Adam Bede
parsons and people as have got nothing to do but learn it—do the same
as you do? But, for the matter o’ that, if everybody was to do like
you, the world must come to a standstill; for if everybody tried to do
without house and home, and with poor eating and drinking, and was
allays talking as we must despise the things o’ the world as you say, I
should like to know where the pick o’ the stock, and the corn, and the
best new-milk cheeses ’ud have to go. Everybody ’ud be wanting bread
made o’ tail ends and everybody ’ud be running after everybody else to
preach to ’em, istead o’ bringing up their families, and laying by
against a bad harvest. It stands to sense as that can’t be the right
religion.”
“Nay, dear aunt, you never heard me say that all people are called to
forsake their work and their families. It’s quite right the land should
be ploughed and sowed, and the precious corn stored, and the things of
this life cared for, and right that people should rejoice in their
families, and provide for them, so that this is done in the fear of the
Lord, and that they are not unmindful of the soul’s wants while they
are caring for the body. We can all be servants of God wherever our lot
is cast, but He gives us different sorts of work, according as He fits
us for it and calls us to it. I can no more help spending my life in
trying to do what I can for the souls of others, than you could help
running if you heard little Totty crying at the other end of the house;
the voice would go to your heart, you would think the dear child was in
trouble or in danger, and you couldn’t rest without running to help her
and comfort her.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Poyser, rising and walking towards the door, “I know it
’ud be just the same if I was to talk to you for hours. You’d make me
the same answer, at th’ end. I might as well talk to the running brook
and tell it to stan’ still.”
The causeway outside the kitchen door was dry enough now for Mrs.
Poyser to stand there quite pleasantly and see what was going on in the
yard, the grey worsted stocking making a steady progress in her hands
all the while. But she had not been standing there more than five
minutes before she came in again, and said to Dinah, in rather a
flurried, awe-stricken tone, “If there isn’t Captain Donnithorne and
Mr. Irwine a-coming into the yard! I’ll lay my life they’re come to
speak about your preaching on the Green, Dinah; it’s you must answer
’em, for I’m dumb. I’ve said enough a’ready about your bringing such
disgrace upo’ your uncle’s family. I wouldn’t ha’ minded if you’d been
Mr. Poyser’s own niece—folks must put up wi’ their own kin, as they put
up wi’ their own noses—it’s their own flesh and blood. But to think of
a niece o’ mine being cause o’ my husband’s being turned out of his
farm, and me brought him no fortin but my savin’s——”
“Nay, dear Aunt Rachel,” said Dinah gently, “you’ve no cause for such
fears. I’ve strong assurance that no evil will happen to you and my
uncle and the children from anything I’ve done. I didn’t preach without
direction.”
“Direction! I know very well what you mean by direction,” said Mrs.
Poyser, knitting in a rapid and agitated manner. “When there’s a bigger
maggot than usual in your head you call it ‘direction’; and then
nothing can stir you—you look like the statty o’ the outside o’
Treddles’on church, a-starin’ and a-smilin’ whether it’s fair weather
or foul. I hanna common patience with you.”
By this time the two gentlemen had reached the palings and had got down
from their horses: it was plain they meant to come in. Mrs. Poyser
advanced to the door to meet them, curtsying low and trembling between
anger with Dinah and anxiety to conduct herself with perfect propriety
on the occasion. For in those days the keenest of bucolic minds felt a
whispering awe at the sight of the gentry, such as of old men felt when
they stood on tiptoe to watch the gods passing by in tall human shape.
“Well, Mrs. Poyser, how are you after this stormy morning?” said Mr.
Irwine, with his stately cordiality. “Our feet are quite dry; we shall
not soil your beautiful floor.”
“Oh, sir, don’t mention it,” said Mrs. Poyser. “Will you and the
captain please to walk into the parlour?”
“No, indeed, thank you, Mrs. Poyser,” said the captain, looking eagerly
round the kitchen, as if his eye were seeking something it could not
find. “I delight in your kitchen. I think it is the most charming room
I know. I should like every farmer’s wife to come and look at it for a
pattern.”
“Oh, you’re pleased to say so, sir. Pray take a seat,” said Mrs.
Poyser, relieved a little by this compliment and the captain’s evident
good-humour, but still glancing anxiously at Mr. Irwine, who, she saw,
was looking at Dinah and advancing towards her.
“Poyser is not at home, is he?” said Captain Donnithorne, seating
himself where he could see along the short passage to the open
dairy-door.
“No, sir, he isn’t; he’s gone to Rosseter to see Mr. West, the factor,
about the wool. But there’s Father i’ the barn, sir, if he’d be of any
use.”
“No, thank you; I’ll just look at the whelps and leave a message about
them with your shepherd. I must come another day and see your husband;
I want to have a consultation with him about horses. Do you know when
he’s likely to be at liberty?”
“Why, sir, you can hardly miss him, except it’s o’ Treddles’on
market-day—that’s of a Friday, you know. For if he’s anywhere on the
farm we can send for him in a minute. If we’d got rid o’ the
Scantlands, we should have no outlying fields; and I should be glad of
it, for if ever anything happens, he’s sure to be gone to the
Scantlands. Things allays happen so contrairy, if they’ve a chance; and
it’s an unnat’ral thing to have one bit o’ your farm in one county and
all the rest in another.”
