Adam Bede

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ADAM BEDE

by George Eliot





Book One




Chapter I

The Workshop


With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer undertakes
to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of the past. This is
what I undertake to do for you, reader. With this drop of ink at the
end of my pen, I will show you the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge,
carpenter and builder, in the village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the
eighteenth of June, in the year of our Lord 1799.

The afternoon sun was warm on the five workmen there, busy upon doors
and window-frames and wainscoting. A scent of pine-wood from a tentlike
pile of planks outside the open door mingled itself with the scent of
the elder-bushes which were spreading their summer snow close to
the open window opposite; the slanting sunbeams shone through the
transparent shavings that flew before the steady plane, and lit up the
fine grain of the oak panelling which stood propped against the wall.
On a heap of those soft shavings a rough, grey shepherd dog had
made himself a pleasant bed, and was lying with his nose between his
fore-paws, occasionally wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the
tallest of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of
a wooden mantelpiece. It was to this workman that the strong barytone
belonged which was heard above the sound of plane and hammer singing--

Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth...

Here some measurement was to be taken which required more concentrated
attention, and the sonorous voice subsided into a low whistle; but it
presently broke out again with renewed vigour--

Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear.

Such a voice could only come from a broad chest, and the broad chest
belonged to a large-boned, muscular man nearly six feet high, with a
back so flat and a head so well poised that when he drew himself up
to take a more distant survey of his work, he had the air of a soldier
standing at ease. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm
that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long
supple hand, with its broad finger-tips, looked ready for works of
skill. In his tall stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his
name; but the jet-black hair, made the more noticeable by its contrast
with the light paper cap, and the keen glance of the dark eyes that
shone from under strongly marked, prominent and mobile eyebrows,
indicated a mixture of Celtic blood. The face was large and roughly
hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as belongs to an
expression of good-humoured honest intelligence.

It is clear at a glance that the next workman is Adam's brother. He is
nearly as tall; he has the same type of features, the same hue of hair
and complexion; but the strength of the family likeness seems only to
render more conspicuous the remarkable difference of expression both in
form and face. Seth's broad shoulders have a slight stoop; his eyes
are grey; his eyebrows have less prominence and more repose than his
brother's; and his glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and
benign. He has thrown off his paper cap, and you see that his hair is
not thick and straight, like Adam's, but thin and wavy, allowing you
to discern the exact contour of a coronal arch that predominates very
decidedly over the brow.

The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from Seth; they
scarcely ever spoke to Adam.

The concert of the tools and Adam's voice was at last broken by Seth,
who, lifting the door at which he had been working intently, placed
it against the wall, and said, "There! I've finished my door to-day,
anyhow."

The workmen all looked up; Jim Salt, a burly, red-haired man known as
Sandy Jim, paused from his planing, and Adam said to Seth, with a sharp
glance of surprise, "What! Dost think thee'st finished the door?"

"Aye, sure," said Seth, with answering surprise; "what's awanting to't?"

A loud roar of laughter from the other three workmen made Seth look
round confusedly. Adam did not join in the laughter, but there was a
slight smile on his face as he said, in a gentler tone than before,
"Why, thee'st forgot the panels."

The laughter burst out afresh as Seth clapped his hands to his head, and
coloured over brow and crown.

"Hoorray!" shouted a small lithe fellow called Wiry Ben, running forward
and seizing the door. "We'll hang up th' door at fur end o' th' shop an'
write on't 'Seth Bede, the Methody, his work.' Here, Jim, lend's hould
o' th' red pot."

"Nonsense!" said Adam. "Let it alone, Ben Cranage. You'll mayhap be
making such a slip yourself some day; you'll laugh o' th' other side o'
your mouth then."

"Catch me at it, Adam. It'll be a good while afore my head's full o' th'
Methodies," said Ben.

"Nay, but it's often full o' drink, and that's worse."

Ben, however, had now got the "red pot" in his hand, and was about
to begin writing his inscription, making, by way of preliminary, an
imaginary S in the air.

"Let it alone, will you?" Adam called out, laying down his tools,
striding up to Ben, and seizing his right shoulder. "Let it alone, or
I'll shake the soul out o' your body."

Ben shook in Adam's iron grasp, but, like a plucky small man as he was,
he didn't mean to give in. With his left hand he snatched the brush from
his powerless right, and made a movement as if he would perform the feat
of writing with his left. In a moment Adam turned him round, seized his
other shoulder, and, pushing him along, pinned him against the wall. But
now Seth spoke.

"Let be, Addy, let be. Ben will be joking. Why, he's i' the right to
laugh at me--I canna help laughing at myself."

"I shan't loose him till he promises to let the door alone," said Adam.

"Come, Ben, lad," said Seth, in a persuasive tone, "don't let's have a
quarrel about it. You know Adam will have his way. You may's well try
to turn a waggon in a narrow lane. Say you'll leave the door alone, and
make an end on't."

