 CHAPTER 10 DINER VISITS, LISPATH At five o'clock, Lisabeth came downstairs with a large key in her hand. It was the key at the chamber where her husband lay dead. Throughout the day, except in her occasional outbursts of wailing grief, she had been in incessant movement, performing the initial duties to her dead with the awe and exactitude that belonged to religious rites. She had brought out her little store of bleached linen, which she had for long years kept in reserve for this supreme use. It seemed that yesterday, that time so many midsummer's ago, when she had told Theus where this linen lay, that he might be sure and reach it out for her when she died, for she was the elder of the two. In there had been the work of cleansing to the strictest purity every object in the sacred chamber, and of removing from it every trace of common daily occupation. The small window, which had hit her too freely, led in the frosty moonlight, or the warm summer sunrise, on the working man's slumber, must not be darkened with a fair white sheet, for this was the sleep which is as sacred under the bare rafters as in sealed houses. Lisbeth had even mended a long neglected and unnoticeable rent in checkered bit of bed curtain, for the moments were few and precious now, in which she would be able to do the smallest office of respect or love for the still corpse, to which in all her thoughts she attributed some consciousness. Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. They can be injured by us, they can be wounded, they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence. And the aged peasant woman most of all believes that her dead are conscious. Decent burial was what Lisbeth had been thinking of for herself three years of thrift, with an indistinct expectation that she should know when she was being carried to the churchyard, followed by her husband and her sons. And now she felt as if the greatest work of her life were to be done in seeing that Theos was buried decently before her under the white thorn, where once in a dream she had thought she lay in the coffin. Yet all the while saw the sun shine above, and smelt the white blossoms that were so thick upon the thorn the Sunday she went to be churched after Adam was born. But now she had done everything that could be done today in the chamber of death, had done it all herself, with some aid from her sons in lifting, for she would let no one be fetched to help her from the village, not being fond of female neighbours generally, and her favourite dolly, the old housekeeper at Mr Burgess, who had come to condole with her in the morning as soon as she heard of Theos's death was too dim-sighted to be of much use. She had locked the door and now held the key in her hand as she threw herself wearily into a chair that stood out of its place in the middle of the house floor, wherein ordinary times she would never have consented to sit. The kitchen had had none of her attention that day. It was soiled with the tread of muddy shoes and untidy with clothes and other objects out of place. But what at another time would have been intolerable to Lisbeth's habits of order and cleanliness seen to her now just what should be? It was right that things should look strange and disordered and wretched, now that the old man had come to his end in that sad way. The kitchen ought not to look as if nothing had happened. Adam, overcome with the agitations and exertions of the day after his night of hard work, had fallen asleep on a bench in the workshop, and Seth was in the back kitchen making a fire of sticks that he might get the kettle to boil, and persuade his mother to have a cup of tea, an indulgence which she rarely allowed herself. There was no one in the kitchen when Lisbeth entered and threw herself into the chair. She looked round with blank eyes at the dirt and confusion on which the bright afternoon sun shone dismally. It was all other peace with the sad confusion of her mind, that confusion which belongs to the first hours of a sudden sorrow. When the poor human soul is like one who has been deposited sleeping among the ruins of a vast city, and wakes up in dreary amazement, not knowing whether it is the growing of the dying day, not knowing why and whence came this illimitable scene of desolation, or why he too finds himself desolate in the midst of it. At another time Lisbeth's first thought would have been, where is Adam? But the sudden death of her husband had restored him in these hours to that first place in her affections, which he had held six and twenty years ago. She had forgotten his faults as we forget the sorrows of our departed childhood, and thought of nothing but the young husband's kindness, and the old man's patience. Her eyes continued to wander blankly until Seth came in and began to remove some of the scattered things, and clear the small round deal table that he might set out his mother's tea upon it. What aren't going to do, she said, rather peevishly. I want thee to have a cup of tea, mother, answered Seth tenderly. It'll do thee good, and I'll put two or three of these things away, and make the house look more comfortable. Comfortable. How pants talk, O main things comfortable. Let it be, let it be. There's no comfort for me no more. She went on. The tears coming when she began to speak. Now thy poor father's gone, as unwashed for a mended, and God's victual for him for thirty year, and him always so pleased with everything I done for him, and used to be so handy, and do the jobs for me, when I were ill and cumbered with the bubby, and made me the posses, and brought it upstairs as proud as could be, and carried the lad as war as heavy as two children for five miles, and near Grumble, all the way to Walsham Wake, because I wanted to go and see my sister. As war dead and gone, the very next Christmas, and air come, and him to be drowned in the brook as we'd passed all the day we were married, and come home together, and he'd made me lots of shelves for me to put my plates of things on, and show to me as proud as could be, because he'd known I should be pleased, and he word to die, and me not to know, but to be and sleeping in my bed, as if I cared and ignored about it, and me to live to see that, and us as war young folks once, and thought we should do rarely when we were married. Let it be lad, let it be, I wanna have no tae, I care not if I near ate nor drink no more, when one end at the bridge tumbles down, where the use of the other stand in. I may as well die and follow my old man, there's no knowing that he'll want me. Here Elizabeth broke from words into moans, swaying herself backwards and forwards on her chair. Seth always timid in his behaviour towards his mother, from the sense that he had no influence over her, felt it was useless to attempt to persuade or soothe her till this passion was passed, so he contended himself with tending the back kitchen fire, and folding up his father's clothes, which had been hanging out to dry since morning, afraid to move about in the room where his mother was, lest he should irritate her further. But after Elizabeth had been rocking herself and moaning for some minutes, she suddenly paused and said aloud to herself, I'll go and see at her Adam, for I can't think where he's gotten, and I want him to go upstairs with me afore it's dark, for the minutes to look at the corpse is like the melting snow. Seth overheard this, and coming into the kitchen again, as his mother rose from her chair, he said, Adam's asleep in the workshop, mother. These been not waking, he was overwrought with work and trouble. Wake him, who's going to wake him? I shone awake with looking at him. I hadn't seen the lad this two hour, I'd welly forgotten as he'd ergoed up from the baby, when's father carried him. Adam was seated on a rough bench, his head supported by his arm, which rested from the shoulder to the elbow on the long planning table in the middle of the workshop. It seemed as if he had sat down for a few minutes, rest and had fallen asleep without slipping from his first attitude of sad, fatigued thought. His face unwashed since yesterday, looked pallid and clammy. His hair was tossed shaggily about his forehead, and his closed eyes had the sunken look, which follows upon watching and sorrow. His brow was knit, and his whole face had an expression of weariness and pain. Jip was evidently uneasy, for he sat on his haunches, resting his nose on his master's stretched out leg, and dividing the time between licking the hand that hung listlessly down, and glancing with a listening air towards the door. The poor dog was hungry and restless, but would not leave his master, and was waiting impatiently for some change in the scene. It was owing to this feeling on Jip's part that, when Lisbeth came into the workshop and advanced towards Adam, as noiselessly as she could, her intention to awaken him was immediately defeated. The Jip's excitement was too great to find vent in anything short of a sharp bark, and in a moment Adam opened his eyes and saw his mother standing before him. It was not very unlike his dream, for his sleep had been little more than living through again, in a fevered delirious way, all that had happened since daybreak, and his mother, with her fretful grief, was present to him through it all. The chief difference between the reality and the vision was that, in his dream, Hetty was continually coming before him, in bodily presence, strangely mingling herself as an actor in scenes with which she had nothing to do. She was even by the willow brook. She made his mother angry by coming into the house, and he met her with her smart clothes quite wet through, as he walked in the rain to Treadleston to tell the coroner that wherever Hetty came his mother was sure to follow soon, and when he opened his eyes it was not at all startling to see her standing near him. Hey, my lad, my lad! Elizabeth burst out immediately, her wailing impulse returning, for grief in its freshness fills the need of associating its loss and its lament with every change of scene and incident. There's got nobody now but thy old mother to torment thee and be a burden to thee, thy poor father, you'll near anger thee no more, and thy mother may as well go after him. The sooner the better, for I'm no good to nobody now. One cold coat and you'll do to patch another, but it's good for naught else. These like to have a wife to mend thy clothes and get thy victual, better nor thy old mother. And I shall be naught the cumber, a sitting, either chimney corner. Adam winced and moved uneasily. He dreaded of all things to hear his mother speak of Hetty. But if thy father had lived, he'd near have wanted me to go to make room for another, for he could no more had done without me, nor one side of the scissors can do without the other. Ah, we should have been both flung away together, and then I shouldn't have seen this day, and one bearing you'd had done for us both. Here, Elizabeth paused, but Adam sat in pained silence. He could not speak otherwise than tenderly to his mother today, but he could not help being irritated by this plant. It was not possible that Paul Elizabeth to know how it affected Adam any more than it is possible for a wounded dog to know how his moans affect the nerves of his master. Like all complaining women, she complained in the expectation of being soothed, and when Adam said nothing, she was only prompted to complain more bitterly. I know these couldn't do better without me, for they could as go where they like liars and marry them as they likes, but I don't want to say they know. Let they bring home who they what. I'd near open my lips to find fault, for when folks is old and of no use, they may think their scenes well off to get the bit, and the suck, though they need follow ill words wit. And if they said thy heart on a lass, as bring thee naught and waste all, when they mightest have them, as you'd make a man of thee, I'll say naught, now thy father's dead and grounded, for I'm no better nor an old hack when the blade's gone. Adam, unable to bear this any longer, rose silently from the bench and walked out at the workshop into the kitchen, but Lisbeth followed him. They want