 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by A. R. Dobbs, San Francisco, California. Adam Bede, by George Elliott So that ye may have clear images before your gladdened eyes of nature's unambitious underwood and flowers that prosper in the shade. And when I speak of such among the flock as swerved or fell, those only shall be singled out upon whose lapse or error something more than brotherly forgiveness may attend. Wordsworth 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 Heyslope, as it appeared on the 18th 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 wainscotting. A scent of pine wood from a tent-like 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 plain and lit up the fine grain of the oak paneling 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 four paws, occasionally wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the center of a wooden mantelpiece. It was to this workman that the strong baritone belonged, which was heard above the sound of plain 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 vigor. Let all thy converse be sincere, thy conscience as that noon day 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 fingertips, 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-humored, 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 gray. 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 today, anyhow. The workman 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? Does think least finished the door? I sure, said Seth, with answering surprise. What's a wanting to it? 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. The laughter burst out afresh as Seth clapped his hands to his head and coloured over brow and crown. Hooray! shouted a small live fellow called Wirie Ben, running forward and seizing the door. We'll hang up the door at the fur end of the shop and write on it, Seth be the Methodie his work. Here, Jim, Lens hold the red-pot. Nonsense, said Adam, let it alone, Ben Crainage. You'll may hap be making such a slip yourself some day. You'll laugh at the other side of your mouth, then. Catch me, added Adam. It'll be a good while before my head's full of the Methodies, said Ben. Nay, but it's often full of 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 and 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 with 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 up. Let be, Addy, let be. Ben will be joking. Why, he's the right to laugh at me. I can help laughing at myself. I shan't lose 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 as well try to turn a wagon in a narrow lane. Say you'll leave the door alone and make an end on it. I've been affrighted at Adam, said Ben, but I don't mind saying as I'll let alone at your askin' Seth. Come, that's wise of you, Ben, said Adam, laughing and relaxing his grasp. They all return to their work now, but why are you, Ben, having had the worst in the bodily contest, was bent on retrieving that humiliation by a success in sarcasm? Which was you thinkin' on, Seth, he began, the pretty Parsons face, or her Sarment, when you forgot the panels? Come and hear her, Ben, said Seth, good-humoredly. She's going to preach on the green tonight. Happen you'd get something to think on yourself, then, instead of those wicked songs you're so fond on. You might get religion, and that'd be the best day's earnings you ever made. All a good time for that, Seth. I'll think about that when I'm a-goin' to settle in life. Bachelors doesn't want such heavy earnings. Happen I'll do the courtin' and the religion both together, as ye do, Seth. But you wouldn't a-harm me get converted and chop in between ye and that pretty preacher and carry her af. No fear of 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 a half a mind to have a look at her to-night, if there isn't good company as the holly-bush. What'll she take for her text? Happen ye can tell me, Seth, if so be, I shouldn't have come up a time for it. Would it be—what coming out for to see? A prophetess? Yay, I say unto you, and more than a prophetess. An uncommon pretty young woman. Come, Ben, said Adam rather sternly. You let the words of the Bible alone. You're going too far now. What are ye a-turnin' round, Adam? I thought ye were dead again the woman preachin' awhile ago. Nay, I'm not turnin' no way. I said not about the women preachin'. I said you let the Bible alone. You've got a jest-book, hand ye, as you're rare and proud on. Keep your dirty fingers to that. Why, ye are gettin' as big a saint as Seth. You're goin' to the preachin' to-night, I should think. You'll do finally to lead the singin'. But I don't know what Parson Irwin will say at his grand favourite Adam Bede, a turnin' Methodie. 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. Mr. Irwin's got more sense nor to meddle with people's doin' as they like in religion. That's between themselves and God, as he says to me, many a time. Nay, I, I, but he's none so fond of your dissenters for all that. Maybe I'm none so fond of Josh Todd's thick ale, but I don't hinder you from makin' a fool of yourself wit'. There was a laugh at this thrust of Adams. But Seth said very seriously, Nay, nay, Addy, they must not say as anybody's religions like thick ale. The destiny-believe but what the dissenters and the Methodists have got the root of the matter, as well as the church-folks. Nay, Seth lad, I'm not for laughin' at no man's religion. Let him follow their consciences, that's all. Only I think it'd be better if their consciences had let him stay quiet at the church. There's a deal to be learnt there. And there's such a thing as being over-spiritual. We must have something besides gospel of this world. Look at the canals, and the aqueducts, and the coal-pit engines, and Arkwright's mills there at Cromford. A man must learn something beside gospel to make them things, I reckon. But to hear some of them preachers, you'd think, as a man must be doin' nothin' all's life but shutting's eyes and lookin' what's a goin' on inside him. I know a man must have the love of God in his soul, and the Bible's God's word. But what does the Bible say? Why, it says, as God put his spirit 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 of lookin' at it. There's the spirit of God in all things and all times, weekday as well as Sunday, and in the great works and inventions, and in the figurin' 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 of jobs out of working hours, builds an oven for his wife to savor from goin' to the bakehouse, or scrats at his bit of garden, and makes two potatoes grow instead of one, he's doin' more good, and he's just as near to God as if he was runnin' after some preacher, and a prayin' and a groanin'. Well done, Adam! said Sandy Jim, who had paused from his planing to shift his planks while Adam was speaking. That's the best sarmant I've heard this long while. By the same token my wife's been a-plagin' on me to build her oven this twelfth month. There's reason in what they say, St. Adam, observed Seth gravely. But the nose thyself, as it's hearing the preachers the finest so much fault with, has turned many an idle man into an industrious one. It's the preacher as empties the ale-house, and if a man gets religion he'll do his work none the worse for that. Only he'll have the panels out of the doors sometimes, eh, Seth? said Wirie-Ben. Ah, Ben, you've got a joke again me as it'll last you your life. But it isn't a religion as was a fault there. It was Seth, Bede, as was all as a wool-gatherin chap, and religion has necured him, the more's the pity. Near he'd me, Seth, said Wirie-Ben. You're a downright good-hearted chap, panels or no panels. And you didn't set up your bristles at every bit of fun, like some of your kin, as his mayhap cliverer. Seth, lad, said Adam, taking no notice of the sarcasm against himself. They must not take me unkind. I wasn't a-driving at thee, in what I've said just now. Some's got one way a-lookin' at things, and some's got another. Nay, nay, Addy, thee means'd me no unkindness. Said Seth, I know that well enough. Thee'd like thy dog, jip! Thee barks'd at me sometimes, but thee always licks'd 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. Wirie-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 divide to see men throw away their tools that way. The minute the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure of their work, and was afraid of 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, I, I, Adam, lad, ye talk like a youngin'. When ye are six and forty like me. It's did a six and twenty. You want to be so flush, a workin' for naught? Nonsense, said Adam, still wrathful. What's age got to do with it, I wonder. Ye are not 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 of pride and delight in his work. The very grindstone will go on turnin' a bit after you lose it. Botheration, Adam! exclaimed Wirie Ben. Leave a chap alone, will ye? You were a findin' fout with preachers awhile ago. Ye are fond enough of preachin' yorsen. You may like work better nor play, but I like play better nor work. That'll accommodate ye. It leaves ye the more to do. With this exit speech, which he considered effective, Wirie 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. Shall't go home before the ghost to the preaching? Adam asked, looking up. Nay, I've got my hat and things at Willem Askry's. I shan't be home before going for ten. I'll happen to see Dinah Mora safe home, if she's willing. There's nobody comes with her from poisers, the knowest. Then I'll tell Mother not to look for thee, said Adam. The artna going to poisers thyself to-night, said Seth, rather timidly, as he turned to leave the workshop. Nay, I'm going to the school. Hitherto Jip 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, then Jip ran forward and looked up in his master's face with patient expectation. If Jip 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 flagmatic than nature had made him. What? Art ready for the basket, eh, Jip? said Adam, with the same gentle modulation of voice as when he spoke to Seth. Jip 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 work days held Adams and Seth's dinner, and no official, walking in procession, could look more resolutely unconscious of all acquaintances than Jip 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 stone door was as clean as a white boulder at ebb tide. On the doorstone 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? I sure, but when will you come in, Adam? Miss Mary's in the house, and Mr. Burge will be back and on. He'd be glad to hire you to supper-win, I'll be as warned. No, dolly, thank you. I'm off home. Good evening. Adam hastened along with long strides, jipped close to his heels, out of the work-yard and along the high road 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 that noonday clear for God's all-seeing I surveys, thy secret thoughts, thy works, and ways. To join or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. About a quarter to seven there was an unusual appearance of excitement in the village of Hayslope, and through the whole length of its little street, from the Donothorn Arms to the Churchyard Gate, the inhabitants had evidently been drawn out of their houses by something more than the pleasure of lounging in the evening sunshine. The Donothorn Arms stood at the entrance of the village, and a small farmyard and stackyard which flanked it, indicating that there