[1] 1.
[2]
[3]
[4] One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century
[5] had reached one-third of its span, a young man and woman,
[6] the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large
[7] village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot. They
[8] were plainly but not ill clad, though the thick hoar of dust
[9] which had accumulated on their shoes and garments from an
[10] obviously long journey lent a disadvantageous shabbiness to
[11] their appearance just now.
[12]
[13] The man was of fine figure, swarthy, and stern in aspect;
[14] and he showed in profile a facial angle so slightly inclined
[15] as to be almost perpendicular. He wore a short jacket of
[16] brown corduroy, newer than the remainder of his suit, which
[17] was a fustian waistcoat with white horn buttons, breeches of
[18] the same, tanned leggings, and a straw hat overlaid with
[19] black glazed canvas. At his back he carried by a looped
[20] strap a rush basket, from which protruded at one end the
[21] crutch of a hay-knife, a wimble for hay-bonds being also
[22] visible in the aperture. His measured, springless walk was
[23] the walk of the skilled countryman as distinct from the
[24] desultory shamble of the general labourer; while in the turn
[25] and plant of each foot there was, further, a dogged and
[26] cynical indifference personal to himself, showing its
[27] presence even in the regularly interchanging fustian folds,
[28] now in the left leg, now in the right, as he paced along.
[29]
[30] What was really peculiar, however, in this couple's
[31] progress, and would have attracted the attention of any
[32] casual observer otherwise disposed to overlook them, was the
[33] perfect silence they preserved. They walked side by side in
[34] such a way as to suggest afar off the low, easy,
[35] confidential chat of people full of reciprocity; but on
[36] closer view it could be discerned that the man was reading,
[37] or pretending to read, a ballad sheet which he kept before
[38] his eyes with some difficulty by the hand that was passed
[39] through the basket strap. Whether this apparent cause were
[40] the real cause, or whether it were an assumed one to escape
[41] an intercourse that would have been irksome to him, nobody
[42] but himself could have said precisely; but his taciturnity
[43] was unbroken, and the woman enjoyed no society whatever from
[44] his presence. Virtually she walked the highway alone, save
[45] for the child she bore. Sometimes the man's bent elbow
[46] almost touched her shoulder, for she kept as close to his
[47] side as was possible without actual contact, but she seemed
[48] to have no idea of taking his arm, nor he of offering it;
[49] and far from exhibiting surprise at his ignoring silence she
[50] appeared to receive it as a natural thing. If any word at
[51] all were uttered by the little group, it was an occasional
[52] whisper of the woman to the child--a tiny girl in short
[53] clothes and blue boots of knitted yarn--and the murmured
[54] babble of the child in reply.
[55]
[56] The chief--almost the only--attraction of the young woman's
[57] face was its mobility. When she looked down sideways to the
[58] girl she became pretty, and even handsome, particularly that
[59] in the action her features caught slantwise the rays of the
[60] strongly coloured sun, which made transparencies of her
[61] eyelids and nostrils and set fire on her lips. When she
[62] plodded on in the shade of the hedge, silently thinking, she
[63] had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems
[64] anything possible at the hands of Time and Chance except,
[65] perhaps, fair play. The first phase was the work of Nature,
[66] the second probably of civilization.
[67]
[68] That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the
[69] parents of the girl in arms there could be little doubt. No
[70] other than such relationship would have accounted for the
[71] atmosphere of stale familiarity which the trio carried along
[72] with them like a nimbus as they moved down the road.
[73]
[74] The wife mostly kept her eyes fixed ahead, though with
[75] little interest--the scene for that matter being one that
[76] might have been matched at almost any spot in any county in
[77] England at this time of the year; a road neither straight
[78] nor crooked, neither level nor hilly, bordered by hedges,
[79] trees, and other vegetation, which had entered the
[80] blackened-green stage of colour that the doomed leaves pass
[81] through on their way to dingy, and yellow, and red. The
[82] grassy margin of the bank, and the nearest hedgerow boughs,
[83] were powdered by the dust that had been stirred over them by
[84] hasty vehicles, the same dust as it lay on the road
[85] deadening their footfalls like a carpet; and this, with the
[86] aforesaid total absence of conversation, allowed every
[87] extraneous sound to be heard.
[88]
[89] For a long time there was none, beyond the voice of a weak
[90] bird singing a trite old evening song that might doubtless
[91] have been heard on the hill at the same hour, and with the
[92] self-same trills, quavers, and breves, at any sunset of that
[93] season for centuries untold. But as they approached the
[94] village sundry distant shouts and rattles reached their ears
[95] from some elevated spot in that direction, as yet screened
[96] from view by foliage. When the outlying houses of Weydon-
[97] Priors could just be described, the family group was met by
[98] a turnip-hoer with his hoe on his shoulder, and his dinner-
[99] bag suspended from it. The reader promptly glanced up.
[100]
[101] "Any trade doing here?" he asked phlegmatically, designating
[102] the village in his van by a wave of the broadsheet. And
[103] thinking the labourer did not understand him, he added,
[104] "Anything in the hay-trussing line?"
[105]
[106] The turnip-hoer had already begun shaking his head. "Why,
[107] save the man, what wisdom's in him that 'a should come to
[108] Weydon for a job of that sort this time o' year?"
[109]
[110] "Then is there any house to let--a little small new cottage
[111] just a builded, or such like?" asked the other.
[112]
[113] The pessimist still maintained a negative. "Pulling down is
[114] more the nater of Weydon. There were five houses cleared
[115] away last year, and three this; and the volk nowhere to go--
[116] no, not so much as a thatched hurdle; that's the way o'
[117] Weydon-Priors."
[118]
[119] The hay-trusser, which he obviously was, nodded with some
[120] superciliousness. Looking towards the village, he
[121] continued, "There is something going on here, however, is
[122] there not?"
[123]
[124] "Ay. 'Tis Fair Day. Though what you hear now is little
[125] more than the clatter and scurry of getting away the money
[126] o' children and fools, for the real business is done earlier
[127] than this. I've been working within sound o't all day, but
[128] I didn't go up--not I. 'Twas no business of mine."
[129]
[130] The trusser and his family proceeded on their way, and soon
[131] entered the Fair-field, which showed standing-places and
[132] pens where many hundreds of horses and sheep had been
[133] exhibited and sold in the forenoon, but were now in great
[134] part taken away. At present, as their informant had
[135] observed, but little real business remained on hand, the
[136] chief being the sale by auction of a few inferior animals,
[137] that could not otherwise be disposed of, and had been
[138] absolutely refused by the better class of traders, who came
[139] and went early. Yet the crowd was denser now than during
[140] the morning hours, the frivolous contingent of visitors,
[141] including journeymen out for a holiday, a stray soldier or
[142] two come on furlough, village shopkeepers, and the like,
[143] having latterly flocked in; persons whose activities found a
[144] congenial field among the peep-shows, toy-stands, waxworks,
[145] inspired monsters, disinterested medical men who travelled
[146] for the public good, thimble-riggers, nick-nack vendors, and
[147] readers of Fate.
[148]
[149] Neither of our pedestrians had much heart for these things,
[150] and they looked around for a refreshment tent among the many
[151] which dotted the down. Two, which stood nearest to them in
[152] the ochreous haze of expiring sunlight, seemed almost
[153] equally inviting. One was formed of new, milk-hued canvas,
[154] and bore red flags on its summit; it announced "Good Home-
[155] brewed Beer, Ale, and Cyder." The other was less new; a
[156] little iron stove-pipe came out of it at the back and in
[157] front appeared the placard, "Good Furmity Sold Hear." The
[158] man mentally weighed the two inscriptions and inclined to
[159] the former tent.
[160]
[161] "No--no--the other one," said the woman. "I always like
[162] furmity; and so does Elizabeth-Jane; and so will you. It is
[163] nourishing after a long hard day."
[164]
[165] "I've never tasted it," said the man. However, he gave way
[166] to her representations, and they entered the furmity booth
[167] forthwith.
[168]
[169] A rather numerous company appeared within, seated at the
[170] long narrow tables that ran down the tent on each side. At
[171] the upper end stood a stove, containing a charcoal fire,
[172] over which hung a large three-legged crock, sufficiently
[173] polished round the rim to show that it was made of bell-
[174] metal. A haggish creature of about fifty presided, in a
[175] white apron, which as it threw an air of respectability over
[176] her as far as it extended, was made so wide as to reach
[177] nearly round her waist. She slowly stirred the contents of
[178] the pot. The dull scrape of her large spoon was audible
[179] throughout the tent as she thus kept from burning the
[180] mixture of corn in the grain, flour, milk, raisins,
[181] currants, and what not, that composed the antiquated slop in
[182] which she dealt. Vessels holding the separate ingredients
[183] stood on a white-clothed table of boards and trestles close by.
[184]
[185] The young man and woman ordered a basin each of the mixture,
[186] steaming hot, and sat down to consume it at leisure. This
[187] was very well so far, for furmity, as the woman had said, was
[188] nourishing, and as proper a food as could be obtained within
[189] the four seas; though, to those not accustomed to it, the grains
[190] of wheat swollen as large as lemon-pips, which floated on its
[191] surface, might have a deterrent effect at first.
[192]
[193] But there was more in that tent than met the cursory glance;
[194] and the man, with the instinct of a perverse character,
[195] scented it quickly. After a mincing attack on his bowl, he
[196] watched the hag's proceedings from the corner of his eye,
[197] and saw the game she played. He winked to her, and passed
[198] up his basin in reply to her nod; when she took a bottle
[199] from under the table, slily measured out a quantity of its
[200] contents, and tipped the same into the man's furmity. The
[201] liquor poured in was rum. The man as slily sent back money
[202] in payment.
[203]
[204] He found the concoction, thus strongly laced, much more to
[205] his satisfaction than it had been in its natural state. His
[206] wife had observed the proceeding with much uneasiness; but
[207] he persuaded her to have hers laced also, and she agreed to
[208] a milder allowance after some misgiving.
[209]
[210] The man finished his basin, and called for another, the rum
[211] being signalled for in yet stronger proportion. The effect
[212] of it was soon apparent in his manner, and his wife but too
[213] sadly perceived that in strenuously steering off the rocks
[214] of the licensed liquor-tent she had only got into maelstrom
[215] depths here amongst the smugglers.
[216]
[217] The child began to prattle impatiently, and the wife more
[218] than once said to her husband, "Michael, how about our
[219] lodging? You know we may have trouble in getting it if we
[220] don't go soon."
[221]
[222] But he turned a deaf ear to those bird-like chirpings. He
[223] talked loud to the company. The child's black eyes, after
[224] slow, round, ruminating gazes at the candles when they were
[225] lighted, fell together; then they opened, then shut again,
[226] and she slept.
[227]
[228] At the end of the first basin the man had risen to serenity;
[229] at the second he was jovial; at the third, argumentative, at
[230] the fourth, the qualities signified by the shape of his
[231] face, the occasional clench of his mouth, and the fiery
[232] spark of his dark eye, began to tell in his conduct; he was
[233] overbearing--even brilliantly quarrelsome.
[234]
[235] The conversation took a high turn, as it often does on such
[236] occasions. The ruin of good men by bad wives, and, more
[237] particularly, the frustration of many a promising youth's
[238] high aims and hopes and the extinction of his energies by an
[239] early imprudent marriage, was the theme.
[240]
[241] "I did for myself that way thoroughly," said the trusser
[242] with a contemplative bitterness that was well-night
[243] resentful. "I married at eighteen, like the fool that I
[244] was; and this is the consequence o't." He pointed at himself
[245] and family with a wave of the hand intended to bring out the
[246] penuriousness of the exhibition.
[247]
[248] The young woman his wife, who seemed accustomed to such
[249] remarks, acted as if she did not hear them, and continued
[250] her intermittent private words of tender trifles to the
[251] sleeping and waking child, who was just big enough to be
[252] placed for a moment on the bench beside her when she wished
[253] to ease her arms. The man continued--
[254]
[255] "I haven't more than fifteen shillings in the world, and yet
[256] I am a good experienced hand in my line. I'd challenge
[257] England to beat me in the fodder business; and if I were a
[258] free man again I'd be worth a thousand pound before I'd done
[259] o't. But a fellow never knows these little things till all
[260] chance of acting upon 'em is past."
[261]
[262] The auctioneer selling the old horses in the field outside
[263] could be heard saying, "Now this is the last lot--now who'll
[264] take the last lot for a song? Shall I say forty shillings?
[265] 'Tis a very promising broodmare, a trifle over five years
[266] old, and nothing the matter with the hoss at all, except
[267] that she's a little holler in the back and had her left eye
[268] knocked out by the kick of another, her own sister, coming
[269] along the road."
[270]
[271] "For my part I don't see why men who have got wives and
[272] don't want 'em, shouldn't get rid of 'em as these gipsy
[273] fellows do their old horses," said the man in the tent.
[274] "Why shouldn't they put 'em up and sell 'em by auction to
[275] men who are in need of such articles? Hey? Why, begad, I'd
[276] sell mine this minute if anybody would buy her!"
[277]
[278] "There's them that would do that," some of the guests
[279] replied, looking at the woman, who was by no means ill-favoured.
[280]
[281] "True," said a smoking gentleman, whose coat had the fine
[282] polish about the collar, elbows, seams, and shoulder-blades
[283] that long-continued friction with grimy surfaces will
[284] produce, and which is usually more desired on furniture than
[285] on clothes. From his appearance he had possibly been in
[286] former time groom or coachman to some neighbouring county
[287] family. "I've had my breedings in as good circles, I may
[288] say, as any man," he added, "and I know true cultivation, or
[289] nobody do; and I can declare she's got it--in the bone, mind
[290] ye, I say--as much as any female in the fair--though it may
[291] want a little bringing out." Then, crossing his legs, he
[292] resumed his pipe with a nicely-adjusted gaze at a point in
[293] the air.
