Adam and Dinah
It was about three o’clock when Adam entered the farmyard and roused
Alick and the dogs from their Sunday dozing. Alick said everybody was
gone to church “but th’ young missis”—so he called Dinah—but this did
not disappoint Adam, although the “everybody” was so liberal as to
include Nancy the dairymaid, whose works of necessity were not
unfrequently incompatible with church-going.
There was perfect stillness about the house. The doors were all closed,
and the very stones and tubs seemed quieter than usual. Adam heard the
water gently dripping from the pump—that was the only sound—and he
knocked at the house door rather softly, as was suitable in that
stillness.
The door opened, and Dinah stood before him, colouring deeply with the
great surprise of seeing Adam at this hour, when she knew it was his
regular practice to be at church. Yesterday he would have said to her
without any difficulty, “I came to see you, Dinah: I knew the rest were
not at home.” But to-day something prevented him from saying that, and
he put out his hand to her in silence. Neither of them spoke, and yet
both wished they could speak, as Adam entered, and they sat down. Dinah
took the chair she had just left; it was at the corner of the table
near the window, and there was a book lying on the table, but it was
not open. She had been sitting perfectly still, looking at the small
bit of clear fire in the bright grate. Adam sat down opposite her, in
Mr. Poyser’s three-cornered chair.
“Your mother is not ill again, I hope, Adam?” Dinah said, recovering
herself. “Seth said she was well this morning.”
“No, she’s very hearty to-day,” said Adam, happy in the signs of
Dinah’s feeling at the sight of him, but shy.
“There’s nobody at home, you see,” Dinah said; “but you’ll wait. You’ve
been hindered from going to church to-day, doubtless.”
“Yes,” Adam said, and then paused, before he added, “I was thinking
about you: that was the reason.”
This confession was very awkward and sudden, Adam felt, for he thought
Dinah must understand all he meant. But the frankness of the words
caused her immediately to interpret them into a renewal of his
brotherly regrets that she was going away, and she answered calmly, “Do
not be careful and troubled for me, Adam. I have all things and abound
at Snowfield. And my mind is at rest, for I am not seeking my own will
in going.”
“But if things were different, Dinah,” said Adam, hesitatingly. “If you
knew things that perhaps you don’t know now....”
Dinah looked at him inquiringly, but instead of going on, he reached a
chair and brought it near the corner of the table where she was
sitting. She wondered, and was afraid—and the next moment her thoughts
flew to the past: was it something about those distant unhappy ones
that she didn’t know?
Adam looked at her. It was so sweet to look at her eyes, which had now
a self-forgetful questioning in them—for a moment he forgot that he
wanted to say anything, or that it was necessary to tell her what he
meant.
“Dinah,” he said suddenly, taking both her hands between his, “I love
you with my whole heart and soul. I love you next to God who made me.”
Dinah’s lips became pale, like her cheeks, and she trembled violently
under the shock of painful joy. Her hands were cold as death between
Adam’s. She could not draw them away, because he held them fast.
“Don’t tell me you can’t love me, Dinah. Don’t tell me we must part and
pass our lives away from one another.”
The tears were trembling in Dinah’s eyes, and they fell before she
could answer. But she spoke in a quiet low voice.
“Yes, dear Adam, we must submit to another Will. We must part.”
“Not if you love me, Dinah—not if you love me,” Adam said passionately.
“Tell me—tell me if you can love me better than a brother?”
Dinah was too entirely reliant on the Supreme guidance to attempt to
achieve any end by a deceptive concealment. She was recovering now from
the first shock of emotion, and she looked at Adam with simple sincere
eyes as she said, “Yes, Adam, my heart is drawn strongly towards you;
and of my own will, if I had no clear showing to the contrary, I could
find my happiness in being near you and ministering to you continually.
I fear I should forget to rejoice and weep with others; nay, I fear I
should forget the Divine presence, and seek no love but yours.”
Adam did not speak immediately. They sat looking at each other in
delicious silence—for the first sense of mutual love excludes other
feelings; it will have the soul all to itself.