"I binna frighted at Adam," said Ben, "but I donna mind sayin' as I'll
let 't alone at your askin', Seth."

"Come, that's wise of you, Ben," said Adam, laughing and relaxing his
grasp.

They all returned to their work now; but Wiry Ben, having had the worst
in the bodily contest, was bent on retrieving that humiliation by a
success in sarcasm.

"Which was ye thinkin' on, Seth," he began--"the pretty parson's face or
her sarmunt, when ye forgot the panels?"

"Come and hear her, Ben," said Seth, good-humouredly; "she's going to
preach on the Green to-night; happen ye'd get something to think on
yourself then, instead o' those wicked songs you're so fond on. Ye might
get religion, and that 'ud be the best day's earnings y' ever made."

"All i' good time for that, Seth; I'll think about that when I'm a-goin'
to settle i' life; bachelors doesn't want such heavy earnin's. Happen
I shall do the coortin' an' the religion both together, as YE do, Seth;
but ye wouldna ha' me get converted an' chop in atween ye an' the pretty
preacher, an' carry her aff?"

"No fear o' that, Ben; she's neither for you nor for me to win, I doubt.
Only you come and hear her, and you won't speak lightly on her again."

"Well, I'm half a mind t' ha' a look at her to-night, if there isn't
good company at th' Holly Bush. What'll she take for her text? Happen ye
can tell me, Seth, if so be as I shouldna come up i' time for't. Will't
be--what come ye out for to see? A prophetess? Yea, I say unto you, and
more than a prophetess--a uncommon pretty young woman."

"Come, Ben," said Adam, rather sternly, "you let the words o' the Bible
alone; you're going too far now."

"What! Are YE a-turnin' roun', Adam? I thought ye war dead again th'
women preachin', a while agoo?"

"Nay, I'm not turnin' noway. I said nought about the women preachin'.
I said, You let the Bible alone: you've got a jest-book, han't you, as
you're rare and proud on? Keep your dirty fingers to that."

"Why, y' are gettin' as big a saint as Seth. Y' are goin' to th'
preachin' to-night, I should think. Ye'll do finely t' lead the singin'.
But I don' know what Parson Irwine 'ull say at his gran' favright Adam
Bede a-turnin' Methody."

"Never do you bother yourself about me, Ben. I'm not a-going to turn
Methodist any more nor you are--though it's like enough you'll turn
to something worse. Mester Irwine's got more sense nor to meddle wi'
people's doing as they like in religion. That's between themselves and
God, as he's said to me many a time."

"Aye, aye; but he's none so fond o' your dissenters, for all that."

"Maybe; I'm none so fond o' Josh Tod's thick ale, but I don't hinder you
from making a fool o' yourself wi't."

There was a laugh at this thrust of Adam's, but Seth said, very
seriously. "Nay, nay, Addy, thee mustna say as anybody's religion's
like thick ale. Thee dostna believe but what the dissenters and the
Methodists have got the root o' the matter as well as the church folks."

"Nay, Seth, lad; I'm not for laughing at no man's religion. Let 'em
follow their consciences, that's all. Only I think it 'ud be better if
their consciences 'ud let 'em stay quiet i' the church--there's a deal
to be learnt there. And there's such a thing as being oversperitial; we
must have something beside Gospel i' this world. Look at the canals, an'
th' aqueduc's, an' th' coal-pit engines, and Arkwright's mills there at
Cromford; a man must learn summat beside Gospel to make them things, I
reckon. But t' hear some o' them preachers, you'd think as a man must be
doing nothing all's life but shutting's eyes and looking what's agoing
on inside him. I know a man must have the love o' God in his soul, and
the Bible's God's word. But what does the Bible say? Why, it says as God
put his sperrit into the workman as built the tabernacle, to make him do
all the carved work and things as wanted a nice hand. And this is my
way o' looking at it: there's the sperrit o' God in all things and all
times--weekday as well as Sunday--and i' the great works and inventions,
and i' the figuring and the mechanics. And God helps us with our
headpieces and our hands as well as with our souls; and if a man does
bits o' jobs out o' working hours--builds a oven for 's wife to save her
from going to the bakehouse, or scrats at his bit o' garden and makes
two potatoes grow istead o' one, he's doin' more good, and he's just as
near to God, as if he was running after some preacher and a-praying and
a-groaning."

"Well done, Adam!" said Sandy Jim, who had paused from his planing to
shift his planks while Adam was speaking; "that's the best sarmunt I've
heared this long while. By th' same token, my wife's been a-plaguin' on
me to build her a oven this twelvemont."

