近光灯和远光灯的使用及操作
Adam Bede
by George Eliot
Book One
Chapter I
The Workshop
With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer
undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of
the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. With
this drop of ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy
workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the
village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in
the year of our Lord 1799.
The afternoon sun was warm on the five workmen there, busy upon
doors and window-frames and wainscoting. A scent of pine-wood
from a tentlike pile of planks outside the open door mingled
itself with the scent of the elder-bushes which were spreading
their summer snow close to the open window opposite; the slanting
sunbeams shone through the transparent shavings that flew before
the steady plane, and lit up the fine grain of the oak panelling
which stood propped against the wall. On a heap of those soft
shavings a rough, grey shepherd dog had made himself a pleasant
bed, and was lying with his nose between his fore-paws,
occasionally wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest
of the five workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a
wooden mantelpiece. It was to this workman that the strong
barytone belonged which was heard above the sound of plane and
hammer singing--
Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth...
Here some measurement was to be taken which required more
concentrated attention, and the sonorous voice subsided into a low
whistle; but it presently broke out again with renewed vigour--
Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear.
Such a voice could only come from a broad chest, and the broad
chest belonged to a large-boned, muscular man nearly six feet
high, with a back so flat and a head so well poised that when he
drew himself up to take a more distant survey of his work, he had
the air of a soldier standing at ease. 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; but the jet-black hair,
made the more noticeable by its contrast with the light paper cap,
and the keen glance of the dark eyes that shone from under
strongly marked, prominent and mobile eyebrows, indicated a
mixture of Celtic blood. 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, the same
hue of hair and complexion; but the strength of the family
likeness seems only to render more conspicuous the remarkable
difference of expression both in form and face. Seth's broad
shoulders have a slight stoop; his eyes are grey; his eyebrows
have less prominence and more repose than his brother's; and his
glance, instead of being keen, is confiding and benign. He has
thrown off his paper cap, and you see that his hair is not thick
and straight, like Adam's, but thin and wavy, allowing you to
discern the exact contour of a coronal arch that predominates very
decidedly over the brow.
The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a copper from
Seth; they scarcely ever spoke to Adam.
The concert of the tools and Adam's voice was at last broken by
Seth, who, lifting the door at which he had been working intently,
placed it against the wall, and said, "There! I've finished my
door to-day, anyhow."
The workmen all looked up; Jim Salt, a burly, red-haired man known
as Sandy Jim, paused from his planing, and Adam said to Seth, with
a sharp glance of surprise, "What! Dost think thee'st finished the
door?"
"Aye, sure," said Seth, with answering surprise; "what's awanting
to't?"
A loud roar of laughter from the other three workmen made Seth
look round confusedly. Adam did not join in the laughter, but
there was a slight smile on his face as he said, in a gentler tone
than before, "Why, thee'st forgot the panels."
The laughter burst out afresh as Seth clapped his hands to his
head, and coloured over brow and crown.
"Hoorray!" shouted a small lithe fellow called Wiry Ben, running
forward and seizing the door. "We'll hang up th' door at fur end
o' th' shop an' write on't 'Seth Bede, the Methody, his work.'
Here, Jim, lend's hould o' th' red pot."
"Nonsense!" said Adam. "Let it alone, Ben Cranage. You'll mayhap
be making such a slip yourself some day; you'll laugh o' th' other
side o' your mouth then."
"Catch me at it, Adam. It'll be a good while afore my head's full
o' th' Methodies," said Ben.
"Nay, but it's often full o' drink, and that's worse."
Ben, however, had now got the "red pot" in his hand, and was about
to begin writing his inscription, making, by way of preliminary,
an imaginary S in the air.
"Let it alone, will you?" Adam called out, laying down his tools,
striding up to Ben, and seizing his right shoulder. "Let it
alone, or I'll shake the soul out o' your body."
Ben shook in Adam's iron grasp, but, like a plucky small man as he
was, he didn't mean to give in. With his left hand he snatched
the brush from his powerless right, and made a movement as if he
would perform the feat of writing with his left. In a moment Adam
turned him round, seized his other shoulder, and, pushing him
along, pinned him against the wall. But now Seth spoke.
"Let be, Addy, let be. Ben will be joking. Why, he's i' the
right to laugh at me--I canna help laughing at myself."
"I shan't loose him till he promises to let the door alone," said
Adam.
"Come, Ben, lad," said Seth, in a persuasive tone, "don't let's
have a quarrel about it. You know Adam will have his way. You
may's well try to turn a waggon in a narrow lane. Say you'll
leave the door alone, and make an end on't."
"I binna frighted at Adam," said Ben, "but I donna mind sayin' as
I'll let 't alone at your askin', Seth."
"Come, that's wise of you, Ben," said Adam, laughing and relaxing
his grasp.
They all returned to their work now; but Wiry Ben, having had the
worst in the bodily contest, was bent on retrieving that
humiliation by a success in sarcasm.
"Which was ye thinkin' on, Seth," he began--"the pretty parson's
face or her sarmunt, when ye forgot the panels?"
