“What signifies how long it takes me? Isn’t the coffin promised? Can they bury the man without a coffin? I’d work my right hand off sooner than deceive people with lies i’ that way. It makes me mad to think on’t. I shall overrun these doings before long. I’ve stood enough of ’em.”
Poor Lisbeth did not hear this threat for the first time, and if she had been wise she would have gone away quietly and said nothing for the next hour. But one of the lessons a woman most rarely learns is never to talk to an angry or a drunken man. Lisbeth sat down on the chopping bench and began to cry, and by the time she had cried enough to make her voice very piteous, she burst out into words.
“Nay, my lad, my lad, thee wouldstna go away an’ break thy mother’s heart, an’ leave thy feyther to ruin. Thee wouldstna ha’ ’em carry me to th’ churchyard, an’ thee not to follow me. I shanna rest i’ my grave if I donna see thee at th’ last; an’ how’s they to let thee know as I’m a-dyin’, if thee’t gone a-workin’ i’ distant parts, an’ Seth belike gone arter thee, and thy feyther not able to hold a pen for’s hand shakin’, besides not knowin’ where thee art? Thee mun forgie thy feyther—thee munna be so bitter again’ him. He war a good feyther to thee afore he took to th’ drink. He’s a clever workman, an’ taught thee thy trade, remember, an’s niver gen me a blow nor so much as an ill word—no, not even in ’s drink. Thee wouldstna ha’ ’m go to the workhus—thy own feyther—an’ him as was a fine-growed man an’ handy at everythin’ amost as thee art thysen, five-an’-twenty ’ear ago, when thee wast a baby at the breast.”
Lisbeth’s voice became louder, and choked with sobs—a sort of wail, the most irritating of all sounds where real sorrows are to be borne and real work to be done. Adam broke in impatiently.
“Now, Mother, don’t cry and talk so. Haven’t I got enough to vex me without that? What’s th’ use o’ telling me things as I only think too much on every day? If I didna think on ’em, why should I do as I do, for the sake o’ keeping things together here? But I hate to be talking where it’s no use: I like to keep my breath for doing i’stead o’ talking.”
“I know thee dost things as nobody else ’ud do, my lad. But thee’t allays so hard upo’ thy feyther, Adam. Thee think’st nothing too much to do for Seth: thee snapp’st me up if iver I find faut wi’ th’ lad. But thee’t so angered wi’ thy feyther, more nor wi’ anybody else.”
“That’s better than speaking soft and letting things go the wrong way, I reckon, isn’t it? If I wasn’t sharp with him he’d sell every bit o’ stuff i’ th’ yard and spend it on drink. I know there’s a duty to be done by my father, but it isn’t my duty to encourage him in running headlong to ruin. And what has Seth got to do with it? The lad does no harm as I know of. But leave me alone, Mother, and let me get on with the work.”
Lisbeth dared not say any more; but she got up and called Gyp, thinking to console herself somewhat for Adam’s refusal of the supper she had spread out in the loving expectation of looking at him while he ate it, by feeding Adam’s dog with extra liberality. But Gyp was watching his master with wrinkled brow and ears erect, puzzled at this unusual course of things; and though he glanced at Lisbeth when she called him, and moved his fore-paws uneasily, well knowing that she was inviting him to supper, he was in a divided state of mind, and remained seated on his haunches, again fixing his eyes anxiously on his master. Adam noticed Gyp’s mental conflict, and though his anger had made him less tender than usual to his mother, it did not prevent him from caring as much as usual for his dog. We are apt to be kinder to the brutes that love us than to the women that love us. Is it because the brutes are dumb?
“Go, Gyp; go, lad!” Adam said, in a tone of encouraging command; and Gyp, apparently satisfied that duty and pleasure were one, followed Lisbeth into the house-place.
But no sooner had he licked up his supper than he went back to his master, while Lisbeth sat down alone to cry over her knitting. Women who are never bitter and resentful are often the most querulous; and if Solomon was as wise as he is reputed to be, I feel sure that when he compared a contentious woman to a continual dropping on a very rainy day, he had not a vixen in his eye—a fury with long nails, acrid and selfish. Depend upon it, he meant a good creature, who had no joy but in the happiness of the loved ones whom she contributed to make uncomfortable, putting by all the tid-bits for them and spending nothing on herself. Such a woman as Lisbeth, for example—at once patient and complaining, self-renouncing and exacting, brooding the livelong day over what happened yesterday and what is likely to happen to-morrow, and crying very readily both at the good and the evil. But a certain awe mingled itself with her idolatrous love of Adam, and when he said, “Leave me alone,” she was always silenced.