was a pretty take of land attached to the inn, gave the traveller a promise of good feed for himself and his horse, which might well console him for the ignorance in which the weather-beaten fine left him as to the heraldic bearings of that ancient family, the Donothorn. Mr. Casson, the landlord, had been for some time standing at the door with his hands in his pocket, balancing himself on his heels and toes, and looking toward the piece of unenclosed ground with a maple in the middle of it, which he knew to be the destination of certain grave-looking men and women whom he had observed passing at intervals. Mr. Casson's person was by no means of that common type, which can be allowed to pass without description. On a front view it appeared to consist principally of two spheres, bearing about the same relation to each other as the earth and the moon. That is to say, the lower sphere might be said at a rough guess to be thirteen times larger than the upper, which naturally performed the function of the mere satellite and tributary. But here the resemblance ceased. For Mr. Casson's head was not at all a melancholy-looking satellite, nor was it a spotty globe as Milton has irreverently called the moon. On the contrary, no head in faith could look more sleek and healthy, and its expression, which was cheaply confined to a pair of round and ruddy cheeks, the slight knot and interruptions forming the nose and eyes being scarcely worth mention, was one of jolly contentment. Only tempered by that sense of personal dignity which usually made itself felt in his attitude and bearing, this sense of dignity could hardly be considered excessive in a man who had been butler to the family for fifteen years, and who in his present high position was necessarily very much in contact with his inferiors. How to reconcile his dignity with the satisfaction of his curiosity by walking towards the green was the problem that Mr. Casson had been revolving in his mind for the last five minutes. But when he had partly solved it by taking his hands out of his pocket and thrusting them into the armholes of his waistcoat, by throwing his head on one side and providing himself with an area of contemptuous indifference to whatever might fall under his notice, his thoughts were diverted by the approach of the horsemen, whom we lately saw pausing to have another look at our friend Adam, and who now pulled up at the door of the Danathorn arms. Take off the bridal and give him a drink, Osler, said the traveller to the lad in the smock-brock, who had come out of the yard at the sound of the horse's hoofs. Why, what's up in your pretty village, landlord, you continue getting down? There seems to be quite a stir. It's a Methodist preaching, sir. It's been give-out as a young woman's are going to preach on the green, answered Mr. Casson, in a treble and wheezy voice with a slightly mincing accent. Will you please to step in, sir, and take something? No, I must be getting on to Rosseter. I only want a drink for my horse. And what does your Parsons say, I wonder, to a young woman preaching just under his nose? Parsons are wind, sir, doesn't live here. He lives at Brockson, or the hill there. The Parsons here is a tumble-down place, sir, not fit for gentry to live in. He comes here to preach of a Sunday afternoon, sir, and puts up his horse here. It's a great cove, sir, and he sets great store by it. He always puts up his horse here, sir. Ever since before I had the denathon arms. I'm not this countryman, you may tell by my tongue, sir. They're cursed talkers of this country, sir. The gentry's hard work tend or stand them. I was brought up among the gentry, sir, and got the turn of their tongue when I was a boy. Why, what do you think the folks here says for heaven to you? The gentry you know says heaven to you. Heaven to you? Well, the people about here says Heneye. It's what they call the dialect, as they spoke here about, sir. That's what I've heard squire denathon say many a time. It's the dialect, says he. Hi, I said the stranger's smiling. I know it very well. But you've not got many Methodists about here, surely. In this agricultural spot, I should have thought there would hardly be such a thing as a Methodist to be found about here. You're all farmers, aren't you? The Methodists can seldom lay much hold on them. Why, sir, there's a pretty lot of workmen round about, sir. There's Mr. Burge, as owns the timber yard over there, and he undertakes a good bit of building and repairs. And there's the stone pits not far off. There's plenty of emply in this country, sir. And there's a fine batch of Methodists at Trudelson. That's the market town about three mile off. You may be have come through it, sir. There's pretty nice score of them on the green now, as come from there. That's where our people gets it from, though there's only two men of them in all hayslope. That's Will Mascary the Wheelwright and Seth Bede, the young man who works at the Carpentry. The preacher comes from Trudelson, then, does she? Nay, sir, she comes out of Stonyshire, pretty nice thirty mile off. But she's a visitant here about at Mr. Poisers at the Hall Farm. It's them barns and big walnut trees right away to the left, sir. She's own niece to Poisers' wife, and they'll be fine and vexed at her for making a fool of herself in that way. But I've heard, as there's no hold in these Methodists's when the maggots once got in their head, many of them go stock-steering mad with their religion, though this young woman's quite enough to look at by what I can make out. I've not seen them, sir. Well, I wish I had time to wait and see her, but I must get on. I've been out of my way for the last twenty minutes to have a look at that place in the valley. It's Squire-Donaphone, I suppose? Yes, sir, that's Donaphone Chase, that is. Fine hoax there, isn't there, sir? I should know what it is, sir, for I've lived butler there a-goin' a fifteen-year. It's Captain Donaphone, as is the air, sir. Squire-Donaphone's grandson. He'll be coming of age this A. R. V. Sir, and we shall have fine doing. He owns all the land about here, sir, Squire-Donaphone does. Well, it's a pretty spot, whoever may own it, said the traveller, mounting his horse, and one meets some fine strapping fellows about, too. I met as fine a young fellow as ever I saw in my life about half an hour ago, before I came up the hill. A carpenter, a tall, broad-shouldered fellow with black hair and black eyes, marching along like a soldier. We want such fellows as he to lick the French. Aye, sir, that's Adam Bede, that is, I'll be bound. Thigh-speed, son, everybody knows him here about. He's an uncommon, clever, stitty fellow, and wonderful strong. Lord bless you, sir, if you'll excuse me for saying so. He can walk forty mile a day, and lift him out of a sixty-stun. He's an uncommon favourite with the gentry, sir. Captain Donaphone and parsoner, one makes a fine fuss with him, but he's a little lifted up in peppery-like. Well, good evening to you, landlord, I must get on. Your servants are good evening. The traveller put his horse into a quick walk up the village, but when he approached the green, the beauty of the view that lay on his right hand, the singular contrast presented by the group's villagers with the nod of Methodists near the Maple. And perhaps yet more, curiosity to see the young female preacher prove too much for his anxiety to get to the end of his journey, and he paused. The green lay at the extremity of the village, and from it the road branched off in two directions, one leading farther up the hill by the church, and the other winding gently down towards the valley. On the side of the green that led towards the church, the broken line of thatched cottages was continued nearly to the churchyard gate, but on the opposite northwestern side there was nothing to obstruct the view of gently swelling meadow and wooded valley and dark masses of distant hill. That rich, undulating district of Loamshire, to which hastelope belonged, lies close to a grim outskirt of Stonyshire, and overlooked by its barren hills as a pretty blooming sister may sometimes be seen linked in the arm of a rugged, tall, swarthy brother. And in two or three hours' ride the traveller might exchange a bleak treeless region, intersected by lines of cold grey stone, for one where his road wound under the shelter of wood, or up swelling hills, muffled with hedgerows and long meadowgrass and thick corn, and where at every turn he came upon some fine old country seat nestled in the valley or crowning the slope, some homestead with its long length of barn and its cluster of golden ricks, some grey steeple looking out from a pretty confusion of trees and thatch and dark red tile. It was just such a picture as this last that hastelope church had made to the traveller as he began to mount the gentle slope leading to its pleasant upland, and now from his station near the green he had before him in one view nearly all the other typical features of this pleasant land. High up against the horizon were the huge conical masses of hill, like giant mounds intended to fortify this region of corn and grass against the keen and hungry winds of the north. Not distant enough to be clothed in purple mystery, but with sombre greenish side visibly specked with sheep, whose motion was only revealed by memory, not detected by sight. Rude from day to day by the changing hours but responding with no change in themselves, left forever grim and sullen after the flush of morning, the winged gleams of the April noon day, the parting crimson glory of the ripening summer sun. And directly below them the eye rested on a more advanced line of hanging wood, divided by bright patches of pasture or furrowed crops, and not yet deepened into the uniform leafy curtains of high summer, but still showing the warm tints of the young oak and the tender green of the ash and lime. Then came the valley, where the woods grew thicker, as if they had rolled down and hurried together from the patches left smooth on the slope, that they might take the better care of the tall mansion which lifted its parapet and sent its faint blue summer smoke among them. Doubtless there was a large sweep of park and a broad, grassy pool in front of that mansion, but the swelling slope of Meadow would not let our traveller see them from the village green. He saw instead a foreground which was just as lovely, the level sunlight lying like transparent gold among the gently carving stems of the feathered grass, and the tall red sorrel, and the white ambles of the hemlock lining the bushy hedgerows. It was that moment in summer when the sound of the scythe being wedded makes us cast more lingering looks at the flower-spinkled trusses of the meadow. He might have seen other beauties in the landscape if he had turned a little in his faddle and looked eastward, beyond Jonathan Burge's pasture and woodyard, towards the green cornfield and walnut trees of the Hall Fawn. But apparently there was more interest for him in the living groups close at hand. Every generation in the village was there, from old Father Taft and his brown worsted nightcap, who was bent nearly double, but seemed tough enough to keep on his legs a long while, leaning on his short stick down to the babies with their little round heads lolling forward in quilted linen caps. Now and then there was a new arrival, perhaps the slouching laborer, who having eaten his supper came out to look at the unusual scene