Adam Bede
“Very well, mother, if that’s thy wish, I’ll make the coffin at home;
but I thought thee wouldstna like to hear the work going on.”
“An’ why shouldna I like ’t? It’s the right thing to be done. An’
what’s liking got to do wi’t? It’s choice o’ mislikings is all I’n got
i’ this world. One morsel’s as good as another when your mouth’s out o’
taste. Thee mun set about it now this mornin’ fust thing. I wonna ha’
nobody to touch the coffin but thee.”
Adam’s eyes met Seth’s, which looked from Dinah to him rather
wistfully.
“No, Mother,” he said, “I’ll not consent but Seth shall have a hand in
it too, if it’s to be done at home. I’ll go to the village this
forenoon, because Mr. Burge ’ull want to see me, and Seth shall stay at
home and begin the coffin. I can come back at noon, and then he can
go.”
“Nay, nay,” persisted Lisbeth, beginning to cry, “I’n set my heart on’t
as thee shalt ma’ thy feyther’s coffin. Thee’t so stiff an’ masterful,
thee’t ne’er do as thy mother wants thee. Thee wast often angered wi’
thy feyther when he war alive; thee must be the better to him now he’s
gone. He’d ha’ thought nothin’ on’t for Seth to ma’s coffin.”
“Say no more, Adam, say no more,” said Seth, gently, though his voice
told that he spoke with some effort; “Mother’s in the right. I’ll go to
work, and do thee stay at home.”
He passed into the workshop immediately, followed by Adam; while
Lisbeth, automatically obeying her old habits, began to put away the
breakfast things, as if she did not mean Dinah to take her place any
longer. Dinah said nothing, but presently used the opportunity of
quietly joining the brothers in the workshop.
They had already got on their aprons and paper caps, and Adam was
standing with his left hand on Seth’s shoulder, while he pointed with
the hammer in his right to some boards which they were looking at.
Their backs were turned towards the door by which Dinah entered, and
she came in so gently that they were not aware of her presence till
they heard her voice saying, “Seth Bede!” Seth started, and they both
turned round. Dinah looked as if she did not see Adam, and fixed her
eyes on Seth’s face, saying with calm kindness, “I won’t say farewell.
I shall see you again when you come from work. So as I’m at the farm
before dark, it will be quite soon enough.”
“Thank you, Dinah; I should like to walk home with you once more. It’ll
perhaps be the last time.”
There was a little tremor in Seth’s voice. Dinah put out her hand and
said, “You’ll have sweet peace in your mind to-day, Seth, for your
tenderness and long-suffering towards your aged mother.”
She turned round and left the workshop as quickly and quietly as she
had entered it. Adam had been observing her closely all the while, but
she had not looked at him. As soon as she was gone, he said, “I don’t
wonder at thee for loving her, Seth. She’s got a face like a lily.”
Seth’s soul rushed to his eyes and lips: he had never yet confessed his
secret to Adam, but now he felt a delicious sense of disburdenment, as
he answered, “Aye, Addy, I do love her—too much, I doubt. But she
doesna love me, lad, only as one child o’ God loves another. She’ll
never love any man as a husband—that’s my belief.”
“Nay, lad, there’s no telling; thee mustna lose heart. She’s made out
o’ stuff with a finer grain than most o’ the women; I can see that
clear enough. But if she’s better than they are in other things, I
canna think she’ll fall short of ’em in loving.”
No more was said. Seth set out to the village, and Adam began his work
on the coffin.
“God help the lad, and me too,” he thought, as he lifted the board.
“We’re like enough to find life a tough job—hard work inside and out.
It’s a strange thing to think of a man as can lift a chair with his
teeth and walk fifty mile on end, trembling and turning hot and cold at
only a look from one woman out of all the rest i’ the world. It’s a
mystery we can give no account of; but no more we can of the sprouting
o’ the seed, for that matter.”
Chapter XII
In the Wood
That same Thursday morning, as Arthur Donnithorne was moving about in
his dressing-room seeing his well-looking British person reflected in
the old-fashioned mirrors, and stared at, from a dingy olive-green
piece of tapestry, by Pharaoh’s daughter and her maidens, who ought to
have been minding the infant Moses, he was holding a discussion with
himself, which, by the time his valet was tying the black silk sling
over his shoulder, had issued in a distinct practical resolution.
“I mean to go to Eagledale and fish for a week or so,” he said aloud.
“I shall take you with me, Pym, and set off this morning; so be ready
by half-past eleven.”