[294]
[295] The fuddled young husband stared for a few seconds at this
[296] unexpected praise of his wife, half in doubt of the wisdom of
[297] his own attitude towards the possessor of such qualities. But
[298] he speedily lapsed into his former conviction, and said harshly--
[299]
[300] "Well, then, now is your chance; I am open to an offer for
[301] this gem o' creation."
[302]
[303] She turned to her husband and murmured, "Michael, you have
[304] talked this nonsense in public places before. A joke is a
[305] joke, but you may make it once too often, mind!"
[306]
[307] "I know I've said it before; I meant it. All I want is a
[308] buyer."
[309]
[310] At the moment a swallow, one among the last of the season,
[311] which had by chance found its way through an opening into
[312] the upper part of the tent, flew to and from quick curves
[313] above their heads, causing all eyes to follow it absently.
[314] In watching the bird till it made its escape the assembled
[315] company neglected to respond to the workman's offer, and the
[316] subject dropped.
[317]
[318] But a quarter of an hour later the man, who had gone on
[319] lacing his furmity more and more heavily, though he was
[320] either so strong-minded or such an intrepid toper that he
[321] still appeared fairly sober, recurred to the old strain, as
[322] in a musical fantasy the instrument fetches up the original
[323] theme. "Here--I am waiting to know about this offer of
[324] mine. The woman is no good to me. Who'll have her?"
[325]
[326] The company had by this time decidedly degenerated, and the
[327] renewed inquiry was received with a laugh of appreciation.
[328] The woman whispered; she was imploring and anxious: "Come,
[329] come, it is getting dark, and this nonsense won't do. If
[330] you don't come along, I shall go without you. Come!"
[331]
[332] She waited and waited; yet he did not move. In ten minutes
[333] the man broke in upon the desultory conversation of the
[334] furmity drinkers with. "I asked this question, and nobody
[335] answered to 't. Will any Jack Rag or Tom Straw among ye buy
[336] my goods?"
[337]
[338] The woman's manner changed, and her face assumed the grim
[339] shape and colour of which mention has been made.
[340]
[341] "Mike, Mike," she said; "this is getting serious. O!--too
[342] serious!"
[343]
[344] "Will anybody buy her?" said the man.
[345]
[346] "I wish somebody would," said she firmly. "Her present
[347] owner is not at all to her liking!"
[348]
[349] "Nor you to mine," said he. "So we are agreed about that.
[350] Gentlemen, you hear? It's an agreement to part. She shall
[351] take the girl if she wants to, and go her ways. I'll take
[352] my tools, and go my ways. 'Tis simple as Scripture history.
[353] Now then, stand up, Susan, and show yourself."
[354]
[355] "Don't, my chiel," whispered a buxom staylace dealer in
[356] voluminous petticoats, who sat near the woman; "yer good man
[357] don't know what he's saying."
[358]
[359] The woman, however, did stand up. "Now, who's auctioneer?"
[360] cried the hay-trusser.
[361]
[362] "I be," promptly answered a short man, with a nose
[363] resembling a copper knob, a damp voice, and eyes like
[364] button-holes. "Who'll make an offer for this lady?"
[365]
[366] The woman looked on the ground, as if she maintained her
[367] position by a supreme effort of will.
[368]
[369] "Five shillings," said someone, at which there was a laugh.
[370]
[371] "No insults," said the husband. "Who'll say a guinea?"
[372]
[373] Nobody answered; and the female dealer in staylaces
[374] interposed.
[375]
[376] "Behave yerself moral, good man, for Heaven's love! Ah, what
[377] a cruelty is the poor soul married to! Bed and board is dear
[378] at some figures 'pon my 'vation 'tis!"
[379]
[380] "Set it higher, auctioneer," said the trusser.
[381]
[382] "Two guineas!" said the auctioneer; and no one replied.
[383]
[384] "If they don't take her for that, in ten seconds they'll
[385] have to give more," said the husband. "Very well. Now
[386] auctioneer, add another."
[387]
[388] "Three guineas--going for three guineas!" said the rheumy
[389] man.
[390]
[391] "No bid?" said the husband. "Good Lord, why she's cost me
[392] fifty times the money, if a penny. Go on."
[393]
[394] "Four guineas!" cried the auctioneer.
[395]
[396] "I'll tell ye what--I won't sell her for less than five,"
[397] said the husband, bringing down his fist so that the basins
[398] danced. "I'll sell her for five guineas to any man that
[399] will pay me the money, and treat her well; and he shall have
[400] her for ever, and never hear aught o' me. But she shan't go
[401] for less. Now then--five guineas--and she's yours. Susan,
[402] you agree?"
[403]
[404] She bowed her head with absolute indifference.
[405]
[406] "Five guineas," said the auctioneer, "or she'll be
[407] withdrawn. Do anybody give it? The last time. Yes or no?"
[408]
[409] "Yes," said a loud voice from the doorway.
[410]
[411] All eyes were turned. Standing in the triangular opening
[412] which formed the door of the tent was a sailor, who,
[413] unobserved by the rest, had arrived there within the last
[414] two or three minutes. A dead silence followed his
[415] affirmation.
[416]
[417] "You say you do?" asked the husband, staring at him.
[418]
[419] "I say so," replied the sailor.
[420]
[421] "Saying is one thing, and paying is another. Where's the
[422] money?"
[423]
[424] The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew at the woman,
[425] came in, unfolded five crisp pieces of paper, and threw them
[426] down upon the tablecloth. They were Bank-of-England notes
[427] for five pounds. Upon the face of this he clinked down the
[428] shillings severally--one, two, three, four, five.
[429]
[430] The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a
[431] challenge for the same till then deemed slightly
[432] hypothetical had a great effect upon the spectators. Their
[433] eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chief actors, and
[434] then upon the notes as they lay, weighted by the shillings,
[435] on the table.
[436]
[437] Up to this moment it could not positively have been asserted
[438] that the man, in spite of his tantalizing declaration, was
[439] really in earnest. The spectators had indeed taken the
[440] proceedings throughout as a piece of mirthful irony carried
[441] to extremes; and had assumed that, being out of work, he
[442] was, as a consequence, out of temper with the world, and
[443] society, and his nearest kin. But with the demand and
[444] response of real cash the jovial frivolity of the scene
[445] departed. A lurid colour seemed to fill the tent, and
[446] change the aspect of all therein. The mirth-wrinkles left
[447] the listeners' faces, and they waited with parting lips.
[448]
[449] "Now," said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low
[450] dry voice sounded quite loud, "before you go further,
[451] Michael, listen to me. If you touch that money, I and this
[452] girl go with the man. Mind, it is a joke no longer."
[453]
[454] "A joke? Of course it is not a joke!" shouted her husband,
[455] his resentment rising at her suggestion. "I take the money;
[456] the sailor takes you. That's plain enough. It has been
[457] done elsewhere--and why not here?"
[458]
[459] "'Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is
[460] willing," said the sailor blandly. "I wouldn't hurt her
[461] feelings for the world."
[462]
[463] "Faith, nor I," said her husband. "But she is willing,
[464] provided she can have the child. She said so only the other
[465] day when I talked o't!"
[466]
[467] "That you swear?" said the sailor to her.
[468]
[469] "I do," said she, after glancing at her husband's face and
[470] seeing no repentance there.
[471]
[472] "Very well, she shall have the child, and the bargain's
[473] complete," said the trusser. He took the sailor's notes and
[474] deliberately folded them, and put them with the shillings in
[475] a high remote pocket, with an air of finality.
[476]
[477] The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. "Come along!" he
[478] said kindly. "The little one too--the more the merrier!"
[479] She paused for an instant, with a close glance at him. Then
[480] dropping her eyes again, and saying nothing, she took up the
[481] child and followed him as he made towards the door. On
[482] reaching it, she turned, and pulling off her wedding-ring,
[483] flung it across the booth in the hay-trusser's face.
[484]
[485] "Mike," she said, "I've lived with thee a couple of years,
[486] and had nothing but temper! Now I'm no more to 'ee; I'll try
[487] my luck elsewhere. 'Twill be better for me and Elizabeth-
[488] Jane, both. So good-bye!"
[489]
[490] Seizing the sailor's arm with her right hand, and mounting
[491] the little girl on her left, she went out of the tent
[492] sobbing bitterly.
[493]
[494] A stolid look of concern filled the husband's face, as if,
[495] after all, he had not quite anticipated this ending; and
[496] some of the guests laughed.
[497]
[498] "Is she gone?" he said.
[499]
[500] "Faith, ay! she's gone clane enough," said some rustics near
[501] the door.
[502]
[503] He rose and walked to the entrance with the careful tread of
[504] one conscious of his alcoholic load. Some others followed,
[505] and they stood looking into the twilight. The difference
[506] between the peacefulness of inferior nature and the wilful
[507] hostilities of mankind was very apparent at this place. In
[508] contrast with the harshness of the act just ended within the
[509] tent was the sight of several horses crossing their necks
[510] and rubbing each other lovingly as they waited in patience
[511] to be harnessed for the homeward journey. Outside the fair,
[512] in the valleys and woods, all was quiet. The sun had
[513] recently set, and the west heaven was hung with rosy cloud,
[514] which seemed permanent, yet slowly changed. To watch it was
[515] like looking at some grand feat of stagery from a darkened
[516] auditorium. In presence of this scene after the other there
[517] was a natural instinct to abjure man as the blot on an
[518] otherwise kindly universe; till it was remembered that all
[519] terrestrial conditions were intermittent, and that mankind
[520] might some night be innocently sleeping when these quiet
[521] objects were raging loud.
[522]
[523] "Where do the sailor live?" asked a spectator, when they had
[524] vainly gazed around.
[525]
[526] "God knows that," replied the man who had seen high life.
[527] "He's without doubt a stranger here."
[528]
[529] "He came in about five minutes ago," said the furmity woman,
[530] joining the rest with her hands on her hips. "And then 'a
[531] stepped back, and then 'a looked in again. I'm not a penny
[532] the better for him."
[533]
[534] "Serves the husband well be-right," said the staylace
[535] vendor. "A comely respectable body like her--what can a man
[536] want more? I glory in the woman's sperrit. I'd ha' done it
[537] myself--od send if I wouldn't, if a husband had behaved so
[538] to me! I'd go, and 'a might call, and call, till his keacorn
[539] was raw; but I'd never come back--no, not till the great
[540] trumpet, would I!"
[541]
[542] "Well, the woman will be better off," said another of a more
[543] deliberative turn. "For seafaring natures be very good
[544] shelter for shorn lambs, and the man do seem to have plenty
[545] of money, which is what she's not been used to lately, by
[546] all showings."
[547]
[548] "Mark me--I'll not go after her!" said the trusser,
[549] returning doggedly to his seat. "Let her go! If she's up to
[550] such vagaries she must suffer for 'em. She'd no business to
[551] take the maid--'tis my maid; and if it were the doing again
[552] she shouldn't have her!"
[553]
[554] Perhaps from some little sense of having countenanced an
[555] indefensible proceeding, perhaps because it was late, the
[556] customers thinned away from the tent shortly after this
[557] episode. The man stretched his elbows forward on the table
[558] leant his face upon his arms, and soon began to snore. The
[559] furmity seller decided to close for the night, and after
[560] seeing the rum-bottles, milk, corn, raisins, etc., that
[561] remained on hand, loaded into the cart, came to where the
[562] man reclined. She shook him, but could not wake him. As
[563] the tent was not to be struck that night, the fair
[564] continuing for two or three days, she decided to let the
[565] sleeper, who was obviously no tramp, stay where he was, and
[566] his basket with him. Extinguishing the last candle, and
[567] lowering the flap of the tent, she left it, and drove away.
[568]
[569]
[570]
[571] 2.
[572]
[573]
[574] The morning sun was streaming through the crevices of the
[575] canvas when the man awoke. A warm glow pervaded the whole
[576] atmosphere of the marquee, and a single big blue fly buzzed
[577] musically round and round it. Besides the buzz of the fly
[578] there was not a sound. He looked about--at the benches--at
[579] the table supported by trestles--at his basket of tools--at
[580] the stove where the furmity had been boiled--at the empty
[581] basins--at some shed grains of wheat--at the corks which
[582] dotted the grassy floor. Among the odds and ends he
[583] discerned a little shining object, and picked it up. It was
[584] his wife's ring.
[585]
[586] A confused picture of the events of the previous evening
[587] seemed to come back to him, and he thrust his hand into his
[588] breast-pocket. A rustling revealed the sailor's bank-notes
[589] thrust carelessly in.
[590]
[591] This second verification of his dim memories was enough; he
[592] knew now they were not dreams. He remained seated, looking
[593] on the ground for some time. "I must get out of this as
[594] soon as I can," he said deliberately at last, with the air
[595] of one who could not catch his thoughts without pronouncing
[596] them. "She's gone--to be sure she is--gone with that sailor
[597] who bought her, and little Elizabeth-Jane. We walked here,
[598] and I had the furmity, and rum in it--and sold her. Yes,
[599] that's what's happened and here am I. Now, what am I to do--
[600] am I sober enough to walk, I wonder?" He stood up, found
[601] that he was in fairly good condition for progress,
[602] unencumbered. Next he shouldered his tool basket, and found
[603] he could carry it. Then lifting the tent door he emerged
[604] into the open air.
