Hetty, she won Adam's affection. For Dinah, the conversion of Hetty is likewise important, and Adam was a major part of that chapter of her life. Adam acquitted himself admirably during the trial and ultimately showed himself to be compassionate and gentle when he spoke to Hetty at the jail. Dinah can love these qualities in him without being jealous or spiteful about his previous love of Hetty. Mutual sorrow brings Adam and Dinah together because it has changed the way they both see the world and allowed them to see the best in each other. Dinah's resistance to Adam's marriage proposal raises an unresolved question about giving up her freedom to be with Adam. Dinah's life up until her marriage is not beholden to anyone. She does as she pleases, although she does not choose to live a hedonistic existence but rather to follow the will of God. She loves everyone in the world equally, and she does not show preference to any one person. The decision to allow her life to be governed by her affection for one man is a huge change in Dinah's personality and is not one to be taken lightly. Although Dinah's decision to marry Adam does lead to her happiness at the end of the novel, Eliot's willingness to take seriously the notion that a woman might not be so eager to marry and give up her life, even for a man so wonderful as Adam, suggests a streak of early feminism in her that is way ahead of her time. Despite her sarcastic derision of women in the novel, especially of her lady reader, Eliot's presentation of women is complex and textured. She does not resolve the issues about Dinah's abdication of her freedom but rather leaves readers to decide them for themselves. | analysis |
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?
| Adam cannot bear the suspense any longer, so he goes to Snowfield to find Dinah. As he rides, he remembers the trip he made to Snowfield to find Hetty, and it still makes him sad. He believes that Hetty's disgrace is a terrible, sorrowful event, but his love for Dinah is fuller because he has experienced that sorrow. Dinah is out preaching, but Adam follows her to the house where she is and waits on a nearby hill. When she walks by, he comes out from behind a hedge and softly speaks her name. She turns around and hugs him. As they both cry, Dinah tells him that it is God's will that she should marry him. They kiss | summary |
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?
| Epilogue Eliot devotes an entire chapter to the Harvest Supper to emphasize that no matter how great the scandal of the time, normalcy does eventually return to the lives of most people. Although it is clear that Adam's life will never be the same after the events surrounding Hetty and Captain Donnithorne, the workers, villagers, and farmers of Hayslope return to their everyday lives, unaffected by Hetty's trial eighteen months earlier. After the disruption that the novel suffered when the scene changed to Stoniton for Hetty's trial and the narration shifted to the multivoiced telling of the trial, the story of the Harvest Supper represents a return to the previous form of the novel. Eliot indicates that the world itself is largely how people choose to see it. After all, although Adam's view of other people has changed dramatically since Hetty's trial, the people themselves have not changed much. That element of balance is an important piece of the compassion Eliot preaches throughout the novel. The option is available, she says, as to how people see their neighbors and how much they choose to love them. Compassion is always an option. The Harvest Supper also adds another layer of realism to Eliot's novel and offers her a chance to criticize those authors and artists who choose to ignore the reality of poor, rural life in favor of some idealized notion of the happy peasant farmer. It seems to be very important to Eliot that her novel portray poverty as it is. Most of her characters are poor, struggling on the edge of existence. They are not starving in the streets and are not dependant on the charity of others for their existence, but a bad harvest can destroy several years' work for them. Eliot shows them as their lives are and rejects the idea that poverty somehow sanctifies people or makes them kinder than others, or worse than others. Poverty is not a positive social force, and the poor live life in much the same way as everyone else. This picture of everyone else of the novel forms an important background to Adam, and it is a social commentary as much about Eliot's own time as about the time of the novel. Eliot warns against the dangers of not seeing others for what they are through the allegory of Adam's infatuation of Hetty, and at the same time she offers the most accurate picture she can of the common man so that those may see him as he really is. The comments in the Epilogue about disallowing women to preach, and especially Adam's reaction, stick out from an otherwise idyllic family scene. Adam's comments, that most women who preached did more harm than good, reveal his view that women are inferior. Dinah herself says nothing on the subject of why she stopped preaching. Adam's conflict with Seth, although minor, stands out as an unusual bit of dialogue in the last scene of the novel. Eliot may have felt obliged to insert this information for simple historical purposes, since the Methodists did outlaw women's preaching. The effect of the conflict, however, shows Adam in a less than favorable light at the very end of a novel in which he has been the undisputed hero, and in which he has gotten everything he always wanted in his marriage to Dinah. This prevents the end of the novel from becoming too saccharine and reminds the reader that even the hero is human and has his failings. | analysis |
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."
| A month later, on a rainy November day, Dinah and Adam are married in a simple ceremony. All their friends are there and wish them the best. For Adam, the day recalls another day when he was to be married, but Dinah does not mind the tinge of sorrow on their wedding day. As he rides home after the ceremony, Mr. Irwine reflects that the news of their wedding will be good news to send to Captain Donnithorne. Epilogue In 1807, Dinah calls to Seth in their cottage and tells him that Adam is on his way home. They gather up Adam and Dinah's two children, Lisbeth and Adam, and they all go out to meet Adam. Adam and Seth's mother has died, and Seth remains a bachelor who lives with his brother's family. Adam is returning from his first meeting with Captain Donnithorne, who has just returned to Hayslope. When the family approaches Adam, he takes his son from Seth. The younger Adam goes to Adam very happily. Adam recounts his visit with Captain Donnithorne. The captain, who is now a colonel, is much changed, especially by a recent serious illness, but he is the same old Captain Donnithorne. Dinah is told that Captain Donnithorne also plans to come see her the next day, and she says she will be glad to see him. While he had hoped to see her preach, the captain is told by Adam that she no longer preaches publicly since the Methodists have outlawed it. Reacting angrily to this comment, Seth believes the Methodists were wrong to outlaw the women preachers, but Adam quiets him by saying that Dinah accepted this because it was best. Adam relates how Captain Donnithorne took the news that Hetty has died overseas, just when she would have been allowed to return to England. He says that Captain Donnithorne admits now the wisdom of Adam's saying there are some wrongs that cannot be made up. As the family arrives home, the Poysers are entering their gate. Dinah sends her daughter forward to greet them | summary |
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 Eliot devotes an entire chapter to the Harvest Supper to emphasize that no matter how great the scandal of the time, normalcy does eventually return to the lives of most people. Although it is clear that Adam's life will never be the same after the events surrounding Hetty and Captain Donnithorne, the workers, villagers, and farmers of Hayslope return to their everyday lives, unaffected by Hetty's trial eighteen months earlier. After the disruption that the novel suffered when the scene changed to Stoniton for Hetty's trial and the narration shifted to the multivoiced telling of the trial, the story of the Harvest Supper represents a return to the previous form of the novel. Eliot indicates that the world itself is largely how people choose to see it. After all, although Adam's view of other people has changed dramatically since Hetty's trial, the people themselves have not changed much. That element of balance is an important piece of the compassion Eliot preaches throughout the novel. The option is available, she says, as to how people see their neighbors and how much they choose to love them. Compassion is always an option. The Harvest Supper also adds another layer of realism to Eliot's novel and offers her a chance to criticize those authors and artists who choose to ignore the reality of poor, rural life in favor of some idealized notion of the happy peasant farmer. It seems to be very important to Eliot that her novel portray poverty as it is. Most of her characters are poor, struggling on the edge of existence. They are not starving in the streets and are not dependant on the charity of others for their existence, but a bad harvest can destroy several years' work for them. Eliot shows them as their lives are and rejects the idea that poverty somehow sanctifies people or makes them kinder than others, or worse than others. Poverty is not a positive social force, and the poor live life in much the same way as everyone else. This picture of everyone else of the novel forms an important background to Adam, and it is a social commentary as much about Eliot's own time as about the time of the novel. Eliot warns against the dangers of not seeing others for what they are through the allegory of Adam's infatuation of Hetty, and at the same time she offers the most accurate picture she can of the common man so that those may see him as he really is. The comments in the Epilogue about disallowing women to preach, and especially Adam's reaction, stick out from an otherwise idyllic family scene. Adam's comments, that most women who preached did more harm than good, reveal his view that women are inferior. Dinah herself says nothing on the subject of why she stopped preaching. Adam's conflict with Seth, although minor, stands out as an unusual bit of dialogue in the last scene of the novel. Eliot may have felt obliged to insert this information for simple historical purposes, since the Methodists did outlaw women's preaching. The effect of the conflict, however, shows Adam in a less than favorable light at the very end of a novel in which he has been the undisputed hero, and in which he has gotten everything he always wanted in his marriage to Dinah. This prevents the end of the novel from becoming too saccharine and reminds the reader that even the hero is human and has his failings. | analysis |
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.
| The Workshop The narrator will magically use the ink of her pen as a mirror to show us the carpentry workshop of Jonathan Burge in the village of Hayslope in Loamshire, England, 1799. Five workmen there are busy, the most striking of them a tall strong man singing a hymn in a baritone voice as he finishes a mantelpiece. This is Adam Bede, the obvious leader of the group. His brother, Seth, is younger and claims he has finished the door he is working on. Sandy Jim teases him that he forgot the panels on the door. Wiry Ben Cranage pipes in saying that after all, Seth is a wool-gathering Methodist. Adam pushes Ben against the wall until he promises to leave his brother alone. In friendly laughter, the men accuse Seth of thinking of the woman Methodist preacher who will preach on the Green tonight. Seth is in love with Dinah Morris and invites the others to hear her. Adam declares his loyalty to the Church but believes everyone should worship as he chooses. When the church clock strikes six, the other men immediately leave off working, but Adam chides them for having no pride in their work, and he continues until he finishes, going home with his dog, Gyp, while Seth goes to the Green to hear Dinah preach. A stranger, passing by on horseback, cannot help but admire Adam Bede as he passes. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 1 The chapter introduces the place and plunges us into a rural community in Loamshire, perhaps a fictitious name for Warwickshire where the author, Mary Ann Evans grew up and knew farm and village folk. Her father managed an estate there, and his early life provided material for the character of Adam Bede. This is country life in old England before the industrial revolution changed everything, and people moved to the cities for jobs. The author investigates the rural people, their habits and thinking, in greater detail than the English novel had done, for it usually dealt with the upper and middle classes. In this, Eliot is indebted to the poet, William Wordsworth, whose poetry is mentioned in the text. A quote from Wordsworth's "The Excursion" also appears on the title page. The trials of simple country folk were significant to Wordsworth in what they could teach about life, since they were closer to the earth and primal feelings. Adam Bede's name indicates a primal man, like Adam in the Garden of Eden before the fall. Bede is the name of the Anglo-Saxon saint and historian of seventh and eighteenth century England and again brings up the suggestion of early English life in its simplicity. Adam is a peasant attached to the earth and is contrasted to the more spoiled gentry, like Arthur Donnithorne. Eliot uses dialect for the lower class characters, who speak for themselves, and then the narrator comments on their ways and their history, like a latter day Bede. Adam's protectiveness towards his younger brother Seth, his fondness for his dog, his love of his work, his love of learning, and his integrity all surface in the very first chapter. The other men respect him, even when he is a little stern with them. The discussion of religion is a main theme in the book and begins here with introducing the "dissenters" or groups that disagreed with the established English church, like the Methodists. Methodism began as a reform movement within the Church of England, begun by John and Charles Wesley, in 1729. Soon, it separated and became a religious movement of its own. The Methodists ministered to the poor, especially in the growing populations around industrial mill towns. These poor were more desperate than the poor in farm country. Methodists made converts easily near the mills and gave people hope, support, and unity. Seth is a Methodist, but Adam does not see why people should not stick to the Church. However, he has been influenced by his own pastor, Mr. Irwine, a tolerant man believing one should worship according to conscience. Adam also defends practical knowledge as important to learn as religion, and that is why he goes to night school to better himself. The theme of the book is found in the hymn Adam keeps singing: "Let all thy converse be sincere,/ Thy conscience as the noonday clear." Adam is known for his honest dealings with others, a standard that not everyone can maintain, he finds out. Because he is so strong, both physically and morally, he cannot understand the weakness of others. | analysis |
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.
| After the Preaching Seth Bede walks Dinah Morris home. She is staying with her Aunt Poyser at Hall Farm. Seth is discouraged from his suit because Dinah's whole attention is on other people. She is a visionary and can tell from her prayers who needs help. For instance, she mentions that she is watching over Hetty Sorrel, the young woman that Adam loves. Seth gathers courage and asks Dinah to marry him. She refuses, saying she has been called by God to do his work and doesn't expect to marry. She is deeply attached to the community in Snowfield and will be returning there to continue her work among that people. When Seth proposes he move to Snowfield to be near her, she discourages him and says he must ask for divine guidance. Seth says he will learn to bear his sorrow, but asks permission to write to her, and she agrees. They part at the gate to Hall Farm. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 3 Seth is a very gentle and sympathetic man who respects Dinah and her calling but is sad at being rejected. He is not jealous or selfish and has a tendency to devote himself to those of higher nature, like Adam and Dinah. His mother thinks him less a man than his brother because he is unworldly. Dinah is not making excuses when she refuses Seth; she is genuinely devoted to her calling to help others. The narrator explains that she is like other Methodists who believe in miracles, in opening the Bible randomly for a message, and in dreams, omens, and visions. Dinah sincerely uses her vision and prayer to see where she should go next, whom to comfort. She is in command in this scene, completely centered in her religious faith. There is no difference between her public preaching and her private life. The narrator herself doesn't subscribe to Dinah's beliefs but she approves the effect that she has on other people, for everywhere she goes, Dinah brings help, sympathy, comfort, and inspiration. The narrator uses this opportunity to speak of the value of religion that takes us away from selfishness and towards universality. Eliot believed that religion had a refining influence on humanity, though she didn't think a rational person could accept the doctrines and beliefs. She also comments on Seth's personal love of Dinah as being part of the awakening to divine love, for the personal experience of love is but the wave on the ocean of infinite love. | analysis |
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 tete-a-tete 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.
