NOTWITHSTANDING Mr. Craig’s prophecy, the dark-blue cloud dispersed1 itself without having produced the threatened consequences. “The weather”— as he observed the next morning — “the weather, you see, ’s a ticklish2 thing, an’ a fool ’ull hit on’t sometimes when a wise man misses; that’s why the almanecks get so much credit. It’s one o’ them chancy things as fools thrive on.”
This unreasonable3 behaviour of the weather, however, could displease4 no one else in Hayslope besides Mr. Craig. All hands were to be out in the meadows this morning as soon as the dew had risen; the wives and daughters did double work in every farmhouse5, that the maids might give their help in tossing the hay; and when Adam was marching along the lanes, with his basket of tools over his shoulder, he caught the sound of jocose6 talk and ringing laughter from behind the hedges. The jocose talk of hay-makers is best at a distance; like those clumsy bells round the cows’ necks, it has rather a coarse sound when it comes close, and may even grate on your ears painfully; but heard from far off, it mingles7 very prettily8 with the other joyous9 sounds of nature. Men’s muscles move better when their souls are making merry music, though their merriment is of a poor blundering sort, not at all like the merriment of birds.
And perhaps there is no time in a summer’s day more cheering than when the warmth of the sun is just beginning to triumph over the freshness of the morning — when there is just a lingering hint of early coolness to keep off languor10 under the delicious influence of warmth. The reason Adam was walking along the lanes at this time was because his work for the rest of the day lay at a country-house about three miles off, which was being put in repair for the son of a neighbouring squire11; and he had been busy since early morning with the packing of panels, doors, and chimney- pieces, in a waggon12 which was now gone on before him, while Jonathan Burge himself had ridden to the spot on horseback, to await its arrival and direct the workmen.
This little walk was a rest to Adam, and he was unconsciously under the charm of the moment. It was summer morning in his heart, and he saw Hetty in the sunshine — a sunshine without glare, with slanting13 rays that tremble between the delicate shadows of the leaves. He thought, yesterday when he put out his hand to her as they came out of church, that there was a touch of melancholy14 kindness in her face, such as he had not seen before, and he took it as a sign that she had some sympathy with his family trouble. Poor fellow! That touch of melancholy came from quite another source, but how was he to know? We look at the one little woman’s face we love as we look at the face of our mother earth, and see all sorts of answers to our own yearnings. It was impossible for Adam not to feel that what had happened in the last week had brought the prospect15 of marriage nearer to him. Hitherto he had felt keenly the danger that some other man might step in and get possession of Hetty’s heart and hand, while he himself was still in a position that made him shrink from asking her to accept him. Even if he had had a strong hope that she was fond of him — and his hope was far from being strong — he had been too heavily burdened with other claims to provide a home for himself and Hetty — a home such as he could expect her to be content with after the comfort and plenty of the Farm. Like all strong natures, Adam had confidence in his ability to achieve something in the future; he felt sure he should some day, if he lived, be able to maintain a family and make a good broad path for himself; but he had too cool a head not to estimate to the full the obstacles that were to be overcome. And the time would be so long! And there was Hetty, like a bright-cheeked apple hanging over the orchard16 wall, within sight of everybody, and everybody must long for her! To be sure, if she loved him very much, she would be content to wait for him: but DID she love him? His hopes had never risen so high that he had dared to ask her. He was clear-sighted enough to be aware that her uncle and aunt would have looked kindly17 on his suit, and indeed, without this encouragement he would never have persevered18 in going to the Farm; but it was impossible to come to any but fluctuating conclusions about Hetty’s feelings. She was like a kitten, and had the same distractingly pretty looks, that meant nothing, for everybody that came near her.
But now he could not help saying to himself that the heaviest part of his burden was removed, and that even before the end of another year his circumstances might be brought into a shape that would allow him to think of marrying. It would always be a hard struggle with his mother, he knew: she would be jealous of any wife he might choose, and she had set her mind especially against Hetty — perhaps for no other reason than that she suspected Hetty to be the woman he HAD chosen. It would never do, he feared, for his mother to live in the same house with him when he was married; and yet how hard she would think it if he asked her to leave him! Yes, there was a great deal of pain to be gone through with his mother, but it was a case in which he must make her feel that his will was strong — it would be better for her in the end. For himself, he would have liked that they should all live together till Seth was married, and they might have built a bit themselves to the old house, and made more room. He did not like “to part wi’ th’ lad”: they had hardly every been separated for more than a day since they were born.