to go upstairs and see thy father then. I'd done everything now, and he'd like thee to go and look at him, for he were always so pleased when there was mild to him. Adam turned round at once and said, Yes, mother, let us go upstairs. Come, Seth, let us go together. They went upstairs, and for five minutes all was silence. Then the key was turned again, and there was a sound of footsteps on the stairs. But Adam did not come down again. He was too weary and worn out to encounter more of his mother's curilous grief, and he went to rest on his bed. Lisbeth no sooner entered the kitchen and sat down, than she threw her apron over her head, and began to cry and moan and rock herself as before. Seth thought, She will be quieter by and by. Now we have been upstairs, and he went into the back kitchen again to tend his little fire, hoping that he should presently induce her to have some tea. Lisbeth had been rocking herself in this way for more than five minutes, giving a low moan with every forward movement of her body. When she suddenly felt her hand placed gently on hers, and a sweet treble voice said to her, Dear sister, the Lord has sent me to see if I can be a comfort to you. Lisbeth paused in a listening attitude, without removing her apron from her face. The voice bestranged to her. Could it be her sister's spirit come back to her from the dead, after all those years? She trembled and dared not look. Diner, believing that this pause of wonder was in itself a relief for the sorrowing woman, said no more just yet, but quietly took off her bonnet. And then, motioning silence to Seth, who, on hearing her voice, had come in with a beating heart, laid one hand on the back of Lisbeth's chair and leaned over her, that she might be aware of a friendly presence. Slowly Lisbeth drew down her apron, and timidly she opened her dim dark eyes. She saw nothing at first but a face, a pure pale face with loving grey eyes, and it was quite unknown to her. Her wonder increased, perhaps it was an angel. But in the same instant, Diner had laid her hand on Lisbeth's again, and the old woman looked down at it. It was a much smaller hand than her own, but it was not white and delicate. But Diner had never worn a glove in her life, and her hand bore the traces of labour from her childhood upwards. Lisbeth looked earnestly at the hand for a moment, and then, fixing her eyes again on Diner's face, said, with something of restored courage, but in a tone of surprise, why, you're a working woman. Yes, I am Diner Morris, and I work in the cotton mill when I am at home. I, said Lisbeth slowly, still wondering, you come in so light, like the shadow on the wall, and spoke in my ear, as I thought you might be a spirit. You've got a most the face of one as is a sitting on the grave. I, Adam's new Bible. I come from the Hall Farm now. You know, Mrs. Poiser, she's my aunt, and she has heard of your great affliction, and is very sorry, and I'm come to see if I can be any help to you in your trouble, for I know your son's Adam and Seth, and I know you have no daughter, and when the clergyman told me how the hand of God was heavy upon you, my heart went out towards you, and I felt a command to come and be to you in the place of a daughter in this group, if you will let me. Ah, I know who you are now. You are a Methodie, like Seth. He's told me on you, said Lisbeth fretfully, her overpowering sense of pain returning. Now her wonder was gone. You'll make it out as troubles a good thing, like he always does. But where's the use of talking to me, at that time? He can't make the smart lest with talking. You'll near make me believe, as it's better for me not to have my old man die in his bed, if he must die, and have the person to pray by him, and me to sit by him, and tell him, near to mine, the ill words I've given him, sometimes when I were angry, and to give him a bit and a sup, as long as a bit and a sup he'd swallow, but ah, to die in the cold water, and use close to him, and near to know, and me as sleeping as if I near belong to him no more, nor if he'd been a journeyman tramp, from nobody knows where. Here Lisbeth began to cry and rock herself again, and Dinah said, Yes dear friend, your affliction is great. It would be hardness of heart to say that your trouble was not heavy to bear. God didn't send me to you to make light of your sorrow, but to mourn with you, if you will let me. If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because you'd think I should like to share those good things, but I should like better to share in your trouble and your labour, and it would seem harder to me if you denied me that. You won't send me away. You're not angry with me for coming. No, no, angered. Who said I were angered? It were good on you to come, and Seth, why don't you get her some tea? You were in a hurry to get some for me, as had no need, but you don't think are getting to for them as wants it. Sit you down, sit you down. I thank you kindly for coming, for it's a little wage you get by walking through the wet fields to see an old woman like me. No, I've got no daughter. I, my own near, had one. I were in a sorry. For their poor, quicky things, girls, this. I always wanted to have lads, as could then for their sins. And the lads all be marrying. I shall have daughters enough, and too many. But now, do you make the tea as you like it, for I've got no taste in my mouth this day. It's all one, what a spoiler. It's all got the taste of sorrow with. Dinah took care not to betray that she had had her tea, and accepted Elizabeth's invitation very readily. For the sake of persuading the old woman herself to take the food and drink, she so much needed after a day of hard work and fasting. Seth was so happy now, Dinah was in the house, that he could not help thinking her presence was worth purchasing, with a life in which grief incessantly followed upon grief. But the next moment he reproached himself. It was almost as if he was redressing in his father's sad death. Nevertheless, the joy of being with Dinah would triumph. It was like the influence of climate, which no resistance can overcome. And the feeling even suffused itself over his face, so as to attract his mother's notice, while she was drinking her tea. These may as well talk of trouble being a good thing, Seth. For thee thrivest on, thee looketh as if, thee knows, no more, or care and cumber, nor when thee was above thee a lying awake in the cradle. For these always lie still with thy eyes open, and Adam near on lie still a minute when he awakened. He was always like a bag of meal, as can near be bruised though. For the matter of that, thy poor father was just such another, that you've got the same look too. Here Lisbeth turned to Dinah. I reckon it's with been a methodie, not as I'm a finding fault with the fort, for we know called to be frightened, and somehow you look and sorry too. Well, if the methodies are fond of trouble, they're like to thrive. It's a pity they can't at all, and take it away from me as done alike it. I could have given him plenty, for when I'd gotten my old man I were warranted from mourn till night, and now he's gone, I'd be glad for the worst or again. Yes, said Dinah, careful not to oppose any feeling of Lisbeth's, for her reliance in her smallest words and deeds, on a divine guidance, always issued in that finest woman's tact, which proceeds from acute and ready sympathy. Yes, I remember too, when my dear aunt died, I longed for the sound of her bad cough in the nights, instead of the silence that came when she was gone. That now, dear friend, drink this other cup of tea and eat a little more. What? said Lisbeth, taking the cup and speaking in a less querulous tone. Had ye got no father and mother, then, as ye were so sorry about your aunt? No, I never knew a father or a mother. My aunt brought me up from a baby. She had no children, for she was never married, and she brought me up as tenderly as if I'd been her own child. She'd fine work with ye, I'll warrant bringing ye up from a baby, and her alone woman, it's ill bringing up a cad lame. But I dare say ye weren't a frenzy, for ye look as if ye need been angered in your life. But what did ye say when your aunt died, and why don't ye come to live in this country, being as Mrs. Poise as your aunt too? Dine has seen that Lisbeth's attention was attracted, told the story of her early life, how she'd been brought up to work hard, and what sort of place Snowfield was, and how many people had a hard life there, all the details that she thought likely to interest Lisbeth. The old woman listened, and forgot to be fretful, unconsciously subject to the soothing influence of Dine's face and voice. After a while she was persuaded to let the kitchen to be made tidy. The Dine was bent on this, believing that the sense of order and quietude around her would help in disposing Lisbeth to join in the prayer, she longed to pour forth at her side. Seth, meanwhile, went out to chalk wood, that he surmised that Dine would like to be left alone with his mother. Lisbeth sat watching her as she moved about in a still, quick way, and said at last, You've got a notion of cleaning up. I wouldn't mind yet for a daughter, for ye wouldn't spend the lad's wage in fine clothes and waste. You not like the lasses on this countryside. I reckon folks is different at Snowfield from what they are here. They have a different sort of life, many of them, said Dine up. They work at different things, some in the mill, and many in the mines, in the villages round about. But the heart of man is the same everywhere, and there are the children of this world, and the children of light there as well as elsewhere. But we've many more Methodists there than in this country. Well, I didn't know as a Methodi woman were like ye, for there's will masqueries white, as they say a big Methodi. Isn't pleasant to look at, at all. I'd as life look at a toad. And I'm thinking, and I wouldn't mind if ye'd stayed and sleep here, for I should like to see ye thy house in the morning. But may happen they'll be looking for ye at master poises. No, said Diner, they don't expect me, and I should like to stay if ye'll let me. Well, this room. I've got me bed laid in the little room of the back kitchen, and ye can lie beside me. I'd be glad to have ye with me to speak in the night, for ye've got a nice way of talking, and put me in mind that the swallows was under the fact last year, when they first began to sing low and soft like in the morning. Ah, but my old man were fond of them birds, and so were Adam. But there near come'd again this year. Happen they're dead too. There, said Diner, now the kitchen looks tidy, and now, dear mother, for I'm your daughter tonight. You know, I should like you to wash your face and have a clean cap on. Do ye remember what David did, when God took away his child from him? While the child was yet alive, he fasted and prayed to God to spare it, and he would neither eat nor drink, but lay on the ground all night, beseeching God for the child. But when he knew it was dead, he rose up from the ground and washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes and ate and drink, and when they asked him how it was that, he seemed to have left off grieving, now the child was dead. He said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live, but now he is dead? Wherefore, should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. Ah, that's a true word, said Elizabeth. Yeah, my old man want to come back to me, but I shall go to him, the sooner the better. Well, you may do as you like with me. There's a clean cap in the drawer, and I'll go in the back of the kitchen and wash my face. And set the most rich down Adam's new Bible with the pictures in, and she shall read us a chapter. Ah, I like them words, I shall go to him, but he want to come back to me. Dinah and Seth were both inwardly offering thanks for the greatest quietness of spirit that had come over Elizabeth. This was what Dinah had been trying to bring about, through all her still sympathy and absence from exhortation. From her girlhood upwards, she had had experience among the sick and the mourning, among minds hardened and shriveled through poverty and ignorance, and had gained the supless perception of the mode in which they could best be touched and softened into willingness to receive words of spiritual consultation or warning. As Dinah expressed it, she was never left to herself, but it was always given her when to keep silence and when to speak. And do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration? After our supless analysis of the mental process, we must still say, as Dinah did, that our highest thoughts and our best deeds are all given to us. And so there was earner's prayer, there was faith, love and hope, pouring forth that evening in the little kitchen. And poor aged, fretful Elizabeth, without grasping any distinct idea, without going through any course of religious emotions, felt a vague sense of goodness and love and of something right lying underneath and beyond all this sorrowing life. She couldn't understand the sorrow, but for these moments, under the subduing influence of Dinah's spirit, she felt that she must be patient and still. End of Chapter 10, Chapter 11 of Adam Bede. 