with the slow bovine gaze, willing to hear what anyone had to say in explanation of it, but by no means excited enough to ask a question. But all took care not to join the Methodists on the green, and identify themselves in that way with the expectant audience. But there was not one of them that would not have disclaimed the imputation of having come out to hear the preacher woman. They had only come out to see what were going on like. The men were chiefly gathered in the neighborhood of the blacksmith's shop. But do not imagine them gathered in a knot. Villagers never swarm. A whisper is unknown among them, and they seem almost as incapable of an undertone as a cow or a stag. Your true rustic turns us back on his interlocutor, throwing a question over his shoulder as if he meant to run away from the answer, and walking a step or two farther off when the interest of the dialogue culminates. So the group in the vicinity of the blacksmith's door was by no means a close one, and formed no screen in front of Chad Crainage, the blacksmith himself, who stood with his black brawny arms folded, leaning against the doorpost, and occasionally sending forth a bellowing laugh at his own jokes, giving them a marked preference over the sarcasms of Wirie Ben, who had renounced the pleasures of the hollybush for the sake of seeing life under a new form. But both styles of wit were treated with equal contempt by Mr. Joshua Rand. Mr. Rand's leather and apron and subdued griminess can leave no one in any doubt that he is the village shoemaker. The thrusting out of his chin and stomach and the twirling of his thumbs are more subtle indications, intended to prepare unwary strangers for the discovery that they are in the presence of the parish clerk. Old Joshua, as he is irreverently called by his neighbors, is in a state of simmering indignation, but he has not yet opened his lips except to say in a resounding bass undertone, like the tuning of a violin cello, Sayon King of the Amorites, for his mercy endureth forever, and Og the King of the Son, for his mercy endureth forever. A quotation which may seem to have a slight bearing on the present occasion, but, as with every other anomaly, adequate knowledge will show it to be a natural sequence. Mr. Rand was inwardly maintaining the dignity of the church in the face of this scandalous eruption of Methodism, and as that dignity was bound up with his own sonorous utterance of the responses, his argument naturally suggested a quotation from his poem he had read the last Sunday afternoon. The stronger curiosity of the women had drawn them quite to the edge of the green, where they could examine more closely the Quaker-like costume and odd deportment of the female Methodist. Underneath the maple there was a small cart which had been brought from the wheel-rights to serve as the pulpit, and round this a couple of benches and a few chairs had been placed. Some of the Methodists were resting on these with their eyes closed, as if wrapped in prayer or meditation. Others chose to continue standing and had turned their faces towards the villagers with the look of melancholy compassion, which was highly amusing to Bethie Crainage, the blacksmith's buxom daughter, known to her neighbors as Chad's Bess, who wondered why the folks wore American faces of Adam. Chad's Bess was the object of peculiar compassion because her hair, being turned back under a cap which was set at the top of her head, exposed to view an ornament of which she was much prouder than of her red cheeks. Namely, a pair of large round earrings with false garnets in them. Ornaments condemned not only by the Methodist, but by her own cousin and namesake, Timothy's Bess, who, with much cousinly feeling, often wished them earrings might come to good. Timothy's Bess, though retaining her maiden appellation among her familiars, had long been the wife of Sandy Jim, and possessed a handsome set of matronly jewels, of which it is enough to mention the heavy baby she was rocking in her arms, and the sturdy fellow of five in knee-bridges, and red legs, who had a rusty milk can round his neck by way of drum, and was very carefully avoided by Chad's small carrier. This young olive branch, notorious under the name of Timothy's Bess's Ben, being of an inquiring disposition, unchecked by any false modesty, had advanced beyond the group of women and children, and was walking round the Methodist, looking up in their faces with his mouth wide open and beating his stick against the milk can by way of musical accompaniment. But one of the elderly women bending down to take him by the shoulder, with an air of grave remonstrance, Timothy's Bess's Ben, first kicked out vigorously, then took to his heels and thought refuge behind his father's leg. You gallows young dogs, said Sandy Jim, with some paternal pride. If you don't keep that stick quiet, I'll take it from you. What do you mean by kicking, folks?" Here! Get here to me, Ben, said Chad Crainage. All tires up and shoe him as I do the hausses. Well, Mr. Casson, he continued as that personage sauntered up toward the group of men. How are you to-night? Are you come to help Groon? They say, folks, all is Groon when they're harkening to the Methodist, as if they were bad at the inside. I mean to Groon as loud as your cow did the other night, and then the praetoral think I'm of the right way. I'd advise you not to be up to no nonsense, Chad, said Mr. Casson, with some dignity. Poiser wouldn't like to hear as his wife's niece was treated any ways disrespectful, for all he mayn't be fond of her taken on herself to preach. I, and she's a pleasant looked-on shoe, said wiry Ben. I'll stick up for the pretty women preaching. I know they'd persuade me over a deal sooner nor the ugly men. I shouldn't have wondered if I'd turn Methodia for the night out and begin to court the preacher like Seth Bede. Why, Seth's looking rather too high, I should think, said Mr. Casson. This woman's kin wouldn't like her to demean herself to a common carpenter. Chew, said Ben, with a long travel intonation. What's folks' kin got to do with it? Not a chip. Poiser's wife may turn up her nose and forget bygones, but this dynamorist, they tell me, says poor as ever she was, works at a mill, and's much a duty to keep her sin. A strapping young carpenter, as is already made Methodia like Seth, wouldn't it be a bad match for her? Why, Poisers make as big a fuss with Adam Bede as if he were a nephew of their own. Idle talk, idle talk, said Mr. Joshua Rand. Adam and Seth's two men. You want to fit them two with the same last. Maybe, said wiry Ben contemptuously, but Seth's the lad for me, though he were a Methodie twice or. I'm fair Bede with Seth, for I've been teasing him ever since we've been working together, and he bears me no more malice nor lamb. And he stout-hearted fellow, too, for when we saw the old tree, all a fire are coming across the fields one night, and we thought as it were a bow-guy. Seth made no more ado, but he up to it as bold as a constable. Why, there he comes out of will-masqueries, and there's will himself, looking as meek as if he couldn't have knocked a nail out of the head for fear of hurt'n't. And there's the pretty preacher woman. My eye, she's got her bonnet off. I'm on go a bit nearer. Several of the men followed Ben's lead, and the traveller pushed his horse on to the green, as Dinah walked rather quickly, and in advance of her companions toured the cart under the maple tree. While she was near Seth's tall figure, she looked short, but when she had mounted the cart and was away from all comparison, she seemed above the middle height of woman, though in reality she did not exceed it. An effect which was due to the slimness of her figure and the simple line of her black stuffed dress. The stranger was struck with surprise as he saw her approach and mount the cart. His surprise not so much at the feminine delicacy of her appearance, as at the total absence of self-consciousness in her demeanor. He had made up his mind to see her advance with a measured step and a demure solemnity of countenance. He had felt sure that her face would be mantled with the smile of conscious saintship, or else charged with a denuncatory bitterness. He knew but two types of Methodists, the ecstatic and the by-list. But Dinah walked as simply as if she were going to market, and seemed as unconscious of her outward appearance as a little boy. There was no blush, no tremulousness, which said, I know you think me a pretty woman, too young to preach. No casting up or down of the eyelids, no compression of the lips, no attitude of the arms that said, but you must think of me as a saint. She held no book in her ungloved hands, but let them hang down lightly crossed before her, as she stood and turned her grey eyes on the people. There was no keenness in the eyes. They seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations. They had the liquid look which tells that the mind is full of what it has to give out, rather than impressed by external objects. She stood with her left hand towards the descending sun, and leafy brows greened her from its rays. But in this sober light the delicate coloring of her face seemed to gather a calm vividness, like flowers at evening. It was a small oval face of a uniform, transparent whiteness, with an egg-like line of cheek and chin, a full but firm mouth, a delicate nostril, and a low perpendicular brow, surmounted by a rising arch of parting between smooth locks of pale reddish hair. The hair was drawn straight back behind the ears and covered, except for an inch or two above the brow, by a net Quaker cap. The eyebrows of the same color as the hair were perfectly horizontal and firmly penciled. The eyelashes, though no darker, were long and abundant. Nothing was left blurred or unfinished. It was one of those faces that make one think of white flowers, with light touches of color on their pure petals. The eyes had no peculiar beauty beyond that of expression. They looked so simple, so candid, so gravely loving, that no accusing scowl, no light sneer could help melting away before their glance. Joshua Rand gave a long cough as if he were clearing his throat in order to come to a new understanding of himself. Chad Crainage lifted up his leather skull cap and scratched his head, and Wirie Ben wondered how Seth had the pluck to think of courting her. A sweet woman, the stranger, said to himself, but surely nature never meant her for a preacher. Perhaps he was one of those who think that nature has theatrical property, and with the considerate view of facilitating art and psychology makes up her characters so that there may be no mistake about them. But Dina began to speak. Dear friends, she said, in a clear but not loud voice, let us pray for a blessing. She closed her eyes and, hanging her head down a little, continued in the same moderate tone as if speaking to someone quite near her. Savor of sinners. When a poor woman laden with sinned went out to the well to draw water, she found thee sitting at the well. She knew thee not. She had not sought thee. Her mind was dark. Her life was unholy. But thou didst speak to her. Thou didst teach her. Thou didst show her that her life lay open before thee, and yet thou was ready to give her that blessing which she had never sought. Jesus, thou art in the midst of us, and thou knowest all men. If there is any here like that poor woman, if their minds are dark, their lives unholy, if they have come out, not seeking thee, not desiring to be taught, deal with them according to the free mercy which thou didst show to her. Speak to them, Lord, open their ears to my message. Bring their sins to their minds, and make them thirst for that salvation which thou art ready to give. Lord, thou art with thy people still. They see thee in the night watches, and their hearts burn within them as thou talkest with them by the way. And thou art near to those who have not known thee. Open their eyes that they may see. See thee weeping over them, and saying, ye will not come on to me that ye might have life. See thee hanging on the cross, and saying, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. See thee, as thou wilt come again in thy glory to judge them at the last. Amen. Dina opened her eyes again and paused, looking at the group of villagers, who were now gathered rather more closely on her right hand. Dear friends, she began, raising her voice a little. You have all of you been to church, and I think you must have heard the clergyman read these words. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Jesus Christ spoke those words. He said he came to preach the gospel to the poor. I don't know whether you ever thought about those words much, but I will tell you when I remember first hearing them. It was on just such a sort of evening as this when I was a little girl, and my aunt has brought me up, took me to hear a good man preach out of doors just as we are here. I remember his face well. He was a very old man and had very long white hair. His voice was very soft and beautiful, not like any boy I had ever heard before. I was a little girl and scarcely knew anything, and this old man seemed to me such a different sort of man from anybody I had ever seen before, that I thought he had perhaps come down from the sky to preach to us. And I said, Aunt, will he go back to the sky tonight like the picture in the Bible? That man of God was Mr. Wesley, who spent his life in doing what our blessed Lord did, preaching the gospel to the poor, and he entered into his rest eight years ago. I came to know more about him years after, but I was a foolish, thoughtless child then, and I remembered only one thing he told us in his sermon. He told us his gospel meant good news. The gospel, you know, is what the Bible tells us about God. Think of that now. Jesus Christ did really come down from heaven, as I, like a silly child, thought Mr. Wesley did. And what he came down for was to tell good news about God to the poor. Why, you and me, dear friends, are poor. We have been brought up in poor cottages and have been reared on oat cake and lived course, and we haven't been to school much nor read books, and we don't know much about anything, but what happens just found us. We are just the sort of people that want to hear good news. For when anybody's well off, they don't much mind about hearing news from distant parts, but if a poor man or woman's in trouble and it's hard work to make out a living, they like to have a letter to tell them they've got a friend as will help them. To be sure we can't help knowing something about God, even if we've never heard the gospel, the good news that our Savior brought up. For we know everything comes from God. Don't you say almost every day, this and that will happen, please God, and we shall begin to cut the grass soon, please God, to send us a little more sunshine? We know very well we are all together in the hands of God. We didn't bring ourselves into the world. We can't keep ourselves alive while we're sleeping. The daylight and the wind and the corn and the cows to give us milk, everything we have comes from God. And He gave us our souls and put love between parents and children and husband and wife. But is that as much as we want to know about God? We see He is great and mighty and can do what He will. We are lost as if we were struggling in great waters when we try to think of Him. But perhaps doubts come into your mind like this. Can God take much notice of us poor people? Perhaps He only made the world for the great and the wise and the rich. It doesn't cost Him much to give us our little handful of ritual and bit of clothing. But how do we know He cares for us any more than we care for the worms and things in the garden, so as we rear our carrots and onions? Will God take care of us when we die? And has He any comfort for us when we are lame and sick and helpless? Perhaps, too, He is angry with us. Elsewhere does the blight come and the bad harvest and the fever and all sorts of pain and trouble? For our life is full of trouble, and if God sends us good, He seems to send bad, too. How is it? How is it? Ah, dear friends, we are in sad want of good news about God. And what does other good news signify if we haven't that? Everything else comes to an end, and when we die we leave it all. But God laughs when everything else is gone. What shall we do if He is not our friend? Then Diana told how the good news had been brought, and how the mind of God towards the poor had been made manifest in the life of Jesus, dwelling on its loneliness and its acts of mercy. So you see, dear friends, she went on. Jesus spent his time almost all in doing good to poor people. He reached out of doors to them, and He made friends of poor workmen, and taught them and took pains with them. Not but what He did good to the rich, too, for He was full of love to all men. Only He saw as the poor were more in want of His help. So He cured the lame and the sick and the blind, and He worked miracles to feed the hungry, because He said He was sorry for them. And He was very kind to the little children and comforted those who had lost their friends. And He spoke very tenderly to poor sinners that were sorry for their sins. Ah! wouldn't you love such a man if you saw him, if you were here in this village? What a kind heart he must have! What a friend he would be to go to in trouble! How pleasant it must be to be taught by him! Well, dear friends, who was this man? Was he only a good man? A very good man, and no more, like our dear Mr. Weston who has been taken from us? He was the Son of God. In the image of the Father the Bible says, That means just like God, who is the beginning and end of all things, the God we want to know about. So then all the love that Jesus showed to the poor is the same love that God has for us. We can understand what Jesus felt because he came in a body like ours and spoke words such as we speak to each other. We were afraid to think what God was before, the God who made the world and the sky and the thunder and lightning. We could never see Him, we could only see the things He had made, and some of these things was very terrible. So as we might well tremble when we thought of Him. But our blessed Savior has showed us what God is in a way us poor ignorant people can understand. He has showed us what God's heart is, what are His feelings towards us. But let us see a little more about what Jesus came on earth for. Another time He said, I came to speak and to save that which was lost. And another time I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repenting. The lost! Sinners! Dear friends, does that mean you and me? Pitherto the traveller had been chained to the spot against his will by the charm of Dina's mellow troubled home, which had a variety of modulation like that of a fine instrument, touched with the unconscious skill of musical instinct. The simple things she said seemed like novelty, as the melody strikes us with a new feeling when we hear it sung by the pure voice of a boyish chorister. The quiet depth of conviction with which she spoke seemed in itself an evidence for the truth of her message. He saw that she had thoroughly arrested her hearers. The villagers had pressed nearer to her, and there was no longer anything but grave attention on all faces. She spoke slowly, though quite fluently, often pausing after a question or before any transition of ideas. There was no change of attitude, no gesture. The effect of her speech was produced entirely by the inflection of her voice. And when she came to the question, will God take care of us when we die? She uttered it in such a tone of plain-to-the-peel that the tears came into some of the hardest eyes. The stranger had ceased to doubt, as he had done at first glance, that she could fix the attention of her rougher hearers. But still he wondered whether she could have that power of rousing their more violent emotions, which must surely be an unnecessary seal of provocation as a Methodist preacher. Until she came to the words, LOST CINNERS When there was a great change in her voice and manner, she had made a long pause before the exclamation, and the pause seemed to be filled by agitating thoughts that showed themselves in her features. Her pale face became paler, the circles under her eyes deepened, as they did when tears half gather without falling. And the mild loving eyes took an expression of appalled pity, as if she had suddenly discerned a destroying angel hovering over the heads of the people. Her voice became deep and muffled, but there was still no gesture. Nothing could be less like the ordinary type of the rancher than Dinah. She was not preaching as she heard others preach, but speaking directly from her own emotions and under the inspiration of her own simple faith. But now she had entered into a new current of feeling. Her manner became less calm, her utterance more rapid and agitated, as she tried to bring home to the people their guilt, their willful darkness, their state of disobedience to God, as she dwelt on the hatefulness of sin, the divine holiness and the sufferings of the Saviour, by which a way had been opened for their salvation. At last it seemed as if in her yearning desire to reclaim the lost sheep, she could not be satisfied by addressing her hearers as a body. She appealed first to one and then to another, beseeching them with tears to turn to God while there was yet time, painting to them the desolation of their soul, lost in sin, feeding on the husks of this miserable world, far away from God their Father, and then the love of the Saviour who was waiting and watching for their return. There was many a response of sigh and groan from her fellow Methodists, but the village mind does not easily take fire, and a little smoldering vague anxiety that might easily die out again was the utmost effect Dinah's preaching yet no one had retired except the children and old-favoured half who being too deaf to catch many words had some time ago gone back to his inglenooks. Why Reben was feeling very uncomfortable and almost wishing he had not come to hear Dinah, he thought what she said would haunt him somehow, yet he couldn't help liking to look at her and listen to her, though he dreaded every moment that she would fix her eyes on him and address him in particular. She had already addressed Sandy Jim who was now holding the baby to relieve his wife, and the big soft-hearted man had rubbed away some tears with his fist with a confused intention of being a better fellow going less to the holly bush down by the stone pit and cleaning himself more regularly over Sunday. In front of Sandy Jim stood Chad's bath who had shown an unwanted quietude and fixity of attention ever since Dinah had begun to speak. Not that the matter of the discourse had arrested her at once, she was lost in a puzzling speculation as to what pleasure and satisfaction there could