"Come and hear her, Ben," said Seth, good-humouredly; "she's going
to preach on the Green to-night; happen ye'd get something to
think on yourself then, instead o' those wicked songs you're so
fond on. Ye might get religion, and that 'ud be the best day's
earnings y' ever made."
"All i' good time for that, Seth; I'll think about that when I'm
a-goin' to settle i' life; bachelors doesn't want such heavy
earnin's. Happen I shall do the coortin' an' the religion both
together, as YE do, Seth; but ye wouldna ha' me get converted an'
chop in atween ye an' the pretty preacher, an' carry her aff?"
"No fear o' that, Ben; she's neither for you nor for me to win, I
doubt. Only you come and hear her, and you won't speak lightly on
her again."
"Well, I'm half a mind t' ha' a look at her to-night, if there
isn't good company at th' Holly Bush. What'll she take for her
text? Happen ye can tell me, Seth, if so be as I shouldna come up
i' time for't. Will't be--what come ye out for to see? A
prophetess? Yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophetess--a
uncommon pretty young woman."
"Come, Ben," said Adam, rather sternly, "you let the words o' the
Bible alone; you're going too far now."
"What! Are YE a-turnin' roun', Adam? I thought ye war dead again
th' women preachin', a while agoo?"
"Nay, I'm not turnin' noway. I said nought about the women
preachin'. I said, You let the Bible alone: you've got a jest-
book, han't you, as you're rare and proud on? Keep your dirty
fingers to that."
"Why, y' are gettin' as big a saint as Seth. Y' are goin' to th'
preachin' to-night, I should think. Ye'll do finely t' lead the
singin'. But I don' know what Parson Irwine 'ull say at his gran'
favright Adam Bede a-turnin' Methody."
"Never do you bother yourself about me, Ben. I'm not a-going to
turn Methodist any more nor you are--though it's like enough
you'll turn to something worse. Mester Irwine's got more sense
nor to meddle wi' people's doing as they like in religion. That's
between themselves and God, as he's said to me many a time."
"Aye, aye; but he's none so fond o' your dissenters, for all
that."
"Maybe; I'm none so fond o' Josh Tod's thick ale, but I don't
hinder you from making a fool o' yourself wi't."
There was a laugh at this thrust of Adam's, but Seth said, very
seriously. "Nay, nay, Addy, thee mustna say as anybody's
religion's like thick ale. Thee dostna believe but what the
dissenters and the Methodists have got the root o' the matter as
well as the church folks."
"Nay, Seth, lad; I'm not for laughing at no man's religion. Let
'em follow their consciences, that's all. Only I think it 'ud be
better if their consciences 'ud let 'em stay quiet i' the church--
there's a deal to be learnt there. And there's such a thing as
being oversperitial; we must have something beside Gospel i' this
world. Look at the canals, an' th' aqueduc's, an' th' coal-pit
engines, and Arkwright's mills there at Cromford; a man must learn
summat beside Gospel to make them things, I reckon. But t' hear
some o' them preachers, you'd think as a man must be doing nothing
all's life but shutting's eyes and looking what's agoing on inside
him. I know a man must have the love o' God in his soul, and the
Bible's God's word. But what does the Bible say? Why, it says as
God put his sperrit into the workman as built the tabernacle, to
make him do all the carved work and things as wanted a nice hand.
And this is my way o' looking at it: there's the sperrit o' God in
all things and all times--weekday as well as Sunday--and i' the
great works and inventions, and i' the figuring and the mechanics.
And God helps us with our headpieces and our hands as well as with
our souls; and if a man does bits o' jobs out o' working hours--
builds a oven for 's wife to save her from going to the bakehouse,
or scrats at his bit o' garden and makes two potatoes grow istead
o' one, he's doin' more good, and he's just as near to God, as if
he was running after some preacher and a-praying and a-groaning."
"Well done, Adam!" said Sandy Jim, who had paused from his planing
to shift his planks while Adam was speaking; "that's the best
sarmunt I've heared this long while. By th' same token, my wife's
been a-plaguin' on me to build her a oven this twelvemont."
"There's reason in what thee say'st, Adam," observed Seth,
gravely. "But thee know'st thyself as it's hearing the preachers
thee find'st so much fault with has turned many an idle fellow
into an industrious un. It's the preacher as empties th'
alehouse; and if a man gets religion, he'll do his work none the
worse for that."
"On'y he'll lave the panels out o' th' doors sometimes, eh, Seth?"
said Wiry Ben.
"Ah, Ben, you've got a joke again' me as 'll last you your life.
But it isna religion as was i' fault there; it was Seth Bede, as
was allays a wool-gathering chap, and religion hasna cured him,
the more's the pity."
"Ne'er heed me, Seth," said Wiry Ben, "y' are a down-right good-
hearted chap, panels or no panels; an' ye donna set up your
bristles at every bit o' fun, like some o' your kin, as is mayhap
cliverer."
"Seth, lad," said Adam, taking no notice of the sarcasm against
himself, "thee mustna take me unkind. I wasna driving at thee in
what I said just now. Some 's got one way o' looking at things
and some 's got another."
