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<h2> Chapter XXI </h2>
<h3> The Night-School and the Schoolmaster </h3>
<p>Bartle Massey's was one of a few scattered houses on the edge of a common,
which was divided by the road to Treddleston. Adam reached it in a quarter
of an hour after leaving the Hall Farm; and when he had his hand on the
door-latch, he could see, through the curtainless window, that there were
eight or nine heads bending over the desks, lighted by thin dips.</p>
<p>When he entered, a reading lesson was going forward and Bartle Massey
merely nodded, leaving him to take his place where he pleased. He had not
come for the sake of a lesson to-night, and his mind was too full of
personal matters, too full of the last two hours he had passed in Hetty's
presence, for him to amuse himself with a book till school was over; so he
sat down in a corner and looked on with an absent mind. It was a sort of
scene which Adam had beheld almost weekly for years; he knew by heart
every arabesque flourish in the framed specimen of Bartle Massey's
handwriting which hung over the schoolmaster's head, by way of keeping a
lofty ideal before the minds of his pupils; he knew the backs of all the
books on the shelf running along the whitewashed wall above the pegs for
the slates; he knew exactly how many grains were gone out of the ear of
Indian corn that hung from one of the rafters; he had long ago exhausted
the resources of his imagination in trying to think how the bunch of
leathery seaweed had looked and grown in its native element; and from the
place where he sat, he could make nothing of the old map of England that
hung against the opposite wall, for age had turned it of a fine yellow
brown, something like that of a well-seasoned meerschaum. The drama that
was going on was almost as familiar as the scene, nevertheless habit had
not made him indifferent to it, and even in his present self-absorbed
mood, Adam felt a momentary stirring of the old fellow-feeling, as he
looked at the rough men painfully holding pen or pencil with their cramped
hands, or humbly labouring through their reading lesson.</p>
<p>The reading class now seated on the form in front of the schoolmaster's
desk consisted of the three most backward pupils. Adam would have known it
only by seeing Bartle Massey's face as he looked over his spectacles,
which he had shifted to the ridge of his nose, not requiring them for
present purposes. The face wore its mildest expression: the grizzled bushy
eyebrows had taken their more acute angle of compassionate kindness, and
the mouth, habitually compressed with a pout of the lower lip, was relaxed
so as to be ready to speak a helpful word or syllable in a moment. This
gentle expression was the more interesting because the schoolmaster's
nose, an irregular aquiline twisted a little on one side, had rather a
formidable character; and his brow, moreover, had that peculiar tension
which always impresses one as a sign of a keen impatient temperament: the
blue veins stood out like cords under the transparent yellow skin, and
this intimidating brow was softened by no tendency to baldness, for the
grey bristly hair, cut down to about an inch in length, stood round it in
as close ranks as ever.</p>
<p>"Nay, Bill, nay," Bartle was saying in a kind tone, as he nodded to Adam,
"begin that again, and then perhaps, it'll come to you what d-r-y spells.
It's the same lesson you read last week, you know."</p>
<p>"Bill" was a sturdy fellow, aged four-and-twenty, an excellent
stone-sawyer, who could get as good wages as any man in the trade of his
years; but he found a reading lesson in words of one syllable a harder
matter to deal with than the hardest stone he had ever had to saw. The
letters, he complained, were so "uncommon alike, there was no tellin' 'em
one from another," the sawyer's business not being concerned with minute
differences such as exist between a letter with its tail turned up and a
letter with its tail turned down. But Bill had a firm determination that
he would learn to read, founded chiefly on two reasons: first, that Tom
Hazelow, his cousin, could read anything "right off," whether it was print
or writing, and Tom had sent him a letter from twenty miles off, saying
how he was prospering in the world and had got an overlooker's place;
secondly, that Sam Phillips, who sawed with him, had learned to read when
he was turned twenty, and what could be done by a little fellow like Sam
Phillips, Bill considered, could be done by himself, seeing that he could
pound Sam into wet clay if circumstances required it. So here he was,
pointing his big finger towards three words at once, and turning his head
on one side that he might keep better hold with his eye of the one word
which was to be discriminated out of the group. The amount of knowledge
Bartle Massey must possess was something so dim and vast that Bill's
imagination recoiled before it: he would hardly have ventured to deny that
the schoolmaster might have something to do in bringing about the regular
return of daylight and the changes in the weather.</p>
<p>The man seated next to Bill was of a very different type: he was a
Methodist brickmaker who, after spending thirty years of his life in
perfect satisfaction with his ignorance, had lately "got religion," and
along with it the desire to read the Bible. But with him, too, learning
was a heavy business, and on his way out to-night he had offered as usual
a special prayer for help, seeing that he had undertaken this hard task
with a single eye to the nourishment of his soul—that he might have
a greater abundance of texts and hymns wherewith to banish evil memories
and the temptations of old habit—or, in brief language, the devil.
