The World's Greatest Books - Volume 4 Part 4

So I went out to the street door, and the neighbours' children left their play to come to see what ailed me; and I told them all. When they heard Sir Condy was going to leave Castle Rackrent for good and all, they set up such a whillaluh as brought all their parents round the doors in great anger against Jason. I was frightened, and went back to warn my son. He grew quite pale and asked Sir Condy what he'd best do.

"I'll tell you," says Sir Condy, laughing to see his fright. "Finish your gla.s.s first, then let's go to the window, and I'll tell them--or you shall, if you please--that I'm going to the lodge for change of air for my health, and by my own desire, for the rest of my days."

"Do so," says Jason, who never meant it to be so, but could not refuse at such a time.

So the very next day he sets off to the lodge, and I along with him.

There was great bemoaning all through the town, which I stayed to witness. He was in his bed, and very low, when I got there, and complained of a great pain about his heart; but I, knowing the nature of him from a boy, took my pipe and began telling him how he was beloved and regretted in the country. And it did him a great deal of good to hear it.

There was a great horn at the lodge that used to belong to the celebrated Sir Patrick, who was reported to have drunk the full of it without stopping to draw breath, which no other man, afore or since, could do.

One night Sir Condy was drinking with the excise-man and the gauger, and wagered that he could do it. Says he, "Your hand is steadier than mine, Old Thady; fill you the horn for me." And so, wishing his honour success, I did. He swallowed it down and dropped like one shot. We put him to bed, and for five days the fever came and went, and came and went. On the sixth he says, knowing me very well, "I'm in a burning pain all withinside of me, Thady." I could not speak. "Brought to this by drink," says he. "Where are all the friends? Gone, hey? Ay, Sir Condy has been a fool all his days," said he, and died. He had but a very poor funeral, after all.

GEORGE ELIOT

Adam Bede

Mary Ann Evans ("George Eliot") was born Nov. 22, 1819, at South Farm, Arbury, Warwickshire, England, where her father was agent on the Newdigate estate. In her youth, she was adept at b.u.t.ter-making and similar rural work, but she found time to master Italian and German. Her first important literary work was the translation of Strauss's "Life of Jesus" in 1844, and shortly after her father's death in 1849 she was writing in the "Westminster Review." It was not until 1856 that George Eliot settled down to the writing of novels. "Scenes from Clerical Life" first appeared serially in "Blackwood's Magazine" during 1857 and 1858; "Adam Bede," the first and most popular of her long stories, in 1859. In May, 1880, eighteen months after the death of her friend George Henry Lewes (see PHILOSOPHY, Vol. XIV), George Eliot married Mr. J.

W. Cross. She died on December 22 in the same year. With all her sense of humour there is a note of sadness in George Eliot's novels. She deals with ordinary, everyday people, and describes their joys and sorrows. In "Adam Bede," as in most of her work, the novelist drew from the ample stores of her early life in the Midlands, while the plot is unfolded with singular simplicity, purity, and power.

_I.--The Two Brothers_

In the roomy workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the village of Hayslope, on the eighteenth of June, 1799, five workmen were busy upon doors and window-frames.

The tallest of the five was a large-boned, muscular man, nearly six feet high. 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. 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. But Seth's broad shoulders have a slight stoop, and his glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and benignant.

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

At six o'clock the men stopped working, and went out. 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.

"Nay, I shan't be home before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah Morris safe home, if she's willing. There's n.o.body comes with her from Poyser's, thee know'st."

Adam set off home, and at a quarter to seven Seth was on the village green where the Methodists were preaching. The people drew nearer when Dinah Morris mounted the cart which served as a pulpit. There was a total absence of self-consciousness in her demeanour; she walked to the cart as simply as if she were going to market. There was no keenness in the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding love than making observations. When Dinah spoke it was with a clear but not loud voice, and her sincere, unpremeditated eloquence held the attention of her audience without interruption.

When the service was over, Seth Bede walked by Dinah's side along the hedgerow path that skirted the pastures and corn-fields which lay between the village and the Hall Farm.