"Nay, nay, Addy, thee mean'st me no unkindness," said Seth, "I
know that well enough. Thee't like thy dog Gyp--thee bark'st at
me sometimes, but thee allays lick'st my hand after."
All hands worked on in silence for some minutes, until the church
clock began to strike six. Before the first stroke had died away,
Sandy Jim had loosed his plane and was reaching his jacket; Wiry
Ben had left a screw half driven in, and thrown his screwdriver
into his tool-basket; Mum Taft, who, true to his name, had kept
silence throughout the previous conversation, had flung down his
hammer as he was in the act of lifting it; and Seth, too, had
straightened his back, and was putting out his hand towards his
paper cap. Adam alone had gone on with his work as if nothing had
happened. But observing the cessation of the tools, he looked up,
and said, in a tone of indignation, "Look there, now! I can't
abide to see men throw away their tools i' that way, the minute
the clock begins to strike, as if they took no pleasure i' their
work and was afraid o' doing a stroke too much."
Seth looked a little conscious, and began to be slower in his
preparations for going, but Mum Taft broke silence, and said,
"Aye, aye, Adam lad, ye talk like a young un. When y' are six-
an'-forty like me, istid o' six-an'-twenty, ye wonna be so flush
o' workin' for nought."
"Nonsense," said Adam, still wrathful; "what's age got to do with
it, I wonder? Ye arena getting stiff yet, I reckon. I hate to
see a man's arms drop down as if he was shot, before the clock's
fairly struck, just as if he'd never a bit o' pride and delight in
's work. The very grindstone 'ull go on turning a bit after you
loose it."
"Bodderation, Adam!" exclaimed Wiry Ben; "lave a chap aloon, will
'ee? Ye war afinding faut wi' preachers a while agoo--y' are fond
enough o' preachin' yoursen. Ye may like work better nor play,
but I like play better nor work; that'll 'commodate ye--it laves
ye th' more to do."
With this exit speech, which he considered effective, Wiry Ben
shouldered his basket and left the workshop, quickly followed by
Mum Taft and Sandy Jim. 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,
looking up.
"Nay; I've got my hat and things at Will Maskery's. I shan't be
home before going for ten. I'll happen see Dinah Morris safe
home, if she's willing. There's nobody comes with her from
Poyser's, thee know'st."
"Then I'll tell mother not to look for thee," said Adam.
"Thee artna going to Poyser's thyself to-night?" said Seth rather
timidly, as he turned to leave the workshop.
"Nay, I'm going to th' school."
Hitherto Gyp had kept his comfortable bed, only lifting up his
head and watching Adam more closely as he noticed the other
workmen departing. But no sooner did Adam put his ruler in his
pocket, and begin to twist his apron round his waist, than Gyp ran
forward and looked up in his master's face with patient
expectation. If Gyp had had a tail he would doubtless have wagged
it, but being destitute of that vehicle for his emotions, he was
like many other worthy personages, destined to appear more
phlegmatic than nature had made him.
"What! Art ready for the basket, eh, Gyp?" said Adam, with the
same gentle modulation of voice as when he spoke to Seth.
Gyp jumped and gave a short bark, as much as to say, "Of course."
Poor fellow, he had not a great range of expression.
The basket was the one which on workdays held Adam's and Seth's
dinner; and no official, walking in procession, could look more
resolutely unconscious of all acquaintances than Gyp with his
basket, trotting at his master's heels.
On leaving the workshop Adam locked the door, took the key out,
and carried it to the house on the other side of the woodyard. It
was a low house, with smooth grey thatch and buff walls, looking
pleasant and mellow in the evening light. The leaded windows were
bright and speckless, and the door-stone was as clean as a white
boulder at ebb tide. On the door-stone stood a clean old woman,
in a dark-striped linen gown, a red kerchief, and a linen cap,
talking to some speckled fowls which appeared to have been drawn
towards her by an illusory expectation of cold potatoes or barley.
The old woman's sight seemed to be dim, for she did not recognize
Adam till he said, "Here's the key, Dolly; lay it down for me in
the house, will you?"
"Aye, sure; but wunna ye come in, Adam? Miss Mary's i' th' house,
and Mester Burge 'ull be back anon; he'd be glad t' ha' ye to
supper wi'm, I'll be's warrand."
"No, Dolly, thank you; I'm off home. Good evening."
Adam hastened with long strides, Gyp close to his heels, out of
the workyard, and along the highroad leading away from the village
and down to the valley. As he reached the foot of the slope, an
elderly horseman, with his portmanteau strapped behind him,
stopped his horse when Adam had passed him, and turned round to
have another long look at the stalwart workman in paper cap,
leather breeches, and dark-blue worsted stockings.
Adam, unconscious of the admiration he was exciting, presently
struck across the fields, and now broke out into the tune which
had all day long been running in his head:
Let all thy converse be sincere,
Thy conscience as the noonday clear;
For God's all-seeing eye surveys
Thy secret thoughts, thy works and ways.