| The Dairy The freshness of the dairy favorably sets off Hetty's fresh seventeen-year-old beauty, and Arthur Donnithorne is attracted to her kittenish loveliness. Even Aunt Poyser likes to look at Hetty's beauty, though she is usually scolding her. Arthur mentions his birthday celebration in July and asks Hetty to reserve two dances for him. He invites the whole Poyser family. When the aunt runs off to find her daughter Totty, who is usually into mischief, Arthur invites Hetty to go walking with him in the Chase on his estate sometime. She mentions that she goes on some afternoons to Mrs. Pomfret, the lady's maid, to learn lace-mending and has to walk through the Chase. Arthur gives three-year-old Totty some coins for a present and prepares to find Mr. Irwine, who has been speaking to Dinah Morris. | summary |
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 tete-a-tete 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.
| Commentary on Chapter 7 Both Arthur and Hetty are acting deceptively in this scene, foreshadowing their entanglement to come, although the deception seems like the innocent flirting of the young behind the backs of their elders. Hetty is described as a springtide beauty, like a kitten. Hetty is aware of her disturbing effect, for she stares at herself in the mirror and practices. She knows how every move is affecting Arthur. Her eyes hide "a soft roguishness" . There are clues early in the story that Hetty is not an admirable character. She dislikes taking care of Totty or taking part in any family activities. She does not seem attached to the aunt and uncle who are good to her. She is self-absorbed, and does not do any task well, except for making butter. Similarly, here is the first hint that though Arthur wants to be thought the good squire, loved by the people, he is flattering Mrs. Poyser on the one hand, and flirting with her niece behind her back. Although he asks for Hetty to reserve dances for him at his party in front of the aunt, when she leaves, he encourages a clandestine meeting in the Chase, something an honorable gentleman would know is out of bounds. Hetty is not shy about accepting. | analysis |
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.
| A Vocation Both Dinah Morris and Mr. Irwine have a favorable opinion of one another at first glance, for they are both sincere and generous people. Irwine questions her about her life in the cotton-mill at Snowfield and her preaching She explains that there are women preachers among the Methodists, though it isn't common, and then tells how it was that she began to speak when another preacher was taken ill. The words seem to come divinely out of her with no will of her own. Mr. Irwine sees she is genuine and has no desire to dispute her right to preach, but he does wonder if men do not try to court or hassle her. She says they do not, and she has no time for personal feelings. They then discuss the death of Thais Bede, and Dinah puts away her work, inspired to go to Seth's mother to comfort her. Aunt Poyser admits that even if she is a Methodist, Dinah has a comforting way and people like to have her around in a crisis. When she tells Hetty about Mr. Bede drowning, however, Hetty seems barely interested, lost in her own thoughts about Arthur. Aunt Poyser criticizes her as being "feather-headed" . | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 8 With various Protestant movements, such as Methodism, there was a great emphasis on divine and personal inspiration, as opposed to merely getting religious guidance from the church. This "enthusiasm" was thought dangerous, for as Irwine explains to Dinah, an individual could mistake a personal idea for a divine thought. If it is allowed that someone could be divinely inspired to speak without being ordained, there is still the issue of being a woman. Traditional Christianity still had a suspicion of women as more sinful than men, or less spiritually inclined. Newer Protestant sects gave more equality to lower classes, women, and people formerly thought to be outcasts. This made Methodists suspicious in the eyes of the upper classes, for it was a religion that gathered converts from the lowest social groups, especially the mill workers. Even Dinah admits that the well-fed farm people are not very attentive to her kind of preaching, for they are comfortable. Many Church of England clergymen, in Mr. Irwine's place, would have seized the opportunity to reject and drive out what to them was heresy--an ignorant, unqualified person roaming the countryside, stirring up people against the established church. Joshua Rann, the parish clerk, had asked Irwine to do something about this rebellion. Irwine takes the responsibility of checking Dinah out, and yet, he addresses her with the same respect he would give a fellow clergyman. He is able to see her honesty and respect it, though it is not his way. Irwine is a force for harmony throughout the parish because of his tolerance and understanding. He does not interfere, yet he takes care of his people. | analysis |
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.
| Hetty's World The narrator decides to go beyond Hetty's pretty exterior to see what kind of a person she is inside. This chapter tracks her thoughts about what is going on around her, but unfortunately, the narrator concludes that Hetty does not have a very large range to her soul. She is mostly concerned with her own material desires. She knows very well that she has suitors. Luke Britton of Broxton comes to church at Hayslope so he can see her. Mr. Craig the gardener at the Chase is wooing her with strawberries, and Adam Bede, who has been invited to Hall Farm for the last three years, is the one favored by her family as having brains. Hetty seems unaware of what she owes her aunt and uncle. She is an orphan, and would have been a servant someplace without their support. Her uncle hopes she will make a good marriage with Adam, who, he knows, will rise by his merits. Hetty only sees Adam as another conquest and enjoys having him in her power. With Arthur's attentions, however, she is already dreaming of greater things. She thinks only of what a man could give her, and she begins to live in a pleasant daydream of how Arthur has looked at her. An uneducated girl, she only thinks of the young squire as a god in her world. She has no sympathy beyond her own situation. On the way to the Bede cottage, Arthur confesses to Irwine how pretty he finds Hetty. Irwine warns him not to flatter her or it will make her unfit for a husband of her own class. Arthur changes the subject. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 9 Arthur is clearly warned by Mr. Irwine in the early stages of his attentions to Hetty that flattering Hetty is wrong, and why it is wrong. The point that she will be made unfit as a wife for someone else goes right by Arthur because it is beyond his sympathy, as Hetty's idea of others is beyond hers. Irwine means that it would make a servant like Hetty less happy with a poor man, but he also could be delicately hinting about her reputation. A future poor husband is just as jealous of a woman's honor as the rich, as Arthur will find out. Even though he has been raised among these farmers and has been taught carpentry by Adam, Arthur comes from a privileged class and has no distinct feeling for the honor of the classes below him, except in terms of chivalry. At his birthday party, for instance, he is capable of making the farmers feel appreciation, but it is a shallow knowledge of their world, their morals, and their feelings. Hetty is a kitten, a plaything, and he is a rich young man used to having his way. Like Hetty, he does not think too far ahead; in fact, he continually fools himself into thinking nothing is going to happen between them. Eliot's omniscient narration allows us into the thoughts of the characters so that we can observe how people delude themselves and misread others. This is a greater danger to unreflecting and selfish people, like Hetty and Arthur, but as we see in this chapter, it is also a danger to a man of integrity and brains like Adam Bede. The reader sees that he is headed for a fall with Hetty, that she is shallow, and her attention is elsewhere. In this way, the suspense builds, with much foreshadowing of the tragedy we watch in the making. | analysis |
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.
| Dinah Visits Lisbeth Lisbeth is stubborn in refusing help to lay out the corpse of her husband. She locks herself in a room with him and carefully prepares his body with the linen she has laid out for this day, for it is the last service she can do him. Adam is exhausted and falls asleep on a bench in the workshop, dreaming of Hetty, while Seth tries to make tea for his mother. She, however, weeps and whines to Seth and won't be comforted. After the mother and sons visit the corpse and pray over it, Adam goes to bed, and Lisbeth sits rocking and moaning in grief. Dinah enters and at once begins to calm Lisbeth with her practiced way of dealing with the poor and suffering. She says she will be a daughter to Lisbeth in her trouble and begins to make the cottage orderly. Lisbeth looks at her and sees an angel and accepts her help. Dinah's authority and perfect tact, that stem from sympathy, tell her what to say. She offers to stay overnight with Lisbeth. The old woman likes the quotes from the Bible that Dinah tells her, and she feels a vague sense of comfort that there is a divine Providence. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 10 The main point of the chapter is spoken by Dinah when she tells Lisbeth her own life story. It has nothing to do with being a Methodist: "the heart of man is the same everywhere" . What could be a point of difference between the traditional, literal minded Lisbeth and the radically spiritual Dinah, is swept away in the sympathy of one soul for another in time of trouble. Dinah becomes her friend in a tactful way, knowing how to share. Lisbeth has a primitive idea of death, thinking that the dead are conscious of how they are wrapped and handled. It is extremely important to her that she has the winding sheet ready and prepares her husband's body with respect. Dinah, however, stirs her imagination to greater heights, to imagine that beyond her own sorrow and loss, there is a rightness in the universe. Dinah doesn't preach doctrine; she brings divine comfort in her own person, and Lisbeth feels an angel is there. This is the sort of "natural piety" that Wordsworth depicts in his pastoral poems, the love between human and human, human and nature. | analysis |
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."
| In the Cottage The next morning Dinah rises early in the Bede cottage and cleans the kitchen to prepare the breakfast. Adam hears her and at first imagines Hetty has come, then is surprised to see Dinah there. They introduce themselves and speak of Lisbeth. When Adam stares at Dinah, she is self-conscious as a woman for the first time in her life and blushes. Both Gyp, the dog, and Lisbeth like Dinah, and they are usually hard to please. Lisbeth comes in to see breakfast all prepared and says it is almost as good as hers. She doesn't want Dinah to go. They speak of Dinah's home in Stonyshire and compare it to Loamshire. Adam and Seth get up to make their father's coffin, but Lisbeth insists Adam do it alone. Seth is disappointed because it means he will not get to be near Dinah on her last day in Hayslope; he gives in graciously and goes off to work. Dinah tells Seth his conscience will be clear from having pleased his mother, and she will walk home with him when he comes back. Adam speaks privately to Seth telling him that Dinah is not like other women, and she will probably come around to his wooing. He wonders at how mysterious love is that a man will only be pleased with one woman. | summary |
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."
| Commentary on Chapter 11 The pleasant breakfast scene brings out the personalities of the characters. Seth is sweet but nonassertive and is easily directed by the desires of others. Dinah speaks of her attachment to her home as she waits on the others. She fits into the family circle effortlessly. Lisbeth approves of Dinah but has to tell her sons that she cannot come up to the mother's mark in cooking or housework, and that they will appreciate their old mother when they marry. Lisbeth is always worried about being displaced and threatens that she should follow her husband now because she is not wanted. Adam does not like his mother's controlling emotional ways. He is a man of action and thinks to himself that even in adversity, he has his work to keep him going. The nature of life doesn't change, and that is a comfort to him. The surprise is the chemistry between Adam and Dinah. She blushes at his gaze, the first time such a thing has happened to her in her twenty-five years. This is significant. Both Adam and Dinah perceive the special qualities of each other, although Adam only thinks of Dinah as Seth's intended. The other thing of note is how Adam and Dinah both speak of their love of the land they are attached to. | analysis |
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.
| In the Wood On the same morning, Arthur holds a discussion with himself and decides it is prudent that he should go on a week-long fishing trip to stay out of the way of Hetty. He approves of himself for his noble behavior but when he goes to the stable, he finds his horse has been lamed, and he cannot go. He uses another horse to go to lunch with a friend, thinking he will get back too late to meet Hetty. Somehow, he is back early and realizes he wants to see her. They meet on the path in the fir-tree grove, and are shy with one another at first, for they have never been alone before. Arthur questions her about what time she goes to Mrs. Pomfret's and says she probably has an escort to go home, Mr. Craig, the gardener, for instance. Hetty begins to cry at the mention of Mr. Craig and says she doesn't like him. Arthur's tenderness is aroused and he puts his hand on her arm. Suddenly she drops her sewing basket, and they have to pick up the contents, thus breaking the mood. When she leaves, he is angry with himself for his weakness but then realizes he is falling in love with Hetty. He goes into the Hermitage, a house in the wood, and waits for her to come back. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 12 In this chapter the narrator stays closely with Arthur's mental process as she did with Hetty's before. She shows Arthur's indecisiveness and excuses to himself. He makes noble resolutions to stay away from Hetty but has no discipline. It seems fate is against him when his horse is lamed, but he makes little effort to carry through his plan. He is easily distracted. Eliot makes it plain that virtue does not consist in fine thoughts alone, but in action. Although she defends Arthur as a basically decent person who has never harmed another, she warns that in order to continue not harming others one needs "self-mastery," which we see Arthur does not have . He tells himself he will be back too late to run into Hetty, but then he is surprised to arrive early. This self-deception of saying one thing to oneself and doing another is a lack of co-ordination and honesty. Arthur had called himself lazy, and Eliot shows the consequences to a morally lazy person are just as harsh as if he set out to do harm. The result of wrong action is the same, despite good intentions. Even after meeting Hetty, he fools himself into thinking it will go no further. He wants to see her just one more time to leave her with the right impression. It has begun, and Arthur is not strong enough to avoid entanglement. | analysis |
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.
