Adam Bede
ambition, begins its change into energy. All passion becomes strength
when it has an outlet from the narrow limits of our personal lot in the
labour of our right arm, the cunning of our right hand, or the still,
creative activity of our thought. Look at Adam through the rest of the
day, as he stands on the scaffolding with the two-feet ruler in his
hand, whistling low while he considers how a difficulty about a
floor-joist or a window-frame is to be overcome; or as he pushes one of
the younger workmen aside and takes his place in upheaving a weight of
timber, saying, “Let alone, lad! Thee’st got too much gristle i’ thy
bones yet”; or as he fixes his keen black eyes on the motions of a
workman on the other side of the room and warns him that his distances
are not right. Look at this broad-shouldered man with the bare muscular
arms, and the thick, firm, black hair tossed about like trodden
meadow-grass whenever he takes off his paper cap, and with the strong
barytone voice bursting every now and then into loud and solemn
psalm-tunes, as if seeking an outlet for superfluous strength, yet
presently checking himself, apparently crossed by some thought which
jars with the singing. Perhaps, if you had not been already in the
secret, you might not have guessed what sad memories, what warm
affection, what tender fluttering hopes, had their home in this
athletic body with the broken finger-nails—in this rough man, who knew
no better lyrics than he could find in the Old and New Version and an
occasional hymn; who knew the smallest possible amount of profane
history; and for whom the motion and shape of the earth, the course of
the sun, and the changes of the seasons lay in the region of mystery
just made visible by fragmentary knowledge. It had cost Adam a great
deal of trouble and work in overhours to know what he knew over and
above the secrets of his handicraft, and that acquaintance with
mechanics and figures, and the nature of the materials he worked with,
which was made easy to him by inborn inherited faculty—to get the
mastery of his pen, and write a plain hand, to spell without any other
mistakes than must in fairness be attributed to the unreasonable
character of orthography rather than to any deficiency in the speller,
and, moreover, to learn his musical notes and part-singing. Besides all
this, he had read his Bible, including the apocryphal books; Poor
Richard’s Almanac, Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying, The Pilgrim’s
Progress, with Bunyan’s Life and Holy War, a great deal of Bailey’s
Dictionary, Valentine and Orson, and part of a History of Babylon,
which Bartle Massey had lent him. He might have had many more books
from Bartle Massey, but he had no time for reading “the commin print,”
as Lisbeth called it, so busy as he was with figures in all the leisure
moments which he did not fill up with extra carpentry.
Adam, you perceive, was by no means a marvellous man, nor, properly
speaking, a genius, yet I will not pretend that his was an ordinary
character among workmen; and it would not be at all a safe conclusion
that the next best man you may happen to see with a basket of tools
over his shoulder and a paper cap on his head has the strong conscience
and the strong sense, the blended susceptibility and self-command, of
our friend Adam. He was not an average man. Yet such men as he are
reared here and there in every generation of our peasant artisans—with
an inheritance of affections nurtured by a simple family life of common
need and common industry, and an inheritance of faculties trained in
skilful courageous labour: they make their way upwards, rarely as
geniuses, most commonly as painstaking honest men, with the skill and
conscience to do well the tasks that lie before them. Their lives have
no discernible echo beyond the neighbourhood where they dwelt, but you
are almost sure to find there some good piece of road, some building,
some application of mineral produce, some improvement in farming
practice, some reform of parish abuses, with which their names are
associated by one or two generations after them. Their employers were
the richer for them, the work of their hands has worn well, and the
work of their brains has guided well the hands of other men. They went
about in their youth in flannel or paper caps, in coats black with
coal-dust or streaked with lime and red paint; in old age their white
hairs are seen in a place of honour at church and at market, and they
tell their well-dressed sons and daughters, seated round the bright
hearth on winter evenings, how pleased they were when they first earned
their twopence a-day. Others there are who die poor and never put off
the workman’s coat on weekdays. They have not had the art of getting
rich, but they are men of trust, and when they die before the work is
all out of them, it is as if some main screw had got loose in a
machine; the master who employed them says, “Where shall I find their
like?”
Chapter XX
Adam Visits the Hall Farm
Adam came back from his work in the empty waggon—that was why he had
changed his clothes—and was ready to set out to the Hall Farm when it
still wanted a quarter to seven.
“What’s thee got thy Sunday cloose on for?” said Lisbeth complainingly,
as he came downstairs. “Thee artna goin’ to th’ school i’ thy best
coat?”
“No, Mother,” said Adam, quietly. “I’m going to the Hall Farm, but
mayhap I may go to the school after, so thee mustna wonder if I’m a bit
late. Seth ’ull be at home in half an hour—he’s only gone to the
village; so thee wutna mind.”
“Eh, an’ what’s thee got thy best cloose on for to go to th’ Hall Farm?
The Poyser folks see’d thee in ’em yesterday, I warrand. What dost mean
by turnin’ worki’day into Sunday a-that’n? It’s poor keepin’ company
wi’ folks as donna like to see thee i’ thy workin’ jacket.”
“Good-bye, mother, I can’t stay,” said Adam, putting on his hat and
going out.
But he had no sooner gone a few paces beyond the door than Lisbeth
became uneasy at the thought that she had vexed him. Of course, the
secret of her objection to the best clothes was her suspicion that they
were put on for Hetty’s sake; but deeper than all her peevishness lay
the need that her son should love her. She hurried after him, and laid
hold of his arm before he had got half-way down to the brook, and said,
“Nay, my lad, thee wutna go away angered wi’ thy mother, an’ her got
nought to do but to sit by hersen an’ think on thee?”
