The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Chapters 41-45

Hardy Chapters 1-10
Chapters 11-20
Chapters 21-30
Chapters 31-40
Chapters 41-45

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[12666]     40.
[12667]     
[12668]     
[12669]     Long before this time Henchard, weary of his ruminations on
[12670]     the bridge, had repaired towards the town. When he stood at
[12671]     the bottom of the street a procession burst upon his view,
[12672]     in the act of turning out of an alley just above him. The
[12673]     lanterns, horns, and multitude startled him; he saw the
[12674]     mounted images, and knew what it all meant.
[12675]     
[12676]     They crossed the way, entered another street, and
[12677]     disappeared. He turned back a few steps and was lost in
[12678]     grave reflection, finally wending his way homeward by the
[12679]     obscure river-side path. Unable to rest there he went to
[12680]     his step-daughter's lodging, and was told that Elizabeth-
[12681]     Jane had gone to Mr. Farfrae's. Like one acting in
[12682]     obedience to a charm, and with a nameless apprehension, he
[12683]     followed in the same direction in the hope of meeting her,
[12684]     the roysterers having vanished. Disappointed in this he
[12685]     gave the gentlest of pulls to the door-bell, and then learnt
[12686]     particulars of what had occurred, together with the doctor's
[12687]     imperative orders that Farfrae should be brought home, and
[12688]     how they had set out to meet him on the Budmouth Road.
[12689]     
[12690]     "But he has gone to Mellstock and Weatherbury!" exclaimed
[12691]     Henchard, now unspeakably grieved. "Not Budmouth way at
[12692]     all."
[12693]     
[12694]     But, alas! for Henchard; he had lost his good name. They
[12695]     would not believe him, taking his words but as the frothy
[12696]     utterances of recklessness. Though Lucetta's life seemed at
[12697]     that moment to depend upon her husband's return (she being
[12698]     in great mental agony lest he should never know the
[12699]     unexaggerated truth of her past relations with Henchard), no
[12700]     messenger was despatched towards Weatherbury. Henchard, in
[12701]     a state of bitter anxiety and contrition, determined to seek
[12702]     Farfrae himself.
[12703]     
[12704]     To this end he hastened down the town, ran along the eastern
[12705]     road over Durnover Moor, up the hill beyond, and thus onward
[12706]     in the moderate darkness of this spring night till he had
[12707]     reached a second and almost a third hill about three miles
[12708]     distant. In Yalbury Bottom, or Plain, at the foot of the
[12709]     hill, he listened. At first nothing, beyond his own heart-
[12710]     throbs, was to be heard but the slow wind making its moan
[12711]     among the masses of spruce and larch of Yalbury Wood which
[12712]     clothed the heights on either hand; but presently there came
[12713]     the sound of light wheels whetting their felloes against the
[12714]     newly stoned patches of road, accompanied by the distant
[12715]     glimmer of lights.
[12716]     
[12717]     He knew it was Farfrae's gig descending the hill from an
[12718]     indescribable personality in its noise, the vehicle having
[12719]     been his own till bought by the Scotchman at the sale of his
[12720]     effects. Henchard thereupon retraced his steps along
[12721]     Yalbury Plain, the gig coming up with him as its driver
[12722]     slackened speed between two plantations.
[12723]     
[12724]     It was a point in the highway near which the road to
[12725]     Mellstock branched off from the homeward direction. By
[12726]     diverging to that village, as he had intended to do, Farfrae
[12727]     might probably delay his return by a couple of hours. It
[12728]     soon appeared that his intention was to do so still, the
[12729]     light swerving towards Cuckoo Lane, the by-road aforesaid.
[12730]     Farfrae's off gig-lamp flashed in Henchard's face. At the
[12731]     same time Farfrae discerned his late antagonist.
[12732]     
[12733]     "Farfrae--Mr. Farfrae!" cried the breathless Henchard,
[12734]     holding up his hand.
[12735]     
[12736]     Farfrae allowed the horse to turn several steps into the
[12737]     branch lane before he pulled up. He then drew rein, and
[12738]     said "Yes?" over his shoulder, as one would towards a
[12739]     pronounced enemy.
[12740]     
[12741]     "Come back to Casterbridge at once!" Henchard said.
[12742]     "There's something wrong at your house--requiring your
[12743]     return. I've run all the way here on purpose to tell ye."
[12744]     
[12745]     Farfrae was silent, and at his silence Henchard's soul sank
[12746]     within him. Why had he not, before this, thought of what
[12747]     was only too obvious? He who, four hours earlier, had
[12748]     enticed Farfrae into a deadly wrestle stood now in the
[12749]     darkness of late night-time on a lonely road, inviting him
[12750]     to come a particular way, where an assailant might have
[12751]     confederates, instead of going his purposed way, where there
[12752]     might be a better opportunity of guarding himself from
[12753]     attack. Henchard could almost feel this view of things in
[12754]     course of passage through Farfrae's mind.
[12755]     
[12756]     "I have to go to Mellstock," said Farfrae coldly, as he
[12757]     loosened his reins to move on.
[12758]     
[12759]     "But," implored Henchard, "the matter is more serious than
[12760]     your business at Mellstock. It is--your wife! She is ill.
[12761]     I can tell you particulars as we go along."
[12762]     
[12763]     The very agitation and abruptness of Henchard increased
[12764]     Farfrae's suspicion that this was a ruse to decoy him on
[12765]     to the next wood, where might be effectually compassed what,
[12766]     from policy or want of nerve, Henchard had failed to do
[12767]     earlier in the day. He started the horse.
[12768]     
[12769]     "I know what you think," deprecated Henchard running after,
[12770]     almost bowed down with despair as he perceived the image of
[12771]     unscrupulous villainy that he assumed in his former friend's
[12772]     eyes. "But I am not what you think!" he cried hoarsely.
[12773]     "Believe me, Farfrae; I have come entirely on your own and
[12774]     your wife's account. She is in danger. I know no more; and
[12775]     they want you to come. Your man has gone the other way in a
[12776]     mistake. O Farfrae! don't mistrust me--I am a wretched man;
[12777]     but my heart is true to you still!"
[12778]     
[12779]     Farfrae, however, did distrust him utterly. He knew his
[12780]     wife was with child, but he had left her not long ago in
[12781]     perfect health; and Henchard's treachery was more credible
[12782]     than his story. He had in his time heard bitter
[12783]     ironies from Henchard's lips, and there might be ironies
[12784]     now. He quickened the horse's pace, and had soon risen into
[12785]     the high country lying between there and Mellstock,
[12786]     Henchard's spasmodic run after him lending yet more
[12787]     substance to his thought of evil purposes.
[12788]     
[12789]     The gig and its driver lessened against the sky in
[12790]     Henchard's eyes; his exertions for Farfrae's good had been
[12791]     in vain. Over this repentant sinner, at least, there was to
[12792]     be no joy in heaven. He cursed himself like a less
[12793]     scrupulous Job, as a vehement man will do when he loses
[12794]     self-respect, the last mental prop under poverty. To this
[12795]     he had come after a time of emotional darkness of which the
[12796]     adjoining woodland shade afforded inadequate illustration.
[12797]     Presently he began to walk back again along the way by which
[12798]     he had arrived. Farfrae should at all events have no reason
[12799]     for delay upon the road by seeing him there when he took his
[12800]     journey homeward later on.
[12801]     
[12802]     Arriving at Casterbridge Henchard went again to Farfrae's
[12803]     house to make inquiries. As soon as the door opened anxious
[12804]     faces confronted his from the staircase, hall, and landing;
[12805]     and they all said in grievous disappointment, "O--it is not
[12806]     he!" The manservant, finding his mistake, had long since
[12807]     returned, and all hopes had centred upon Henchard.
[12808]     
[12809]     "But haven't you found him?" said the doctor.
[12810]     
[12811]     "Yes....I cannot tell 'ee!" Henchard replied as he sank down
[12812]     on a chair within the entrance. "He can't be home for two
[12813]     hours."
[12814]     
[12815]     "H'm," said the surgeon, returning upstairs.
[12816]     
[12817]     "How is she?" asked Henchard of Elizabeth, who formed one of
[12818]     the group.
[12819]     
[12820]     "In great danger, father. Her anxiety to see her husband
[12821]     makes her fearfully restless. Poor woman--I fear they have
[12822]     killed her!"
[12823]     
[12824]     Henchard regarded the sympathetic speaker for a few instants
[12825]     as if she struck him in a new light, then, without further
[12826]     remark, went out of the door and onward to his lonely
[12827]     cottage. So much for man's rivalry, he thought. Death was
[12828]     to have the oyster, and Farfrae and himself the shells. But
[12829]     about Elizabeth-lane; in the midst of his gloom she
[12830]     seemed to him as a pin-point of light. He had liked
[12831]     the look on her face as she answered him from the stairs.
[12832]     There had been affection in it, and above all things what he
[12833]     desired now was affection from anything that was good and
[12834]     pure. She was not his own, yet, for the first time, he had
[12835]     a faint dream that he might get to like her as his own,--if
[12836]     she would only continue to love him.
[12837]     
[12838]     Jopp was just going to bed when Henchard got home. As the
[12839]     latter entered the door Jopp said, "This is rather bad about
[12840]     Mrs. Farfrae's illness."
[12841]     
[12842]     "Yes," said Henchard shortly, though little dreaming of Jopp
[12843]     s complicity in the night's harlequinade, and raising his
[12844]     eyes just sufficiently to observe that Jopp's face was lined
[12845]     with anxiety.
[12846]     
[12847]     "Somebody has called for you," continued Jopp, when Henchard
[12848]     was shutting himself into his own apartment. "A kind of
[12849]     traveller, or sea-captain of some sort."
[12850]     
[12851]     "Oh?--who could he be?"
[12852]     
[12853]     "He seemed a well-be-doing man--had grey hair and a broadish
[12854]     face; but he gave no name, and no message."
[12855]     
[12856]     "Nor do I gi'e him any attention." And, saying this,
[12857]     Henchard closed his door.
[12858]     
[12859]     
[12860]     The divergence to Mellstock delayed Farfrae's return very
[12861]     nearly the two hours of Henchard's estimate. Among the
[12862]     other urgent reasons for his presence had been the need of
[12863]     his authority to send to Budmouth for a second physician;
[12864]     and when at length Farfrae did come back he was in a state
[12865]     bordering on distraction at his misconception of Henchard's
[12866]     motives.
[12867]     
[12868]     A messenger was despatched to Budmouth, late as it had
[12869]     grown; the night wore on, and the other doctor came in the
[12870]     small hours. Lucetta had been much soothed by Donald's
[12871]     arrival; he seldom or never left her side; and when,
[12872]     immediately after his entry, she had tried to lisp out to
[12873]     him the secret which so oppressed her, he checked her feeble
[12874]     words, lest talking should be dangerous, assuring her there
[12875]     was plenty of time to tell him everything.
[12876]     
[12877]     Up to this time he knew nothing of the skimmington-ride.
[12878]     The dangerous illness and miscarriage of Mrs. Farfrae was
[12879]     soon rumoured through the town, and an apprehensive
[12880]     guess having been given as to its cause by the leaders in
[12881]     the exploit, compunction and fear threw a dead silence over
[12882]     all particulars of their orgie; while those immediately
[12883]     around Lucetta would not venture to add to her husband's
[12884]     distress by alluding to the subject.
[12885]     
[12886]     What, and how much, Farfrae's wife ultimately explained to
[12887]     him of her past entanglement with Henchard, when they were
[12888]     alone in the solitude of that sad night, cannot be told.
[12889]     That she informed him of the bare facts of her peculiar
[12890]     intimacy with the corn-merchant became plain from Farfrae's
[12891]     own statements. But in respect of her subsequent conduct--
[12892]     her motive in coming to Casterbridge to unite herself with
[12893]     Henchard--her assumed justification in abandoning him when
[12894]     she discovered reasons for fearing him (though in truth her
[12895]     inconsequent passion for another man at first sight had most
[12896]     to do with that abandonment)--her method of reconciling to
[12897]     her conscience a marriage with the second when she was in a
[12898]     measure committed to the first: to what extent she spoke of
[12899]     these things remained Farfrae's secret alone.
[12900]     
[12901]     Besides the watchman who called the hours and weather in
[12902]     Casterbridge that night there walked a figure up and down
[12903]     corn Street hardly less frequently. It was Henchard's,
[12904]     whose retiring to rest had proved itself a futility as soon
[12905]     as attempted; and he gave it up to go hither and thither,
[12906]     and make inquiries about the patient every now and then. He
[12907]     called as much on Farfrae's account as on Lucetta's, and on
[12908]     Elizabeth-Jane's even more than on either's. Shorn one by
[12909]     one of all other interests, his life seemed centring on the
[12910]     personality of the stepdaughter whose presence but recently
[12911]     he could not endure. To see her on each occasion of his
[12912]     inquiry at Lucetta's was a comfort to him.
[12913]     
[12914]     The last of his calls was made about four o'clock in the
[12915]     morning, in the steely light of dawn. Lucifer was fading
[12916]     into day across Durnover Moor, the sparrows were just
[12917]     alighting into the street, and the hens had begun to cackle
[12918]     from the outhouses. When within a few yards of Farfrae's he
[12919]     saw the door gently opened, and a servant raise her hand to
[12920]     the knocker, to untie the piece of cloth which had muffled
[12921]     it. He went across, the sparrows in his way scarcely
[12922]     flying up from the road-litter, so little did they believe
[12923]     in human aggression at so early a time.
[12924]     
[12925]     "Why do you take off that?" said Henchard.
[12926]     
[12927]     She turned in some surprise at his presence, and did not
[12928]     answer for an instant or two. Recognizing him, she said,
[12929]     "Because they may knock as loud as they will; she will never
[12930]     hear it any more."
[12931]     
[12932]     
[12933]     
[12934]     41.
[12935]     
[12936]     
[12937]     Henchard went home. The morning having now fully broke he
[12938]     lit his fire, and sat abstractedly beside it. He had not
[12939]     sat there long when a gentle footstep approached the house
[12940]     and entered the passage, a finger tapping lightly at the
[12941]     door. Henchard's face brightened, for he knew the motions
[12942]     to be Elizabeth's. She came into his room, looking wan and
[12943]     sad.
[12944]     
[12945]     "Have you heard?" she asked. "Mrs. Farfrae! She is--dead!