be in life to a young woman who wore a cap like Dinah's. Giving up this inquiry and despair, she took to studying Dinah's nose, eyes, mouth, and hair and wondering whether it was better to have such a sort of pale face of fat or fat red cheeks and round black eyes like her own. But gradually the influence of the general gravity told upon her and she became conscious of what Dinah was saying. The gentle tones, the loving persuasion, did not touch her. But when the more severe appeals came she began to be frightened. Poor Bessie had always been considered a naughty girl. She was conscious of it. If it was necessary to be very good it was clear she must be in a bad way. She couldn't find her place of that church as Sally Rand could. She had often been tittering when she churchied to Mr. Irvine. And these religious deficiencies were accompanied by a corresponding flackness in the minor moral. Poor Bessie belonged unquestionably to that unsoped lazy class of feminine characters with whom you may venture to eat an egg, an apple, or a nut. All this she was generally conscious of and hitherto had not been greatly ashamed of it. But now she began to feel very much as if the Constable had come to take her up and carry her before the justice for some undefined offence. She had a terrified sense that God, whom she had always thought of as very far off, was very near to her and that Jesus was close by looking at her though she could not see him. For Dina had that belief in visible manifestations of Jesus which is common among the Methodists and she communicated it irresistibly to her heroes. She made them feel that he was among them bodily and might at any moment show himself to them in some way that would strike anguish and penitence into their hearts. Turning to the left with her eyes fixed on a point above the heads of the people see where our blessed Lord stands and weeps and stretches out his arms towards you hear what he says how often would I have gathered you with a hen gathereth her chicks under her wings and he would not and he would not she repeated in a tone of pleading reproach turning her eyes on the people again see the print of the nails on his dear hands and feet and hands that made them how pale and worn he looked he has gone through all that great agony in the garden when his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death and the great drops of sweat fell like blood to the ground they spat upon him and buffeted him they scourged him they mocked him they laid the heavy cross on his bruised shoulders then they nailed him up what pain his lips are parched with thirst and they mock him still in this great agony yet with those parched lips he prays for them father forgive them for they know not what they do then a horror of great darkness fell upon him and he felt what sinners feel when they are forever shut out from God that was the last drop in the cup of bitterness my God my God he cries why has thou forsaken me all this he bore for you and you never think of him for you and you turn your backs on him you don't care what he has gone through for you yet he is not weary of toiling for you he has risen from the dead he is praying for you at the right hand of God father forgive them for they know not what they do and he is upon this earth too he is among us he is there close to you now I see his wounded body and his look of love here Dinah turned to Bessie Crainage whose bonding youth and evident vanity had touched her with pity poor child poor child he is deceiving you and you don't listen to him you think of earrings and fine gowns and caps and you never think of the savior who died to save your precious soul your cheeks will be shriveled one day your hair will be gray your poor body will be thin and tottering then you will begin to feel that your soul is not saved then you will have to stand before God dressed in your sins in your evil tempers and vain thoughts and Jesus who stands ready to help you now won't help you then because you won't have him to be your savior he will be your judge now he looks at you with love and mercy and says come to me that you may have life then he will turn away from you and say depart from me into everlasting fire poor Bessie's wide open black eyes began to fill with tears her great red cheeks and lips became quite pale and her face was distorted like a little child before a burst of crying ah poor blind child Thyna went on think if it should happen to you as it once happened to a servant of God in the days of her vanity she thought of her lace caps and saved all her money to buy him she thought nothing about how she might get a clean heart she only wanted to have better life than other girls and one day when she put out her new cap on and looked in the glass she saw a bleeding face crowned with thorns that face is looking at you now here Thyna pointed to a spot close in front of Bessie ah tear off those follies cast them away from you as if they were stinging adders they are stinging you they are poisoning your soul they are dragging you down into a dark bottomless pit where you will sink forever forever and forever further away from light and God Bessie could bear it no longer a great terror was upon her and wrenching her earrings from her ears she threw them down before her sobbing aloud her father, Chad, frightened lest he should be laid hold on to this impression on the rebellious fast striking him is nothing less than a miracle walked hastily away and began to work at his anvil assuring himself folks, money horseshoes, prachin or no prachin the devil cannot lay hold on me for that he muttered to himself but now Thyna began to tell of the joys that were in store for the penitent and to describe in her simple way the divine peace and love with which the soul of the believer is still how the sense of God's love turns poverty into riches and satisfies the soul so that no uneasy desire vexes it no fear alarms it at last the very temptation to sin is extinguished and heaven is begun upon earth because no cloud passes between the soul and God who is its eternal sun dear friends she said at last fathers and sisters whom I love is those for whom my lord has died believe me I know what this great blessedness is and because I know it I want you to have it too I am poor like you I have to get my living with my hands God nor lady can be so happy as me if they haven't got the love of God in their souls think what it is not to hate anything but sin to be full of love to every creature to be frightened at nothing to be sure that all things will turn to good not to mind pain because it is our father's will to know that nothing no not if the earth was to be burnt up or the waters come and drown us nothing could part us from God who loves us with peace and joy because we are sure that whatever he wills is holy just and good dear friends come and take this blessedness it is offered to you it is the good news that Jesus came to preach to the poor it is not like the riches of this world so that the more one gets the less the rest can have God is without end his love is without end it streams the whole creation reach so plenteous is the store enough for each enough for evermore dina had been speaking at least an hour and the reddening light of the parting day seemed to give a solemn emphasis to her closing words the stranger who had been interested in the course of her sermon as if it had been the development of a drama for there is this sort of fascination in all sincere unpremeditated eloquence which opens to one the inward drama of the speaker's emotions now turned his horse aside and pursued his way well dina said let us sing a little dear friends and as he was still winding down the slope the voices of the Methodist reached him rising and falling in that strange blending of exalpation and sadness which belongs to the cadence of a hymn end of chapter 2 chapter 3 of Adam B this is a Libra box recording all Libra box recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libra box dot org this reading by Lucy Burgine Adam Bede by George Elliott chapter 3 after the preaching in less than an hour from that time Seth Bede was walking by dina's side along the hedgerow path that skirted the pastures and green corn fields which lay between the village and the hall farm dina had taken off her little quaker bonnet again and was holding it in her hands that she might have a free 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 timidly 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 free to follow the lord's work they had been silent for many minutes now since they had done talking Dinah seemed almost to have forgotten Seth's presence and her pace was becoming so much quicker that the sense of there being only a few minutes walk from the yard gates at the hall farm at last gave Seth courage to speak you've quite made up your mind to go back to snow field oh Saturday Dinah yes said Dinah quietly I'm called there I was born in upon my mind while I was meditating on Sunday night as sister Ellen who's in a decline is in need of me I saw her as plain as we see that bitter 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 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 loathed to go for my heart yearns over my aunt and her little ones and that poor wandering lamb heady 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 granted said Seth for I doubt Adam's heart is so set on her he'll never turn to anybody else and yet it you'd go to my heart if he was to marry her for I cannot 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 and makes it easier for him to work seven year for her like Jacob did for Rachel sooner than have any other woman for that asking I often think of them words and Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him for the few days for the love he had to her I know those words you'd come true with me you'd give me hope as I might win you after seven years was over I know you think a husband you'd be taking up too much all your thoughts because St Paul says she's that's married for the thing of the world how she may please her husband and may happen you'll think me over bold to speak to you about it again after what you told me for your mind last Saturday but I've been thinking it over again by night and by day and I 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 text 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 woman marry their children guide the house give none occasion to 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 01 heart and 01 mind diner 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 he went on earnestly and almost hurriedly less diner 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 ret one of those very narrow passes which performed the office of the style in loam shire and diner 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 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 snow field 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 even 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 to my lying down my life is too short and God's work is too great for me to think of making a home for my soul in this world I've not turned a deaf ear to your words 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 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 because 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 once 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 Diner I must seek the 