Adam Bede

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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.'"

"Why, Mrs. Poyser, you wouldn't like to live anywhere else but in a
farm-house, so well as you manage it," said Adam, taking the basin;
"and there can be nothing to look at pleasanter nor a fine milch cow,
standing up to'ts knees in pasture, and the new milk frothing in the
pail, and the fresh butter ready for market, and the calves, and the
poultry. Here's to your health, and may you allays have strength to look
after your own dairy, and set a pattern t' all the farmers' wives in the
country."

Mrs. Poyser was not to be caught in the weakness of smiling at a
compliment, but a quiet complacency over-spread her face like a stealing
sunbeam, and gave a milder glance than usual to her blue-grey eyes,
as she looked at Adam drinking the whey. Ah! I think I taste that whey
now--with a flavour so delicate that one can hardly distinguish it from
an odour, and with that soft gliding warmth that fills one's imagination
with a still, happy dreaminess. And the light music of the dropping whey
is in my ears, mingling with the twittering of a bird outside the wire
network window--the window overlooking the garden, and shaded by tall
Guelder roses.

"Have a little more, Mr. Bede?" said Mrs. Poyser, as Adam set down the
basin.

"No, thank you; I'll go into the garden now, and send in the little
lass."

"Aye, do; and tell her to come to her mother in the dairy."

Adam walked round by the rick-yard, at present empty of ricks, to
the little wooden gate leading into the garden--once the well-tended
kitchen-garden of a manor-house; now, but for the handsome brick wall
with stone coping that ran along one side of it, a true farmhouse
garden, with hardy perennial flowers, unpruned fruit-trees, and kitchen
vegetables growing together in careless, half-neglected abundance. In
that leafy, flowery, bushy time, to look for any one in this garden
was like playing at "hide-and-seek." There were the tall hollyhocks
beginning to flower and dazzle the eye with their pink, white, and
yellow; there were the syringas and Guelder roses, all large and
disorderly for want of trimming; there were leafy walls of scarlet beans
and late peas; there was a row of bushy filberts in one direction,
and in another a huge apple-tree making a barren circle under its
low-spreading boughs. But what signified a barren patch or two? The
garden was so large. There was always a superfluity of broad beans--it
took nine or ten of Adam's strides to get to the end of the uncut grass
walk that ran by the side of them; and as for other vegetables, there
was so much more room than was necessary for them that in the rotation
of crops a large flourishing bed of groundsel was of yearly occurrence
on one spot or other. The very rose-trees at which Adam stopped to pluck
one looked as if they grew wild; they were all huddled together in bushy
masses, now flaunting with wide-open petals, almost all of them of the
streaked pink-and-white kind, which doubtless dated from the union
of the houses of York and Lancaster. Adam was wise enough to choose a
compact Provence rose that peeped out half-smothered by its flaunting
scentless neighbours, and held it in his hand--he thought he should be
more at ease holding something in his hand--as he walked on to the far
end of the garden, where he remembered there was the largest row of
currant-trees, not far off from the great yew-tree arbour.

But he had not gone many steps beyond the roses, when he heard the
shaking of a bough, and a boy's voice saying, "Now, then, Totty, hold
out your pinny--there's a duck."

The voice came from the boughs of a tall cherry-tree, where Adam had
no difficulty in discerning a small blue-pinafored figure perched in a
commodious position where the fruit was thickest. Doubtless Totty was
below, behind the screen of peas. Yes--with her bonnet hanging down her
back, and her fat face, dreadfully smeared with red juice, turned up
towards the cherry-tree, while she held her little round hole of a mouth
and her red-stained pinafore to receive the promised downfall. I am
sorry to say, more than half the cherries that fell were hard and yellow
instead of juicy and red; but Totty spent no time in useless regrets,
and she was already sucking the third juiciest when Adam said, "There
now, Totty, you've got your cherries. Run into the house with 'em to
Mother--she wants you--she's in the dairy. Run in this minute--there's a
good little girl."