[12946]     Yes, indeed--about an hour ago!"
[12947]     
[12948]     "I know it," said Henchard. "I have but lately come in from
[12949]     there. It is so very good of 'ee, Elizabeth, to come and
[12950]     tell me. You must be so tired out, too, with sitting up.
[12951]     Now do you bide here with me this morning. You can go and
[12952]     rest in the other room; and I will call 'ee when breakfast
[12953]     is ready."
[12954]     
[12955]     To please him, and herself--for his recent kindliness was
[12956]     winning a surprised gratitude from the lonely girl--she did
[12957]     as he bade her, and lay down on a sort of couch which
[12958]     Henchard had rigged up out of a settle in the adjoining
[12959]     room. She could hear him moving about in his preparations;
[12960]     but her mind ran most strongly on Lucetta, whose death in
[12961]     such fulness of life and amid such cheerful hopes of
[12962]     maternity was appallingly unexpected. Presently she fell
[12963]     asleep.
[12964]     
[12965]     Meanwhile her stepfather in the outer room had set the
[12966]     breakfast in readiness; but finding that she dozed he would
[12967]     not call her; he waited on, looking into the fire and
[12968]     keeping the kettle boiling with house-wifely care, as if it
[12969]     were an honour to have her in his house. In truth, a
[12970]     great change had come over him with regard to her, and he
[12971]     was developing the dream of a future lit by her filial
[12972]     presence, as though that way alone could happiness lie.
[12973]     
[12974]     He was disturbed by another knock at the door, and rose to
[12975]     open it, rather deprecating a call from anybody just then.
[12976]     A stoutly built man stood on the doorstep, with an alien,
[12977]     unfamiliar air about his figure and bearing--an air which
[12978]     might have been called colonial by people of cosmopolitan
[12979]     experience. It was the man who had asked the way at Peter's
[12980]     finger. Henchard nodded, and looked inquiry.
[12981]     
[12982]     "Good morning, good morning," said the stranger with profuse
[12983]     heartiness. "Is it Mr. Henchard I am talking to?"
[12984]     
[12985]     "My name is Henchard."
[12986]     
[12987]     "Then I've caught 'ee at home--that's right. Morning's the
[12988]     time for business, says I. Can I have a few words with
[12989]     you?"
[12990]     
[12991]     "By all means," Henchard answered, showing the way in.
[12992]     
[12993]     "You may remember me?" said his visitor, seating himself.
[12994]     
[12995]     Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook his head.
[12996]     
[12997]     "Well--perhaps you may not. My name is Newson."
[12998]     
[12999]     Henchard's face and eyes seemed to die. The other did not
[13000]     notice it. "I know the name well," Henchard said at last,
[13001]     looking on the floor.
[13002]     
[13003]     "I make no doubt of that. Well, the fact is, I've been
[13004]     looking for 'ee this fortnight past. I landed at Havenpool
[13005]     and went through Casterbridge on my way to Falmouth, and
[13006]     when I got there, they told me you had some years before
[13007]     been living at Casterbridge. Back came I again, and by long
[13008]     and by late I got here by coach, ten minutes ago. 'He lives
[13009]     down by the mill,' says they. So here I am. Now--that
[13010]     transaction between us some twenty years agone--'tis that
[13011]     I've called about. 'Twas a curious business. I was younger
[13012]     then than I am now, and perhaps the less said about it, in
[13013]     one sense, the better."
[13014]     
[13015]     "Curious business! 'Twas worse than curious. I cannot even
[13016]     allow that I'm the man you met then. I was not in my
[13017]     senses, and a man's senses are himself."
[13018]     
[13019]     "We were young and thoughtless," said Newson. "However,
[13020]     I've come to mend matters rather than open arguments. Poor
[13021]     Susan--hers was a strange experience."
[13022]     
[13023]     "She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman. She was not
[13024]     what they call shrewd or sharp at all--better she had been."
[13025]     
[13026]     "She was not."
[13027]     
[13028]     "As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-minded enough
[13029]     to think that the sale was in a way binding. She was as
[13030]     guiltless o' wrong-doing in that particular as a saint in
[13031]     the clouds."
[13032]     
[13033]     "I know it, I know it. I found it out directly," said
[13034]     Henchard, still with averted eyes. "There lay the sting o't
[13035]     to me. If she had seen it as what it was she would never
[13036]     have left me. Never! But how should she be expected to
[13037]     know? What advantages had she? None. She could write her
[13038]     own name, and no more.
[13039]     
[13040]     "Well, it was not in my heart to undeceive her when the deed
[13041]     was done," said the sailor of former days. "I thought, and
[13042]     there was not much vanity in thinking it, that she would be
[13043]     happier with me. She was fairly happy, and I never would
[13044]     have undeceived her till the day of her death. Your child
[13045]     died; she had another, and all went well. But a time came--
[13046]     mind me, a time always does come. A time came--it was some
[13047]     while after she and I and the child returned from America--
[13048]     when somebody she had confided her history to, told her my
[13049]     claim to her was a mockery, and made a jest of her belief in
[13050]     my right. After that she was never happy with me. She
[13051]     pined and pined, and socked and sighed. She said she must
[13052]     leave me, and then came the question of our child. Then a
[13053]     man advised me how to act, and I did it, for I thought it
[13054]     was best. I left her at Falmouth, and went off to sea.
[13055]     When I got to the other side of the Atlantic there was a
[13056]     storm, and it was supposed that a lot of us, including
[13057]     myself, had been washed overboard. I got ashore at
[13058]     Newfoundland, and then I asked myself what I should do.
[13059]     
[13060]     "'Since I'm here, here I'll bide,' I thought to myself;
[13061]     ''twill be most kindness to her, now she's taken against me,
[13062]     to let her believe me lost, for,' I thought, 'while she
[13063]     supposes us both alive she'll be miserable; but if she
[13064]     thinks me dead she'll go back to him, and the child will
[13065]     have a home.' I've never returned to this country till a
[13066]     month ago, and I found that, as I supposed, she went to you,
[13067]     and my daughter with her. They told me in Falmouth
[13068]     that Susan was dead. But my Elizabeth-Jane--where is she?"
[13069]     
[13070]     "Dead likewise," said Henchard doggedly. "Surely you learnt
[13071]     that too?"
[13072]     
[13073]     The sailor started up, and took an enervated pace or two
[13074]     down the room. "Dead!" he said, in a low voice. "Then
[13075]     what's the use of my money to me?"
[13076]     
[13077]     Henchard, without answering, shook his head as if that were
[13078]     rather a question for Newson himself than for him.
[13079]     
[13080]     "Where is she buried?" the traveller inquired.
[13081]     
[13082]     "Beside her mother," said Henchard, in the same stolid
[13083]     tones.
[13084]     
[13085]     "When did she die?"
[13086]     
[13087]     "A year ago and more," replied the other without hesitation.
[13088]     
[13089]     The sailor continued standing. Henchard never looked up
[13090]     from the floor. At last Newson said: "My journey hither has
[13091]     been for nothing! I may as well go as I came! It has served
[13092]     me right. I'll trouble you no longer."
[13093]     
[13094]     Henchard heard the retreating footsteps of Newson upon the
[13095]     sanded floor, the mechanical lifting of the latch, the slow
[13096]     opening and closing of the door that was natural to a
[13097]     baulked or dejected man; but he did not turn his head.
[13098]     Newson's shadow passed the window. He was gone.
[13099]     
[13100]     Then Henchard, scarcely believing the evidence of his
[13101]     senses, rose from his seat amazed at what he had done. It
[13102]     had been the impulse of a moment. The regard he had lately
[13103]     acquired for Elizabeth, the new-sprung hope of his
[13104]     loneliness that she would be to him a daughter of whom he
[13105]     could feel as proud as of the actual daughter she still
[13106]     believed herself to be, had been stimulated by the
[13107]     unexpected coming of Newson to a greedy exclusiveness in
[13108]     relation to her; so that the sudden prospect of her loss had
[13109]     caused him to speak mad lies like a child, in pure mockery
[13110]     of consequences. He had expected questions to close in
[13111]     round him, and unmask his fabrication in five minutes; yet
[13112]     such questioning had not come. But surely they would come;
[13113]     Newson's departure could be but momentary; he would learn
[13114]     all by inquiries in the town; and return to curse him, and
[13115]     carry his last treasure away!
[13116]     
[13117]     He hastily put on his hat, and went out in the
[13118]     direction that Newson had taken. Newson's back was soon
[13119]     visible up the road, crossing Bull-stake. Henchard
[13120]     followed, and saw his visitor stop at the King's Arms, where
[13121]     the morning coach which had brought him waited half-an-hour
[13122]     for another coach which crossed there. The coach Newson had
[13123]     come by was now about to move again. Newson mounted, his
[13124]     luggage was put in, and in a few minutes the vehicle
[13125]     disappeared with him.
[13126]     
[13127]     He had not so much as turned his head. It was an act of
[13128]     simple faith in Henchard's words--faith so simple as to be
[13129]     almost sublime. The young sailor who had taken Susan
[13130]     Henchard on the spur of the moment and on the faith of a
[13131]     glance at her face, more than twenty years before, was still
[13132]     living and acting under the form of the grizzled traveller
[13133]     who had taken Henchard's words on trust so absolute as to
[13134]     shame him as he stood.
[13135]     
[13136]     Was Elizabeth-Jane to remain his by virtue of this hardy
[13137]     invention of a moment? "Perhaps not for long," said he.
[13138]     Newson might converse with his fellow-travellers, some of
[13139]     whom might be Casterbridge people; and the trick would be
[13140]     discovered.
[13141]     
[13142]     This probability threw Henchard into a defensive attitude,
[13143]     and instead of considering how best to right the wrong, and
[13144]     acquaint Elizabeth's father with the truth at once, he
[13145]     bethought himself of ways to keep the position he had
[13146]     accidentally won. Towards the young woman herself his
[13147]     affection grew more jealously strong with each new hazard to
[13148]     which his claim to her was exposed.
[13149]     
[13150]     He watched the distant highway expecting to see Newson
[13151]     return on foot, enlightened and indignant, to claim his
[13152]     child. But no figure appeared. Possibly he had spoken to
[13153]     nobody on the coach, but buried his grief in his own heart.
[13154]     
[13155]     His grief!--what was it, after all, to that which he,
[13156]     Henchard, would feel at the loss of her? Newson's affection
[13157]     cooled by years, could not equal his who had been constantly
[13158]     in her presence. And thus his jealous soul speciously
[13159]     argued to excuse the separation of father and child.
[13160]     
[13161]     He returned to the house half expecting that she would have
[13162]     vanished. No; there she was--just coming out from the
[13163]     inner room, the marks of sleep upon her eyelids, and
[13164]     exhibiting a generally refreshed air.
[13165]     
[13166]     "O father!" she said smiling. "I had no sooner lain down
[13167]     than I napped, though I did not mean to. I wonder I did not
[13168]     dream about poor Mrs. Farfrae, after thinking of her so; but
[13169]     I did not. How strange it is that we do not often dream of
[13170]     latest events, absorbing as they may be."
[13171]     
[13172]     "I am glad you have been able to sleep," he said, taking her
[13173]     hand with anxious proprietorship--an act which gave her a
[13174]     pleasant surprise.
[13175]     
[13176]     They sat down to breakfast, and Elizabeth-Jane's thoughts
[13177]     reverted to Lucetta. Their sadness added charm to a
[13178]     countenance whose beauty had ever lain in its meditative
[13179]     soberness.
[13180]     
[13181]     "Father," she said, as soon as she recalled herself to the
[13182]     outspread meal, "it is so kind of you to get this nice
[13183]     breakfast with your own hands, and I idly asleep the while."
[13184]     
[13185]     "I do it every day," he replied. "You have left me;
[13186]     everybody has left me; how should I live but by my own
[13187]     hands."
[13188]     
[13189]     "You are very lonely, are you not?"
[13190]     
[13191]     "Ay, child--to a degree that you know nothing of! It is my
[13192]     own fault. You are the only one who has been near me for
[13193]     weeks. And you will come no more."
[13194]     
[13195]     "Why do you say that? Indeed I will, if you would like to
[13196]     see me."
[13197]     
[13198]     Henchard signified dubiousness. Though he had so lately
[13199]     hoped that Elizabeth-Jane might again live in his house as
[13200]     daughter, he would not ask her to do so now. Newson might
[13201]     return at any moment, and what Elizabeth would think of him
[13202]     for his deception it were best to bear apart from her.
[13203]     
[13204]     When they had breakfasted his stepdaughter still lingered,
[13205]     till the moment arrived at which Henchard was accustomed to
[13206]     go to his daily work. Then she arose, and with assurance of
[13207]     coming again soon went up the hill in the morning sunlight.
[13208]     
[13209]     "At this moment her heart is as warm towards me as mine is
[13210]     towards her, she would live with me here in this humble
[13211]     cottage for the asking! Yet before the evening probably he
[13212]     will have come, and then she will scorn me!"
[13213]     
[13214]     This reflection, constantly repeated by Henchard to
[13215]     himself, accompanied him everywhere through the day.
[13216]     His mood was no longer that of the rebellious, ironical,
[13217]     reckless misadventurer; but the leaden gloom of one who has
[13218]     lost all that can make life interesting, or even tolerable.
[13219]     There would remain nobody for him to be proud of, nobody to
[13220]     fortify him; for Elizabeth-Jane would soon be but as a
[13221]     stranger, and worse. Susan, Farfrae, Lucetta, Elizabeth--
[13222]     all had gone from him, one after one, either by his fault or
[13223]     by his misfortune.
[13224]     
[13225]     In place of them he had no interest, hobby, or desire. If
[13226]     he could have summoned music to his aid his existence might
[13227]     even now have been borne; for with Henchard music was of
[13228]     regal power. The merest trumpet or organ tone was enough to
[13229]     move him, and high harmonies transubstantiated him. But
[13230]     hard fate had ordained that he should be unable to call up
[13231]     this Divine spirit in his need.
[13232]     
[13233]     The whole land ahead of him was as darkness itself; there
[13234]     was nothing to come, nothing to wait for. Yet in the
[13235]     natural course of life he might possibly have to linger on
[13236]     earth another thirty or forty years--scoffed at; at best
[13237]     pitied.
[13238]     
[13239]     The thought of it was unendurable.