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 Lucy Burgoyne. Adam Bede, by George Elliott. Chapter 11, In the Cottage. It was but half past four the next morning, when Dinah, tired of lying awake, listening to the birds and watching the growing light through the little window in the garret roof, rose and began to dress herself very quietly, lest she should disturb Elizabeth. But already someone else was a stirrer in the house, and had gone downstairs, preceded by Dup. The dog's pattering step was the sure sign that it was Adam who went down. But Dinah was not aware of this, and she thought it was more likely to be Seth, though he had told her how Adam had stayed up working the night before. Seth, however, had only just awakened at the sound of the opening door. The exciting influence of the previous day, heightened at last by Dinah's unexpected presence, had not been counteracted by any bodily weariness, that he had not done his ordinary amount of hard work, and so when he went to bed, it was not till he had tired himself with hours of tossing wakefulness that drowsiness came, and led on a heavier morning sleep than was usual with him. But Adam had been refreshed by his long rest, and with his habitual impatience of mere passivity, he was eager to begin the new day and subdue sadness by his strong will and strong arm. The white mist lay in the valley, it was going to be a bright warm day, and he would start to work again when he had had his breakfast. There's nothing but what's bearable as long as a man can work, he said to himself, the nature of things doesn't change, though it seems as if one's own life was nothing but change. The square of four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, it is true when a man's miserable, as when he's happy, and the best of working is, it gives you a grip hold of things outside your own lot. As he dashed the cold water over his head and face, he felt completely himself again, and with his black eyes as keen as ever and his thick black hair, all glistening with the fresh moisture, he went into the workshop to look out the wood for his father's coffin, intending that he and Seth should carry it with them to Jonathan Burgess, and have the coffin made by one of the workmen there, so that his mother might not see and hear the sad task going forward at home. He had just gone into the workshop when his quick ear detected a light rapid foot on the stairs, certainly not his mother's. He had been in bed and asleep when Dinah had come in in the evening, and now he wondered whose step this could be. A foolish thought came and moved him strangely, as if it could be heady. She was the last person likely to be in the house, and yet he felt reluctant to go and look and have the clear proof that it was someone else. He stood leaning on a plank he had taken hold of, listening to sounds which his imagination interpreted for him so pleasantly that the keen strong face became suffused with the timid tenderness. The light footstep moved about the kitchen, followed by the sound of the sweeping brush, hardly making so much noise as the lightest breeze that chases the autumn leaves along the dusty path, and Adam's imaginations saw a dimpled face with dark bright eyes and roguish smiles looking backward at this brush, and a rounded figure just leaning a little to clasp the handle. A very foolish thought it could not be heady, but the only way of dismissing such nonsense from his head was to go and see who it was, for his fancy only got nearer and nearer to the leaf while he stood there listening. He loosened the plank and went to the kitchen door. How do you do, Adam Bede? said Dinah, in a calm treble, pausing from her sweeping and fixing her mild grey eyes upon him. I trust you feel rested and strengthened again to bear the burden and heat of the day. It was like dreaming of the sunshine and a waking in the moonlight. Adam had seen Dinah several times, but always at the Hall Farm, where he was not very vividly conscious of any woman's presence except Hettie's, and he had only in the last day or two begun to suspect that Seth was in love with her, so that his attention had not either to been drawn towards her for his brother's sake, but now her slim figure, her plain black gown, and her pale, serene face impressed him with all the force that belongs to a reality contrasted with a preoccupying fancy. For the first moment or two he made no answer, but looked at her with the concentrated, examining glance which a man gives to an object in which he has suddenly begun to be interested. Dinah, for the first time in her life, felt a painful self-consciousness. There was something in the dark penetrating glance of this strong man so different from the mildness and timidity of his brother Seth. A faint blush came, which deepened as she wandered at it. This blush recalled Adam from his forgetfulness. I was quite taken by his surprise. It was very good of you to come and see my mother in her trouble, he said, in a gentle grateful tone. The his quick mind told him at once how she came to be there. I hope my mother was thankful to have you, he added, wondering rather anxiously what had been Dinah's reception. Yes, said Dinah, resuming her work. She seemed greatly comforted after a while, and she's had a good deal of rest in the night, by times. She was fast asleep when I left her. Who was it took the news to the whole farm, said Adam. His thoughts reverting to someone there. He wondered whether she had felt anything about it. It was Mr. Irvine, the clergyman, told me, and my aunt was grieved for your mother when she heard it, and wanted me to come. And so is my uncle. I'm sure, now, he's heard it, that he was gone out to Roseter all yesterday. They'll look for you there as soon as you've got time to go, for there's nobody around that half at what's good to see you. Dinah, with a sympathetic divination, knew quite well that Adam was longing to hear if Hetty had said anything about their trouble. She was too rigorously truthful for benevolent invention, but she had contrived to say something in which Hetty was tacitly included. Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary, hide and seek. It is pleased with assurances that at all the wild disbelieves. Adam liked what Dinah had said so much that his mind was directly full of the next visit he should pay to the whole farm. When Hetty would perhaps behave more kindly to him than she had ever done before. But you won't be there yourself any longer, he said to Dinah. No, I go back to Snowfield on Saturday, and I shall have to set out to Treadleston early, to be in time for Oakbourne Carrier, so I must go back to the farm tonight, that I may have the last day with my aunt and her children. But I can stay here all today, if your mother would like me, and her heart seemed inclined towards me last night. Ah, then, she's sure to want you today. If mother takes to people at the beginning, she's sure to get fond of them. But she's a strange way of not liking young women. Though, to be sure, Adam went on smiling. Her not liking other young women is no reason why she shouldn't like you. Hitherto, Jip had been assisting at this conversation in motionless silence, seated on his haunches, and alternately looking up in his master's face to watch its expression and observing Dinah's movements about the kitchen. The kind smile with which Adam uttered the last words was apparently decisive with Jip at the light in which the stranger was to be regarded. And as she turned round after putting aside her sweeping brush, he trotted towards her and put up his muzzle against her hand, in a friendly way. You see, Jip bids you welcome, said Adam, and he's very slow to welcome strangers. Poor dog, said Dinah, patting the rough grey coat. I've a strange feeling about the dumb things as if they wanted to speak, and it was a trouble to him because they couldn't. I can't help being sorry for the dogs always, though perhaps there's no need. But they may well have more in them than they know how to make us understand, for we can't say half what we feel with all our words. Seth came down now and was pleased to find Adam talking with Dinah. He wanted Adam to know how much better she was than all other women. But after a few words of greeting, Adam drew him into the workshop to consult about the coffin, and Dinah went on with their cleaning. By six o'clock they were all at breakfast, with Lisbeth in a kitchen as clean as she could have made it herself. The window and door were open, and the morning air brought with it a mingled scent of southern wood, thyme and sweet briar from the patch of garden by the side of the cottage. Dinah did not sit down at first, but moved about, serving the others with the warm porridge and the toasted oat cake, which she had got ready in the usual way, for she had asked Seth to tell her just what his mother gave them for breakfast. Lisbeth had been unusually silent since she came downstairs, apparently requiring some time to adjust her ideas to a state of things in which she came down like a lady to find all the work done, and sat still to be waited on. Her new sensations seemed to exclude the remembrance of her grief. At last, after tasting the porridge, she broke silence. You might have made the porridge worse, she said to Dinah. I can ate her with others turn on my stomach. It might have been a trifle thicker and no harm, and I always put in a spring of mint in myself. But how's it to know that? The lads are in a light to get folks as I'll make their porridge, as I've made it for them. It's well if they get on body as I'll make porridge at all. But you might do with a bit of showing, for you're a stirring body in a morning, and you've a light heel, and you've cleaned the house well enough for a may shift. Make shift, mother, said Adam. Why? I think the house looks beautiful. I don't know how it could look better. They don't know. No. How's it to know? The men knew now whether the floor's clean or cat licked. But they'll know when they get thy porridge burnt, as it's like enough to be when I'm gin or makin' it. They think thy mother wore good for something then. Dinah said, Seth, do come and sit down now and have your breakfast. We're all served now. Aye, come and sit you down, do, said Elizabeth, and ate a milttle. You'd need art of being up on your legs this hour and a half already. Come then, she added, in a tone of complaining affection. As Dinah sat down by her side, I'll be low for you go. But you can't stay much longer. I doubt. I could put up with you in the house better nor with most folks. I'll stay till tonight, if you're willing, said Dinah. I'd stay longer, only I'm going back to Snowfield on Saturday, and I must be with my aunt tomorrow. Ah, I'd near go back to that country. My old man come from that stonishire side, that he left it when he were a young, and I the right on two. But he said, as there were no wood there, and it ought have been a bad country for a carpenter. I said, Adam, I remember father telling me when I was a little lad, that he made up his mind, if ever he moved, it should be south of. But I'm