“What a capital thing it is that they saved this piece of the old abbey!” said Arthur. “If I’m ever master here, I shall do up the gallery in first-rate style. We’ve got no room in the house a third as large as this. That second table is for the farmers’ wives and children: Mrs. Best said it would be more comfortable for the mothers and children to be by themselves. I was determined to have the children, and make a regular family thing of it. I shall be ‘the old squire’ to those little lads and lasses some day, and they’ll tell their children what a much finer young fellow I was than my own son. There’s a table for the women and children below as well. But you will see them all—you will come up with me after dinner, I hope?”
“Yes, to be sure,” said Mr. Irwine. “I wouldn’t miss your maiden speech to the tenantry.”
“And there will be something else you’ll like to hear,” said Arthur. “Let us go into the library and I’ll tell you all about it while my grandfather is in the drawing-room with the ladies. Something that will surprise you,” he continued, as they sat down. “My grandfather has come round after all.”
“What, about Adam?”
“Yes; I should have ridden over to tell you about it, only I was so busy. You know I told you I had quite given up arguing the matter with him—I thought it was hopeless—but yesterday morning he asked me to come in here to him before I went out, and astonished me by saying that he had decided on all the new arrangements he should make in consequence of old Satchell being obliged to lay by work, and that he intended to employ Adam in superintending the woods at a salary of a guinea a-week, and the use of a pony to be kept here. I believe the secret of it is, he saw from the first it would be a profitable plan, but he had some particular dislike of Adam to get over—and besides, the fact that I propose a thing is generally a reason with him for rejecting it. There’s the most curious contradiction in my grandfather: I know he means to leave me all the money he has saved, and he is likely enough to have cut off poor Aunt Lydia, who has been a slave to him all her life, with only five hundred a-year, for the sake of giving me all the more; and yet I sometimes think he positively hates me because I’m his heir. I believe if I were to break my neck, he would feel it the greatest misfortune that could befall him, and yet it seems a pleasure to him to make my life a series of petty annoyances.”
“Ah, my boy, it is not only woman’s love that is ἀπέρωτος ἔρως as old Æschylus calls it. There’s plenty of ‘unloving love’ in the world of a masculine kind. But tell me about Adam. Has he accepted the post? I don’t see that it can be much more profitable than his present work, though, to be sure, it will leave him a good deal of time on his own hands.
“Well, I felt some doubt about it when I spoke to him and he seemed to hesitate at first. His objection was that he thought he should not be able to satisfy my grandfather. But I begged him as a personal favour to me not to let any reason prevent him from accepting the place, if he really liked the employment and would not be giving up anything that was more profitable to him. And he assured me he should like it of all things—it would be a great step forward for him in business, and it would enable him to do what he had long wished to do, to give up working for Burge. He says he shall have plenty of time to superintend a little business of his own, which he and Seth will carry on, and will perhaps be able to enlarge by degrees. So he has agreed at last, and I have arranged that he shall dine with the large tenants to-day; and I mean to announce the appointment to them, and ask them to drink Adam’s health. It’s a little drama I’ve got up in honour of my friend Adam. He’s a fine fellow, and I like the opportunity of letting people know that I think so.”
“A drama in which friend Arthur piques himself on having a pretty part to play,” said Mr. Irwine, smiling. But when he saw Arthur colour, he went on relentingly, “My part, you know, is always that of the old fogy who sees nothing to admire in the young folks. I don’t like to admit that I’m proud of my pupil when he does graceful things. But I must play the amiable old gentleman for once, and second your toast in honour of Adam. Has your grandfather yielded on the other point too, and agreed to have a respectable man as steward?”
“Oh no,” said Arthur, rising from his chair with an air of impatience and walking along the room with his hands in his pockets. “He’s got some project or other about letting the Chase Farm and bargaining for a supply of milk and butter for the house. But I ask no questions about it—it makes me too angry. I believe he means to do all the business himself, and have nothing in the shape of a steward. It’s amazing what energy he has, though.”
“Well, we’ll go to the ladies now,” said Mr. Irwine, rising too. “I want to tell my mother what a splendid throne you’ve prepared for her under the marquee.”
“Yes, and we must be going to luncheon too,” said Arthur. “It must be two o’clock, for there is the gong beginning to sound for the tenants’ dinners.”
Chapter II.
Dinner-Time.
When Adam heard that he was to dine upstairs with the large tenants, he felt rather uncomfortable at the idea of being exalted in this way above his mother and Seth, who were to dine in the cloisters below. But Mr. Mills, the butler, assured him that Captain Donnithorne had given particular orders about it, and would be very angry if Adam was not there.
Adam nodded and went up to Seth, who was standing a few yards off. “Seth, lad,” he said, “the captain has sent to say I’m to dine upstairs—he wishes it particular, Mr. Mills says, so I suppose it ’ud be behaving ill for me not to go. But I don’t like sitting up above thee and mother, as if I was better than my own flesh and blood. Thee’t not take it unkind, I hope?”
“Nay, nay, lad,” said Seth, “thy honour’s our honour; and if thee get’st respect, thee’st won it by thy own deserts. The further I see thee above me, the better, so long as thee feel’st like a brother to me. It’s because o’ thy being appointed over the woods, and it’s nothing but what’s right. That’s a place o’ trust, and thee’t above a common workman now.”
“Aye,” said Adam, “but nobody knows a word about it yet. I haven’t given notice to Mr. Burge about leaving him, and I don’t like to tell anybody else about it before he knows, for he’ll be a good bit hurt, I doubt. People ’ull be wondering to see me there, and they’ll like enough be guessing the reason and asking questions, for there’s been so much talk up and down about my having the place, this last three weeks.”
“Well, thee canst say thee wast ordered to come without being told the reason. That’s the truth. And mother ’ull be fine and joyful about it. Let’s go and tell her.”
Adam was not the only guest invited to come upstairs on other grounds than the amount he contributed to the rent-roll. There were other people in the two parishes who derived dignity from their functions rather than from their pocket, and of these Bartle Massey was one. His lame walk was rather slower than usual on this warm day, so Adam lingered behind when the bell rang for dinner, that he might walk up with his old friend; for he was a little too shy to join the Poyser party on this public occasion. Opportunities of getting to Hetty’s side would be sure to turn up in the course of the day, and Adam contented himself with that for he disliked any risk of being “joked” about Hetty—the big, outspoken, fearless man was very shy and diffident as to his love-making.
“Well, Mester Massey,” said Adam, as Bartle came up “I’m going to dine upstairs with you to-day: the captain’s sent me orders.”
“Ah!” said Bartle, pausing, with one hand on his back. “Then there’s something in the wind—there’s something in the wind. Have you heard anything about what the old squire means to do?”
“Why, yes,” said Adam; “I’ll tell you what I know,