The Quest
The first ten days after Hetty’s departure passed as quietly as any
other days with the family at the Hall Farm, and with Adam at his daily
work. They had expected Hetty to stay away a week or ten days at least,
perhaps a little longer if Dinah came back with her, because there
might then be something to detain them at Snowfield. But when a
fortnight had passed they began to feel a little surprise that Hetty
did not return; she must surely have found it pleasanter to be with
Dinah than any one could have supposed. Adam, for his part, was getting
very impatient to see her, and he resolved that, if she did not appear
the next day (Saturday), he would set out on Sunday morning to fetch
her. There was no coach on a Sunday, but by setting out before it was
light, and perhaps getting a lift in a cart by the way, he would arrive
pretty early at Snowfield, and bring back Hetty the next day—Dinah too,
if she were coming. It was quite time Hetty came home, and he would
afford to lose his Monday for the sake of bringing her.
His project was quite approved at the Farm when he went there on
Saturday evening. Mrs. Poyser desired him emphatically not to come back
without Hetty, for she had been quite too long away, considering the
things she had to get ready by the middle of March, and a week was
surely enough for any one to go out for their health. As for Dinah,
Mrs. Poyser had small hope of their bringing her, unless they could
make her believe the folks at Hayslope were twice as miserable as the
folks at Snowfield. “Though,” said Mrs. Poyser, by way of conclusion,
“you might tell her she’s got but one aunt left, and _she’s_ wasted
pretty nigh to a shadder; and we shall p’rhaps all be gone twenty mile
farther off her next Michaelmas, and shall die o’ broken hearts among
strange folks, and leave the children fatherless and motherless.”
“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Poyser, who certainly had the air of a man
perfectly heart-whole, “it isna so bad as that. Thee’t looking rarely
now, and getting flesh every day. But I’d be glad for Dinah t’ come,
for she’d help thee wi’ the little uns: they took t’ her wonderful.”
So at daybreak, on Sunday, Adam set off. Seth went with him the first
mile or two, for the thought of Snowfield and the possibility that
Dinah might come again made him restless, and the walk with Adam in the
cold morning air, both in their best clothes, helped to give him a
sense of Sunday calm. It was the last morning in February, with a low
grey sky, and a slight hoar-frost on the green border of the road and
on the black hedges. They heard the gurgling of the full brooklet
hurrying down the hill, and the faint twittering of the early birds.
For they walked in silence, though with a pleased sense of
companionship.
“Good-bye, lad,” said Adam, laying his hand on Seth’s shoulder and
looking at him affectionately as they were about to part. “I wish thee
wast going all the way wi’ me, and as happy as I am.”
“I’m content, Addy, I’m content,” said Seth cheerfully. “I’ll be an old
bachelor, belike, and make a fuss wi’ thy children.”
They turned away from each other, and Seth walked leisurely homeward,
mentally repeating one of his favourite hymns—he was very fond of
hymns:
“Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by thee:
Joyless is the day’s return
Till thy mercy’s beams I see:
Till thou inward light impart,
Glad my eyes and warm my heart.
Visit, then, this soul of mine,
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief—
Fill me, Radiancy Divine,
Scatter all my unbelief.
More and more thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.”
Adam walked much faster, and any one coming along the Oakbourne road at
sunrise that morning must have had a pleasant sight in this tall
broad-chested man, striding along with a carriage as upright and firm
as any soldier’s, glancing with keen glad eyes at the dark-blue hills
as they began to show themselves on his way. Seldom in Adam’s life had
his face been so free from any cloud of anxiety as it was this morning;
and this freedom from care, as is usual with constructive practical
minds like his, made him all the more observant of the objects round
him and all the more ready to gather suggestions from them towards his
own favourite plans and ingenious contrivances. His happy love—the
knowledge that his steps were carrying him nearer and nearer to Hetty,
who was so soon to be his—was to his thoughts what the sweet morning
air was to his sensations: it gave him a consciousness of well-being
that made activity delightful. Every now and then there was a rush of
more intense feeling towards her, which chased away other images than
Hetty; and along with that would come a wondering thankfulness that all
this happiness was given to him—that this life of ours had such
sweetness in it. For Adam had a devout mind, though he was perhaps
rather impatient of devout words, and his tenderness lay very close to
his reverence, so that the one could hardly be stirred without the
other. But after feeling had welled up and poured itself out in this
way, busy thought would come back with the greater vigour; and this
morning it was intent on schemes by which the roads might be improved
that were so imperfect all through the country, and on picturing all
the benefits that might come from the exertions of a single country
gentleman, if he would set himself to getting the roads made good in
his own district.