| Evening in the Wood Hetty can hardly keep her mind on her needlework in Mrs. Pomfret's room and hurries away after three hours there, hoping to see Arthur on the way home. She walks in the wood looking for him at every turn and just when she thinks he isn't coming, she bursts into tears. He comes around the corner, and his resolutions go to pieces. He had planned on being formal with her to explain that they must not meet any more, but when he sees Hetty crying, he becomes protective and puts his arm around her. She says she is crying because she thought he wasn't coming. They kiss and walk to the end of the wood. Arthur's conscience is beginning to hurt him. He knows it is not the same as flirting with a girl of his own class. This can only harm both of them, since he can't marry her or even be seen with her. He is confused by his own lack of control and decides to confess to Mr. Irwine, who will help him. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 13 Arthur's indecision is not helped by Hetty's behavior. She is not shy and goes to meet her fate with open arms. Unthinking she may be, but her natural emotions are too much for Arthur, who cannot then be stern with her. Neither one of them has any clear idea where they are going with this courting and don't want to. They yield to youth and the moment. Arthur feels emotionally overwhelmed when they kiss, for it is like a romance. Hetty, however, is overcome because of Arthur's station and what he represents in her world. Of the two, Arthur is the more culpable because of his education and station. He alone knows the real situation, that he will never marry Hetty. He knows the social scandal it would cause both of them, but Hetty is oblivious of these facts. He begins to understand this is a real temptation, and that he is not equal to it. He seeks his friend and pastor for help. | analysis |
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."
| The Return Home Seth and Dinah leave the Bede cottage for the Hall Farm, so Seth can say goodbye to Dinah. Lisbeth talks to Adam about Dinah, saying she wishes she could have her for a daughter-in-law. Lisbeth sees Dinah doesn't care for Seth, but she suggests that Adam could marry her. Adam defends Seth as worthy of Dinah. Hetty runs into Dinah and Seth as they reach the farmyard gate, and Seth leaves as Hetty approaches. Dinah speaks to Hetty of the Bedes and tries to get her to talk about Adam, but Hetty is too engrossed in thoughts of Arthur. Dinah tries to explain to Hetty how she has visionary experiences about the people around her when she is alone. Her heart is drawn in sympathy to certain people, and she promises to keep Hetty in her awareness when she is in Snowfield. Mr. Poyser is glad to see his two nieces return, for they are late, and Mrs. Poyser has been worried. Totty is sick, and she will not go to her cousin Hetty but goes readily to Dinah. The house is shut up and everyone goes to bed. | summary |
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."
| Commentary on Chapter 14 The two nieces are again contrasted. Hetty is full of her own secrets, and Dinah is open, sharing the life of others instead of constructing her private world to shut others out. She tries to reach out to Hetty in two ways. First, she tries to create some help for Adam, who is supposed to be Hetty's suitor, thinking Hetty will talk about him. When that fails, Dinah tries to explain how she has a certain sympathy with people around her, and that she actually feels she shares the fate of those people, praying to God on their behalf. She knows Hetty is one of these. Hetty is not listening and does not understand what Dinah is talking about. It is significant that the child Totty will not go to Hetty's arms, for Hetty does not like children and does not like having to care for Totty. The child naturally goes to the motherly Dinah. This chapter also shows us a little of the character of Mr. Poyser. He is a mild affectionate man, except in terms of his fellow farmers. He is very critical of people like Luke Britton who runs a slovenly farm. Luke is one of Hetty's admirers, but Mr. Poyser loudly favors Adam whenever he gets a chance. Hetty, however, is wrapped in her own dreams and thinks of neither Luke nor Adam. | analysis |
"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."
| Book Second Chapter 17: In Which the Story Pauses a Little This chapter is a time out from the plot as Eliot steps in as the author to explain her style of storytelling. She defends the realism of it and eschews being sentimental or using ideal character types. She is writing from "nature" and "fact" , as if she were in a courtroom. She cannot lie or whitewash the details. She reminds us that we must accept the flawed human beings around us, "the real breathing men and women" , for these are the only ones who can be helped and encouraged. She compares her storytelling to Dutch painting, known for its homely and realistic detail. Instead of the beautiful gentry as her subjects, she would rather write about the village wedding with old people, peasants with large noses and vulgar ways. There is family love among them, and beauty of outward form is not as important as the beauty of human sympathy. An example of this kind of beauty is found in Mr. Irwine who did not preach informative sermons on doctrine but was good to his parishioners. She reminds the reader that the events of the story happened sixty years ago, before pastors were overzealous. Mr. Ryde, who succeeded Mr. Irwine, was better known for preaching doctrine, but he was not loved as Mr. Irwine was. She has asked the old Adam Bede about these things, and he has told her that religion is not notions, but the emotion that helps people do the right thing. The author concludes that human nature is lovable as it is; love and heroism as we picture them don't exist as depicted in romances. | summary |
"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."
| Commentary on Chapter 17 Eliot does what modern novelists do not usually do: she interrupts her story to write an essay on her own literary style. Authors who want to comment on their storytelling frequently put the words in the mouth of a character or use some other indirect means. Direct addresses to the reader were more common in nineteenth-century fiction, and in fact, Victorian novelists enjoyed a forum on the novel within their fiction, because they were conscious of shaping their art. Fiction was moving, as Eliot says, away from being an ideal romance with upper or middle class heroes towards greater realism, and Eliot herself was a big contributor to this trend. The lower classes in fiction had usually provided comic relief or were servants in the background of the story rather than in the foreground as main characters. Eliot breaks down the class barriers in fictional subject matter, as Wordsworth had done in poetry a half century before. Eliot is objecting to the mid-century Victorian fiction that was sentimentalized, reinforcing strict moral codes by relying on stereotyped good and bad characters. Eliot introduced a greater concern for the subtle psychological motivation of characters into the novel and in this way, avoided stereotypes. Her characters are like all people who have mixed strengths and weaknesses. A fallen woman like Hetty would not have received much sympathy or understanding in a usual Victorian story. Eliot is interested in tracking the thinking of the servant girl, however, to see how she could have arrived at doing what she did. The shift to the inner life of the characters teaches us about human behavior, which Eliot finds lovable even with the big noses and ignorant ideas. She preaches tolerance, and for this theme, she utilizes a realistic style so readers must face and understand the lives of real people. Real people include not only the lady and gentleman, but farmers, servants, mill workers, old people with rheumatism, people who speak in dialect, the kind of folks that Arthur Donnithorne, for instance, sees as too insignificant to cause him problems. We must include such people in our religion and philosophy, or else it is false. | analysis |
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?"
| Adam on a Working Day Adam walks the next day to a job three miles away and thinks about his future. It looks more hopeful with his father gone. He thinks about Hetty and how he will be able to marry in another year or so by saving his money. He is strong and confident about himself but doesn't know if Hetty loves him. He decides to visit the Hall Farm to see her. He knows that his mother will continue to be a problem if he marries Hetty, but he decides he has to assert his will to her. He does not want a partnership with Jonathan Burge, for that involves the assumption he will marry Mary Burge. He thinks of going into a business of furniture making with his brother to earn extra money. At work, Adam is strong and happily whistling, for he loves his work and loves to do a good job. He has gone out of his way to study at night school with Bartle Massey the teacher, for Adam is not an average man. | summary |
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?"
| Commentary on Chapter 19 Again Eliot brings up the strengths of the working classes, pointing out their virtues. Most of the rural people are shown to be healthy and clean, hard-working, thrifty, and generous to their neighbors. The Donnithornes and Irwines are the only upper class characters in the story. Though Mr. Irwine is described as fresh and beneficent, the other upper class characters are generally not healthy except for Arthur who gets outdoor exercise. The maiden ladies, Lydia Donnithorne and Anne Irwine, for instance, are thin and sickly, and Squire Donnithorne is shriveled. The farm poor are also contrasted to the industrial poor at Snowfield. Eliot may be showing a realistic picture of the country as she remembered from her girlhood but she also romanticizes what was the last remnant of rural society before the industrial age. The peasant stock who lived in harmony with the land had a strength and self-sufficiency that mill workers did not. | analysis |
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
Caesar 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 [two greek words
omitted] as old AEschylus 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."
| Going to the Birthday Feast In the hot pause of July when nature is lazy, the great cask of ale brewed on Arthur Donnithorne's birth is opened for his coming of age. All the people from Hayslope and Broxton are gathering at the Chase for dinner and games and a dance. Hetty has bought a few bits of finery for the occasion, but secretly tries on the pearl and garnet earrings Arthur recently gave her. She has to keep them hidden. She does put on the locket he gave her with strands of their hair intertwined inside. It cannot be seen under her dress. The whole Poyser family departs in a cart and arrives at the Donnithorne house, built on to the remnant of an abbey. Arthur roams around greeting people with Mr. Irwine, informing him that his grandfather has given in to hiring Adam to manage the woods. Arthur wants to announce it at the dinner. Irwine teases him about wanting the announcement to make him look good with the tenants, and Arthur blushes. | summary |
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
Caesar 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 [two greek words
omitted] as old AEschylus 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."
| Commentary on Chapter 22 The focus is on the vanity of both Hetty and Arthur. Hetty is more in love with the earrings than with Arthur, the narrator tells us. She also continues to sound warnings about Hetty's coming tragedy. Hetty is not only vain; she is jealous as well, imagining Mary Burge as a rival. Mary will have all new clothes, and Hetty has to wear some old things. But she imagines the clothes she will have as Arthur's wife. Arthur similarly is indulging in his dream of being the great landowner in the future and begins by planning the announcement of Adam as manager of the Chase woods. This, he believes, will make him popular with the people and make them look forward to his becoming the squire. | analysis |
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.
| Dinner-Time Adam is told he is to sit upstairs in the cloisters at the table with the large tenants rather than with the workmen, and he apologizes to Seth and his mother. Seth says his honor is theirs. Adam has not yet given notice to Jonathan Burge, and he hopes they will not announce his new post before he has a chance to tell Burge. The tenants welcome Adam but argue among themselves who is to sit at the head of the table and give the toast. Bartle Massey settles it, and Mr. Poyser is selected. Hetty sees Mary Burge at the table and purposely flirts with Adam to make Mary jealous. Adam is happy that Hetty smiles at him. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 23 The argument over who is to give the speech is a comic bit, for this is a momentous day for the folk on the Donnithorne estate, and everyone wants to have a share in the glory. Old man Poyser is the oldest, but he is as good natured as his son and always defers everything to the "young uns'" . Mr. Casson, as a former butler, thinks he should do the toast as he knows about these things, but Martin Poyser wins out, as he is considered the best tenant on the estate. Adam is uncomfortable with sitting at the head table and does not want the announcement to take place. He is thinking of the feelings of others rather than his own fame. Arthur admits that Adam had to be talked into taking the post. Hetty, on the other hand, is cross with little Totty for messing up her dress and frowns. Her only concern is how she looks. Adam is charmed with whatever Hetty does and her frowns seem adorable. Hetty wants to display her power to Mary Burge, her supposed rival for Adam, by purposely flirting with Adam. The narrator goes into Mary's mind to see her reaction. Mary assumes that Adam can see right through Hetty. She believes that he will prefer a good woman. | analysis |
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 b'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.
| The Health-Drinking Arthur and Mr. Irwine enter the cloister dining hall, and all the tenants stand up. Mr. Poyser makes his speech, saying that everyone is of one opinion about Arthur: "You speak fair an' y'act fair" . Arthur feels a slight twinge, but thinks he deserves the praise as being basically a good person. He knows that nothing bad will happen with Hetty, for next time he will tell her it's over. Arthur pledges in return to be a good landlord and then announces the appointment of Adam Bede and introduces Mr. Irwine. Mr. Irwine drinks to Arthur saying that "I share your high hopes concerning him" and then goes on to praise Adam Bede as an important person, though he is not of high rank. All drink to Adam, who replies that a man does his duty, and he believes Arthur to be one of those who leaves the world a better place than he found it. Mr. Irwine asks Mrs. Poyser if she liked her husband's speech, and she replies that he did well enough, but she finds men are "tongue-tied" like "the dumb creatures" . She, on the other hand, thanks God, that she has no trouble with words. | summary |
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 b'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.
