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

to behold. Now, the great ceremony of the evening was to begin—the harvest-song, in which every man must join. He might be in tune, if he liked to be singular, but he must not sit with closed lips. The movement was obliged to be in triple time; the rest was ad libitum.

As to the origin of this song—whether it came in its actual state from the brain of a single rhapsodist, or was gradually perfected by a school or succession of rhapsodists, I am ignorant. There is a stamp of unity, of individual genius upon it, which inclines me to the former hypothesis, though I am not blind to the consideration that this unity may rather have arisen from that consensus of many minds which was a condition of primitive thought, foreign to our modern consciousness. Some will perhaps think that they detect in the first quatrain an indication of a lost line, which later rhapsodists, failing in imaginative vigour, have supplied by the feeble device of iteration. Others, however, may rather maintain that this very iteration is an original felicity, to which none but the most prosaic minds can be insensible.

The ceremony connected with the song was a drinking ceremony. (That is perhaps a painful fact, but then, you know, we cannot reform our forefathers.) During the first and second quatrain, sung decidedly forte, no can was filled.

“Here’s a health unto our master,
    The founder of the feast;
Here’s a health unto our master
    And to our mistress!

And may his doings prosper,
    Whate’er he takes in hand,
For we are all his servants,
    And are at his command.”

But now, immediately before the third quatrain or chorus, sung fortissimo, with emphatic raps of the table, which gave the effect of cymbals and drum together, Alick’s can was filled, and he was bound to empty it before the chorus ceased.

“Then drink, boys, drink!
    And see ye do not spill,
For if ye do, ye shall drink two,
    For ’tis our master’s will.”

When Alick had gone successfully through this test of steady-handed manliness, it was the turn of old Kester, at his right hand—and so on, till every man had drunk his initiatory pint under the stimulus of the chorus. Tom Saft—the rogue—took care to spill a little by accident; but Mrs. Poyser (too officiously, Tom thought) interfered to prevent the exaction of the penalty.

To any listener outside the door it would have been the reverse of obvious why the “Drink, boys, drink!” should have such an immediate and often-repeated encore; but once entered, he would have seen that all faces were at present sober, and most of them serious—it was the regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to do, as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over their wine-glasses. Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, had gone out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in the ceremony, and had not finished his contemplation until a silence of five minutes declared that “Drink, boys, drink!” was not likely to begin again for the next twelvemonth. Much to the regret of the boys and Totty: on them the stillness fell rather flat, after that glorious thumping of the table, towards which Totty, seated on her father’s knee, contributed with her small might and small fist.

When Bartle re-entered, however, there appeared to be a general desire for solo music after the choral. Nancy declared that Tim the waggoner knew a song and was “allays singing like a lark i’ the stable,” whereupon Mr. Poyser said encouragingly, “Come, Tim, lad, let’s hear it.” Tim looked sheepish, tucked down his head, and said he couldn’t sing, but this encouraging invitation of the master’s was echoed all round the table. It was a conversational opportunity: everybody could say, “Come, Tim,” except Alick, who never relaxed into the frivolity of unnecessary speech. At last, Tim’s next neighbour, Ben Tholoway, began to give emphasis to his speech by nudges, at which Tim, growing rather savage, said, “Let me alooan, will ye? Else I’ll ma’ ye sing a toon ye wonna like.” A good-tempered waggoner’s patience has limits, and Tim was not to be urged further.

“Well, then, David, ye’re the lad to sing,” said Ben, willing to show that he was not discomfited by this check. “Sing ‘My loove’s a roos wi’out a thorn.’”

The amatory David was a young man of an unconscious abstracted expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent to Ben’s invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve over his mouth in a way that was regarded as a symptom of yielding. And for some time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the desire to hear David’s song. But in vain. The lyricism of the evening was in the cellar at present, and was not to be drawn from that retreat just yet.

Meanwhile the conversation at the head of the table had taken a political turn. Mr. Craig was not above talking politics occasionally, though he piqued himself rather on a wise insight than on specific information. He saw so far beyond the mere facts of a case that really it was superfluous to know them.

“I’m no reader o’ the paper myself,” he observed to-night, as he filled his pipe, “though I might read it fast enough if I liked, for there’s Miss Lyddy has ’em and ’s done with ’em i’ no time. But there’s Mills, now, sits i’ the chimney-corner and reads the paper pretty nigh from morning to night, and when he’s got to th’ end on’t he’s more addle-headed than he was at the beginning. He’s full o’ this peace now, as they talk on; he’s been reading and reading, and thinks he’s got to the bottom on’t. ‘Why, Lor’ bless you, Mills,’ says I, ‘you see no more into this thing nor you can see into the middle of a potato. I’ll tell you what it is: you think it’ll be a fine thing for the country. And I’m not again’ it—mark my words—I’m not again’ it. But it’s my opinion as there’s them at the head o’ this country as are worse enemies to us nor Bony and all the mounseers he’s got at ’s back; for as for the mounseers, you may skewer half-a-dozen of ’em at once as if they war frogs.’”

“Aye, aye,” said Martin Poyser, listening with an air of much intelligence and edification, “they ne’er ate a bit o’ beef i’ their lives. Mostly sallet, I reckon.”

“And says I to Mills,” continued Mr. Craig, “‘Will you try to make me believe as furriners like them can do us half th’ harm them ministers do with their bad government? If King George ’ud turn ’em all away and govern by himself, he’d see everything righted. He might take on Billy Pitt again if he liked; but I don’t see myself what we want wi’ anybody besides King and Parliament. It’s that nest o’ ministers does the mischief, I tell you.’”

