Adam reaches the cottage where he lives with his brother and their elderly parents. His mother tells him that his father, who is apparently an irresponsible alcoholic, has wandered off to a tavern in the next town, Treddleston, instead of making a coffin which he had contracted to finish that day. Adam is very angry and sets about doing the job without even eating supper.
Seth comes home saddened by Dinah's refusal of his proposal, and Adam will not allow him to help with the coffin. Seth tries to soothe their mother, and it comes out in the conversation between them that Adam is in love with a girl named Hetty Sorrel, who is a silly thing, pretty but naive and impractical. After praying together, Seth and Lisbeth go to bed. Adam stays up all night to finish the coffin.
About midnight, he hears a tapping on the door, but no one is there; he is reminded of a local superstition which holds that this occurrence is a sign of death. It happens again, but he pushes the superstition out of his mind.
Soon after dawn, he and Seth deliver the completed coffin, and as they are walking home, they catch sight of a body in the brook near their home. It is their father; he has fallen into the brook in a drunken stupor and drowned. They carry him home, and Adam regrets his past harshness to his father.
