Adam Bede
by George Eliot
Book One
Chapter I
The Workshop
With a single drop of ink for a mirror, the Egyptian sorcerer
undertakes to reveal to any chance comer far-reaching visions of
the past. This is what I undertake to do for you, reader. With
this drop of ink at the end of my pen, I will show you the roomy
workshop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder, in the
village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the eighteenth of June, in
the year of our Lord 1799.
The afternoon sun was warm on the five workmen there, busy upon
doors and window-frames and wainscoting. A scent of pine-wood
from a tentlike pile of planks outside the open door mingled
itself with the scent of the elder-bushes which were spreading
their summer snow close to the open window opposite; the slanting
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