[605]
[606] Here the man looked around with gloomy curiosity. The
[607] freshness of the September morning inspired and braced him
[608] as he stood. He and his family had been weary when they
[609] arrived the night before, and they had observed but little
[610] of the place; so that he now beheld it as a new thing. It
[611] exhibited itself as the top of an open down, bounded on one
[612] extreme by a plantation, and approached by a winding road.
[613] At the bottom stood the village which lent its name to the
[614] upland and the annual fair that was held thereon. The spot
[615] stretched downward into valleys, and onward to other
[616] uplands, dotted with barrows, and trenched with the remains
[617] of prehistoric forts. The whole scene lay under the rays of
[618] a newly risen sun, which had not as yet dried a single blade
[619] of the heavily dewed grass, whereon the shadows of the
[620] yellow and red vans were projected far away, those thrown by
[621] the felloe of each wheel being elongated in shape to the
[622] orbit of a comet. All the gipsies and showmen who had
[623] remained on the ground lay snug within their carts and tents
[624] or wrapped in horse-cloths under them, and were silent and
[625] still as death, with the exception of an occasional snore
[626] that revealed their presence. But the Seven Sleepers had a
[627] dog; and dogs of the mysterious breeds that vagrants own,
[628] that are as much like cats as dogs and as much like foxes as
[629] cats also lay about here. A little one started up under one
[630] of the carts, barked as a matter of principle, and quickly
[631] lay down again. He was the only positive spectator of the
[632] hay-trusser's exit from the Weydon Fair-field.
[633]
[634] This seemed to accord with his desire. He went on in silent
[635] thought, unheeding the yellowhammers which flitted about the
[636] hedges with straws in their bills, the crowns of the
[637] mushrooms, and the tinkling of local sheep-bells, whose
[638] wearer had had the good fortune not to be included in the
[639] fair. When he reached a lane, a good mile from the scene of
[640] the previous evening, the man pitched his basket and leant
[641] upon a gate. A difficult problem or two occupied his mind.
[642]
[643] "Did I tell my name to anybody last night, or didn't I tell
[644] my name?" he said to himself; and at last concluded that he
[645] did not. His general demeanour was enough to show how he
[646] was surprised and nettled that his wife had taken him so
[647] literally--as much could be seen in his face, and in the way
[648] he nibbled a straw which he pulled from the hedge. He knew
[649] that she must have been somewhat excited to do this;
[650] moreover, she must have believed that there was some sort of
[651] binding force in the transaction. On this latter point he
[652] felt almost certain, knowing her freedom from levity of
[653] character, and the extreme simplicity of her intellect.
[654] There may, too, have been enough recklessness and resentment
[655] beneath her ordinary placidity to make her stifle any
[656] momentary doubts. On a previous occasion when he had
[657] declared during a fuddle that he would dispose of her as he
[658] had done, she had replied that she would not hear him say
[659] that many times more before it happened, in the resigned
[660] tones of a fatalist...."Yet she knows I am not in my senses
[661] when I do that!" he exclaimed. "Well, I must walk about
[662] till I find her....Seize her, why didn't she know better
[663] than bring me into this disgrace!" he roared out. "She
[664] wasn't queer if I was. 'Tis like Susan to show such idiotic
[665] simplicity. Meek--that meekness has done me more harm than
[666] the bitterest temper!"
[667]
[668] When he was calmer he turned to his original conviction that
[669] he must somehow find her and his little Elizabeth-Jane, and
[670] put up with the shame as best he could. It was of his own
[671] making, and he ought to bear it. But first he resolved to
[672] register an oath, a greater oath than he had ever sworn
[673] before: and to do it properly he required a fit place and
[674] imagery; for there was something fetichistic in this man's
[675] beliefs.
[676]
[677] He shouldered his basket and moved on, casting his eyes
[678] inquisitively round upon the landscape as he walked, and at
[679] the distance of three or four miles perceived the roofs of a
[680] village and the tower of a church. He instantly made
[681] towards the latter object. The village was quite still, it
[682] being that motionless hour of rustic daily life which fills
[683] the interval between the departure of the field-labourers to
[684] their work, and the rising of their wives and daughters to
[685] prepare the breakfast for their return. Hence he reached
[686] the church without observation, and the door being only
[687] latched he entered. The hay-trusser deposited his basket by
[688] the font, went up the nave till he reached the altar-rails,
[689] and opening the gate entered the sacrarium, where he seemed
[690] to feel a sense of the strangeness for a moment; then he
[691] knelt upon the footpace. Dropping his head upon the clamped
[692] book which lay on the Communion-table, he said aloud--
[693]
[694] "I, Michael Henchard, on this morning of the sixteenth of
[695] September, do take an oath before God here in this solemn
[696] place that I will avoid all strong liquors for the space of
[697] twenty-one years to come, being a year for every year that I
[698] have lived. And this I swear upon the book before me; and
[699] may I be strook dumb, blind, and helpless, if I break this
[700] my oath!"
[701]
[702] When he had said it and kissed the big book, the hay-trusser
[703] arose, and seemed relieved at having made a start in a new
[704] direction. While standing in the porch a moment he saw a
[705] thick jet of wood smoke suddenly start up from the red
[706] chimney of a cottage near, and knew that the occupant had
[707] just lit her fire. He went round to the door, and the
[708] housewife agreed to prepare him some breakfast for a
[709] trifling payment, which was done. Then he started on the
[710] search for his wife and child.
[711]
[712] The perplexing nature of the undertaking became apparent
[713] soon enough. Though he examined and inquired, and walked
[714] hither and thither day after day, no such characters as
[715] those he described had anywhere been seen since the evening
[716] of the fair. To add to the difficulty he could gain no
[717] sound of the sailor's name. As money was short with him he
[718] decided, after some hesitation, to spend the sailor's money
[719] in the prosecution of this search; but it was equally in
[720] vain. The truth was that a certain shyness of revealing his
[721] conduct prevented Michael Henchard from following up the
[722] investigation with the loud hue-and-cry such a pursuit
[723] demanded to render it effectual; and it was probably for
[724] this reason that he obtained no clue, though everything was
[725] done by him that did not involve an explanation of the
[726] circumstances under which he had lost her.
[727]
[728] Weeks counted up to months, and still he searched on,
[729] maintaining himself by small jobs of work in the intervals.
[730] By this time he had arrived at a seaport, and there he
[731] derived intelligence that persons answering somewhat to his
[732] description had emigrated a little time before. Then he
[733] said he would search no longer, and that he would go and
[734] settle in the district which he had had for some time in his
[735] mind.
[736]
[737] Next day he started, journeying south-westward, and did not
[738] pause, except for nights' lodgings, till he reached the town
[739] of Casterbridge, in a far distant part of Wessex.
[740]
[741]
[742]
[743] 3.
[744]
[745]
[746] The highroad into the village of Weydon-Priors was again
[747] carpeted with dust. The trees had put on as of yore their
[748] aspect of dingy green, and where the Henchard family of
[749] three had once walked along, two persons not unconnected
[750] with the family walked now.
[751]
[752] The scene in its broad aspect had so much of its previous
[753] character, even to the voices and rattle from the
[754] neighbouring village down, that it might for that matter
[755] have been the afternoon following the previously recorded
[756] episode. Change was only to be observed in details; but
[757] here it was obvious that a long procession of years had
[758] passed by. One of the two who walked the road was she who
[759] had figured as the young wife of Henchard on the previous
[760] occasion; now her face had lost much of its rotundity; her
[761] skin had undergone a textural change; and though her hair
[762] had not lost colour it was considerably thinner than
[763] heretofore. She was dressed in the mourning clothes of a
[764] widow. Her companion, also in black, appeared as a well-
[765] formed young woman about eighteen, completely possessed of
[766] that ephemeral precious essence youth, which is itself
[767] beauty, irrespective of complexion or contour.
[768]
[769] A glance was sufficient to inform the eye that this was
[770] Susan Henchard's grown-up daughter. While life's middle
[771] summer had set its hardening mark on the mother's face, her
[772] former spring-like specialities were transferred so
[773] dexterously by Time to the second figure, her child, that
[774] the absence of certain facts within her mother's knowledge
[775] from the girl's mind would have seemed for the moment, to
[776] one reflecting on those facts, to be a curious imperfection
[777] in Nature's powers of continuity.
[778]
[779] They walked with joined hands, and it could be perceived
[780] that this was the act of simple affection. The daughter
[781] carried in her outer hand a withy basket of old-fashioned
[782] make; the mother a blue bundle, which contrasted oddly with
[783] her black stuff gown.
[784]
[785] Reaching the outskirts of the village they pursued the same
[786] track as formerly, and ascended to the fair. Here, too it
[787] was evident that the years had told. Certain mechanical
[788] improvements might have been noticed in the roundabouts and
[789] high-fliers, machines for testing rustic strength and
[790] weight, and in the erections devoted to shooting for nuts.
[791] But the real business of the fair had considerably dwindled.
[792] The new periodical great markets of neighbouring towns were
[793] beginning to interfere seriously with the trade carried on
[794] here for centuries. The pens for sheep, the tie-ropes for
[795] horses, were about half as long as they had been. The
[796] stalls of tailors, hosiers, coopers, linen-drapers, and
[797] other such trades had almost disappeared, and the vehicles
[798] were far less numerous. The mother and daughter threaded
[799] the crowd for some little distance, and then stood still.
[800]
[801] "Why did we hinder our time by coming in here? I thought you
[802] wished to get onward?" said the maiden.
[803]
[804] "Yes, my dear Elizabeth-Jane," explained the other. "But I
[805] had a fancy for looking up here."
[806]
[807] "Why?"
[808]
[809] "It was here I first met with Newson--on such a day as
[810] this."
[811]
[812] "First met with father here? Yes, you have told me so
[813] before. And now he's drowned and gone from us!" As she
[814] spoke the girl drew a card from her pocket and looked at it
[815] with a sigh. It was edged with black, and inscribed within
[816] a design resembling a mural tablet were the words, "In
[817] affectionate memory of Richard Newson, mariner, who was
[818] unfortunately lost at sea, in the month of November 184--,
[819] aged forty-one years."
[820]
[821] "And it was here," continued her mother, with more
[822] hesitation, "that I last saw the relation we are going to
[823] look for--Mr. Michael Henchard."
[824]
[825] "What is his exact kin to us, mother? I have never clearly
[826] had it told me."
[827]
[828] "He is, or was--for he may be dead--a connection by
[829] marriage," said her mother deliberately.
[830]
[831] "That's exactly what you have said a score of times before!"
[832] replied the young woman, looking about her inattentively.
[833] "He's not a near relation, I suppose?"
[834]
[835] "Not by any means."
[836]
[837] "He was a hay-trusser, wasn't he, when you last heard of
[838] him?
[839]
[840] "He was."
[841]
[842] "I suppose he never knew me?" the girl innocently continued.
[843]
[844] Mrs. Henchard paused for a moment, and answered un-easily,
[845] "Of course not, Elizabeth-Jane. But come this way." She
[846] moved on to another part of the field.
[847]
[848] "It is not much use inquiring here for anybody, I should
[849] think," the daughter observed, as she gazed round about.
[850] "People at fairs change like the leaves of trees; and I
[851] daresay you are the only one here to-day who was here all
[852] those years ago."
[853]
[854] "I am not so sure of that," said Mrs. Newson, as she now
[855] called herself, keenly eyeing something under a green bank a
[856] little way off. "See there."
[857]
[858] The daughter looked in the direction signified. The object
[859] pointed out was a tripod of sticks stuck into the earth,
[860] from which hung a three-legged crock, kept hot by a
[861] smouldering wood fire beneath. Over the pot stooped an old
[862] woman haggard, wrinkled, and almost in rags. She stirred
[863] the contents of the pot with a large spoon, and occasionally
[864] croaked in a broken voice, "Good furmity sold here!"
[865]
[866] It was indeed the former mistress of the furmity tent--once
[867] thriving, cleanly, white-aproned, and chinking with money--
[868] now tentless, dirty, owning no tables or benches, and having
[869] scarce any customers except two small whity-brown boys, who
[870] came up and asked for "A ha'p'orth, please--good measure,"
[871] which she served in a couple of chipped yellow basins of
[872] commonest clay.
[873]
[874] "She was here at that time," resumed Mrs. Newson, making a
[875] step as if to draw nearer.
[876]
[877] "Don't speak to her--it isn't respectable!" urged the other.
[878]
[879] "I will just say a word--you, Elizabeth-Jane, can stay
[880] here."
[881]
[882] The girl was not loth, and turned to some stalls of coloured
[883] prints while her mother went forward. The old woman begged
[884] for the latter's custom as soon as she saw her, and
[885] responded to Mrs. Henchard-Newson's request for a penny-
[886] worth with more alacrity than she had shown in selling six-
[887] pennyworths in her younger days. When the soi-disant
[888] widow had taken the basin of thin poor slop that stood for
[889] the rich concoction of the former time, the hag opened a
[890] little basket behind the fire, and looking up slily,
[891] whispered, "Just a thought o' rum in it?--smuggled, you
[892] know--say two penn'orth--'twill make it slip down like
[893] cordial!"
[894]
[895] Her customer smiled bitterly at this survival of the old
[896] trick, and shook her head with a meaning the old woman was
[897] far from translating. She pretended to eat a little of the
[898] furmity with the leaden spoon offered, and as she did so
[899] said blandly to the hag, "You've seen better days?"
[900]
[901] "Ah, ma'am--well ye may say it!" responded the old woman,
[902] opening the sluices of her heart forthwith. "I've stood in
[903] this fair-ground, maid, wife, and widow, these nine-and-
[904] thirty years, and in that time have known what it was to do
[905] business with the richest stomachs in the land! Ma'am you'd
[906] hardly believe that I was once the owner of a great
[907] pavilion-tent that was the attraction of the fair. Nobody
[908] could come, nobody could go, without having a dish of Mrs.