| Commentary on Chapter 24 There are important thoughts in this chapter, as well as comic and tragic wit. The tragic irony of Arthur getting the praise he has always wanted without deserving it is taken in by the reader, but no one else. Arthur may feel a bit of conscience, but Eliot shows how the person who takes a wrong turn begins to become more and more deaf to his own conscience, as we see happening with Arthur. At first he took days agonizing over every encounter with Hetty. He left on a fishing trip to forget her, and yet, as soon as he got back, he bought her the earrings and locket. Now, he is able to play the hypocrite in front of her uncle with hardly a twinge. The three most honorable men in his world, Mr. Irwine, Mr. Poyser, and Adam, have praised him for his honesty and friendship to the community. A few months earlier he would have been embarrassed, but though he continues to do wrong, he continues to have the intention to do right in the future, and somehow thinks that is good enough. It is noteworthy that Irwine, however, merely praises Arthur's potential, while he praises Adam's achievement. He is more eloquent about Adam, for Irwine is not blind to Arthur's faults. Adam's comment about a man's duty being to use the spirit and gifts given to him for the benefit of all is one of the important ethics Eliot wants to teach. Irwine also makes a speech in this chapter and the next on behalf of the common man. He says that a man like Adam is not noticed like a man in high station, but the quality of his life and work is just as important. In this stroke, Irwine essentially levels the playing field and contradicts Arthur's notions of his own importance. Together Irwine's speech and Adam's speech represent the duty of every human being to improve life for the good of all. They remind Arthur once more of his sacred trust as a squire and as a man. Mrs. Poyser as usual gets the last word. Eliot has a Shakespearian touch with her country comic wits, and Mrs. Poyser is a gem. Her epigrams sum up the plain truth of every character and situation. Though the men have spoken fine words, she calls them tongue-tied, for they are not direct enough to her taste. Mrs. Poyser sees though everyone, but she has not yet seen through Arthur because he has been doing everything behind people's backs. Finally, Arthur's party is a cross-section of the local life with its class distinctions. Each group eats separately, and later, they have their own ballrooms for separate dances. The gentry will have a party with their own kind on the following day, but even with the lower classes there are distinctions between the large farm families and the workers and cottagers. | analysis |
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 fete-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. Well 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."
| The Games The games and races begin on the lawn at four o'clock, and Mrs. Irwine is to give out the prizes, sitting on a raised seat like a queen. Mrs. Irwine tells Arthur he must take a charming bride or she will be disappointed. She insists this bride be pretty and not silly. She surveys the crowd along with her son, and the Donnithornes. When she sees Hetty, she wants to know who she is, then says it is a waste to give beauty to the lower classes when the upper class needs it most. Beauty, she says, is thrown away on the working class husband. Arthur is listening, and is more attracted to Hetty than ever while they speak of her. Mr. Irwine contradicts his mother: "The common people are not quite so stupid as you imagine" . He tells them about Dinah Morris as an example. Just then, Bessy Cranage wins a game and comes to collect her prize. Miss Lydia had bought an ugly dress and piece of flannel for a young woman, not wanting to encourage vanity. Bessy, who likes finery as much as Hetty does, is so disappointed she cries and gives the material away to her cousin to make clothes with. Arthur vows secretly to give her some money so she can buy something for herself. Wiry Ben Cranage then dances a comic hornpipe while Joshua Rann plays the fiddle. | summary |
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 fete-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. Well 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."
| Commentary on Chapter 25 This chapter contrasts the point of view of the classes in English society. Because readers have already seen so much of the action and inner life of the lower class characters, they know the farmers and workers as real people. Mrs. Irwine is a proud and queenly gentlewoman who looks down on the lower classes. She voices her prejudice about them and is corrected by her son the rector, who knows them all quite well. He has just praised Adam as one of the more significant people in the area, and now he praises Dinah Morris as an example of beauty and intelligence and refinement. Miss Lydia buys coarse cloth for a female prize, not thinking the peasants have any business with finery, while she herself likes her bit of lace. These gentry do not see any common humanity with those beneath them. The time of the action is 1799, the height of the Romantic Age when class difference was beginning to break down, after the French Revolution and the beginning rise of industrialism. Romantic literature is full of noble peasants and natives who are more honorable than the upper classes, under the notion that the person living closest to nature imbibes a natural morality and wisdom. Irwine does not sentimentalize about the poor being better, for he knows, as well as Mrs. Poyser, who among them is a fool and who is not. He, however, defends a democratic idea ahead of its time, that one class is not more stupid or less human than another, as his mother and the Donnithornes think. | analysis |
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 Four
| The Dance The dance for the tenants is held in the entry hall of the house, with paper lanterns hung on green boughs. Lisbeth is jealous that Adam is staying for the dancing, whining that she is losing him, but he says it would be rude for him to leave. Hetty says she will leave the fourth dance for Adam. For the first dance, Arthur leads with Mrs. Poyser, and Miss Lydia leads with Mr. Poyser. Adam dances with Mary Burge, and Hetty dances with Luke Britton. The squire, Miss Anne, and Mrs. Irwine watch the dance from a raised dais. Mr. Irwine goes to preside at the dance for the cottagers in the abbey gallery. When Hetty dances with Arthur she has a pale look that frightens Arthur, for he thinks it means she really loves him and will be hurt when he tells her they must part. Adam waits for his turn with Hetty. Hetty is obliged to hold Totty for a moment, and when Adam tries to take Totty to relieve her, Totty grabs Hetty's necklace and breaks it. The beads and hidden locket fall to the ground. Adam bends down to get the locket and sees the strands of hair in it. Suddenly, he realizes that Hetty may have another lover. She puts the locket in her pocket, and they have an awkward dance together. Disillusioned, Adam leaves the dance. Walking home through the woods, he begins to make excuses for Hetty. Perhaps she bought the locket herself. Meanwhile, back at the dance, Hetty dances with Arthur again, and he whispers to her where and when they should meet in the wood. He is thinking to himself it will be the last time. | summary |
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 Four
| Commentary on Chapter 26 Adam finally gets the hint that he doesn't know everything about Hetty. He is shocked and leaves, but unwilling to think the worst, he hopes that she was embarrassed about having bought finery for herself since she knows he doesn't approve. He gives her the benefit of the doubt. The tension is running higher for the three in this triangle--Arthur, Hetty, and Adam. It is obvious Hetty and Arthur cannot keep their secret much longer, but Arthur also fears that it might get complicated parting from Hetty. For one thing, if she is attached to him and is badly hurt, it could get messy. But for another thing, he really wants her, and he thinks to himself that he would give three years of his life if he could enjoy his passion with her. Book 3 advances the fact that Arthur's flirtation with Hetty has become a more serious affair. He has not done anything to back away, but on the contrary, he is giving her expensive presents. How far the affair has gone we can only guess. The locket with the mingled strands of hair was generally a love token, symbolizing intimacy. Later it will become clear that this has been a time of physical intimacy between the lovers. The entanglement is deep enough, as Arthur recognizes, to cause him trouble whatever he does, whether he continues or breaks it off. The irony is that at the moment of Arthur's greatest honor at his coming of age party, he is clearly acting dishonorably, leading Hetty on, though she is helping him. Adam avoids knowing more because he cannot think Hetty would have a secret lover, yet he is putting his head in the sand. Hetty acts embarrassed and fearful of discovery, a dead give-away. Adam cannot bear that his moment of advancement on this happy occasion is coupled with such a betrayal, so he forgets about the incident. The birthday party serves to demonstrate the unity of this small and tight-knit community on one level, and the rising and secret tension ready to break it apart, on another. The very man who is supposed to lead them all forward to a better life has already sabotaged that promise. Book 3 concludes on this suspenseful note. | analysis |
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 house
keeper'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.
| Book Fourth Chapter 27: A Crisis Three weeks after Arthur's party, just before harvest, as the apples are falling in the orchards, the crisis that has been building erupts. Adam's hopes have been buoyed again, and he is working double, for the squire and Jonathan Burge. Hetty seems more serious and mature to Adam these days. She is still getting her sewing lessons, and on the night she is coming home through the wood, Adam is taking a short cut through there after having done repairs on the Chase Farm. He hears that Arthur is leaving in two days to join his regiment. Just as the sun is setting he sees two figures in the wood, and he freezes. They are kissing and saying goodbye. Gyp barks, and the figures break apart. One figure rushes out the gate to the fields, while the other comes towards Adam in the wood. It is Arthur, slightly drunk, swaggering and trying to bluff with Adam about the incident. He thinks Adam is the best person to have caught him and Hetty together, for he can be trusted not to tell anyone. He mentions casually that he just gave Hetty a kiss after walking with her, and he tries to pass by Adam, as if no harm had been done. It was just a bit of flirting, he says. Adam tells him to wait, and accuses him of being two-faced, for Hetty could have loved him if Arthur, whom he thought his friend, hadn't ruined it. Arthur is shocked that Adam loves Hetty, and begins to see the whole affair as much more serious than he imagined. Adam's blood is up, and he taunts Arthur until he fights. The two begin a furious fist fight until Adam knocks Arthur down, and he does not get up. Adam is terrified of his own strength, afraid that he has killed Arthur. | summary |
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 house
keeper'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.
| Commentary on Chapter 27 After much buildup and suspense, the secret bursts out, and it is fatal for Arthur that it is Adam who sees him with Hetty, though at first he thinks Adam will understand and cover for him. This misunderstanding shows the difference between Adam and Arthur both in character and in class expectations. Arthur's class of gentlemen takes it as nothing unusual to have affairs with servant girls. If worst comes to worst with such a fling, a rich man can always pay his way out of the trouble, for he would never be expected by his peers to marry or be made uncomfortable by any complications. Arthur expects Adam to have such a cavalier attitude as well. He passes the incident off as not serious. His casual manner incenses Adam in two ways; first, because Hetty is the woman he loves; second, even if she weren't, Arthur puts a blot on Hetty's reputation and life, and that is not a mere trifle for the servant girl. Adam's working class on the whole expects courting to end in marriage, so if one does not have that intention, then one is acting dishonorably. Adam's illusions crash because he has believed in the superiority of rank and has believed in Arthur personally. Arthur's bubble is burst too: he is suddenly shocked by feeling the first hatred he has ever encountered in his life, and from one of the people whose opinion mattered to him. He realizes from the way Adam talks, however, that he believes it is a flirtation and nothing more. He sticks to this lie, then, as his only way out of the mess. Fiction in 1859 did not discuss explicit sexual encounters, but these hints by the characters and narrator are enough to confirm in a round-about way that Hetty and Arthur are definitely having a sexual affair, though Adam has bought Arthur's lie that it is only a flirtation. Even a servant found kissing a gentleman could be turned away from employment, and certainly would have a difficult time marrying, for the worst would be assumed. In a small town like Hayslope, one mistake like this can ruin a person's life. Adam knows Hetty will be destroyed if it is found out, but he himself is too good a man to think that the affair is that far along, that either Hetty or Arthur could have stooped so low. He is a bit naive about the weaknesses of others, and Arthur takes advantage of this. Adam's strength is also his weakness. He holds himself back by sheer will power in the beginning, knowing he is a strong man and that violence is wrong. It has been mentioned that he stopped fighting when he injured a man a few years ago, and he cautions himself not to do it now. If Arthur had humbled himself or spoken truthfully, there might have been some other way to work out their differences, but since Arthur takes a casual and cocky attitude, Adam's anger is thoroughly aroused at the "scoundrel" . When Arthur does not get up, Adam realizes his mistake. He solved nothing, and he might have killed a man. This chapter functions as the moment of the fall does in Paradise Lost. Before this scene, the idyllic world of the valley was established in the rising action. All the characters had hopes and plans for a bright future. After this climax, that innocent green world is shattered, and all the tragic consequences of the actions are played out. The lives of the main characters change forever. As Adam observed of his father's tragic end: "There's no slipping up hill again, and no standing still when once you've begun to slip down" . The reader expects to watch the tumbling down now. | analysis |
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.
| A Dilemma Arthur regains consciousness and asks for water. Adam is sorry about the fight and tries to help Arthur get home, but he is weak, and asks for Adam's help in walking to the Hermitage, the house in the woods. Adam has never known that this place was furnished; Arthur has been using it for a personal retreat. He asks Adam to go to his servant Pym and get some brandy. While Adam is gone, Arthur removes a woman's handkerchief. Adam returns with the brandy. Arthur is too confused to say anything, but he wishes he could confess and make it all right with Adam. Adam apologizes for hurting him and being hasty. He knows Arthur was ignorant of his love for Hetty, and he says the only joy he can have now is to think the best of Arthur. Arthur tries to make some apology saying he was wrong, and he is going away so there will be no more mistake. Adam insists that Arthur write Hetty a letter admitting he was wrong and that it is over, so that Hetty will not be waiting for him and her life ruined with false hope. Arthur is irritated by Adam telling him what to do, but Adam insists, saying that he has to know where he stands with Hetty, and "in this thing we're man and man, and I can't give up" . Arthur promises to write the letter, and Adam will pick it up and deliver it to Hetty. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 28 Adam takes action, as is his nature. He does not want the thing to drag on, and he still hopes Hetty could love him if she knows Arthur is not serious. He makes Arthur see that rank has no privilege here. They are two men courting the same woman, and if Arthur doesn't want her, he has to play fair, and give him and Hetty a chance. Adam may be rash, and he is not playing his hand with full knowledge, but he is thinking of Hetty's life as well as his own. He says he is the only one who can care for Hetty. He equates Hetty's honor with his own. This is assuming a lot on his part to take responsibility for her. Adam is rash to think that he can solve the situation, but his attempt is a natural one and more noble than Arthur's cowardice. Eliot does not say directly that it is too late for Adam and Hetty, but the handkerchief lying carelessly in the Hermitage is proof that it has been the trysting place, and that Arthur and Hetty have no doubt had many meetings there. The chance that Adam could step in at this point if Arthur simply writes a letter is again naive, but it is the only thing he can think of. Arthur's giving in to the request indicates that he is trying to get out of a tight spot, for if he had done nothing very wrong, he would probably refuse. | analysis |
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.
