Adam never retorted. On the contrary, he felt terribly guilty, and reminded himself of those old misgivings that had tormented him before his marriage. "I ought never to have asked a bright young lass like Maggie to tie herself to a grim know-naught of a fellow such as I am. But it can't be undone now. I must just work on, and when the children grow up, they'll help, and things will be better for the mother."
Poor, faithful soul! He loved his wife with the one affection of his heart, and blamed himself for the change in her. He would soothe the frightened little ones, when Maggie's angry words drove them in terror from the hearth. In summer, he would carry one in his arms, and with a couple more running beside him, would wander off into the public parks and silently watch, whilst they played in quick and happy forgetfulness.
Or, if it were winter, and the little ones were driven upstairs to creep into bed in the dark, Adam, remembering his own boyish hungering for the clasp of arms round his neck, would follow stealthily, and kiss and comfort them, or hold a tiny hand in his, until the child forgot its trouble in blessed sleep.
He had learned some lessons as a boy, which he was putting into practice as a man.
Adam had become as silent as his mother used to be. Never angry at Maggie, but very pitiful. Never giving way to the temptation to drink, though not restrained from it by any higher motive than the thought, "Poor lass! I have little enough to take her as it is. I mustn't make the little less, by spending it on myself."
So this poor fellow, with his big heart, his willing hands, his unsatisfied yearnings after knowledge, and his ignorance of things spiritual, went silently about his daily task, each day realising more fully the kind of weight of which his mother had spoken when she talked about "giving up."
It was not giving up work. She had never done that, and Adam was not likely to do it either. Work was the habit of his life, the one thing that gave a sort of satisfaction to his inner consciousness. It was all that he had the power to do, and it must be right to go on, apart from the needs-be, which ever cried in his ears, "Wife and children have to be clothed and fed, and your toil must win food and raiment for them."
The "giving up" was the yielding of all his old hopes and longings, the labouring on like a machine with as little power to turn aside, as little expectation of any future good, either in this world or the next, the working passively rather than patiently, the bearing himself humbly, as one whose opinion of himself is of the lowest. And yet the time was coming when a new and blessed light would burst upon Adam's mental and spiritual darkness, and change the whole of his daily life.
[CHAPTER III.]
AT RUTHERFORD'S.