“No, no, no; Totty ’ud get her feet wet,” said Mrs. Poyser, carrying away her iron. “Run into the dairy and see cousin Hetty make the butter.”
“I tould ’ike a bit o’ pum-take,” rejoined Totty, who seemed to be provided with several relays of requests; at the same time, taking the opportunity of her momentary leisure to put her fingers into a bowl of starch, and drag it down so as to empty the contents with tolerable completeness on to the ironing sheet.
“Did ever anybody see the like?” screamed Mrs. Poyser, running towards the table when her eye had fallen on the blue stream. “The child’s allays i’ mischief if your back’s turned a minute. What shall I do to you, you naughty, naughty gell?”
Totty, however, had descended from her chair with great swiftness, and was already in retreat towards the dairy with a sort of waddling run, and an amount of fat on the nape of her neck which made her look like the metamorphosis of a white suckling pig.
The starch having been wiped up by Molly’s help, and the ironing apparatus put by, Mrs. Poyser took up her knitting which always lay ready at hand, and was the work she liked best, because she could carry it on automatically as she walked to and fro. But now she came and sat down opposite Dinah, whom she looked at in a meditative way, as she knitted her grey worsted stocking.
“You look th’ image o’ your Aunt Judith, Dinah, when you sit a-sewing. I could almost fancy it was thirty years back, and I was a little gell at home, looking at Judith as she sat at her work, after she’d done the house up; only it was a little cottage, Father’s was, and not a big rambling house as gets dirty i’ one corner as fast as you clean it in another—but for all that, I could fancy you was your Aunt Judith, only her hair was a deal darker than yours, and she was stouter and broader i’ the shoulders. Judith and me allays hung together, though she had such queer ways, but your mother and her never could agree. Ah, your mother little thought as she’d have a daughter just cut out after the very pattern o’ Judith, and leave her an orphan, too, for Judith to take care on, and bring up with a spoon when she was in the graveyard at Stoniton. I allays said that o’ Judith, as she’d bear a pound weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce. And she was just the same from the first o’ my remembering her; it made no difference in her, as I could see, when she took to the Methodists, only she talked a bit different and wore a different sort o’ cap; but she’d never in her life spent a penny on herself more than keeping herself decent.”
“She was a blessed woman,” said Dinah; “God had given her a loving, self-forgetting nature, and He perfected it by grace. And she was very fond of you too, Aunt Rachel. I often heard her talk of you in the same sort of way. When she had that bad illness, and I was only eleven years old, she used to say, ‘You’ll have a friend on earth in your Aunt Rachel, if I’m taken from you, for she has a kind heart,’ and I’m sure I’ve found it so.”
“I don’t know how, child; anybody ’ud be cunning to do anything for you, I think; you’re like the birds o’ th’ air, and live nobody knows how. I’d ha’ been glad to behave to you like a mother’s sister, if you’d come and live i’ this country where there’s some shelter and victual for man and beast, and folks don’t live on the naked hills, like poultry a-scratching on a gravel bank. And then you might get married to some decent man, and there’d be plenty ready to have you, if you’d only leave off that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt Judith ever did. And even if you’d marry Seth Bede, as is a poor wool-gathering Methodist and’s never like to have a penny beforehand, I know your uncle ’ud help you with a pig, and very like a cow, for he’s allays been good-natur’d to my kin, for all they’re poor, and made ’em welcome to the house; and ’ud do for you, I’ll be bound, as much as ever he’d do for Hetty, though she’s his own niece. And there’s linen in the house as I could well spare you, for I’ve got lots o’ sheeting and table-clothing, and towelling, as isn’t made up. There’s a piece o’ sheeting I could give you as that squinting Kitty spun—she was a rare girl to spin, for all she squinted, and the children couldn’t abide her; and, you know, the spinning’s going on constant, and there’s new linen wove twice as fast as the old wears out. But where’s the use o’ talking, if ye wonna be persuaded, and settle down like any other woman in her senses, i’stead o’ wearing yourself out with walking and preaching, and giving away every penny you get, so as you’ve nothing saved against sickness; and all the things you’ve got i’ the world, I verily believe, ’ud go into a bundle no bigger nor a double cheese. And all because you’ve got notions i’ your head about religion more nor what’s i’ the Catechism and the Prayer-book.”
“But not more than what’s in the Bible, Aunt,” said Dinah.
“Yes, and the Bible too, for that matter,” Mrs. Poyser rejoined, rather sharply; “else why shouldn’t them as know best what’s in the Bible—the parsons and people as have got nothing to do but learn it—do the same as you do? But, for the matter o’ that, if everybody was to do like you, the world must come to a standstill; for if everybody tried to do without house and home, and with poor eating and drinking, and was allays talking as we must despise the things o’ the world as you say, I should like to know where the pick o’ the stock, and the corn, and the best new-milk cheeses ’ud have to go. Everybody ’ud be wanting bread made o’ tail ends and everybody ’ud be running after everybody else to preach to ’em, istead o’ bringing up their families, and laying by against a bad harvest. It stands to sense as that can’t be the right religion.”
“Nay, dear aunt, you never heard me say that all people are called to forsake their work and their families. It’s quite right the land should be ploughed and sowed, and the precious corn stored, and the things of this life cared for, and right that people should rejoice in their families, and provide for them, so that this is done in the fear of the Lord, and that they are not unmindful of the soul’s wants while they are caring for the body. We can all be servants of God wherever our lot is cast, but He gives us different sorts of work, according as He fits us for it and calls us to it. I can no more help spending my life in trying to do what I can for the souls of others, than you could help running if you heard little Totty crying at the other end of the house; the voice would go to your heart, you would think the dear child was in trouble or in danger, and you couldn’t rest without running to help her and comfort her.”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Poyser, rising and walking towards the door, “I know it ’ud be just the same if I was to talk to you for hours. You’d make me the same answer, at th’ end. I might as well talk to the running brook and tell it to stan’ still.”
The causeway outside the kitchen door was dry enough now for Mrs. Poyser to stand there quite pleasantly and see what was going on in the yard, the grey worsted stocking making a steady progress in her hands all the while. But she had not been standing there more than five minutes before she came in again, and said to Dinah, in rather a flurried, awe-stricken tone, “If there isn’t Captain Donnithorne and Mr. Irwine a-coming into the yard! I’ll lay my life they’re come to speak about your preaching on the Green, Dinah; it’s you must answer ’em, for I’m dumb. I’ve said enough a’ready about your bringing such disgrace upo’ your uncle’s family. I wouldn’t ha’ minded if you’d been Mr. Poyser’s own niece—folks must put up wi’ their own kin, as they put up wi’ their own noses—it’s their own flesh and blood. But to think of a niece o’ mine being cause o’ my husband’s being turned out of his farm, and me brought him no fortin but my savin’s——”
“Nay, dear Aunt Rachel,” said Dinah gently, “you’ve no cause for such fears. I’ve strong assurance that no evil will happen to you and my uncle and the children from anything I’ve done. I didn’t preach without direction.”
“Direction! I know very well what you mean by direction,” said Mrs. Poyser, knitting in a rapid and agitated manner. “When there’s a bigger maggot than usual in your head you call it ‘direction’; and then nothing can stir you—you look like the statty o’ the outside o’ Treddles’on church, a-starin’ and a-smilin’ whether it’s fair weather or foul. I hanna common patience with you.”
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