Adam Bede by George Eliot (top ten books of all time .txt) 📕

got Methodists enow at Treddles’on to go and look at, if church-folks’s faces are too handsome to please you? An’ isn’t there them i’ this parish as you’ve got under hand, and they’re like enough to make friends wi’ Old Harry again as soon as your back’s turned? There’s that Bessy Cranage—she’ll be flaunting i’ new finery three weeks after you’re gone, I’ll be bound. She’ll no more go on in her new ways without you than a dog ’ull stand on its hind-legs when there’s nobody looking. But I suppose it doesna matter so much about folks’s souls i’ this country, else you’d be for staying with your own aunt, for she’s none so good but what you might help her to be better.”

There was a certain something in Mrs. Poyser’s voice just then, which she did not wish to be noticed, so she turned round hastily to look at the clock, and said: “See there! It’s tea-time; an’ if Martin’s i’ the rick-yard, he’ll like a cup. Here, Totty, my chicken, let mother put your bonnet on, and then you go out into the rick-yard and see if Father’s there, and tell him he mustn’t go away again without coming t’ have a cup o’ tea; and tell your brothers to come in too.”

Totty trotted off in her flapping bonnet, while Mrs. Poyser set out the bright oak table and reached down the tea-cups.

“You talk o’ them gells Nancy and Molly being clever i’ their work,” she began again; “it’s fine talking. They’re all the same, clever or stupid—one can’t trust ’em out o’ one’s sight a minute. They want somebody’s eye on ’em constant if they’re to be kept to their work. An’ suppose I’m ill again this winter, as I was the winter before last? Who’s to look after ’em then, if you’re gone? An’ there’s that blessed child—something’s sure t’ happen to her—they’ll let her tumble into the fire, or get at the kettle wi’ the boiling lard in’t, or some mischief as ’ull lame her for life; an’ it’ll be all your fault, Dinah.”

“Aunt,” said Dinah, “I promise to come back to you in the winter if you’re ill. Don’t think I will ever stay away from you if you’re in real want of me. But, indeed, it is needful for my own soul that I should go away from this life of ease and luxury in which I have all things too richly to enjoy—at least that I should go away for a short space. No one can know but myself what are my inward needs, and the besetments I am most in danger from. Your wish for me to stay is not a call of duty which I refuse to hearken to because it is against my own 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