Adam Bede

onage; the great Provence roses had been cruelly tossed by the wind and beaten by the rain, and all the delicate-stemmed border flowers had been dashed down and

l enough to pass some cloudy hours very easily by their help. Let me take you into that dining-room and show you the Rev. Adolphus Irwine, Rector of Broxton, Vicar of Hayslope, and Vicar of Blythe, a pluralist at whom the severest Church reformer would have found it diffi

and would not be surprised to find that Mr. Irwine had a finely cut nostril and upper lip; but at present we can only see that he has a broad flat back and an abundance of powdered hair, all thrown backward and tied behind with a black ribbon — a bit of conservatism in costume which tells you that he is not a young man. He will perhaps turn round by and by, and in the meantime we can look at that stately old lady, his mother, a beautiful aged brunette, whose rich-toned complexion is well set off by the complex wrappings of pure white cambric and lace about her head and neck. She is as erect in her comely embonpoint as a statue of Ceres; and her dark face, with its delicate aquiline nose, firm pr

lady, as she deposits her queen very quietly and folds her arms.

me off you? I should have sprinkled the board with holy water before we

ee, there’s the sunshine falling on the board, to show you more clearly what

uno?” This was addressed to the brown setter, who had jumped up at the sound of the voices and laid her nose in an insinuating way o

peak to you. Kate says she has one

e her just the same; she’s nev

n had been made, and had received the same kind of answer, many hundred times in the course of the fifteen years that Mr. Irwine’s sister A

troking Juno’s head, the servant came to the door and said, “If you pl

nitting. “I always like to hear what Mr. Rann has got to say.

while the two puppies, regarding Mr. Rann’s prominent calf and ribbed worsted stockings from a more sensuous point of view, plunged and growled over them in great enjoyment. Meantime, Mr. Irwine turned r

bore the same sort of resemblance to his mother that our loving memory of a friend’s face often bears to the face itself: the lines were all more generous, the smile brighter, th

haking them alternately to keep off the puppies; “I’ll stand, if you please, as more becoming. I

oming my mother looks. She beats us youn

ngin’ o’ every bell, and the diggin’ o’ every grave, and sung i’ the choir long afore Bartle Massey come from nobody knows where, wi’ his counter-singin’ and fine anthems, as puts everybody out but himself — one takin’ it up after another like sheep a-bleatin’ i’ th’ fold. I know what belongs to bein’ a parish clerk, and I know as I should be wantin’ i’

matter, Joshua? Have the thieve

horne, doesna think well to say the word an’ forbid it. Not as I’m a-dictatin’ to you, sir; I’m not forgettin’ myself so far as to be wise above my betters. Howiver, whether I’m wise or no, that’s neither he

that pale pretty young woman I’ve seen at Poyser’s? I saw she was a Methodist, or Qu

form and pausing long enough to indicate three notes of exclamation. “She preached on the Gre

lass; I daresay she’ll come round again

bit comfortable, they’ll have to go to hell for’t as sure as they’re born. I’m not a tipplin’ man nor a drunkard — nobody can say it on me — but I like a extry quart at Easter or Christmas time, as is nat’ral when we’re goin’ the rounds a- singin’, an’ folks offer’t you for

ce, Joshua? What do you

’ th’ family at th’ Hall Farm, as I’ve measured for shoes, little an’ big, welly iver sin’ I’ve been a shoemaker. But there’s that Will Maskery, sir as is the rampageousest Methodis as can be, an’ I make no doubt it was him as stirred up th’ young woman to preach last night

come again? The Methodists don’t come to preach in little villages like Hayslope, where there’s only a handful of labourers, too t

for he said as I was a blind Pharisee — a-usin’ the Bible i’ that way to find nick-names for folks as are his elders an’ betters!— and what’s worse, he’s been heard to say very un

t he interferes with his neighbours and creates any disturbance, I shall think it my duty as a clergyman and a magistrate to interfere. But it wouldn’t become wise people like you and me to be making a fuss about trifles, as if we thought the Church was in danger because Will Maskery lets his tongue wag rather foolishly, or a young woman t

n’ I’m sensable as, you not livin’ i’ the

your pot of beer soberly, when you’ve done your day’s work, like good churchmen; and if Will Maskery doesn’t like to join you, but to go to a prayermeeting at Treddleston instead, let him; that’s no business of yours, so long as he doesn’t hinder you from doing what you like. And as to people

n’ as I should like to fetch him a rap across the jowl — God forgi’e me — an’ Mrs. Irwine, an’ Your Reverence too, f

ads, you know, it can’t be helped. He won’t bring the other people in H

o’ the Bible as he does, an’ could say the Psalms right through i’ my sleep if you was to pinch me; but I know

remark of yours, Joshua;

ard on the stone floor of the entrance- hall, and Joshua Rann moved hastily aside from th

hur — may h

t terms with the visited. The young gentleman was Arthur Donnithorne, known in Hayslope, variously, as “the young squire,” “the heir,” and “the captain.” He was only a captain in the Loamshire Militia, but to the Hayslope tenants he was more intensely a captain than all the young gentlemen of the same rank in his Majesty’s regulars — he outshone them as the planet Jupiter outshines the Milky Way. If you want to know more particularly how he looked, call to yo

ithorne said, “But don’t let me interrupt J

bowing low, “there was one thing I had to say to His

shua, quickly!”

