Adam Bede
desires; it is a temptation that I must resist, lest the love of the
creature should become like a mist in my soul shutting out the heavenly
light.”
“It passes my cunning to know what you mean by ease and luxury,” said
Mrs. Poyser, as she cut the bread and butter. “It’s true there’s good
victual enough about you, as nobody shall ever say I don’t provide
enough and to spare, but if there’s ever a bit o’ odds an’ ends as
nobody else ’ud eat, you’re sure to pick it out... but look there!
There’s Adam Bede a-carrying the little un in. I wonder how it is he’s
come so early.”
Mrs. Poyser hastened to the door for the pleasure of looking at her
darling in a new position, with love in her eyes but reproof on her
tongue.
“Oh for shame, Totty! Little gells o’ five year old should be ashamed
to be carried. Why, Adam, she’ll break your arm, such a big gell as
that; set her down—for shame!”
“Nay, nay,” said Adam, “I can lift her with my hand—I’ve no need to
take my arm to it.”
Totty, looking as serenely unconscious of remark as a fat white puppy,
was set down at the door-place, and the mother enforced her reproof
with a shower of kisses.
“You’re surprised to see me at this hour o’ the day,” said Adam.
“Yes, but come in,” said Mrs. Poyser, making way for him; “there’s no
bad news, I hope?”
“No, nothing bad,” Adam answered, as he went up to Dinah and put out
his hand to her. She had laid down her work and stood up,
instinctively, as he approached her. A faint blush died away from her
pale cheek as she put her hand in his and looked up at him timidly.
“It’s an errand to you brought me, Dinah,” said Adam, apparently
unconscious that he was holding her hand all the while; “mother’s a bit
ailing, and she’s set her heart on your coming to stay the night with
her, if you’ll be so kind. I told her I’d call and ask you as I came
from the village. She overworks herself, and I can’t persuade her to
have a little girl t’ help her. I don’t know what’s to be done.”
Adam released Dinah’s hand as he ceased speaking, and was expecting an
answer, but before she had opened her lips Mrs. Poyser said, “Look
there now! I told you there was folks enow t’ help i’ this parish,
wi’out going further off. There’s Mrs. Bede getting as old and cas’alty
as can be, and she won’t let anybody but you go a-nigh her hardly. The
folks at Snowfield have learnt by this time to do better wi’out you nor
she can.”
“I’ll put my bonnet on and set off directly, if you don’t want anything
done first, Aunt,” said Dinah, folding up her work.
“Yes, I do want something done. I want you t’ have your tea, child;
it’s all ready—and you’ll have a cup, Adam, if y’ arena in too big a
hurry.”
“Yes, I’ll have a cup, please; and then I’ll walk with Dinah. I’m going
straight home, for I’ve got a lot o’ timber valuations to write out.”
“Why, Adam, lad, are you here?” said Mr. Poyser, entering warm and
coatless, with the two black-eyed boys behind him, still looking as
much like him as two small elephants are like a large one. “How is it
we’ve got sight o’ you so long before foddering-time?”
“I came on an errand for Mother,” said Adam. “She’s got a touch of her
old complaint, and she wants Dinah to go and stay with her a bit.”
“Well, we’ll spare her for your mother a little while,” said Mr.
Poyser. “But we wonna spare her for anybody else, on’y her husband.”
“Husband!” said Marty, who was at the most prosaic and literal period
of the boyish mind. “Why, Dinah hasn’t got a husband.”
“Spare her?” said Mrs. Poyser, placing a seed-cake on the table and
then seating herself to pour out the tea. “But we must spare her, it
seems, and not for a husband neither, but for her own megrims. Tommy,
what are you doing to your little sister’s doll? Making the child
naughty, when she’d be good if you’d let her. You shanna have a morsel
o’ cake if you behave so.”
Tommy, with true brotherly sympathy, was amusing himself by turning
Dolly’s skirt over her bald head and exhibiting her truncated body to
the general scorn—an indignity which cut Totty to the heart.
“What do you think Dinah’s been a-telling me since dinner-time?” Mrs.
Poyser continued, looking at her husband.
“Eh! I’m a poor un at guessing,” said Mr. Poyser.
“Why, she means to go back to Snowfield again, and work i’ the mill,
and starve herself, as she used to do, like a creatur as has got no
friends.”
Mr. Poyser did not readily find words to express his unpleasant
astonishment; he only looked from his wife to Dinah, who had now seated
herself beside Totty, as a bulwark against brotherly playfulness, and
was busying herself with the children’s tea. If he had been given to
making general reflections, it would have occurred to him that there
was certainly a change come over Dinah, for she never used to change
colour; but, as it was, he merely observed that her face was flushed at
that moment. Mr. Poyser thought she looked the prettier for it: it was
a flush no deeper than the petal of a monthly rose. Perhaps it came
because her uncle was looking at her so fixedly; but there is no
knowing, for just then Adam was saying, with quiet surprise, “Why, I
hoped Dinah was settled among us for life. I thought she’d given up the
notion o’ going back to her old country.”
“Thought! Yes,” said Mrs. Poyser, “and so would anybody else ha’
thought, as had got their right end up’ards. But I suppose you must
_be_ a Methodist to know what a Methodist ’ull do. It’s ill guessing
what the bats are flying after.”
“Why, what have we done to you, Dinah, as you must go away from us?”
said Mr. Poyser, still pausing over his tea-cup. “It’s like breaking
your word, welly, for your aunt never had no thought but you’d make
this your home.”
“Nay, Uncle,” said Dinah, trying to be quite calm. “When I first came,
I said it was only for a time, as long as I could be of any comfort to
my aunt.”
