Adam Bede
think the folks here says for ‘hevn’t you?’—the gentry, you know, says,
‘hevn’t you’—well, the people about here says ‘hanna yey.’ It’s what
they call the dileck as is spoke hereabout, sir. That’s what I’ve
heared Squire Donnithorne say many a time; it’s the dileck, says he.”
“Aye, aye,” said the stranger, smiling. “I know it very well. But
you’ve not got many Methodists about here, surely—in this agricultural
spot? I should have thought there would hardly be such a thing as a
Methodist to be found about here. You’re all farmers, aren’t you? The
Methodists can seldom lay much hold on _them_.”
“Why, sir, there’s a pretty lot o’ workmen round about, sir. There’s
Mester Burge as owns the timber-yard over there, he underteks a good
bit o’ building an’ repairs. An’ there’s the stone-pits not far off.
There’s plenty of emply i’ this countryside, sir. An’ there’s a fine
batch o’ Methodisses at Treddles’on—that’s the market town about three
mile off—you’ll maybe ha’ come through it, sir. There’s pretty nigh a
score of ’em on the Green now, as come from there. That’s where our
people gets it from, though there’s only two men of ’em in all
Hayslope: that’s Will Maskery, the wheelwright, and Seth Bede, a young
man as works at the carpenterin’.”
“The preacher comes from Treddleston, then, does she?”
“Nay, sir, she comes out o’ Stonyshire, pretty nigh thirty mile off.
But she’s a-visitin’ hereabout at Mester Poyser’s at the Hall Farm—it’s
them barns an’ big walnut-trees, right away to the left, sir. She’s own
niece to Poyser’s wife, an’ they’ll be fine an’ vexed at her for making
a fool of herself i’ that way. But I’ve heared as there’s no holding
these Methodisses when the maggit’s once got i’ their head: many of ’em
goes stark starin’ mad wi’ their religion. Though this young woman’s
quiet enough to look at, by what I can make out; I’ve not seen her
myself.”
“Well, I wish I had time to wait and see her, but I must get on. I’ve
been out of my way for the last twenty minutes to have a look at that
place in the valley. It’s Squire Donnithorne’s, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir, that’s Donnithorne Chase, that is. Fine hoaks there, isn’t
there, sir? I should know what it is, sir, for I’ve lived butler there
a-going i’ fifteen year. It’s Captain Donnithorne as is th’ heir,
sir—Squire Donnithorne’s grandson. He’ll be comin’ of hage this
’ay-’arvest, sir, an’ we shall hev fine doin’s. He owns all the land
about here, sir, Squire Donnithorne does.”
“Well, it’s a pretty spot, whoever may own it,” said the traveller,
mounting his horse; “and one meets some fine strapping fellows about
too. I met as fine a young fellow as ever I saw in my life, about half
an hour ago, before I came up the hill—a carpenter, a tall,
broad-shouldered fellow with black hair and black eyes, marching along
like a soldier. We want such fellows as he to lick the French.”
“Aye, sir, that’s Adam Bede, that is, I’ll be bound—Thias Bede’s son
everybody knows him hereabout. He’s an uncommon clever stiddy fellow,
an’ wonderful strong. Lord bless you, sir—if you’ll hexcuse me for
saying so—he can walk forty mile a-day, an’ lift a matter o’ sixty
ston’. He’s an uncommon favourite wi’ the gentry, sir: Captain
Donnithorne and Parson Irwine meks a fine fuss wi’ him. But he’s a
little lifted up an’ peppery-like.”
“Well, good evening to you, landlord; I must get on.”
“Your servant, sir; good evenin’.”
The traveller put his horse into a quick walk up the village, but when
he approached the Green, the beauty of the view that lay on his right
hand, the singular contrast presented by the groups of villagers with
the knot of Methodists near the maple, and perhaps yet more, curiosity
to see the young female preacher, proved too much for his anxiety to
get to the end of his journey, and he paused.
The Green lay at the extremity of the village, and from it the road
branched off in two directions, one leading farther up the hill by the
church, and the other winding gently down towards the valley. On the
side of the Green that led towards the church, the broken line of
thatched cottages was continued nearly to the churchyard gate; but on
the opposite northwestern side, there was nothing to obstruct the view
of gently swelling meadow, and wooded valley, and dark masses of
distant hill. That rich undulating district of Loamshire to which
Hayslope belonged lies close to a grim outskirt of Stonyshire,
overlooked by its barren hills as a pretty blooming sister may
sometimes be seen linked in the arm of a rugged, tall, swarthy brother;
and in two or three hours’ ride the traveller might exchange a bleak
treeless region, intersected by lines of cold grey stone, for one where
his road wound under the shelter of woods, or up swelling hills,
muffled with hedgerows and long meadow-grass and thick corn; and where
at every turn he came upon some fine old country-seat nestled in the
valley or crowning the slope, some homestead with its long length of
barn and its cluster of golden ricks, some grey steeple looking out
from a pretty confusion of trees and thatch and dark-red tiles. It was
just such a picture as this last that Hayslope Church had made to the
traveller as he began to mount the gentle slope leading to its pleasant
uplands, and now from his station near the Green he had before him in
one view nearly all the other typical features of this pleasant land.
