The Return Home

While that parting in the wood was happening, there was a parting in the cottage too, and Lisbeth had stood with Adam at the door, straining her aged eyes to get the last glimpse of Seth and Dinah, as they mounted the opposite slope.

“Eh, I’m loath to see the last on her,” she said to Adam, as they turned into the house again.  “I’d ha’ been willin’ t’ ha’ her about me till I died and went to lie by my old man.  She’d make it easier dyin’—­she spakes so gentle an’ moves about so still.  I could be fast sure that pictur’ was drawed for her i’ thy new Bible—­th’ angel a-sittin’ on the big stone by the grave.  Eh, I wouldna mind ha’in a daughter like that; but nobody ne’er marries them as is good for aught.”

“Well, Mother, I hope thee wilt have her for a daughter; for Seth’s got a liking for her, and I hope she’ll get a liking for Seth in time.”

“Where’s th’ use o’ talkin’ a-that’n?  She caresna for Seth.  She’s goin’ away twenty mile aff.  How’s she to get a likin’ for him, I’d like to know?  No more nor the cake ‘ull come wi’out the leaven.  Thy figurin’ books might ha’ tould thee better nor that, I should think, else thee mightst as well read the commin print, as Seth allays does.”

“Nay, Mother,” said Adam, laughing, “the figures tell us a fine deal, and we couldn’t go far without ’em, but they don’t tell us about folks’s feelings.  It’s a nicer job to calculate them.  But Seth’s as good-hearted a lad as ever handled a tool, and plenty o’ sense, and good-looking too; and he’s got the same way o’ thinking as Dinah.  He deserves to win her, though there’s no denying she’s a rare bit o’ workmanship.  You don’t see such women turned off the wheel every day.”

“Eh, thee’t allays stick up for thy brother.  Thee’st been just the same, e’er sin’ ye war little uns together.  Thee wart allays for halving iverything wi’ him.  But what’s Seth got to do with marryin’, as is on’y three-an’-twenty?  He’d more need to learn an’ lay by sixpence.  An’ as for his desarving her—­she’s two ’ear older nor Seth:  she’s pretty near as old as thee.  But that’s the way; folks mun allays choose by contrairies, as if they must be sorted like the pork—­a bit o’ good meat wi’ a bit o’ offal.”

To the feminine mind in some of its moods, all things that might be receive a temporary charm from comparison with what is; and since Adam did not want to marry Dinah himself, Lisbeth felt rather peevish on that score—­as peevish as she would have been if he had wanted to marry her, and so shut himself out from Mary Burge and the partnership as effectually as by marrying Hetty.

It was more than half-past eight when Adam and his mother were talking in this way, so that when, about ten minutes later, Hetty reached the turning of the lane that led to the farmyard gate, she saw Dinah and Seth approaching it from the opposite direction, and waited for them to come up to her.  They, too, like Hetty, had lingered a little in their walk, for Dinah was trying to speak words of comfort and strength to Seth in these parting moments.  But when they saw Hetty, they paused and shook hands; Seth turned homewards, and Dinah came on alone.