For the brickmaker had been a notorious poacher, and was suspected, though
there was no good evidence against him, of being the man who had shot a
neighbouring gamekeeper in the leg. However that might be, it is certain
that shortly after the accident referred to, which was coincident with the
arrival of an awakening Methodist preacher at Treddleston, a great change
had been observed in the brickmaker; and though he was still known in the
neighbourhood by his old sobriquet of "Brimstone," there was nothing he
held in so much horror as any further transactions with that evil-smelling
element. He was a broad-chested fellow with a fervid temperament, which
helped him better in imbibing religious ideas than in the dry process of
acquiring the mere human knowledge of the alphabet. Indeed, he had been
already a little shaken in his resolution by a brother Methodist, who
assured him that the letter was a mere obstruction to the Spirit, and
expressed a fear that Brimstone was too eager for the knowledge that
puffeth up.</p>
<p>The third beginner was a much more promising pupil. He was a tall but thin
and wiry man, nearly as old as Brimstone, with a very pale face and hands
stained a deep blue. He was a dyer, who in the course of dipping homespun
wool and old women's petticoats had got fired with the ambition to learn a
great deal more about the strange secrets of colour. He had already a high
reputation in the district for his dyes, and he was bent on discovering
some method by which he could reduce the expense of crimsons and scarlets.
The druggist at Treddleston had given him a notion that he might save
himself a great deal of labour and expense if he could learn to read, and
so he had begun to give his spare hours to the night-school, resolving
that his "little chap" should lose no time in coming to Mr. Massey's
day-school as soon as he was old enough.</p>
<p>It was touching to see these three big men, with the marks of their hard
labour about them, anxiously bending over the worn books and painfully
making out, "The grass is green," "The sticks are dry," "The corn is ripe"—a
very hard lesson to pass to after columns of single words all alike except
in the first letter. It was almost as if three rough animals were making
humble efforts to learn how they might become human. And it touched the
tenderest fibre in Bartle Massey's nature, for such full-grown children as
these were the only pupils for whom he had no severe epithets and no
impatient tones. He was not gifted with an imperturbable temper, and on
music-nights it was apparent that patience could never be an easy virtue
to him; but this evening, as he glances over his spectacles at Bill
Downes, the sawyer, who is turning his head on one side with a desperate
sense of blankness before the letters d-r-y, his eyes shed their mildest
and most encouraging light.</p>
<p>After the reading class, two youths between sixteen and nineteen came up
with the imaginary bills of parcels, which they had been writing out on
their slates and were now required to calculate "off-hand"—a test
which they stood with such imperfect success that Bartle Massey, whose
eyes had been glaring at them ominously through his spectacles for some
minutes, at length burst out in a bitter, high-pitched tone, pausing
between every sentence to rap the floor with a knobbed stick which rested
between his legs.</p>
<p>"Now, you see, you don't do this thing a bit better than you did a
fortnight ago, and I'll tell you what's the reason. You want to learn
accounts—that's well and good. But you think all you need do to
learn accounts is to come to me and do sums for an hour or so, two or
three times a-week; and no sooner do you get your caps on and turn out of
doors again than you sweep the whole thing clean out of your mind. You go
whistling about, and take no more care what you're thinking of than if
your heads were gutters for any rubbish to swill through that happened to
be in the way; and if you get a good notion in 'em, it's pretty soon
washed out again. You think knowledge is to be got cheap—you'll come
and pay Bartle Massey sixpence a-week, and he'll make you clever at
figures without your taking any trouble. But knowledge isn't to be got
with paying sixpence, let me tell you. If you're to know figures, you must
turn 'em over in your heads and keep your thoughts fixed on 'em. There's
nothing you can't turn into a sum, for there's nothing but what's got
number in it—even a fool. You may say to yourselves, 'I'm one fool,
and Jack's another; if my fool's head weighed four pound, and Jack's three
pound three ounces and three quarters, how many pennyweights heavier would
my head be than Jack's?' A man that had got his heart in learning figures
would make sums for himself and work 'em in his head. When he sat at his
shoemaking, he'd count his stitches by fives, and then put a price on his
stitches, say half a farthing, and then see how much money he could get in
an hour; and then ask himself how much money he'd get in a day at that
rate; and then how much ten workmen would get working three, or twenty, or
a hundred years at that rate—and all the while his needle would be
going just as fast as if he left his head empty for the devil to dance in.