| The Next Morning This chapter centers on the thoughts of Arthur on his last day before leaving. He gets up early and goes for a ride on his horse. He is upset about the loss of Adam's good opinion. He thinks that if he had done any other injury, he would have made it up to Adam with some gift, for he has a kind heart and likes to make people happy. His realization that he cannot make this up to Adam is the first understanding of "the irrevocableness of his own wrong-doing" . He remembers that he did not tell Hetty on their last meeting that it was over between them. Adam had been right about Hetty's delusions, for she asked Arthur to take her with him and marry her. He had been too cowardly to tell her the truth. The narrator notes that Arthur has slowly changed over the last few months from a fresh and honest person to a deceiver. But because he needs his own self-respect, he cannot admit his wrong. He believes the letter is the only answer, for it will satisfy Adam and cure Hetty of her dreams. For one moment, Arthur thinks about the other terrible possible outcomes of his deeds, but he puts them out of his mind. He writes the letter and leaves it with his man Pym, saying he is too busy to see Adam. Adam takes the letter and thinks it better they don't see each other, for they are no longer friends. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 29 Eliot uses a favorite technique here of going deeply into a character's thoughts, and then commenting on them like a psychologist. She uses the mental processes of all the characters to show typical human maneuvers for both good and bad. In this way, she can contrast the selfish person with the unselfish person. In her philosophy, the unselfish person not only adds to the good of the world but is also the only successful person in the long run. Selfish people only get short-term gains. Both Arthur and Hetty are irresponsible and like to live in their illusions within the moment. A few weeks of passion will ruin their lives forever. For a brief moment Arthur worries that Hetty could harm herself, perhaps kill herself over the disappointment. Then another nameless fear surfaces, and the reader knows what is left unsaid--she could get pregnant. The other important thing Eliot reveals in her analysis is how a good person can go wrong. Arthur is a loving person by nature, but also weak and self-indulgent. By making wrong choices and then covering up and lying, Arthur is slowly making himself more coarse. Each time he lies, he makes excuses. The result is that he becomes dull and loses his discrimination. Like Hetty, he is unresponsive to the clues from outside because he is so self-involved in his own drama. One can see how he will eventually become hard, like his grandfather, the very fate he wanted to avoid. | analysis |
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 antennae.
"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'-ou 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 to-wards 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.
| In Hetty's Bed-Chamber Hetty waits until bedtime to read Arthur's letter. He says that it is hard on him, but he must say goodbye to her. They cannot be married because they live in different worlds, so they must part for good. If however, any trouble comes, he will do everything to help her. She can write to the address he encloses. Hetty is taken by surprise, and is devastated. She cries herself to sleep, and the next day she only thinks how she can get away from Hall Farm. She asks her uncle if she can go for a lady's maid. He says no; he wants to see her well married. Mrs. Poyser thinks the idea of being a lady's maid came from learning lace-mending and decides to put a stop to it. Hetty begins to think about marrying Adam as an alternative plan; what difference doe it make as long as she can get away? | summary |
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 antennae.
"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'-ou 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 to-wards 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.
| Commentary on Chapter 31 Hetty's bubble is burst, and she begins to hate Arthur for it. She wants change if she cannot have what she wants. Hetty is not able to evaluate what Arthur has said in the letter about class differences, nor does she wonder if he loves her or worry that she will miss him. She had imagined a different life, and now it is taken away. She doesn't seem to care who she marries as long as she can have what she wants. She decides Adam will do as well as any. The narrator and the reader are the only ones who know at this point how "trivial" Hetty's soul is . She is clever enough to hide herself from her family and from Adam, who believes her to be as good as she looks. Arthur's letter, however, contains some foreshadowing. He alludes to the fact of future trouble and says that he will help her, if it should come. He gives her an address. This is, at least, responsible on Arthur's part. His letter sounds affectionate and caring, even if he is backing out of the relationship at a late point, and only because he was forced into it. He does seem to care what happens to Hetty, though not enough, and always belatedly. He does not have the foresight of Adam or Mr. Irwine, though he is far from cruel. Eliot's point with Arthur seems to be to illustrate how anyone can commit evil, even if basically good. Readers generally identify with good characters. Eliot can make readers uncomfortable by having to identify with the ordinary characters who slip because they are lazy. Who has not looked for an easy way out, or merely got by because everyone else did? She calls her characters and readers to account, for the laws of cause and effect do not excuse anyone. | analysis |
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."
"Aye, aye, 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."
| Mrs. Poyser 'Has Her Say Out' The next day Squire Donnithorne visits the Poysers to make a deal with them. He has a possible tenant for the Chase Farm but the man wants more plough land. If the Poysers would give up some plough land, they could have more dairy land and then Mrs. Poyser could make more money with her dairy. The Poysers see through this plan to cheat them of their land. Next, the squire threatens them that if they want their lease renewed, they should comply with his wishes. This is too much for Mrs. Poyser who tells off the squire on behalf of all the tenants for his cheap and miserly ways, for not keeping up the property, and for taking all the profits for himself. He rides off, and Mr. Poyser, though pleased at his wife's action, is worried that they will be evicted. | summary |
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."
"Aye, aye, 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."
| Commentary on Chapter 32 This is a comic scene where Mrs. Poyser's wit is on display. She mentions that it is worth any price to have had her say, for "There's no pleasure in living if you're to be corked up for iver" . When the squire threatens to evict them, she answers that it won't be so easy to find another tenant to take their place because "a maggot must be born in the rotten cheese to like it, I reckon" . The Poysers worry that they will be evicted on Michaelmas, twelvemonth. This means they have a year from Michael's Mass on Sept. 29, the date when farming contracts were made. Mrs. Poyser says ironically that there is no telling what could have happened by then. This is another bit of foreshadowing. | analysis |
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 AEsop'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.
| More Links It is harvest time, and Mrs. Poyser is the heroine of the valley for speaking her mind to the old squire. Mr. Irwine and his mother admire Mrs. Poyser for her backbone but doubt the old squire will be around much longer. Both Mrs. Poyser and Adam notice changes in Hetty after she receives the letter. She is quieter, more cooperative and less vain. She does her work without scolding and does not want to go anywhere. Adam takes it as a sign she is getting over Arthur. He feels hopeful. The narrator comments on Adam's love for Hetty. On the one hand, he falls in love with her because of the way she looks; he has no idea who she is. But, the narrator thinks Adam's love comes from his strength not his weakness, for love is like a mysterious music set off by beauty, and Hetty touches all the deep places in Adam. His work is prospering, and he can think of marriage. Jonathan Burge offers him a partnership, and so with his two jobs, he can afford to buy a house. | summary |
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 AEsop'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.
| Commentary on Chapter 33 Readers will understand more than Adam does about Hetty's changes. She seems to be hiding away, not wanting to call attention to herself. She has a harder, more mature look. She tries to be agreeable to Adam. She may already suspect that she is pregnant. In any case, she has been abandoned by Arthur and now plays up to Adam, dressing as he likes and acting demure. She is no trouble to her aunt. She depends on others now and must hide what she has done. The narrator tries to speculate on Adam's illusions about Hetty. Are they foolish or noble? They proceed from a noble mind who attributes its own nobility to another, but the love Adam feels is deep nonetheless. If it is an error, it is the error of a good person, one who does not know the minds of women. Eliot, however, by showing us the depth of each character, brings out the contradictions, complexity, and mystery of the human being. We assume we know others, but even people we are close to may not know us. The Poysers have raised Hetty and still they have no idea of the misery she is able to plunge all them into in just a few months. | analysis |
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."
| The Betrothal Adam walks Hetty home after church one Sunday in November. He asks her to take his arm. He is more impatient about her now and is waiting for a sign from Hetty to declare his love. He tells her his good news about becoming a partner with Jonathan Burge. Suddenly, she is alarmed, for she remembers that the partnership was supposed to be coupled with an engagement to Mary Burge. Just when she was counting on Adam, he seems to slip away. She cries, and Adam guesses it is because of Mary Burge. He believes Hetty has come to love him and proposes marriage. She accepts. They rush home to tell the Poysers, who are overjoyed. It is what they had wished. They set the marriage date for the spring so they will have time to get ready. Mr. Poyser tells Hetty to kiss Adam, and she turns away. Then he tells Adam he should kiss his fiancee. Adam gives Hetty a kiss on the lips. Hetty feels nothing for Adam, but she is content to be loved and taken care of. It's not Arthur or what she expected, but it will do. | summary |
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."
| Commentary on Chapter 34 Readers will know why Hetty has "more luxuriant womanliness" than before, but Adam does not guess the possible reason. Adam does not seem to take it ill that Hetty does not come forth with a kiss on her own. Perhaps he thinks her shy. It is obvious she is looking for security, for she no longer has youthful hopes of love. The reader certainly guesses Hetty is pregnant and wonders if she knows. Although a woman today would certainly know by this time she was going to have a baby, Hetty is probably ignorant of such things and has no one to ask. Eliot never says outright that Hetty is pregnant, but it becomes plain in the next chapter. Knowing what we know about Hetty, there is no way this marriage could be happy. Even if disaster were not waiting, Adam would surely be disappointed to find Hetty did not love him. Her pretense could not hold up for long. For the moment, he is deliriously happy; his life has purpose and direction now. | analysis |
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 Five
| The Hidden Dread Adam doesn't see much of Hetty during the winter between November and February because he is working two jobs and getting ready for the wedding in March. Two rooms are prepared for Hetty and Adam in the Bede home, so that Seth and Lisbeth can stay in the house. Adam does not know why Hetty seems depressed sometimes and thinks it's because of his mother living with them. Mrs. Poyser is surprised at Hetty's ability to take on extra housework at Hall Farm and assumes she is learning how to be a housewife. In February Hetty goes to Treddleston to get some things for her wedding. She wears her red cloak and bonnet and wanders about in a daze, feeling lost. When she looks at a pond and wonders if she could drown herself in it, it is understood that she is pregnant. The narrator finally answers the reader's questions about Hetty's condition, but indirectly, since she cannot discuss it openly with a Victorian audience. She calls the pregnancy "the hidden dread" and says Hetty only found out after her engagement to Adam. The narrator gives pride as a reason Hetty does not tell anyone. She thinks Arthur cannot do anything for her because her one dread is discovery, and he cannot save her from that. Now, she thinks she must run away. The only thought is that she has to hide, so that no one will ever know what happened to her. Telling her aunt she is going to see Dinah Morris for a while, she leaves by coach, silently crying tears at parting from Adam, who had given her love and protection. They will not miss her for at least two weeks. She plans to go to Arthur at Windsor, for surely he will take care of her. She knows she will never see home again. | summary |
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 Five
| Commentary on Chapter 35 This is the last chapter of the fourth book, the book where the consequences of the love affair between Hetty and Arthur come out. It opened with the crisis of Adam seeing them kiss, and it ends with Hetty running away, approximately eight months pregnant, trying to escape discovery. The next book will reveal the full tragedy. The narrator tries to explain Hetty's puzzling behavior. She doesn't really understand she is pregnant for a long time, apparently, a detail hard for a modern reader to swallow. Her character has been explained, however, as not wanting to face unpleasant facts. And, most women at this time were ignorant of anatomy and sex, having to learn things from other women. Hetty, like Arthur, depends on the opinions others have of her. She seems to have little moral integrity of her own. For instance, she never seems to give one thought to the baby or what she could do for it. She waits so long to admit the problem and to do anything, because like Arthur, she thinks something will happen to save her from this fate, a miscarriage perhaps. Equally hard to understand is how she could hide it, but with aprons and cloaks, it might be possible. One also wonders why she waits to contact Arthur as he told her to do if there was any trouble. The narrator explains that Hetty does not think that Arthur could cover up for her. He can take care of her and give her money, but he cannot save her reputation. This reminds us again of the small town atmosphere. If she goes to anyone she knows for help--Arthur and Dinah are the two who might do something--they would have to let her family and friends know. In her pride, she believes herself alone in her suffering, and the best solution for her is to disappear, so at least her reputation will be saved. Hetty's reasoning is not that of an adult, and by shifting to Hetty's childish and fearful point of view in this chapter and in the fifth book, Eliot does something surprising no doubt for a Victorian audience. She does not try to excuse Hetty as a fallen woman, but she makes her plight sympathetic and understandable. We must have human pity for her. Her grief and fear make her close to insane in her thinking and actions. Arthur had thought to himself that even in the worst case, he could help Hetty, make it up to her, and make her glad that she had been with him. The evil consequences are more than he could have imagined and cannot be fixed with money. Anyone would be sorely tested by this trial, but Hetty does not have the inner resources or faith, like Dinah would, to survive such an experience and to make courageous choices. | analysis |
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 Hettv 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 adrop 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."
