“Nay, nay, Mother,” said Adam, gravely, and standing still while he put his arm on her shoulder, “I’m not angered.  But I wish, for thy own sake, thee’dst be more contented to let me do what I’ve made up my mind to do.  I’ll never be no other than a good son to thee as long as we live.  But a man has other feelings besides what he owes to’s father and mother, and thee oughtna to want to rule over me body and soul.  And thee must make up thy mind as I’ll not give way to thee where I’ve a right to do what I like.  So let us have no more words about it.”

“Eh,” said Lisbeth, not willing to show that she felt the real bearing of Adam’s words, “and’ who likes to see thee i’ thy best cloose better nor thy mother?  An’ when thee’st got thy face washed as clean as the smooth white pibble, an’ thy hair combed so nice, and thy eyes a-sparklin’—­what else is there as thy old mother should like to look at half so well?  An’ thee sha’t put on thy Sunday cloose when thee lik’st for me—­I’ll ne’er plague thee no moor about’n.”

“Well, well; good-bye, mother,” said Adam, kissing her and hurrying away.  He saw there was no other means of putting an end to the dialogue.  Lisbeth stood still on the spot, shading her eyes and looking after him till he was quite out of sight.  She felt to the full all the meaning that had lain in Adam’s words, and, as she lost sight of him and turned back slowly into the house, she said aloud to herself—­for it was her way to speak her thoughts aloud in the long days when her husband and sons were at their work—­“Eh, he’ll be tellin’ me as he’s goin’ to bring her home one o’ these days; an’ she’ll be missis o’er me, and I mun look on, belike, while she uses the blue-edged platters, and breaks ‘em, mayhap, though there’s ne’er been one broke sin’ my old man an’ me bought ’em at the fair twenty ’ear come next Whissuntide.  Eh!” she went on, still louder, as she caught up her knitting from the table, “but she’ll ne’er knit the lad’s stockin’s, nor foot ’em nayther, while I live; an’ when I’m gone, he’ll bethink him as nobody ’ull ne’er fit’s leg an’ foot as his old mother did.  She’ll know nothin’ o’ narrowin’ an’ heelin’, I warrand, an’ she’ll make a long toe as he canna get’s boot on.  That’s what comes o’ marr’in’ young wenches.  I war gone thirty, an’ th’ feyther too, afore we war married; an’ young enough too.  She’ll be a poor dratchell by then she’s thirty, a-marr’in’ a-that’n, afore her teeth’s all come.”

Adam walked so fast that he was at the yard-gate before seven.  Martin Poyser and the grandfather were not yet come in from the meadow:  every one was in the meadow, even to the black-and-tan terrier—­no one kept watch in the yard but the bull-dog; and when Adam reached the house-door, which stood wide open, he saw there was no one in the bright clean house-place.  But he guessed where Mrs. Poyser and some one else would be, quite within hearing; so he knocked on the door and said in his strong voice, “Mrs. Poyser within?”