High up against the horizon were the huge conical masses of hill, like
giant mounds intended to fortify this region of corn and grass against
the keen and hungry winds of the north; not distant enough to be
clothed in purple mystery, but with sombre greenish sides visibly
specked with sheep, whose motion was only revealed by memory, not
detected by sight; wooed from day to day by the changing hours, but
responding with no change in themselves—left for ever grim and sullen
after the flush of morning, the winged gleams of the April noonday, the
parting crimson glory of the ripening summer sun. And directly below
them the eye rested on a more advanced line of hanging woods, divided
by bright patches of pasture or furrowed crops, and not yet deepened
into the uniform leafy curtains of high summer, but still showing the
warm tints of the young oak and the tender green of the ash and lime.
Then came the valley, where the woods grew thicker, as if they had
rolled down and hurried together from the patches left smooth on the
slope, that they might take the better care of the tall mansion which
lifted its parapets and sent its faint blue summer smoke among them.
Doubtless there was a large sweep of park and a broad glassy pool in
front of that mansion, but the swelling slope of meadow would not let
our traveller see them from the village green. He saw instead a
foreground which was just as lovely—the level sunlight lying like
transparent gold among the gently curving stems of the feathered grass
and the tall red sorrel, and the white ambels of the hemlocks lining
the bushy hedgerows. It was that moment in summer when the sound of the
scythe being whetted makes us cast more lingering looks at the
flower-sprinkled tresses of the meadows.
He might have seen other beauties in the landscape if he had turned a
little in his saddle and looked eastward, beyond Jonathan Burge’s
pasture and woodyard towards the green corn-fields and walnut-trees of
the Hall Farm; but apparently there was more interest for him in the
living groups close at hand. Every generation in the village was there,
from old “Feyther Taft” in his brown worsted night-cap, who was bent
nearly double, but seemed tough enough to keep on his legs a long
while, leaning on his short stick, down to the babies with their little
round heads lolling forward in quilted linen caps. Now and then there
was a new arrival; perhaps a slouching labourer, who, having eaten his
supper, came out to look at the unusual scene with a slow bovine gaze,
willing to hear what any one had to say in explanation of it, but by no
means excited enough to ask a question. But all took care not to join
the Methodists on the Green, and identify themselves in that way with
the expectant audience, for there was not one of them that would not
have disclaimed the imputation of having come out to hear the “preacher
woman”—they had only come out to see “what war a-goin’ on, like.” The
men were chiefly gathered in the neighbourhood of the blacksmith’s
shop. But do not imagine them gathered in a knot. Villagers never
swarm: a whisper is unknown among them, and they seem almost as
incapable of an undertone as a cow or a stag. Your true rustic turns
his back on his interlocutor, throwing a question over his shoulder as
if he meant to run away from the answer, and walking a step or two
farther off when the interest of the dialogue culminates. So the group
in the vicinity of the blacksmith’s door was by no means a close one,
and formed no screen in front of Chad Cranage, the blacksmith himself,
who stood with his black brawny arms folded, leaning against the
door-post, and occasionally sending forth a bellowing laugh at his own
jokes, giving them a marked preference over the sarcasms of Wiry Ben,
who had renounced the pleasures of the Holly Bush for the sake of
seeing life under a new form. But both styles of wit were treated with
equal contempt by Mr. Joshua Rann. Mr. Rann’s leathern apron and
subdued griminess can leave no one in any doubt that he is the village
shoemaker; the thrusting out of his chin and stomach and the twirling
of his thumbs are more subtle indications, intended to prepare unwary
strangers for the discovery that they are in the presence of the parish
clerk. “Old Joshway,” as he is irreverently called by his neighbours,
is in a state of simmering indignation; but he has not yet opened his
lips except to say, in a resounding bass undertone, like the tuning of
a violoncello, “Sehon, King of the Amorites; for His mercy endureth for
ever; and Og the King of Basan: for His mercy endureth for ever”—a
quotation which may seem to have slight bearing on the present
occasion, but, as with every other anomaly, adequate knowledge will
show it to be a natural sequence. Mr. Rann was inwardly maintaining the
dignity of the Church in the face of this scandalous irruption of
Methodism, and as that dignity was bound up with his own sonorous
utterance of the responses, his argument naturally suggested a
quotation from the psalm he had read the last Sunday afternoon.
The stronger curiosity of the women had drawn them quite to the edge of
the Green, where they could examine more closely the Quakerlike costume
and odd deportment of the female Methodists. Underneath the maple there
was a small cart, which had been brought from the wheelwright’s to
serve as a pulpit, and round this a couple of benches and a few chairs
had been placed. Some of the Methodists were resting on these, with
their eyes closed, as if wrapt in prayer or meditation. Others chose to
continue standing, and had turned their faces towards the villagers
with a look of melancholy compassion, which was highly amusing to Bessy
Cranage, the blacksmith’s buxom daughter, known to her neighbours as
Chad’s Bess, who wondered “why the folks war amakin’ faces a that’ns.”
Chad’s Bess was the object of peculiar compassion, because her hair,
being turned back under a cap which was set at the top of her head,
exposed to view an ornament of which she was much prouder than of her
red cheeks—namely, a pair of large round ear-rings with false garnets
in them, ornaments condemned not only by the Methodists, but by her own
cousin and namesake Timothy’s Bess, who, with much cousinly feeling,
often wished “them ear-rings” might come to good.
Timothy’s Bess, though retaining her maiden appellation among her