[909] Goodenough's furmity. I knew the clergy's taste, the dandy
[910] gent's taste; I knew the town's taste, the country's taste.
[911] I even knowed the taste of the coarse shameless females.
[912] But Lord's my life--the world's no memory; straightforward
[913] dealings don't bring profit--'tis the sly and the underhand
[914] that get on in these times!"
[915]
[916] Mrs. Newson glanced round--her daughter was still bending
[917] over the distant stalls. "Can you call to mind," she said
[918] cautiously to the old woman, "the sale of a wife by her
[919] husband in your tent eighteen years ago to-day?"
[920]
[921] The hag reflected, and half shook her head. "If it had been
[922] a big thing I should have minded it in a moment," she said.
[923] "I can mind every serious fight o' married parties, every
[924] murder, every manslaughter, even every pocket-picking--
[925] leastwise large ones--that 't has been my lot to witness.
[926] But a selling? Was it done quiet-like?"
[927]
[928] "Well, yes. I think so."
[929]
[930] The furmity woman half shook her head again. "And yet," she
[931] said, "I do. At any rate, I can mind a man doing something
[932] o' the sort--a man in a cord jacket, with a basket of tools;
[933] but, Lord bless ye, we don't gi'e it head-room, we don't,
[934] such as that. The only reason why I can mind the man is
[935] that he came back here to the next year's fair, and told me
[936] quite private-like that if a woman ever asked for him I was
[937] to say he had gone to--where?--Casterbridge--yes--to
[938] Casterbridge, said he. But, Lord's my life, I shouldn't ha'
[939] thought of it again!"
[940]
[941] Mrs. Newson would have rewarded the old woman as far as her
[942] small means afforded had she not discreetly borne in mind
[943] that it was by that unscrupulous person's liquor her husband
[944] had been degraded. She briefly thanked her informant, and
[945] rejoined Elizabeth, who greeted her with, "Mother, do let's
[946] get on--it was hardly respectable for you to buy
[947] refreshments there. I see none but the lowest do."
[948]
[949] "I have learned what I wanted, however," said her mother
[950] quietly. "The last time our relative visited this fair he
[951] said he was living at Casterbridge. It is a long, long way
[952] from here, and it was many years ago that he said it, but
[953] there I think we'll go."
[954]
[955] With this they descended out of the fair, and went onward to
[956] the village, where they obtained a night's lodging.
[957]
[958]
[959]
[960] 4.
[961]
[962]
[963] Henchard's wife acted for the best, but she had involved
[964] herself in difficulties. A hundred times she had been upon
[965] the point of telling her daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true
[966] story of her life, the tragical crisis of which had been the
[967] transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much older than
[968] the girl now beside her. But she had refrained. An
[969] innocent maiden had thus grown up in the belief that the
[970] relations between the genial sailor and her mother were the
[971] ordinary ones that they had always appeared to be. The risk
[972] of endangering a child's strong affection by disturbing
[973] ideas which had grown with her growth was to Mrs. Henchard
[974] too fearful a thing to contemplate. It had seemed, indeed
[975] folly to think of making Elizabeth-Jane wise.
[976]
[977] But Susan Henchard's fear of losing her dearly loved
[978] daughter's heart by a revelation had little to do with any
[979] sense of wrong-doing on her own part. Her simplicity--the
[980] original ground of Henchard's contempt for her--had allowed
[981] her to live on in the conviction that Newson had acquired a
[982] morally real and justifiable right to her by his purchase--
[983] though the exact bearings and legal limits of that right
[984] were vague. It may seem strange to sophisticated minds that
[985] a sane young matron could believe in the seriousness of such
[986] a transfer; and were there not numerous other instances of
[987] the same belief the thing might scarcely be credited. But
[988] she was by no means the first or last peasant woman who had
[989] religiously adhered to her purchaser, as too many rural
[990] records show.
[991]
[992] The history of Susan Henchard's adventures in the interim
[993] can be told in two or three sentences. Absolutely helpless
[994] she had been taken off to Canada where they had lived
[995] several years without any great worldly success, though she
[996] worked as hard as any woman could to keep their cottage
[997] cheerful and well-provided. When Elizabeth-Jane was about
[998] twelve years old the three returned to England, and settled
[999] at Falmouth, where Newson made a living for a few years as
[1000] boatman and general handy shoreman.
[1001]
[1002] He then engaged in the Newfoundland trade, and it was during
[1003] this period that Susan had an awakening. A friend to whom
[1004] she confided her history ridiculed her grave acceptance of
[1005] her position; and all was over with her peace of mind. When
[1006] Newson came home at the end of one winter he saw that the
[1007] delusion he had so carefully sustained had vanished for
[1008] ever.
[1009]
[1010] There was then a time of sadness, in which she told him her
[1011] doubts if she could live with him longer. Newson left home
[1012] again on the Newfoundland trade when the season came round.
[1013] The vague news of his loss at sea a little later on solved a
[1014] problem which had become torture to her meek conscience.
[1015] She saw him no more.
[1016]
[1017] Of Henchard they heard nothing. To the liege subjects of
[1018] Labour, the England of those days was a continent, and a
[1019] mile a geographical degree.
[1020]
[1021] Elizabeth-Jane developed early into womanliness. One day a
[1022] month or so after receiving intelligence of Newson's death
[1023] off the Bank of Newfoundland, when the girl was about
[1024] eighteen, she was sitting on a willow chair in the cottage
[1025] they still occupied, working twine nets for the fishermen.
[1026] Her mother was in a back corner of the same room engaged in
[1027] the same labour, and dropping the heavy wood needle she was
[1028] filling she surveyed her daughter thoughtfully. The sun
[1029] shone in at the door upon the young woman's head and hair,
[1030] which was worn loose, so that the rays streamed into its
[1031] depths as into a hazel copse. Her face, though somewhat wan
[1032] and incomplete, possessed the raw materials of beauty in a
[1033] promising degree. There was an under-handsomeness in it,
[1034] struggling to reveal itself through the provisional curves
[1035] of immaturity, and the casual disfigurements that resulted
[1036] from the straitened circumstances of their lives. She was
[1037] handsome in the bone, hardly as yet handsome in the flesh.
[1038] She possibly might never be fully handsome, unless the
[1039] carking accidents of her daily existence could be evaded
[1040] before the mobile parts of her countenance had settled to
[1041] their final mould.
[1042]
[1043] The sight of the girl made her mother sad--not vaguely but
[1044] by logical inference. They both were still in that strait-
[1045] waistcoat of poverty from which she had tried so many times
[1046] to be delivered for the girl's sake. The woman had long
[1047] perceived how zealously and constantly the young mind of her
[1048] companion was struggling for enlargement; and yet now, in
[1049] her eighteenth year, it still remained but little unfolded.
[1050] The desire--sober and repressed--of Elizabeth-Jane's heart
[1051] was indeed to see, to hear, and to understand. How could
[1052] she become a woman of wider knowledge, higher repute--
[1053] "better," as she termed it--this was her constant inquiry of
[1054] her mother. She sought further into things than other girls
[1055] in her position ever did, and her mother groaned as she felt
[1056] she could not aid in the search.
[1057]
[1058] The sailor, drowned or no, was probably now lost to them;
[1059] and Susan's staunch, religious adherence to him as her
[1060] husband in principle, till her views had been disturbed by
[1061] enlightenment, was demanded no more. She asked herself
[1062] whether the present moment, now that she was a free woman
[1063] again, were not as opportune a one as she would find in a
[1064] world where everything had been so inopportune, for making a
[1065] desperate effort to advance Elizabeth. To pocket her pride
[1066] and search for the first husband seemed, wisely or not, the
[1067] best initiatory step. He had possibly drunk himself into
[1068] his tomb. But he might, on the other hand, have had too
[1069] much sense to do so; for in her time with him he had been
[1070] given to bouts only, and was not a habitual drunkard.
[1071]
[1072] At any rate, the propriety of returning to him, if he lived,
[1073] was unquestionable. The awkwardness of searching for him
[1074] lay in enlightening Elizabeth, a proceeding which her mother
[1075] could not endure to contemplate. She finally resolved to
[1076] undertake the search without confiding to the girl her
[1077] former relations with Henchard, leaving it to him if they
[1078] found him to take what steps he might choose to that end.
[1079] This will account for their conversation at the fair and the
[1080] half-informed state at which Elizabeth was led onward.
[1081]
[1082] In this attitude they proceeded on their journey, trusting
[1083] solely to the dim light afforded of Henchard's whereabouts
[1084] by the furmity woman. The strictest economy was
[1085] indispensable. Sometimes they might have been seen on foot,
[1086] sometimes on farmers' waggons, sometimes in carriers' vans;
[1087] and thus they drew near to Casterbridge. Elizabeth-Jane
[1088] discovered to her alarm that her mother's health was not
[1089] what it once had been, and there was ever and anon in her
[1090] talk that renunciatory tone which showed that, but for the
[1091] girl, she would not be very sorry to quit a life she was
[1092] growing thoroughly weary of.
[1093]
[1094] It was on a Friday evening, near the middle of September and
[1095] just before dusk, that they reached the summit of a hill
[1096] within a mile of the place they sought. There were high
[1097] banked hedges to the coach-road here, and they mounted upon
[1098] the green turf within, and sat down. The spot commanded a
[1099] full view of the town and its environs.
[1100]
[1101] "What an old-fashioned place it seems to be!" said
[1102] Elizabeth-Jane, while her silent mother mused on other
[1103] things than topography. "It is huddled all together; and it
[1104] is shut in by a square wall of trees, like a plot of garden
[1105] ground by a box-edging."
[1106]
[1107] Its squareness was, indeed, the characteristic which most
[1108] struck the eye in this antiquated borough, the borough of
[1109] Casterbridge--at that time, recent as it was, untouched by
[1110] the faintest sprinkle of modernism. It was compact as a box
[1111] of dominoes. It had no suburbs--in the ordinary sense.
[1112] Country and town met at a mathematical line.
[1113]
[1114] To birds of the more soaring kind Casterbridge must have
[1115] appeared on this fine evening as a mosaic-work of subdued
[1116] reds, browns, greys, and crystals, held together by a
[1117] rectangular frame of deep green. To the level eye of
[1118] humanity it stood as an indistinct mass behind a dense
[1119] stockade of limes and chestnuts, set in the midst of miles
[1120] of rotund down and concave field. The mass became gradually
[1121] dissected by the vision into towers, gables, chimneys, and
[1122] casements, the highest glazings shining bleared and
[1123] bloodshot with the coppery fire they caught from the belt of
[1124] sunlit cloud in the west.
[1125]
[1126] From the centre of each side of this tree-bound square ran
[1127] avenues east, west, and south into the wide expanse of corn-
[1128] land and coomb to the distance of a mile or so. It was by
[1129] one of these avenues that the pedestrians were about to
[1130] enter. Before they had risen to proceed two men passed
[1131] outside the hedge, engaged in argumentative conversation.
[1132]
[1133] "Why, surely," said Elizabeth, as they receded, "those men
[1134] mentioned the name of Henchard in their talk--the name of
[1135] our relative?"
[1136]
[1137] "I thought so too," said Mrs. Newson.
[1138]
[1139] "That seems a hint to us that he is still here."
[1140]
[1141] "Yes."
[1142]
[1143] "Shall I run after them, and ask them about him----"
[1144]
[1145] "No, no, no! Not for the world just yet. He may be in the
[1146] workhouse, or in the stocks, for all we know."
[1147]
[1148] "Dear me--why should you think that, mother?"
[1149]
[1150] "'Twas just something to say--that's all! But we must make
[1151] private inquiries."
[1152]
[1153] Having sufficiently rested they proceeded on their way at
[1154] evenfall. The dense trees of the avenue rendered the road
[1155] dark as a tunnel, though the open land on each side was
[1156] still under a faint daylight, in other words, they passed
[1157] down a midnight between two gloamings. The features of the
[1158] town had a keen interest for Elizabeth's mother, now that
[1159] the human side came to the fore. As soon as they had
[1160] wandered about they could see that the stockade of gnarled
[1161] trees which framed in Casterbridge was itself an avenue,
[1162] standing on a low green bank or escarpment, with a ditch yet
[1163] visible without. Within the avenue and bank was a wall more
[1164] or less discontinuous, and within the wall were packed the
[1165] abodes of the burghers.
[1166]
[1167] Though the two women did not know it these external features
[1168] were but the ancient defences of the town, planted as a
[1169] promenade.
[1170]
[1171] The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdling trees,
[1172] conveying a sense of great smugness and comfort inside, and
[1173] rendering at the same time the unlighted country without
[1174] strangely solitary and vacant in aspect, considering its
[1175] nearness to life. The difference between burgh and
[1176] champaign was increased, too, by sounds which now reached
[1177] them above others--the notes of a brass band. The
[1178] travellers returned into the High Street, where there were
[1179] timber houses with overhanging stories, whose small-paned
[1180] lattices were screened by dimity curtains on a drawing-
[1181] string, and under whose bargeboards old cobwebs waved in the
[1182] breeze. There were houses of brick-nogging, which derived
[1183] their chief support from those adjoining. There were slate
[1184] roofs patched with tiles, and tile roofs patched with slate,
[1185] with occasionally a roof of thatch.