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 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 what the hymn says in darker 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 and 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 the 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 Donna if there's 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 Donna so farewell he paused and hesitated after she had given him her hand and then said there's no knowing that what you may see things different after a while there may be a new leading let us leave that 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 with nothing to do but to obey and to trust farewell Donna pressed his hand with rather a sad look in her loving eyes through the gate while Seth turned away to walk glingorily home but instead of taking the direct road he chose to turn back along the fields through which he and Donna 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 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 a woman or child or art or music our caresses our tender words our still rapture under the influence of autumn sunsets or pillard vistas or calm majestic statues or Beethoven sympathies all bring with them the consciousness that they are mere waves and ripples in unbathom of all 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 begun for us to feel any surprise that it should have existed in the soul of the carpenter half a century ago while there was yet a lingering afterglow 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 the imagination is not an amputator of green hills or the deep shade of broad-leaved sycamores were a crowd of rough men and weary-hearted women drunk 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 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 a low-pitched gables up dingy streets sleek roses sponging preachers and hypocritical jargon elements which are regarded as an exhaustive analyst 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 pillard porticoes but of a very old-fashioned kind they believed in present miracles in instantaneous conversations 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 a right 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 royal bacon which clumsy Molly spares for 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 diner and sith beneath our sympathy accustomed as we may be to weep of dear sorrows of heroines in satin boots and crinoline and of heroes riding fiery horses themselves ridden by still more fiery passions poor sith he was never on horseback in his life except once when he was the little lad and Mr Jonathan Burge took him up behind telling him to hold on tight and instead of bursting out and while accusing apostrophes to God and destiny he is resolving as he now walks home woods under the solemn starlight to repress his sadness to be less bent on having his own will and to live more for others as diner does End of Chapter 3 If you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Missy Guangzhou, China Adam Bede by George Elliott Chapter 4 Home and its Sorrows A green valley with a brook running through it full almost to overflowing with the late rains overhung by low-stooping willows Across this brook and over this plank Adam Bede is passing with his undoubting step followed close by Jip with the basket evidently making his way to the thatched house with a stack of timber by the side of it about twenty yards up the opposite slope The door of the house is open and an elderly woman is looking out but she is not placidly contemplating the evening sunshine she has been watching with dim eyes the gradually enlarging speck which for the last few minutes she has been quite sure is her darling son Adam Lisbeth Bede loves her son with the love of a woman to whom her first born has come late in life She is an anxious, spare yet vigorous old woman clean as a snow drop Her grey hair is turned neatly back under a pure linen cap with a black band around it Her broad chest is covered with a buff necker chiff and below this you see a sort of short bed gown made of blue checkered linen tied around the waist and descending to the hips from whence there is a considerable length of Lindsay Woolsey petticoat for Lisbeth is tall and in other points too there is a strong likeness between her and her son Adam Her dark eyes are somewhat dim now perhaps from too much crying but her broadly marked eyebrows are still black her teeth are sound and as she stands knitting rapidly and unconsciously with her work hard and hands she has as firmly upright in attitude as when she is carrying a pail of water on her head from the spring there is the same type of frame and the same keen activity of temperament in mother and son but it was not from her that Adam got his well-filled brow and his expression of large-hearted intelligence family likeness has often a deep sadness in it nature, that great tragic dramatist, knits us together by bone and muscle and divides us by the subtler web of our genes, blends yearning and repulsion and ties us by our heart strings to the beans that jar at us at every moment we hear a voice with the very cadence of our own uttering the thoughts we despise we see eyes, ah so like our mothers, averted from us in cold alienation and our last darling child startles us with the air and gestures of the sister we parted from in bitterness long years ago to whom we owe our best heritage the mechanical instinct, the keen sensibility to harmony, the unconscious skill of the modeling hand, gulls us and puts us to shame by his daily errors the long-lost mother whose face we begin to see in the glass as our own wrinkles come once fretted our young souls with her anxious humours and irrational persistence it is such a fond anxious mother's voice that you hear as Lisbeth says, well, my lad it's gone seven by the clock and all I stay till the last child's born they once I stop or I'll warrant where is Seth, gone utter some as chaplain I reckon I, I, Seth's at no harm mother thee mayst be sure but where is father, said Adam quickly as he entered the house and glanced into the room on the left hand which was used as a workshop hasn't he done the coffin for Thola there's the stuff standing just as I left it this morning done the coffin said Lisbeth following him and knitting uninterruptedly though she looked at her son very anxiously Amy lad he went off to tredleson this forenoon and sniffer come back I doubt he's got to the wagon over through again a deep flush of anger passed rapidly over Adam's face he said nothing but threw off his jacket and began to roll up his shirt sleeves again what are going to do Adam said mother with a tone of look and alarm they once to go to work again well I had a bit of supper Adam too angry to speak walked into the workshop but his mother threw down her knitting and hurrying after him took hold of his arm and said in a tone of plaintive remonstrance nay my lad my lad they want to go without their supper there's the taters with the gravy in them just as they liked them I saved him a purpose pretty come and have a supper come let be said Adam impetuously shaking her off and seizing one of the planks that stood against the wall it's fine talking about having supper when here's a coffin promised to be ready at Broxen by seven o'clock tomorrow morning not to have been there by now and not a nail struck yet my throat's too full to swallow victuals what? they can't to get the coffin ready said Lisbeth they'd work thyself to death it'd take they all night to do it what signifies how long it takes me isn't the coffin promised can they bury the man without a coffin I'd work my right hand off sooner than to see people with lies of that way it makes me mad to think on it I shall overrun these doings before long I've stood enough of them for this threat for the first time and if she had been wise she would have gone away quietly and said nothing for the next hour but one of the lessons a woman most rarely learns is never to talk to an angry or a drunken man Lisbeth sat down on the chopping bench and began to cry and by the time she had cried enough to make her voice very piteous she burst out into words nay, my lad, my lad they once to go away and break their mother's heart and leave their favor to ruin they once to have him carry me to the churchyard and they not to follow me I shan't rush to my grave if I don't see they at the last and how's they to let they know as I'm a dyin' if they'd gone to work in a distant parts and Seth been like gone otterly and they'd further not be able to hold a pen for his handshakin' besides not knowin' where they are they won't forget their father they wanna be so bitter again him he were a good father to thee before he took to the drink he's a clever workman and taught thee thy trade remember and to never gain me a blow no, not even in strength they once to go him to the workhouse they own father and them his was a fine grown man and handy at everything almost as the art they sent five and twenty year ago when they was to baby at the breast Lizbeth's voice became louder and choked with sobs a sort of wail the most irritating of all sounds where real sorrows are to be born and real work to be done now mother, don't cry and talk so haven't I got enough to vex me without that what's the use of tellin' me things as I only think too much on every day if I didn't think on them why should I do as I do for the sake of keepin' things together here but I hate to be talkin' where it's no use I like to keep my breath for doin' instead of talkin' I know thee dust things as nobody else to do, my lad but thee'd always so hard upon thy father, Adam thee thinks nothin' too much to do for Seth thee snaps me up a fiver I find fought with the lad but thee'd so angered with thy father more nowhere anybody else it's better than speakin' soft and letting things go the wrong way, I reckon, isn't it if I wasn't sharp with him he'd sell every bit of stuff in the yard and spend it on drink I know there's a duty to be done by my father but it isn't my duty to encourage him in running headlong to ruin and what has Seth got to do with it the lad does no harm as I know of but leave me alone, mother and let me get on with the work Lizbeth dared not say any more but she got up and called Jip thinking to console herself somewhat for Adam's dog that had spread out in the loving expectation of looking at him while he ate it by feeding Adam's dog with extra liberality but Jip was watching his master with wrinkled brow and ears erect puzzled at this unusual course of things and though he glanced at Lizbeth when she called him and moved his four paws uneasily while knowing that she was inviting him to supper he was in a divided state of mind and remained seated on his haunches again fixing his eyes anxiously on his master he noticed Jip's mental conflict and though his anger had made him less tender than usual to his mother it did not prevent him from caring as much as usual for his dog we are apt to be kinder to the brutes that love us than to the women that love us is it because the brutes are dumb go Jip go lad said Adam in a tone of encouraging command and Jip apparently satisfied that duty and pleasure were won followed Lizbeth into the house place but no sooner had he licked up his supper and he went back to his master while Lizbeth sat down alone to cry over her knitting women who are never bitter and resentful are often the most quarrelous and if