The low whistle, which had assisted him in arriving at this resolution,
here broke out into his loudest ringing tenor, and the corridor, as he
hurried along it, echoed to his favourite song from the Beggar’s Opera,
“When the heart of a man is oppressed with care.” Not an heroic strain;
nevertheless Arthur felt himself very heroic as he strode towards the
stables to give his orders about the horses. His own approbation was
necessary to him, and it was not an approbation to be enjoyed quite
gratuitously; it must be won by a fair amount of merit. He had never
yet forfeited that approbation, and he had considerable reliance on his
own virtues. No young man could confess his faults more candidly;
candour was one of his favourite virtues; and how can a man’s candour
be seen in all its lustre unless he has a few failings to talk of? But
he had an agreeable confidence that his faults were all of a generous
kind—impetuous, warm-blooded, leonine; never crawling, crafty,
reptilian. It was not possible for Arthur Donnithorne to do anything
mean, dastardly, or cruel. “No! I’m a devil of a fellow for getting
myself into a hobble, but I always take care the load shall fall on my
own shoulders.” Unhappily, there is no inherent poetical justice in
hobbles, and they will sometimes obstinately refuse to inflict their
worst consequences on the prime offender, in spite of his loudly
expressed wish. It was entirely owing to this deficiency in the scheme
of things that Arthur had ever brought any one into trouble besides
himself. He was nothing if not good-natured; and all his pictures of
the future, when he should come into the estate, were made up of a
prosperous, contented tenantry, adoring their landlord, who would be
the model of an English gentleman—mansion in first-rate order, all
elegance and high taste—jolly housekeeping, finest stud in
Loamshire—purse open to all public objects—in short, everything as
different as possible from what was now associated with the name of
Donnithorne. And one of the first good actions he would perform in that
future should be to increase Irwine’s income for the vicarage of
Hayslope, so that he might keep a carriage for his mother and sisters.
His hearty affection for the rector dated from the age of frocks and
trousers. It was an affection partly filial, partly fraternal—fraternal
enough to make him like Irwine’s company better than that of most
younger men, and filial enough to make him shrink strongly from
incurring Irwine’s disapprobation.
You perceive that Arthur Donnithorne was “a good fellow”—all his
college friends thought him such. He couldn’t bear to see any one
uncomfortable; he would have been sorry even in his angriest moods for
any harm to happen to his grandfather; and his Aunt Lydia herself had
the benefit of that soft-heartedness which he bore towards the whole
sex. Whether he would have self-mastery enough to be always as harmless
and purely beneficent as his good-nature led him to desire, was a
question that no one had yet decided against him; he was but
twenty-one, you remember, and we don’t inquire too closely into
character in the case of a handsome generous young fellow, who will
have property enough to support numerous peccadilloes—who, if he should
unfortunately break a man’s legs in his rash driving, will be able to
pension him handsomely; or if he should happen to spoil a woman’s
existence for her, will make it up to her with expensive _bon-bons_,
packed up and directed by his own hand. It would be ridiculous to be
prying and analytic in such cases, as if one were inquiring into the
character of a confidential clerk. We use round, general, gentlemanly
epithets about a young man of birth and fortune; and ladies, with that
fine intuition which is the distinguishing attribute of their sex, see
at once that he is “nice.” The chances are that he will go through life
without scandalizing any one; a seaworthy vessel that no one would
refuse to insure. Ships, certainly, are liable to casualties, which
sometimes make terribly evident some flaw in their construction that
would never have been discoverable in smooth water; and many a “good
fellow,” through a disastrous combination of circumstances, has
undergone a like betrayal.
But we have no fair ground for entertaining unfavourable auguries
concerning Arthur Donnithorne, who this morning proves himself capable
of a prudent resolution founded on conscience. One thing is clear:
Nature has taken care that he shall never go far astray with perfect
comfort and satisfaction to himself; he will never get beyond that
border-land of sin, where he will be perpetually harassed by assaults
from the other side of the boundary. He will never be a courtier of
Vice, and wear her orders in his button-hole.
It was about ten o’clock, and the sun was shining brilliantly;
everything was looking lovelier for the yesterday’s rain. It is a
pleasant thing on such a morning to walk along the well-rolled gravel
on one’s way to the stables, meditating an excursion. But the scent of
the stables, which, in a natural state of things, ought to be among the
soothing influences of a man’s life, always brought with it some
irritation to Arthur. There was no having his own way in the stables;
everything was managed in the stingiest fashion. His grandfather
persisted in retaining as head groom an old dolt whom no sort of lever
could move out of his old habits, and who was allowed to hire a
succession of raw Loamshire lads as his subordinates, one of whom had
lately tested a new pair of shears by clipping an oblong patch on
Arthur’s bay mare. This state of things is naturally embittering; one
can put up with annoyances in the house, but to have the stable made a
scene of vexation and disgust is a point beyond what human flesh and
blood can be expected to endure long together without danger of
misanthropy.
Old John’s wooden, deep-wrinkled face was the first object that met
Arthur’s eyes as he entered the stable-yard, and it quite poisoned for
him the bark of the two bloodhounds that kept watch there. He could
never speak quite patiently to the old blockhead.
“You must have Meg saddled for me and brought to the door at half-past
eleven, and I shall want Rattler saddled for Pym at the same time. Do
you hear?”
“Yes, I hear, I hear, Cap’n,” said old John very deliberately,
following the young master into the stable. John considered a young
master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in
general as a poor contrivance for carrying on the world.
Arthur went in for the sake of patting Meg, declining as far as
possible to see anything in the stables, lest he should lose his temper
before breakfast. The pretty creature was in one of the inner stables,
and turned her mild head as her master came beside her. Little Trot, a
tiny spaniel, her inseparable companion in the stable, was comfortably
curled up on her back.
“Well, Meg, my pretty girl,” said Arthur, patting her neck, “we’ll have
a glorious canter this morning.”
“Nay, your honour, I donna see as that can be,” said John.
“Not be? Why not?”