But Adam had no sooner caught his imagination leaping forward in this way — making arrangements for an uncertain future — than he checked himself. “A pretty building I’m making, without either bricks or timber. I’m up i’ the garret a’ready, and haven’t so much as dug the foundation.” Whenever Adam was strongly convinced of any proposition, it took the form of a principle in his mind: it was knowledge to be acted on, as much as the knowledge that damp will cause rust19. Perhaps here lay the secret of the hardness he had accused himself of: he had too little fellow-feeling with the weakness that errs20 in spite of foreseen consequences. Without this fellow-feeling, how are we to get enough patience and charity towards our stumbling, falling companions in the long and changeful journey? And there is but one way in which a strong determined21 soul can learn it — by getting his heart-strings bound round the weak and erring22, so that he must share not only the outward consequence of their error, but their inward suffering. That is a long and hard lesson, and Adam had at present only learned the alphabet of it in his father’s sudden death, which, by annihilating23 in an instant all that had stimulated24 his indignation, had sent a sudden rush of thought and memory over what had claimed his pity and tenderness.
But it was Adam’s strength, not its correlative hardness, that influenced his meditations25 this morning. He had long made up his mind that it would be wrong as well as foolish for him to marry a blooming young girl, so long as he had no other prospect than that of growing poverty with a growing family. And his savings26 had been so constantly drawn27 upon (besides the terrible sweep of paying for Seth’s substitute in the militia) that he had not enough money beforehand to furnish even a small cottage, and keep something in reserve against a rainy day. He had good hope that he should be “firmer on his legs” by and by; but he could not be satisfied with a vague confidence in his arm and brain; he must have definite plans, and set about them at once. The partnership28 with Jonathan Burge was not to be thought of at present — there were things implicitly29 tacked30 to it that he could not accept; but Adam thought that he and Seth might carry on a little business for themselves in addition to their journeyman’s work, by buying a small stock of superior wood and making articles of household furniture, for which Adam had no end of contrivances. Seth might gain more by working at separate jobs under Adam’s direction than by his journeyman’s work, and Adam, in his overhours, could do all the “nice” work that required peculiar31 skill. The money gained in this way, with the good wages he received as foreman, would soon enable them to get beforehand with the world, so sparingly as they would all live now. No sooner had this little plan shaped itself in his mind than he began to be busy with exact calculations about the wood to be bought and the particular article of furniture that should be undertaken first — a kitchen cupboard of his own contrivance, with such an ingenious arrangement of sliding-doors and bolts, such convenient nooks for stowing household provender32, and such a symmetrical result to the eye, that every good housewife would be in raptures33 with it, and fall through all the gradations of melancholy longing34 till her husband promised to buy it for her. Adam pictured to himself Mrs. Poyser examining it with her keen eye and trying in vain to find out a deficiency; and, of course, close to Mrs. Poyser stood Hetty, and Adam was again beguiled35 from calculations and contrivances into dreams and hopes. Yes, he would go and see her this evening — it was so long since he had been at the Hall Farm. He would have liked to go to the night-school, to see why Bartle Massey had not been at church yesterday, for he feared his old friend was ill; but, unless he could manage both visits, this last must be put off till to- morrow — the desire to be near Hetty and to speak to her again was too strong.