[13240]     
[13241]     To the east of Casterbridge lay moors and meadows through
[13242]     which much water flowed. The wanderer in this direction who
[13243]     should stand still for a few moments on a quiet night, might
[13244]     hear singular symphonies from these waters, as from a
[13245]     lampless orchestra, all playing in their sundry tones from
[13246]     near and far parts of the moor. At a hole in a rotten weir
[13247]     they executed a recitative; where a tributary brook fell
[13248]     over a stone breastwork they trilled cheerily; under an arch
[13249]     they performed a metallic cymballing, and at Durnover Hole
[13250]     they hissed. The spot at which their instrumentation rose
[13251]     loudest was a place called Ten Hatches, whence during high
[13252]     springs there proceeded a very fugue of sounds.
[13253]     
[13254]     The river here was deep and strong at all times, and the
[13255]     hatches on this account were raised and lowered by cogs and
[13256]     a winch. A patch led from the second bridge over the
[13257]     highway (so often mentioned) to these Hatches, crossing the
[13258]     stream at their head by a narrow plank-bridge. But after
[13259]     night-fall human beings were seldom found going that way,
[13260]     the path leading only to a deep reach of the stream
[13261]     called Blackwater, and the passage being dangerous.
[13262]     
[13263]     Henchard, however, leaving the town by the east road,
[13264]     proceeded to the second, or stone bridge, and thence struck
[13265]     into this path of solitude, following its course beside the
[13266]     stream till the dark shapes of the Ten Hatches cut the sheen
[13267]     thrown upon the river by the weak lustre that still lingered
[13268]     in the west. In a second or two he stood beside the weir-
[13269]     hole where the water was at its deepest. He looked
[13270]     backwards and forwards, and no creature appeared in view.
[13271]     He then took off his coat and hat, and stood on the brink of
[13272]     the stream with his hands clasped in front of him.
[13273]     
[13274]     While his eyes were bent on the water beneath there slowly
[13275]     became visible a something floating in the circular pool
[13276]     formed by the wash of centuries; the pool he was intending
[13277]     to make his death-bed. At first it was indistinct by reason
[13278]     of the shadow from the bank; but it emerged thence and took
[13279]     shape, which was that of a human body, lying stiff and stark
[13280]     upon the surface of the stream.
[13281]     
[13282]     In the circular current imparted by the central flow the
[13283]     form was brought forward, till it passed under his eyes; and
[13284]     then he perceived with a sense of horror that it was
[13285]     HIMSELF. Not a man somewhat resembling him, but one in all
[13286]     respects his counterpart, his actual double, was floating as
[13287]     if dead in Ten Hatches Hole.
[13288]     
[13289]     The sense of the supernatural was strong in this unhappy
[13290]     man, and he turned away as one might have done in the actual
[13291]     presence of an appalling miracle. He covered his eyes and
[13292]     bowed his head. Without looking again into the stream he
[13293]     took his coat and hat, and went slowly away.
[13294]     
[13295]     Presently he found himself by the door of his own dwelling.
[13296]     To his surprise Elizabeth-Jane was standing there. She came
[13297]     forward, spoke, called him "father" just as before. Newson,
[13298]     then, had not even yet returned.
[13299]     
[13300]     "I thought you seemed very sad this morning," she said, "so
[13301]     I have come again to see you. Not that I am anything but
[13302]     sad myself. But everybody and everything seem against you
[13303]     so, and I know you must be suffering.
[13304]     
[13305]     How this woman divined things! Yet she had not divined their
[13306]     whole extremity.
[13307]     
[13308]     He said to her, "Are miracles still worked, do ye
[13309]     think, Elizabeth? I am not a read man. I don't know so much
[13310]     as I could wish. I have tried to peruse and learn all my
[13311]     life; but the more I try to know the more ignorant I seem."
[13312]     
[13313]     "I don't quite think there are any miracles nowadays," she
[13314]     said.
[13315]     
[13316]     "No interference in the case of desperate intentions, for
[13317]     instance? Well, perhaps not, in a direct way. Perhaps not.
[13318]     But will you come and walk with me, and I will show 'ee what
[13319]     I mean."
[13320]     
[13321]     She agreed willingly, and he took her over the highway, and
[13322]     by the lonely path to Ten Hatches. He walked restlessly, as
[13323]     if some haunting shade, unseen of her, hovered round him and
[13324]     troubled his glance. She would gladly have talked of
[13325]     Lucetta, but feared to disturb him. When they got near the
[13326]     weir he stood still, and asked her to go forward and look
[13327]     into the pool, and tell him what she saw.
[13328]     
[13329]     She went, and soon returned to him. "Nothing," she said.
[13330]     
[13331]     "Go again," said Henchard, "and look narrowly."
[13332]     
[13333]     She proceeded to the river brink a second time. On her
[13334]     return, after some delay, she told him that she saw
[13335]     something floating round and round there; but what it was
[13336]     she could not discern. It seemed to be a bundle of old
[13337]     clothes.
[13338]     
[13339]     "Are they like mine?" asked Henchard.
[13340]     
[13341]     "Well--they are. Dear me--I wonder if--Father, let us go
[13342]     away!"
[13343]     
[13344]     "Go and look once more; and then we will get home."
[13345]     
[13346]     She went back, and he could see her stoop till her head was
[13347]     close to the margin of the pool. She started up, and
[13348]     hastened back to his side.
[13349]     
[13350]     "Well," said Henchard; "what do you say now?"
[13351]     
[13352]     "Let us go home."
[13353]     
[13354]     "But tell me--do--what is it floating there?"
[13355]     
[13356]     "The effigy," she answered hastily. "They must have thrown
[13357]     it into the river higher up amongst the willows at
[13358]     Blackwater, to get rid of it in their alarm at discovery by
[13359]     the magistrates, and it must have floated down here."
[13360]     
[13361]     "Ah--to be sure--the image o' me! But where is the other?
[13362]     Why that one only?...That performance of theirs killed her,
[13363]     but kept me alive!"
[13364]     
[13365]     Elizabeth-Jane thought and thought of these words "kept
[13366]     me alive," as they slowly retraced their way to the town,
[13367]     and at length guessed their meaning. "Father!--I will not
[13368]     leave you alone like this!" she cried. "May I live with
[13369]     you, and tend upon you as I used to do? I do not mind your
[13370]     being poor. I would have agreed to come this morning, but
[13371]     you did not ask me."
[13372]     
[13373]     "May you come to me?" he cried bitterly. "Elizabeth, don't
[13374]     mock me! If you only would come!"
[13375]     
[13376]     "I will," said she.
[13377]     
[13378]     "How will you forgive all my roughness in former days? You
[13379]     cannot!"
[13380]     
[13381]     "I have forgotten it. Talk of that no more."
[13382]     
[13383]     Thus she assured him, and arranged their plans for reunion;
[13384]     and at length each went home. Then Henchard shaved for the
[13385]     first time during many days, and put on clean linen, and
[13386]     combed his hair; and was as a man resuscitated thence-
[13387]     forward.
[13388]     
[13389]     The next morning the fact turned out to be as Elizabeth-Jane
[13390]     had stated; the effigy was discovered by a cowherd, and that
[13391]     of Lucetta a little higher up in the same stream. But as
[13392]     little as possible was said of the matter, and the figures
[13393]     were privately destroyed.
[13394]     
[13395]     Despite this natural solution of the mystery Henchard no
[13396]     less regarded it as an intervention that the figure should
[13397]     have been floating there. Elizabeth-Jane heard him say,
[13398]     "Who is such a reprobate as I! And yet it seems that even I
[13399]     be in Somebody's hand!"
[13400]     
[13401]     
[13402]     
[13403]     42.
[13404]     
[13405]     
[13406]     But the emotional conviction that he was in Somebody's hand
[13407]     began to die out of Henchard's breast as time slowly removed
[13408]     into distance the event which had given that feeling birth.
[13409]     The apparition of Newson haunted him. He would surely
[13410]     return.
[13411]     
[13412]     Yet Newson did not arrive. Lucetta had been borne along
[13413]     the churchyard path; Casterbridge had for the last time
[13414]     turned its regard upon her, before proceeding to its work as
[13415]     if she had never lived. But Elizabeth remained undisturbed
[13416]     in the belief of her relationship to Henchard, and now
[13417]     shared his home. Perhaps, after all, Newson was gone for
[13418]     ever.
[13419]     
[13420]     In due time the bereaved Farfrae had learnt the, at least,
[13421]     proximate cause of Lucetta's illness and death, and his
[13422]     first impulse was naturally enough to wreak vengeance in the
[13423]     name of the law upon the perpetrators of the mischief. He
[13424]     resolved to wait till the funeral was over ere he moved in
[13425]     the matter. The time having come he reflected. Disastrous
[13426]     as the result had been, it was obviously in no way foreseen
[13427]     or intended by the thoughtless crew who arranged the motley
[13428]     procession. The tempting prospect of putting to the blush
[13429]     people who stand at the head of affairs--that supreme and
[13430]     piquant enjoyment of those who writhe under the heel of the
[13431]     same--had alone animated them, so far as he could see; for
[13432]     he knew nothing of Jopp's incitements. Other considerations
[13433]     were also involved. Lucetta had confessed everything to him
[13434]     before her death, and it was not altogether desirable to
[13435]     make much ado about her history, alike for her sake, for
[13436]     Henchard's, and for his own. To regard the event as an
[13437]     untoward accident seemed, to Farfrae, truest consideration
[13438]     for the dead one's memory, as well as best philosophy.
[13439]     
[13440]     Henchard and himself mutually forbore to meet. For
[13441]     Elizabeth's sake the former had fettered his pride
[13442]     sufficiently to accept the small seed and root business
[13443]     which some of the Town Council, headed by Farfrae, had
[13444]     purchased to afford him a new opening. Had he been only
[13445]     personally concerned Henchard, without doubt, would have
[13446]     declined assistance even remotely brought about by the man
[13447]     whom he had so fiercely assailed. But the sympathy of the
[13448]     girl seemed necessary to his very existence; and on her
[13449]     account pride itself wore the garments of humility.
[13450]     
[13451]     Here they settled themselves; and on each day of their lives
[13452]     Henchard anticipated her every wish with a watchfulness in
[13453]     which paternal regard was heightened by a burning jealous
[13454]     dread of rivalry. Yet that Newson would ever now return to
[13455]     Casterbridge to claim her as a daughter there was
[13456]     little reason to suppose. He was a wanderer and a
[13457]     stranger, almost an alien; he had not seen his daughter for
[13458]     several years; his affection for her could not in the nature
[13459]     of things be keen; other interests would probably soon
[13460]     obscure his recollections of her, and prevent any such
[13461]     renewal of inquiry into the past as would lead to a
[13462]     discovery that she was still a creature of the present. To
[13463]     satisfy his conscience somewhat Henchard repeated to himself
[13464]     that the lie which had retained for him the coveted treasure
[13465]     had not been deliberately told to that end, but had come
[13466]     from him as the last defiant word of a despair which took no
[13467]     thought of consequences. Furthermore he pleaded within
[13468]     himself that no Newson could love her as he loved her, or
[13469]     would tend her to his life's extremity as he was prepared to
[13470]     do cheerfully.
[13471]     
[13472]     Thus they lived on in the shop overlooking the churchyard,
[13473]     and nothing occurred to mark their days during the remainder
[13474]     of the year. Going out but seldom, and never on a market-
[13475]     day, they saw Donald Farfrae only at rarest intervals, and
[13476]     then mostly as a transitory object in the distance of the
[13477]     street. Yet he was pursuing his ordinary avocations,
[13478]     smiling mechanically to fellow-tradesmen, and arguing with
[13479]     bargainers--as bereaved men do after a while.
[13480]     
[13481]     Time, "in his own grey style," taught Farfrae how to
[13482]     estimate his experience of Lucetta--all that it was, and all
[13483]     that it was not. There are men whose hearts insist upon a
[13484]     dogged fidelity to some image or cause thrown by chance into
[13485]     their keeping, long after their judgment has pronounced it
[13486]     no rarity--even the reverse, indeed, and without them the
[13487]     band of the worthy is incomplete. But Farfrae was not of
[13488]     those. It was inevitable that the insight, briskness, and
[13489]     rapidity of his nature should take him out of the dead blank
[13490]     which his loss threw about him. He could not but perceive
[13491]     that by the death of Lucetta he had exchanged a looming
[13492]     misery for a simple sorrow. After that revelation of her
[13493]     history, which must have come sooner or later in any
[13494]     circumstances, it was hard to believe that life with her
[13495]     would have been productive of further happiness.
[13496]     
[13497]     But as a memory, nothwithstanding such conditions, Lucetta's
[13498]     image still lived on with him, her weaknesses provoking only
[13499]     the gentlest criticism, and her sufferings attenuating
[13500]     wrath at her concealments to a momentary spark now and
[13501]     then.
[13502]     
[13503]     By the end of a year Henchard's little retail seed and grain
[13504]     shop, not much larger than a cupboard, had developed its
[13505]     trade considerably, and the stepfather and daughter enjoyed
[13506]     much serenity in the pleasant, sunny corner in which it
[13507]     stood. The quiet bearing of one who brimmed with an inner
[13508]     activity characterized Elizabeth-Jane at this period. She
[13509]     took long walks into the country two or three times a week,
[13510]     mostly in the direction of Budmouth. Sometimes it occurred
[13511]     to him that when she sat with him in the evening after those
[13512]     invigorating walks she was civil rather than affectionate;
[13513]     and he was troubled; one more bitter regret being added to
[13514]     those he had already experienced at having, by his severe
[13515]     censorship, frozen up her precious affection when originally
[13516]     offered.
[13517]     
[13518]     She had her own way in everything now. In going and coming,
[13519]     in buying and selling, her word was law.
[13520]     
[13521]     "You have got a new muff, Elizabeth," he said to her one day
[13522]     quite humbly.
[13523]     
[13524]     "Yes; I bought it," she said.
[13525]     
[13526]     He looked at it again as it lay on an adjoining table. The
[13527]     fur was of a glossy brown, and, though he was no judge of
[13528]     such articles, he thought it seemed an unusually good one
[13529]     for her to possess.
[13530]     
[13531]     "Rather costly, I suppose, my dear, was it not?" he
[13532]     hazarded.
[13533]     
[13534]     "It was rather above my figure," she said quietly. "But it
[13535]     is not showy."
[13536]     
[13537]     "O no," said the netted lion, anxious not to pique her in
[13538]     the least.