But the long and the short of it is—I'll have nobody in my
night-school that doesn't strive to learn what he comes to learn, as hard
as if he was striving to get out of a dark hole into broad daylight. I'll
send no man away because he's stupid: if Billy Taft, the idiot, wanted to
learn anything, I'd not refuse to teach him. But I'll not throw away good
knowledge on people who think they can get it by the sixpenn'orth, and
carry it away with 'em as they would an ounce of snuff. So never come to
me again, if you can't show that you've been working with your own heads,
instead of thinking that you can pay for mine to work for you. That's the
last word I've got to say to you."</p>
<p>With this final sentence, Bartle Massey gave a sharper rap than ever with
his knobbed stick, and the discomfited lads got up to go with a sulky
look. The other pupils had happily only their writing-books to show, in
various stages of progress from pot-hooks to round text; and mere
pen-strokes, however perverse, were less exasperating to Bartle than false
arithmetic. He was a little more severe than usual on Jacob Storey's Z's,
of which poor Jacob had written a pageful, all with their tops turned the
wrong way, with a puzzled sense that they were not right "somehow." But he
observed in apology, that it was a letter you never wanted hardly, and he
thought it had only been there "to finish off th' alphabet, like, though
ampusand (&) would ha' done as well, for what he could see."</p>
<p>At last the pupils had all taken their hats and said their "Good-nights,"
and Adam, knowing his old master's habits, rose and said, "Shall I put the
candles out, Mr. Massey?"</p>
<p>"Yes, my boy, yes, all but this, which I'll carry into the house; and just
lock the outer door, now you're near it," said Bartle, getting his stick
in the fitting angle to help him in descending from his stool. He was no
sooner on the ground than it became obvious why the stick was necessary—the
left leg was much shorter than the right. But the school-master was so
active with his lameness that it was hardly thought of as a misfortune;
and if you had seen him make his way along the schoolroom floor, and up
the step into his kitchen, you would perhaps have understood why the
naughty boys sometimes felt that his pace might be indefinitely quickened
and that he and his stick might overtake them even in their swiftest run.</p>
<p>The moment he appeared at the kitchen door with the candle in his hand, a
faint whimpering began in the chimney-corner, and a brown-and-tan-coloured
bitch, of that wise-looking breed with short legs and long body, known to
an unmechanical generation as turnspits, came creeping along the floor,
wagging her tail, and hesitating at every other step, as if her affections
were painfully divided between the hamper in the chimney-corner and the
master, whom she could not leave without a greeting.</p>
<p>"Well, Vixen, well then, how are the babbies?" said the schoolmaster,
making haste towards the chimney-corner and holding the candle over the
low hamper, where two extremely blind puppies lifted up their heads
towards the light from a nest of flannel and wool. Vixen could not even
see her master look at them without painful excitement: she got into the
hamper and got out again the next moment, and behaved with true feminine
folly, though looking all the while as wise as a dwarf with a large
old-fashioned head and body on the most abbreviated legs.</p>
<p>"Why, you've got a family, I see, Mr. Massey?" said Adam, smiling, as he
came into the kitchen. "How's that? I thought it was against the law
here."</p>
<p>"Law? What's the use o' law when a man's once such a fool as to let a
woman into his house?" said Bartle, turning away from the hamper with some
bitterness. He always called Vixen a woman, and seemed to have lost all
consciousness that he was using a figure of speech. "If I'd known Vixen
was a woman, I'd never have held the boys from drowning her; but when I'd
got her into my hand, I was forced to take to her. And now you see what
she's brought me to—the sly, hypocritical wench"—Bartle spoke
these last words in a rasping tone of reproach, and looked at Vixen, who
poked down her head and turned up her eyes towards him with a keen sense
of opprobrium—"and contrived to be brought to bed on a Sunday at
church-time. I've wished again and again I'd been a bloody minded man,
that I could have strangled the mother and the brats with one cord."</p>
<p>"I'm glad it was no worse a cause kept you from church," said Adam. "I was
afraid you must be ill for the first time i' your life. And I was
particularly sorry not to have you at church yesterday."</p>
<p>"Ah, my boy, I know why, I know why," said Bartle kindly, going up to Adam
and raising his hand up to the shoulder that was almost on a level with
his own head. "You've had a rough bit o' road to get over since I saw you—a
rough bit o' road. But I'm in hopes there are better times coming for you.
