Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (9 page)

“Come, Mother, donna grieve thyself in vain,” said Seth, in a soothing voice. “Thee’st not half so good reason to think as Adam ‘ull go away as to think he’ll stay with thee. He may say such a thing when he’s in wrath — and he’s got excuse for being wrathful sometimes — but his heart ‘ud never let him go. Think how he’s stood by us all when it’s been none so easy — paying his savings to free me from going for a soldier, an’ turnin’ his earnin’s into wood for father, when he’s got plenty o’ uses for his money, and many a young man like him ‘ud ha’ been married and settled before now. He’ll never turn round and knock down his own work, and forsake them as it’s been the labour of his life to stand by.”

“Donna talk to me about’s marr’in’,” said Lisbeth, crying afresh. “He’s set’s heart on that Hetty Sorrel, as ‘ull niver save a penny, an’ ‘ull toss up her head at’s old mother. An’ to think as he might ha’ Mary Burge, an’ be took partners, an’ be a big man wi’ workmen under him, like Mester Burge — Dolly’s told me so o’er and o’er again — if it warna as he’s set’s heart on that bit of a wench, as is o’ no more use nor the gillyflower on the wall. An’ he so wise at bookin’ an’ figurin’, an’ not to know no better nor that!”

“But, Mother, thee know’st we canna love just where other folks ‘ud have us. There’s nobody but God can control the heart of man. I could ha’ wished myself as Adam could ha’ made another choice, but I wouldn’t reproach him for what he can’t help. And I’m not sure but what he tries to o’ercome it. But it’s a matter as he doesn’t like to be spoke to about, and I can only pray to the Lord to bless and direct him.”

“Aye, thee’t allays ready enough at prayin’, but I donna see as thee gets much wi’ thy prayin’. Thee wotna get double earnin’s o’ this side Yule. Th’ Methodies ‘ll niver make thee half the man thy brother is, for all they’re a-makin’ a preacher on thee.”

“It’s partly truth thee speak’st there, Mother,” said Seth, mildly; “Adam’s far before me, an’s done more for me than I can ever do for him. God distributes talents to every man according as He sees good. But thee mustna undervally prayer. Prayer mayna bring money, but it brings us what no money can buy — a power to keep from sin and be content with God’s will, whatever He may please to send. If thee wouldst pray to God to help thee, and trust in His goodness, thee wouldstna be so uneasy about things.”

“Unaisy? I’m i’ th’ right on’t to be unaisy. It’s well seen on THEE what it is niver to be unaisy. Thee’t gi’ away all thy earnin’s, an’ niver be unaisy as thee’st nothin’ laid up again’ a rainy day. If Adam had been as aisy as thee, he’d niver ha’ had no money to pay for thee. Take no thought for the morrow — take no thought — that’s what thee’t allays sayin’; an’ what comes on’t? Why, as Adam has to take thought for thee.”

“Those are the words o’ the Bible, Mother,” said Seth. “They don’t mean as we should be idle. They mean we shouldn’t be overanxious and worreting ourselves about what’ll happen to-morrow, but do our duty and leave the rest to God’s will.”

“Aye, aye, that’s the way wi’ thee: thee allays makes a peck o’ thy own words out o’ a pint o’ the Bible’s. I donna see how thee’t to know as ‘take no thought for the morrow’ means all that. An’ when the Bible’s such a big book, an’ thee canst read all thro’t, an’ ha’ the pick o’ the texes, I canna think why thee dostna pick better words as donna mean so much more nor they say. Adam doesna pick a that’n; I can understan’ the tex as he’s allays a-sayin’, ‘God helps them as helps theirsens.’“

“Nay, Mother,” said Seth, “that’s no text o’ the Bible. It comes out of a book as Adam picked up at the stall at Treddles’on. It was wrote by a knowing man, but overworldly, I doubt. However, that saying’s partly true; for the Bible tells us we must be workers together with God.”