| Book Fifth Chapter 36: The Journey in Hope Hetty sets out with her little saved money, with no idea where Windsor is or how long it takes to get there. The coachman tells her Windsor is near London. She despairs and decides to take carriers' carts and farmer's wagons because the coach costs too much. On her own now with no knowledge of the big world, she realizes that her whole life has been managed for her, and she remembers her kind uncle and home. Now she can only have a hidden life because of the shame. She thinks Arthur perhaps can shelter her from this. She is proud and afraid of poverty and begging. She walks until tired and then begins to sob. Catching a ride on a cart, she makes it to the next town and gets a room. The clerk at the coach office writes down the stops she has to go through to get to Windsor. She is still a hundred miles away. On the seventh day she reaches Windsor with no money left and is fainting from hunger at the door of the Green Man inn where Arthur is supposed to be. The landlord takes her in and gives her a meal, telling her that Arthur is no longer there, for his regiment left for Ireland. Hetty collapses, and the landlady, seeing she is pregnant but a respectable looking girl, puts her to bed. | summary |
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 Hettv 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 adrop 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."
| Commentary on Chapter 36 Hetty longs to be with someone familiar who will take care of her, for she has been taken care of all her life, and she is frightened and not physically strong. She gets help from strangers because she is pretty and looks in trouble, though she is proud. While suffering makes Adam and Dinah more sympathetic to others, it has the opposite effect on Hetty. She can think of no one's suffering but her own. She does not think of the baby or Adam or the sorrow of the family she leaves behind. Yet she notices things keenly like a starving person, such as the friendly little spaniel on the road. When her one hope of Arthur is gone, she collapses and has nothing to hold her up. She goes farther and farther away from hope and from a solution, like the slippery slope that Adam mentions in his father's case: "there's no slipping up hill" when once you begin the downward path. Hetty is close to the bottom. | analysis |
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!
| The Journey in Despair Hetty is in bed the rest of the day, too ill to think. She has no hope left. The next day she tries to think of a plan. She cannot get any work in her condition. Remembering a starving unwed mother and child at Hayslope who had been sent to the parish workhouse, a fate to be feared, she longs to be back home safe. No one will welcome a runaway in her condition. Above all, she does not want her family to find out what has happened to her. She decides to sell the presents Arthur gave her, and if she is not strong enough to commit suicide, she will find Dinah. Hetty gets money from the landlord for her earrings and locket and sets out back north again. She goes on and on, without a clear plan, until she gets to Stratford-on-Avon. She walks into the surrounding fields looking for a pool to drown herself. She finds a pool, but not able to throw herself in, she falls asleep there. In the cold and dark she awakens in fear. Remembering a shepherd's hovel nearby, she gropes until she finds it, and sleeps there on a bed of straw. In the morning, a gruff shepherd tells her to get back to the road because she looks like a "wild woman" . She continues her journey north towards Dinah in Snowfield. | summary |
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!
| Commentary on Chapter 37 Hetty finds she cannot commit suicide because she has, the narrator tells us, "the luxurious nature of a round, soft-coated pet animal" . She is torn between thoughts of suicide, begging, the workhouse, and throwing herself on the mercy of her aunt and uncle. She wants to go on living as long as possible, but she has no hope that she can be delivered from the evil she is in. She does not think she can even tell Dinah. When she thinks of death, she does not know about an afterlife, for she is not a religious person. She begins to have a hard look, like a wild animal, like the wild woman the shepherd sees in her. The narrator says she has a "Medusa face" . Medusa was a monster with the face of a woman and hair of snakes whose look could turn someone to stone. This is a strange image for Hetty whom we have been led to believe was more like a soft and helpless animal, a little dog that drew the affection of others. Eliot prepares us here for the major transformation Hetty is undergoing. Without any help or spiritual life to sustain her, she is coming close to the madness that destroys the moral sense in a person, never a strong point with Hetty anyway. We will not be surprised at what she might do in her desperation. At this point she seems scarcely aware of the child she is carrying except as baggage and shame. When Hetty wakes up in the shepherd's hut, she is so glad to be alive that she passionately kisses her own arms. After repeating that Hetty has no sorrow except for herself, the narrator confesses to be sorry for her: "My heart bleeds for her as I see her toiling along on her weary feet" . Though the narrator says some harsh things of Hetty, she wants the reader to pity her fate by understanding step by step, how she arrived there. | analysis |
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 his 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."
| The Tidings When Arthur arrives at the parsonage, he is kept waiting as Mr. Irwine talks to a strange man . When Adam is admitted, he tells Mr. Irwine that he has come to him for help because he looks up to him the most and must tell him some painful news. Mr. Irwine is looking at Adam strangely and has his hand on a letter. Adam tells him Hetty has run away and that he is going to look for her. Mr. Irwine asks if Adam knows why she ran away. Adam says there is someone else involved. Mr. Irwine looks relieved. Adam then tells him the other person is Arthur, and Mr. Irwine is shocked and full of grief as Adam tells about the secret meetings and how he made Arthur write the letter to Hetty. Mr. Irwine then tells Adam to prepare himself for a heavy blow. He can at least thank God he is not the guilty one. He shows Adam the letter from a magistrate in Stoniton with news of Hetty. She has been arrested for killing her baby. Adam is stricken, saying Hetty never had a child. The letter mentions that she denies having a baby, but there is evidence. Mr. Irwine says they can only hope she didn't do it. The trial is coming soon. Adam says he forgives Hetty, but he will bring Arthur back to see Hetty's misery; it is all his fault. Arthur, however, is on his way home already because his grandfather has sent for him. Mr. Irwine switches Adam's attention to Hetty and advises him to go to Stoniton with him to identify Hetty. He tells Adam there are others to think of in this crisis. | summary |
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 his 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."
| Commentary on Chapter 39 Eliot shocks the characters and readers at the same time by skillfully postponing the outcome of Hetty's tortured journey until we hear this official report reach her family and friends. Eliot further delays telling the details and final scenes of Hetty's story until the trial. Adam's blow is hard to witness, for he has tried so hard and was so close, he thought, to happiness: "O God, it's too hard to lay upon me--it's too to hard to think she is wicked" . Mr. Irwine comes into his own as the moral leader in this crisis. It is clear that he first thought Adam was the father of the baby. Relieved at first when Adam says it was someone else, he is doubly hurt to find the man is Arthur. He remembers Arthur trying to confess something to him. Though crushed himself for his protege and surrogate son, Mr. Irwine thinks of others and how to soften the blow so that the right things can be done. Adam claims that Arthur is to blame and should suffer the consequences, not Hetty. He continues to load all the guilt on Arthur. Mr. Irwine counsels Adam wisely against revenge, and tells him that Arthur's suffering will be worse, since he caused the tragedy. He must put his attention on giving help. Knowing everyone's nature, Mr. Irwine begins skillfully to orchestrate the community response, fulfilling his office of spiritual counselor admirably. He gives Adam some action to do--come with him to Stoniton Prison. | analysis |
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 to-wards 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!"
| The Bitter Waters Spread When Mr. Irwine returns from Stoniton, his mother tells him Squire Donnithorne is dead. She does not know about the tragedy and rejoices that now her godson Arthur will be the new squire. Mr. Irwine does not send a letter to Arthur about the events because he will be home soon for his grandfather's funeral. He gets some sleep and then prepares to break the news to Hall Farm and to the Bedes. Adam has stayed in Stoniton to be near Hetty though he can't bear to see her. He continues to believe Hetty innocent, though Mr. Irwine knows she is not. He decides to let Adam hope, for he is crushed enough. Irwine thinks at least there could be a pardon. Adam also continues to denounce Arthur as the sole perpetrator of any crime. Irwine finds it hard to hear so much against Arthur to whom he has been a father. The Poysers take the news hard. The trial is to be held the next week, and Martin Poyser will probably be called to testify, but he is so upset by the disgrace to the family, he swears never to see Hetty again. Both old Poyser and Martin are hard against Hetty, but Mrs. Poyser is less severe on her. Martin believes they will have to leave the country now. Mrs. Poyser thinks they should send for Dinah. Lisbeth Bede also wants to send for Dinah in their trouble. Seth offers to go to Leeds to look for her, but Lisbeth won't let him go. Instead, a letter is sent. Mr. Irwine tells Jonathan Burge why Adam will be away from work for a while, and soon all Hayslope and Broxton know the news. A few neighbors go to the Poysers to comfort them, and one of them is Bartle Massey, the school teacher. Then Bartle Massey goes to Mr. Irwine and asks him how Adam is doing. Irwine tells him Adam is taking it hard and still believes in Hetty's innocence. He himself saw Hetty at Stoniton and could not believe the change in her: "she shrank up like a frightened animal" . Irwine is afraid Adam could lose control and seek revenge against Arthur. Massey offers to go to Stoniton and stay with Adam until the trial is over. He can keep an eye on him. | summary |
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 to-wards 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!"
| Commentary on Chapter 40 The impact of Hetty's crime on the small town is like a bombshell. The Poysers feel betrayed and vow they will have to leave the area for they are ruined forever. Their children will be marked out as having a murderess for a cousin. Mrs. Poyser is surprisingly more understanding and forgiving of Hetty than her husband. Lisbeth and Seth feel sorrow for Adam. Bartle Massey feels his worst opinion of women has been confirmed, but he wants to stick by his friend Adam. Thus, the best and worst of small town life are revealed. Gossip travels fast, and censure as well, but there are friends to stand by each other. Bartle marvels that Mr. Irwine is "everybody's friend in this business" . Though he has personal feelings, he puts them aside to help everyone else. He is impartial and therefore, the best kind of help. It is telling that the two people most wanted in the crisis are Dinah and Mr. Irwine, the ones with the largest understanding and skill in healing the hearts of others. Both have religious callings, but the important point for Eliot is their humane point of view. They are able to see a larger picture than the other characters. They are able to hold the community together and comfort those in trouble. These are the kind of human beings a society needs, implies Eliot. They are the exemplars of Eliot's moral standard that goes beyond religious doctrine to the unselfish values of unity and sympathy. In this way, Eliot traces in her story the action that causes healing as well as the action that causes tragedy. | analysis |
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."
| The Eve of the Trial In a rented room in Stoniton, Bartle Massey and Adam await the arrival of Mr. Irwine. Bartle pretends to read, but he is watching Adam who sits haggard and listless. Mr. Irwine comes from the prison where he and the chaplain were talking to Hetty. Adam has requested to see her before the trial, but she is not seeing anyone. She won't even see her family. Mr. Irwine mentions how changed she is and that such a meeting now would be suffering for Adam. Adam asks if Arthur is back. He becomes angry, saying he wants justice done to him. Mr. Irwine says he has left a letter for Arthur as soon as he arrives. He assures Adam that Arthur will suffer and defends him as a weak but not a cruel person. He repeats that vengeance will not help Hetty. Mr. Irwine tries to explain that passion is not justice and Arthur cannot bear all the blame. People are interconnected and evil spreads like a disease. In fact, Adam himself is in danger of committing a wrong. Mr. Poyser is in town for the trial, but Irwine won't let him meet with Adam in his present state because Martin is upset enough. Both Adam and Mr. Irwine express the wish that Dinah were present. | summary |
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."
| Commentary on Chapter 41 Irwine presents one of Eliot's favorite ideas of the interconnectedness of everyone. Adam wants to pinpoint blame, but evil is like a disease that spreads. Who can say where it starts and stops? Adam himself is taking infection in his desire to do something violent to Arthur. Irwine tries to break the idea to Adam that Hetty could be guilty of a crime that came from what she and Arthur did together. Adam voices another of Eliot's favorite ideas, that evil cannot be undone. The law of cause and effect is scientifically observable and therefore, the moral law requiring unselfish behavior is also practical if one wants to avoid suffering for oneself and others. Irwine assures Adam that Arthur will carry this burden his whole life; therefore, there is no need to punish him. He is punished by a force larger than Adam. Irwine also mentions the fact of Hetty's hardness of heart to Adam. This will be an important point in the trial. Her aunt had called her hard-hearted many times, but this has escalated to bring her to total isolation. Irwine says, "a fatal influence seems to have shut up her heart against her fellow-creatures" . This is the worst sort of suffering, for no healing or transformation can take place. Hetty believes there is no help for her, and in her pride, she will not confess or reach out. | analysis |
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.