[1186]
[1187] The agricultural and pastoral character of the people upon
[1188] whom the town depended for its existence was shown by the
[1189] class of objects displayed in the shop windows. Scythes,
[1190] reap-hooks, sheep-shears, bill-hooks, spades, mattocks, and
[1191] hoes at the iron-monger's; bee-hives, butter-firkins,
[1192] churns, milking stools and pails, hay-rakes, field-flagons,
[1193] and seed-lips at the cooper's; cart-ropes and plough-harness
[1194] at the saddler's; carts, wheel-barrows, and mill-gear at the
[1195] wheelwright's and machinist's, horse-embrocations at the
[1196] chemist's; at the glover's and leather-cutter's, hedging-
[1197] gloves, thatchers' knee-caps, ploughmen's leggings,
[1198] villagers' pattens and clogs.
[1199]
[1200] They came to a grizzled church, whose massive square tower
[1201] rose unbroken into the darkening sky, the lower parts being
[1202] illuminated by the nearest lamps sufficiently to show how
[1203] completely the mortar from the joints of the stonework had
[1204] been nibbled out by time and weather, which had planted in
[1205] the crevices thus made little tufts of stone-crop and grass
[1206] almost as far up as the very battlements. From this tower
[1207] the clock struck eight, and thereupon a bell began to toll
[1208] with a peremptory clang. The curfew was still rung in
[1209] Casterbridge, and it was utilized by the inhabitants as a
[1210] signal for shutting their shops. No sooner did the deep
[1211] notes of the bell throb between the house-fronts than a
[1212] clatter of shutters arose through the whole length of the
[1213] High Street. In a few minutes business at Casterbridge was
[1214] ended for the day.
[1215]
[1216] Other clocks struck eight from time to time--one gloomily
[1217] from the gaol, another from the gable of an almshouse, with
[1218] a preparative creak of machinery, more audible than the note
[1219] of the bell; a row of tall, varnished case-clocks from the
[1220] interior of a clock-maker's shop joined in one after another
[1221] just as the shutters were enclosing them, like a row of
[1222] actors delivering their final speeches before the fall of
[1223] the curtain; then chimes were heard stammering out the
[1224] Sicilian Mariners' Hymn; so that chronologists of the
[1225] advanced school were appreciably on their way to the next
[1226] hour before the whole business of the old one was
[1227] satisfactorily wound up.
[1228]
[1229] In an open space before the church walked a woman with her
[1230] gown-sleeves rolled up so high that the edge of her
[1231] underlinen was visible, and her skirt tucked up through her
[1232] pocket hole. She carried a load under her arm from which
[1233] she was pulling pieces of bread, and handing them to some
[1234] other women who walked with her, which pieces they nibbled
[1235] critically. The sight reminded Mrs. Henchard-Newson and her
[1236] daughter that they had an appetite; and they inquired of the
[1237] woman for the nearest baker's.
[1238]
[1239] "Ye may as well look for manna-food as good bread in
[1240] Casterbridge just now," she said, after directing them.
[1241] "They can blare their trumpets and thump their drums, and
[1242] have their roaring dinners"--waving her hand towards a point
[1243] further along the street, where the brass band could be seen
[1244] standing in front of an illuminated building--"but we must
[1245] needs be put-to for want of a wholesome crust. There's less
[1246] good bread than good beer in Casterbridge now."
[1247]
[1248] "And less good beer than swipes," said a man with his hands
[1249] in his pockets.
[1250]
[1251] "How does it happen there's no good bread?" asked Mrs.
[1252] Henchard.
[1253]
[1254] "Oh, 'tis the corn-factor--he's the man that our millers and
[1255] bakers all deal wi', and he has sold 'em growed wheat, which
[1256] they didn't know was growed, so they SAY, till the dough
[1257] ran all over the ovens like quicksilver; so that the loaves
[1258] be as fiat as toads, and like suet pudden inside. I've been
[1259] a wife, and I've been a mother, and I never see such
[1260] unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this before.--But you
[1261] must be a real stranger here not to know what's made all the
[1262] poor volks' insides plim like blowed bladders this week?"
[1263]
[1264] "I am," said Elizabeth's mother shyly.
[1265]
[1266] Not wishing to be observed further till she knew more of her
[1267] future in this place, she withdrew with her daughter from
[1268] the speaker's side. Getting a couple of biscuits at the
[1269] shop indicated as a temporary substitute for a meal, they
[1270] next bent their steps instinctively to where the music was
[1271] playing.
[1272]
[1273]
[1274]
[1275] 5.
[1276]
[1277]
[1278] A few score yards brought them to the spot where the town
[1279] band was now shaking the window-panes with the strains of
[1280] "The Roast Beef of Old England."
[1281]
[1282] The building before whose doors they had pitched their
[1283] music-stands was the chief hotel in Casterbridge--namely,
[1284] the King's Arms. A spacious bow-window projected into the
[1285] street over the main portico, and from the open sashes came
[1286] the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and the drawing
[1287] of corks. The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the
[1288] whole interior of this room could be surveyed from the top
[1289] of a flight of stone steps to the road-waggon office
[1290] opposite, for which reason a knot of idlers had gathered
[1291] there.
[1292]
[1293] "We might, perhaps, after all, make a few inquiries about--
[1294] our relation Mr. Henchard," whispered Mrs. Newson who, since
[1295] her entry into Casterbridge, had seemed strangely weak and
[1296] agitated, "And this, I think, would be a good place for
[1297] trying it--just to ask, you know, how he stands in the town--
[1298] if he is here, as I think he must be. You, Elizabeth-Jane,
[1299] had better be the one to do it. I'm too worn out to do
[1300] anything--pull down your fall first."
[1301]
[1302] She sat down upon the lowest step, and Elizabeth-Jane obeyed
[1303] her directions and stood among the idlers.
[1304]
[1305] "What's going on to-night?" asked the girl, after singling
[1306] out an old man and standing by him long enough to acquire a
[1307] neighbourly right of converse.
[1308]
[1309] "Well, ye must be a stranger sure," said the old man,
[1310] without taking his eyes from the window. "Why, 'tis a great
[1311] public dinner of the gentle-people and such like leading
[1312] volk--wi' the Mayor in the chair. As we plainer fellows
[1313] bain't invited, they leave the winder-shutters open that we
[1314] may get jist a sense o't out here. If you mount the steps
[1315] you can see em. That's Mr. Henchard, the Mayor, at the end
[1316] of the table, a facing ye; and that's the Council men right
[1317] and left....Ah, lots of them when they begun life were no
[1318] more than I be now!"
[1319]
[1320] "Henchard!" said Elizabeth-Jane, surprised, but by no means
[1321] suspecting the whole force of the revelation. She ascended
[1322] to the top of the steps.
[1323]
[1324] Her mother, though her head was bowed, had already caught
[1325] from the inn-window tones that strangely riveted her
[1326] attention, before the old man's words, "Mr. Henchard, the
[1327] Mayor," reached her ears. She arose, and stepped up to her
[1328] daughter's side as soon as she could do so without showing
[1329] exceptional eagerness.
[1330]
[1331] The interior of the hotel dining-room was spread out before
[1332] her, with its tables, and glass, and plate, and inmates.
[1333] Facing the window, in the chair of dignity, sat a man about
[1334] forty years of age; of heavy frame, large features, and
[1335] commanding voice; his general build being rather coarse than
[1336] compact. He had a rich complexion, which verged on
[1337] swarthiness, a flashing black eye, and dark, bushy brows and
[1338] hair. When he indulged in an occasional loud laugh at some
[1339] remark among the guests, his large mouth parted so far back
[1340] as to show to the rays of the chandelier a full score or
[1341] more of the two-and-thirty sound white teeth that he
[1342] obviously still could boast of.
[1343]
[1344] That laugh was not encouraging to strangers, and hence it
[1345] may have been well that it was rarely heard. Many theories
[1346] might have been built upon it. It fell in well with
[1347] conjectures of a temperament which would have no pity for
[1348] weakness, but would be ready to yield ungrudging admiration
[1349] to greatness and strength. Its producer's personal
[1350] goodness, if he had any, would be of a very fitful cast--an
[1351] occasional almost oppressive generosity rather than a mild
[1352] and constant kindness.
[1353]
[1354] Susan Henchard's husband--in law, at least--sat before them,
[1355] matured in shape, stiffened in line, exaggerated in traits;
[1356] disciplined, thought-marked--in a word, older. Elizabeth,
[1357] encumbered with no recollections as her mother was, regarded
[1358] him with nothing more than the keen curiosity and interest
[1359] which the discovery of such unexpected social standing in
[1360] the long-sought relative naturally begot. He was dressed in
[1361] an old-fashioned evening suit, an expanse of frilled shirt
[1362] showing on his broad breast; jewelled studs, and a heavy
[1363] gold chain. Three glasses stood at his right hand; but, to
[1364] his wife's surprise, the two for wine were empty, while the
[1365] third, a tumbler, was half full of water.
[1366]
[1367] When last she had seen him he was sitting in a corduroy
[1368] jacket, fustian waistcoat and breeches, and tanned leather
[1369] leggings, with a basin of hot furmity before him. Time, the
[1370] magician, had wrought much here. Watching him, and thus
[1371] thinking of past days, she became so moved that she shrank
[1372] back against the jamb of the waggon-office doorway to which
[1373] the steps gave access, the shadow from it conveniently
[1374] hiding her features. She forgot her daughter till a touch
[1375] from Elizabeth-Jane aroused her. "Have you seen him,
[1376] mother?" whispered the girl.
[1377]
[1378] "Yes, yes," answered her companion hastily. "I have seen
[1379] him, and it is enough for me! Now I only want to go--pass
[1380] away--die."
[1381]
[1382] "Why--O what?" She drew closer, and whispered in her
[1383] mother's ear, "Does he seem to you not likely to befriend
[1384] us? I thought he looked a generous man. What a gentleman he
[1385] is, isn't he? and how his diamond studs shine! How strange
[1386] that you should have said he might be in the stocks, or in
[1387] the workhouse, or dead! Did ever anything go more by
[1388] contraries! Why do you feel so afraid of him? I am not at
[1389] all;I'll call upon him--he can but say he don't own such
[1390] remote kin."
[1391]
[1392] "I don't know at all--I can't tell what to set about. I
[1393] feel so down."
[1394]
[1395] "Don't be that, mother, now we have got here and all! Rest
[1396] there where you be a little while--I will look on and find
[1397] out more about him."
[1398]
[1399] "I don't think I can ever meet Mr. Henchard. He is not how
[1400] I thought he would be--he overpowers me! I don't wish to see
[1401] him any more."
[1402]
[1403] "But wait a little time and consider."
[1404]
[1405] Elizabeth-Jane had never been so much interested in anything
[1406] in her life as in their present position, partly from the
[1407] natural elation she felt at discovering herself akin to a
[1408] coach; and she gazed again at the scene. The younger guests
[1409] were talking and eating with animation; their elders were
[1410] searching for titbits, and sniffing and grunting over their
[1411] plates like sows nuzzling for acorns. Three drinks seemed
[1412] to be sacred to the company--port, sherry, and rum; outside
[1413] which old-established trinity few or no palates ranged.
[1414]
[1415] A row of ancient rummers with ground figures on their sides,
[1416] and each primed with a spoon, was now placed down the table,
[1417] and these were promptly filled with grog at such high
[1418] temperatures as to raise serious considerations for the
[1419] articles exposed to its vapours. But Elizabeth-Jane noticed
[1420] that, though this filling went on with great promptness up
[1421] and down the table, nobody filled the Mayor's glass, who
[1422] still drank large quantities of water from the tumbler
[1423] behind the clump of crystal vessels intended for wine and
[1424] spirits.
[1425]
[1426] "They don't fill Mr. Henchard's wine-glasses," she ventured
[1427] to say to her elbow acquaintance, the old man.
[1428]
[1429] "Ah, no; don't ye know him to be the celebrated abstaining
[1430] worthy of that name? He scorns all tempting liquors; never
[1431] touches nothing. O yes, he've strong qualities that way. I
[1432] have heard tell that he sware a gospel oath in bygone times,
[1433] and has bode by it ever since. So they don't press him,
[1434] knowing it would be unbecoming in the face of that: for yer
[1435] gospel oath is a serious thing."
[1436]
[1437] Another elderly man, hearing this discourse, now joined in
[1438] by inquiring, "How much longer have he got to suffer from
[1439] it, Solomon Longways?"
[1440]
[1441] "Another two year, they say. I don't know the why and the
[1442] wherefore of his fixing such a time, for 'a never has told
[1443] anybody. But 'tis exactly two calendar years longer, they
[1444] say. A powerful mind to hold out so long!"
[1445]
[1446] "True....But there's great strength in hope. Knowing that
[1447] in four-and-twenty months' time ye'll be out of your
[1448] bondage, and able to make up for all you've suffered, by
[1449] partaking without stint--why, it keeps a man up, no doubt."
[1450]
[1451] "No doubt, Christopher Coney, no doubt. And 'a must need
[1452] such reflections--a lonely widow man," said Longways.
[1453]
[1454] "When did he lose his wife?" asked Elizabeth.
[1455]
[1456] "I never knowed her. 'Twas afore he came to Casterbridge,"
[1457] Solomon Longways replied with terminative emphasis, as if
[1458] the fact of his ignorance of Mrs. Henchard were sufficient
[1459] to deprive her history of all interest. "But I know that
[1460] 'a's a banded teetotaller, and that if any of his men be
[1461] ever so little overtook by a drop he's down upon 'em as
[1462] stern as the Lord upon the jovial Jews."
[1463]
[1464] "Has he many men, then?" said Elizabeth-Jane.
[1465]
[1466] "Many! Why, my good maid, he's the powerfullest member of
[1467] the Town Council, and quite a principal man in the country
[1468] round besides. Never a big dealing in wheat, barley, oats,
[1469] hay, roots, and such-like but Henchard's got a hand in it.
