The Essential Works of George Eliot. George Eliot

a double-faced man—I’ll never believe a word you say again.”

      “Go away, I tell you,” said Arthur, angrily, “or we shall both repent.”

      “No,” said Adam, with a convulsed voice, “I swear I won’t go away without fighting you. Do you want provoking any more? I tell you you’re a coward and a scoundrel, and I despise you.”

      The colour had all rushed back to Arthur’s face; in a moment his right hand was clenched, and dealt a blow like lightning, which sent Adam staggering backward. His blood was as thoroughly up as Adam’s now, and the two men, forgetting the emotions that had gone before, fought with the instinctive fierceness of panthers in the deepening twilight darkened by the trees. The delicate-handed gentleman was a match for the workman in everything but strength, and Arthur’s skill enabled him to protract the struggle for some long moments. But between unarmed men the battle is to the strong, where the strong is no blunderer, and Arthur must sink under a well-planted blow of Adam’s as a steel rod is broken by an iron bar. The blow soon came, and Arthur fell, his head lying concealed in a tuft of fern, so that Adam could only discern his darkly clad body.

      He stood still in the dim light waiting for Arthur to rise.

      The blow had been given now, towards which he had been straining all the force of nerve and muscle—and what was the good of it? What had he done by fighting? Only satisfied his own passion, only wreaked his own vengeance. He had not rescued Hetty, nor changed the past—there it was, just as it had been, and he sickened at the vanity of his own rage.

      But why did not Arthur rise? He was perfectly motionless, and the time seemed long to Adam. Good God! had the blow been too much for him? Adam shuddered at the thought of his own strength, as with the oncoming of this dread he knelt down by Arthur’s side and lifted his head from among the fern. There was no sign of life: the eyes and teeth were set. The horror that rushed over Adam completely mastered him, and forced upon him its own belief. He could feel nothing but that death was in Arthur’s face, and that he was helpless before it. He made not a single movement, but knelt like an image of despair gazing at an image of death.

Chapter II.

       A Dilemma.

       Table of Contents

      It was only a few minutes measured by the clock—though Adam always thought it had been a long while—before he perceived a gleam of consciousness in Arthur’s face and a slight shiver through his frame. The intense joy that flooded his soul brought back some of the old affection with it.

      “Do you feel any pain, sir?” he said, tenderly, loosening Arthur’s cravat.

      Arthur turned his eyes on Adam with a vague stare which gave way to a slightly startled motion as if from the shock of returning memory. But he only shivered again and said nothing.

      “Do you feel any hurt, sir?” Adam said again, with a trembling in his voice.

      Arthur put his hand up to his waistcoat buttons, and when Adam had unbuttoned it, he took a longer breath. “Lay my head down,” he said, faintly, “and get me some water if you can.”

      Adam laid the head down gently on the fern again, and emptying the tools out of the flag-basket, hurried through the trees to the edge of the Grove bordering on the Chase, where a brook ran below the bank.

      When he returned with his basket leaking, but still half-full, Arthur looked at him with a more thoroughly reawakened consciousness.

      “Can you drink a drop out o’ your hand, sir?” said Adam, kneeling down again to lift up Arthur’s head.

      “No,” said Arthur, “dip my cravat in and souse it on my head.”

      The water seemed to do him some good, for he presently raised himself a little higher, resting on Adam’s arm.

      “Do you feel any hurt inside sir?” Adam asked again

      “No—no hurt,” said Arthur, still faintly, “but rather done up.”

      After a while he said, “I suppose I fainted away when you knocked me down.”

      “Yes, sir, thank God,” said Adam. “I thought it was worse.”

      “What! You thought you’d done for me, eh? Come help me on my legs.”

      “I feel terribly shaky and dizzy,” Arthur said, as he stood leaning on Adam’s arm; “that blow of yours must have come against me like a battering-ram. I don’t believe I can walk alone.”

      “Lean on me, sir; I’ll get you along,” said Adam. “Or, will you sit down a bit longer, on my coat here, and I’ll prop y’ up. You’ll perhaps be better in a minute or two.”

      “No,” said Arthur. “I’ll go to the Hermitage—I think I’ve got some brandy there. There’s a short road to it a little farther on, near the gate. If you’ll just help me on.”

      They walked slowly, with frequent pauses, but without speaking again. In both of them, the concentration in the present which had attended the first moments of Arthur’s revival had now given way to a vivid recollection of the previous scene. It was nearly dark in the narrow path among the trees, but within the circle of fir-trees round the Hermitage there was room for the growing moonlight to enter in at the windows. Their steps were noiseless on the thick carpet of fir-needles, and the outward stillness seemed to heighten their inward consciousness, as Arthur took the key out of his pocket and placed it in Adam’s hand, for him to open the door. Adam had not known before that Arthur had furnished the old Hermitage and made it a retreat for himself, and it was a surprise to him when he opened the door to see a snug room with all the signs of frequent habitation.

      Arthur loosed Adam’s arm and threw himself on the ottoman. “You’ll see my hunting-bottle somewhere,” he said. “A leather case with a bottle and glass in.”

      Adam was not long in finding the case. “There’s very little brandy in it, sir,” he said, turning it downwards over the glass, as he held it before the window; “hardly this little glassful.”

      “Well, give me that,” said Arthur, with the peevishness of physical depression. When he had taken some sips, Adam said, “Hadn’t I better run to th’ house, sir, and get some more brandy? I can be there and back pretty soon. It’ll be a stiff walk home for you, if you don’t have something to revive you.”

      “Yes—go. But don’t say I’m ill. Ask for my man Pym, and tell him to get it from Mills, and not to say I’m at the Hermitage. Get some water too.”

      Adam was relieved to have an active task—both of them were relieved to be apart from each other for a short time. But Adam’s swift pace could not still the eager pain of thinking—of living again with concentrated suffering through the last wretched hour, and looking out from it over all the new sad future.

      Arthur lay still for some minutes after Adam was gone, but presently he rose feebly from the ottoman and peered about slowly in the broken moonlight, seeking something. It was a short bit of wax candle that stood amongst a confusion of writing and drawing materials. There was more searching for the means of lighting the candle, and when that was done, he went cautiously round the room, as if wishing to assure himself of the presence or absence of something. At last he had found a slight thing, which he put first in his pocket, and then, on a second thought, took out again and thrust deep down into a waste-paper basket. It was a woman’s little, pink, silk neckerchief. He set the candle on the table, and threw himself down on the ottoman again, exhausted with the effort.

      When Adam came back with his supplies, his entrance awoke Arthur from a doze.

      “That’s right,” Arthur said; “I’m tremendously in want of some brandy-vigour.”

      “I’m glad to see you’ve got a light, sir,” said Adam. “I’ve been thinking I’d better have asked for a lanthorn.”

      “No,