It seemed a very short walk, the ten miles to Oakbourne, that pretty
town within sight of the blue hills, where he break-fasted. After this,
the country grew barer and barer: no more rolling woods, no more
wide-branching trees near frequent homesteads, no more bushy hedgerows,
but greystone walls intersecting the meagre pastures, and dismal
wide-scattered greystone houses on broken lands where mines had been
and were no longer. “A hungry land,” said Adam to himself. “I’d rather
go south’ard, where they say it’s as flat as a table, than come to live
here; though if Dinah likes to live in a country where she can be the
most comfort to folks, she’s i’ the right to live o’ this side; for she
must look as if she’d come straight from heaven, like th’ angels in the
desert, to strengthen them as ha’ got nothing t’ eat.” And when at last
he came in sight of Snowfield, he thought it looked like a town that
was “fellow to the country,” though the stream through the valley where
the great mill stood gave a pleasant greenness to the lower fields. The
town lay, grim, stony, and unsheltered, up the side of a steep hill,
and Adam did not go forward to it at present, for Seth had told him
where to find Dinah. It was at a thatched cottage outside the town, a
little way from the mill—an old cottage, standing sideways towards the
road, with a little bit of potato-ground before it. Here Dinah lodged
with an elderly couple; and if she and Hetty happened to be out, Adam
could learn where they were gone, or when they would be at home again.
Dinah might be out on some preaching errand, and perhaps she would have
left Hetty at home. Adam could not help hoping this, and as he
recognized the cottage by the roadside before him, there shone out in
his face that involuntary smile which belongs to the expectation of a
near joy.
He hurried his step along the narrow causeway, and rapped at the door.
It was opened by a very clean old woman, with a slow palsied shake of
the head.
“Is Dinah Morris at home?” said Adam.
“Eh?... no,” said the old woman, looking up at this tall stranger with
a wonder that made her slower of speech than usual. “Will you please to
come in?” she added, retiring from the door, as if recollecting
herself. “Why, ye’re brother to the young man as come afore, arena ye?”
“Yes,” said Adam, entering. “That was Seth Bede. I’m his brother Adam.
He told me to give his respects to you and your good master.”
“Aye, the same t’ him. He was a gracious young man. An’ ye feature him,
on’y ye’re darker. Sit ye down i’ th’ arm-chair. My man isna come home
from meeting.”
Adam sat down patiently, not liking to hurry the shaking old woman with
questions, but looking eagerly towards the narrow twisting stairs in
one corner, for he thought it was possible Hetty might have heard his
voice and would come down them.
“So you’re come to see Dinah Morris?” said the old woman, standing
opposite to him. “An’ you didn’ know she was away from home, then?”
“No,” said Adam, “but I thought it likely she might be away, seeing as
it’s Sunday. But the other young woman—is she at home, or gone along
with Dinah?”
The old woman looked at Adam with a bewildered air.
“Gone along wi’ her?” she said. “Eh, Dinah’s gone to Leeds, a big town
ye may ha’ heared on, where there’s a many o’ the Lord’s people. She’s
been gone sin’ Friday was a fortnight: they sent her the money for her
journey. You may see her room here,” she went on, opening a door and
not noticing the effect of her words on Adam. He rose and followed her,
and darted an eager glance into the little room with its narrow bed,
the portrait of Wesley on the wall, and the few books lying on the
large Bible. He had had an irrational hope that Hetty might be there.
He could not speak in the first moment after seeing that the room was
empty; an undefined fear had seized him—something had happened to Hetty
on the journey. Still the old woman was so slow of speech and
apprehension, that Hetty might be at Snowfield after all.
“It’s a pity ye didna know,” she said. “Have ye come from your own
country o’ purpose to see her?”
“But Hetty—Hetty Sorrel,” said Adam, abruptly; “Where is _she?_”
“I know nobody by that name,” said the old woman, wonderingly. “Is it
anybody ye’ve heared on at Snowfield?”
“Did there come no young woman here—very young and pretty—Friday was a
fortnight, to see Dinah Morris?”
“Nay; I’n seen no young woman.”
“Think; are you quite sure? A girl, eighteen years old, with dark eyes
and dark curly hair, and a red cloak on, and a basket on her arm? You
couldn’t forget her if you saw her.”
“Nay; Friday was a fortnight—it was the day as Dinah went away—there
come nobody. There’s ne’er been nobody asking for her till you come,
for the folks about know as she’s gone. Eh dear, eh dear, is there
summat the matter?”