[1470] Ay, and he'll go into other things too; and that's where he
[1471] makes his mistake. He worked his way up from nothing when
[1472] 'a came here; and now he's a pillar of the town. Not but
[1473] what he's been shaken a little to-year about this bad corn
[1474] he has supplied in his contracts. I've seen the sun rise
[1475] over Durnover Moor these nine-and-sixty year, and though Mr.
[1476] Henchard has never cussed me unfairly ever since I've worked
[1477] for'n, seeing I be but a little small man, I must say that I
[1478] have never before tasted such rough bread as has been made
[1479] from Henchard's wheat lately. 'Tis that growed out that ye
[1480] could a'most call it malt, and there's a list at bottom o'
[1481] the loaf as thick as the sole of one's shoe."
[1482]
[1483] The band now struck up another melody, and by the time it
[1484] was ended the dinner was over, and speeches began to be
[1485] made. The evening being calm, and the windows still open,
[1486] these orations could be distinctly heard. Henchard's voice
[1487] arose above the rest; he was telling a story of his hay-
[1488] dealing experiences, in which he had outwitted a sharper who
[1489] had been bent upon outwitting him.
[1490]
[1491] "Ha-ha-ha!" responded his audience at the upshot of the
[1492] story; and hilarity was general till a new voice arose with,
[1493] "This is all very well; but how about the bad bread?"
[1494]
[1495] It came from the lower end of the table, where there sat a
[1496] group of minor tradesmen who, although part of the company,
[1497] appeared to be a little below the social level of the
[1498] others; and who seemed to nourish a certain independence of
[1499] opinion and carry on discussions not quite in harmony with
[1500] those at the head; just as the west end of a church is
[1501] sometimes persistently found to sing out of time and tune
[1502] with the leading spirits in the chancel.
[1503]
[1504] This interruption about the bad bread afforded infinite
[1505] satisfaction to the loungers outside, several of whom were
[1506] in the mood which finds its pleasure in others'
[1507] discomfiture; and hence they echoed pretty freely, "Hey! How
[1508] about the bad bread, Mr. Mayor?" Moreover, feeling none of
[1509] the restraints of those who shared the feast, they could
[1510] afford to add, "You rather ought to tell the story o' that,
[1511] sir!"
[1512]
[1513] The interruption was sufficient to compel the Mayor to
[1514] notice it.
[1515]
[1516] "Well, I admit that the wheat turned out badly," he said.
[1517] "But I was taken in in buying it as much as the bakers who
[1518] bought it o' me."
[1519]
[1520] "And the poor folk who had to eat it whether or no," said
[1521] the inharmonious man outside the window.
[1522]
[1523] Henchard's face darkened. There was temper under the thin
[1524] bland surface--the temper which, artificially intensified,
[1525] had banished a wife nearly a score of years before.
[1526]
[1527] "You must make allowances for the accidents of a large
[1528] business," he said. "You must bear in mind that the weather
[1529] just at the harvest of that corn was worse than we have
[1530] known it for years. However, I have mended my arrangements
[1531] on account o't. Since I have found my business too large to
[1532] be well looked after by myself alone, I have advertised for
[1533] a thorough good man as manager of the corn department. When
[1534] I've got him you will find these mistakes will no longer
[1535] occur--matters will be better looked into."
[1536]
[1537] "But what are you going to do to repay us for the past?"
[1538] inquired the man who had before spoken, and who seemed to be
[1539] a baker or miller. "Will you replace the grown flour we've
[1540] still got by sound grain?"
[1541]
[1542] Henchard's face had become still more stern at these
[1543] interruptions, and he drank from his tumbler of water as if
[1544] to calm himself or gain time. Instead of vouchsafing a
[1545] direct reply, he stiffly observed--
[1546]
[1547] "If anybody will tell me how to turn grown wheat into
[1548] wholesome wheat I'll take it back with pleasure. But it
[1549] can't be done."
[1550]
[1551] Henchard was not to be drawn again. Having said this, he
[1552] sat down.
[1553]
[1554]
[1555]
[1556] 6.
[1557]
[1558]
[1559] Now the group outside the window had within the last few
[1560] minutes been reinforced by new arrivals, some of them
[1561] respectable shopkeepers and their assistants, who had come
[1562] out for a whiff of air after putting up the shutters for the
[1563] night; some of them of a lower class. Distinct from either
[1564] there appeared a stranger--a young man of remarkably
[1565] pleasant aspect--who carried in his hand a carpet-bag of the
[1566] smart floral pattern prevalent in such articles at that
[1567] time.
[1568]
[1569] He was ruddy and of a fair countenance, bright-eyed, and
[1570] slight in build. He might possibly have passed by without
[1571] stopping at all, or at most for half a minute to glance in
[1572] at the scene, had not his advent coincided with the
[1573] discussion on corn and bread, in which event this history
[1574] had never been enacted. But the subject seemed to arrest
[1575] him, and he whispered some inquiries of the other
[1576] bystanders, and remained listening.
[1577]
[1578] When he heard Henchard's closing words, "It can't be done,"
[1579] he smiled impulsively, drew out his pocketbook, and wrote
[1580] down a few words by the aid of the light in the window. He
[1581] tore out the leaf, folded and directed it, and seemed about
[1582] to throw it in through the open sash upon the dining-table;
[1583] but, on second thoughts, edged himself through the
[1584] loiterers, till he reached the door of the hotel, where one
[1585] of the waiters who had been serving inside was now idly
[1586] leaning against the doorpost.
[1587]
[1588] "Give this to the Mayor at once," he said, handing in his
[1589] hasty note.
[1590]
[1591] Elizabeth-Jane had seen his movements and heard the words,
[1592] which attracted her both by their subject and by their
[1593] accent--a strange one for those parts. It was quaint and
[1594] northerly.
[1595]
[1596] The waiter took the note, while the young stranger
[1597] continued--
[1598]
[1599] "And can ye tell me of a respectable hotel that's a little
[1600] more moderate than this?"
[1601]
[1602] The waiter glanced indifferently up and down the street.
[1603]
[1604] "They say the Three Mariners, just below here, is a very
[1605] good place," he languidly answered; "but I have never stayed
[1606] there myself."
[1607]
[1608] The Scotchman, as he seemed to be, thanked him, and strolled
[1609] on in the direction of the Three Mariners aforesaid,
[1610] apparently more concerned about the question of an inn than
[1611] about the fate of his note, now that the momentary impulse
[1612] of writing it was over. While he was disappearing slowly
[1613] down the street the waiter left the door, and Elizabeth-Jane
[1614] saw with some interest the note brought into the dining-room
[1615] and handed to the Mayor.
[1616]
[1617] Henchard looked at it carelessly, unfolded it with one hand,
[1618] and glanced it through. Thereupon it was curious to note an
[1619] unexpected effect. The nettled, clouded aspect which had
[1620] held possession of his face since the subject of his corn-
[1621] dealings had been broached, changed itself into one of
[1622] arrested attention. He read the note slowly, and fell into
[1623] thought, not moody, but fitfully intense, as that of a man
[1624] who has been captured by an idea.
[1625]
[1626] By this time toasts and speeches had given place to songs,
[1627] the wheat subject being quite forgotten. Men were putting
[1628] their heads together in twos and threes, telling good
[1629] stories, with pantomimic laughter which reached convulsive
[1630] grimace. Some were beginning to look as if they did not
[1631] know how they had come there, what they had come for, or how
[1632] they were going to get home again; and provisionally sat on
[1633] with a dazed smile. Square-built men showed a tendency to
[1634] become hunchbacks; men with a dignified presence lost it in
[1635] a curious obliquity of figure, in which their features grew
[1636] disarranged and one-sided, whilst the heads of a few who had
[1637] dined with extreme thoroughness were somehow sinking into
[1638] their shoulders, the corners of their mouth and eyes being
[1639] bent upwards by the subsidence. Only Henchard did not
[1640] conform to these flexuous changes; he remained stately and
[1641] vertical, silently thinking.
[1642]
[1643] The clock struck nine. Elizabeth-Jane turned to her
[1644] companion. "The evening is drawing on, mother," she said.
[1645] "What do you propose to do?"
[1646]
[1647] She was surprised to find how irresolute her mother had
[1648] become. "We must get a place to lie down in," she murmured.
[1649] "I have seen--Mr. Henchard; and that's all I wanted to do."
[1650]
[1651] "That's enough for to-night, at any rate," Elizabeth-Jane
[1652] replied soothingly. "We can think to-morrow what is best to
[1653] do about him. The question now is--is it not?--how shall we
[1654] find a lodging?"
[1655]
[1656] As her mother did not reply Elizabeth-Jane's mind reverted
[1657] to the words of the waiter, that the Three Mariners was an
[1658] inn of moderate charges. A recommendation good for one
[1659] person was probably good for another. "Let's go where the
[1660] young man has gone to," she said. "He is respectable. What
[1661] do you say?"
[1662]
[1663] Her mother assented, and down the street they went.
[1664]
[1665] In the meantime the Mayor's thoughtfulness, engendered by
[1666] the note as stated, continued to hold him in abstraction;
[1667] till, whispering to his neighbour to take his place, he
[1668] found opportunity to leave the chair. This was just after
[1669] the departure of his wife and Elizabeth.
[1670]
[1671] Outside the door of the assembly-room he saw the waiter, and
[1672] beckoning to him asked who had brought the note which had
[1673] been handed in a quarter of an hour before.
[1674]
[1675] "A young man, sir--a sort of traveller. He was a Scotchman
[1676] seemingly."
[1677]
[1678] "Did he say how he had got it?"
[1679]
[1680] "He wrote it himself, sir, as he stood outside the window."
[1681]
[1682] "Oh--wrote it himself....Is the young man in the hotel?"
[1683]
[1684] "No, sir. He went to the Three Mariners, I believe."
[1685]
[1686] The mayor walked up and down the vestibule of the hotel with
[1687] his hands under his coat tails, as if he were merely seeking
[1688] a cooler atmosphere than that of the room he had quitted.
[1689] But there could be no doubt that he was in reality still
[1690] possessed to the full by the new idea, whatever that might
[1691] be. At length he went back to the door of the dining-room,
[1692] paused, and found that the songs, toasts, and conversation
[1693] were proceeding quite satisfactorily without his presence.
[1694] The Corporation, private residents, and major and minor
[1695] tradesmen had, in fact, gone in for comforting beverages to
[1696] such an extent that they had quite forgotten, not only the
[1697] Mayor, but all those vast, political, religious, and social
[1698] differences which they felt necessary to maintain in the
[1699] daytime, and which separated them like iron grills. Seeing
[1700] this the Mayor took his hat, and when the waiter had helped
[1701] him on with a thin holland overcoat, went out and stood
[1702] under the portico.
[1703]
[1704] Very few persons were now in the street; and his eyes, by a
[1705] sort of attraction, turned and dwelt upon a spot about a
[1706] hundred yards further down. It was the house to which the
[1707] writer of the note had gone--the Three Mariners--whose two
[1708] prominent Elizabethan gables, bow-window, and passage-light
[1709] could be seen from where he stood. Having kept his eyes on
[1710] it for a while he strolled in that direction.
[1711]
[1712] This ancient house of accommodation for man and beast, now,
[1713] unfortunately, pulled down, was built of mellow sandstone,
[1714] with mullioned windows of the same material, markedly out of
[1715] perpendicular from the settlement of foundations. The bay
[1716] window projecting into the street, whose interior was so
[1717] popular among the frequenters of the inn, was closed with
[1718] shutters, in each of which appeared a heart-shaped aperture,
[1719] somewhat more attenuated in the right and left ventricles
[1720] than is seen in Nature. Inside these illuminated holes, at
[1721] a distance of about three inches, were ranged at this hour,
[1722] as every passer knew, the ruddy polls of Billy Wills the
[1723] glazier, Smart the shoemaker, Buzzford the general dealer,
[1724] and others of a secondary set of worthies, of a grade
[1725] somewhat below that of the diners at the King's Arms, each
[1726] with his yard of clay.
[1727]
[1728] A four-centred Tudor arch was over the entrance, and over
[1729] the arch the signboard, now visible in the rays of an
[1730] opposite lamp. Hereon the Mariners, who had been
[1731] represented by the artist as persons of two dimensions only--
[1732] in other words, flat as a shadow--were standing in a row in
[1733] paralyzed attitudes. Being on the sunny side of the street
[1734] the three comrades had suffered largely from warping,
[1735] splitting, fading, and shrinkage, so that they were but a
[1736] half-invisible film upon the reality of the grain, and
[1737] knots, and nails, which composed the signboard. As a matter
[1738] of fact, this state of things was not so much owing to
[1739] Stannidge the landlord's neglect, as from the lack of a
[1740] painter in Casterbridge who would undertake to reproduce the
[1741] features of men so traditional.
[1742]
[1743] A long, narrow, dimly-lit passage gave access to the inn,
[1744] within which passage the horses going to their stalls at the
[1745] back, and the coming and departing human guests, rubbed
[1746] shoulders indiscriminately, the latter running no slight
[1747] risk of having their toes trodden upon by the animals. The
[1748] good stabling and the good ale of the Mariners, though
[1749] somewhat difficult to reach on account of there being but
[1750] this narrow way to both, were nevertheless perseveringly
[1751] sought out by the sagacious old heads who knew what was what
[1752] in Casterbridge.
[1753]
[1754] Henchard stood without the inn for a few instants; then
[1755] lowering the dignity of his presence as much as possible by
[1756] buttoning the brown holland coat over his shirt-front, and
[1757] in other ways toning himself down to his ordinary everyday
[1758] appearance, he entered the inn door.