I've got some news to tell you. But I must get my supper first, for I'm
hungry, I'm hungry. Sit down, sit down."</p>
<p>Bartel went into his little pantry, and brought out an excellent
home-baked loaf; for it was his one extravagance in these dear times to
eat bread once a-day instead of oat-cake; and he justified it by
observing, that what a schoolmaster wanted was brains, and oat-cake ran
too much to bone instead of brains. Then came a piece of cheese and a
quart jug with a crown of foam upon it. He placed them all on the round
deal table which stood against his large arm-chair in the chimney-corner,
with Vixen's hamper on one side of it and a window-shelf with a few books
piled up in it on the other. The table was as clean as if Vixen had been
an excellent housewife in a checkered apron; so was the quarry floor; and
the old carved oaken press, table, and chairs, which in these days would
be bought at a high price in aristocratic houses, though, in that period
of spider-legs and inlaid cupids, Bartle had got them for an old song,
where as free from dust as things could be at the end of a summer's day.</p>
<p>"Now, then, my boy, draw up, draw up. We'll not talk about business till
we've had our supper. No man can be wise on an empty stomach. But," said
Bartle, rising from his chair again, "I must give Vixen her supper too,
confound her! Though she'll do nothing with it but nourish those
unnecessary babbies. That's the way with these women—they've got no
head-pieces to nourish, and so their food all runs either to fat or to
brats."</p>
<p>He brought out of the pantry a dish of scraps, which Vixen at once fixed
her eyes on, and jumped out of her hamper to lick up with the utmost
dispatch.</p>
<p>"I've had my supper, Mr. Massey," said Adam, "so I'll look on while you
eat yours. I've been at the Hall Farm, and they always have their supper
betimes, you know: they don't keep your late hours."</p>
<p>"I know little about their hours," said Bartle dryly, cutting his bread
and not shrinking from the crust. "It's a house I seldom go into, though
I'm fond of the boys, and Martin Poyser's a good fellow. There's too many
women in the house for me: I hate the sound of women's voices; they're
always either a-buzz or a-squeak—always either a-buzz or a-squeak.
Mrs. Poyser keeps at the top o' the talk like a fife; and as for the young
lasses, I'd as soon look at water-grubs. I know what they'll turn to—stinging
gnats, stinging gnats. Here, take some ale, my boy: it's been drawn for
you—it's been drawn for you."</p>
<p>"Nay, Mr. Massey," said Adam, who took his old friend's whim more
seriously than usual to-night, "don't be so hard on the creaturs God has
made to be companions for us. A working-man 'ud be badly off without a
wife to see to th' house and the victual, and make things clean and
comfortable."</p>
<p>"Nonsense! It's the silliest lie a sensible man like you ever believed, to
say a woman makes a house comfortable. It's a story got up because the
women are there and something must be found for 'em to do. I tell you
there isn't a thing under the sun that needs to be done at all, but what a
man can do better than a woman, unless it's bearing children, and they do
that in a poor make-shift way; it had better ha' been left to the men—it
had better ha' been left to the men. I tell you, a woman 'ull bake you a
pie every week of her life and never come to see that the hotter th' oven
the shorter the time. I tell you, a woman 'ull make your porridge every
day for twenty years and never think of measuring the proportion between
the meal and the milk—a little more or less, she'll think, doesn't
signify. The porridge WILL be awk'ard now and then: if it's wrong, it's
summat in the meal, or it's summat in the milk, or it's summat in the
water. Look at me! I make my own bread, and there's no difference between
one batch and another from year's end to year's end; but if I'd got any
other woman besides Vixen in the house, I must pray to the Lord every
baking to give me patience if the bread turned out heavy. And as for
cleanliness, my house is cleaner than any other house on the Common,
though the half of 'em swarm with women. Will Baker's lad comes to help me
in a morning, and we get as much cleaning done in one hour, without any
fuss, as a woman 'ud get done in three, and all the while be sending
buckets o' water after your ankles, and let the fender and the fire-irons
stand in the middle o' the floor half the day for you to break your shins