not so sure about it. Bartle Massie says, and he knows the south, as the northern men are a finer breed than the southern, harder-headed and stronger-bodied, and a deal taller. And then he says, in some of those counties, it's as flat as the back of your hand, and you can see nothing of a distance without climbing up the highest trees. I couldn't abide that. I like to go to work by a road, that'll take me up a bit of the hill, and see the fields for miles around me, and a bridge, or a town, or a bit of steeple here and there. It makes you feel the world's a big place, and there's no other men working in it, with their heads and hands beside yourself. I like the hills best, said Seth, when the clouds are over your head, and you see the sun shining ever so far off, over the Loneford Way, as I've often done a lake on the stormy days. It seems to me as if that was heaven, where there's always joy and sunshine, though this life's dark and cloudy. Oh, I love the stony, shy side, said Dinah. I shouldn't like to set my face towards the countries where they're rich in corn and cattle, and the ground so level and easy to tread, and to turn my back on the hills where the poor people have to live such a hard life, and the men spend their days in the mines away from the sunlight. It's very blessed on a bleak cold day, when the sky is hanging dark over the hill, to feel the love of God in one soul, and carry it to the lonely, bare, stone houses, where there's nothing else to give comfort. Hey, said Lisbeth, that's very well for you to talk, as looks welly, like the snow-drop flowers, has your lip for days and days, when I'm given, and with nothing but a drop of water and paper daylight, but the hungry folks had better leave the hungry country. It makes less mouths for the scant cake, but she went on, looking at Adam. Dona D. Talk are going south and all northern, and neither my father and mother either churchyard and going to a country as they know nothing on. Only rest on my grave if I donna see thee, I'd churchyard over Sunday. Dona fear, mother, said Adam, if I hadn't made up my mind not to go, I should have been gone before now. He had finished his breakfast now, and rose as he was speaking. What aren't going to do? asked Lisbeth. Set about thy father's coffin. No, mother, said Adam, we're going to take the wood to the village, and have it made there. No, my lad, no. Lisbeth burst out in an eager, wailing tone, that he won't not let nobody make thy father's coffin, but thy sin. Who'd make it so well, and him is know'd what could work for, and got a son as it is the head of the village, and all treadles on too, for cleverness. Very well, mother, if that's thy wish, I'll make the coffin at home, that I thought thee would snarl light to hear the work going on. And why shouldn't I like it? It's the right thing to be done. And what's liking got to do with? It's choice, O mislikings, is all in God's eye this world. One morsels as good as another, when your mouth's out of taste. The munn, set about it now this morning, first thing. I want to have nobody to touch the coffin but thee. Adam's eyes met Seth's, which looked from Diner to him rather wistfully. No, mother, he said, I'll knock consent, but Seth shall have a hand in it too, if it's to be done at home. I'll go to the village this forenoon, because Mr. Burge will want to see me. And Seth shall stay at home and begin the coffin. I can come back at noon, and then he can go. No, no, persisted Lyspeth, beginning to cry. In Seth my heart, on Azeshalt Ma, thy father's coffin, thee so stiff and masterful, thee near, do as thy mother wants thee. Thou wasst often angered with thy father when he were alive. Thou must be the better to him now, he's gone. He had thought nothing on to for Seth, to Ma's coffin. So no more, Adam, so no more, said Seth gently, though his voice told that he spoke with some method. Mother's in the right, I'll go to work and do thee stay at home. He passed into the workshop immediately, followed by Adam, while Lyspeth automatically obeying her old habits, began to put away the breakfast things, as if she did not mean Diner to take her place any longer. Diner said nothing, but presently used the opportunity of quietly joining the brothers in the workshop. They had already got on their aprons and paper caps, and Adam was standing with his left hand on Seth's shoulder, while he pointed with the hammer in his right to some boards which they were looking at. Their backs were turned towards the door by which Diner entered, and she came in so gently that they were not aware of their presence till they heard her voice saying, Seth, Bede, Seth started, and they both turned around. Diner looked as if she did not see Adam, and fixed her eyes on Seth's face, saying with calm kindness, I won't say farewell, I shall see you again when you come from work, so as I'm at the farm before dark it will be quite soon enough. Thank you, Diner, I should like to walk home with you once more. It'll perhaps be the last time. There was a little tremor in Seth's voice. Diner put out a hand and said, you'll have sweet peace in your mind today, Seth, for your tenderness and long suffering towards your aged mother. She turned round and left the workshop as quickly and quietly as she had entered it. Adam had been observing her closely all the while, but she had not looked at him. As soon as she was gone he said, I don't wonder at thee for loving her, Seth. She's got a face like a lily. Seth's soul rushed to his eyes and moops. He had never yet confessed his secret to Adam, but now he felt a delicious sense of dispersement as he answered, I, Addy, I do love her too much, I doubt. But she doesn't love me, lad, only as one child a god loves another. She'll never love any man as a husband, that's my belief. Nay, there's no telling, thee mustn't lose heart. She's made out of stuff with the finer grain that most of the women. I can see that clear enough, but if she's better than they are in other things, I cannot think she'll fall short of them in love. No more was said, Seth set out to the village and Adam began his work on the coffin. God helped the lad and me too, he thought, as he lifted the board. We're like enough to find life a tough job, hard work inside and out. It's a strange thing to think of a man as can lift a chair with his teeth and walk fifty-mile on end, trembling and turning, hot and cold, and only a look from one woman out of all the rest of the world. It's a mystery we can give no account of, but no more we can ult the sprouting of the seed, for that matter. End of Chapter 11. That same Thursday morning, as Arthur Donathon was moving about in his dressing room, seeing his well-looking British person reflected in the old-fashioned mirrors, and stared at from a dingy olive-green piece of tapestry by Pharaoh's daughter and her maidens, who ought to have been minding the infant Moses, he was holding a discussion with himself, which, by the time his valet was tying the black silk sling over his shoulder, had issued in a distinct practical resolution. I mean to go to Eagledale and fish for a week or so, he said aloud. I shall take you with me, Pym, and set off this morning, so be ready by half past eleven. The low whistle, which had assisted him in arriving at this resolution, here broke out into his loudest ringing tenor, and the corridor, as he hurried along it, echoed to his favorite song from the beggar's opera, when the heart of a man is oppressed with care. Not in a heroic strain, nevertheless Arthur felt himself very heroic as he strode towards the stables to give his orders about the horses. His own approbation was necessary to him, and it was not an approbation to be enjoyed quite gratuitously. It must be won by a fair amount of merit. He had never yet forfeited that approbation, and he had considerable reliance on his own virtues. No young man could confess his faults more candidly. Candor was one of his favorite virtues. And how can a man's Candor be seen in all its luster, unless he has a few failings to talk of? But he had an agreeable confidence that his faults were all of a generous kind. Impetuous, warm-blooded, leonine, never-crawling, crafty, reptilian. It was not possible for Arthur Donathon to do anything mean, dastardly, or cruel. No, I'm a devil of a fellow for getting myself into a hobble, but I always take care of the load shall fall on my own shoulders. Unhappily there is no inherent poetical justice in hobbles, and they will sometimes obstinately refuse to inflict their worst consequences on the prime offender, in spite of his loudly expressed wish. It was entirely owing to this deficiency in the scheme of things that Arthur had ever brought anyone into trouble besides himself. He was nothing if not good-natured, and all his pictures of the future when he should come into the estate were made up of a prosperous, contented tenetry, adoring their landlord, who would be the model of an English gentleman. Mentioned in first-right order, all elegance and high taste, jolly housekeeping, finest stud and loam-sure, purse open to all public objects. In short, everything is different as possible from what was now associated with the name of Donathon. And one of the first good actions he would perform in that future should be to increase Irwin's income for the vicarage of hastelope, so that he might keep a carriage for his mother and sisters. His hearty affection for the rector dated from the age of frocks and trousers. It was an affection partly filial, partly fraternal—fraternal enough to make him like Irwin's company better than that of most younger men, and filial enough to make him shrink strongly from incurring Irwin's disapprobation. You perceive that Arthur Donathon was a good fellow—all his college friends thought him such? He couldn't bear to see anyone uncomfortable. He would have been sorry even in his angriest moods for any harm to happen to his grandfather, and his Aunt Lydia herself had the benefit of that soft-heartedness which he bore towards the whole sex. Whether he would have self-mastering enough to be always as harmless and purely beneficent as his good nature led him to desire was a question that no one had yet decided against him. He was but twenty-one, you remember, and we don't inquire too closely into character in the case of a handsome, generous young fellow, who will have property enough to support numerous pecadillos, who, if he should, unfortunately break a man's legs in his rash driving, will be able to pension him handsomely, or if he should happen to spoil a woman's existence for her, will make it up to her with expensive bonbons packed up and directed by his own hand. It would be ridiculous to be prying and analytic in such cases as if one were inquiring into the character of a confidential clerk. We use round general gentlemanly epithets about a young man of birth and fortune, and ladies, with that fine intuition which is the distinguishing attribute of their sex, see at once that he is nice. The chances are that he will go through life without scandalizing anyone, a seaworthy vessel that no one would refuse to ensure. Ships certainly are liable to casualties, which sometimes make terribly evident some flaw in their construction that would never have been discoverable in smooth water, and many a good fellow, through a disastrous combination of circumstances, has undergone alike the trail. But we have no fair ground for entertaining unfavorable auguries concerning Arthur Donathon, who this morning proves himself capable of a prudent resolution founded on conscience. One thing is clear. Nature has taken care that he shall never go far astray with perfect comfort and satisfaction to himself. He will never get beyond that borderland of sin, where he will be perpetually harassed by assaults from the other side of the boundary. He will never be a courtier of vice and wear her orders in his buttonhole. It was about ten o'clock, and the sun was shining brilliantly. Everything was looking lovelier for the yesterday's rain. It is a pleasant thing on such a morning to walk along the well-rolled gravel on one's ways to the stables, meditating an excursion. But the scent of the stables, which