"There's reason in what thee say'st, Adam," observed Seth, gravely. "But
thee know'st thyself as it's hearing the preachers thee find'st so much
fault with has turned many an idle fellow into an industrious un. It's
the preacher as empties th' alehouse; and if a man gets religion, he'll
do his work none the worse for that."

"On'y he'll lave the panels out o' th' doors sometimes, eh, Seth?" said
Wiry Ben.

"Ah, Ben, you've got a joke again' me as 'll last you your life. But it
isna religion as was i' fault there; it was Seth Bede, as was allays a
wool-gathering chap, and religion hasna cured him, the more's the pity."

"Ne'er heed me, Seth," said Wiry Ben, "y' are a down-right good-hearted
chap, panels or no panels; an' ye donna set up your bristles at every
bit o' fun, like some o' your kin, as is mayhap cliverer."

"Seth, lad," said Adam, taking no notice of the sarcasm against himself,
"thee mustna take me unkind. I wasna driving at thee in what I said just
now. Some 's got one way o' looking at things and some 's got another."

"Nay, nay, Addy, thee mean'st me no unkindness," said Seth, "I know that
well enough. Thee't like thy dog Gyp--thee bark'st at me sometimes, but
thee allays lick'st my hand after."

All hands worked on in silence for some minutes, until the church clock
began to strike six. Before the first stroke had died away, Sandy Jim
had loosed his plane and was reaching his jacket; Wiry Ben had left a
screw half driven in, and thrown his screwdriver into his tool-basket;
Mum Taft, who, true to his name, had kept silence throughout the
previous conversation, had flung down his hammer as he was in the act
of lifting it; and Seth, too, had straightened his back, and was putting
out his hand towards his paper cap. Adam alone had gone on with his work
as if nothing had happened. But observing the cessation of the tools, he
looked up, and said, in a tone of indignation, "Look there, now! I can't
abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way, the minute the
clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i' their work and
was afraid o' doing a stroke too much."

Seth looked a little conscious, and began to be slower in his
preparations for going, but Mum Taft broke silence, and said, "Aye, aye,
Adam lad, ye talk like a young un. When y' are six-an'-forty like me,
istid o' six-an'-twenty, ye wonna be so flush o' workin' for nought."

"Nonsense," said Adam, still wrathful; "what's age got to do with it, I
wonder? Ye arena getting stiff yet, I reckon. I hate to see a man's arms
drop down as if he was shot, before the clock's fairly struck, just as
if he'd never a bit o' pride and delight in 's work. The very grindstone
'ull go on turning a bit after you loose it."

"Bodderation, Adam!" exclaimed Wiry Ben; "lave a chap aloon, will 'ee?
Ye war afinding faut wi' preachers a while agoo--y' are fond enough o'
preachin' yoursen. Ye may like work better nor play, but I like play
better nor work; that'll 'commodate ye--it laves ye th' more to do."

With this exit speech, which he considered effective, Wiry Ben
shouldered his basket and left the workshop, quickly followed by Mum
Taft and Sandy Jim. Seth lingered, and looked wistfully at Adam, as if
he expected him to say something.

"Shalt go home before thee go'st to the preaching?" Adam asked, looking
up.

"Nay; I've got my hat and things at Will Maskery's. I shan't be home
before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah Morris safe home, if she's
willing. There's nobody comes with her from Poyser's, thee know'st."

"Then I'll tell mother not to look for thee," said Adam.

"Thee artna going to Poyser's thyself to-night?" said Seth rather
timidly, as he turned to leave the workshop.

"Nay, I'm going to th' school."

Hitherto Gyp had kept his comfortable bed, only lifting up his head and
watching Adam more closely as he noticed the other workmen departing.
But no sooner did Adam put his ruler in his pocket, and begin to twist
his apron round his waist, than Gyp ran forward and looked up in his
master's face with patient expectation. If Gyp had had a tail he would
doubtless have wagged it, but being destitute of that vehicle for his
emotions, he was like many other worthy personages, destined to appear
more phlegmatic than nature had made him.

"What! Art ready for the basket, eh, Gyp?" said Adam, with the same
gentle modulation of voice as when he spoke to Seth.

Gyp jumped and gave a short bark, as much as to say, "Of course." Poor
fellow, he had not a great range of expression.

The basket was the one which on workdays held Adam's and Seth's dinner;
and no official, walking in procession, could look more resolutely
unconscious of all acquaintances than Gyp with his basket, trotting at
his master's heels.

On leaving the workshop Adam locked the door, took the key out, and
carried it to the house on the other side of the woodyard. It was a
low house, with smooth grey thatch and buff walls, looking pleasant
and mellow in the evening light. The leaded windows were bright and
speckless, and the door-stone was as clean as a white boulder at ebb
tide. On the door-stone stood a clean old woman, in a dark-striped linen
gown, a red kerchief, and a linen cap, talking to some speckled fowls
which appeared to have been drawn towards her by an illusory expectation
of cold potatoes or barley. The old woman's sight seemed to be dim, for
she did not recognize Adam till he said, "Here's the key, Dolly; lay it
down for me in the house, will you?"