“Ah, the Scantlands would go much better with Choyce’s farm, especially
as he wants dairyland and you’ve got plenty. I think yours is the
prettiest farm on the estate, though; and do you know, Mrs. Poyser, if
I were going to marry and settle, I should be tempted to turn you out,
and do up this fine old house, and turn farmer myself.”
“Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Poyser, rather alarmed, “you wouldn’t like it at
all. As for farming, it’s putting money into your pocket wi’ your right
hand and fetching it out wi’ your left. As fur as I can see, it’s
raising victual for other folks and just getting a mouthful for
yourself and your children as you go along. Not as you’d be like a poor
man as wants to get his bread—you could afford to lose as much money as
you liked i’ farming—but it’s poor fun losing money, I should think,
though I understan’ it’s what the great folks i’ London play at more
than anything. For my husband heard at market as Lord Dacey’s eldest
son had lost thousands upo’ thousands to the Prince o’ Wales, and they
said my lady was going to pawn her jewels to pay for him. But you know
more about that than I do, sir. But, as for farming, sir, I canna think
as you’d like it; and this house—the draughts in it are enough to cut
you through, and it’s my opinion the floors upstairs are very rotten,
and the rats i’ the cellar are beyond anything.”
“Why, that’s a terrible picture, Mrs. Poyser. I think I should be doing
you a service to turn you out of such a place. But there’s no chance of
that. I’m not likely to settle for the next twenty years, till I’m a
stout gentleman of forty; and my grandfather would never consent to
part with such good tenants as you.”
“Well, sir, if he thinks so well o’ Mr. Poyser for a tenant I wish you
could put in a word for him to allow us some new gates for the Five
closes, for my husband’s been asking and asking till he’s tired, and to
think o’ what he’s done for the farm, and’s never had a penny allowed
him, be the times bad or good. And as I’ve said to my husband often and
often, I’m sure if the captain had anything to do with it, it wouldn’t
be so. Not as I wish to speak disrespectful o’ them as have got the
power i’ their hands, but it’s more than flesh and blood ’ull bear
sometimes, to be toiling and striving, and up early and down late, and
hardly sleeping a wink when you lie down for thinking as the cheese may
swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the wheat may grow green
again i’ the sheaf—and after all, at th’ end o’ the year, it’s like as
if you’d been cooking a feast and had got the smell of it for your
pains.”
Mrs. Poyser, once launched into conversation, always sailed along
without any check from her preliminary awe of the gentry. The
confidence she felt in her own powers of exposition was a motive force
that overcame all resistance.
“I’m afraid I should only do harm instead of good, if I were to speak
about the gates, Mrs. Poyser,” said the captain, “though I assure you
there’s no man on the estate I would sooner say a word for than your
husband. I know his farm is in better order than any other within ten
miles of us; and as for the kitchen,” he added, smiling, “I don’t
believe there’s one in the kingdom to beat it. By the by, I’ve never
seen your dairy: I must see your dairy, Mrs. Poyser.”
“Indeed, sir, it’s not fit for you to go in, for Hetty’s in the middle
o’ making the butter, for the churning was thrown late, and I’m quite
ashamed.” This Mrs. Poyser said blushing, and believing that the
captain was really interested in her milk-pans, and would adjust his
opinion of her to the appearance of her dairy.
“Oh, I’ve no doubt it’s in capital order. Take me in,” said the
captain, himself leading the way, while Mrs. Poyser followed.
Chapter VII
The Dairy
The dairy was certainly worth looking at: it was a scene to sicken for
with a sort of calenture in hot and dusty streets—such coolness, such
purity, such fresh fragrance of new-pressed cheese, of firm butter, of
wooden vessels perpetually bathed in pure water; such soft colouring of
red earthenware and creamy surfaces, brown wood and polished tin, grey
limestone and rich orange-red rust on the iron weights and hooks and
hinges. But one gets only a confused notion of these details when they
surround a distractingly pretty girl of seventeen, standing on little
pattens and rounding her dimpled arm to lift a pound of butter out of
the scale.
Hetty blushed a deep rose-colour when Captain Donnithorne entered the
dairy and spoke to her; but it was not at all a distressed blush, for
it was inwreathed with smiles and dimples, and with sparkles from under
long, curled, dark eyelashes; and while her aunt was discoursing to him
about the limited amount of milk that was to be spared for butter and
cheese so long as the calves were not all weaned, and a large quantity
but inferior quality of milk yielded by the shorthorn, which had been
bought on experiment, together with other matters which must be
interesting to a young gentleman who would one day be a landlord, Hetty
tossed and patted her pound of butter with quite a self-possessed,
coquettish air, slyly conscious that no turn of her head was lost.
There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools of
themselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; but
there is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not
only of men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a
beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle
rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to
toddle and to engage in conscious mischief—a beauty with which you can
never be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to
comprehend the state of mind into which it throws you. Hetty Sorrel’s
was that sort of beauty. Her aunt, Mrs. Poyser, who professed to
despise all personal attractions and intended to be the severest of