in a natural state of things ought to be among the soothing influences of a man's life, always brought with it some irritation to Arthur. There was no having his own way in the stables. Everything was managed in a stingiest fashion. His grandfather persisted in retaining his head-groom, an old dolt whom no sort of lever could move out of his old habit, and who was allowed to hire a succession of raw loam-sure lads as his subordinate, one of whom had lately tested a new pair of shears by clipping an oblong patch on Arthur's bay mare. This state of things is naturally embittering. One can put up with annoyances in the house, but to have the stable made a scene of vexation and disgust is a point beyond what human flesh and blood can be expected to endure long together, without danger of misanthropy. Old John's wooden, deep-wrinkled face was the first object that met Arthur's eyes as he entered the stable-yard, and it quite poisoned for him the bark of the two blood-hounds that kept watch there. He could never speak quite patiently to the old blockhead. You must have Megs settled for me and brought to the door at half past eleven, and I shall want Rattler settled for him at the same time. Do you hear? Yes, I hear, I hear, Captain, said old John very deliberately, following the young master into the stable. John considered a young master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in general, as the poor contrivance for carrying on the world. Arthur went in for the sake of patting Meg, declining as far as possible to see anything in the stables, lest he should lose his temper before breakfast. The pretty creature was in one of the inner stables, and turned her mild head as her master came beside her. Little Trot, a tiny spaniel, her insupperable companion in the stable, was comfortably curled up on her back. Well, Meg, my pretty girl, said Arthur, patting her neck, will have a glorious counter this morning. Nay, your honour, I don't see as that can be, said John. Not be, why not? Why, she's got lame'd. Lame'd confound you, what do you mean? Why, the lad took her too close to Dalton's houses and one of them flung out at her, and she's got her shank bruised over the mere foreleg. The judicious historian abstains from narrating precisely what ensued. You understand that there was a great deal of strong language, mingled with soothing, who ho's, while the leg was examined, that John stood by with quite as much emotion as if he had been a cunningly carved crab-tree walking-stick, and that Arthur Donathon presently repass the iron gates of the pleasure-ground without singing as he went. He considered himself thoroughly disappointed and annoyed. There was not another mount in the stable for himself and his servant besides Meg and Rattler. It was vexatious, just when he wanted to get out of the way for a week or two. It seemed culpable and providence to allow such a combination of circumstances. To be shut up at the chase with a broken arm, when every other fellow in his regiment was enjoying himself at Windsor, shut up with his grandfather, who had the same sort of affection for him as for his parchment deeds, and to be disgusted at every turn with the management of the house and the estate. In such circumstances a man necessarily gets in an ill humour, and works off the irritation by some accessor other. Salkold would have drunk a bottle of port every day, he muttered to himself, but I'm not well seasoned enough for that. Well, since I can't go to Eagledale, I'll have a gallop on Rattler to Norburn this morning and lunch with Gawain. Behind this explicit resolution there lay an implicit one. If he lunched with Gawain and lingered chatting, he should not reach the chase again till nearly five, when Hetty would be safe out of his sight in the housekeeper's room, and when she set out to go home it would be his lazy time after dinner, so he should keep out of her way altogether. There really would have been no harm in being kind to the little thing, and it was worth dancing with a dozen ballroom bells only to look at Hetty for half an hour, but perhaps he had better not take any more notice of her. It might put notions into her head, as Irvine had hinted. The warthor for his part thought girls were not by any means so soft and easily bruised. Indeed, he had generally found them twice as cool and cunning as he was himself. As for any real harm in Hetty's case, it was out of the question. Arthur Donothorn accepted his own bond for himself with perfect confidence. So the twelve o'clock sun saw him galloping towards Norburn, and by good fortune Halsel Common lay in his road and gave him some fine leaps for Rattler, nothing like taking a few bushes and dishes for exercising a demon, and it is really astonishing that the centaurs, with their immense advantages in this way, have left so bad a reputation in history. After this, you will perhaps be surprised to hear that although Gawain was at home, the hand of the dial in the courtyard had scarcely cleared the last stroke of three when Arthur returned through the entrance gates, got down from the panting Rattler, and went into the house to take a hasty luncheon. But I believe there have been men since his day who have ridden a long way to avoid a Rinhantra, and then galloped hastily back lest they should miss it. It is the favorite stratagem of our passions to sham a retreat, and to turn sharp round upon us at the moment we have made up our minds that the day is our own. The captain's been riding the devil's own pace, said Dalton, the coachman, whose person stood out in high relief as he smoked his pipe against the stable wall when John brought up Rattler. And I wish he'd get the devil to do his grooming for him, growled John. I, he'd have a deal him or groom nor what he has now observed Dalton. And the joke appeared to him so good that, being left alone upon the scene, he continued at intervals to take his pipe from his mouth in order to wink at an imaginary audience, and shake luxuriously with a silent ventral laughter, mentally rehearsing the dialogue from the beginning that he might recite it with effect in the servant's hall. When Arthur went up to his dressing room again after luncheon, it was inevitable that the debate he had had with himself there earlier in the day should flash across his mind. But it was impossible for him now to dwell on the remembrance. Impossible to recall the feelings and reflections which had been decisive with him then, any more than to recall the peculiar scent of the arrow that had freshened him when he first opened his window. The desire to see Hattie had rushed back like an ill-stemmed current. He was amazed himself at the force with which this trivial fancy seemed to grasp him. He was even rather tremulous as he brushed his hair. It was riding in that breakneck way. It was because he had made a serious affair of an idle matter by thinking of it as if it were of any consequence. He would amuse himself by seeing Hattie today and get rid of the whole thing from his mind. It was all Irvine's fault. If Irvine had said nothing, I shouldn't have thought half so much of Hattie as of Meg's limbness. However, it was just the sort of day for lolling in the Hermitage, and he would go and finish Dr. Moore's Zaluko there before dinner. The Hermitage stood in fir tree grove, the way Hattie was sure to come in walking from the Hall Farm. So nothing could be simpler and more natural. Meeting Hattie was a mere circumstance of his walk, not its object. Arthur's shadow flitted rather faster among the sturdy oaks of the chase than might have been expected from the shadow of a tired man on a warm afternoon. And it was still scarcely four o'clock when he stood before the tall narrow gate, leading into the delicious, labyrinthine wood which skirted one side of the chase, and which was called fir tree grove, not because the firs were many, but because they were few. It was a wood of beaches and limes, with here and there a light silver-stemmed birch, just the sort of wood most haunted by the nymphs. You see their white sunlit limbs gleaming a thwart the boughs, or peeping from behind the smooth, sweeping outline of a tall lime. You hear their soft, liquid laughter. But if you look with a too curious, sacrilegious eye, they vanish behind the silvery beaches. They make you believe that their voice was only a running brooklet. Perhaps they metamorphosed themselves into a tiny squirrel that scampered away and moxed you from the topmost bow. It was not a grove with measured grass or rolled gravel for you to tread upon, but with narrow, hollow-shaped earthy paths, edged with faint dashes of delicate moss, paths which look as if they were made by the free will of the trees and underwood, moving reverently aside to look at the tall queen of the white-footed nymphs. It was along the broadest of these paths that Arthur Donothorn passed, under an avenue of limes and beaches. It was a still afternoon. The golden light was lingering languidly among the upper boughs, only glancing down here and there on the purple pathway and its edge of faintly sprinkled moss. An afternoon in which destiny disguises her cold, awful face behind a hazy, radiant veil encloses us in warm, downy wings and poisons us with violet-centred breath. Arthur strolled along carelessly, with a book under his arm, but not looking on the ground as meditative men are apt to do. His eyes would fix themselves on the distant bend in the road round which a little figure must surely appear before long. Ah! there she comes! First a bright patch of color, like a tropic bird among the bows, then a tripping figure with a round hat on and a small basket under her arm, then a deep blushing, almost frightened but bright smiling girl, making her curtsy with a fluttered yet happy glance, as Arthur came up to her. If Arthur had had time to think it all, he would have thought it strange that he should feel fluttered too, be conscious of blushing too, in fact look and feel just as foolish as if he had been taken by surprise, instead of meeting just what he expected. Poor thing! It was a pity they were not in that golden age of childhood when they would have stood face to face, eyeing each other with timid liking, then giving each other a little butterfly kiss and toddled off to play together. Arthur would have gone home to his silk curtain caught and heady to her home spun pillow and both would have slept without dreams and Tamara would have been alive hardly conscious of the yesterday. Arthur turned round and walked by heady side without giving a reason. They were alone together for the first time. What an overpowering presence that first privacy is. He actually dared not look at this little butter maker for the first minute or two. As for heady her feet rested on a cloud and she was born along by warm zephyrs. She had forgotten her rose-coloured ribbons. She was no more conscious of her limbs than if her childish soul had passed into a water lily resting on a liquid bed and warmed by the midsummer sunbeams. It may seem a contradiction but Arthur gathered a certain carelessness and confidence from his timidity. It was an entirely different state of mind from what he had expected in such a meeting with heady and full as he was of vague feeling there was room in those moments of silence for the thought that his previous debates and scruples were needless. You are quite right to choose this way of coming to the chase, he said at last, looking down at heady. It is so much prettier as well as shorter than coming by either of the lodges. Yes, sir, heady answered, with a tremulous, almost whispering voice. She didn't know one bit how to speak to a gentleman like Mr. Arthur and her very vanity made her more coy of speech. Do you come every week to see Mrs. Pomfret? Yes, sir, every Thursday, only when she's got to go out with Miss Dondiforn. And she's teaching you something, is she? Yes, sir, the lace-mending as she learned abroad and the stocking-mending. It looks just like the stocking, you can't tell it's been mended, and she teaches me cutting out, too. What? Are you going to be a lady's made? I should like to be one very much indeed. Heady spoke more audibly now, but