“Well, how’m I to know? It sounds like a tex. But what’s th’ matter wi’ th’ lad? Thee’t hardly atin’ a bit o’ supper. Dostna mean to ha’ no more nor that bit o’ oat-cake? An’ thee lookst as white as a flick o’ new bacon. What’s th’ matter wi’ thee?”

“Nothing to mind about, Mother; I’m not hungry. I’ll just look in at Adam again, and see if he’ll let me go on with the coffin.”

“Ha’ a drop o’ warm broth?” said Lisbeth, whose motherly feeling now got the better of her “nattering” habit. “I’ll set two-three sticks a-light in a minute.”

“Nay, Mother, thank thee; thee’t very good,” said Seth, gratefully; and encouraged by this touch of tenderness, he went on: “Let me pray a bit with thee for Father, and Adam, and all of us — it’ll comfort thee, happen, more than thee thinkst.”

“Well, I’ve nothin’ to say again’ it.”

Lisbeth, though disposed always to take the negative side in her conversations with Seth, had a vague sense that there was some comfort and safety in the fact of his piety, and that it somehow relieved her from the trouble of any spiritual transactions on her own behalf.

So the mother and son knelt down together, and Seth prayed for the poor wandering father and for those who were sorrowing for him at home. And when he came to the petition that Adam might never be called to set up his tent in a far country, but that his mother might be cheered and comforted by his presence all the days of her pilgrimage, Lisbeth’s ready tears flowed again, and she wept aloud.

When they rose from their knees, Seth went to Adam again and said, “Wilt only lie down for an hour or two, and let me go on the while?”

“No, Seth, no. Make Mother go to bed, and go thyself.”

Meantime Lisbeth had dried her eyes, and now followed Seth, holding something in her hands. It was the brown-and-yellow platter containing the baked potatoes with the gravy in them and bits of meat which she had cut and mixed among them. Those were dear times, when wheaten bread and fresh meat were delicacies to working people. She set the dish down rather timidly on the bench by Adam’s side and said, “Thee canst pick a bit while thee’t workin’. I’ll bring thee another drop o’ water.”

“Aye, Mother, do,” said Adam, kindly; “I’m getting very thirsty.”

In half an hour all was quiet; no sound was to be heard in the house but the loud ticking of the old day-clock and the ringing of Adam’s tools. The night was very still: when Adam opened the door to look out at twelve o’clock, the only motion seemed to be in the glowing, twinkling stars; every blade of grass was asleep.

Bodily haste and exertion usually leave our thoughts very much at the mercy of our feelings and imagination; and it was so to-night with Adam. While his muscles were working lustily, his mind seemed as passive as a spectator at a diorama: scenes of the sad past, and probably sad future, floating before him and giving place one to the other in swift succession.

He saw how it would be to-morrow morning, when he had carried the coffin to Broxton and was at home again, having his breakfast: his father perhaps would come in ashamed to meet his son’s glance — would sit down, looking older and more tottering than he had done the morning before, and hang down his head, examining the floor-quarries; while Lisbeth would ask him how he supposed the coffin had been got ready, that he had slinked off and left undone — for Lisbeth was always the first to utter the word of reproach, although she cried at Adam’s severity towards his father.

“So it will go on, worsening and worsening,” thought Adam; “there’s no slipping uphill again, and no standing still when once you ‘ve begun to slip down.” And then the day came back to him when he was a little fellow and used to run by his father’s side, proud to be taken out to work, and prouder still to hear his father boasting to his fellow-workmen how “the little chap had an uncommon notion o’ carpentering.” What a fine active fellow his father was then! When people asked Adam whose little lad he was, he had a sense of distinction as he answered, “I’m Thias Bede’s lad.” He was quite sure everybody knew Thias Bede — didn’t he make the wonderful pigeon-house at Broxton parsonage? Those were happy days, especially when Seth, who was three years the younger, began to go out working too, and Adam began to be a teacher as well as a learner. But then came the days of sadness, when Adam was someway on in his teens, and Thias began to loiter at the public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at home, and to pour forth her plaints in the hearing of her sons. Adam remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first saw his father quite wild and foolish, shouting a song out fitfully among his drunken companions at the “Waggon Overthrown.” He had run away once when he was only eighteen, making his escape in the morning twilight with a little blue bundle over his shoulder, and his “mensuration book” in his pocket, and saying to himself very decidedly that he could bear the vexations of home no longer — he would go and seek his fortune, setting up his stick at the crossways and bending his steps the way it fell. But by the time he got to Stoniton, the thought of his mother and Seth, left behind to endure everything without him, became too importunate, and his resolution failed him. He came back the next day, but the misery and terror his mother had gone through in those two days had haunted her ever since.