The old woman had seen the ghastly look of fear in Adam’s face. But he
was not stunned or confounded: he was thinking eagerly where he could
inquire about Hetty.
“Yes; a young woman started from our country to see Dinah, Friday was a
fortnight. I came to fetch her back. I’m afraid something has happened
to her. I can’t stop. Good-bye.”
He hastened out of the cottage, and the old woman followed him to the
gate, watching him sadly with her shaking head as he almost ran towards
the town. He was going to inquire at the place where the Oakbourne
coach stopped.
No! No young woman like Hetty had been seen there. Had any accident
happened to the coach a fortnight ago? No. And there was no coach to
take him back to Oakbourne that day. Well, he would walk: he couldn’t
stay here, in wretched inaction. But the innkeeper, seeing that Adam
was in great anxiety, and entering into this new incident with the
eagerness of a man who passes a great deal of time with his hands in
his pockets looking into an obstinately monotonous street, offered to
take him back to Oakbourne in his own “taxed cart” this very evening.
It was not five o’clock; there was plenty of time for Adam to take a
meal and yet to get to Oakbourne before ten o’clock. The innkeeper
declared that he really wanted to go to Oakbourne, and might as well go
to-night; he should have all Monday before him then. Adam, after making
an ineffectual attempt to eat, put the food in his pocket, and,
drinking a draught of ale, declared himself ready to set off. As they
approached the cottage, it occurred to him that he would do well to
learn from the old woman where Dinah was to be found in Leeds: if there
was trouble at the Hall Farm—he only half-admitted the foreboding that
there would be—the Poysers might like to send for Dinah. But Dinah had
not left any address, and the old woman, whose memory for names was
infirm, could not recall the name of the “blessed woman” who was
Dinah’s chief friend in the Society at Leeds.
During that long, long journey in the taxed cart, there was time for
all the conjectures of importunate fear and struggling hope. In the
very first shock of discovering that Hetty had not been to Snowfield,
the thought of Arthur had darted through Adam like a sharp pang, but he
tried for some time to ward off its return by busying himself with
modes of accounting for the alarming fact, quite apart from that
intolerable thought. Some accident had happened. Hetty had, by some
strange chance, got into a wrong vehicle from Oakbourne: she had been
taken ill, and did not want to frighten them by letting them know. But
this frail fence of vague improbabilities was soon hurled down by a
rush of distinct agonizing fears. Hetty had been deceiving herself in
thinking that she could love and marry him: she had been loving Arthur
all the while; and now, in her desperation at the nearness of their
marriage, she had run away. And she was gone to _him_. The old
indignation and jealousy rose again, and prompted the suspicion that
Arthur had been dealing falsely—had written to Hetty—had tempted her to
come to him—being unwilling, after all, that she should belong to
another man besides himself. Perhaps the whole thing had been contrived
by him, and he had given her directions how to follow him to
Ireland—for Adam knew that Arthur had been gone thither three weeks
ago, having recently learnt it at the Chase. Every sad look of Hetty’s,
since she had been engaged to Adam, returned upon him now with all the
exaggeration of painful retrospect. He had been foolishly sanguine and
confident. The poor thing hadn’t perhaps known her own mind for a long
while; had thought that she could forget Arthur; had been momentarily
drawn towards the man who offered her a protecting, faithful love. He
couldn’t bear to blame her: she never meant to cause him this dreadful
pain. The blame lay with that man who had selfishly played with her
heart—had perhaps even deliberately lured her away.
At Oakbourne, the ostler at the Royal Oak remembered such a young woman
as Adam described getting out of the Treddleston coach more than a
fortnight ago—wasn’t likely to forget such a pretty lass as that in a
hurry—was sure she had not gone on by the Buxton coach that went
through Snowfield, but had lost sight of her while he went away with
the horses and had never set eyes on her again. Adam then went straight
to the house from which the Stoniton coach started: Stoniton was the
most obvious place for Hetty to go to first, whatever might be her
destination, for she would hardly venture on any but the chief
coach-roads. She had been noticed here too, and was remembered to have
sat on the box by the coachman; but the coachman could not be seen, for
another man had been driving on that road in his stead the last three
or four days. He could probably be seen at Stoniton, through inquiry at
the inn where the coach put up. So the anxious heart-stricken Adam must
of necessity wait and try to rest till morning—nay, till eleven
o’clock, when the coach started.