He lifted her up in his strong arms and kissed her as he spoke,
a ceremony which Totty regarded as a tiresome interruption to
cherry-eating; and when he set her down she trotted off quite silently
towards the house, sucking her cherries as she went along.

"Tommy, my lad, take care you're not shot for a little thieving bird,"
said Adam, as he walked on towards the currant-trees.

He could see there was a large basket at the end of the row: Hetty would
not be far off, and Adam already felt as if she were looking at him. Yet
when he turned the corner she was standing with her back towards him,
and stooping to gather the low-hanging fruit. Strange that she had
not heard him coming! Perhaps it was because she was making the
leaves rustle. She started when she became conscious that some one was
near--started so violently that she dropped the basin with the currants
in it, and then, when she saw it was Adam, she turned from pale to deep
red. That blush made his heart beat with a new happiness. Hetty had
never blushed at seeing him before.

"I frightened you," he said, with a delicious sense that it didn't
signify what he said, since Hetty seemed to feel as much as he did; "let
ME pick the currants up."

That was soon done, for they had only fallen in a tangled mass on the
grass-plot, and Adam, as he rose and gave her the basin again, looked
straight into her eyes with the subdued tenderness that belongs to the
first moments of hopeful love.

Hetty did not turn away her eyes; her blush had subsided, and she met
his glance with a quiet sadness, which contented Adam because it was so
unlike anything he had seen in her before.

"There's not many more currants to get," she said; "I shall soon ha'
done now."

"I'll help you," said Adam; and he fetched the large basket, which was
nearly full of currants, and set it close to them.

Not a word more was spoken as they gathered the currants. Adam's heart
was too full to speak, and he thought Hetty knew all that was in it. She
was not indifferent to his presence after all; she had blushed when she
saw him, and then there was that touch of sadness about her which must
surely mean love, since it was the opposite of her usual manner, which
had often impressed him as indifference. And he could glance at her
continually as she bent over the fruit, while the level evening sunbeams
stole through the thick apple-tree boughs, and rested on her round cheek
and neck as if they too were in love with her. It was to Adam the time
that a man can least forget in after-life, the time when he believes
that the first woman he has ever loved betrays by a slight something--a
word, a tone, a glance, the quivering of a lip or an eyelid--that she is
at least beginning to love him in return. The sign is so slight, it
is scarcely perceptible to the ear or eye--he could describe it to no
one--it is a mere feather-touch, yet it seems to have changed his
whole being, to have merged an uneasy yearning into a delicious
unconsciousness of everything but the present moment. So much of our
early gladness vanishes utterly from our memory: we can never recall the
joy with which we laid our heads on our mother's bosom or rode on our
father's back in childhood. Doubtless that joy is wrought up into our
nature, as the sunlight of long-past mornings is wrought up in the soft
mellowness of the apricot, but it is gone for ever from our imagination,
and we can only BELIEVE in the joy of childhood. But the first glad
moment in our first love is a vision which returns to us to the last,
and brings with it a thrill of feeling intense and special as the
recurrent sensation of a sweet odour breathed in a far-off hour
of happiness. It is a memory that gives a more exquisite touch to
tenderness, that feeds the madness of jealousy and adds the last
keenness to the agony of despair.

Hetty bending over the red bunches, the level rays piercing the screen
of apple-tree boughs, the length of bushy garden beyond, his own emotion
as he looked at her and believed that she was thinking of him, and that
there was no need for them to talk--Adam remembered it all to the last
moment of his life.