“No!” Adam said to himself to-night, “that must never happen again. It ‘ud make a poor balance when my doings are cast up at the last, if my poor old mother stood o’ the wrong side. My back’s broad enough and strong enough; I should be no better than a coward to go away and leave the troubles to be borne by them as aren’t half so able. ‘They that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of those that are weak, and not to please themselves.’ There’s a text wants no candle to show’t; it shines by its own light. It’s plain enough you get into the wrong road i’ this life if you run after this and that only for the sake o’ making things easy and pleasant to yourself. A pig may poke his nose into the trough and think o’ nothing outside it; but if you’ve got a man’s heart and soul in you, you can’t be easy a-making your own bed an’ leaving the rest to lie on the stones. Nay, nay, I’ll never slip my neck out o’ the yoke, and leave the load to be drawn by the weak uns. Father’s a sore cross to me, an’s likely to be for many a long year to come. What then? I’ve got th’ health, and the limbs, and the sperrit to bear it.”

At this moment a smart rap, as if with a willow wand, was given at the house door, and Gyp, instead of barking, as might have been expected, gave a loud howl. Adam, very much startled, went at once to the door and opened it. Nothing was there; all was still, as when he opened it an hour before; the leaves were motionless, and the light of the stars showed the placid fields on both sides of the brook quite empty of visible life. Adam walked round the house, and still saw nothing except a rat which darted into the woodshed as he passed. He went in again, wondering; the sound was so peculiar that the moment he heard it it called up the image of the willow wand striking the door. He could not help a little shudder, as he remembered how often his mother had told him of just such a sound coming as a sign when some one was dying. Adam was not a man to be gratuitously superstitious, but he had the blood of the peasant in him as well as of the artisan, and a peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when he sees a camel. Besides, he had that mental combination which is at once humble in the region of mystery and keen in the region of knowledge: it was the depth of his reverence quite as much as his hard common sense which gave him his disinclination to doctrinal religion, and he often checked Seth’s argumentative spiritualism by saying, “Eh, it’s a big mystery; thee know’st but little about it.” And so it happened that Adam was at once penetrating and credulous. If a new building had fallen down and he had been told that this was a divine judgment, he would have said, “May be; but the bearing o’ the roof and walls wasn’t right, else it wouldn’t ha’ come down”; yet he believed in dreams and prognostics, and to his dying day he bated his breath a little when he told the story of the stroke with the willow wand. I tell it as he told it, not attempting to reduce it to its natural elements — in our eagerness to explain impressions, we often lose our hold of the sympathy that comprehends them.

But he had the best antidote against imaginative dread in the necessity for getting on with the coffin, and for the next ten minutes his hammer was ringing so uninterruptedly, that other sounds, if there were any, might well be overpowered. A pause came, however, when he had to take up his ruler, and now again came the strange rap, and again Gyp howled. Adam was at the door without the loss of a moment; but again all was still, and the starlight showed there was nothing but the dew-laden grass in front of the cottage.

Adam for a moment thought uncomfortably about his father; but of late years he had never come home at dark hours from Treddleston, and there was every reason for believing that he was then sleeping off his drunkenness at the “Waggon Overthrown.” Besides, to Adam, the conception of the future was so inseparable from the painful image of his father that the fear of any fatal accident to him was excluded by the deeply infixed fear of his continual degradation. The next thought that occurred to him was one that made him slip off his shoes and tread lightly upstairs, to listen at the bedroom doors. But both Seth and his mother were breathing regularly.