"Aye, sure; but wunna ye come in, Adam? Miss Mary's i' th' house, and
Mester Burge 'ull be back anon; he'd be glad t' ha' ye to supper wi'm,
I'll be's warrand."

"No, Dolly, thank you; I'm off home. Good evening."

Adam hastened with long strides, Gyp close to his heels, out of the
workyard, and along the highroad leading away from the village and down
to the valley. As he reached the foot of the slope, an elderly horseman,
with his portmanteau strapped behind him, stopped his horse when Adam
had passed him, and turned round to have another long look at the
stalwart workman in paper cap, leather breeches, and dark-blue worsted
stockings.

Adam, unconscious of the admiration he was exciting, presently struck
across the fields, and now broke out into the tune which had all day
long been running in his head:

Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear;
For God's all-seeing eye surveys
Thy secret thoughts, thy works and ways.


Chapter II

The Preaching


About a quarter to seven there was an unusual appearance of excitement
in the village of Hayslope, and through the whole length of its
little street, from the Donnithorne Arms to the churchyard gate, the
inhabitants had evidently been drawn out of their houses by something
more than the pleasure of lounging in the evening sunshine. The
Donnithorne Arms stood at the entrance of the village, and a small
farmyard and stackyard which flanked it, indicating that there was a
pretty take of land attached to the inn, gave the traveller a promise
of good feed for himself and his horse, which might well console him
for the ignorance in which the weather-beaten sign left him as to the
heraldic bearings of that ancient family, the Donnithornes. Mr. Casson,
the landlord, had been for some time standing at the door with his hands
in his pockets, balancing himself on his heels and toes and looking
towards a piece of unenclosed ground, with a maple in the middle of it,
which he knew to be the destination of certain grave-looking men and
women whom he had observed passing at intervals.

Mr. Casson's person was by no means of that common type which can be
allowed to pass without description. On a front view it appeared to
consist principally of two spheres, bearing about the same relation to
each other as the earth and the moon: that is to say, the lower sphere
might be said, at a rough guess, to be thirteen times larger than the
upper which naturally performed the function of a mere satellite and
tributary. But here the resemblance ceased, for Mr. Casson's head was
not at all a melancholy-looking satellite nor was it a "spotty globe,"
as Milton has irreverently called the moon; on the contrary, no head and
face could look more sleek and healthy, and its expression--which was
chiefly confined to a pair of round and ruddy cheeks, the slight
knot and interruptions forming the nose and eyes being scarcely worth
mention--was one of jolly contentment, only tempered by that sense of
personal dignity which usually made itself felt in his attitude and
bearing. This sense of dignity could hardly be considered excessive in
a man who had been butler to "the family" for fifteen years, and who, in
his present high position, was necessarily very much in contact with
his inferiors. How to reconcile his dignity with the satisfaction of his
curiosity by walking towards the Green was the problem that Mr. Casson
had been revolving in his mind for the last five minutes; but when
he had partly solved it by taking his hands out of his pockets, and
thrusting them into the armholes of his waistcoat, by throwing his
head on one side, and providing himself with an air of contemptuous
indifference to whatever might fall under his notice, his thoughts were
diverted by the approach of the horseman whom we lately saw pausing to
have another look at our friend Adam, and who now pulled up at the door
of the Donnithorne Arms.

"Take off the bridle and give him a drink, ostler," said the traveller
to the lad in a smock-frock, who had come out of the yard at the sound
of the horse's hoofs.

"Why, what's up in your pretty village, landlord?" he continued, getting
down. "There seems to be quite a stir."

"It's a Methodis' preaching, sir; it's been gev hout as a young woman's
a-going to preach on the Green," answered Mr. Casson, in a treble and
wheezy voice, with a slightly mincing accent. "Will you please to step
in, sir, an' tek somethink?"

"No, I must be getting on to Rosseter. I only want a drink for my horse.
And what does your parson say, I wonder, to a young woman preaching just
under his nose?"

"Parson Irwine, sir, doesn't live here; he lives at Brox'on, over the
hill there. The parsonage here's a tumble-down place, sir, not fit for
gentry to live in. He comes here to preach of a Sunday afternoon, sir,
an' puts up his hoss here. It's a grey cob, sir, an' he sets great store
by't. He's allays put up his hoss here, sir, iver since before I hed the
Donnithorne Arms. I'm not this countryman, you may tell by my tongue,
sir. They're cur'ous talkers i' this country, sir; the gentry's hard
work to hunderstand 'em. I was brought hup among the gentry, sir, an'
got the turn o' their tongue when I was a bye. Why, what do you 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.