[13539]     
[13540]     Some little time after, when the year had advanced into
[13541]     another spring, he paused opposite her empty bedroom in
[13542]     passing it. He thought of the time when she had cleared out
[13543]     of his then large and handsome house in corn Street, in
[13544]     consequence of his dislike and harshness, and he had looked
[13545]     into her chamber in just the same way. The present room was
[13546]     much humbler, but what struck him about it was the abundance
[13547]     of books lying everywhere. Their number and quality made
[13548]     the meagre furniture that supported them seem absurdly
[13549]     disproportionate. Some, indeed many, must have been
[13550]     recently purchased; and though he encouraged her to buy in
[13551]     reason, he had no notion that she indulged her innate
[13552]     passion so extensively in proportion to the narrowness of
[13553]     their income. For the first time he felt a little hurt by
[13554]     what he thought her extravagance, and resolved to say a word
[13555]     to her about it. But, before he had found the courage to
[13556]     speak an event happened which set his thoughts flying in
[13557]     quite another direction.
[13558]     
[13559]     The busy time of the seed trade was over, and the quiet
[13560]     weeks that preceded the hay-season had come--setting their
[13561]     special stamp upon Casterbridge by thronging the market with
[13562]     wood rakes, new waggons in yellow, green, and red,
[13563]     formidable scythes, and pitchforks of prong sufficient to
[13564]     skewer up a small family. Henchard, contrary to his wont,
[13565]     went out one Saturday afternoon towards the market-place
[13566]     from a curious feeling that he would like to pass a few
[13567]     minutes on the spot of his former triumphs. Farfrae, to
[13568]     whom he was still a comparative stranger, stood a few steps
[13569]     below the Corn Exchange door--a usual position with him at
[13570]     this hour--and he appeared lost in thought about something
[13571]     he was looking at a little way off.
[13572]     
[13573]     Henchard's eyes followed Farfrae's, and he saw that the
[13574]     object of his gaze was no sample-showing farmer, but his own
[13575]     stepdaughter, who had just come out of a shop over the way.
[13576]     She, on her part, was quite unconscious of his attention,
[13577]     and in this was less fortunate than those young women whose
[13578]     very plumes, like those of Juno's bird, are set with Argus
[13579]     eyes whenever possible admirers are within ken.
[13580]     
[13581]     Henchard went away, thinking that perhaps there was nothing
[13582]     significant after all in Farfrae's look at Elizabeth-Jane at
[13583]     that juncture. Yet he could not forget that the Scotchman
[13584]     had once shown a tender interest in her, of a fleeting kind.
[13585]     Thereupon promptly came to the surface that idiosyncrasy of
[13586]     Henchard's which had ruled his courses from the beginning
[13587]     and had mainly made him what he was. Instead of thinking
[13588]     that a union between his cherished step-daughter and the
[13589]     energetic thriving Donald was a thing to be desired for her
[13590]     good and his own, he hated the very possibility.
[13591]     
[13592]     Time had been when such instinctive opposition would
[13593]     have taken shape in action. But he was not now the
[13594]     Henchard of former days. He schooled himself to accept her
[13595]     will, in this as in other matters, as absolute and
[13596]     unquestionable. He dreaded lest an antagonistic word should
[13597]     lose for him such regard as he had regained from her by his
[13598]     devotion, feeling that to retain this under separation was
[13599]     better than to incur her dislike by keeping her near.
[13600]     
[13601]     But the mere thought of such separation fevered his spirit
[13602]     much, and in the evening he said, with the stillness of
[13603]     suspense: "Have you seen Mr. Farfrae to-day, Elizabeth?"
[13604]     
[13605]     Elizabeth-Jane started at the question; and it was with some
[13606]     confusion that she replied "No."
[13607]     
[13608]     "Oh--that's right--that's right....It was only that I saw
[13609]     him in the street when we both were there." He was wondering
[13610]     if her embarrassment justified him in a new suspicion--that
[13611]     the long walks which she had latterly been taking, that the
[13612]     new books which had so surprised him, had anything to do
[13613]     with the young man. She did not enlighten him, and lest
[13614]     silence should allow her to shape thoughts unfavourable to
[13615]     their present friendly relations, he diverted the discourse
[13616]     into another channel.
[13617]     
[13618]     Henchard was, by original make, the last man to act
[13619]     stealthily, for good or for evil. But the solicitus
[13620]     timor of his love--the dependence upon Elizabeth's regard
[13621]     into which he had declined (or, in another sense, to which
[13622]     he had advanced)--denaturalized him. He would often weigh
[13623]     and consider for hours together the meaning of such and such
[13624]     a deed or phrase of hers, when a blunt settling question
[13625]     would formerly have been his first instinct. And now,
[13626]     uneasy at the thought of a passion for Farfrae which should
[13627]     entirely displace her mild filial sympathy with himself, he
[13628]     observed her going and coming more narrowly.
[13629]     
[13630]     There was nothing secret in Elizabeth-Jane's movements
[13631]     beyond what habitual reserve induced, and it may at once be
[13632]     owned on her account that she was guilty of occasional
[13633]     conversations with Donald when they chanced to meet.
[13634]     Whatever the origin of her walks on the Budmouth Road, her
[13635]     return from those walks was often coincident with Farfrae's
[13636]     emergence from corn Street for a twenty minutes' blow on
[13637]     that rather windy highway--just to winnow the seeds and
[13638]     chaff out of him before sitting down to tea, as he said.
[13639]     Henchard became aware of this by going to the Ring, and,
[13640]     screened by its enclosure, keeping his eye upon the road
[13641]     till he saw them meet. His face assumed an expression of
[13642]     extreme anguish.
[13643]     
[13644]     "Of her, too, he means to rob me!" he whispered. "But he
[13645]     has the right. I do not wish to interfere."
[13646]     
[13647]     The meeting, in truth, was of a very innocent kind, and
[13648]     matters were by no means so far advanced between the young
[13649]     people as Henchard's jealous grief inferred. Could he have
[13650]     heard such conversation as passed he would have been
[13651]     enlightened thus much:--
[13652]     
[13653]     HE.--"You like walking this way, Miss Henchard--and is
[13654]     it not so?" (uttered in his undulatory accents, and with an
[13655]     appraising, pondering gaze at her).
[13656]     
[13657]     SHE.--"O yes. I have chosen this road latterly. I have
[13658]     no great reason for it."
[13659]     
[13660]     HE.--"But that may make a reason for others."
[13661]     
[13662]     SHE (reddening).--"I don't know that. My reason,
[13663]     however, such as it is, is that I wish to get a glimpse of
[13664]     the sea every day.
[13665]     
[13666]     HE.--"Is it a secret why?"
[13667]     
[13668]     SHE ( reluctantly ).--"Yes."
[13669]     
[13670]     HE (with the pathos of one of his native ballads).--"Ah,
[13671]     I doubt there will be any good in secrets! A secret cast a
[13672]     deep shadow over my life. And well you know what it was."
[13673]     
[13674]     Elizabeth admitted that she did, but she refrained from
[13675]     confessing why the sea attracted her. She could not herself
[13676]     account for it fully, not knowing the secret possibly to be
[13677]     that, in addition to early marine associations, her blood
[13678]     was a sailor's.
[13679]     
[13680]     "Thank you for those new books, Mr. Farfrae," she added
[13681]     shyly. "I wonder if I ought to accept so many!"
[13682]     
[13683]     "Ay! why not? It gives me more pleasure to get them for you,
[13684]     than you to have them!"
[13685]     
[13686]     "It cannot."
[13687]     
[13688]     They proceeded along the road together till they reached the
[13689]     town, and their paths diverged.
[13690]     
[13691]     Henchard vowed that he would leave them to their own
[13692]     devices, put nothing in the way of their courses, whatever
[13693]     they might mean. If he were doomed to be bereft of
[13694]     her, so it must be. In the situation which their marriage
[13695]     would create he could see no locus standi for himself at
[13696]     all. Farfrae would never recognize him more than
[13697]     superciliously; his poverty ensured that, no less than his
[13698]     past conduct. And so Elizabeth would grow to be a stranger
[13699]     to him, and the end of his life would be friendless
[13700]     solitude.
[13701]     
[13702]     With such a possibility impending he could not help
[13703]     watchfulness. Indeed, within certain lines, he had the
[13704]     right to keep an eye upon her as his charge. The meetings
[13705]     seemed to become matters of course with them on special days
[13706]     of the week.
[13707]     
[13708]     At last full proof was given him. He was standing behind a
[13709]     wall close to the place at which Farfrae encountered her.
[13710]     He heard the young man address her as "Dearest Elizabeth-
[13711]     Jane," and then kiss her, the girl looking quickly round to
[13712]     assure herself that nobody was near.
[13713]     
[13714]     When they were gone their way Henchard came out from the
[13715]     wall, and mournfully followed them to Casterbridge. The
[13716]     chief looming trouble in this engagement had not decreased.
[13717]     Both Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane, unlike the rest of the
[13718]     people, must suppose Elizabeth to be his actual daughter,
[13719]     from his own assertion while he himself had the same belief;
[13720]     and though Farfrae must have so far forgiven him as to have
[13721]     no objection to own him as a father-in-law, intimate they
[13722]     could never be. Thus would the girl, who was his only
[13723]     friend, be withdrawn from him by degrees through her
[13724]     husband's influence, and learn to despise him.
[13725]     
[13726]     Had she lost her heart to any other man in the world than
[13727]     the one he had rivalled, cursed, wrestled with for life in
[13728]     days before his spirit was broken, Henchard would have said,
[13729]     "I am content." But content with the prospect as now
[13730]     depicted was hard to acquire.
[13731]     
[13732]     There is an outer chamber of the brain in which thoughts
[13733]     unowned, unsolicited, and of noxious kind, are sometimes
[13734]     allowed to wander for a moment prior to being sent off
[13735]     whence they came. One of these thoughts sailed into
[13736]     Henchard's ken now.
[13737]     
[13738]     Suppose he were to communicate to Farfrae the fact that his
[13739]     betrothed was not the child of Michael Henchard at all--
[13740]     legally, nobody's child; how would that correct and leading
[13741]     townsman receive the information? He might possibly forsake
[13742]     Elizabeth-Jane, and then she would be her step-sire's own
[13743]     again.
[13744]     
[13745]     Henchard shuddered, and exclaimed, "God forbid such a thing!
[13746]     Why should I still be subject to these visitations of the
[13747]     devil, when I try so hard to keep him away?"
[13748]     
[13749]     
[13750]     
[13751]     43.
[13752]     
[13753]     
[13754]     What Henchard saw thus early was, naturally enough, seen at
[13755]     a little later date by other people. That Mr. Farfrae
[13756]     "walked with that bankrupt Henchard's step-daughter, of all
[13757]     women," became a common topic in the town, the simple
[13758]     perambulating term being used hereabout to signify a wooing;
[13759]     and the nineteen superior young ladies of Casterbridge, who
[13760]     had each looked upon herself as the only woman capable of
[13761]     making the merchant Councilman happy, indignantly left off
[13762]     going to the church Farfrae attended, left off conscious
[13763]     mannerisms, left off putting him in their prayers at night
[13764]     amongst their blood relations; in short, reverted to their
[13765]     normal courses.
[13766]     
[13767]     Perhaps the only inhabitants of the town to whom this
[13768]     looming choice of the Scotchman's gave unmixed satisfaction
[13769]     were the members of the philosophic party, which included
[13770]     Longways, Christopher Coney, Billy Wills, Mr. Buzzford, and
[13771]     the like. The Three Mariners having been, years before, the
[13772]     house in which they had witnessed the young man and woman's
[13773]     first and humble appearance on the Casterbridge stage, they
[13774]     took a kindly interest in their career, not unconnected,
[13775]     perhaps, with visions of festive treatment at their hands
[13776]     hereafter. Mrs. Stannidge, having rolled into the large
[13777]     parlour one evening and said that it was a wonder such a man
[13778]     as Mr. Farfrae, "a pillow of the town," who might have
[13779]     chosen one of the daughters of the professional men or
[13780]     private residents, should stoop so low, Coney ventured to
[13781]     disagree with her.
[13782]     
[13783]     "No, ma'am, no wonder at all. 'Tis she that's a
[13784]     stooping to he--that's my opinion. A widow man--whose first
[13785]     wife was no credit to him--what is it for a young perusing
[13786]     woman that's her own mistress and well liked? But as a neat
[13787]     patching up of things I see much good in it. When a man
[13788]     have put up a tomb of best marble-stone to the other one, as
[13789]     he've done, and weeped his fill, and thought it all over,
[13790]     and said to hisself, 'T'other took me in, I knowed this one
[13791]     first; she's a sensible piece for a partner, and there's no
[13792]     faithful woman in high life now';--well, he may do worse
[13793]     than not to take her, if she's tender-inclined."
[13794]     
[13795]     Thus they talked at the Mariners. But we must guard against
[13796]     a too liberal use of the conventional declaration that a
[13797]     great sensation was caused by the prospective event, that
[13798]     all the gossips' tongues were set wagging thereby, and so-
[13799]     on, even though such a declaration might lend some eclat to
[13800]     the career of our poor only heroine. When all has been said
[13801]     about busy rumourers, a superficial and temporary thing is
[13802]     the interest of anybody in affairs which do not directly
[13803]     touch them. It would be a truer representation to say that
[13804]     Casterbridge (ever excepting the nineteen young ladies)
[13805]     looked up for a moment at the news, and withdrawing its
[13806]     attention, went on labouring and victualling, bringing up
[13807]     its children, and burying its dead, without caring a tittle
[13808]     for Farfrae's domestic plans.
[13809]     
[13810]     Not a hint of the matter was thrown out to her stepfather by
[13811]     Elizabeth herself or by Farfrae either. Reasoning on the
[13812]     cause of their reticence he concluded that, estimating him
[13813]     by his past, the throbbing pair were afraid to broach the
[13814]     subject, and looked upon him as an irksome obstacle whom
[13815]     they would be heartily glad to get out of the way.
[13816]     Embittered as he was against society, this moody view of
[13817]     himself took deeper and deeper hold of Henchard, till the
[13818]     daily necessity of facing mankind, and of them particularly
[13819]     Elizabeth-Jane, became well-nigh more than he could endure.
[13820]     His health declined; he became morbidly sensitive. He
[13821]     wished he could escape those who did not want him, and hide
[13822]     his head for ever.