against 'em. Don't tell me about God having made such creatures to be
companions for us! I don't say but He might make Eve to be a companion to
Adam in Paradise—there was no cooking to be spoilt there, and no
other woman to cackle with and make mischief, though you see what mischief
she did as soon as she'd an opportunity. But it's an impious, unscriptural
opinion to say a woman's a blessing to a man now; you might as well say
adders and wasps, and foxes and wild beasts are a blessing, when they're
only the evils that belong to this state o' probation, which it's lawful
for a man to keep as clear of as he can in this life, hoping to get quit
of 'em for ever in another—hoping to get quit of 'em for ever in
another."</p>
<p>Bartle had become so excited and angry in the course of his invective that
he had forgotten his supper, and only used the knife for the purpose of
rapping the table with the haft. But towards the close, the raps became so
sharp and frequent, and his voice so quarrelsome, that Vixen felt it
incumbent on her to jump out of the hamper and bark vaguely.</p>
<p>"Quiet, Vixen!" snarled Bartle, turning round upon her. "You're like the
rest o' the women—always putting in your word before you know why."</p>
<p>Vixen returned to her hamper again in humiliation, and her master
continued his supper in a silence which Adam did not choose to interrupt;
he knew the old man would be in a better humour when he had had his supper
and lighted his pipe. Adam was used to hear him talk in this way, but had
never learned so much of Bartle's past life as to know whether his view of
married comfort was founded on experience. On that point Bartle was mute,
and it was even a secret where he had lived previous to the twenty years
in which happily for the peasants and artisans of this neighbourhood he
had been settled among them as their only schoolmaster. If anything like a
question was ventured on this subject, Bartle always replied, "Oh, I've
seen many places—I've been a deal in the south," and the Loamshire
men would as soon have thought of asking for a particular town or village
in Africa as in "the south."</p>
<p>"Now then, my boy," said Bartle, at last, when he had poured out his
second mug of ale and lighted his pipe, "now then, we'll have a little
talk. But tell me first, have you heard any particular news to-day?"</p>
<p>"No," said Adam, "not as I remember."</p>
<p>"Ah, they'll keep it close, they'll keep it close, I daresay. But I found
it out by chance; and it's news that may concern you, Adam, else I'm a man
that don't know a superficial square foot from a solid."</p>
<p>Here Bartle gave a series of fierce and rapid puffs, looking earnestly the
while at Adam. Your impatient loquacious man has never any notion of
keeping his pipe alight by gentle measured puffs; he is always letting it
go nearly out, and then punishing it for that negligence. At last he said,
"Satchell's got a paralytic stroke. I found it out from the lad they sent
to Treddleston for the doctor, before seven o'clock this morning. He's a
good way beyond sixty, you know; it's much if he gets over it."</p>
<p>"Well," said Adam, "I daresay there'd be more rejoicing than sorrow in the
parish at his being laid up. He's been a selfish, tale-bearing,
mischievous fellow; but, after all, there's nobody he's done so much harm
to as to th' old squire. Though it's the squire himself as is to blame—making
a stupid fellow like that a sort o' man-of-all-work, just to save th'
expense of having a proper steward to look after th' estate. And he's lost
more by ill management o' the woods, I'll be bound, than 'ud pay for two
stewards. If he's laid on the shelf, it's to be hoped he'll make way for a
better man, but I don't see how it's like to make any difference to me."</p>
<p>"But I see it, but I see it," said Bartle, "and others besides me. The
captain's coming of age now—you know that as well as I do—and
it's to be expected he'll have a little more voice in things. And I know,
and you know too, what 'ud be the captain's wish about the woods, if there
was a fair opportunity for making a change. He's said in plenty of
people's hearing that he'd make you manager of the woods to-morrow, if
he'd the power. Why, Carroll, Mr. Irwine's butler, heard him say so to the
parson not many days ago. Carroll looked in when we were smoking our pipes
o' Saturday night at Casson's, and he told us about it; and whenever
anybody says a good word for you, the parson's ready to back it, that I'll