Solomon was as wise as he is reputed to be I feel sure that when he compared a contentious woman to a continual dropping on a very rainy day he had not a vixen in his eye a fury with long nails acrid and selfish depend upon it he meant a good creature who had no joy but in the happiness she contributed to make life uncomfortable putting by all the tidbits for them and spending nothing on herself such a woman as Lizbeth for example at once patient and complaining self renouncing and exacting brooding the live long day over what happened yesterday and what is likely to happen tomorrow and crying very readily both at the good and the evil but a certain awe mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam and when he said leave me alone he just silenced so the hours passed to the loud ticking of the old day clock and the sound of Adam's tools at last he called for a light and a draft of water beer was the thing only to be drunk on holidays and Lizbeth ventured to say as she took it in the supper stands ready for them when they liked Dennis at the up mother said Adam in a gentle tone he had worked off his anger now and whenever he wished to be especially kind to his mother to his strongest native accent and dialect with which at other times his speech was less deeply tinged I'll see to father when he comes home maybe he want to come at all tonight I shall be easier if they eat in bed nay I'll buy till Seth comes he want to be long now I reckon it was then past nine by the clock which was always in advance of the days and before it had struck ten the latch was lifted and Seth entered he had heard the sound of the tools as he was approaching one mother he said how is it as father's working so late it's none of thy father as is a working they might know that well enough if thy head weren't a full of chaplain it's thy brother as does everything for there's never anybody else of the way to do nothing Lizbeth was going on for she was not at all afraid of Seth and usually poured into his words all the quarelessness which was repressed by her awe of Adam Seth had never in his life spoken a harsh word to his mother and timid people always make their peevishness on the gentle but Seth with an anxious look had passed into the workshop and said Addy how's this what father's forgot the coffin I lad the old tale but I shall get it done said Adam looking up and casting one of his bright keen glances at his brother why what's the matter with thee thee didn't trouble Seth's eyes were red and there was a look of deep depression on his mild face yes Addy but it's what must be born and can't be helped why thee's never been to the school then school no that screw can wait said Adam hammering away again let me take my turn now and do thee go to bed said Seth no lad I'd rather go on now I'm in harness they'd help me to carry it to Brockson when it's done I'll call thee up at sunrise go and eat thy supper and shut the door so as I may in hear mother's talk Seth knew that Adam always meant what he said and was not to be persuaded into meaning anything else so he turned a heavy heart into the house place Adam's never touched a bit of victual sin he's come home said Lisbeth I reckon Least had thy supper at some of thy methody folks nay mother said Seth I've had no supper yet come then said Lisbeth but done of thee eat the taters for Adam'll happen to eat them if I leave him standing he loves a bit of taters and gravy but he's been so sore and angered he wouldn't eat him for all I'd put in him by a purpose for him and he's been a threatening to go away again she went on whimpering and I'm fast sure he'll go some dawn and afford him up and never let me know of forehand and he'll never come back again when once he's gone and I better never had a son as is like no other buddy's son for the deafness and the handiness and so looked on by the grit folks and tall and upright like a poplar tree and me to be parted from him and never see him no more come mother done aggrieved thyself in vain said Seth in a soothing voice they's not half so good reason to think as Adam'll go away as to think he'll stay with thee he may say such a thing when he's in wrath and he's got excuse for being wrathful sometimes but his heart had never let him go think how he stood by us all when it's been none so easy paying his savings to free me from going for a soldier and turning his earnings into wood for father when he's got plenty of uses for his own money and many a young man like him would have been married and settled before now he'll never turn round and knock down his own work and forsake them as it's been the labour of his life to stand by done at the time he'll never turn around and knock down his own work to stand by done at talk to me about his marion said Lisbeth crying afresh he's Seth's heart on that heady sorrel as he'll never save a penny and he'll toss up her head at its old mother and to think as he might have had Murray Burge and be took partners and be a big man with workmen under him like Mr. Burge Dolly's told me so or an or again if it weren't I see Seth's heart on that bit of a wench as there's no more use to know the gilly flower on the wall and he's so wise at booking and figuring and not to know no better nor that but mother they know that we kind of love just where other folks would have us there's nobody but God can control the heart of man I could have wished myself as Adam could have made another choice but I won't reproach him for what he can't help and I'm not sure but what he tries to overcome it but it's a matter as he doesn't like to be spoke to about and I can only pray to the Lord to bless and direct him I they'd always ready enough at praying to see as they get smut with I pray in they want to get double earnings of this side yule the methodies will never make the half the man my brother is for all there are make and a preacher on thee it's partly truth he speaks their mother said Seth mildly Adam's far before me and's done more for me than I can ever do for him God distributes talents to every man according as he sees good but they must not under valley prayer prayer may not bring money but it brings us what no money can buy a power to keep from sin and be content with God's will whatever he may please to send if the woods pray to God to help thee and trust in his goodness he wants to be so uneasy about things uneasy I'm of the right on it to be uneasy it's well seen on thee what it is never to be uneasy think give way all thy earnings and never be uneasy as these nothing laid up again a rainy day if Adam had been as easy as thee he had no money to pay for thee take no thought for the morrow take no thought that's what they'd always sayin' and what comes on it why is Adam as to take thought for thee those are the words of the bible mother said Seth they don't mean as we should be idle they mean we shouldn't be over anxious and worried in ourselves about what'll happen tomorrow but do our duty and leave the rest to God's will aye aye that's the way with thee if he always makes the peck of thy own words out of a pint of the bibles I don't see how they to know as take no thought for the morrow means all that and when the bible such a big book and they can't read all through it and how the peck of the texas I can't think why they doesn't pick better words as don't mean so much more nor they say Adam doesn't pick that on I can understand the texas he's always saying God helps them as helps their sins nay mother said Seth that's no text of the bible it comes out of a book as Adam picked up at the stall at Trudelson it was wrote by a known man but overworldly I doubt however that sayings partly true for the bible tells us we must be workers together with God well how am I to know it sounds like a text but what's the matter with the lad they'd hardly ate in a bit of supper doesn't mean to have no more nor that bit of oak cake and he looks as white as a flick of new bacon what's the matter with thee nothing to mind about mother I'm not hungry I'll just look in at Adam again and see if he'll let me go on with the coffin had a drop of warm broth, said Lizbeth whose motherly feeling now got the better of her nattering habit I'll set two three sticks alight in a minute nay mother thank thee, thee very good said Seth gratefully and encouraged by this touch of tenderness he went on let me pray a bit with thee for father and Adam and all of us it'll comfort thee happen more than they think well, I've nothing to say again it Lizbeth, though disposed always to take the negative side in her conversations with Seth, had a vague sense that there was some comfort and safety in the fact of his piety and that it somehow relieved her from the trouble of any spiritual transactions on her own behalf so the mother and son knelt down together and Seth prayed for the poor wandering father and for those who were sorrowing for him at home and when he came to the petition that Adam might never be called to set up his tent in a far country but that his mother might be cheered and comforted by his presence all the days of her pilgrimage Lizbeth's ready tears flowed again and she wept aloud when they rose from their knees Seth went to Adam again and said, we'll only lie down for an hour or two and let me go on the while no, Seth, no make mother go to bed and go thyself meantime Lizbeth had dried her eyes and now followed Seth holding something in her hand it was the brown and yellow platter containing potatoes with the gravy in them and bits of meat which she had cut and mixed among them those were dear time when wheat and bread and fresh meat were delicacies to working people she set the dish down rather timidly on the bench by Adam's side and said, they can't pick a bit while they're working I'll bring me another drop of water I mother do, said Adam kindly I'm getting very thirsty in half an hour all was quiet no sound was to be heard in the house there was a loud ticking of the old day clock and the ringing of Adam's tools the night was very still when Adam opened the door to look out at 12 o'clock the only motion seemed to be in the glowing twinkling stars every blade of grass was asleep bodily haste and exertion usually leave our thoughts very much at the mercy of our feelings and imagination and it was so tonight with Adam while his muscles were working lustily his mind seemed as passive as a spectator at a diorama scenes of the sad past and probably sad future floating before him and giving place one to the other in swift succession he saw how it would be tomorrow morning when he had carried the coffin to Brockston and was at home again having his breakfast his father perhaps would come in ashamed to meet his son's glance would sit down looking older and more tottering than he had done the morning before and hang down his head on the floor quarries while Lisbeth would ask him how he supposed the coffin had been got ready that he had slinked off and left on done for Lisbeth was always the first to utter the word of reproach though she cried at Adam's severity toward his father so it would go on worsening and worsening thought Adam there's no slipping uphill again and no standing still when once you've begun to slip down and then the day came back to him when he was a little fellow and used to run by his father's side and prouder still to hear his father boasting to his fellow workmen how the little chap had an uncommon notion of carpentering what a fine act of fellow his father was then when