At Stoniton another delay occurred, for the old coachman who had driven
Hetty would not be in the town again till night. When he did come he
remembered Hetty well, and remembered his own joke addressed to her,
quoting it many times to Adam, and observing with equal frequency that
he thought there was something more than common, because Hetty had not
laughed when he joked her. But he declared, as the people had done at
the inn, that he had lost sight of Hetty directly she got down. Part of
the next morning was consumed in inquiries at every house in the town
from which a coach started—(all in vain, for you know Hetty did not
start from Stoniton by coach, but on foot in the grey morning)—and then
in walking out to the first toll-gates on the different lines of road,
in the forlorn hope of finding some recollection of her there. No, she
was not to be traced any farther; and the next hard task for Adam was
to go home and carry the wretched tidings to the Hall Farm. As to what
he should do beyond that, he had come to two distinct resolutions
amidst the tumult of thought and feeling which was going on within him
while he went to and fro. He would not mention what he knew of Arthur
Donnithorne’s behaviour to Hetty till there was a clear necessity for
it: it was still possible Hetty might come back, and the disclosure
might be an injury or an offence to her. And as soon as he had been
home and done what was necessary there to prepare for his further
absence, he would start off to Ireland: if he found no trace of Hetty
on the road, he would go straight to Arthur Donnithorne and make
himself certain how far he was acquainted with her movements. Several
times the thought occurred to him that he would consult Mr. Irwine, but
that would be useless unless he told him all, and so betrayed the
secret about Arthur. It seems strange that Adam, in the incessant
occupation of his mind about Hetty, should never have alighted on the
probability that she had gone to Windsor, ignorant that Arthur was no
longer there. Perhaps the reason was that he could not conceive Hetty’s
throwing herself on Arthur uncalled; he imagined no cause that could
have driven her to such a step, after that letter written in August.
There were but two alternatives in his mind: either Arthur had written
to her again and enticed her away, or she had simply fled from her
approaching marriage with himself because she found, after all, she
could not love him well enough, and yet was afraid of her friends’
anger if she retracted.
With this last determination on his mind, of going straight to Arthur,
the thought that he had spent two days in inquiries which had proved to
be almost useless, was torturing to Adam; and yet, since he would not
tell the Poysers his conviction as to where Hetty was gone, or his
intention to follow her thither, he must be able to say to them that he
had traced her as far as possible.
It was after twelve o’clock on Tuesday night when Adam reached
Treddleston; and, unwilling to disturb his mother and Seth, and also to
encounter their questions at that hour, he threw himself without
undressing on a bed at the “Waggon Overthrown,” and slept hard from
pure weariness. Not more than four hours, however, for before five
o’clock he set out on his way home in the faint morning twilight. He
always kept a key of the workshop door in his pocket, so that he could
let himself in; and he wished to enter without awaking his mother, for
he was anxious to avoid telling her the new trouble himself by seeing
Seth first, and asking him to tell her when it should be necessary. He
walked gently along the yard, and turned the key gently in the door;
but, as he expected, Gyp, who lay in the workshop, gave a sharp bark.
It subsided when he saw Adam, holding up his finger at him to impose
silence, and in his dumb, tailless joy he must content himself with
rubbing his body against his master’s legs.
Adam was too heart-sick to take notice of Gyp’s fondling. He threw
himself on the bench and stared dully at the wood and the signs of work
around him, wondering if he should ever come to feel pleasure in them
again, while Gyp, dimly aware that there was something wrong with his
master, laid his rough grey head on Adam’s knee and wrinkled his brows
to look up at him. Hitherto, since Sunday afternoon, Adam had been
constantly among strange people and in strange places, having no
associations with the details of his daily life, and now that by the
light of this new morning he was come back to his home and surrounded
by the familiar objects that seemed for ever robbed of their charm, the
reality—the hard, inevitable reality of his troubles pressed upon him
with a new weight. Right before him was an unfinished chest of drawers,
which he had been making in spare moments for Hetty’s use, when his
home should be hers.
Seth had not heard Adam’s entrance, but he had been roused by Gyp’s
bark, and Adam heard him moving about in the room above, dressing
himself. Seth’s first thoughts were about his brother: he would come
home to-day, surely, for the business would be wanting him sadly by
to-morrow, but it was pleasant to think he had had a longer holiday
than he had expected. And would Dinah come too? Seth felt that that was
the greatest happiness he could look forward to for himself, though he
had no hope left that she would ever love him well enough to marry him;
but he had often said to himself, it was better to be Dinah’s friend
and brother than any other woman’s husband. If he could but be always
near her, instead of living so far off!
