But now at last she was very near, and Adam rose from
the stone wall. It happened that just as he walked
forward, Dinah had paused and turned round to look
back at the village—who does not pause and
look back in mounting a hill? Adam was glad,
for, with the fine instinct of a lover, he felt that
it would be best for her to hear his voice before she
saw him. He came within three paces of her and
then said, “Dinah!” She started without
looking round, as if she connected the sound with no
place. “Dinah!” Adam said again.
He knew quite well what was in her mind. She
was so accustomed to think of impressions as purely
spiritual monitions that she looked for no material
visible accompaniment of the voice.
But this second time she looked round. What a
look of yearning love it was that the mild grey eyes
turned on the strong dark-eyed man! She did not
start again at the sight of him; she said nothing,
but moved towards him so that his arm could clasp
her round.
And they walked on so in silence, while the warm tears
fell. Adam was content, and said nothing.
It was Dinah who spoke first.
“Adam,” she said, “it is the Divine
Will. My soul is so knit to yours that it is
but a divided life I live without you. And this
moment, now you are with me, and I feel that our hearts
are filled with the same love. I have a fulness
of strength to bear and do our heavenly Father’s
Will that I had lost before.”
Adam paused and looked into her sincere eyes.
“Then we’ll never part any more, Dinah,
till death parts us.”
And they kissed each other with a deep joy.
What greater thing is there for two human souls than
to feel that they are joined for life—to
strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each
other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all
pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable
memories at the moment of the last parting?
Marriage Bells
In little more than a month after that meeting
on the hill—on a rimy morning in departing
November—Adam and Dinah were married.
It was an event much thought of in the village.
All Mr. Burge’s men had a holiday, and all Mr.
Poyser’s, and most of those who had a holiday
appeared in their best clothes at the wedding.
I think there was hardly an inhabitant of Hayslope
specially mentioned in this history and still resident
in the parish on this November morning who was not
either in church to see Adam and Dinah married, or
near the church door to greet them as they came forth.
Mrs. Irwine and her daughters were waiting at the
churchyard gates in their carriage (for they had a
carriage now) to shake hands with the bride and bridegroom
and wish them well; and in the absence of Miss Lydia
Donnithorne at Bath, Mrs. Best, Mr. Mills, and Mr.
Craig had felt it incumbent on them to represent “the
family” at the Chase on the occasion. The
churchyard walk was quite lined with familiar faces,
many of them faces that had first looked at Dinah when
she preached on the Green. And no wonder they
showed this eager interest on her marriage morning,
for nothing like Dinah and the history which had brought
her and Adam Bede together had been known at Hayslope
within the memory of man.