still rather tremulously. She thought perhaps she seemed as stupid to Captain Dondiforn as Luke Britton did to her. I suppose Mrs. Pomfret always expects you at this time. She expects me at four o'clock. I'm rather late today because my aunt couldn't spare me, but the regular time is four, because that gives us time before Miss Dondiforn's bell rings. Ah, then, I must not keep you now. Else I should like to show you the hermitage. Did you ever see it? No, sir? This is the walk where we turn up to it, but we must not go now. I'll show it to you some other time, if you'd like to see it. Yes, please, sir. Do you always come back this way in the evening, or are you afraid to come so lonely a road? Oh, no, sir, it's never late. I always set out by eight o'clock, and it's so light now in the evening. My aunt would be angry with me if I didn't get home before nine. Perhaps Craig, the gardener, comes to take care of you? A deep blush overspread Heddy's face and neck. I'm sure he doesn't. I'm sure he never did. I wouldn't let him. I don't like him, she said hastily, and the tears of vexation had come so fast that before she had done speaking a bright drop rolled down her hot cheek. Then she felt ashamed to death that she was crying, and for one long instant her happiness was all gone. But in the next she felt an arm still round her and a gentle voice said, Why, Heddy, what makes you cry? I didn't mean to vex you. I wouldn't vex you for the world, you little blossom. Come, don't cry. Look at me, else I shall think you won't forgive me. Arthur had laid his hand on the soft arm that was nearest to him, and was stooping towards Heddy with a look of coaxing and treating. Heddy lifted her long, dewy lashes and met the eyes that were bent towards her with a sweet, timid, beseeching look. What a space of time those three moments were while their eyes met and his arms touched her. Love is such a simple thing when we have only one in twenty summers, and a sweet girl of seventeen trembles under our glance, as if she were a bud first opening her heart with wondering rapture to the morning. Such young, unfurrowed souls roll to meet each other, like two velvet peaches that touch softly and are at rest. They mingle as easily as two brooklets that ask for nothing but to entwine themselves and ripple with ever interlacing curves in the leafiest hiding places. While Arthur gazed into Heddy's dark, beseeching eyes, it made no difference to him what sort of English she spoke, and even if hoops and powder had been in fashion, he would very likely not have been sensible just then that Heddy wanted those signs of high breeding. But they started asunder with beating hearts. Something had fallen on the ground with a rattling noise. It was Heddy's basket. All her little work woman's matters were scattered on the path, some of them showing a capability of rolling to great lengths. There was much to be done in picking up, and not a word was spoken, but when Arthur hung the basket over her arm again, the poor child felt a strange difference in his look and manner. He just pressed her hand and said with a look and tone that were almost chilling to her, I have been hindering you. I must not keep you any longer now. You will be expected at the house. Goodbye. Without waiting for her to speak, he turned away from her and hurried back towards the road that led to the hermitage, leaving Heddy to pursue her way in a strange dream that seemed to have begun in bewildering delight and was now passing into contrarities and sadness. Would he meet her again as she came home? Why had he spoken almost as if he were displeased with her and then run away so suddenly? She cried, hardly knowing why. Arthur, too, was very uneasy, but his feelings were lit up for him by a more distinct consciousness. He hurried to the hermitage, which stood in the heart of the wood, unlocked the door with a hasty wrench, slammed it after him, pitched Saluko into the most distant corner and thrusting his right hand into his pocket, first walked four or five times up and down the scanty length of the little room, and then seated himself on the ottoman in an uncomfortable, stiff way, as we often do when we wish not to abandon ourselves to feeling. He was getting in love with Heddy, that was quite plain. He was ready to pitch everything else, no matter where, for the sake of surrendering himself to this delicious feeling which had just disclosed itself. It was no use blinking the fact now. They would get too fond of each other, if he went on taking notice of her, and what would come of it? He should have to go away in a few weeks, and the poor little thing would be miserable. He must not see her alone again. He must keep out of her way. What a fool he was for coming back from Gawain. He got up and threw open the windows to let in the soft breath of the afternoon, and the healthy scent of the furs that made a belt round the hermitage. The soft air did not help his resolution, as he leaned out and looked into the leafy distance. But he considered his resolution sufficiently fixed. There was no need to debate with himself any longer. He had made up his mind not to meet Heddy again. And now he might give himself up to thinking how immensely agreeable it would be if circumstances were different. How pleasant it would have been to meet her this evening, as she came back, and put his arm round her again, and look into her sweet face. He wondered if the dear little thing were thinking of him too. Twenty to one she was. How beautiful her eyes were with the tear on their lashes. He would like to satisfy his soul for a day with looking at them. And he must see her again. He must see her, simply to remove any false impression from her mind about his manner to her just now. He would behave in a quiet, kind way to her, just to prevent her from going home with her head full of wrong fancies. Yes, that would be the best thing to do after all. It was a long while, more than an hour before Arthur had brought his meditations to this point. But once arrived there he could stay no longer at the Hermitage. The time must be filled up with movement until he should see Heddy again. And it was already late enough to go and dress for dinner, for his grandfather's dinner hour was six. CHAPTER XIII. EVENING IN THE WOOD It happened that Mrs. Pomfret had had slight quarrel with Mrs. Best, the housekeeper on this Thursday morning. A fact which had two consequences highly convenient to Heddy. It caused Mrs. Pomfret to have tea sent up to her own room, and it inspired that exemplary ladies made with so lively a recollection of former passages in Mrs. Best's conduct, and of dialogues in which Mrs. Best had decidedly the inferiority as an interlocutor with Mrs. Pomfret. That Heddy required no more presence of mind than was demanded for using her needle, and throwing in an occasional yes or no. She would have wanted to put on her hat earlier than usual, only she had told Captain Donothorn that she usually set out about eight o'clock, and if he should go to the grove again expecting to see her, she should be gone. Would he come? Her little butterfly soul fluttered incessantly between memory and dubious expectation. At last the minute hand of the old fashioned brazen face timepiece was on the last quarter to eight, and there was every reason for its being time to get ready for departure. Even Mrs. Pomfret's preoccupied mind did not prevent her from noticing what looked like a new flesh of beauty in the little thing as she tied on her hat before the looking glass. That child gets prettier and prettier every day, I do believe, was her inward comment. The more is the pity, she'll get neither a place nor a husband any the sooner for it. Sober will to do men don't like such pretty wives. When I was a girl, I was more admired than if I had been so very pretty. However, she's reason to be grateful to me for teaching her something to get her bread with, better than farmhouse work. They always told me I was good-natured, and that's the truth and to my hurt too, else there's them in this house that wouldn't be here now to lord it over me in the housekeeper's room. Heddy walked hastily across the short space of pleasure ground which she had to traverse, dreading to meet Mr. Craig, to whom she could hardly have spoken civilly, how relieved she was when she had got safely under the oaks and among the fern of the chase. Even then she was as ready to be startled as the deer that leaped away at her approach. She thought nothing of the evening light that lay gently in the grassy alleys between the fern, and made the beauty of their living green more visible than it had been in the overpowering flood of noon. She thought of nothing that was present. She only saw something that was possible, Mr. Arthur Donathon coming to meet her again along the fir tree grove. That was the foreground of Heddy's picture. Behind it lay a bright hazy something, days that were not to be as the other days of her life had been. It was as if she had been wooed by a river god who might any time take her to his wondrous halls below a watery heaven. There was no knowing what would come since this strange and trancing delight had come. If a chest full of lace and satin and jewels had been sent her from some unknown source, how could she but have thought that her whole law was going to change, and that tomorrow some still more bewildering joy would befall her? Heddy had never read a novel. If she had ever seen one, I think the woods would have been too hard for her. How then could she find a shape for her expectations? They were as formless as the sweet languid odours of the garden at the chase, which had floated past her as she walked by the gate. She is at another gate now, that leading into fir tree grove. She enters the wood where it is already twilight, and at every step she takes, the fear at her heart becomes colder. If he should not come, oh how dreary it was the thought of going out at the other end of the wood into the unsheltered road without having seen him. She reaches the first turning towards the hermitage, walking slowly. He is not there. She hates the lever that runs across the path. She hates everything that is not what she longs for. She walks on happy whenever she is coming to a bend in the road, for perhaps he is behind it. No. She is beginning to cry. Her heart has swelled so. The tears stand in her eyes. She gives one great sob while the corners of her mouth quiver and the tears roll down. She doesn't know that there is another turning to the hermitage, that she is close against it, and that Arthur Donathon is only a few yards from her, full of one thought, and a thought of which she only is the object. He is going to see Hetty again, that is the longing which has been growing through the last three hours to a feverish thirst. Not of course to speak in the caressing way into which she had unguardedly fallen before dinner, but to set things right with her by a kindness which would have the air of friendly civility and prevent her from running away with wrong notions about their mutual relation. If Hetty had known he was there, she would not have cried, and it would have been better, for then Arthur would perhaps have behaved as wisely as he had intended. As it was, she started when he appeared at the end of the side alley, and looked up at him with two great drops rolling down her cheeks. What else could he do but speak to her in a soft, soothing tone as if she were a bright eyed spaniel with a thorn in her foot? Has something frightened you Hetty? Have you seen anything in the wood? Don't be frightened, I'll take care of you now. Hetty was blushing so, she didn't know whether she was happy or miserable, to be crying again. What did gentlemen think of girls who cried in that way? She felt unable even to say no, but could only look away from him and wipe the tears from her cheek. Not before a great drop had fallen on her rose-colored strings, she knew that quite well. Come be cheerful again, smile at me and tell me what's the matter. Come, tell me. Hetty turned her head towards him, whispered. I thought she wouldn't come, and slowly got courage to lift her eyes to him. That look was too much, he