. I will not say that his love for
that good fellow did not owe some of its force to the love of patronage: our
friend Arthur liked to do everything that was handsome, and to have his handsome
deeds recognised.
    Adam looked round as he heard the quickening clatter of the horse's heels,
and waited for the horseman, lifting his paper cap from his head with a bright
smile of recognition. Next to his own brother Seth, Adam would have done more
for Arthur Donnithorne than for any other young man in the world. There was
hardly anything he would not rather have lost than the two-feet ruler which he
always carried in his pocket; it was Arthur's present, bought with his
pocket-money when he was a fair-haired lad of eleven, and when he had profited
so well by Adam's lessons in carpentering and turning, as to embarrass every
female in the house with gifts of superfluous thread-reels and round boxes. Adam
had quite a pride in the little squire in those early days, and the feeling had
only become slightly modified as the fair-haired lad had grown into the
whiskered young man. Adam, I confess, was very susceptible to the influence of
rank, and quite ready to give an extra amount of respect to every one who had
more advantages than himself, not being a philosopher, or a proletaire with
democratic ideas, but simply a stout-limbed clever carpenter with a large fund
of reverence in his nature, which inclined him to admit all established claims
unless he saw very clear grounds for questioning them. He had no theories about
setting the world to rights, but he saw there was a great deal of damage done by
building with ill-seasoned timber - by ignorant men in fine clothes making plans
for outhouses and workshops and the like, without knowing the bearings of things
- by slovenly joiners' work, and by hasty contracts that could never be
fulfilled without ruining somebody; and he resolved, for his part, to set his
face against such doings. On these points he would have maintained his opinion
against the largest landed proprietor in Loamshire or Stonyshire either; but he
felt that beyond these it would be better for him to defer to people who were
more knowing than himself. He saw as plainly as possible how ill the woods on
the estate were managed, and the shameful state of the farm-buildings; and if
old Squire Donnithorne had asked him the effect of this mismanagement, he would
have spoken his opinion without flinching, but the impulse to a respectful
demeanour towards a »gentleman« would