| The Morning of the Trial Adam does not go to the trial in the morning but waits till Bartle comes to him at lunchtime to hear about it. He has thought of seeing Hetty because it might melt her hardness if someone forgave her, but still he is afraid to see her in her changed state. The narrator says that the kind of unbearable suffering Adam experiences can be a baptism into a new state of life. He feels as if he is just waking up. He goes through a fire baptism into a new pity. Bartle tells him about the court scene as he tries to get Adam to eat bread and drink wine. The court is filled with spectators. The doctor has testified as to whether she had borne a child, and Martin Poyser testified. It was so hard on Martin that Bartle tells Adam he must be a friend to Poyser now. They made Poyser look at his niece, and she trembled and hid her face in her hands. Mr. Irwine took care of Martin in the courtroom. Irwine will also be a witness on Hetty's behalf. Adam keeps asking about the other evidence, and Bartle says he cannot hide the fact that the doctor's evidence has been hard on her, though she still denies having a child. Adam asks if there is anyone to stand by her in the court? Bartle says only the chaplain. Adam says one man should be there, but since he is not, Adam says he will go. "I'll stand by her--I'll own her". Adam admits that he used to be hard, but he will never be hard again. Suddenly, he looks like his old self. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 42 This chapter is important for showing Adam's conversion to a new sense of humanity. He was always a good man, but the narrator says that suffering can be an awakening to a new unselfishness and pity. This baptism of Adam's once again reminds one of Paradise Lost where Adam and Eve have to learn how to be good in a fallen state, how to feel love and compassion for one another, instead of blame. It is to be contrasted, however, with Hetty's response of hardness. Adam's suffering makes him reach out; hers shuts her down. She cannot admit she did anything wrong, and so therefore, no forgiveness and growth can take place. Adam grows to maturity here by putting aside his old moral harshness and deciding to stand by Hetty, even if she committed the crime. He will own her, not be ashamed of her, like her uncle. This is true Christian behavior and more like what Dinah Morris would do. Even his look changes after he softens. He is now closer to the ethic that Bartle announces in this chapter as he praises Mr. Irwine for helping Martin Poyser: "It's a great thing in a man's life to be able to stand by his neighbor" . | analysis |
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.
| The Verdict Adam Bede's tall figure entering the courtroom is striking. Even Mr. Irwine is surprised by the signs of suffering and grief about him. He goes to sit by Hetty's side, but she does not see him, for she stands with her head down, looking at her hands. Adam is looking to see whether she is different, but she is not to him. She still is the pretty sweet girl he fell in love with. The first witness is Sarah Stone, a widowed shopkeeper in Stoniton. She tells how Hetty came to her door one night and out of pity, she took her in. That night, the baby was born, and she herself dressed it in clothes she had made. She took care of the baby and mother and offered to send for Hetty's friends, but Hetty refused. When the woman went out for a while, Hetty ran away with the baby. At this point, Adam is moved and thinks that Hetty couldn't have killed her baby. She must have loved it, but the next witness is the man who found the baby, John Olding, an old peasant man. He was crossing the fields and saw Hetty there. She looked frightened when he came towards her and walked on. He thought she looked crazy. In the field he kept hearing cries but thinking it some animal, he ignored it until it stopped. An hour later he went to where the cries were and found a baby's body. It was cold. He took it to his wife who said it was dead. Then they sent for the constable and began looking for Hetty. They found her the next day, sitting near the place where she had left the baby, apparently in shock, for she did not move until they took her away. Adam's agony is supreme when he realizes what Hetty has done, and he hides his face on his arm and calls to God for help. The jury quickly finds her guilty, but there is no recommendation for mercy, and when the judge hands out the death sentence, Adam reaches out to her, but Hetty screams and faints. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 43 The narrator tells us that Hetty did not receive the mercy of the court, despite all the testimony to her virtuous upbringing by relatives and Mr. Irwine, because of her coldness and hardness. She does not respond, confess, or seem repentant or sorry. It appears to be cold-blooded murder, but from the testimony one gathers Hetty was not completely sane and that furthermore, she was not able to leave the scene, even to save her own life, because of shock or guilt. Though we have been told more details during the court case, there is still the mystery of what happened to make Hetty do this. We have not yet heard her side of it, though the facts seem to warrant the verdict. Eliot's story was timely for her readers because though it was set in an earlier period, infanticide was a common crime in Victorian England and reached crisis proportions by the 1860s. The newspapers were full of cases, and one of the more famous remarks on such a newspaper account was made by writer Matthew Arnold . He was disturbed by the cold impersonality and indifference of the press stories. The facts were given and then the phrase that Arnold found inhumane: "Wragg is in custody." Arnold felt that English society needed to come up with some response a bit more insightful to infanticide other than "Wragg is in custody," as though that solved the problem. Why was Wragg in custody? Who was she? Why was she forced into doing this? What about all the other Wraggs? Eliot takes the bare facts of such a case and takes us inside the heads of the characters to show us how such a heinous crime can be committed by people who are no better or worse than the general population. Eliot chooses the psychological investigation of such an act, but a sociological analysis would show such a high rate of infanticide resulted from the severe pressures and restrictions on women for sexual misconduct, especially of the lower and middle classes, and for having a baby out of wedlock. Hetty goes through the alternatives in her mind. She had few options, unless there were some sympathetic relative. Dinah is a possibility, but Hetty could not hide her shame there or live a normal life afterwards. Hetty knows her uncle's family will not take her back because she dishonors them. Arthur is too far away. Most women had no money of their own or means to get it. Abortion was illegal, difficult, and very dangerous, often killing or maiming the woman. With an illegitimate child, a woman could not get work, a place to live, or get married. She was an outcast and would not be received by decent people. A pregnant servant was thrown into the street or sent to the poorhouse, a place little more than a jail. Prostitution was one avenue chosen by poor women with unwanted infants. A woman in poverty might kill her child to save it from suffering starvation. Infants were regularly abandoned or given to baby farms that, for a fee, would starve the unwanted babies. Upper class women had more choices; with money, they could go to the country, have the child and give it away. These conditions are hard to imagine in the world today where there are many single working mothers and little censure for having a child out of wedlock. Adam's remark that the man should be guilty too and made to pay was especially relevant for a Victorian audience, since the amended Poor Law of 1834 cast all the guilt on the woman alone for support of a bastard child. A man was not legally responsible. Many orphanages refused illegitimate children. | analysis |
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.
| Arthur's Return Arthur's thoughts on returning to England are all about his grandfather whom he pities and thinks of kindly, and his new position. He is happy and on top of the world thinking that now he has come into his own. He thinks on all the benevolent acts he will accomplish, starting with the Irwines and the Bedes. He has no worry about Hetty, for he had heard she was engaged to Adam. He wants to do something handsome for the couple and is glad he has left behind the mistakes of last summer. Although he is not in love with Hetty, she still causes his heart to beat faster when he thinks of her. When he returns home, the servants are all silent and downcast, but he thinks it is for his grandfather. Mr. Irwine's letter is waiting for him, and he reads it first. It says that Hetty is being tried for child murder in Stoniton. He rushes out of the house, gets his horse and gallops to Stoniton. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 44 As Arthur returns home, he seems to be stuck in the same mode as before. He thinks he just scraped by in the affair with Hetty, and he won't do it again. He vows to be better in the future. The fact that he rushes out of the house to Stoniton as soon as he hears the news confirms Mr. Irwine's better thoughts of Arthur's character. He does not slink away or try to reason himself out of culpability. He rushes to help. Like Adam, Arthur will be baptized anew by Hetty's suffering. | analysis |
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."
| In the Prison Dinah Morris speaks to an older gentleman outside the prison. He is Colonel Townley, the gentleman on horseback who heard Dinah speak on Hayslope Green. He is a magistrate and gets Dinah in to Hetty's cell. She wants to stay with Hetty till the end. Colonel Townley thinks she is brave to stay in a jail cell all night without any light, but Dinah is calm. Townley tells her where Adam is staying. Hetty at first is sullen and withdrawn but finally responds to Dinah's love and is enfolded in her arms. She clings to Dinah, who gently leads her to a full confession of the crime. She tells Hetty that she cannot be forgiven by God until she lets go of her sin, so Hetty tells how she half buried the baby in the wood, hoping someone would find it. She didn't kill it directly. She could only think that if the baby was gone, she could go home. She didn't feel anything for the baby, though its crying went all through her, and that is why she couldn't leave it. She could always hear it crying even after she went away. Then she went back, and it was gone. She sat and waited till they took her. She asks Dinah if now she has confessed, God will make the crying go away. Dinah tells her to kneel down and pray. | summary |
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."
| Commentary on Chapter 45 Dinah's sure and skillful handling of Hetty, her compassion and lack of fear, gain the reader's admiration. She does not talk down to Hetty, but she tries to put religious precepts into thoughts Hetty can understand. She makes God a friend who will be there at the moment Hetty has to meet death. Dinah makes Hetty understand she is suffering because of her hard heart that shuts out God and human sympathy. She emphasizes God's love and forgiveness, rather than sin and punishment. Once Hetty tells the truth, there is a release and a softening. She accepts Dinah's love, and through that love, she is able to conceive of a divine love. In some ways it is hard to believe that Eliot had given up her Christian faith, because she can so convincingly portray a saint like Dinah. Eliot had immense love and compassion for others, but she herself had ceased to cloak these feelings in religion. What she loved was the humanity of religion, its higher values. She gives her best characters a spiritual and universal outlook. In earlier chapters Hetty and Dinah were contrasted, but here, sympathy has melted all differences. Dinah does not pretend to be superior to Hetty; she just stays with her and gives her comfort. | analysis |
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.
| The Hours of Suspense Bartle Massey announces a visitor to Adam in his Stoniton room where he awaits Hetty's execution. Dinah Morris comes to tell him that Hetty has repented and wants to see Adam, to ask his forgiveness before she dies. Adam, very haggard, says he cannot believe she has to die like that; he believes a pardon will come. He will wait till the last minute before seeing her. He sends his forgiveness through Dinah and says he will come. Bartle, though disliking women, pronounces Dinah to be one woman he approves of. Adam cannot sleep the night before the execution. He bursts out in sorrow, thinking of what Hetty could have been if not for Arthur. Bartle reminds him that Hetty could not have gotten so hard in just a few months. It was in her nature. He says that perhaps some good will come of it all. Adam does not like this philosophy that good can come of evil; her life is ruined, and she is being hanged on the day they would have been married. In the morning, he goes to the prison to talk to Hetty. He cannot bear to see Hetty's eyes; they are so sad, and they are the eyes of the woman he loves. Dinah holds Hetty up as she asks forgiveness. Adam says he forgave her long ago. He feels a release and begins crying. Hetty is shocked by the signs of Adam's suffering and moves towards him, asking if he will kiss her good by. Adam gives her a kiss and will never see her again. Hetty asks Adam to tell Arthur she forgives him, so that God will forgive her. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 46 This is a very emotional chapter, handled with a touching beauty that is one of Eliot's finest storytelling gifts. She is able to understand very subtle and refined human feeling and portray it convincingly. Even Hetty melts a little and is able to contemplate the suffering of another. She is sympathetic in her last hour, able to admit error and to reach out. The reader also believes in the nobility of Adam's love. In the beginning, he seemed to love his idea of Hetty, her beauty and youth. Now, his love is mature and real. He loves Hetty despite what she has done. He is able to forgive and give comfort. | analysis |
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.
| The Last Moment There is a crowd on the street waiting to see the hanging. They are there to watch the now legendary Dinah Morris, the young Methodist woman who made Hetty confess, as much as to see the criminal. Dinah stands beside Hetty in the cart as it moves through the streets to the gallows. Dinah tells Hetty to close her eyes, and she begins to pray aloud to keep her thoughts on God and not on the crowd. Suddenly there is a shout. A horseman gallops up with a paper in his hand. It is Arthur Donnithorne with a stay of execution. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 47 Most readers will not mind this sentimental last-minute reprieve with the romantic image of Arthur riding in on his horse to save the day. Equally romantic is the picture of Dinah and Hetty in the cart on the way to the gallows. The crowd is hushed with awe watching them. It is like an old ballad. | analysis |
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 Stontion 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 Six
| Another Meeting in the Wood This is an important chapter winding up the consequences of the love triangle of Arthur, Adam, and Hetty. It is the day after Hetty escapes hanging. Adam has just been to see the Poysers to tell them all that they don't know about the case. He agrees to leave Hayslope with the Poysers and to live near them. Arthur and Adam both walk that evening in the Grove, each thinking of the events that took place there. They meet and see each other's suffering. Arthur asks to speak with Adam, and they go to the Hermitage. Arthur says he is doing what is most painful to him--leaving his home and cherished plans and going to the army. He is leaving the estate in Mr. Irwine's hands, and he begs that Adam will persuade the Poysers to stay. He will not be there, so their honor will not be stained, for he won't be their landlord. Adam says there is pride to consider, but Arthur says he wants to lessen the evil by helping them to stay on the land they have been on for generations. Adam agrees to stay and continue managing the woods. Arthur tells Adam it is worse for him because he caused the tragedy. If he had known Adam loved Hetty, he would have stayed away. He explains that he loved Hetty too, and he will always remember the pain of speaking with her yesterday in prison, and how he wishes he could have gotten her off completely. As it is she will be transported as a criminal and may die an early death. He mentions that he had told Hetty in the letter he would help her, and he would give his life to undo the misery. Adam says he has no right to be hard on someone who is repentant, and he offers to shake Arthur's hand. They feel affection for one another as they had when boys. Arthur says the only consolation he has is that Dinah Morris stayed with Hetty, and for that, he wants to give her his watch and chain as a token of thanks. Adam will give it to her. | summary |
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 Stontion 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 Six
| Commentary on Chapter 48 This is another moving chapter as the men who loved Hetty make up and shake hands. They will both bear the mark of the tragedy all their lives, but both have been changed and softened into better men. Adam says he will stay "to do my work well and make the world a bit better place" . In the end, Adam realizes this is a better ending than revenge: "sorrow was more bearable now hatred was gone" . Hetty's fate, however, is not so pretty. Transportation to Australia or some other English colony for hard labor was a sentence to a short and miserable life. Hetty, as we know, is not used to hardship, but on the other hand, she has longer to live, to make use of the time for repentance, if she can continue to seek forgiveness. Eliot demonstrates two principles in this reconciliation. First, the theme is repeated that things cannot be undone. Even Arthur's pardon was only partial, and Hetty's life is shattered. On the other hand, Bartle had announced the idea that good can come out of evil. He is shown to be right in the sense that if all the parties, as in this case, come together to make the best emerge out of the wreck, then some growth and progress are possible. Eliot believed in the hallowing of the human heart through sorrow. Bearing some suffering could make one understand the common kinship of all people and bring humility and unselfishness. Even Lisbeth Bede loses her peevishness and surrenders to the greatness of the trouble and to Adam's wishes. The Bedes, the Poysers, the Irwines, Bartle, Dinah, and even Arthur have all done what they could to ensure the smoothest continuance of life for all. This chapter ends the fifth book and the tragic story of Hetty, but the next book brings news of what happened afterwards. | analysis |
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.