“Then, Dinah,” Adam said at last, “how can there be anything contrary
to what’s right in our belonging to one another and spending our lives
together? Who put this great love into our hearts? Can anything be
holier than that? For we can help one another in everything as is good.
I’d never think o’ putting myself between you and God, and saying you
oughtn’t to do this and you oughtn’t to do that. You’d follow your
conscience as much as you do now.”
“Yes, Adam,” Dinah said, “I know marriage is a holy state for those who
are truly called to it, and have no other drawing; but from my
childhood upwards I have been led towards another path; all my peace
and my joy have come from having no life of my own, no wants, no wishes
for myself, and living only in God and those of his creatures whose
sorrows and joys he has given me to know. Those have been very blessed
years to me, and I feel that if I was to listen to any voice that would
draw me aside from that path, I should be turning my back on the light
that has shone upon me, and darkness and doubt would take hold of me.
We could not bless each other, Adam, if there were doubts in my soul,
and if I yearned, when it was too late, after that better part which
had once been given me and I had put away from me.”
“But if a new feeling has come into your mind, Dinah, and if you love
me so as to be willing to be nearer to me than to other people, isn’t
that a sign that it’s right for you to change your life? Doesn’t the
love make it right when nothing else would?”
“Adam, my mind is full of questionings about that; for now, since you
tell me of your strong love towards me, what was clear to me has become
dark again. I felt before that my heart was too strongly drawn towards
you, and that your heart was not as mine; and the thought of you had
taken hold of me, so that my soul had lost its freedom, and was
becoming enslaved to an earthly affection, which made me anxious and
careful about what should befall myself. For in all other affection I
had been content with any small return, or with none; but my heart was
beginning to hunger after an equal love from you. And I had no doubt
that I must wrestle against that as a great temptation, and the command
was clear that I must go away.”
“But now, dear, dear Dinah, now you know I love you better than you
love me... it’s all different now. You won’t think o’ going. You’ll
stay, and be my dear wife, and I shall thank God for giving me my life
as I never thanked him before.”
“Adam, it’s hard to me to turn a deaf ear... you know it’s hard; but a
great fear is upon me. It seems to me as if you were stretching out
your arms to me, and beckoning me to come and take my ease and live for
my own delight, and Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, was standing looking
towards me, and pointing to the sinful, and suffering, and afflicted. I
have seen that again and again when I have been sitting in stillness
and darkness, and a great terror has come upon me lest I should become
hard, and a lover of self, and no more bear willingly the Redeemer’s
cross.”
Dinah had closed her eyes, and a faint shudder went through her.
“Adam,” she went on, “you wouldn’t desire that we should seek a good
through any unfaithfulness to the light that is in us; you wouldn’t
believe that could be a good. We are of one mind in that.”
“Yes, Dinah,” said Adam sadly, “I’ll never be the man t’ urge you
against your conscience. But I can’t give up the hope that you may come
to see different. I don’t believe your loving me could shut up your
heart—it’s only adding to what you’ve been before, not taking away from
it. For it seems to me it’s the same with love and happiness as with
sorrow—the more we know of it the better we can feel what other
people’s lives are or might be, and so we shall only be more tender to
’em, and wishful to help ’em. The more knowledge a man has, the better
he’ll do’s work; and feeling’s a sort o’ knowledge.”
Dinah was silent; her eyes were fixed in contemplation of something
visible only to herself. Adam went on presently with his pleading, “And
you can do almost as much as you do now. I won’t ask you to go to
church with me of a Sunday. You shall go where you like among the
people, and teach ’em; for though I like church best, I don’t put my
soul above yours, as if my words was better for you to follow than your
own conscience. And you can help the sick just as much, and you’ll have
more means o’ making ’em a bit comfortable; and you’ll be among all
your own friends as love you, and can help ’em and be a blessing to ’em
till their dying day. Surely, Dinah, you’d be as near to God as if you
was living lonely and away from me.”