He came downstairs and opened the inner door leading from the kitchen
into the workshop, intending to let out Gyp; but he stood still in the
doorway, smitten with a sudden shock at the sight of Adam seated
listlessly on the bench, pale, unwashed, with sunken blank eyes, almost
like a drunkard in the morning. But Seth felt in an instant what the
marks meant—not drunkenness, but some great calamity. Adam looked up at
him without speaking, and Seth moved forward towards the bench, himself
trembling so that speech did not come readily.
“God have mercy on us, Addy,” he said, in a low voice, sitting down on
the bench beside Adam, “what is it?”
Adam was unable to speak. The strong man, accustomed to suppress the
signs of sorrow, had felt his heart swell like a child’s at this first
approach of sympathy. He fell on Seth’s neck and sobbed.
Seth was prepared for the worst now, for, even in his recollections of
their boyhood, Adam had never sobbed before.
“Is it death, Adam? Is she dead?” he asked, in a low tone, when Adam
raised his head and was recovering himself.
“No, lad; but she’s gone—gone away from us. She’s never been to
Snowfield. Dinah’s been gone to Leeds ever since last Friday was a
fortnight, the very day Hetty set out. I can’t find out where she went
after she got to Stoniton.”
Seth was silent from utter astonishment: he knew nothing that could
suggest to him a reason for Hetty’s going away.
“Hast any notion what she’s done it for?” he said, at last.
“She can’t ha’ loved me. She didn’t like our marriage when it came
nigh—that must be it,” said Adam. He had determined to mention no
further reason.
“I hear Mother stirring,” said Seth. “Must we tell her?”
“No, not yet,” said Adam, rising from the bench and pushing the hair
from his face, as if he wanted to rouse himself. “I can’t have her told
yet; and I must set out on another journey directly, after I’ve been to
the village and th’ Hall Farm. I can’t tell thee where I’m going, and
thee must say to her I’m gone on business as nobody is to know anything
about. I’ll go and wash myself now.” Adam moved towards the door of the
workshop, but after a step or two he turned round, and, meeting Seth’s
eyes with a calm sad glance, he said, “I must take all the money out o’
the tin box, lad; but if anything happens to me, all the rest ’ll be
thine, to take care o’ Mother with.”
Seth was pale and trembling: he felt there was some terrible secret
under all this. “Brother,” he said, faintly—he never called Adam
“Brother” except in solemn moments—“I don’t believe you’ll do anything
as you can’t ask God’s blessing on.”
“Nay, lad,” said Adam, “don’t be afraid. I’m for doing nought but
what’s a man’s duty.”
The thought that if he betrayed his trouble to his mother, she would
only distress him by words, half of blundering affection, half of
irrepressible triumph that Hetty proved as unfit to be his wife as she
had always foreseen, brought back some of his habitual firmness and
self-command. He had felt ill on his journey home—he told her when she
came down—had stayed all night at Tredddleston for that reason; and a
bad headache, that still hung about him this morning, accounted for his
paleness and heavy eyes.
He determined to go to the village, in the first place, attend to his
business for an hour, and give notice to Burge of his being obliged to
go on a journey, which he must beg him not to mention to any one; for
he wished to avoid going to the Hall Farm near breakfast-time, when the
children and servants would be in the house-place, and there must be
exclamations in their hearing about his having returned without Hetty.
He waited until the clock struck nine before he left the work-yard at
the village, and set off, through the fields, towards the Farm. It was
an immense relief to him, as he came near the Home Close, to see Mr.
Poyser advancing towards him, for this would spare him the pain of
going to the house. Mr. Poyser was walking briskly this March morning,
with a sense of spring business on his mind: he was going to cast the
master’s eye on the shoeing of a new cart-horse, carrying his spud as a
useful companion by the way. His surprise was great when he caught
sight of Adam, but he was not a man given to presentiments of evil.
“Why, Adam, lad, is’t you? Have ye been all this time away and not
brought the lasses back, after all? Where are they?”
“No, I’ve not brought ’em,” said Adam, turning round, to indicate that
he wished to walk back with Mr. Poyser.
“Why,” said Martin, looking with sharper attention at Adam, “ye look
bad. Is there anything happened?”
“Yes,” said Adam, heavily. “A sad thing’s happened. I didna find Hetty
at Snowfield.”
Mr. Poyser’s good-natured face showed signs of troubled astonishment.
“Not find her? What’s happened to her?” he said, his thoughts flying at
once to bodily accident.