And Hetty? You know quite well that Adam was mistaken about her. Like
many other men, he thought the signs of love for another were signs of
love towards himself. When Adam was approaching unseen by her, she was
absorbed as usual in thinking and wondering about Arthur's possible
return. The sound of any man's footstep would have affected her just in
the same way--she would have FELT it might be Arthur before she had time
to see, and the blood that forsook her cheek in the agitation of that
momentary feeling would have rushed back again at the sight of any one
else just as much as at the sight of Adam. He was not wrong in thinking
that a change had come over Hetty: the anxieties and fears of a first
passion, with which she was trembling, had become stronger than vanity,
had given her for the first time that sense of helpless dependence on
another's feeling which awakens the clinging deprecating womanhood even
in the shallowest girl that can ever experience it, and creates in her a
sensibility to kindness which found her quite hard before. For the first
time Hetty felt that there was something soothing to her in Adam's timid
yet manly tenderness. She wanted to be treated lovingly--oh, it was
very hard to bear this blank of absence, silence, apparent indifference,
after those moments of glowing love! She was not afraid that Adam
would tease her with love-making and flattering speeches like her other
admirers; he had always been so reserved to her; she could enjoy without
any fear the sense that this strong brave man loved her and was near
her. It never entered into her mind that Adam was pitiable too--that
Adam too must suffer one day.

Hetty, we know, was not the first woman that had behaved more gently
to the man who loved her in vain because she had herself begun to love
another. It was a very old story, but Adam knew nothing about it, so he
drank in the sweet delusion.

"That'll do," said Hetty, after a little while. "Aunt wants me to leave
some on the trees. I'll take 'em in now."

"It's very well I came to carry the basket," said Adam "for it 'ud ha'
been too heavy for your little arms."

"No; I could ha' carried it with both hands."

"Oh, I daresay," said Adam, smiling, "and been as long getting into the
house as a little ant carrying a caterpillar. Have you ever seen those
tiny fellows carrying things four times as big as themselves?"

"No," said Hetty, indifferently, not caring to know the difficulties of
ant life.

"Oh, I used to watch 'em often when I was a lad. But now, you see, I can
carry the basket with one arm, as if it was an empty nutshell, and give
you th' other arm to lean on. Won't you? Such big arms as mine were made
for little arms like yours to lean on."

Hetty smiled faintly and put her arm within his. Adam looked down at
her, but her eyes were turned dreamily towards another corner of the
garden.

"Have you ever been to Eagledale?" she said, as they walked slowly
along.

"Yes," said Adam, pleased to have her ask a question about himself. "Ten
years ago, when I was a lad, I went with father to see about some work
there. It's a wonderful sight--rocks and caves such as you never saw in
your life. I never had a right notion o' rocks till I went there."

"How long did it take to get there?"

"Why, it took us the best part o' two days' walking. But it's nothing of
a day's journey for anybody as has got a first-rate nag. The captain 'ud
get there in nine or ten hours, I'll be bound, he's such a rider. And I
shouldn't wonder if he's back again to-morrow; he's too active to rest
long in that lonely place, all by himself, for there's nothing but a
bit of a inn i' that part where he's gone to fish. I wish he'd got th'
estate in his hands; that 'ud be the right thing for him, for it 'ud
give him plenty to do, and he'd do't well too, for all he's so young;
he's got better notions o' things than many a man twice his age. He
spoke very handsome to me th' other day about lending me money to set up
i' business; and if things came round that way, I'd rather be beholding
to him nor to any man i' the world."

Poor Adam was led on to speak about Arthur because he thought Hetty
would be pleased to know that the young squire was so ready to befriend
him; the fact entered into his future prospects, which he would like to
seem promising in her eyes. And it was true that Hetty listened with an
interest which brought a new light into her eyes and a half-smile upon
her lips.

"How pretty the roses are now!" Adam continued, pausing to look at them.
"See! I stole the prettiest, but I didna mean to keep it myself. I think
these as are all pink, and have got a finer sort o' green leaves, are
prettier than the striped uns, don't you?"

He set down the basket and took the rose from his button-hole.

"It smells very sweet," he said; "those striped uns have no smell. Stick
it in your frock, and then you can put it in water after. It 'ud be a
pity to let it fade."