answer for. It was pretty well talked over, I can tell you, at Casson's,
and one and another had their fling at you; for if donkeys set to work to
sing, you're pretty sure what the tune'll be."</p>
<p>"Why, did they talk it over before Mr. Burge?" said Adam; "or wasn't he
there o' Saturday?"</p>
<p>"Oh, he went away before Carroll came; and Casson—he's always for
setting other folks right, you know—would have it Burge was the man
to have the management of the woods. 'A substantial man,' says he, 'with
pretty near sixty years' experience o' timber: it 'ud be all very well for
Adam Bede to act under him, but it isn't to be supposed the squire 'ud
appoint a young fellow like Adam, when there's his elders and betters at
hand!' But I said, 'That's a pretty notion o' yours, Casson. Why, Burge is
the man to buy timber; would you put the woods into his hands and let him
make his own bargains? I think you don't leave your customers to score
their own drink, do you? And as for age, what that's worth depends on the
quality o' the liquor. It's pretty well known who's the backbone of
Jonathan Burge's business.'"</p>
<p>"I thank you for your good word, Mr. Massey," said Adam. "But, for all
that, Casson was partly i' the right for once. There's not much likelihood
that th' old squire 'ud ever consent t' employ me. I offended him about
two years ago, and he's never forgiven me."</p>
<p>"Why, how was that? You never told me about it," said Bartle.</p>
<p>"Oh, it was a bit o' nonsense. I'd made a frame for a screen for Miss
Lyddy—she's allays making something with her worsted-work, you know—and
she'd given me particular orders about this screen, and there was as much
talking and measuring as if we'd been planning a house. However, it was a
nice bit o' work, and I liked doing it for her. But, you know, those
little friggling things take a deal o' time. I only worked at it in
overhours—often late at night—and I had to go to Treddleston
over an' over again about little bits o' brass nails and such gear; and I
turned the little knobs and the legs, and carved th' open work, after a
pattern, as nice as could be. And I was uncommon pleased with it when it
was done. And when I took it home, Miss Lyddy sent for me to bring it into
her drawing-room, so as she might give me directions about fastening on
the work—very fine needlework, Jacob and Rachel a-kissing one
another among the sheep, like a picture—and th' old squire was
sitting there, for he mostly sits with her. Well, she was mighty pleased
with the screen, and then she wanted to know what pay she was to give me.
I didn't speak at random—you know it's not my way; I'd calculated
pretty close, though I hadn't made out a bill, and I said, 'One pound
thirty.' That was paying for the mater'als and paying me, but none too
much, for my work. Th' old squire looked up at this, and peered in his way
at the screen, and said, 'One pound thirteen for a gimcrack like that!
Lydia, my dear, if you must spend money on these things, why don't you get
them at Rosseter, instead of paying double price for clumsy work here?
Such things are not work for a carpenter like Adam. Give him a guinea, and
no more.' Well, Miss Lyddy, I reckon, believed what he told her, and she's
not overfond o' parting with the money herself—she's not a bad woman
at bottom, but she's been brought up under his thumb; so she began
fidgeting with her purse, and turned as red as her ribbon. But I made a
bow, and said, 'No, thank you, madam; I'll make you a present o' the
screen, if you please. I've charged the regular price for my work, and I
know it's done well; and I know, begging His Honour's pardon, that you
couldn't get such a screen at Rosseter under two guineas. I'm willing to
give you my work—it's been done in my own time, and nobody's got
anything to do with it but me; but if I'm paid, I can't take a smaller
price than I asked, because that 'ud be like saying I'd asked more than
was just. With your leave, madam, I'll bid you good-morning.' I made my
bow and went out before she'd time to say any more, for she stood with the
purse in her hand, looking almost foolish. I didn't mean to be
disrespectful, and I spoke as polite as I could; but I can give in to no
man, if he wants to make it out as I'm trying to overreach him. And in the
evening the footman brought me the one pound thirteen wrapped in paper.
But since then I've seen pretty clear as th' old squire can't abide me."</p>
<p>"That's likely enough, that's likely enough," said Bartle meditatively.