“Ah, it’s fine talking,” observed Mrs. Poyser, who was now seated near her husband, with Totty on her lap—“it’s fine talking. It’s hard work to tell which is Old Harry when everybody’s got boots on.”

“As for this peace,” said Mr. Poyser, turning his head on one side in a dubitative manner and giving a precautionary puff to his pipe between each sentence, “I don’t know. Th’ war’s a fine thing for the country, an’ how’ll you keep up prices wi’out it? An’ them French are a wicked sort o’ folks, by what I can make out. What can you do better nor fight ’em?”

“Ye’re partly right there, Poyser,” said Mr. Craig, “but I’m not again’ the peace—to make a holiday for a bit. We can break it when we like, an’ I’m in no fear o’ Bony, for all they talk so much o’ his cliverness. That’s what I says to Mills this morning. Lor’ bless you, he sees no more through Bony!... why, I put him up to more in three minutes than he gets from’s paper all the year round. Says I, ‘Am I a gardener as knows his business, or arn’t I, Mills? Answer me that.’ ‘To be sure y’ are, Craig,’ says he—he’s not a bad fellow, Mills isn’t, for a butler, but weak i’ the head. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘you talk o’ Bony’s cliverness; would it be any use my being a first-rate gardener if I’d got nought but a quagmire to work on?’ ‘No,’ says he. ‘Well,’ I says, ‘that’s just what it is wi’ Bony. I’ll not deny but he may be a bit cliver—he’s no Frenchman born, as I understand—but what’s he got at’s back but mounseers?’”

Mr. Craig paused a moment with an emphatic stare after this triumphant specimen of Socratic argument, and then added, thumping the table rather fiercely, “Why, it’s a sure thing—and there’s them ’ull bear witness to’t—as i’ one regiment where there was one man a-missing, they put the regimentals on a big monkey, and they fit him as the shell fits the walnut, and you couldn’t tell the monkey from the mounseers!”

“Ah! Think o’ that, now!” said Mr. Poyser, impressed at once with the political bearings of the fact and with its striking interest as an anecdote in natural history.

“Come, Craig,” said Adam, “that’s a little too strong. You don’t believe that. It’s all nonsense about the French being such poor sticks. Mr. Irwine’s seen ’em in their own country, and he says they’ve plenty o’ fine fellows among ’em. And as for knowledge, and contrivances, and manufactures, there’s a many things as we’re a fine sight behind ’em in. It’s poor foolishness to run down your enemies. Why, Nelson and the rest of ’em ’ud have no merit i’ beating ’em, if they were such offal as folks pretend.”

Mr. Poyser looked doubtfully at Mr. Craig, puzzled by this opposition of authorities. Mr. Irwine’s testimony was not to be disputed; but, on the other hand, Craig was a knowing fellow, and his view was less startling. Martin had never “heard tell” of the French being good for much. Mr. Craig had found no answer but such as was implied in taking a long draught of ale and then looking down fixedly at the proportions of his own leg, which he turned a little outward for that purpose, when Bartle Massey returned from the fireplace, where he had been smoking his first pipe in quiet, and broke the silence by saying, as he thrust his forefinger into the canister, “Why, Adam, how happened you not to be at church on Sunday? Answer me that, you rascal. The anthem went limping without you. Are you going to disgrace your schoolmaster in his old age?”

“No, Mr. Massey,” said Adam. “Mr. and Mrs. Poyser can tell you where I was. I was in no bad company.”

“She’s gone, Adam—gone to Snowfield,” said Mr. Poyser, reminded of Dinah for the first time this evening. “I thought you’d ha’ persuaded her better. Nought ’ud hold her, but she must go yesterday forenoon. The missis has hardly got over it. I thought she’d ha’ no sperrit for th’ harvest supper.”

Mrs. Poyser had thought of Dinah several times since Adam had come in, but she had had “no heart” to mention the bad news.

“What!” said Bartle, with an air of disgust. “Was there a woman concerned? Then I give you up, Adam.”

“But it’s a woman you’n spoke well on, Bartle,” said Mr. Poyser. “Come now, you canna draw back; you said once as women wouldna ha’ been a bad invention if they’d all been like Dinah.”

“I meant her voice, man—I meant her voice, that was all,” said Bartle. “I can bear to hear her speak without wanting to put wool in my ears. As for other things, I daresay she’s like the rest o’ the women—thinks two and two ’ll come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough about it.”

“Aye, aye!” said Mrs. Poyser; “one ’ud think, an’ hear some folks talk, as the men war ’cute enough to count the corns in a bag o’ wheat wi’ only smelling at it. They can see through a barn-door, they can. Perhaps that’s the reason they can see so little o’ this side on’t.”

Martin Poyser shook with delighted laughter and winked at Adam, as much as to say the schoolmaster was in for it now.

“Ah!” said Bartle sneeringly, “the women are quick enough—they’re quick enough. They know the rights of a story before they hear it, and can tell a man what his thoughts are before he knows ’em himself.”

“Like enough,” said Mrs. Poyser, “for the men are mostly so slow, their thoughts overrun ’em, an’ they can only catch ’em by the tail. I can count a stocking-top while a man’s getting’s tongue ready an’ when he outs wi’ his speech at last, there’s little broth