[13823]     
[13824]     But what if he were mistaken in his views, and there were no
[13825]     necessity that his own absolute separation from her
[13826]     should be involved in the incident of her marriage?
[13827]     
[13828]     He proceeded to draw a picture of the alternative--himself
[13829]     living like a fangless lion about the back rooms of a house
[13830]     in which his stepdaughter was mistress, an inoffensive old
[13831]     man, tenderly smiled on by Elizabeth, and good-naturedly
[13832]     tolerated by her husband. It was terrible to his pride to
[13833]     think of descending so low; and yet, for the girl's sake he
[13834]     might put up with anything; even from Farfrae; even
[13835]     snubbings and masterful tongue-scourgings. The privilege of
[13836]     being in the house she occupied would almost outweigh the
[13837]     personal humiliation.
[13838]     
[13839]     Whether this were a dim possibility or the reverse, the
[13840]     courtship--which it evidently now was--had an absorbing
[13841]     interest for him.
[13842]     
[13843]     Elizabeth, as has been said, often took her walks on the
[13844]     Budmouth Road, and Farfrae as often made it convenient to
[13845]     create an accidental meeting with her there. Two miles out,
[13846]     a quarter of a mile from the highway, was the prehistoric
[13847]     fort called Mai Dun, of huge dimensions and many ramparts,
[13848]     within or upon whose enclosures a human being as seen from
[13849]     the road, was but an insignificant speck. Hitherward
[13850]     Henchard often resorted, glass in hand, and scanned the
[13851]     hedgeless Via--for it was the original track laid out by
[13852]     the legions of the Empire--to a distance of two or three
[13853]     miles, his object being to read the progress of affairs
[13854]     between Farfrae and his charmer.
[13855]     
[13856]     One day Henchard was at this spot when a masculine figure
[13857]     came along the road from Budmouth, and lingered. Applying
[13858]     his telescope to his eye Henchard expected that Farfrae's
[13859]     features would be disclosed as usual. But the lenses
[13860]     revealed that today the man was not Elizabeth-Jane's lover.
[13861]     
[13862]     It was one clothed as a merchant captain, and as he turned
[13863]     in the scrutiny of the road he revealed his face. Henchard
[13864]     lived a lifetime the moment he saw it. The face was
[13865]     Newson's.
[13866]     
[13867]     Henchard dropped the glass, and for some seconds made no
[13868]     other movement. Newson waited, and Henchard waited--if that
[13869]     could be called a waiting which was a transfixture. But
[13870]     Elizabeth-Jane did not come. Something or other had caused
[13871]     her to neglect her customary walk that day. Perhaps
[13872]     Farfrae and she had chosen another road for variety's
[13873]     sake. But what did that amount to? She might be here to-
[13874]     morrow, and in any case Newson, if bent on a private meeting
[13875]     and a revelation of the truth to her, would soon make his
[13876]     opportunity.
[13877]     
[13878]     Then he would tell her not only of his paternity, but of the
[13879]     ruse by which he had been once sent away. Elizabeth's
[13880]     strict nature would cause her for the first time to despise
[13881]     her stepfather, would root out his image as that of an arch-
[13882]     deceiver, and Newson would reign in her heart in his stead.
[13883]     
[13884]     But Newson did not see anything of her that morning. Having
[13885]     stood still awhile he at last retraced his steps, and
[13886]     Henchard felt like a condemned man who has a few hours'
[13887]     respite. When he reached his own house he found her there.
[13888]     
[13889]     "O father!" she said innocently. "I have had a letter--a
[13890]     strange one--not signed. Somebody has asked me to meet him,
[13891]     either on the Budmouth Road at noon today, or in the evening
[13892]     at Mr. Farfrae's. He says he came to see me some time ago,
[13893]     but a trick was played him, so that he did not see me. I
[13894]     don't understand it; but between you and me I think Donald
[13895]     is at the bottom of the mystery, and that it is a relation
[13896]     of his who wants to pass an opinion on his choice. But I
[13897]     did not like to go till I had seen you. Shall I go?"
[13898]     
[13899]     Henchard replied heavily, "Yes; go."
[13900]     
[13901]     The question of his remaining in Casterbridge was for ever
[13902]     disposed of by this closing in of Newson on the scene.
[13903]     Henchard was not the man to stand the certainty of
[13904]     condemnation on a matter so near his heart. And being an
[13905]     old hand at bearing anguish in silence, and haughty withal,
[13906]     he resolved to make as light as he could of his intentions,
[13907]     while immediately taking his measures.
[13908]     
[13909]     He surprised the young woman whom he had looked upon as his
[13910]     all in this world by saying to her, as if he did not care
[13911]     about her more: "I am going to leave Casterbridge,
[13912]     Elizabeth-Jane."
[13913]     
[13914]     "Leave Casterbridge!" she cried, "and leave--me?"
[13915]     
[13916]     "Yes, this little shop can be managed by you alone as well
[13917]     as by us both; I don't care about shops and streets and
[13918]     folk--I would rather get into the country by myself, out of
[13919]     sight, and follow my own ways, and leave you to yours."
[13920]     
[13921]     She looked down and her tears fell silently. It seemed
[13922]     to her that this resolve of his had come on account of her
[13923]     attachment and its probable result. She showed her devotion
[13924]     to Farfrae, however, by mastering her emotion and speaking
[13925]     out.
[13926]     
[13927]     "I am sorry you have decided on this," she said with
[13928]     difficult firmness. "For I thought it probable--possible--
[13929]     that I might marry Mr. Farfrae some little time hence, and I
[13930]     did not know that you disapproved of the step!"
[13931]     
[13932]     "I approve of anything you desire to do, Izzy," said
[13933]     Henchard huskily. "If I did not approve it would be no
[13934]     matter! I wish to go away. My presence might make things
[13935]     awkward in the future, and, in short, it is best that I go."
[13936]     
[13937]     Nothing that her affection could urge would induce him to
[13938]     reconsider his determination; for she could not urge what
[13939]     she did not know--that when she should learn he was not
[13940]     related to her other than as a step-parent she would refrain
[13941]     from despising him, and that when she knew what he had done
[13942]     to keep her in ignorance she would refrain from hating him.
[13943]     It was his conviction that she would not so refrain; and
[13944]     there existed as yet neither word nor event which could
[13945]     argue it away.
[13946]     
[13947]     "Then," she said at last, "you will not be able to come to
[13948]     my wedding; and that is not as it ought to be."
[13949]     
[13950]     "I don't want to see it--I don't want to see it!" he
[13951]     exclaimed; adding more softly, "but think of me sometimes in
[13952]     your future life--you'll do that, Izzy?--think of me when
[13953]     you are living as the wife of the richest, the foremost man
[13954]     in the town, and don't let my sins, WHEN YOU KNOW THEM
[13955]     ALL, cause 'ee to quite forget that though I loved 'ee late
[13956]     I loved 'ee well."
[13957]     
[13958]     "It is because of Donald!" she sobbed.
[13959]     
[13960]     "I don't forbid you to marry him," said Henchard. "Promise
[13961]     not to quite forget me when----" He meant when Newson should
[13962]     come.
[13963]     
[13964]     She promised mechanically, in her agitation; and the same
[13965]     evening at dusk Henchard left the town, to whose development
[13966]     he had been one of the chief stimulants for many years.
[13967]     During the day he had bought a new tool-basket, cleaned up
[13968]     his old hay-knife and wimble, set himself up in fresh
[13969]     leggings, kneenaps and corduroys, and in other ways
[13970]     gone back to the working clothes of his young manhood,
[13971]     discarding for ever the shabby-genteel suit of cloth and
[13972]     rusty silk hat that since his decline had characterized him
[13973]     in the Casterbridge street as a man who had seen better
[13974]     days.
[13975]     
[13976]     He went secretly and alone, not a soul of the many who had
[13977]     known him being aware of his departure. Elizabeth-Jane
[13978]     accompanied him as far as the second bridge on the highway--
[13979]     for the hour of her appointment with the unguessed visitor
[13980]     at Farfrae's had not yet arrived--and parted from him with
[13981]     unfeigned wonder and sorrow, keeping him back a minute or
[13982]     two before finally letting him go. She watched his form
[13983]     diminish across the moor, the yellow rush-basket at his back
[13984]     moving up and down with each tread, and the creases behind
[13985]     his knees coming and going alternately till she could no
[13986]     longer see them. Though she did not know it Henchard formed
[13987]     at this moment much the same picture as he had presented
[13988]     when entering Casterbridge for the first time nearly a
[13989]     quarter of a century before; except, to be sure, that the
[13990]     serious addition to his years had considerably lessened the
[13991]     spring to his stride, that his state of hopelessness had
[13992]     weakened him, and imparted to his shoulders, as weighted by
[13993]     the basket, a perceptible bend.
[13994]     
[13995]     He went on till he came to the first milestone, which stood
[13996]     in the bank, half way up a steep hill. He rested his basket
[13997]     on the top of the stone, placed his elbows on it, and gave
[13998]     way to a convulsive twitch, which was worse than a sob,
[13999]     because it was so hard and so dry.
[14000]     
[14001]     "If I had only got her with me--if I only had!" he said.
[14002]     "Hard work would be nothing to me then! But that was not to
[14003]     be. I--Cain--go alone as I deserve--an outcast and a
[14004]     vagabond. But my punishment is not greater than I can
[14005]     bear!"
[14006]     
[14007]     He sternly subdued his anguish, shouldered his basket, and
[14008]     went on.
[14009]     
[14010]     Elizabeth, in the meantime, had breathed him a sigh,
[14011]     recovered her equanimity, and turned her face to
[14012]     Casterbridge. Before she had reached the first house she
[14013]     was met in her walk by Donald Farfrae. This was evidently
[14014]     not their first meeting that day; they joined hands without
[14015]     ceremony, and Farfrae anxiously asked, "And is he gone--
[14016]     and did you tell him?--I mean of the other matter--not of
[14017]     ours."
[14018]     
[14019]     "He is gone; and I told him all I knew of your friend.
[14020]     Donald, who is he?"
[14021]     
[14022]     "Well, well, dearie; you will know soon about that. And Mr.
[14023]     Henchard will hear of it if he does not go far."
[14024]     
[14025]     "He will go far--he's bent upon getting out of sight and
[14026]     sound!"
[14027]     
[14028]     She walked beside her lover, and when they reached the
[14029]     Crossways, or Bow, turned with him into Corn Street instead
[14030]     of going straight on to her own door. At Farfrae's house
[14031]     they stopped and went in.
[14032]     
[14033]     Farfrae flung open the door of the ground-floor sitting-
[14034]     room, saying, "There he is waiting for you," and Elizabeth
[14035]     entered. In the arm-chair sat the broad-faced genial man
[14036]     who had called on Henchard on a memorable morning between
[14037]     one and two years before this time, and whom the latter had
[14038]     seen mount the coach and depart within half-an-hour of his
[14039]     arrival. It was Richard Newson. The meeting with the
[14040]     light-hearted father from whom she had been separated half-
[14041]     a-dozen years, as if by death, need hardly be detailed. It
[14042]     was an affecting one, apart from the question of paternity.
[14043]     Henchard's departure was in a moment explained. When the
[14044]     true facts came to be handled the difficulty of restoring
[14045]     her to her old belief in Newson was not so great as might
[14046]     have seemed likely, for Henchard's conduct itself was a
[14047]     proof that those facts were true. Moreover, she had grown
[14048]     up under Newson's paternal care; and even had Henchard been
[14049]     her father in nature, this father in early domiciliation
[14050]     might almost have carried the point against him, when the
[14051]     incidents of her parting with Henchard had a little worn
[14052]     off.
[14053]     
[14054]     Newson's pride in what she had grown up to be was more than
[14055]     he could express. He kissed her again and again.
[14056]     
[14057]     "I've saved you the trouble to come and meet me--ha-ha!"
[14058]     said Newson. "The fact is that Mr. Farfrae here, he said,
[14059]     'Come up and stop with me for a day or two, Captain Newson,
[14060]     and I'll bring her round.' 'Faith,' says I, 'so I will'; and
[14061]     here I am."
[14062]     
[14063]     "Well, Henchard is gone," said Farfrae, shutting the door.
[14064]     "He has done it all voluntarily, and, as I gather from
[14065]     Elizabeth, he has been very nice with her. I was got
[14066]     rather uneasy; but all is as it should be, and we will have
[14067]     no more deefficulties at all."
[14068]     
[14069]     "Now, that's very much as I thought," said Newson, looking
[14070]     into the face of each by turns. "I said to myself, ay, a
[14071]     hundred times, when I tried to get a peep at her unknown to
[14072]     herself--'Depend upon it, 'tis best that I should live on
[14073]     quiet for a few days like this till something turns up for
[14074]     the better.' I now know you are all right, and what can I
[14075]     wish for more?"
[14076]     
[14077]     "Well, Captain Newson, I will be glad to see ye here every
[14078]     day now, since it can do no harm," said Farfrae. "And what
[14079]     I've been thinking is that the wedding may as well be kept
[14080]     under my own roof, the house being large, and you being in
[14081]     lodgings by yourself--so that a great deal of trouble and
[14082]     expense would be saved ye?--and 'tis a convenience when a
[14083]     couple's married not to hae far to go to get home!"
[14084]     
[14085]     "With all my heart," said Captain Newson; "since, as ye say,
[14086]     it can do no harm, now poor Henchard's gone; though I
[14087]     wouldn't have done it otherwise, or put myself in his way at
[14088]     all; for I've already in my lifetime been an intruder into
[14089]     his family quite as far as politeness can be expected to put
[14090]     up with. But what do the young woman say herself about it?
[14091]     Elizabeth, my child, come and hearken to what we be talking
[14092]     about, and not bide staring out o' the window as if ye
[14093]     didn't hear.'
[14094]     
[14095]     "Donald and you must settle it," murmured Elizabeth, still
[14096]     keeping up a scrutinizing gaze at some small object in the
[14097]     street.
[14098]     
[14099]     "Well, then," continued Newson, turning anew to Farfrae with
[14100]     a face expressing thorough entry into the subject, "that's
[14101]     how we'll have it. And, Mr. Farfrae, as you provide so
[14102]     much, and houseroom, and all that, I'll do my part in the
[14103]     drinkables, and see to the rum and schiedam--maybe a dozen
[14104]     jars will be sufficient?--as many of the folk will be
[14105]     ladies, and perhaps they won't drink hard enough to make a
[14106]     high average in the reckoning? But you know best. I've
[14107]     provided for men and shipmates times enough, but I'm as
[14108]     ignorant as a child how many glasses of grog a woman, that's
[14109]     not a drinking woman, is expected to consume at these
[14110]     ceremonies?"
