A man should make sacrifices to keep clear of doing a wrong;
sacrifices won't undo it when it's done. When people's feelings have got
a deadly wound, they can't be cured with favours."
"Favours!" said Arthur, passionately; "no; how can you suppose I meant
that? But the Poysers--Mr. Irwine tells me the Poysers mean to leave the
place where they have lived so many years--for generations. Don't you
see, as Mr. Irwine does, that if they could be persuaded to overcome the
feeling that drives them away, it would be much better for them in the
end to remain on the old spot, among the friends and neighbours who know
them?"
"That's true," said Adam coldly. "But then, sir, folks's feelings are
not so easily overcome. It'll be hard for Martin Poyser to go to a
strange place, among strange faces, when he's been bred up on the Hall
Farm, and his father before him; but then it 'ud be harder for a man
with his feelings to stay. I don't see how the thing's to be made any
other than hard. There's a sort o' damage, sir, that can't be made up
for."
Arthur was silent some moments. In spite of other feelings dominant in
him this evening, his pride winced under Adam's mode of treating him.
Wasn't he himself suffering? Was not he too obliged to renounce his most
cherished hopes? It was now as it had been eight months ago--Adam was
forcing Arthur to feel more intensely the irrevocableness of his own
wrong-doing.
Pages:
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764