must have had eyes of Egyptian granite not to look too lovingly in return. Little frightened bird, little tearful rose, silly pet, you won't cry again now I'm with you, will you? Ah, he doesn't know in the least what he is saying. This is not what he meant to say. His arm is stealing around the waist again, it is tightening its clasp. He is bending his face nearer and nearer to the round cheek. His lips are meeting those pouting child lips, and for a long moment time has vanished. He may be a shepherd in Arcadia, for odd he knows. He may be the first youth kissing the first maiden. He may be arrows himself, sipping the lips of Psyche. It is all one. There was no speaking for minutes after. They walked along with beating hearts till they came within sight of the gate at the end of the wood. Then they looked at each other, not quite as they had looked before, for in their eyes there was the memory of a kiss. But already something bitter had begun to mingle itself with the fountain of sweets. Already Arthur was uncomfortable. He took his arm from Hedi's waist and said, Here we are, almost at the end of the grove. I wonder how late it is, he added, pulling out his watch. Twenty minutes past eight. That watch is too fast. However, I'd better not go any further now. Trot along quickly with your little feet and get home safely. Goodbye. He took her hand and looked at her half-sadly, half with a constrained smile. Hedi's eyes seemed to beseech him not to go away yet, but he patted her cheek and said goodbye again. She was obliged to turn away from him and go on. As for Arthur, he rushed back through the wood as if he wanted to put a wide space between himself and Hedi. He would not go to the hermitage again. He remembered how he had debated with himself there before dinner, and it had all come to nothing, worse than nothing. He walked right on into the chase, glad to get out of the grove, which surely was haunted by his evil genius. Those beaches and smooth limes, there was something innervating in the very sight of them, but the strong knotted old oaks had no bending langer in them. The sight of them would give a man some energy. Arthur lost himself among the nearer openings in the fern, whining about without seeking any issue, till the twilight deepened almost tonight under the great boughs, and the hair looked black as it darted across his path. He was feeling much more strongly than he had done in the morning. It was as if his horse had wheeled around from a leap and dared to dispute his mastery. He was dissatisfied with himself, irritated, mortified. He no sooner fixed his mind on the probable consequences of giving way to the emotions which had stolen over him today, of continuing to notice Hedi, of allowing himself any opportunity for such slight caresses as he had been betrayed into already. Then he refused to believe such a future possible for himself. To flirt with Hedi was a very different affair from flirting with a pretty girl of his own station. That was understood to be an amusement on both sides, or if it became serious, there was no obstacle to marriage. But this little thing would be spoken ill of directly, if she happened to be seen walking with him. And then those excellent people, the poisers, to whom a good name was as precious as if they had the best blood in the land and their veins. He should hate himself if he made a scandal of that sort, on the estate that was to be his own someday, and among tenants by whom he liked, above all, to be respected. He could no more believe that he should so fall in his own esteem than that he should break both his legs and go on crutches all the rest of his life. He couldn't imagine himself in that position, it was too odious, too unlike him. And even if no one knew anything about it, they might get too fond of each other, and then there could be nothing but the misery of parting after all. No gentleman out of a ballad could marry a farmer's niece. There must be an end to the whole thing at once. It was too foolish. And yet he had been so determined this morning before he went to Gowens, and while he was there something had taken hold of him and made him gallop back. It seemed he couldn't quite depend on his own resolution as he had thought he could. He almost wished his arm would get painful again, and then he should think of nothing but the comfort it would be to get rid of the pain. There was no knowing what impulse might seize him tomorrow in this confounded place, where there was nothing to occupy him imperiously through the live long day. What could he do to secure himself from any more of this folly? There was but one resource. He would go and tell Irwin, tell him everything. The mere act of telling it would make it seem trivial. The temptation would vanish as the charm of fond words vanishes when one repeats them to the indifferent, and every way it would help him to tell Irwin. He would write to Broxton Rectory the first thing after breakfast tomorrow. Arthur had no sooner come to this determination than he began to think which of the paths would lead him home, and made his shore to walk thither as he could. He felt sure he should sleep now. He had had enough to tire him, and there was no more need for him to think. CHAPTER 14 THE RETURN HOME While that parting in the wood was happening, there was a parting in the cottage, too, and Lisbeth had stood with Adam at the door, straining her aged eyes to get the last glimpse of Seth and Diana as they mounted the opposite slope. Eh, I'm loath to see the last on her, she said to Adam, as they turned into the house again. I'd have been willing to have her about me till I died and went to lie by my old man. She'd make it easier, Diane. She spikes so gentle and moves about so still. I could be fast sure that picture was draught for her as I knew Bible, the angel is sitting on the big stone by the grave. Eh, I wouldn't mind having a daughter like that. But nobody ne'er marries them as is good for Art. Well, mother, I hope they will have her for a daughter, for Seth's got a liking for her, and I hope she'll get a liking for Seth in time. Where is the use of talking to that, and she cares not for Seth? She's going away, twenty mile off. How's she to get a liking for him, I'd like to know. No more nor the cake will come without the leaven. Thy figurine books might have told thee better nor that. I should think, else thee mice as well read the common print as Seth always does. Name others, said Adam, laughing. The figures tell us a fine deal, and we couldn't go far without them, but they don't tell us about folks' feeling. It's a nicer job to calculate them. But Thess is good-hearted alad has ever handled the tool, and plenty of sense and good-looking too, and he's got the same way of thinking as Dinah. He deserves to win her, though there's no denying she's a rare bit of workmanship. You don't see such women turned off the wheel every day. Eh, deal tallies, stick up for thy brother. They've been just the same, ere sin ye were, little ins together. They weren't always for halfing everything with him. But what's Seth got to do with Merian, as is only three and twenty? He'd more need to learn and lay by six-pence. And as for his deserving her, she's two-year-older nor Seth, she's pretty near as old as thee. But that's the way. Folks' men always choose by contraries, as if they must be sorted like the pork, a bit of good meat with a bit of awful. To the feminine mind, in some of its moods, all things that might be receive a temporary charm from comparison with what is. And since Adam did not want to marry Dinah himself, Lisbeth felt rather peevish on that score. As peevish as she would have been if he had wanted to marry her, and so shut himself out from Mary Burge and the partnership as effectually as by marrying Hetty. It was more than half past eight when Adam and his mother were talking in this way. So that when about ten minutes later Hetty reached the turning of the lane that led to the farmyard gate, she saw Dinah and Seth approaching it from the opposite direction, and waited for them to come up to her. They too, like Hetty, had lingered a little in their walk, for Dinah was trying to speak words of comfort and strength to Seth in these parting moments. But when they saw Hetty, they paused and shook hands. Seth turned homewards and Dinah came on alone. Seth Bede would have come and spoken to you, my dear, she said, as she reached Hetty, but he's very full of trouble tonight. Hetty answered with a dimpled smile, as if she did not quite know what had been said, and it made a strange contrast to see that sparkling, self-engrossed loveliness looked at by Dinah's calm, pitying faith, with its open glance which told that her heart lived in no cherished secrets of its own, but in feelings which it longed to share with all the world. Hetty liked Dinah as well as she had ever liked any woman. How was it possible to feel otherwise towards one who always put in a kind word for her when her aunt was finding fault, and who was always ready to take Totty off her hands? Little tiresome Totty that was always made such a pet of by everyone, and that Hetty could see no interest in at all. Dinah had never said anything disapproving or reproachable to Hetty during her whole visit to the Hall Farm. She had talked to her a great deal in a serious way, but Hetty didn't mind that much, for she never listened. Whatever Dinah might say, she almost always stroked Hetty's cheek after it, and wanted to do some mending for her. Dinah was a riddle to her. Hetty looked at her much in the same way as one might imagine a little perching bird that could only flutter from bow to bow to look at the swoop of the swallow or the mounting of the lark. But she did not care to solve such riddles any more than she cared to know what was meant by the pictures in the pilgrim's progress, or in the old Folio Bible that Marty and Tommy always plagued her about on a Sunday. Dinah took her hand now and drew it under her own arm. You look very happy tonight, dear child, she said. I shall think of you often when I'm at Snowfield, and see your face before me as it is now. It's a strange thing, sometimes when I'm quite alone, sitting in my room with my eyes closed or walking over the hills, the people I've seen and known, if it's only been for a few days, are brought before me, and I hear the voices and see them look and move almost planer than I ever did when they were really with me, though as I could touch them. And then my heart is drawn out towards them and I feel their lot as if it was my own, and I take comfort in spreading it before the Lord, and resting in His love on their behalf as well as my own. And so I feel sure you will come before me. She paused a moment, but Hedy said nothing. It has been a very precious time to me, Dinah went on, last night and today, seeing two such good sons as Adam and Seth Bede. They are so tender and thoughtful for their aged mother, and she has been telling me what Adam has done for these many years, to help his father and his brother. It's wonderful what a spirit of wisdom and knowledge he has, and how he's ready to use it all in behalf of them that are feeble. And I'm sure he has a loving spirit too. I've noticed it often among my own people around Snowfield, that the strong, skillful men are often the gentlest to the women and children, and it's pretty to see them carrying the little babies as if they were no heavier than little birds. And the babies always seem to like the strong on best. I feel sure it would be so with Adam Bede. Don't you think so, Hedy? Yes, said Hedy, abstractedly, for her mind had been all the while in the wood, and she would have found it difficult to say what she was assenting to. Dinah saw she was not inclined to talk, but there would not have been time to say much more, for they were now at the yard gate. The still twilight with its dying western red and its few faint struggling stars rested on the farm yard, where there was not a sound to be heard, but the stamping of the cart horses in the stable. It was about twenty minutes after sunset. The fowls were all gone to roost, and the bulldog lay stretched on the straw outside his kennel, with