Adam Bede

in her occasional outbursts of wailing grief, she had been in incessant movement, performing the initial duties to her dead with the awe and exactitude t

iled houses. Lisbeth had even mended a long-neglected and unnoticeable rent in the checkered bit of bed-curtain; for the moments were few and precious now in which she would be able to do the smallest office of respect or love for the still corpse, to which in all her thoughts she attributed some consciousness. Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence. And the aged peasant woman most of all believes that

key in her hand, as she threw herself wearily into a chair that stood out of its place in the middle of the house floor, where in ordinary times she would never have consented to sit. The kitchen had had none of her attention that day; it was soiled with the tread of muddy shoes and untidy with clothes and other objects out of place. But what at another time would have been intolerable to Lisbeth’s habits of order and cleanliness seemed to her now just what should be: it was right that

piece with the sad confusion of her mind — that confusion which belongs to the first hours of a sudden sorrow, when the poor human soul is like one who has been deposited sleeping among the ruins of a vast city, an

held six-and-twenty years ago. She had forgotten his faults as we forget the sorrows of our departed childhood, and thought of nothing but the young husband’s kindness and the old man’s patienc

o do?” she said,

enderly. “It’ll do thee good; and I’ll put two or three of t

d as could be, an’ carried the lad as war as heavy as two children for five mile an’ ne’er grumbled, all the way to Warson Wake, ’cause I wanted to go an’ see my sister, as war dead an’ gone the very next Christmas as e’er come. An’ him to be drownded in the brook as we passed o’er the day we war married an’ come home together, an’ he’d made them lots o’ shelves for me to put my plates an’ things on, an’ showed ’em me as proud as could be, ’cause he know’d I should be p

had no influence over her, felt it was useless to attempt to persuade or soothe her till this passion was past; so he contented himself with tending the back kitchen fire and

aloud to herself, “I’ll go an’ see arter Adam, for I canna think where he’s gotten; an’ I want him t

rose from her chair, he said, “Adam’s asleep in the workshop, mother.

in’ at him. I hanna seen the lad this two hour — I’d welly forgo

he time between licking the hand that hung listlessly down and glancing with a listening air towards the door. The poor dog was hungry and restless, but would not leave his master, and was waiting impatiently for some change in the scene. It was owing to this feeling on Gyp’s part that, when Lisbeth came into the workshop and advanced towards Adam as noiselessly as she could, her intention not to awaken him was immediately defeated; for Gyp’s excitement was too great to find vent in anything short of a sharp bark, and in a moment Adam opened his eyes and saw his mother standing before him. It was not very unlike his dream, for his sleep had been little more than living through again, in a feve

well go arter him — the sooner the better — for I’m no good to nobody now. One old coat ’ull do to patch another, but it’s good for nought else. Thee’dst like to ha’ a wife to mend thy clothes an’ get thy victual, better nor thy old mother. An’ I shall be nought but cumber, a-sittin’ i’ th’ chimney-corner. (Adam winced and moved uneasily; he dreaded, of a

laint. It was not possible for poor Lisbeth to know how it affected Adam any more than it is possible for a wounded dog to know how his moans affect the nerves of hi

ips to find faut, for when folks is old an’ o’ no use, they may think theirsens well off to get the bit an’ the sup, though they’n to swallow ill words wi’t. An’ if thee’st set thy heart on a lass as’

ntly from the bench and walked out of the works

everythin’ now, an’ he’d like thee to go an’ look at him,

, “Yes, mother; let us go upstairs

unter more of his mother’s querulous grief, and he went to rest on his bed. Lisbeth no sooner entered the kitchen and sat down than she threw her apron over her head, and began to cry and moan and rock herself

ery forward movement of her body, when she suddenly felt a hand placed gently on hers, and a sweet

face. The voice was strange to her. Could it be her sister’s spirit come back

uietly took off her bonnet, and then, motioning silence to Seth, who, on hearing her voice, had come in with a beating

n the same instant Dinah had laid her hand on Lisbeth’s again, and the old woman looked down at it. It was a much smaller hand than her own, but it was not white and delicate, for Dinah had never worn a glove in her life, and her hand bore the

and I work in the cotto

dow on the wall, an’ spoke i’ my ear, as I thought ye might be a sperrit. Ye’ve

can be any help to you in your trouble; for I know your sons Adam and Seth, and I know you have no daughter; and when the clergyman told me how the hand of Go

at’n? Ye canna make the smart less wi’ talkin’. Ye’ll ne’er make me believe as it’s better for me not to ha’ my old man die in’s bed, if he must die, an’ ha’ the parson to pray by him, an’ me to sit by him, an’ tell him ne’er to mind th’ ill words I’ve gi’en him sometimes when I

of your sorrow, but to mourn with you, if you will let me. If you had a table spread for a feast, and was making merry with your friends, you would think it was kind to let me come and sit down and rejoice with you, because you’d

u kindly for comin’, for it’s little wage ye get by walkin’ through the wet fields to see an old woman like me....Nay, I’n got no daughter o’ my own — ne’er had one — an’ I warna sorry, for they’re poor queechy things, gells is; I allays wanted to ha’ lads,

invitation very readily, for the sake of persuading the old woman herself to

he next moment he reproached himself — it was almost as if he were rejoicing in his father’s sad death. Nevertheless the joy of being with Dinah WOULD triumph — it was like the

ays like a bag o’ meal as can ne’er be bruised — though, for the matter o’ that, thy poor feyther war just such another. But ye’ve got the same look too” (here Lisbeth turned to Dinah). “I reckon it’s wi’ bein’ a Methody. Not as I’m a-findin’ faut wi’ ye for’t, for ye’ve no call to be frettin’, an’ somehow ye looken

ed in that finest woman’s tact which proceeds from acute and ready sympathy; “yes, I remember too, when my dear aunt died, I longed for the sound of he

n a less querulous tone, “had ye got no feyther and

rom a baby. She had no children, for she was never married an

up a cade lamb. But I daresay ye warna franzy, for ye look as if ye’d ne’er been angered i’ your life. But what d

kely to interest Lisbeth. The old woman listened, and forgot to be fretful, unconsciously subject to the soothing influence of Dinah’s face and voice. After a while she was persuaded to let the kitchen be made tidy; for Dinah was bent on this, believin

anin’ up. I wouldna mind ha’in ye for a daughter, for ye wouldna spend the lad’s wage i’ fine clothes an’ waste.

y in the mines, in the villages round about. But the heart of man is the same everywhere, and there are the children of t

na pleasant to look at, at all. I’d as lief look at a tooad. An’ I’m thinkin’ I wouldna mind if ye’d stay an’ sleep he

t expect me, and I should li

th’ night, for ye’ve got a nice way o’ talkin’. It puts me i’ mind o’ the swallows as was under the thack last ’ear when they fust begun to sing low an

o spare it, and he would neither eat nor drink, but lay on the ground all night, beseeching God for the child. But when he knew it was dead, he rose up from the ground and washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes, and ate and drank; and when they asked him how it was that he seemed to have left

o as ye like wi’ me: there’s a clean cap i’ that drawer, an’ I’ll go i’ the back kitchen an’ wash my face. An’ Seth, thee may’st reach down A

ing, among minds hardened and shrivelled through poverty and ignorance, and had gained the subtlest perception of the mode in which they could best be touched and softened into willingness to receive words of spiritual consolation or warning. As Dinah expressed it, “she was never left to herself; but it

distinct idea, without going through any course of religious emotions, felt a vague sense of goodness and love, and of something right lying underneath and beyond all thi