As he made up his mind to this, he was coming very near to the end of his walk, within the sound of the hammers at work on the refitting of the old house. The sound of tools to a clever workman who loves his work is like the tentative sounds of the orchestra to the violinist who has to bear his part in the overture36: the strong fibres begin their accustomed thrill, and what was a moment before joy, vexation, or ambition, begins its change into energy. All passion becomes strength when it has an outlet37 from the narrow limits of our personal lot in the labour of our right arm, the cunning of our right hand, or the still, creative activity of our thought. Look at Adam through the rest of the day, as he stands on the scaffolding with the two-feet ruler in his hand, whistling low while he considers how a difficulty about a floor-joist or a window-frame is to be overcome; or as he pushes one of the younger workmen aside and takes his place in upheaving a weight of timber, saying, “Let alone, lad! Thee’st got too much gristle i’ thy bones yet”; or as he fixes his keen black eyes on the motions of a workman on the other side of the room and warns him that his distances are not right. Look at this broad-shouldered man with the bare muscular arms, and the thick, firm, black hair tossed about like trodden meadow-grass whenever he takes off his paper cap, and with the strong barytone voice bursting every now and then into loud and solemn psalm-tunes, as if seeking an outlet for superfluous38 strength, yet presently checking himself, apparently39 crossed by some thought which jars with the singing. Perhaps, if you had not been already in the secret, you might not have guessed what sad memories what warm affection, what tender fluttering hopes, had their home in this athletic40 body with the broken finger-nails — in this rough man, who knew no better lyrics41 than he could find in the Old and New Version and an occasional hymn42; who knew the smallest possible amount of profane43 history; and for whom the motion and shape of the earth, the course of the sun, and the changes of the seasons lay in the region of mystery just made visible by fragmentary knowledge. It had cost Adam a great deal of trouble and work in overhours to know what he knew over and above the secrets of his handicraft, and that acquaintance with mechanics and figures, and the nature of the materials he worked with, which was made easy to him by inborn44 inherited faculty45 — to get the mastery of his pen, and write a plain hand, to spell without any other mistakes than must in fairness be attributed to the unreasonable character of orthography46 rather than to any deficiency in the speller, and, moreover, to learn his musical notes and part-singing. Besides all this, he had read his Bible, including the apocryphal47 books; Poor Richard’s Almanac, Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying, The Pilgrim’s Progress, with Bunyan’s Life and Holy War, a great deal of Bailey’s Dictionary, Valentine and Orson, and part of a History of Babylon, which Bartle Massey had lent him. He might have had many more books from Bartle Massey, but he had no time for reading “the commin print,” as Lisbeth called it, so busy as he was with figures in all the leisure moments which he did not fill up with extra carpentry.
Adam, you perceive, was by no means a marvellous man, nor, properly speaking, a genius, yet I will not pretend that his was an ordinary character among workmen; and it would not be at all a safe conclusion that the next best man you may happen to see with a basket of tools over his shoulder and a paper cap on his head has the strong conscience and the strong sense, the blended susceptibility and self-command, of our friend Adam. He was not an average man. Yet such men as he are reared here and there in every generation of our peasant artisans — with an inheritance of affections nurtured48 by a simple family life of common need and common industry, and an inheritance of faculties49 trained in skilful50 courageous51 labour: they make their way upwards52, rarely as geniuses, most commonly as painstaking53 honest men, with the skill and conscience to do well the tasks that lie before them. Their lives have no discernible echo beyond the neighbourhood where they dwelt, but you are almost sure to find there some good piece of road, some building, some application of mineral produce, some improvement in farming practice, some reform of parish abuses, with which their names are associated by one or two generations after them. Their employers were the richer for them, the work of their hands has worn well, and the work of their brains has guided well the hands of other men. They went about in their youth in flannel54 or paper caps, in coats black with coal-dust or streaked55 with lime and red paint; in old age their white hairs are seen in a place of honour at church and at market, and they tell their well-dressed sons and daughters, seated round the bright hearth56 on winter evenings, how pleased they were when they first earned their twopence a-day. Others there are who die poor and never put off the workman’s coal on weekdays. They have not had the art of getting rich, but they are men of trust, and when they die before the work is all out of them, it is as if some main screw had got loose in a machine; the master who employed them says, “Where shall I find their like?”
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dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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ticklish
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| adj.怕痒的；问题棘手的；adv.怕痒地；n.怕痒，小心处理 | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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displease
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| vt.使不高兴，惹怒；n.不悦，不满，生气 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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jocose
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| adj.开玩笑的，滑稽的 | |
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mingles
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| 混合，混入( mingle的第三人称单数 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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languor
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| n.无精力，倦怠 | |
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squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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waggon
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| n.运货马车，运货车；敞篷车箱 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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rust
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| n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退 | |
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errs
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| 犯错误，做错事( err的第三人称单数 ) | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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erring
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| 做错事的，错误的 | |
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annihilating
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| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的现在分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
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stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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partnership
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| n.合作关系，伙伴关系 | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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tacked
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| 用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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provender
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| n.刍草；秣料 | |
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raptures
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| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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athletic
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| adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的 | |
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lyrics
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| n.歌词 | |
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hymn
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| n.赞美诗，圣歌，颂歌 | |
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profane
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| adj.亵神的，亵渎的；vt.亵渎，玷污 | |
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inborn
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| adj.天生的，生来的，先天的 | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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orthography
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| n.拼字法，拼字式 | |
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apocryphal
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| adj.假冒的，虚假的 | |
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nurtured
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| 养育( nurture的过去式和过去分词 )； 培育； 滋长； 助长 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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painstaking
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| adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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