[14111]     
[14112]     "Oh, none--we'll no want much of that--O no!" said Farfrae,
[14113]     shaking his head with appalled gravity. "Do you leave all
[14114]     to me."
[14115]     
[14116]     When they had gone a little further in these particulars
[14117]     Newson, leaning back in his chair and smiling reflectively
[14118]     at the ceiling, said, "I've never told ye, or have I, Mr.
[14119]     Farfrae, how Henchard put me off the scent that time?"
[14120]     
[14121]     He expressed ignorance of what the Captain alluded to.
[14122]     
[14123]     "Ah, I thought I hadn't. I resolved that I would not, I
[14124]     remember, not to hurt the man's name. But now he's gone I
[14125]     can tell ye. Why, I came to Casterbridge nine or ten months
[14126]     before that day last week that I found ye out. I had been
[14127]     here twice before then. The first time I passed through the
[14128]     town on my way westward, not knowing Elizabeth lived here.
[14129]     Then hearing at some place--I forget where--that a man of
[14130]     the name of Henchard had been mayor here, I came back, and
[14131]     called at his house one morning. The old rascal!--he said
[14132]     Elizabeth-Jane had died years ago."
[14133]     
[14134]     Elizabeth now gave earnest heed to his story.
[14135]     
[14136]     "Now, it never crossed my mind that the man was selling me a
[14137]     packet," contiued Newson. "And, if you'll believe me, I was
[14138]     that upset, that I went back to the coach that had brought
[14139]     me, and took passage onward without lying in the town half-
[14140]     an-hour. Ha-ha!--'twas a good joke, and well carried out,
[14141]     and I give the man credit for't!"
[14142]     
[14143]     Elizabeth-Jane was amazed at the intelligence. "A joke?--O
[14144]     no!" she cried. "Then he kept you from me, father, all
[14145]     those months, when you might have been here?"
[14146]     
[14147]     The father admitted that such was the case.
[14148]     
[14149]     "He ought not to have done it!" said Farfrae.
[14150]     
[14151]     Elizabeth sighed. "I said I would never forget him. But O!
[14152]     I think I ought to forget him now!"
[14153]     
[14154]     Newson, like a good many rovers and sojourners among strange
[14155]     men and strange moralities, failed to perceive the enormity
[14156]     of Henchard's crime, notwithstanding that he himself had
[14157]     been the chief sufferer therefrom. Indeed, the attack upon
[14158]     the absent culprit waxing serious, he began to take
[14159]     Henchard's part.
[14160]     
[14161]     "Well, 'twas not ten words that he said, after all," Newson
[14162]     pleaded. "And how could he know that I should be such
[14163]     a simpleton as to believe him? 'Twas as much my fault as
[14164]     his, poor fellow!"
[14165]     
[14166]     "No," said Elizabeth-Jane firmly, in her revulsion of
[14167]     feeling. "He knew your disposition--you always were so
[14168]     trusting, father; I've heard my mother say so hundreds of
[14169]     times--and he did it to wrong you. After weaning me from
[14170]     you these five years by saying he was my father, he should
[14171]     not have done this."
[14172]     
[14173]     Thus they conversed; and there was nobody to set before
[14174]     Elizabeth any extenuation of the absent one's deceit. Even
[14175]     had he been present Henchard might scarce have pleaded it,
[14176]     so little did he value himself or his good name.
[14177]     
[14178]     "Well, well--never mind--it is all over and past," said
[14179]     Newson good-naturedly. "Now, about this wedding again."
[14180]     
[14181]     
[14182]     
[14183]     44.
[14184]     
[14185]     
[14186]     Meanwhile, the man of their talk had pursued his solitary
[14187]     way eastward till weariness overtook him, and he looked
[14188]     about for a place of rest. His heart was so exacerbated at
[14189]     parting from the girl that he could not face an inn, or even
[14190]     a household of the most humble kind; and entering a field he
[14191]     lay down under a wheatrick, feeling no want of food. The
[14192]     very heaviness of his soul caused him to sleep profoundly.
[14193]     
[14194]     The bright autumn sun shining into his eyes across the
[14195]     stubble awoke him the next morning early. He opened his
[14196]     basket and ate for his breakfast what he had packed for his
[14197]     supper; and in doing so overhauled the remainder of his kit.
[14198]     Although everything he brought necessitated carriage at his
[14199]     own back, he had secreted among his tools a few of
[14200]     Elizabeth-Jane's cast-off belongings, in the shape of
[14201]     gloves, shoes, a scrap of her handwriting, and the like, and
[14202]     in his pocket he carried a curl of her hair. Having looked
[14203]     at these things he closed them up again, and went onward.
[14204]     
[14205]     During five consecutive days Henchard's rush basket rode
[14206]     along upon his shoulder between the highway hedges, the new
[14207]     yellow of the rushes catching the eye of an occasional
[14208]     field-labourer as he glanced through the quickset,
[14209]     together with the wayfarer's hat and head, and down-turned
[14210]     face, over which the twig shadows moved in endless
[14211]     procession. It now became apparent that the direction of
[14212]     his journey was Weydon Priors, which he reached on the
[14213]     afternoon of the sixth day.
[14214]     
[14215]     The renowned hill whereon the annual fair had been held for
[14216]     so many generations was now bare of human beings, and almost
[14217]     of aught besides. A few sheep grazed thereabout, but these
[14218]     ran off when Henchard halted upon the summit. He deposited
[14219]     his basket upon the turf, and looked about with sad
[14220]     curiosity; till he discovered the road by which his wife and
[14221]     himself had entered on the upland so memorable to both,
[14222]     five-and-twenty years before.
[14223]     
[14224]     "Yes, we came up that way," he said, after ascertaining his
[14225]     bearings. "She was carrying the baby, and I was reading a
[14226]     ballet-sheet. Then we crossed about here--she so sad and
[14227]     weary, and I speaking to her hardly at all, because of my
[14228]     cursed pride and mortification at being poor. Then we saw
[14229]     the tent--that must have stood more this way." He walked to
[14230]     another spot, it was not really where the tent had stood but
[14231]     it seemed so to him. "Here we went in, and here we sat
[14232]     down. I faced this way. Then I drank, and committed my
[14233]     crime. It must have been just on that very pixy-ring that
[14234]     she was standing when she said her last words to me before
[14235]     going off with him; I can hear their sound now, and the
[14236]     sound of her sobs: 'O Mike! I've lived with thee all this
[14237]     while, and had nothing but temper. Now I'm no more to 'ee--
[14238]     I'll try my luck elsewhere.'"
[14239]     
[14240]     He experienced not only the bitterness of a man who finds,
[14241]     in looking back upon an ambitious course, that what he has
[14242]     sacrificed in sentiment was worth as much as what he has
[14243]     gained in substance; but the superadded bitterness of seeing
[14244]     his very recantation nullified. He had been sorry for all
[14245]     this long ago; but his attempts to replace ambition by love
[14246]     had been as fully foiled as his ambition itself. His
[14247]     wronged wife had foiled them by a fraud so grandly simple as
[14248]     to be almost a virtue. It was an odd sequence that out of
[14249]     all this tampering with social law came that flower of
[14250]     Nature, Elizabeth. Part of his wish to wash his hands of
[14251]     life arose from his perception of its contrarious
[14252]     inconsistencies--of Nature's jaunty readiness to support
[14253]     unorthodox social principles.
[14254]     
[14255]     He intended to go on from this place--visited as an act of
[14256]     penance--into another part of the country altogether. But
[14257]     he could not help thinking of Elizabeth, and the quarter of
[14258]     the horizon in which she lived. Out of this it happened
[14259]     that the centrifugal tendency imparted by weariness of the
[14260]     world was counteracted by the centripetal influence of his
[14261]     love for his stepdaughter. As a consequence, instead of
[14262]     following a straight course yet further away from
[14263]     Casterbridge, Henchard gradually, almost unconsciously,
[14264]     deflected from that right line of his first intention; till,
[14265]     by degrees, his wandering, like that of the Canadian
[14266]     woodsman, became part of a circle of which Casterbridge
[14267]     formed the centre. In ascending any particular hill he
[14268]     ascertained the bearings as nearly as he could by means of
[14269]     the sun, moon, or stars, and settled in his mind the exact
[14270]     direction in which Casterbridge and Elizabeth-Jane lay.
[14271]     Sneering at himself for his weakness he yet every hour--nay,
[14272]     every few minutes--conjectured her actions for the time
[14273]     being--her sitting down and rising up, her goings and
[14274]     comings, till thought of Newson's and Farfrae's counter-
[14275]     influence would pass like a cold blast over a pool, and
[14276]     efface her image. And then he would say to himself, "O you
[14277]     fool! All this about a daughter who is no daughter of
[14278]     thine!"
[14279]     
[14280]     At length he obtained employment at his own occupation of
[14281]     hay-trusser, work of that sort being in demand at this
[14282]     autumn time. The scene of his hiring was a pastoral farm
[14283]     near the old western highway, whose course was the channel
[14284]     of all such communications as passed between the busy
[14285]     centres of novelty and the remote Wessex boroughs. He had
[14286]     chosen the neighbourhood of this artery from a sense that,
[14287]     situated here, though at a distance of fifty miles, he was
[14288]     virtually nearer to her whose welfare was so dear than he
[14289]     would be at a roadless spot only half as remote.
[14290]     
[14291]     And thus Henchard found himself again on the precise
[14292]     standing which he had occupied a quarter of a century
[14293]     before. Externally there was nothing to hinder his making
[14294]     another start on the upward slope, and by his new lights
[14295]     achieving higher things than his soul in its half-
[14296]     formed state had been able to accomplish. But the ingenious
[14297]     machinery contrived by the Gods for reducing human
[14298]     possibilities of amelioration to a minimum--which arranges
[14299]     that wisdom to do shall come pari passu with the
[14300]     departure of zest for doing--stood in the way of all that.
[14301]     He had no wish to make an arena a second time of a world
[14302]     that had become a mere painted scene to him.
[14303]     
[14304]     Very often, as his hay-knife crunched down among the sweet-
[14305]     smelling grassy stems, he would survey mankind and say to
[14306]     himself: "Here and everywhere be folk dying before their
[14307]     time like frosted leaves, though wanted by their families,
[14308]     the country, and the world; while I, an outcast, an
[14309]     encumberer of the ground, wanted by nobody, and despised by
[14310]     all, live on against my will!"
[14311]     
[14312]     He often kept an eager ear upon the conversation of those
[14313]     who passed along the road--not from a general curiosity by
[14314]     any means--but in the hope that among these travellers
[14315]     between Casterbridge and London some would, sooner or later,
[14316]     speak of the former place. The distance, however, was too
[14317]     great to lend much probability to his desire; and the
[14318]     highest result of his attention to wayside words was that he
[14319]     did indeed hear the name "Casterbridge" uttered one day by
[14320]     the driver of a road-waggon. Henchard ran to the gate of
[14321]     the field he worked in, and hailed the speaker, who was a
[14322]     stranger.
[14323]     
[14324]     "Yes--I've come from there, maister," he said, in answer to
[14325]     Henchard's inquiry. "I trade up and down, ye know; though,
[14326]     what with this travelling without horses that's getting so
[14327]     common, my work will soon be done."
[14328]     
[14329]     "Anything moving in the old place, mid I ask?"
[14330]     
[14331]     "All the same as usual."
[14332]     
[14333]     "I've heard that Mr. Farfrae, the late mayor, is thinking of
[14334]     getting married. Now is that true or not?"
[14335]     
[14336]     "I couldn't say for the life o' me. O no, I should think
[14337]     not."
[14338]     
[14339]     "But yes, John--you forget," said a woman inside the waggon-
[14340]     tilt. "What were them packages we carr'd there at the
[14341]     beginning o' the week? Surely they said a wedding was coming
[14342]     off soon--on Martin's Day?"
[14343]     
[14344]     The man declared he remembered nothing about it; and
[14345]     the waggon went on jangling over the hill.
[14346]     
[14347]     Henchard was convinced that the woman's memory served her
[14348]     well. The date was an extremely probable one, there being
[14349]     no reason for delay on either side. He might, for that
[14350]     matter, write and inquire of Elizabeth; but his instinct for
[14351]     sequestration had made the course difficult. Yet before he
[14352]     left her she had said that for him to be absent from her
[14353]     wedding was not as she wished it to be.
[14354]     
[14355]     The remembrance would continually revive in him now that it
[14356]     was not Elizabeth and Farfrae who had driven him away from
[14357]     them, but his own haughty sense that his presence was no
[14358]     longer desired. He had assumed the return of Newson without
[14359]     absolute proof that the Captain meant to return; still less
[14360]     that Elizabeth-Jane would welcome him; and with no proof
[14361]     whatever that if he did return he would stay. What if he
[14362]     had been mistaken in his views; if there had been no
[14363]     necessity that his own absolute separation from her he loved
[14364]     should be involved in these untoward incidents? To make one
[14365]     more attempt to be near her: to go back, to see her, to
[14366]     plead his cause before her, to ask forgiveness for his
[14367]     fraud, to endeavour strenuously to hold his own in her love;
[14368]     it was worth the risk of repulse, ay, of life itself.
[14369]     
[14370]     But how to initiate this reversal of all his former resolves
[14371]     without causing husband and wife to despise him for his
[14372]     inconsistency was a question which made him tremble and
[14373]     brood.
[14374]     
[14375]     He cut and cut his trusses two days more, and then he
[14376]     concluded his hesitancies by a sudden reckless determination
[14377]     to go to the wedding festivity. Neither writing nor message
[14378]     would be expected of him. She had regretted his decision to
[14379]     be absent--his unanticipated presence would fill the little
[14380]     unsatisfied corner that would probably have place in her
[14381]     just heart without him.
[14382]     
[14383]     To intrude as little of his personality as possible upon a
[14384]     gay event with which that personality could show nothing in
[14385]     keeping, he decided not to make his appearance till evening--
[14386]     when stiffness would have worn off, and a gentle wish to
[14387]     let bygones be bygones would exercise its sway in all
[14388]     hearts.