people asked Adam whose little lad he was he had a sense of distinction as he answered I'm Fyah Speed lad he was quite sure everybody knew Fyah Speed didn't he make the wonderful pigeon house at Brockston Parsonage those were happy days especially when Seth who was three years the younger two and Adam began to be a teacher as well as a learner but then came the days of sadness when Adam was some way on in his teens and Thais began to loiter at the public houses and Lisbeth began to cry at home and to pour forth her planes in the hearing of her son Adam remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first saw his father quite wild and foolish shouting a song out fitfully among his drunken companions at the wagon overthrown he went away once when he was only eighteen making his escape in the morning twilight with a little blue bundle over his shoulder and his menstruation book in his pocket and saying to himself very decidedly that he could bear the vexations of home no longer he would go and seek his fortune setting up his stick at the crossways and bending his steps the way it fell but by the time he got to Stoneton the thought of his mother and Seth left behind to endure everything without him became too improtunate and his resolution failed him he came back the next day but the misery and terror his mother had gone through in those two days had haunted her ever since no Adam said to himself tonight that must never happen again it'd make a poor balance when my doings are cast up at the last if my poor old mother stood on the wrong side my back's broad enough and strong enough I should be no better than a coward to go away and leave the troubles to be borne by them as aren't half so able they that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of those that are weak and not to please themselves there's a text once no candle to shote it shines by its own light it's plain enough you get into the wrong road of this life if you run after this and that only for the sake of making things easy and pleasant to yourself a pig may poke his nose into the trough and think enough and outside it but if you've got a man's heart and soul in you make in your own bed and leave in the rest to lie on the stones nay nay I'll never slip my neck out of the yoke and leave the load to be drawn by the weakens father's a sore cross to me and's likely to be for many a long year to come what then I've got the health and the limbs and the spirit to bear it at this moment a smart wrap as if with a willow wand was given at the house door and jib instead of barking as might have been expected gave a loud howl Adam very much startled went at once to the door and opened it nothing was there all was still as when he opened it an hour before the leaves were motionless and the light of the stars showed the placid fields on both sides of the brook quite empty of visible life Adam walked round the house and still saw nothing except a rat which darted into the wood shed as he passed he went in again wondering the sound was so peculiar that the moment he heard it it called up the image of the willow wand striking the door he could not help a little shutter as he remembered how often his mother had told him of just such a sound coming as a sign when someone was dying Adam was not a man to be gratuitously superstitious but he had the blood of the peasant in him as well as of the artisan and a peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when he sees a camel besides, he had that mental combination which is at once humble in the region of mystery and keen in the region of knowledge it was the depth of his reverence quite as much as his hard common sense which gave him his disinclination to doctrinal religion and he often checked sex argumentative spiritualism by saying A. it's a big mystery they knowest but little about it and so it happened that Adam was at once penetrating and credulous if a new building had fallen down and he had been told that this was divine judgment he would have said maybe, but the barren of the roof and walls wasn't right else it wouldn't have come down yet he believed in dreams and prognostics and to his dying day he bated his breath a little when he told the story of the stroke with the willow wand I tell it as he told it not attempting to reduce it to its natural element in our eagerness to explain impressions we often lose our hold of the sympathy that comprehends them but he had the best antidote against imaginative dread in the necessity for getting on with the coffin and for the next ten minutes his hammer was ringing so uninterruptedly that other sounds, if there were any might well be overpowered a pause came, however, when he had to take up his ruler and now again came the strange rap and again Jip Howell Adam was at the door without the loss of a moment but again, all was still and the starlight showed there was nothing but the due-laden grass in front of the cottage Adam for a moment thought uncomfortably about his father but of late years he had never come home at dark hours from Trudelston and there was every reason for believing that he was then sleeping off his drunkenness at the wagon overthrown besides, to Adam the conception of the future was so inseparable from the painful image of his father that the fear of any fatal accident to him was excluded by the deeply infixed fear of his continual degradation the next thought that occurred to him was one that made him slip off his shoes and tread lightly upstairs to listen at the bedroom doors but both Seth and his mother were breathing regularly Adam came down and set to work again saying to himself, I won't open the door again it's no use staring about to catch sight of a sound maybe there's a world about us as we can't see but the ear is quicker than the eye and catches a sound from it now and then some people think they got a sight on it too but they're mostly folks whose eyes are not much used to them at anything else for my part I think it's better to see when your perpendicular is true than to see a ghost such thoughts as these are apt to grow stronger and stronger as the light quenches the candles and the birds begin to sing by the time the red sunlight shone on the brass nails that formed the initials on the lid of the coffin any lingering foreboding from the sound of the willow wand was merged in satisfaction that the work was done and the promise redeemed there was no need to call Seth for he was already moving overhead and presently came downstairs now lads said Adam, as Seth made his appearance the coffin's done and we can take it over to Brockson and be back again before half after six I'll take a mouthful of oak cake and then we'll be off the coffin was soon propped on the tall shoulders of the two brothers and they were making their way followed close by Jib out of the little woodyard into the lane at the back of the house it was but about a mile and a half to Brockston over the opposite slope and their road wound very pleasantly along lanes and across fields where the pale woodbinds and the dog roses were sending the hedgerows and the birds were twittering and trilling in the tall leafy bows of oak and elm it was a strangely mingled picture the fresh youth of the summer morning with its Eden-like peace and loveliness the stalwart strength of the two brothers in their rusty working clothes and the long coffin on their shoulders they paused for the last time before a small farmhouse outside the village of Brockston by six o'clock the task was done the coffin nailed down and Adam and Seth were on their way home they chose a shorter way homewards to take them across the field and the brook in front of the house Adam had not mentioned to Seth what had happened in the night but he still retained sufficient impression from it himself to say Seth lad, if father isn't come home by the time we've had our breakfast I think it'll be as well for thee to go over to Treddison and look after him and thee can get me the brass wire I want never mind about losing an hour at thy work we can make that up what dost say see what clouds have gathered since we set out I'm thinking we shall have more rain it'll be a sore time for the hay-making if the meadows are flooded again the brook's fine and full now another day's rain had covered the plank and we should have to go round by the road they were coming across the valley now and had entered the pasture through which the brook ran why, what's that sticking against the willow continued Seth beginning to walk faster Adam's heart rose to his mouth the vague anxiety about his father was changed into a great dread he made no answer to Seth but ran forward proceeded by Jip who began to bark uneasily and in two moments he was at the bridge this was what the omen meant then and the grey-haired father of whom he had thought with a sort of hardness a few hours ago a certain to live to be a thorn in his side was perhaps even then struggling with that watery death this was the first thought that flashed through Adam's conscience before he had time to seize the coat and drag out the tall heavy body Seth was already by his side helping him and when they had it on the bank the two sons in the first moment knelt and looked with mute awe at the glazed eyes forgetting that there was need for action forgetting everything but that their father lay dead before them Adam was the first to speak I'll run to mother he said in a loud whisper I'll be back to thee in a minute Poor Lizbeth was busy preparing her son's breakfast and their porridge was already steaming on the fire her kitchen always looked the pink of cleanliness but this morning she was more than usually bent on making her hearth and breakfast table look comfortable and inviting the lads will be fine and hungry, she said half aloud as she stirred the porridge it's a good step to Broxen and it's hungry air over the hill with that heavy coffin too eh, it's heavier now with poor Bob Fuller in it however I've made a dread more porridge nor common this morning the father will happen to come in after a bit not as he like much porridge he'll be well and saves a half-earth of porridge that's his way of laying by money as I've told him many a time and I'm likely to tell him again before the day's out ah poor man, he takes it quiet enough there's no denying that but now Lizbeth heard the heavy thud of a running footstep on the turf and turning quickly towards the door she saw Adam enter looking so pale and overwhelmed that she screamed aloud and rushed towards him before he had time to speak hush mother Adam said rather harshly don't be frightened father's tumbled into the water be like we may bring him round again Seth and me are going to carry him in get a blanket and make it as hot as the fire in reality Adam was convinced that his father was dead but he knew there was no other way of repressing his mother's impetuous wailing grief than by occupying her with some active task which had hope in it he ran back to Seth and the two sons lifted the sad burden in heart-stricken silence the wide-open glazed eyes were grey like Seth and had once looked with mild pride on the boys before whom Thais had lived to hang his head in shame Seth's cheap feeling was awe and distress at the sudden snatching away of his father's soul but Adam's mind rushed back over the past in a flood of relenting and pity when death, the great reconciler has come it is never our tenderness that we repent of but our severity End of Chapter 4