Dinah made no answer for some time. Adam was still holding her hands
and looking at her with almost trembling anxiety, when she turned her
grave loving eyes on his and said, in rather a sad voice, “Adam there
is truth in what you say, and there’s many of the brethren and sisters
who have greater strength than I have, and find their hearts enlarged
by the cares of husband and kindred. But I have not faith that it would
be so with me, for since my affections have been set above measure on
you, I have had less peace and joy in God. I have felt as it were a
division in my heart. And think how it is with me, Adam. That life I
have led is like a land I have trodden in blessedness since my
childhood; and if I long for a moment to follow the voice which calls
me to another land that I know not, I cannot but fear that my soul
might hereafter yearn for that early blessedness which I had forsaken;
and where doubt enters there is not perfect love. I must wait for
clearer guidance. I must go from you, and we must submit ourselves
entirely to the Divine Will. We are sometimes required to lay our
natural lawful affections on the altar.”
Adam dared not plead again, for Dinah’s was not the voice of caprice or
insincerity. But it was very hard for him; his eyes got dim as he
looked at her.
“But you may come to feel satisfied... to feel that you may come to me
again, and we may never part, Dinah?”
“We must submit ourselves, Adam. With time, our duty will be made
clear. It may be when I have entered on my former life, I shall find
all these new thoughts and wishes vanish, and become as things that
were not. Then I shall know that my calling is not towards marriage.
But we must wait.”
“Dinah,” said Adam mournfully, “you can’t love me so well as I love
you, else you’d have no doubts. But it’s natural you shouldn’t, for I’m
not so good as you. I can’t doubt it’s right for me to love the best
thing God’s ever given me to know.”
“Nay, Adam. It seems to me that my love for you is not weak, for my
heart waits on your words and looks, almost as a little child waits on
the help and tenderness of the strong on whom it depends. If the
thought of you took slight hold of me, I should not fear that it would
be an idol in the temple. But you will strengthen me—you will not
hinder me in seeking to obey to the uttermost.”
“Let us go out into the sunshine, Dinah, and walk together. I’ll speak
no word to disturb you.”
They went out and walked towards the fields, where they would meet the
family coming from church. Adam said, “Take my arm, Dinah,” and she
took it. That was the only change in their manner to each other since
they were last walking together. But no sadness in the prospect of her
going away—in the uncertainty of the issue—could rob the sweetness from
Adam’s sense that Dinah loved him. He thought he would stay at the Hall
Farm all that evening. He would be near her as long as he could.
“Hey-day! There’s Adam along wi’ Dinah,” said Mr. Poyser, as he opened
the far gate into the Home Close. “I couldna think how he happened away
from church. Why,” added good Martin, after a moment’s pause, “what
dost think has just jumped into my head?”
“Summat as hadna far to jump, for it’s just under our nose. You mean as
Adam’s fond o’ Dinah.”
“Aye! hast ever had any notion of it before?”
“To be sure I have,” said Mrs. Poyser, who always declined, if
possible, to be taken by surprise. “I’m not one o’ those as can see the
cat i’ the dairy an’ wonder what she’s come after.”
“Thee never saidst a word to me about it.”
“Well, I aren’t like a bird-clapper, forced to make a rattle when the
wind blows on me. I can keep my own counsel when there’s no good i’
speaking.”
“But Dinah ’ll ha’ none o’ him. Dost think she will?”
“Nay,” said Mrs. Poyser, not sufficiently on her guard against a
possible surprise, “she’ll never marry anybody, if he isn’t a Methodist
and a cripple.”
“It ’ud ha’ been a pretty thing though for ’em t’ marry,” said Martin,
turning his head on one side, as if in pleased contemplation of his new
idea. “Thee’dst ha’ liked it too, wouldstna?”
“Ah! I should. I should ha’ been sure of her then, as she wouldn’t go
away from me to Snowfield, welly thirty mile off, and me not got a
creatur to look to, only neighbours, as are no kin to me, an’ most of
’em women as I’d be ashamed to show my face, if _my_ dairy things war
like their’n. There may well be streaky butter i’ the market. An’ I
should be glad to see the poor thing settled like a Christian woman,
with a house of her own over her head; and we’d stock her well wi’
linen and feathers, for I love her next to my own children. An’ she
makes one feel safer when she’s i’ the house, for she’s like the driven
snow: anybody might sin for two as had her at their elbow.”