[1759]
[1760]
[1761]
[1762] 7.
[1763]
[1764]
[1765] Elizabeth-Jane and her mother had arrived some twenty
[1766] minutes earlier. Outside the house they had stood and
[1767] considered whether even this homely place, though
[1768] recommended as moderate, might not be too serious in its
[1769] prices for their light pockets. Finally, however, they had
[1770] found courage to enter, and duly met Stannidge the landlord,
[1771] a silent man, who drew and carried frothing measures to this
[1772] room and to that, shoulder to shoulder with his waiting-
[1773] maids--a stately slowness, however, entering into his
[1774] ministrations by contrast with theirs, as became one whose
[1775] service was somewhat optional. It would have been
[1776] altogether optional but for the orders of the landlady, a
[1777] person who sat in the bar, corporeally motionless, but with
[1778] a flitting eye and quick ear, with which she observed and
[1779] heard through the open door and hatchway the pressing needs
[1780] of customers whom her husband overlooked though close at
[1781] hand. Elizabeth and her mother were passively accepted as
[1782] sojourners, and shown to a small bedroom under one of the
[1783] gables, where they sat down.
[1784]
[1785] The principle of the inn seemed to be to compensate for the
[1786] antique awkwardness, crookedness, and obscurity of the
[1787] passages, floors, and windows, by quantities of clean linen
[1788] spread about everywhere, and this had a dazzling effect upon
[1789] the travellers.
[1790]
[1791] "'Tis too good for us--we can't meet it!" said the elder
[1792] woman, looking round the apartment with misgiving as soon as
[1793] they were left alone.
[1794]
[1795] "I fear it is, too," said Elizabeth. "But we must be
[1796] respectable."
[1797]
[1798] "We must pay our way even before we must be respectable,"
[1799] replied her mother. "Mr. Henchard is too high for us to
[1800] make ourselves known to him, I much fear; so we've only our
[1801] own pockets to depend on."
[1802]
[1803] "I know what I'll do," said Elizabeth-Jane after an interval
[1804] of waiting, during which their needs seemed quite forgotten
[1805] under the press of business below. And leaving the room,
[1806] she descended the stairs and penetrated to the bar.
[1807]
[1808] If there was one good thing more than another which
[1809] characterized this single-hearted girl it was a willingness
[1810] to sacrifice her personal comfort and dignity to the common
[1811] weal.
[1812]
[1813] "As you seem busy here to-night, and mother's not well off,
[1814] might I take out part of our accommodation by helping?" she
[1815] asked of the landlady.
[1816]
[1817] The latter, who remained as fixed in the arm-chair as if she
[1818] had been melted into it when in a liquid state, and could
[1819] not now be unstuck, looked the girl up and down inquiringly,
[1820] with her hands on the chair-arms. Such arrangements as the
[1821] one Elizabeth proposed were not uncommon in country
[1822] villages; but, though Casterbridge was old-fashioned, the
[1823] custom was well-nigh obsolete here. The mistress of the
[1824] house, however, was an easy woman to strangers, and she made
[1825] no objection. Thereupon Elizabeth, being instructed by nods
[1826] and motions from the taciturn landlord as to where she could
[1827] find the different things, trotted up and down stairs with
[1828] materials for her own and her parent's meal.
[1829]
[1830] While she was doing this the wood partition in the centre of
[1831] the house thrilled to its centre with the tugging of a bell-
[1832] pull upstairs. A bell below tinkled a note that was feebler
[1833] in sound than the twanging of wires and cranks that had
[1834] produced it.
[1835]
[1836] "'Tis the Scotch gentleman," said the landlady omnisciently;
[1837] and turning her eyes to Elizabeth, "Now then, can you go and
[1838] see if his supper is on the tray? If it is you can take it
[1839] up to him. The front room over this."
[1840]
[1841] Elizabeth-Jane, though hungry, willingly postponed serving
[1842] herself awhile, and applied to the cook in the kitchen
[1843] whence she brought forth the tray of supper viands, and
[1844] proceeded with it upstairs to the apartment indicated. The
[1845] accommodation of the Three Mariners was far from spacious,
[1846] despite the fair area of ground it covered. The room
[1847] demanded by intrusive beams and rafters, partitions,
[1848] passages, staircases, disused ovens, settles, and four-
[1849] posters, left comparatively small quarters for human beings.
[1850] Moreover, this being at a time before home-brewing was
[1851] abandoned by the smaller victuallers, and a house in which
[1852] the twelve-bushel strength was still religiously adhered to
[1853] by the landlord in his ale, the quality of the liquor was
[1854] the chief attraction of the premises, so that everything had
[1855] to make way for utensils and operations in connection
[1856] therewith. Thus Elizabeth found that the Scotchman was
[1857] located in a room quite close to the small one that had been
[1858] allotted to herself and her mother.
[1859]
[1860] When she entered nobody was present but the young man
[1861] himself--the same whom she had seen lingering without the
[1862] windows of the King's Arms Hotel. He was now idly reading a
[1863] copy of the local paper, and was hardly conscious of her
[1864] entry, so that she looked at him quite coolly, and saw how
[1865] his forehead shone where the light caught it, and how nicely
[1866] his hair was cut, and the sort of velvet-pile or down that
[1867] was on the skin at the back of his neck, and how his cheek
[1868] was so truly curved as to be part of a globe, and how
[1869] clearly drawn were the lids and lashes which hid his bent
[1870] eyes.
[1871]
[1872] She set down the tray, spread his supper, and went away
[1873] without a word. On her arrival below the landlady, who was
[1874] as kind as she was fat and lazy, saw that Elizabeth-Jane was
[1875] rather tired, though in her earnestness to be useful she was
[1876] waiving her own needs altogether. Mrs. Stannidge thereupon
[1877] said with a considerate peremptoriness that she and her
[1878] mother had better take their own suppers if they meant to
[1879] have any.
[1880]
[1881] Elizabeth fetched their simple provisions, as she had
[1882] fetched the Scotchman's, and went up to the little chamber
[1883] where she had left her mother, noiselessly pushing open the
[1884] door with the edge of the tray. To her surprise her mother,
[1885] instead of being reclined on the bed where she had left her
[1886] was in an erect position, with lips parted. At Elizabeth's
[1887] entry she lifted her finger.
[1888]
[1889] The meaning of this was soon apparent. The room allotted to
[1890] the two women had at one time served as a dressing-room to
[1891] the Scotchman's chamber, as was evidenced by signs of a door
[1892] of communication between them--now screwed up and pasted
[1893] over with the wall paper. But, as is frequently the case
[1894] with hotels of far higher pretensions than the Three
[1895] Mariners, every word spoken in either of these rooms was
[1896] distinctly audible in the other. Such sounds came through
[1897] now.
[1898]
[1899] Thus silently conjured Elizabeth deposited the tray, and her
[1900] mother whispered as she drew near, "'Tis he."
[1901]
[1902] "Who?" said the girl.
[1903]
[1904] "The Mayor."
[1905]
[1906] The tremors in Susan Henchard's tone might have led any
[1907] person but one so perfectly unsuspicious of the truth as the
[1908] girl was, to surmise some closer connection than the
[1909] admitted simple kinship as a means of accounting for them.
[1910]
[1911] Two men were indeed talking in the adjoining chamber, the
[1912] young Scotchman and Henchard, who, having entered the inn
[1913] while Elizabeth-Jane was in the kitchen waiting for the
[1914] supper, had been deferentially conducted upstairs by host
[1915] Stannidge himself. The girl noiselessly laid out their
[1916] little meal, and beckoned to her mother to join her, which
[1917] Mrs. Henchard mechanically did, her attention being fixed on
[1918] the conversation through the door.
[1919]
[1920] "I merely strolled in on my way home to ask you a question
[1921] about something that has excited my curiosity," said the
[1922] Mayor, with careless geniality. "But I see you have not
[1923] finished supper."
[1924]
[1925] "Ay, but I will be done in a little! Ye needn't go, sir.
[1926] Take a seat. I've almost done, and it makes no difference
[1927] at all."
[1928]
[1929] Henchard seemed to take the seat offered, and in a moment he
[1930] resumed: "Well, first I should ask, did you write this?" A
[1931] rustling of paper followed.
[1932]
[1933] "Yes, I did," said the Scotchman.
[1934]
[1935] "Then," said Henchard, "I am under the impression that we
[1936] have met by accident while waiting for the morning to keep
[1937] an appointment with each other? My name is Henchard, ha'n't
[1938] you replied to an advertisement for a corn-factor's manager
[1939] that I put into the paper--ha'n't you come here to see me
[1940] about it?"
[1941]
[1942] "No," said the Scotchman, with some surprise.
[1943]
[1944] "Surely you are the man," went on Henchard insistingly, "who
[1945] arranged to come and see me? Joshua, Joshua, Jipp--Jopp--
[1946] what was his name?"
[1947]
[1948] "You're wrong!" said the young man. "My name is Donald
[1949] Farfrae. It is true I am in the corren trade--but I have
[1950] replied to no advertisement, and arranged to see no one. I
[1951] am on my way to Bristol--from there to the other side of the
[1952] warrld, to try my fortune in the great wheat-growing
[1953] districts of the West! I have some inventions useful to the
[1954] trade, and there is no scope for developing them heere."
[1955]
[1956] "To America--well, well," said Henchard, in a tone of
[1957] disappointment, so strong as to make itself felt like a damp
[1958] atmosphere. "And yet I could have sworn you were the man!"
[1959]
[1960] The Scotchman murmured another negative, and there was a
[1961] silence, till Henchard resumed: "Then I am truly and
[1962] sincerely obliged to you for the few words you wrote on that
[1963] paper."
[1964]
[1965] "It was nothing, sir."
[1966]
[1967] "Well, it has a great importance for me just now. This row
[1968] about my grown wheat, which I declare to Heaven I didn't
[1969] know to be bad till the people came complaining, has put me
[1970] to my wits' end. I've some hundreds of quarters of it on
[1971] hand; and if your renovating process will make it wholesome,
[1972] why, you can see what a quag 'twould get me out of. I saw
[1973] in a moment there might be truth in it. But I should like
[1974] to have it proved; and of course you don't care to tell the
[1975] steps of the process sufficiently for me to do that, without
[1976] my paying ye well for't first."
[1977]
[1978] The young man reflected a moment or two. "I don't know that
[1979] I have any objection," he said. "I'm going to another
[1980] country, and curing bad corn is not the line I'll take up
[1981] there. Yes, I'll tell ye the whole of it--you'll make more
[1982] out of it heere than I will in a foreign country. Just look
[1983] heere a minute, sir. I can show ye by a sample in my
[1984] carpet-bag."
[1985]
[1986] The click of a lock followed, and there was a sifting and
[1987] rustling; then a discussion about so many ounces to the
[1988] bushel, and drying, and refrigerating, and so on.
[1989]
[1990] "These few grains will be sufficient to show ye with," came
[1991] in the young fellow's voice; and after a pause, during which
[1992] some operation seemed to be intently watched by them both,
[1993] he exclaimed, "There, now, do you taste that."
[1994]
[1995] "It's complete!--quite restored, or--well--nearly."
[1996]
[1997] "Quite enough restored to make good seconds out of it," said
[1998] the Scotchman. "To fetch it back entirely is impossible;
[1999] Nature won't stand so much as that, but heere you go a great
[2000] way towards it. Well, sir, that's the process, I don't
[2001] value it, for it can be but of little use in countries where
[2002] the weather is more settled than in ours; and I'll be only
[2003] too glad if it's of service to you."
[2004]
[2005] "But hearken to me," pleaded Henchard. "My business you
[2006] know, is in corn and in hay, but I was brought up as a hay-
[2007] trusser simply, and hay is what I understand best though I
[2008] now do more in corn than in the other. If you'll accept the
[2009] place, you shall manage the corn branch entirely, and
[2010] receive a commission in addition to salary."
[2011]
[2012] "You're liberal--very liberal, but no, no--I cannet!" the
[2013] young man still replied, with some distress in his accents.
[2014]
[2015] "So be it!" said Henchard conclusively. "Now--to change the
[2016] subject--one good turn deserves another; don't stay to
[2017] finish that miserable supper. Come to my house, I can find
[2018] something better for 'ee than cold ham and ale."
[2019]
[2020] Donald Farfrae was grateful--said he feared he must decline--
[2021] that he wished to leave early next day.
[2022]
[2023] "Very well," said Henchard quickly, "please yourself. But I
[2024] tell you, young man, if this holds good for the bulk, as it
[2025] has done for the sample, you have saved my credit, stranger
[2026] though you be. What shall I pay you for this knowledge?"
[2027]
[2028] "Nothing at all, nothing at all. It may not prove necessary
[2029] to ye to use it often, and I don't value it at all. I
[2030] thought I might just as well let ye know, as you were in a
[2031] difficulty, and they were harrd upon ye."
[2032]
[2033] Henchard paused. "I shan't soon forget this," he said.
[2034] "And from a stranger!...I couldn't believe you were not the
[2035] man I had engaged! Says I to myself, 'He knows who I am, and
[2036] recommends himself by this stroke.' And yet it turns out,
[2037] after all, that you are not the man who answered my
[2038] advertisement, but a stranger!"
[2039]
[2040] "Ay, ay; that's so," said the young man.