Hetty took the rose, smiling as she did so at the pleasant thought that
Arthur could so soon get back if he liked. There was a flash of hope and
happiness in her mind, and with a sudden impulse of gaiety she did what
she had very often done before--stuck the rose in her hair a little
above the left ear. The tender admiration in Adam's face was slightly
shadowed by reluctant disapproval. Hetty's love of finery was just the
thing that would most provoke his mother, and he himself disliked it
as much as it was possible for him to dislike anything that belonged to
her.

"Ah," he said, "that's like the ladies in the pictures at the Chase;
they've mostly got flowers or feathers or gold things i' their hair,
but somehow I don't like to see 'em they allays put me i' mind o' the
painted women outside the shows at Treddles'on Fair. What can a woman
have to set her off better than her own hair, when it curls so, like
yours? If a woman's young and pretty, I think you can see her good looks
all the better for her being plain dressed. Why, Dinah Morris looks very
nice, for all she wears such a plain cap and gown. It seems to me as a
woman's face doesna want flowers; it's almost like a flower itself. I'm
sure yours is."

"Oh, very well," said Hetty, with a little playful pout, taking the rose
out of her hair. "I'll put one o' Dinah's caps on when we go in, and
you'll see if I look better in it. She left one behind, so I can take
the pattern."

"Nay, nay, I don't want you to wear a Methodist cap like Dinah's. I
daresay it's a very ugly cap, and I used to think when I saw her here as
it was nonsense for her to dress different t' other people; but I never
rightly noticed her till she came to see mother last week, and then I
thought the cap seemed to fit her face somehow as th 'acorn-cup fits th'
acorn, and I shouldn't like to see her so well without it. But you've
got another sort o' face; I'd have you just as you are now, without
anything t' interfere with your own looks. It's like when a man's
singing a good tune--you don't want t' hear bells tinkling and
interfering wi' the sound."

He took her arm and put it within his again, looking down on her fondly.
He was afraid she should think he had lectured her, imagining, as we
are apt to do, that she had perceived all the thoughts he had only
half-expressed. And the thing he dreaded most was lest any cloud should
come over this evening's happiness. For the world he would not have
spoken of his love to Hetty yet, till this commencing kindness towards
him should have grown into unmistakable love. In his imagination he
saw long years of his future life stretching before him, blest with the
right to call Hetty his own: he could be content with very little at
present. So he took up the basket of currants once more, and they went
on towards the house.

The scene had quite changed in the half-hour that Adam had been in the
garden. The yard was full of life now: Marty was letting the screaming
geese through the gate, and wickedly provoking the gander by hissing at
him; the granary-door was groaning on its hinges as Alick shut it, after
dealing out the corn; the horses were being led out to watering,
amidst much barking of all the three dogs and many "whups" from Tim the
ploughman, as if the heavy animals who held down their meek, intelligent
heads, and lifted their shaggy feet so deliberately, were likely to rush
wildly in every direction but the right. Everybody was come back from
the meadow; and when Hetty and Adam entered the house-place, Mr. Poyser
was seated in the three-cornered chair, and the grandfather in the
large arm-chair opposite, looking on with pleasant expectation while the
supper was being laid on the oak table. Mrs. Poyser had laid the cloth
herself--a cloth made of homespun linen, with a shining checkered
pattern on it, and of an agreeable whitey-brown hue, such as all
sensible housewives like to see--none of your bleached "shop-rag" that
would wear into holes in no time, but good homespun that would last
for two generations. The cold veal, the fresh lettuces, and the stuffed
chine might well look tempting to hungry men who had dined at half-past
twelve o'clock. On the large deal table against the wall there were
bright pewter plates and spoons and cans, ready for Alick and his
companions; for the master and servants ate their supper not far off
each other; which was all the pleasanter, because if a remark about
to-morrow morning's work occurred to Mr. Poyser, Alick was at hand to
hear it.

"Well, Adam, I'm glad to see ye," said Mr. Poyser. "What! ye've been
helping Hetty to gether the curran's, eh? Come, sit ye down, sit ye
down. Why, it's pretty near a three-week since y' had your supper with
us; and the missis has got one of her rare stuffed chines. I'm glad
ye're come."