“Dinah,” said Tommy, running forward to meet her, “mother says you’ll
never marry anybody but a Methodist cripple. What a silly you must be!”
a comment which Tommy followed up by seizing Dinah with both arms, and
dancing along by her side with incommodious fondness.
“Why, Adam, we missed you i’ the singing to-day,” said Mr. Poyser. “How
was it?”
“I wanted to see Dinah—she’s going away so soon,” said Adam.
“Ah, lad! Can you persuade her to stop somehow? Find her a good husband
somewhere i’ the parish. If you’ll do that, we’ll forgive you for
missing church. But, anyway, she isna going before the harvest supper
o’ Wednesday, and you must come then. There’s Bartle Massey comin’, an’
happen Craig. You’ll be sure an’ come, now, at seven? The missis wunna
have it a bit later.”
“Aye,” said Adam, “I’ll come if I can. But I can’t often say what I’ll
do beforehand, for the work often holds me longer than I expect. You’ll
stay till the end o’ the week, Dinah?”
“Yes, yes!” said Mr. Poyser. “We’ll have no nay.”
“She’s no call to be in a hurry,” observed Mrs. Poyser. “Scarceness o’
victual ’ull keep: there’s no need to be hasty wi’ the cooking. An’
scarceness is what there’s the biggest stock of i’ that country.”
Dinah smiled, but gave no promise to stay, and they talked of other
things through the rest of the walk, lingering in the sunshine to look
at the great flock of geese grazing, at the new corn-ricks, and at the
surprising abundance of fruit on the old pear-tree; Nancy and Molly
having already hastened home, side by side, each holding, carefully
wrapped in her pocket-handkerchief, a prayer-book, in which she could
read little beyond the large letters and the Amens.
Surely all other leisure is hurry compared with a sunny walk through
the fields from “afternoon church”—as such walks used to be in those
old leisurely times, when the boat, gliding sleepily along the canal,
was the newest locomotive wonder; when Sunday books had most of them
old brown-leather covers, and opened with remarkable precision always
in one place. Leisure is gone—gone where the spinning-wheels are gone,
and the pack-horses, and the slow waggons, and the pedlars, who brought
bargains to the door on sunny afternoons. Ingenious philosophers tell
you, perhaps, that the great work of the steam-engine is to create
leisure for mankind. Do not believe them: it only creates a vacuum for
eager thought to rush in. Even idleness is eager now—eager for
amusement; prone to excursion-trains, art museums, periodical
literature, and exciting novels; prone even to scientific theorizing
and cursory peeps through microscopes. Old Leisure was quite a
different personage. He only read one newspaper, innocent of leaders,
and was free from that periodicity of sensations which we call
post-time. He was a contemplative, rather stout gentleman, of excellent
digestion; of quiet perceptions, undiseased by hypothesis; happy in his
inability to know the causes of things, preferring the things
themselves. He lived chiefly in the country, among pleasant seats and
homesteads, and was fond of sauntering by the fruit-tree wall and
scenting the apricots when they were warmed by the morning sunshine, or
of sheltering himself under the orchard boughs at noon, when the summer
pears were falling. He knew nothing of weekday services, and thought
none the worse of the Sunday sermon if it allowed him to sleep from the
text to the blessing; liking the afternoon service best, because the
prayers were the shortest, and not ashamed to say so; for he had an
easy, jolly conscience, broad-backed like himself, and able to carry a
great deal of beer or port-wine, not being made squeamish by doubts and
qualms and lofty aspirations. Life was not a task to him, but a
sinecure. He fingered the guineas in his pocket, and ate his dinners,
and slept the sleep of the irresponsible, for had he not kept up his
character by going to church on the Sunday afternoons?
Fine old Leisure! Do not be severe upon him, and judge him by our
modern standard. He never went to Exeter Hall, or heard a popular
preacher, or read _Tracts for the Times_ or _Sartor Resartus_.