"The only way to bring him round would be to show him what was for his own
interest, and that the captain may do—that the captain may do."</p>
<p>"Nay, I don't know," said Adam; "the squire's 'cute enough but it takes
something else besides 'cuteness to make folks see what'll be their
interest in the long run. It takes some conscience and belief in right and
wrong, I see that pretty clear. You'd hardly ever bring round th' old
squire to believe he'd gain as much in a straightfor'ard way as by tricks
and turns. And, besides, I've not much mind to work under him: I don't
want to quarrel with any gentleman, more particular an old gentleman
turned eighty, and I know we couldn't agree long. If the captain was
master o' th' estate, it 'ud be different: he's got a conscience and a
will to do right, and I'd sooner work for him nor for any man living."</p>
<p>"Well, well, my boy, if good luck knocks at your door, don't you put your
head out at window and tell it to be gone about its business, that's all.
You must learn to deal with odd and even in life, as well as in figures. I
tell you now, as I told you ten years ago, when you pommelled young Mike
Holdsworth for wanting to pass a bad shilling before you knew whether he
was in jest or earnest—you're overhasty and proud, and apt to set
your teeth against folks that don't square to your notions. It's no harm
for me to be a bit fiery and stiff-backed—I'm an old schoolmaster,
and shall never want to get on to a higher perch. But where's the use of
all the time I've spent in teaching you writing and mapping and
mensuration, if you're not to get for'ard in the world and show folks
there's some advantage in having a head on your shoulders, instead of a
turnip? Do you mean to go on turning up your nose at every opportunity
because it's got a bit of a smell about it that nobody finds out but
yourself? It's as foolish as that notion o' yours that a wife is to make a
working-man comfortable. Stuff and nonsense! Stuff and nonsense! Leave
that to fools that never got beyond a sum in simple addition. Simple
addition enough! Add one fool to another fool, and in six years' time six
fools more—they're all of the same denomination, big and little's
nothing to do with the sum!"</p>
<p>During this rather heated exhortation to coolness and discretion the pipe
had gone out, and Bartle gave the climax to his speech by striking a light
furiously, after which he puffed with fierce resolution, fixing his eye
still on Adam, who was trying not to laugh.</p>
<p>"There's a good deal o' sense in what you say, Mr. Massey," Adam began, as
soon as he felt quite serious, "as there always is. But you'll give in
that it's no business o' mine to be building on chances that may never
happen. What I've got to do is to work as well as I can with the tools and
mater'als I've got in my hands. If a good chance comes to me, I'll think
o' what you've been saying; but till then, I've got nothing to do but to
trust to my own hands and my own head-piece. I'm turning over a little
plan for Seth and me to go into the cabinet-making a bit by ourselves, and
win a extra pound or two in that way. But it's getting late now—it'll
be pretty near eleven before I'm at home, and Mother may happen to lie
awake; she's more fidgety nor usual now. So I'll bid you good-night."</p>
<p>"Well, well, we'll go to the gate with you—it's a fine night," said
Bartle, taking up his stick. Vixen was at once on her legs, and without
further words the three walked out into the starlight, by the side of
Bartle's potato-beds, to the little gate.</p>
<p>"Come to the music o' Friday night, if you can, my boy," said the old man,
as he closed the gate after Adam and leaned against it.</p>
<p>"Aye, aye," said Adam, striding along towards the streak of pale road. He
was the only object moving on the wide common. The two grey donkeys, just
visible in front of the gorse bushes, stood as still as limestone images—as
still as the grey-thatched roof of the mud cottage a little farther on.
Bartle kept his eye on the moving figure till it passed into the darkness,
while Vixen, in a state of divided affection, had twice run back to the
house to bestow a parenthetic lick on her puppies.</p>
<p>"Aye, aye," muttered the schoolmaster, as Adam disappeared, "there you go,
stalking along—stalking along; but you wouldn't have been what you
are if you hadn't had a bit of old lame Bartle inside you. The strongest
calf must have something to suck at. There's plenty of these big,
lumbering fellows 'ud never have known their A B C if it hadn't been for
Bartle Massey. Well, well, Vixen, you foolish wench, what is it, what is
it? I must go in, must I? Aye, aye, I'm never to have a will o' my own any
more. And those pups—what do you think I'm to do with 'em, when
they're twice as big as you? For I'm pretty sure the father was that
hulking bull-terrier of Will Baker's—wasn't he now, eh, you sly
hussy?"</p>
<p>(Here Vixen tucked her tail between her legs and ran forward into the
house. Subjects are sometimes broached which a well-bred female will
ignore.)</p>
<p>"But where's the use of talking to a woman with babbies?" continued
Bartle. "She's got no conscience—no conscience; it's all run to
milk."</p>
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