“That I can’t tell, whether anything’s happened to her. She never went
to Snowfield—she took the coach to Stoniton, but I can’t learn nothing
of her after she got down from the Stoniton coach.”
“Why, you donna mean she’s run away?” said Martin, standing still, so
puzzled and bewildered that the fact did not yet make itself felt as a
trouble by him.
“She must ha’ done,” said Adam. “She didn’t like our marriage when it
came to the point—that must be it. She’d mistook her feelings.”
Martin was silent for a minute or two, looking on the ground and
rooting up the grass with his spud, without knowing what he was doing.
His usual slowness was always trebled when the subject of speech was
painful. At last he looked up, right in Adam’s face, saying, “Then she
didna deserve t’ ha’ ye, my lad. An’ I feel i’ fault myself, for she
was my niece, and I was allays hot for her marr’ing ye. There’s no
amends I can make ye, lad—the more’s the pity: it’s a sad cut-up for
ye, I doubt.”
Adam could say nothing; and Mr. Poyser, after pursuing his walk for a
little while, went on, “I’ll be bound she’s gone after trying to get a
lady’s maid’s place, for she’d got that in her head half a year ago,
and wanted me to gi’ my consent. But I’d thought better on her”—he
added, shaking his head slowly and sadly—“I’d thought better on her,
nor to look for this, after she’d gi’en y’ her word, an’ everything
been got ready.”
Adam had the strongest motives for encouraging this supposition in Mr.
Poyser, and he even tried to believe that it might possibly be true. He
had no warrant for the _certainty_ that she was gone to Arthur.
“It was better it should be so,” he said, as quietly as he could, “if
she felt she couldn’t like me for a husband. Better run away before
than repent after. I hope you won’t look harshly on her if she comes
back, as she may do if she finds it hard to get on away from home.”
“I canna look on her as I’ve done before,” said Martin decisively.
“She’s acted bad by you, and by all of us. But I’ll not turn my back on
her: she’s but a young un, and it’s the first harm I’ve knowed on her.
It’ll be a hard job for me to tell her aunt. Why didna Dinah come back
wi’ ye? She’d ha’ helped to pacify her aunt a bit.”
“Dinah wasn’t at Snowfield. She’s been gone to Leeds this fortnight,
and I couldn’t learn from th’ old woman any direction where she is at
Leeds, else I should ha’ brought it you.”
“She’d a deal better be staying wi’ her own kin,” said Mr. Poyser,
indignantly, “than going preaching among strange folks a-that’n.”
“I must leave you now, Mr. Poyser,” said Adam, “for I’ve a deal to see
to.”
“Aye, you’d best be after your business, and I must tell the missis
when I go home. It’s a hard job.”
“But,” said Adam, “I beg particular, you’ll keep what’s happened quiet
for a week or two. I’ve not told my mother yet, and there’s no knowing
how things may turn out.”
“Aye, aye; least said, soonest mended. We’n no need to say why the
match is broke off, an’ we may hear of her after a bit. Shake hands wi’
me, lad: I wish I could make thee amends.”
There was something in Martin Poyser’s throat at that moment which
caused him to bring out those scanty words in rather a broken fashion.
Yet Adam knew what they meant all the better, and the two honest men
grasped each other’s hard hands in mutual understanding.
There was nothing now to hinder Adam from setting off. He had told Seth
to go to the Chase and leave a message for the squire, saying that Adam
Bede had been obliged to start off suddenly on a journey—and to say as
much, and no more, to any one else who made inquiries about him. If the
Poysers learned that he was gone away again, Adam knew they would infer
that he was gone in search of Hetty.
He had intended to go right on his way from the Hall Farm, but now the
impulse which had frequently visited him before—to go to Mr. Irwine,
and make a confidant of him—recurred with the new force which belongs
to a last opportunity. He was about to start on a long journey—a
difficult one—by sea—and no soul would know where he was gone. If
anything happened to him? Or, if he absolutely needed help in any
matter concerning Hetty? Mr. Irwine was to be trusted; and the feeling
which made Adam shrink from telling anything which was _her_ secret
must give way before the need there was that she should have some one
else besides himself who would be prepared to defend her in the worst
extremity. Towards Arthur, even though he might have incurred no new
guilt, Adam felt that he was not bound to keep silence when Hetty’s
interest called on him to speak.
“I must do it,” said Adam, when these thoughts, which had spread
themselves through hours of his sad journeying, now rushed upon him in
an instant, like a wave that had been slowly gathering; “it’s the right
thing. I can’t stand alone in this way any longer.”