| At the Hall Farm Eighteen months later, Mrs. Poyser is trying to talk Dinah out of leaving for Snowfield. She has been staying with the Poysers to help them through the tragedy. Mrs. Poyser tries to convince her she can minister to the poor in Hayslope; there are many people who depend on her. Dinah says she must avoid the temptation of luxury and go back to the mill where she is needed more. Dinah reminds her aunt that she has stayed to see them all back on their feet, and they are well and prosperous. It is mentioned that old Mr. Poyser died the previous year, the reason for Mrs. Poyser wearing black. When Adam Bede comes to the farm, Dinah blushes. Adam has come to fetch her for his mother, who is ailing. He explains his mother is working too hard but will not let him hire a girl to help her. Mrs. Poyser announces to the family at tea that Dinah is leaving, and she looks disturbed and rushes from the room crying. Everyone had counted on Dinah staying, even Mr. Irwine who treats her like a lady. Adam speaks of his great success with the woods and new building. Mr. Poyser mentions that Burge will no doubt want Adam to take more part in the business, and Adam says he would like to buy the business for himself so he can do as he likes. He gets along with the new Donnithorne steward and Mr. Irwine's management but prefers to be on his own. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 49 The argument between Dinah and her aunt fill the reader in with what has happened since the trial. Dinah has been a peacemaker, helping the Poysers re-integrate with the community. Dinah mentions their friends and neighbors being supportive, something that the Poysers had feared would never happen. They are not the outcasts they had imagined themselves but once more installed in their old position. Dinah seems a bit mysterious about why she has to leave. She is blushing and crying. Adam has never seen her look upset before, but he cannot read her behavior. She seems to be running away to Snowfield and covering up something. All this is highly uncharacteristic of Dinah. If readers remember how she blushed in Adam's presence before, they may surmise she is in love with him. | analysis |
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.
| In the Cottage Dinah and Adam walk together to the Bede cottage, and Adam tells her the Poysers will miss her. She answers that the Poysers' sorrow is healed, and she is called back to her old work. Adam says he puts her above all his other friends and regards her as a sister. He does not understand her agitation at his words. They change topics and speak of Arthur, "the poor young man," as Dinah calls him . Arthur is off fighting Napoleon and the French. The war will soon be over, but Arthur does not feel ready to come home. Dinah mentions his warm-hearted nature, and how our trial is to see good in the midst of evil. At the cottage, Seth sees Dinah's tears that Adam does not see. Lisbeth also sees Dinah's upset and asks her what is wrong. The two women spend the evening together, and Dinah tells her she is leaving. The narrator switches to Adam, mentioning that his great sorrow was still with him but it was quietly transforming him to a greater love and sympathy for others. He is more tolerant of Seth and his mother. His work has also been part of his religion, his way of doing good in the world. His work is his life now, and he does not see that romance will ever touch him again. He is surprised Dinah does not love Seth, who seems cut out for her. Dinah is up early and cleaning the house. Adam surprises her and tries to joke with her, but she is embarrassed. Adam asks her if she is displeased with him and says he doesn't like parting with her. The narrator breaks in to tell us that this is courting, the way two souls gently approach one another by degrees. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 50 The narrator is quite joyful in describing the growing love between Adam and Dinah in the closing chapters, waxing rhapsodic in places. The relationship has been foreshadowed in earlier chapters. Adam is the only man that has made Dinah feel like a woman rather than a saint. Some critics feel that Dinah's attraction to Adam seems out of character, but she has always seen him as noble and unlike other men. He is not a Methodist, but he is sincerely religious and lives his religion. He is generous and not restrictive to Dinah's wishes. She is the only woman he has ever looked up to or thought better than himself. Like Mr. Irwine, he respects her and shows it in regarding her as an equal. In this part of the novel, Eliot wants to show how someone could rebound from tragedy, how the mind knits itself back together in the mystery of love. It is not always possible to predict where love will put people together, as Adam has said before. Neither he nor Arthur could resist Hetty, and Dinah prefers Adam to Seth, the one who seems made for her. Adam's and Dinah's is not a violent love, but a gentle, healing love that grows out of the tragedy they both witnessed. They have found strength in each other. Adam is taking some time to get over his sorrow and so cannot ever imagine being in love again, though he admits Dinah is his best friend. She already knows that she feels love, but as will become apparent, she is afraid the earthly love conflicts with her divine duty. Both have to grow from the events they have been through in order to be together. Adam himself will realize that he was not ready for Dinah until he went through the agony with Hetty and purified himself. Eliot mentions that it is natural for lovers to delicately approach one another for a while. Love is subtle like music. Readers might see the last book as a bit sentimental compared to the rest of the story, but for Eliot, it is as important to see the principles of healing as it is to observe the principles of suffering. She thus wraps up the story in stages, with little mini-essays on love and healing. This part of the novel contrasts with the tragedy of the main action. Once again, we get idyllic pastoral scenes as in the beginning of the story, along with humor, and local color. Each character finds his or her own place, so that society can begin anew in Hayslope. | analysis |
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."
| Sunday Morning Dinah is questioned by Lisbeth about her leaving. Lisbeth complains that she hasn't long to live and will never see Dinah again. Then she launches into a topic embarrassing to Dinah: a husband. Lisbeth admits Seth is not the right husband, but asks her what she thinks of Adam? He would be a proper husband. Dinah escapes as soon as she can for the Hall Farm. When Seth comes in, Lisbeth says to him that Dinah would stay if Adam would marry her. Seth is surprised and asks Lisbeth if Dinah has said so. Lisbeth says it is written all over her. Sunday mornings are the happiest for Lisbeth, because Adam stays home and reads his Bible in the same room with her. She makes up her mind to speak to Adam about Dinah, but doesn't know how to begin. When she sees in Adam's Bible the picture of the angel on Christ's tomb, she blurts out, "That's her--that's Dinah" . Lisbeth uses this to start the conversation where she tells Adam he should marry Dinah; they were meant for each other, and Dinah loves him. He is struck by this idea and feels "a resurrection of his dead joy" . He decides to talk to Seth about it since he was the one who wanted to marry Dinah. Seth is unselfish and says he will not stand in the way, but he is sure Dinah doesn't want to marry because of her calling. | summary |
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."
| Commentary on Chapter 51 Lisbeth has been a secondary character, but here she takes a part in shaping the outcome of the story. Though she is afraid of displeasing Adam, she sees right through Dinah's feelings, and she decides to take a chance to tell Adam about it. She, like Mrs. Poyser, does not want to part with Dinah, and has always dreamed of having her for a daughter-in-law. She is very particular whom she will let in the house, not even allowing a hired servant. Dinah is Lisbeth's own best insurance for a happy old age, but more than that, finally she has grown to the point where she wants happiness for her son. Opposed to her sons' marriage in the beginning, she knows she hasn't long to live, and wants to see Adam settled with a good wife. The narrator mentions that the tragedy had affected her too, that it had quieted down her selfish demands. For once, Adam listens to his mother because she is wise in this matter. His sudden conversion from being blind to love to completely open to the suggestion may strain the belief of some, but it is not uncommon in grief to be unable to imagine loving again. He was so used to Dinah as a sister that the other suggestion never directly entered his mind. Adam is a man of action, however, and does not waste time as soon as he gets the point. Seth may seem too good to be true as the completely unselfish brother without the slightest trace of jealousy, but it is in keeping with his character and religion. He has made it plain he would like to be around Dinah in any way possible. | analysis |
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.
| Adam and Dinah Adam walks to Hall Farm while the family is at church. He does not go to church so he can speak to Dinah alone. Dinah blushes as usual when Adam enters. They are both awkward with each other, but finally Adam blurts out that he loves her. She trembles with joy, crying, and returns his love but explains she has to submit to God's will to do his work. She is going away to resist temptation. She has known the perfect joy of having no personal life of her own, and she is afraid she will lose this blessedness of helping others and living in the divine will. If she has doubts about it, their love will not be a blessing. Adam says he will not urge her against her conscience and will resign himself if he has to. She says she would like to test it out by going to Snowfield for a while to see if it is true she is called back. He agrees to the test. They walk out to meet the Poysers coming back from church. The Poysers are surprised to see the couple walking together and wonder if they are courting. The narrator ends the chapter with a long reminiscent essay on how beautiful and slow country life was in the days of Adam Bede. | summary |
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.
| Commentary on Chapter 52 This courting scene contrasts with the clandestine and violent nature of Arthur's and Hetty's affair. Adam and Dinah are honest about their feelings for one another. Dinah raises the difficulty for her of her faith and work. For Adam, their love is part of God's doing and will, but for Dinah who has known the happiness of a nun's devotion to God, it is a temptation. She has married God, and now she does not know what to do when she is in love with a man. Adam does not fight her doubt but wisely agrees to the test. He could push, but he respects Dinah too much, and it would be the surest way to lose her. She has to wait for a clear conscience. Eliot shows an ideal relationship where a couple work things out together and meet on the soul level, rather than the level of pride and ego. They both want what is best and most unselfish. | analysis |
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?
| The Meeting on the Hill Adam is patient with Dinah's absence and silence for six weeks; after that, he feels he must go to Snowfield to get her answer. He borrows Jonathan Burge's horse so he can get there faster. As he travels there, he remembers the sad journey in search of Hetty, but his sorrow and experience have enlarged his perspective and make him appreciate in all humility the love for Dinah. He finds that Dinah is preaching in a small village a few miles off and goes there to wait for her. He chooses a spot on top of a nearby hill where she will pass on the way home so that he may speak to her in private. He waits an hour and then sees her figure winding up the hill. As Adam rises up to greet her, she turns to look at the village she has just left. He calls her name from behind. She does not answer at first, feeling it could be an inward voice, for she believes she is alone. He repeats her name, and she turns around. They move into each other's arms. She cries as they walk in silence. Finally, she tells Adam that she is living a divided life without him. She believes God wants her to be with him, and he says they will never part. | summary |
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?
| Commentary on Chapter 54 This is an idyllic scene, set in nature, with the lovers harmonizing with the countryside as they declare their love. Earthly love and heavenly love are integrated, and it is done very naturally and peacefully. Their union completes the main action of the story by carrying out the healing of the individuals and their community. The narrator shows that both characters have grown spiritually and thus, deserve this happiness. Sorrow can bring "enlarged being" . Adam's love for Dinah springs out of the love for Hetty but is greater and more precious. He feels that Dinah is "better than I am" and will look up to her for her wisdom . With such a love he will be more fearlessly free to be himself, because there is someone else to trust. If Adam looks up to Dinah as a heavenly being, Dinah has to learn to come down to earth. She knows with Adam's love and strength she will be able to follow God's will more easily. There is no divided love, only the same love in both hearts. | analysis |
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."
| Marriage Bells One month later, Adam and Dinah are married. Mr. Burge's workers are given a holiday; Mrs. Irwine and her daughters are in a carriage to shake hands with bride and groom after Mr. Irwine marries them. From the Donnithorne household come Mrs. Best, Mr. Mills, and Mr. Craig. The Poysers are there and Bartle Massey. Mrs. Poyser makes Dinah take off her black dress and gives her a grey Quaker dress. Adam feels a slight sadness underneath his joy, and Dinah understands. In the bridal party are Mary Burge as the bridesmaid, and Seth with Mrs. Poyser; Bartle Massey takes Lisbeth's arm. Mr. Irwine sets off to write the good news to Arthur. | summary |