“Nay, nay, Mother,” said Adam, gravely, and standing still while he put
his arm on her shoulder, “I’m not angered. But I wish, for thy own
sake, thee’dst be more contented to let me do what I’ve made up my mind
to do. I’ll never be no other than a good son to thee as long as we
live. But a man has other feelings besides what he owes to’s father and
mother, and thee oughtna to want to rule over me body and soul. And
thee must make up thy mind as I’ll not give way to thee where I’ve a
right to do what I like. So let us have no more words about it.”
“Eh,” said Lisbeth, not willing to show that she felt the real bearing
of Adam’s words, “and’ who likes to see thee i’ thy best cloose better
nor thy mother? An’ when thee’st got thy face washed as clean as the
smooth white pibble, an’ thy hair combed so nice, and thy eyes
a-sparklin’—what else is there as thy old mother should like to look at
half so well? An’ thee sha’t put on thy Sunday cloose when thee lik’st
for me—I’ll ne’er plague thee no moor about’n.”
“Well, well; good-bye, mother,” said Adam, kissing her and hurrying
away. He saw there was no other means of putting an end to the
dialogue. Lisbeth stood still on the spot, shading her eyes and looking
after him till he was quite out of sight. She felt to the full all the
meaning that had lain in Adam’s words, and, as she lost sight of him
and turned back slowly into the house, she said aloud to herself—for it
was her way to speak her thoughts aloud in the long days when her
husband and sons were at their work—“Eh, he’ll be tellin’ me as he’s
goin’ to bring her home one o’ these days; an’ she’ll be missis o’er
me, and I mun look on, belike, while she uses the blue-edged platters,
and breaks ’em, mayhap, though there’s ne’er been one broke sin’ my old
man an’ me bought ’em at the fair twenty ’ear come next Whissuntide.
Eh!” she went on, still louder, as she caught up her knitting from the
table, “but she’ll ne’er knit the lad’s stockin’s, nor foot ’em
nayther, while I live; an’ when I’m gone, he’ll bethink him as nobody
’ull ne’er fit’s leg an’ foot as his old mother did. She’ll know
nothin’ o’ narrowin’ an’ heelin’, I warrand, an’ she’ll make a long toe
as he canna get’s boot on. That’s what comes o’ marr’in’ young wenches.
I war gone thirty, an’ th’ feyther too, afore we war married; an’ young
enough too. She’ll be a poor dratchell by then _she’s_ thirty,
a-marr’in’ a-that’n, afore her teeth’s all come.”
Adam walked so fast that he was at the yard-gate before seven. Martin
Poyser and the grandfather were not yet come in from the meadow: every
one was in the meadow, even to the black-and-tan terrier—no one kept
watch in the yard but the bull-dog; and when Adam reached the
house-door, which stood wide open, he saw there was no one in the
bright clean house-place. But he guessed where Mrs. Poyser and some one
else would be, quite within hearing; so he knocked on the door and said
in his strong voice, “Mrs. Poyser within?”
“Come in, Mr. Bede, come in,” Mrs. Poyser called out from the dairy.
She always gave Adam this title when she received him in her own house.
“You may come into the dairy if you will, for I canna justly leave the
cheese.”
Adam walked into the dairy, where Mrs. Poyser and Nancy were crushing
the first evening cheese.
“Why, you might think you war come to a dead-house,” said Mrs. Poyser,
as he stood in the open doorway; “they’re all i’ the meadow; but
Martin’s sure to be in afore long, for they’re leaving the hay cocked
to-night, ready for carrying first thing to-morrow. I’ve been forced t’
have Nancy in, upo’ ’count as Hetty must gether the red currants
to-night; the fruit allays ripens so contrairy, just when every hand’s
wanted. An’ there’s no trustin’ the children to gether it, for they put
more into their own mouths nor into the basket; you might as well set
the wasps to gether the fruit.”
Adam longed to say he would go into the garden till Mr. Poyser came in,
but he was not quite courageous enough, so he said, “I could be looking
at your spinning-wheel, then, and see what wants doing to it. Perhaps
it stands in the house, where I can find it?”
“No, I’ve put it away in the right-hand parlour; but let it be till I
can fetch it and show it you. I’d be glad now if you’d go into the
garden and tell Hetty to send Totty in. The child ’ull run in if she’s
told, an’ I know Hetty’s lettin’ her eat too many currants. I’ll be
much obliged to you, Mr. Bede, if you’ll go and send her in; an’
there’s the York and Lankester roses beautiful in the garden now—you’ll
like to see ’em. But you’d like a drink o’ whey first, p’r’aps; I know
you’re fond o’ whey, as most folks is when they hanna got to crush it
out.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Poyser,” said Adam; “a drink o’ whey’s allays a treat
to me. I’d rather have it than beer any day.”
“Aye, aye,” said Mrs. Poyser, reaching a small white basin that stood
on the shelf, and dipping it into the whey-tub, “the smell o’ bread’s
sweet t’ everybody but the baker. The Miss Irwines allays say, ‘Oh,
Mrs. Poyser, I envy you your dairy; and I envy you your chickens; and
what a beautiful thing a farm-house is, to be sure!’ An’ I say, ‘Yes; a
farm-house is a fine thing for them as look on, an’ don’t know the
liftin’, an’ the stannin’, an’ the worritin’ o’ th’ inside as belongs
to’t.’”