[14389]     
[14390]     He started on foot, two mornings before St. Martin's-tide,
[14391]     allowing himself about sixteen miles to perform for
[14392]     each of the three days' journey, reckoning the wedding-day
[14393]     as one. There were only two towns, Melchester and
[14394]     Shottsford, of any importance along his course, and at the
[14395]     latter he stopped on the second night, not only to rest, but
[14396]     to prepare himself for the next evening.
[14397]     
[14398]     Possessing no clothes but the working suit he stood in--now
[14399]     stained and distorted by their two months of hard usage, he
[14400]     entered a shop to make some purchases which should put him,
[14401]     externally at any rate, a little in harmony with the
[14402]     prevailing tone of the morrow. A rough yet respectable coat
[14403]     and hat, a new shirt and neck-cloth, were the chief of
[14404]     these; and having satisfied himself that in appearance at
[14405]     least he would not now offend her, he proceeded to the more
[14406]     interesting particular of buying her some present.
[14407]     
[14408]     What should that present be? He walked up and down the
[14409]     street, regarding dubiously the display in the shop windows,
[14410]     from a gloomy sense that what he might most like to give her
[14411]     would be beyond his miserable pocket. At length a caged
[14412]     goldfinch met his eye. The cage was a plain and small one,
[14413]     the shop humble, and on inquiry he concluded he could afford
[14414]     the modest sum asked. A sheet of newspaper was tied round
[14415]     the little creature's wire prison, and with the wrapped up
[14416]     cage in his hand Henchard sought a lodging for the night.
[14417]     
[14418]     Next day he set out upon the last stage, and was soon within
[14419]     the district which had been his dealing ground in bygone
[14420]     years. Part of the distance he travelled by carrier,
[14421]     seating himself in the darkest corner at the back of that
[14422]     trader's van; and as the other passengers, mainly women
[14423]     going short journeys, mounted and alighted in front of
[14424]     Henchard, they talked over much local news, not the least
[14425]     portion of this being the wedding then in course of
[14426]     celebration at the town they were nearing. It appeared from
[14427]     their accounts that the town band had been hired for the
[14428]     evening party, and, lest the convivial instincts of that
[14429]     body should get the better of their skill, the further step
[14430]     had been taken of engaging the string band from Budmouth, so
[14431]     that there would be a reserve of harmony to fall back upon
[14432]     in case of need.
[14433]     
[14434]     He heard, however, but few particulars beyond those
[14435]     known to him already, the incident of the deepest interest
[14436]     on the journey being the soft pealing of the Casterbridge
[14437]     bells, which reached the travellers' ears while the van
[14438]     paused on the top of Yalbury Hill to have the drag lowered.
[14439]     The time was just after twelve o'clock.
[14440]     
[14441]     Those notes were a signal that all had gone well; that there
[14442]     had been no slip 'twixt cup and lip in this case; that
[14443]     Elizabeth-Jane and Donald Farfrae were man and wife.
[14444]     
[14445]     Henchard did not care to ride any further with his
[14446]     chattering companions after hearing this sound. Indeed, it
[14447]     quite unmanned him; and in pursuance of his plan of not
[14448]     showing himself in Casterbridge street till evening, lest he
[14449]     should mortify Farfrae and his bride, he alighted here, with
[14450]     his bundle and bird-cage, and was soon left as a lonely
[14451]     figure on the broad white highway.
[14452]     
[14453]     It was the hill near which he had waited to meet Farfrae,
[14454]     almost two years earlier, to tell him of the serious illness
[14455]     of his wife Lucetta. The place was unchanged; the same
[14456]     larches sighed the same notes; but Farfrae had another wife--
[14457]     and, as Henchard knew, a better one. He only hoped that
[14458]     Elizabeth-Jane had obtained a better home than had been hers
[14459]     at the former time.
[14460]     
[14461]     He passed the remainder of the afternoon in a curious high-
[14462]     strung condition, unable to do much but think of the
[14463]     approaching meeting with her, and sadly satirize himself for
[14464]     his emotions thereon, as a Samson shorn. Such an innovation
[14465]     on Casterbridge customs as a flitting of bridegroom and
[14466]     bride from the town immediately after the ceremony, was not
[14467]     likely, but if it should have taken place he would wait till
[14468]     their return. To assure himself on this point he asked a
[14469]     market-man when near the borough if the newly-married couple
[14470]     had gone away, and was promptly informed that they had not;
[14471]     they were at that hour, according to all accounts,
[14472]     entertaining a houseful of guests at their home in Corn
[14473]     Street.
[14474]     
[14475]     Henchard dusted his boots, washed his hands at the
[14476]     riverside, and proceeded up the town under the feeble lamps.
[14477]     He need have made no inquiries beforehand, for on drawing
[14478]     near Farfrae's residence it was plain to the least observant
[14479]     that festivity prevailed within, and that Donald
[14480]     himself shared it, his voice being distinctly audible in the
[14481]     street, giving strong expression to a song of his dear
[14482]     native country that he loved so well as never to have
[14483]     revisited it. Idlers were standing on the pavement in
[14484]     front; and wishing to escape the notice of these Henchard
[14485]     passed quickly on to the door.
[14486]     
[14487]     It was wide open, the hall was lighted extravagantly, and
[14488]     people were going up and down the stairs. His courage
[14489]     failed him; to enter footsore, laden, and poorly dressed
[14490]     into the midst of such resplendency was to bring needless
[14491]     humiliation upon her he loved, if not to court repulse from
[14492]     her husband. Accordingly he went round into the street at
[14493]     the back that he knew so well, entered the garden, and came
[14494]     quietly into the house through the kitchen, temporarily
[14495]     depositing the bird and cage under a bush outside, to lessen
[14496]     the awkwardness of his arrival.
[14497]     
[14498]     Solitude and sadness had so emolliated Henchard that he now
[14499]     feared circumstances he would formerly have scorned, and he
[14500]     began to wish that he had not taken upon himself to arrive
[14501]     at such a juncture. However, his progress was made
[14502]     unexpectedly easy by his discovering alone in the kitchen an
[14503]     elderly woman who seemed to be acting as provisional
[14504]     housekeeper during the convulsions from which Farfrae's
[14505]     establishment was just then suffering. She was one of those
[14506]     people whom nothing surprises, and though to her, a total
[14507]     stranger, his request must have seemed odd, she willingly
[14508]     volunteered to go up and inform the master and mistress of
[14509]     the house that "a humble old friend" had come.
[14510]     
[14511]     On second thought she said that he had better not wait in
[14512]     the kitchen, but come up into the little back-parlour, which
[14513]     was empty. He thereupon followed her thither, and she left
[14514]     him. Just as she got across the landing to the door of the
[14515]     best parlour a dance was struck up, and she returned to say
[14516]     that she would wait till that was over before announcing
[14517]     him--Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae having both joined in the figure.
[14518]     
[14519]     The door of the front room had been taken off its hinges to
[14520]     give more space, and that of the room Henchard sat in being
[14521]     ajar, he could see fractional parts of the dancers whenever
[14522]     their gyrations brought them near the doorway, chiefly in
[14523]     the shape of the skirts of dresses and streaming curls of
[14524]     hair; together with about three-fifths of the band in
[14525]     profile, including the restless shadow of a fiddler's elbow,
[14526]     and the tip of the bass-viol bow.
[14527]     
[14528]     The gaiety jarred upon Henchard's spirits; and he could not
[14529]     quite understand why Farfrae, a much-sobered man, and a
[14530]     widower, who had had his trials, should have cared for it
[14531]     all, notwithstanding the fact that he was quite a young man
[14532]     still, and quickly kindled to enthusiasm by dance and song.
[14533]     That the quiet Elizabeth, who had long ago appraised life at
[14534]     a moderate value, and who knew in spite of her maidenhood
[14535]     that marriage was as a rule no dancing matter, should have
[14536]     had zest for this revelry surprised him still more.
[14537]     However, young people could not be quite old people, he
[14538]     concluded, and custom was omnipotent.
[14539]     
[14540]     With the progress of the dance the performers spread out
[14541]     somewhat, and then for the first time he caught a glimpse of
[14542]     the once despised daughter who had mastered him, and made
[14543]     his heart ache. She was in a dress of white silk or satin,
[14544]     he was not near enough to say which--snowy white, without a
[14545]     tinge of milk or cream; and the expression of her face was
[14546]     one of nervous pleasure rather than of gaiety. Presently
[14547]     Farfrae came round, his exuberant Scotch movement making him
[14548]     conspicuous in a moment. The pair were not dancing
[14549]     together, but Henchard could discern that whenever the
[14550]     chances of the figure made them the partners of a moment
[14551]     their emotions breathed a much subtler essence than at other
[14552]     times.
[14553]     
[14554]     By degrees Henchard became aware that the measure was trod
[14555]     by some one who out-Farfraed Farfrae in saltatory
[14556]     intenseness. This was strange, and it was stranger to find
[14557]     that the eclipsing personage was Elizabeth-Jane's partner.
[14558]     The first time that Henchard saw him he was sweeping grandly
[14559]     round, his head quivering and low down, his legs in the form
[14560]     of an X and his back towards the door. The next time he
[14561]     came round in the other direction, his white waist-coat
[14562]     preceding his face, and his toes preceding his white
[14563]     waistcoat. That happy face--Henchard's complete
[14564]     discomfiture lay in it. It was Newson's, who had indeed
[14565]     come and supplanted him.
[14566]     
[14567]     Henchard pushed to the door, and for some seconds made
[14568]     no other movement. He rose to his feet, and stood like
[14569]     a dark ruin, obscured by "the shade from his own soul up-
[14570]     thrown."
[14571]     
[14572]     But he was no longer the man to stand these reverses
[14573]     unmoved. His agitation was great, and he would fain have
[14574]     been gone, but before he could leave the dance had ended,
[14575]     the housekeeper had informed Elizabeth-Jane of the stranger
[14576]     who awaited her, and she entered the room immediately.
[14577]     
[14578]     "Oh--it is--Mr. Henchard!" she said, starting back.
[14579]     
[14580]     "What, Elizabeth?" he cried, as she seized her hand. "What
[14581]     do you say?--Mr. Henchard? Don't, don't scourge me like
[14582]     that! Call me worthless old Henchard--anything--but don't
[14583]     'ee be so cold as this! O my maid--I see you have another--a
[14584]     real father in my place. Then you know all; but don't give
[14585]     all your thought to him! Do ye save a little room for me!"
[14586]     
[14587]     She flushed up, and gently drew her hand away. "I could
[14588]     have loved you always--I would have, gladly," she said.
[14589]     "But how can I when I know you have deceived me so--so
[14590]     bitterly deceived me! You persuaded me that my father was
[14591]     not my father--allowed me to live on in ignorance of the
[14592]     truth for years; and then when he, my warm-hearted real
[14593]     father, came to find me, cruelly sent him away with a wicked
[14594]     invention of my death, which nearly broke his heart. O how
[14595]     can I love as I once did a man who has served us like this!"
[14596]     
[14597]     Henchard's lips half parted to begin an explanation. But he
[14598]     shut them up like a vice, and uttered not a sound. How
[14599]     should he, there and then, set before her with any effect
[14600]     the palliatives of his great faults--that he had himself
[14601]     been deceived in her identity at first, till informed by her
[14602]     mother's letter that his own child had died; that, in the
[14603]     second accusation, his lie had been the last desperate throw
[14604]     of a gamester who loved her affection better than his own
[14605]     honour? Among the many hindrances to such a pleading not the
[14606]     least was this, that he did not sufficiently value himself
[14607]     to lessen his sufferings by strenuous appeal or elaborate
[14608]     argument.
[14609]     
[14610]     Waiving, therefore, his privilege of self-defence, he
[14611]     regarded only his discomposure. "Don't ye distress yourself
[14612]     on my account," he said, with proud superiority. "I would
[14613]     not wish it--at such a time, too, as this. I have done
[14614]     wrong in coming to 'ee--I see my error. But it is only for
[14615]     once, so forgive it. I'll never trouble 'ee again,
[14616]     Elizabeth-Jane--no, not to my dying day! Good-night. Good-
[14617]     bye!"
[14618]     
[14619]     Then, before she could collect her thoughts, Henchard went
[14620]     out from her rooms, and departed from the house by the back
[14621]     way as he had come; and she saw him no more.
[14622]     
[14623]     
[14624]     
[14625]     45.
[14626]     
[14627]     
[14628]     It was about a month after the day which closed as in the
[14629]     last chapter. Elizabeth-Jane had grown accustomed to the
[14630]     novelty of her situation, and the only difference between
[14631]     Donald's movements now and formerly was that he hastened
[14632]     indoors rather more quickly after business hours than he had
[14633]     been in the habit of doing for some time.
[14634]     
[14635]     Newson had stayed in Casterbridge three days after the
[14636]     wedding party (whose gaiety, as might have been surmised,
[14637]     was of his making rather than of the married couple's), and
[14638]     was stared at and honoured as became the returned Crusoe of
[14639]     the hour. But whether or not because Casterbridge was
[14640]     difficult to excite by dramatic returns and disappearances
[14641]     through having been for centuries an assize town, in which
[14642]     sensational exits from the world, antipodean absences, and
[14643]     such like, were half-yearly occurrences, the inhabitants did
[14644]     not altogether lose their equanimity on his account. On the
[14645]     fourth morning he was discovered disconsolately climbing a
[14646]     hill, in his craving to get a glimpse of the sea from
[14647]     somewhere or other. The contiguity of salt water proved to
[14648]     be such a necessity of his existence that he preferred
[14649]     Budmouth as a place of residence, notwithstanding the
[14650]     society of his daughter in the other town. Thither he went,
[14651]     and settled in lodgings in a green-shuttered cottage which
[14652]     had a bow-window, jutting out sufficiently to afford
[14653]     glimpses of a vertical strip of blue sea to any one opening
[14654]     the sash, and leaning forward far enough to look through a
[14655]     narrow lane of tall intervening houses.
[14656]     
[14657]     Elizabeth-Jane was standing in the middle of her
[14658]     upstairs parlour, critically surveying some re-arrangement
[14659]     of articles with her head to one side, when the housemaid
[14660]     came in with the announcement, "Oh, please ma'am, we know
[14661]     now how that bird-cage came there."