“Well, an’ who said you’d ever left off being a comfort to me?” said
Mrs. Poyser. “If you didna mean to stay wi’ me, you’d better never ha’
come. Them as ha’ never had a cushion don’t miss it.”
“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Poyser, who objected to exaggerated views. “Thee
mustna say so; we should ha’ been ill off wi’out her, Lady day was a
twelvemont’. We mun be thankful for that, whether she stays or no. But
I canna think what she mun leave a good home for, to go back int’ a
country where the land, most on’t, isna worth ten shillings an acre,
rent and profits.”
“Why, that’s just the reason she wants to go, as fur as she can give a
reason,” said Mrs. Poyser. “She says this country’s too comfortable,
an’ there’s too much t’ eat, an’ folks arena miserable enough. And
she’s going next week. I canna turn her, say what I will. It’s allays
the way wi’ them meek-faced people; you may’s well pelt a bag o’
feathers as talk to ’em. But I say it isna religion, to be so
obstinate—is it now, Adam?”
Adam saw that Dinah was more disturbed than he had ever seen her by any
matter relating to herself, and, anxious to relieve her, if possible,
he said, looking at her affectionately, “Nay, I can’t find fault with
anything Dinah does. I believe her thoughts are better than our
guesses, let ’em be what they may. I should ha’ been thankful for her
to stay among us, but if she thinks well to go, I wouldn’t cross her,
or make it hard to her by objecting. We owe her something different to
that.”
As it often happens, the words intended to relieve her were just too
much for Dinah’s susceptible feelings at this moment. The tears came
into the grey eyes too fast to be hidden and she got up hurriedly,
meaning it to be understood that she was going to put on her bonnet.
“Mother, what’s Dinah crying for?” said Totty. “She isn’t a naughty
dell.”
“Thee’st gone a bit too fur,” said Mr. Poyser. “We’ve no right t’
interfere with her doing as she likes. An’ thee’dst be as angry as
could be wi’ me, if I said a word against anything she did.”
“Because you’d very like be finding fault wi’out reason,” said Mrs.
Poyser. “But there’s reason i’ what I say, else I shouldna say it. It’s
easy talking for them as can’t love her so well as her own aunt does.
An’ me got so used to her! I shall feel as uneasy as a new sheared
sheep when she’s gone from me. An’ to think of her leaving a parish
where she’s so looked on. There’s Mr. Irwine makes as much of her as if
she was a lady, for all her being a Methodist, an’ wi’ that maggot o’
preaching in her head—God forgi’e me if I’m i’ the wrong to call it
so.”
“Aye,” said Mr. Poyser, looking jocose; “but thee dostna tell Adam what
he said to thee about it one day. The missis was saying, Adam, as the
preaching was the only fault to be found wi’ Dinah, and Mr. Irwine
says, ‘But you mustn’t find fault with her for that, Mrs. Poyser; you
forget she’s got no husband to preach to. I’ll answer for it, you give
Poyser many a good sermon.’ The parson had thee there,” Mr. Poyser
added, laughing unctuously. “I told Bartle Massey on it, an’ he laughed
too.”
“Yes, it’s a small joke sets men laughing when they sit a-staring at
one another with a pipe i’ their mouths,” said Mrs. Poyser. “Give
Bartle Massey his way and he’d have all the sharpness to himself. If
the chaff-cutter had the making of us, we should all be straw, I
reckon. Totty, my chicken, go upstairs to cousin Dinah, and see what
she’s doing, and give her a pretty kiss.”
This errand was devised for Totty as a means of checking certain
threatening symptoms about the corners of the mouth; for Tommy, no
longer expectant of cake, was lifting up his eyelids with his
forefingers and turning his eyeballs towards Totty in a way that she
felt to be disagreeably personal.
“You’re rare and busy now—eh, Adam?” said Mr. Poyser. “Burge’s getting
so bad wi’ his asthmy, it’s well if he’ll ever do much riding about
again.”
“Yes, we’ve got a pretty bit o’ building on hand now,” said Adam, “what
with the repairs on th’ estate, and the new houses at Treddles’on.”
“I’ll bet a penny that new house Burge is building on his own bit o’
land is for him and Mary to go to,” said Mr. Poyser. “He’ll be for
laying by business soon, I’ll warrant, and be wanting you to take to it
all and pay him so much by th’ ’ear. We shall see you living on th’
hill before another twelvemont’s over.”
“Well,” said Adam, “I should like t’ have the business in my own hands.
It isn’t as I mind much about getting any more money. We’ve enough and
to spare now, with only our two selves and mother; but I should like t’
have my own way about things—I could try plans then, as I can’t do
now.”
“You get on pretty well wi’ the new steward, I reckon?” said Mr.
Poyser.
“Yes, yes; he’s a sensible man enough; understands farming—he’s
carrying on the draining, and all that, capital. You must go some day
towards the Stonyshire side and see what alterations they’re making.
But he’s got no notion about buildings. You can so seldom get hold of a
man as can turn his brains to more nor one thing; it’s just as if they
wore blinkers like th’ horses and could see nothing o’ one side of ’em.
Now, there’s Mr. Irwine has got notions o’ building more nor most
architects; for as for th’ architects, they set up to be fine fellows,
but the most of ’em don’t know where to set a chimney so as it shan’t
be quarrelling with a door. My notion is, a practical builder that’s
got a bit o’ taste makes the best architect for common things; and I’ve
ten times the pleasure i’ seeing after the work when I’ve made the plan
myself.”
Mr. Poyser listened with an admiring interest to Adam’s discourse on
building, but perhaps it suggested to him that the building of his
corn-rick had been proceeding a little too long without the control of
the master’s eye, for when Adam had done speaking, he got up and said,