the black and tan terrier by his side, when the falling two of the gate disturbed them and set them barking, like good officials, before they had any distinct knowledge of the reason. The barking had its effect in the house, for as Dinah and Hedy approached, the doorway was filled by a portly figure with a ruddy black-eyed face, which bore in it the possibility of looking extremely acute and occasionally contemptuous on market days, but had now a predominant after supper expression of hearty good nature. It is well known that great scholars who have shown the most pitiless acerbity in their criticism of other men's scholarship have yet been of a relenting and indulgent temper in their private life, and I have heard of a learned man meekly rocking the twins in the cradle with his left hand, while with his right he inflicted the most lacerating sarcasms on an opponent who had betrayed a brutal ignorance of Hebrew. Weaknesses and errors must be forgiven, alas they are not alien to us, but the man who takes the wrong side on the momentous subject of the Hebrew points must be treated as the enemy of his race. There was the same sort of antithetic mixture in Martin Poiser. He was of so excellent a disposition that he had been kinder and more respectful than ever to his old father, since he had made a deed of gift of all his property, and no man judged his neighbors more charitably on all personal matters. But for a farmer like Luke Britton, for example, whose fallows were not well cleaned, who didn't know the rudiments of hedging and ditching, and showed but a small share of judgment in the purchase of winter stock, Martin Poiser was as hard and implacable as the northeast wind. Luke Britton could not make a remark even on the weather, but Martin Poiser detected in it a taint of that unfoundness and general ignorance which was palpable in all his farming operations. He hated to see the fellow lift the pewter pint to his mouth in the bar of the Royal George on Market Day, and the mere sight of him on the other side of the road brought a severe and critical expression into his black eyes. As different as possible from the fatherly glance he bent on his two nieces as they approached the door. Mr. Poiser had smoked his evening pipe and now held his hands in his pocket, as the only resource of a man who continues to sit up after the day's business is done. While lasses you're rather late tonight, he said, when they reached the little gate leading into the causeway, the mothers began to fidget about you, and she's got a little an ill. And how did you leave the old woman bead, Dinah? Is she much down about the old man? He'd been but a poor bargain to her this five years. She's been greatly distressed for the loss of him, said Dinah, but she seemed more comforted today. Her son Adam's been at home all day, working at his father's coffin, and she loves to have him at home. She's been talking about him to me almost all the day. She has a loving heart, though she's sorely given to fret and be fearful. I wish she had a shorter trust to comfort her in her old age. Adam's sure enough, said Mr. Poiser, misunderstanding Dinah's wish. There is no fear but he'll yield well in the threshing. He's not one of them as is all straw and no grain. I'll be born for him any day, as he'll be a good son to the last. Did he say he'd be coming to see us soon? But come in, come in, he added, making way for them. I hadn't need to keep you out any longer. The tall buildings round the yard shut out a good deal of the sky, but the large window led in abundant light to show every corner of the house-place. Mrs. Poiser, seated in the rocking chair, which had been brought out of the right-hand parlor, was trying to soothe Toddy to sleep. But Toddy was not disposed to sleep, and when her cousins entered she raised herself up and showed a pair of flushed cheeks, which looked fatter than ever, now they were defined by the edge of her linen nightcap. In the large wicker-bottomed armchair in the left-hand chimney-nook sat old Martin Poiser, a hill but shrunken and bleached image of his portly black-haired son, his head hanging forward a little and his elbows pushed backwards, so as to allow the whole of his forearm to rest on the arm of the chair. His blue handkerchief was spread over his knees, as was usual indoors, when it was not hanging over his head, and he sat watching what went forward with the quiet outward glance of healthy old age. Which, disengaged from any interest in an inward drama, spies out pins upon the floor, follows one's minutest motions with an unexpected purposeless tenacity, watches the flickering of the flame or the sun gleams on the wall, counts the quarries on the floor, watches even the hand of the clock, and pleases itself with detecting a rhythm in the tick. What a time of night this is to come home, Hetty, said Mrs. Poiser. Look at the clock, do. Why, it's going on for half past nine, and I've sent the girls to bed this half-hour, and late enough, too, when they've got to get up at half after four, and the mowers bottles to fill in the baking, and here's this blessed child with the fever for what I know and as waitful as if it was dinnertime, and nobody to help me to give her the physique but your uncle, and fine work there's been, and half of it spilt on her nightgown. It's well if she swallowed more nor old to make her worse instead of better. But folks that have no mind to be a use have always the luck to be out of the road when there's anything to be done. I did set out before eight on, said Hetty, in a petish tone, with a slight toss of her head, but this clock's so much before the clock at the chase there's no telling what time it'll be when I get here. What? You'd be wanting the clocks that buy gentle folks's time, would you, and sit up burning candle and lie a bed with the sun abakin' you like a cowcumber of the frame. The clock hasn't been put forward for the first time today, I reckon. The fact was, Hetty had really forgotten the difference of the clocks when she told Captain Donothorn that she set out at eight, and this, with her lingering pace, had made her nearly half an hour later than usual. But here her once attention was diverted from this tender subject by Toddy, who, proceeding at length that the arrival of her cousins was not likely to bring anything satisfactory to her in particular, began to cry, money, money, in an explosive manner. Well then, my pet mother's gutter, mother won't leave her. Toddy, be a good-dilling, and go to sleep now, said Mrs. Poiser, leaning back and rocking the chair, while she tried to make Toddy nestle against her. But Toddy only cried louder and said, Don't yuck! So the mother, with that wondrous patience which love gives to the quickest temperament, sat up again, and pressed her cheek against the linen nightcap and kissed it, and forgot to scold Hetty any longer. Come, Hetty, said Martin Poiser, in a conciliatory tone. Go and get your supper at the pantry, as the things are all put away, and then you can come and take the little one while your aunt undresses herself, for she won't lie down in bed without her mother. And I reckon you could eat a bit, Dinah, for they don't keep much of a house down there. No, thank you, uncle, said Dinah. I ate a good meal before I came away, for Mrs. Bede would make a kettle-cake for me. I don't want any supper, said Hetty, taking off her hat. I can hold totty now if aunt wants me. Why, what nonsense that is to talk, said Mrs. Poiser. Do you think you can live without eaten, and nourish your inside with stick-and-red ribbons on your head? Go and get your supper this minute, child. There's a nice bit of cold pudding in the safe, just which you're fond of. Hetty complied silently by going towards the pantry, and Mrs. Poiser went on speaking to Dinah. Sit down, my dear, and look as if you knowed what it was to make yourself a bit comfortable in the world. I warrant the old woman was glad to see you, since you stayed so long. She seemed to like having me there at last, but her son's face she doesn't like young women about her commonly, and I thought just at first she was almost angry with me for going. Hey, it's a poor look-out when the old folks doesn't like the young ones, said old Martin, bending his head down lower, and seeming to trace the pattern of the quarries with his eye. I—it's ill-living in the hen-rushed for them as it doesn't like fleas, said Mrs. Poiser. We've all had our turn at being young, I reckon, be it good luck or ill. But she must learn to accommodate herself to young women, said Mr. Poiser, for it isn't to be counted on as Adam and Seth will keep bachelors for the next ten years to please them other. That'd be unreasonable. It isn't right for old nor young neither to make a bargain, all on their own side. What's good for one's good all round of the long run. I'm no friend to young fellows, a merry and a foe they know the difference between a crab and an apple, but they may wait or long. To be sure, said Mrs. Poiser, if you go past your dinner time there'll be a little relish of your meat. You turn a door in order with your fork and don't eat it after all. You find fault with your meat, and the fault's all in your own stomach. Heddy now came back from the pantry and said, I can take Totty now on't, if you like. Come, Rachel, said Mr. Poiser, as his wife seemed to hesitate, seeing that Totty was at last nestling quietly. They'd better let Heddy carry her upstairs while he takes thy things off. They're tired, it's time they lost in bed. They bring on the pain in thy side again. Well, she may hold her if the child to go to her, said Mrs. Poiser. Heddy went close to the rocking chair and stood without her usual smile, and without any attempt to entice Totty, simply waiting for her aunt to give the child into her ham. Will go to cousin Heddy, my dearling? Will mother get ready to go to bed? Then Totty shall go into mother's bed and sleep there all night. Before her mother had done speaking, Totty had given her answer in an unmistakable manner, by knitting her brow, setting her tiny teeth against her underlip, and leaning forward to slap Heddy on the arm with her utmost force. Then without speaking she nestled to her mother again. Hey, hey, said Mr. Poiser, while Heddy stood without moving, not go to cousin Heddy, that's like a baby. Totty's a little woman and not a baby. It's no use trying to persuade her, said Mrs. Poiser. She always takes against Heddy when she isn't well. Happen she'll go to Dina. Dina, having taken off her bonnet and shawl, had hitherto kept quietly seated in the background, not liking to thrust herself between Heddy and what was considered Heddy's proper work. But now she came forward, and putting out her arms, said, Come, Totty, come and let Dina carry her upstairs along with mother. Poor poor mother, she's so tired. She wants to go to bed. Totty turned her face towards Dina and looked at her in instant, then lifted herself up, put out her little arms, and let Dina lift her from her mother's lap. Heddy turned away without any sign of ill-humour, and taking her hat from the table, stood waiting with an air of indifference, to see if she should be told to do anything else. You may make the door fast now, Poiser. Alex been coming this long while, said Mrs. Poiser, rising within appearance of relief from her low chair. Get me the matches down, Heddy, for I must have the rush-light burning in my room. Come, father. The heavy wooden bolts began to roll in the house doors, and old Martin prepared to move, by gathering up his blue handkerchief, and reaching his bright-knobbed walnut-tree stick from the corner. Mrs. Poiser then led the way out of the kitchen, followed by the grandfather, and Dina with Totty in her arms, all going to bed by twilight like the birds. Mrs. Poiser, on her way, peeped into the room where her two boys lay, just to see their ruddy round cheeks on the pillow, and to hear, for a moment, their light, regular breathing. Calm, Heddy. Gutt to bed, said Mr. Poiser, in a soothing tone, as he himself turned to go upstairs. You didn't mean to be late, I'll be bound, but your aunt's been worried today. Good night, Lewinch. Good night. End of CHAPTER XIV