gets much wi’ thy prayin’. Thee wotna get double earnin’s o’ this side Yule. Th’ Methodies ’ll niver make thee half the man thy brother is, for all they’re a-makin’ a preacher on thee.”
“It’s partly truth thee speak’st there, Mother,” said Seth, mildly; “Adam’s far before me, an’s done more for me than I can ever do for him. God distributes talents to every man according as He sees good. But thee mustna undervally prayer. Prayer mayna bring money, but it brings us what no money can buy—a power to keep from sin and be content with God’s will, whatever He may please to send. If thee wouldst pray to God to help thee, and trust in His goodness, thee wouldstna be so uneasy about things.”
“Unaisy? I’m i’ th’ right on’t to be unaisy. It’s well seen on thee what it is niver to be unaisy. Thee’t gi’ away all thy earnin’s, an’ niver be unaisy as thee’st nothin’ laid up again’ a rainy day. If Adam had been as aisy as thee, he’d niver ha’ had no money to pay for thee. Take no thought for the morrow—take no thought—that’s what thee’t allays sayin’; an’ what comes on’t? Why, as Adam has to take thought for thee.”
“Those are the words o’ the Bible, Mother,” said Seth. “They don’t mean as we should be idle. They mean we shouldn’t be overanxious and worreting ourselves about what’ll happen to-morrow, but do our duty and leave the rest to God’s will.”
“Aye, aye, that’s the way wi’ thee: thee allays makes a peck o’ thy own words out o’ a pint o’ the Bible’s. I donna see how thee’t to know as ‘take no thought for the morrow’ means all that. An’ when the Bible’s such a big book, an’ thee canst read all thro’t, an’ ha’ the pick o’ the texes, I canna think why thee dostna pick better words as donna mean so much more nor they say. Adam doesna pick a that’n; I can understan’ the tex as he’s allays a-sayin’, ‘God helps them as helps theirsens.’”
“Nay, Mother,” said Seth, “that’s no text o’ the Bible. It comes out of a book as Adam picked up at the stall at Treddles’on. It was wrote by a knowing man, but overworldly, I doubt. However, that saying’s partly true; for the Bible tells us we must be workers together with God.”
“Well, how’m I to know? It sounds like a tex. But what’s th’ matter wi’ th’ lad? Thee’t hardly atin’ a bit o’ supper. Dostna mean to ha’ no more nor that bit o’ oat-cake? An’ thee lookst as white as a flick o’ new bacon. What’s th’ matter wi’ thee?”
“Nothing to mind about, Mother; I’m not hungry. I’ll just look in at Adam again, and see if he’ll let me go on with the coffin.”
“Ha’ a drop o’ warm broth?” said Lisbeth, whose motherly feeling now got the better of her “nattering” habit. “I’ll set two-three sticks a-light in a minute.”
“Nay, Mother, thank thee; thee’t very good,” said Seth, gratefully; and encouraged by this touch of tenderness, he went on: “Let me pray a bit with thee for Father, and Adam, and all of us—it’ll comfort thee, happen, more than thee thinkst.”
“Well, I’ve nothin’ to say again’ it.”
Lisbeth, though disposed always to take the negative side in her conversations with Seth, had a vague sense that there was some comfort and safety in the fact of his piety, and that it somehow relieved her from the trouble of any spiritual transactions on her own behalf.
So the mother and son knelt down together, and Seth prayed for the poor wandering father and for those who were sorrowing for him at home. And when he came to the petition that Adam might never be called to set up his tent in a far country, but that his mother might be cheered and comforted by his presence all the days of her pilgrimage, Lisbeth’s ready tears flowed again, and she wept aloud.
When they rose from their knees, Seth went to Adam again and said, “Wilt only lie down for an hour or two, and let me go on the while?”
“No, Seth, no. Make Mother go to bed, and go thyself.”
Meantime Lisbeth had dried her eyes, and now followed Seth, holding something in her hands. It was the brown-and-yellow platter containing the baked potatoes with the gravy in them and bits of meat which she had cut and mixed among them. Those were dear times, when wheaten bread and fresh meat were delicacies to working people. She set the dish down rather timidly on the bench by Adam’s side and said, “Thee canst pick a bit while thee’t workin’. I’ll bring thee another drop o’ water.”
“Aye, Mother, do,” said Adam, kindly; “I’m getting very thirsty.”
In half an hour all was quiet; no sound was to be heard in the house but the loud ticking of the old day-clock and the ringing of Adam’s tools. The night was very still: when Adam opened the door to look out at twelve o’clock, the only motion seemed to be in the glowing, twinkling stars; every blade of grass was asleep.
Bodily haste and exertion usually leave our thoughts very much at the mercy of our feelings and imagination; and it was so to-night with Adam. While his muscles were working lustily, his mind seemed as passive as a spectator at a diorama: scenes of the sad past, and probably sad future, floating before him and giving place one to the other in swift succession.
He saw how it would be to-morrow morning, when he had carried the coffin to Broxton and was at home again, having his breakfast: his father perhaps would come in ashamed to meet his son’s glance—would sit down, looking older and more tottering than he had done the morning before, and hang down his head, examining the floor-quarries; while Lisbeth would ask him how he supposed the coffin had been got ready, that he had slinked off and left undone—for Lisbeth was always the first to utter the word of reproach, although she cried at Adam’s severity towards his father.
“So it will go on, worsening and worsening,” thought Adam; “there’s no slipping uphill again, and no standing still when once you ’ve begun to slip down.” And then the day came back to him when he was a little fellow and used to run by his father’s side, proud to be taken out to work, and prouder still to hear his father boasting to his fellow-workmen how “the little chap had an uncommon notion o’ carpentering.” What a fine active fellow his father was then! When people asked Adam whose little lad he was, he had a sense of distinction as he answered, “I’m Thias Bede’s lad.” He was quite sure everybody knew Thias Bede—didn’t he make the wonderful pigeon-house at Broxton parsonage? Those were happy days, especially when Seth, who was three years the younger, began to go out working too, and Adam began to be a teacher as well as a learner. But then came the days of sadness, when Adam was someway on in his teens, and Thias began to loiter at the public-houses, and Lisbeth began to cry at home, and to pour forth her plaints in the hearing of her sons. Adam remembered well the night of shame and anguish when he first saw his father quite wild and foolish, shouting a song out fitfully among his drunken companions at the “Waggon Overthrown.” He had run away once when he was only eighteen, making his escape in the morning twilight with a little blue bundle over his shoulder, and his “mensuration book” in his pocket, and saying to himself very decidedly that he could bear the vexations of home no longer—he would go and seek his fortune, setting up his stick at the crossways and bending his steps the way it fell. But by the time he got to Stoniton, the thought of his mother and Seth, left behind to endure everything without him, became too importunate, and his resolution failed him. He came back the next day, but the misery and terror his mother had gone through in those two days had haunted her ever since.
“No!” Adam said to himself to-night, “that must never happen again. It ’ud make a poor balance when my doings are cast up at the last, if my poor old mother stood o’ the wrong side. My back’s broad enough and strong enough;
