The Quest
- Meanwhile, back in Hayslope, everything is pretty much normal. True, people have started wondering why Hetty has been gone so long. Did she find it "pleasanter to be with Dinah than any one could have supposed?" (38.1). But Adam is getting impatient. He's got a wedding to plan, dang it.
- So Adam sets off one Sunday morning to bring back the love of his life, the Juliet to his Romeo, the Jenny to his Forrest Gump. Seth accompanies Adam part of the way, and then turns back. Then, to while away the journey, Adam sings a hymn about "sin and grief" and God's redeeming power (38.9). Road trip music?
- After leaving behind Hayslope's unfailingly photogenic landscape, Adam arrives in the "grim, stony, and unsheltered" town of Snowfield (38.11). He makes his way to the cottage of an old woman who knows Dinah.
- He questions her, and discovers that Hetty isn't in Snowfield. But no worries, "The old woman was so slow of speech and apprehension, that Hetty might be at Snowfield after all" (38.21).
- But the more questions Adam asks, the clearer it becomes that Hetty was never in Snowfield. He leaves the cottage and asks around town. Nope, no Hetty. Worried sick, Adam decides to track down Dinah, or Hetty, or anyone who knows something.
- So Adam hits the road. He asks around, and makes an educated guess that Hetty is in Stoniton. But why did Hetty flee? Adam has two guesses: "Either Arthur had written to her again and enticed her away, or she had simply fled from her approaching marriage with himself because she found, after all, that she could not love him well enough" (39.35).
- Adam decides to return to Hayslope and get his bearings. He tries to sneak into his house without disturbing anyone. He wants to suffer this one alone. But Seth hears Adam entering, asks his brother what's wrong. And big, strong Adam "fell on Seth's neck and sobbed" (39.43).
- Adam is now forced to tell Seth, who is all compassion, of his misadventure. He then goes into town to "give notice to Burge of his being obliged to go on a journey" (39.55).
- But as luck, or ill luck, would have it, Adam bumps into Martin Poyser on the road. On the one hand, this means that Martin won't have to wait for his bad news. On the other, the news is really bad.
- But he also needs a shoulder to cry on (metaphorically speaking), convinced as he is that Hetty "couldn't like me for a husband" (39.67). And when there's no other shoulder around, Martin Poyser's big burly shoulder will have to do.
- The two men part on decent, yet unhappy terms—Adam confused, Mr. Poyser annoyed that Hetty (apparently) has jilted Adam. Not knowing where else to turn, Adam decides "to go to Mr. Irwine, and make a confidant of him" (39.77). Now Adam will have a leisurely, well-tailored shoulder to cry on. Still metaphorically speaking, of course.