[14662]     
[14663]     In exploring her new domain during the first week of
[14664]     residence, gazing with critical satisfaction on this
[14665]     cheerful room and that, penetrating cautiously into dark
[14666]     cellars, sallying forth with gingerly tread to the garden,
[14667]     now leaf-strewn by autumn winds, and thus, like a wise
[14668]     field-marshal, estimating the capabilities of the site
[14669]     whereon she was about to open her housekeeping campaign--
[14670]     Mrs. Donald Farfrae had discovered in a screened corner a
[14671]     new bird-cage, shrouded in newspaper, and at the bottom of
[14672]     the cage a little ball of feathers--the dead body of a
[14673]     goldfinch. Nobody could tell her how the bird and cage had
[14674]     come there, though that the poor little songster had been
[14675]     starved to death was evident. The sadness of the incident
[14676]     had made an impression on her. She had not been able to
[14677]     forget it for days, despite Farfrae's tender banter; and now
[14678]     when the matter had been nearly forgotten it was again
[14679]     revived.
[14680]     
[14681]     "Oh, please ma'am, we know how the bird-cage came there.
[14682]     That farmer's man who called on the evening of the wedding--
[14683]     he was seen wi' it in his hand as he came up the street; and
[14684]     'tis thoughted that he put it down while he came in with his
[14685]     message, and then went away forgetting where he had left
[14686]     it."
[14687]     
[14688]     This was enough to set Elizabeth thinking, and in thinking
[14689]     she seized hold of the idea, at one feminine bound, that the
[14690]     caged bird had been brought by Henchard for her as a wedding
[14691]     gift and token of repentance. He had not expressed to her
[14692]     any regrets or excuses for what he had done in the past; but
[14693]     it was a part of his nature to extenuate nothing, and live
[14694]     on as one of his own worst accusers. She went out, looked
[14695]     at the cage, buried the starved little singer, and from that
[14696]     hour her heart softened towards the self-alienated man.
[14697]     
[14698]     When her husband came in she told him her solution of the
[14699]     bird-cage mystery; and begged Donald to help her in finding
[14700]     out, as soon as possible, whither Henchard had banished
[14701]     himself, that she might make her peace with him; try to do
[14702]     something to render his life less that of an outcast, and
[14703]     more tolerable to him. Although Farfrae had never so
[14704]     passionately liked Henchard as Henchard had liked him, he
[14705]     had, on the other hand, never so passionately hated in the
[14706]     same direction as his former friend had done, and he was
[14707]     therefore not the least indisposed to assist Elizabeth-Jane
[14708]     in her laudable plan.
[14709]     
[14710]     But it was by no means easy to set about discovering
[14711]     Henchard. He had apparently sunk into the earth on leaving
[14712]     Mr. and Mrs. Farfrae's door. Elizabeth-Jane remembered what
[14713]     he had once attempted; and trembled.
[14714]     
[14715]     But though she did not know it Henchard had become a changed
[14716]     man since then--as far, that is, as change of emotional
[14717]     basis can justify such a radical phrase; and she needed not
[14718]     to fear. In a few days Farfrae's inquiries elicited that
[14719]     Henchard had been seen by one who knew him walking steadily
[14720]     along the Melchester highway eastward, at twelve o'clock at
[14721]     night--in other words, retracing his steps on the road by
[14722]     which he had come.
[14723]     
[14724]     This was enough; and the next morning Farfrae might have
[14725]     been discovered driving his gig out of Casterbridge in that
[14726]     direction, Elizabeth-Jane sitting beside him, wrapped in a
[14727]     thick flat fur--the victorine of the period--her complexion
[14728]     somewhat richer than formerly, and an incipient matronly
[14729]     dignity, which the serene Minerva-eyes of one "whose
[14730]     gestures beamed with mind" made becoming, settling on her
[14731]     face. Having herself arrived at a promising haven from at
[14732]     least the grosser troubles of her life, her object was to
[14733]     place Henchard in some similar quietude before he should
[14734]     sink into that lower stage of existence which was only too
[14735]     possible to him now.
[14736]     
[14737]     After driving along the highway for a few miles they made
[14738]     further inquiries, and learnt of a road-mender, who had been
[14739]     working thereabouts for weeks, that he had observed such a
[14740]     man at the time mentioned; he had left the Melchester
[14741]     coachroad at Weatherbury by a forking highway which skirted
[14742]     the north of Egdon Heath. Into this road they directed the
[14743]     horse's head, and soon were bowling across that ancient
[14744]     country whose surface never had been stirred to a
[14745]     finger's depth, save by the scratchings of rabbits,
[14746]     since brushed by the feet of the earliest tribes. The
[14747]     tumuli these had left behind, dun and shagged with heather,
[14748]     jutted roundly into the sky from the uplands, as though they
[14749]     were the full breasts of Diana Multimammia supinely extended
[14750]     there.
[14751]     
[14752]     They searched Egdon, but found no Henchard. Farfrae drove
[14753]     onward, and by the afternoon reached the neighbourhood of
[14754]     some extension of the heath to the north of Anglebury, a
[14755]     prominent feature of which, in the form of a blasted clump
[14756]     of firs on a summit of a hill, they soon passed under. That
[14757]     the road they were following had, up to this point, been
[14758]     Henchard's track on foot they were pretty certain; but the
[14759]     ramifications which now began to reveal themselves in the
[14760]     route made further progress in the right direction a matter
[14761]     of pure guess-work, and Donald strongly advised his wife to
[14762]     give up the search in person, and trust to other means for
[14763]     obtaining news of her stepfather. They were now a score of
[14764]     miles at least from home, but, by resting the horse for a
[14765]     couple of hours at a village they had just traversed, it
[14766]     would be possible to get back to Casterbridge that same day,
[14767]     while to go much further afield would reduce them to the
[14768]     necessity of camping out for the night, "and that will make
[14769]     a hole in a sovereign," said Farfrae. She pondered the
[14770]     position, and agreed with him.
[14771]     
[14772]     He accordingly drew rein, but before reversing their
[14773]     direction paused a moment and looked vaguely round upon the
[14774]     wide country which the elevated position disclosed. While
[14775]     they looked a solitary human form came from under the clump
[14776]     of trees, and crossed ahead of them. The person was some
[14777]     labourer; his gait was shambling, his regard fixed in front
[14778]     of him as absolutely as if he wore blinkers; and in his hand
[14779]     he carried a few sticks. Having crossed the road he
[14780]     descended into a ravine, where a cottage revealed itself,
[14781]     which he entered.
[14782]     
[14783]     "If it were not so far away from Casterbridge I should say
[14784]     that must be poor Whittle. 'Tis just like him," observed
[14785]     Elizabeth-Jane.
[14786]     
[14787]     "And it may be Whittle, for he's never been to the yard
[14788]     these three weeks, going away without saying any word at
[14789]     all; and I owing him for two days' work, without
[14790]     knowing who to pay it to."
[14791]     
[14792]     The possibility led them to alight, and at least make an
[14793]     inquiry at the cottage. Farfrae hitched the reins to the
[14794]     gate-post, and they approached what was of humble dwellings
[14795]     surely the humblest. The walls, built of kneaded clay
[14796]     originally faced with a trowel, had been worn by years of
[14797]     rain-washings to a lumpy crumbling surface, channelled and
[14798]     sunken from its plane, its gray rents held together here and
[14799]     there by a leafy strap of ivy which could scarcely find
[14800]     substance enough for the purpose. The rafters were sunken,
[14801]     and the thatch of the roof in ragged holes. Leaves from the
[14802]     fence had been blown into the corners of the doorway, and
[14803]     lay there undisturbed. The door was ajar; Farfrae knocked;
[14804]     and he who stood before them was Whittle, as they had
[14805]     conjectured.
[14806]     
[14807]     His face showed marks of deep sadness, his eyes lighting on
[14808]     them with an unfocused gaze; and he still held in his hand
[14809]     the few sticks he had been out to gather. As soon as he
[14810]     recognized them he started.
[14811]     
[14812]     "What, Abel Whittle; is it that ye are heere?" said Farfrae.
[14813]     
[14814]     "Ay, yes sir! You see he was kind-like to mother when she
[14815]     wer here below, though 'a was rough to me."
[14816]     
[14817]     "Who are you talking of?"
[14818]     
[14819]     "O sir--Mr. Henchet! Didn't ye know it? He's just gone--
[14820]     about half-an-hour ago, by the sun; for I've got no watch to
[14821]     my name."
[14822]     
[14823]     "Not--dead?" faltered Elizabeth-Jane.
[14824]     
[14825]     "Yes, ma'am, he's gone! He was kind-like to mother when she
[14826]     wer here below, sending her the best ship-coal, and hardly
[14827]     any ashes from it at all; and taties, and such-like that
[14828]     were very needful to her. I seed en go down street on the
[14829]     night of your worshipful's wedding to the lady at yer side,
[14830]     and I thought he looked low and faltering. And I followed
[14831]     en over Grey's Bridge, and he turned and zeed me, and said,
[14832]     'You go back!' But I followed, and he turned again, and
[14833]     said, 'Do you hear, sir? Go back!' But I zeed that he was
[14834]     low, and I followed on still. Then 'a said, 'Whittle, what
[14835]     do ye follow me for when I've told ye to go back all these
[14836]     times?' And I said, 'Because, sir, I see things be bad with
[14837]     'ee, and ye wer kind-like to mother if ye wer rough to
[14838]     me, and I would fain be kind-like to you.' Then he walked
[14839]     on, and I followed; and he never complained at me no more.
[14840]     We walked on like that all night; and in the blue o' the
[14841]     morning, when 'twas hardly day, I looked ahead o' me, and I
[14842]     zeed that he wambled, and could hardly drag along. By the
[14843]     time we had got past here, but I had seen that this house
[14844]     was empty as I went by, and I got him to come back; and I
[14845]     took down the boards from the windows, and helped him
[14846]     inside. 'What, Whittle,' he said, 'and can ye really be
[14847]     such a poor fond fool as to care for such a wretch as I!'
[14848]     Then I went on further, and some neighbourly woodmen lent me
[14849]     a bed, and a chair, and a few other traps, and we brought
[14850]     'em here, and made him as comfortable as we could. But he
[14851]     didn't gain strength, for you see, ma'am, he couldn't eat--
[14852]     no appetite at all--and he got weaker; and to-day he died.
[14853]     One of the neighbours have gone to get a man to measure
[14854]     him."
[14855]     
[14856]     "Dear me--is that so!" said Farfrae.
[14857]     
[14858]     As for Elizabeth, she said nothing.
[14859]     
[14860]     "Upon the head of his bed he pinned a piece of paper, with
[14861]     some writing upon it," continued Abel Whittle. "But not
[14862]     being a man o' letters, I can't read writing; so I don't
[14863]     know what it is. I can get it and show ye."
[14864]     
[14865]     They stood in silence while he ran into the cottage;
[14866]     returning in a moment with a crumpled scrap of paper. On it
[14867]     there was pencilled as follows:--
[14868]     
[14869]     
[14870]     MICHAEL HENCHARD'S WILL
[14871]     
[14872]     "That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or
[14873]     made to grieve on account of me.
[14874]       "& that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground.
[14875]       "& that no sexton be asked to toll the bell.
[14876]       "& that nobody is wished to see my dead body.
[14877]       "& that no murners walk behind me at my funeral.
[14878]       "& that no flours be planted on my grave,
[14879]       "& that no man remember me.
[14880]       "To this I put my name.
[14881]     
[14882]                                          MICHAEL HENCHARD
[14883]     
[14884]     
[14885]     "What are we to do?" said Donald, when he had handed
[14886]     the paper to her.
[14887]     
[14888]     She could not answer distinctly. "O Donald!" she cried at
[14889]     last through her tears, "what bitterness lies there! O I
[14890]     would not have minded so much if it had not been for my
[14891]     unkindness at that last parting!...But there's no altering--
[14892]     so it must be."
[14893]     
[14894]     What Henchard had written in the anguish of his dying was
[14895]     respected as far as practicable by Elizabeth-Jane, though
[14896]     less from a sense of the sacredness of last words, as such,
[14897]     than from her independent knowledge that the man who wrote
[14898]     them meant what he said. She knew the directions to be a
[14899]     piece of the same stuff that his whole life was made of, and
[14900]     hence were not to be tampered with to give herself a
[14901]     mournful pleasure, or her husband credit for large-
[14902]     heartedness.
[14903]     
[14904]     All was over at last, even her regrets for having
[14905]     misunderstood him on his last visit, for not having searched
[14906]     him out sooner, though these were deep and sharp for a good
[14907]     while. From this time forward Elizabeth-Jane found herself
[14908]     in a latitude of calm weather, kindly and grateful in
[14909]     itself, and doubly so after the Capharnaum in which some of
[14910]     her preceding years had been spent. As the lively and
[14911]     sparkling emotions of her early married live cohered into an
[14912]     equable serenity, the finer movements of her nature found
[14913]     scope in discovering to the narrow-lived ones around her the
[14914]     secret (as she had once learnt it) of making limited
[14915]     opportunities endurable; which she deemed to consist in the
[14916]     cunning enlargement, by a species of microscopic treatment,
[14917]     of those minute forms of satisfaction that offer themselves
[14918]     to everybody not in positive pain; which, thus handled, have
[14919]     much of the same inspiring effect upon life as wider
[14920]     interests cursorily embraced.
[14921]     
[14922]     Her teaching had a reflex action upon herself, insomuch that
[14923]     she thought she could perceive no great personal difference
[14924]     between being respected in the nether parts of Casterbridge
[14925]     and glorified at the uppermost end of the social world. Her
[14926]     position was, indeed, to a marked degree one that, in the
[14927]     common phrase, afforded much to be thankful for. That she
[14928]     was not demonstratively thankful was no fault of hers. Her
[14929]     experience had been of a kind to teach her, rightly or
[14930]     wrongly, that the doubtful honour of a brief transmit
[14931]     through a sorry world hardly called for effusiveness, even
[14932]     when the path was suddenly irradiated at some half-way point
[14933]     by daybeams rich as hers. But her strong sense that neither
[14934]     she nor any human being deserved less than was given, did
[14935]     not blind her to the fact that there were others receiving
[14936]     less who had deserved much more. And in being forced to
[14937]     class herself among the fortunate she did not cease to
[14938]     wonder at the persistence of the unforeseen, when the one to
[14939]     whom such unbroken tranquility had been accorded in the
[14940]     adult stage was she whose youth had seemed to teach that
[14941]     happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama
[14942]     of pain.