rownded this morning, or more like overnight, i’ the Wil

at once, as if they were a good d

heart on it, on account of a dream as she had; an’ they’d ha’ come theirselves to ask you, but they’ve so much to see after with the crowner, an’ that; an’ their mother’s took on so, an’ wants ’em to make sure o’ t

see him. Send your boy, however, to say they shall have the grave, lest anything should h

n him. I should have been glad for the load to have been taken off my friend Adam’s shoulders in a less

stead of a poor devil with a mortgaged allowance of pocket-money, I’ll have Adam for my right hand. He shall manage my woods for me, for he seems to have a better notion of those things than any man I ever met with; and I know he would make twice the money of them that my grandfather does, with that miserable old Satchell to manage, who understands no more about timber tha

thur,” said Mrs. Irwine. “It’s nearly t

ve another look at the little Methodist who is staying there

oping over her sewing in the sunshine outside the house, when I rode up and called out, without noticing that she was a stranger, ‘Is Martin Poyser at home?’ I declare, when she got up and looked at me and just said, ‘H

, Dauphin,” said Mrs. Irwine. “Make h

m over to the civil arm — that is to say, to your grandfather — to be turned out of house and yard. If I chose to interfere in this business, now, I might get up as pretty a story of hatred and persecution as the Methodists need desire to publish in the next number of their magazine. It wouldn’t take me much trouble to persuade Chad Cranage and half a dozen other bull-headed fell

epherd’ and a ‘dumb dog,’” said Mrs. Irwine. “I should be inclined

get terribly heavy in my saddle; not to mention that I’m always spending more than I can afford in bricks and mortar, so that I get savage at a lame beggar when he asks me for sixpence. Those poor lean cobblers, who thin

e her lunch upstairs,” said Carr

y. You can use your right arm quite well now, Arthur,” Mr. Irwine continu

, when one can neither hunt nor shoot, so as to make one’s self pleasantly sleepy in the evening. However, we are to astonish the echoes on the 30th of July. My grandfather has given me carte blanche for once, and I promise you the entertainment shall be worth

y; and it WAS her shroud only three months after; and your little cap and christening dress were buried with her too. She had set her heart on that, sweet soul! Thank God you take after your mother’s family, Arthur. If you had been a pu

ember how it was with Juno’s last pups? One of them was the very image of its mother, but it had two

a man’s looks, depend upon it I shall never like HIM. I don’t want to know people that look ugly and disagreeable, any more than I want to taste dishes that look di

hem seem to be twaddling stuff, but the first is in a different style —’The Ancient Mariner’ is the title. I can hardly make head or tail of it as a story, but it’s a strange, striking thing. I’ll send it over to you; and there are some other books that you may like to

lets; they let one see what is going on. I’ve a little matter to attend to, Arthur,” conti

hat required only the dimmest light — sponging the aching head that lay on the pillow with fresh vinegar. It was a small face, that of the poor sufferer; perhaps it had once been pretty, but now it was worn and sallow. Miss Kate came towards her brother and whispered, “Don’t speak to her; she can’t bear to be spoken to today.” Anne’s eyes were closed, and her brow contracted as if from intense pain. Mr. Irwine went to the bedside and took up one of the delicate hands and kissed it

he poor people in Broxton village, who regarded them as deep in the science of medicine, and spoke of them vaguely as “the gentlefolks.” If any one had asked old Job Dummilow who gave him his flannel jacket, he would have answered, “the gentlefolks, last winter”; and widow Steene dwelt much on the virtues of the “stuff” the gentlefolks gave her for her cough. Under this name too, they were used with great effect as a means of taming refractory children, so that at the sight of poor Miss Anne’s sallow face, several small urchins had a terrified sense that she was cognizant of all their worst misdemeanours, and knew the precise number of stones w

such possessions, in short, as men commonly think will repay them for all the labour they take under the sun. As it was — having with all his three livings no more than seven hundred a-year, and seeing no way of keeping his splendid mother and his sickly sister, not to reckon a second sister, who was usually spoken of without any adjective, in such ladylike ease as became their birth and habits, and at the same time providing for a family of his own — he remained, you see, at the age of eight-and-forty, a bachelor, not making any merit of that renunciation, but saying laughingly, if any one alluded to it, that he made it an excuse for many indulgences which a wife would never hav

historian, too, looking into parliamentary reports of that period, finds honourable members zealous for the Church, and untainted with any sympathy for the “tribe of canting Methodists,” making statements scarcely less melancholy than that of Mr. Roe. And it is impossible for me to say that Mr. Irwine was altogether belied by the generic classification assigned him. He really had no very lofty aims, no theological enthusiasm: if I were closely questioned, I should be obliged to confess that he felt no serious alarms about the souls of his parishioners, and would have thought it a mere loss of time to talk in a doctrinal and awakening manner to old “Feyther Taft,” or even to Chad Cranage the blacksmith. If he had been in the habit of speaking theoretically, he would perhaps have said that the only healthy form religion could take in such minds was that of certain dim but strong emotions, suffusing themselves as a hallowing influence over the family affections and neighbourly duties. He thought the custom of baptism

ody to be burned in any public cause, and was far from bestowing all his goods to feed the poor, he had that charity which has sometimes been lacking to very illustrious virtue — he was tender to other men’s failings, and unwilling to impute evil. He was one of those men, and they are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by following them

ng representatives of the abuses. That is a thought which might comfort us a little under the opposite fac

tly, upright, manly, with a good-natured smile on his finely turned lips as he talked to his dashing young companion on the bay mare, you must have

e the tall gables and elms of the rectory predominate over the tiny whitewashed church. They will soon be in the parish of Hayslope; the gr