Seth could see an expression of unconscious placid gravity on her face--an expression that is most discouraging to a lover. He was timidly revolving something he wanted to say, and it was only when they were close to the yard-gates of the Hall Farm he had the courage to speak.

"It may happen you'll think me overbold to speak to you again after what you told me o' your thoughts. But it seems to me there's more texts for your marrying than ever you can find against it. St. Paul says, 'Two are better than one,' and that holds good with marriage as well as with other things. For we should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah. I'd never be the husband to make a claim on you as could interfere with your doing the work G.o.d has fitted you for. I'd make a shift, and fend indoor and out, to give you more liberty--more than you can have now; for you've got to get your own living now, and I'm strong enough to work for us both."

When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly and almost hurriedly. His voice trembled at the last sentence.

They had reached one of those narrow pa.s.ses between two tall stones, which performed the office of a stile in Loamshire. And Dinah paused, and said, in her tender but calm notes, "Seth Bede, I thank you for your love towards me, and if I could think of any man as more than a Christian brother, I think it would be you. But my heart is not free to marry, or to think of making a home for myself in this world. G.o.d has called me to speak His word, and He has greatly owned my work."

They said farewell at the yard-gate, for Seth wouldn't enter the farmhouse, choosing rather to turn back along the fields through which he and Dinah had already pa.s.sed. It was ten o'clock when he reached home, and he heard the sound of tools as he lifted the latch.

"Why, mother," said Seth, "how is it as father's working so late?"

"It's none o' thy feyther as is a-workin'; it's thy brother as does iverything, for there's niver n.o.body else i' th' way to do nothin'."

Lisbeth Bede was going on, for she was not at all afraid of Seth--who had never in his life spoken a harsh word to his mother--and usually poured into his ears all the querulousness which was repressed by the awe which mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam.

But Seth, with an anxious look, had pa.s.sed into the workshop, and said, "Addy, how's this? What! Father's forgot the coffin?"

"Ay, lad, th' old tale; but I shall get it done," said Adam, looking up.

"Why, what's the matter with thee--thee'st in trouble?"

Seth's eyes were red, and there was a look of deep depression on his mild face.

"Yes, Addy, but it's what must be borne, and can't be helped. Let me take my turn now, and do thee go to bed."

"No, lad; I'd rather go on, now I'm in harness. The coffin's promised to be ready at Brox'on by seven o'clock to-morrow morning. I'll call thee up at sunrise, to help me to carry it when it's done. Go and eat thy supper and shut the door, so as I mayn't hear mother's talk."

Adam worked throughout the night, thinking of his childhood and its happy days, and then of the days of sadness that came later when his father began to loiter at public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at home. He remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first saw his father quite wild and foolish.

The two brothers set off in the early sunlight, carrying the long coffin on their shoulders. By six o'clock they had reached Broxton, and were on their way home.

When they were coming across the valley, and had entered the pasture through which the brook ran, Seth said suddenly, beginning to walk faster, "Why, what's that sticking against the willow?"

They both ran forward, and dragged the tall, heavy body out of the water; and then looked with mute awe at the glazed eyes--forgetting everything but that their father lay dead before them.

Adam's mind rushed back over the past in a flood of relenting and pity.

Only a few hours ago, and the gray-haired father, of whom he had been thinking with a sort of hardness as certain to live to be a thorn in his side, was perhaps even then struggling with that watery death!

_II.--The Hall Farm_

It is a very fine old place of red brick, the Hall Farm--once the residence of a country squire, and the Hall.

Plenty of life there, though this is the drowsiest time of the year, just before hay-harvest; and it is the drowsiest time of the day, too, for it is half-past three by Mrs. Poyser's handsome eight-day clock.

Mrs. Poyser, a good-looking woman, not more than eight-and-thirty, of fair complexion and sandy hair, well shaped, light-footed, had just taken up her knitting, and was seated with her niece, Dinah Morris.

Another motherless niece, Hetty Sorrel, a distractingly pretty girl of seventeen, was busy in the adjoining dairy.

"You look the image o' your aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing,"