[2041]
[2042] Henchard again suspended his words, and then his voice came
[2043] thoughtfully: "Your forehead, Farfrae, is something like my
[2044] poor brother's--now dead and gone; and the nose, too, isn't
[2045] unlike his. You must be, what--five foot nine, I reckon? I
[2046] am six foot one and a half out of my shoes. But what of
[2047] that? In my business, 'tis true that strength and bustle
[2048] build up a firm. But judgment and knowledge are what keep
[2049] it established. Unluckily, I am bad at science, Farfrae;
[2050] bad at figures--a rule o' thumb sort of man. You are just
[2051] the reverse--I can see that. I have been looking for such
[2052] as you these two year, and yet you are not for me. Well,
[2053] before I go, let me ask this: Though you are not the young
[2054] man I thought you were, what's the difference? Can't ye stay
[2055] just the same? Have you really made up your mind about this
[2056] American notion? I won't mince matters. I feel you would be
[2057] invaluable to me--that needn't be said--and if you will bide
[2058] and be my manager, I will make it worth your while."
[2059]
[2060] "My plans are fixed," said the young man, in negative tones.
[2061] "I have formed a scheme, and so we need na say any more
[2062] about it. But will you not drink with me, sir? I find this
[2063] Casterbridge ale warreming to the stomach."
[2064]
[2065] "No, no; I fain would, but I can't," said Henchard gravely,
[2066] the scraping of his chair informing the listeners that he
[2067] was rising to leave. "When I was a young man I went in for
[2068] that sort of thing too strong--far too strong--and was well-
[2069] nigh ruined by it! I did a deed on account of it which I
[2070] shall be ashamed of to my dying day. It made such an
[2071] impression on me that I swore, there and then, that I'd
[2072] drink nothing stronger than tea for as many years as I was
[2073] old that day. I have kept my oath; and though, Farfrae, I
[2074] am sometimes that dry in the dog days that I could drink a
[2075] quarter-barrel to the pitching, I think o' my oath, and
[2076] touch no strong drink at all."
[2077]
[2078] "I'll no' press ye, sir--I'll no' press ye. I respect your
[2079] vow.
[2080]
[2081] "Well, I shall get a manager somewhere, no doubt," said
[2082] Henchard, with strong feeling in his tones. "But it will be
[2083] long before I see one that would suit me so well!"
[2084]
[2085] The young man appeared much moved by Henchard's warm
[2086] convictions of his value. He was silent till they reached
[2087] the door. "I wish I could stay--sincerely I would like to,"
[2088] he replied. "But no--it cannet be! it cannet! I want to see
[2089] the warrld."
[2090]
[2091]
[2092]
[2093] 8.
[2094]
[2095]
[2096] Thus they parted; and Elizabeth-Jane and her mother remained
[2097] each in her thoughts over their meal, the mother's face
[2098] being strangely bright since Henchard's avowal of shame for
[2099] a past action. The quivering of the partition to its core
[2100] presented denoted that Donald Farfrae had again rung his
[2101] bell, no doubt to have his supper removed; for humming a
[2102] tune, and walking up and down, he seemed to be attracted by
[2103] the lively bursts of conversation and melody from the
[2104] general company below. He sauntered out upon the landing,
[2105] and descended the staircase.
[2106]
[2107] When Elizabeth-Jane had carried down his supper tray, and
[2108] also that used by her mother and herself, she found the
[2109] bustle of serving to be at its height below, as it always
[2110] was at this hour. The young woman shrank from having
[2111] anything to do with the ground-floor serving, and crept
[2112] silently about observing the scene--so new to her, fresh
[2113] from the seclusion of a seaside cottage. In the general
[2114] sitting-room, which was large, she remarked the two or three
[2115] dozen strong-backed chairs that stood round against the
[2116] wall, each fitted with its genial occupant; the sanded
[2117] floor; the black settle which, projecting endwise from the
[2118] wall within the door, permitted Elizabeth to be a spectator
[2119] of all that went on without herself being particularly seen.
[2120]
[2121] The young Scotchman had just joined the guests. These, in
[2122] addition to the respectable master-tradesmen occupying the
[2123] seats of privileges in the bow-window and its neighbourhood,
[2124] included an inferior set at the unlighted end, whose seats
[2125] were mere benches against the wall, and who drank from cups
[2126] instead of from glasses. Among the latter she noticed some
[2127] of those personages who had stood outside the windows of the
[2128] King's Arms.
[2129]
[2130] Behind their backs was a small window, with a wheel
[2131] ventilator in one of the panes, which would suddenly start
[2132] off spinning with a jingling sound, as suddenly stop, and as
[2133] suddenly start again.
[2134]
[2135] While thus furtively making her survey the opening words of
[2136] a song greeted her ears from the front of the settle, in a
[2137] melody and accent of peculiar charm. There had been some
[2138] singing before she came down; and now the Scotchman had made
[2139] himself so soon at home that, at the request of some of the
[2140] master-tradesmen, he, too, was favouring the room with a
[2141] ditty.
[2142]
[2143] Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not help pausing
[2144] to listen; and the longer she listened the more she was
[2145] enraptured. She had never heard any singing like this and
[2146] it was evident that the majority of the audience had not
[2147] heard such frequently, for they were attentive to a much
[2148] greater degree than usual. They neither whispered, nor
[2149] drank, nor dipped their pipe-stems in their ale to moisten
[2150] them, nor pushed the mug to their neighbours. The singer
[2151] himself grew emotional, till she could imagine a tear in his
[2152] eye as the words went on:--
[2153]
[2154]
[2155] "It's hame, and it's hame, hame fain would I be,
[2156] O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!
[2157] There's an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain,
[2158] As I pass through Annan Water with my bonnie bands again;
[2159] When the flower is in the bud, and the leaf upon the tree,
[2160] The lark shall sing me hame to my ain countree!"
[2161]
[2162]
[2163] There was a burst of applause, and a deep silence which was
[2164] even more eloquent than the applause. It was of such a kind
[2165] that the snapping of a pipe-stem too long for him by old
[2166] Solomon Longways, who was one of those gathered at the shady
[2167] end of the room, seemed a harsh and irreverent act. Then
[2168] the ventilator in the window-pane spasmodically started off
[2169] for a new spin, and the pathos of Donald's song was
[2170] temporarily effaced.
[2171]
[2172] "'Twas not amiss--not at all amiss!" muttered Christopher
[2173] Coney, who was also present. And removing his pipe a
[2174] finger's breadth from his lips, he said aloud, "Draw on with
[2175] the next verse, young gentleman, please."
[2176]
[2177] "Yes. Let's have it again, stranger," said the glazier, a
[2178] stout, bucket-headed man, with a white apron rolled up round
[2179] his waist. "Folks don't lift up their hearts like that in
[2180] this part of the world." And turning aside, he said in
[2181] undertones, "Who is the young man?--Scotch, d'ye say?"
[2182]
[2183] "Yes, straight from the mountains of Scotland, I believe,"
[2184] replied Coney.
[2185]
[2186] Young Farfrae repeated the last verse. It was plain that
[2187] nothing so pathetic had been heard at the Three Mariners for
[2188] a considerable time. The difference of accent, the
[2189] excitability of the singer, the intense local feeling, and
[2190] the seriousness with which he worked himself up to a climax,
[2191] surprised this set of worthies, who were only too prone to
[2192] shut up their emotions with caustic words.
[2193]
[2194] "Danged if our country down here is worth singing about like
[2195] that!" continued the glazier, as the Scotchman again
[2196] melodized with a dying fall, "My ain countree!" "When you
[2197] take away from among us the fools and the rogues, and the
[2198] lammigers, and the wanton hussies, and the slatterns, and
[2199] such like, there's cust few left to ornament a song with in
[2200] Casterbridge, or the country round."
[2201]
[2202] "True," said Buzzford, the dealer, looking at the grain of
[2203] the table. "Casterbridge is a old, hoary place o'
[2204] wickedness, by all account. 'Tis recorded in history that
[2205] we rebelled against the King one or two hundred years ago,
[2206] in the time of the Romans, and that lots of us was hanged on
[2207] Gallows Hill, and quartered, and our different jints sent
[2208] about the country like butcher's meat; and for my part I can
[2209] well believe it."
[2210]
[2211] "What did ye come away from yer own country for, young
[2212] maister, if ye be so wownded about it?" inquired Christopher
[2213] Coney, from the background, with the tone of a man who
[2214] preferred the original subject. "Faith, it wasn't worth
[2215] your while on our account, for as Maister Billy Wills says,
[2216] we be bruckle folk here--the best o' us hardly honest
[2217] sometimes, what with hard winters, and so many mouths to
[2218] fill, and Goda'mighty sending his little taties so terrible
[2219] small to fill 'em with. We don't think about flowers and
[2220] fair faces, not we--except in the shape o' cauliflowers and
[2221] pigs' chaps."
[2222]
[2223] "But, no!" said Donald Farfrae, gazing round into their
[2224] faces with earnest concern; "the best of ye hardly honest--
[2225] not that surely? None of ye has been stealing what didn't
[2226] belong to him?"
[2227]
[2228] "Lord! no, no!" said Solomon Longways, smiling grimly.
[2229] "That's only his random way o' speaking. 'A was always such
[2230] a man of underthoughts." (And reprovingly towards
[2231] Christopher): "Don't ye be so over-familiar with a gentleman
[2232] that ye know nothing of--and that's travelled a'most from
[2233] the North Pole."
[2234]
[2235] Christopher Coney was silenced, and as he could get no
[2236] public sympathy, he mumbled his feelings to himself: "Be
[2237] dazed, if I loved my country half as well as the young
[2238] feller do, I'd live by claning my neighbour's pigsties afore
[2239] I'd go away! For my part I've no more love for my country
[2240] than I have for Botany Bay!"
[2241]
[2242] "Come," said Longways; "let the young man draw onward with
[2243] his ballet, or we shall be here all night."
[2244]
[2245] "That's all of it," said the singer apologetically.
[2246]
[2247] "Soul of my body, then we'll have another!" said the general
[2248] dealer.
[2249]
[2250] "Can you turn a strain to the ladies, sir?" inquired a fat
[2251] woman with a figured purple apron, the waiststring of which
[2252] was overhung so far by her sides as to be invisible.
[2253]
[2254] "Let him breathe--let him breathe, Mother Cuxsom. He hain't
[2255] got his second wind yet," said the master glazier.
[2256]
[2257] "Oh yes, but I have!" exclaimed the young man; and he at
[2258] once rendered "O Nannie" with faultless modulations, and
[2259] another or two of the like sentiment, winding up at their
[2260] earnest request with "Auld Lang Syne."
[2261]
[2262] By this time he had completely taken possession of the
[2263] hearts of the Three Mariners' inmates, including even old
[2264] Coney. Notwithstanding an occasional odd gravity which
[2265] awoke their sense of the ludicrous for the moment, they
[2266] began to view him through a golden haze which the tone of
[2267] his mind seemed to raise around him. Casterbridge had
[2268] sentiment--Casterbridge had romance; but this stranger's
[2269] sentiment was of differing quality. Or rather, perhaps, the
[2270] difference was mainly superficial; he was to them like the
[2271] poet of a new school who takes his contemporaries by storm;
[2272] who is not really new, but is the first to articulate what
[2273] all his listeners have felt, though but dumbly till then.
[2274]
[2275] The silent landlord came and leant over the settle while the
[2276] young man sang; and even Mrs. Stannidge managed to unstick
[2277] herself from the framework of her chair in the bar and get
[2278] as far as the door-post, which movement she accomplished by
[2279] rolling herself round, as a cask is trundled on the chine by
[2280] a drayman without losing much of its perpendicular.
[2281]
[2282] "And are you going to bide in Casterbridge, sir?" she asked.
[2283]
[2284] "Ah--no!" said the Scotchman, with melancholy fatality in
[2285] his voice, "I'm only passing thirrough! I am on my way to
[2286] Bristol, and on frae there to foreign parts."
[2287]
[2288] "We be truly sorry to hear it," said Solomon Longways. "We
[2289] can ill afford to lose tuneful wynd-pipes like yours when
[2290] they fall among us. And verily, to mak' acquaintance with a
[2291] man a-come from so far, from the land o' perpetual snow, as
[2292] we may say, where wolves and wild boars and other dangerous
[2293] animalcules be as common as blackbirds here-about--why, 'tis
[2294] a thing we can't do every day; and there's good sound
[2295] information for bide-at-homes like we when such a man opens
[2296] his mouth."
[2297]
[2298] "Nay, but ye mistake my country," said the young man,
[2299] looking round upon them with tragic fixity, till his eye
[2300] lighted up and his cheek kindled with a sudden enthusiasm to
[2301] right their errors. "There are not perpetual snow and
[2302] wolves at all in it!--except snow in winter, and--well--a
[2303] little in summer just sometimes, and a 'gaberlunzie' or two
[2304] stalking about here and there, if ye may call them
[2305] dangerous. Eh, but you should take a summer jarreny to
[2306] Edinboro', and Arthur's Seat, and all round there, and then
[2307] go on to the lochs, and all the Highland scenery--in May and
[2308] June--and you would never say 'tis the land of wolves and
[2309] perpetual snow!"
[2310]
[2311] "Of course not--it stands to reason," said Buzzford. "'Tis
[2312] barren ignorance that leads to such words. He's a simple
[2313] home-spun man, that never was fit for good company--think
[2314] nothing of him, sir."
[2315]
[2316] "And do ye carry your flock bed, and your quilt, and your
[2317] crock, and your bit of chiney? or do ye go in bare bones, as
[2318] I may say?" inquired Christopher Coney.
[2319]
[2320] "I've sent on my luggage--though it isn't much; for the
[2321] voyage is long." Donald's eyes dropped into a remote gaze as
[2322] he added: "But I said to myself, 'Never a one of the prizes
[2323] of life will I come by unless I undertake it!' and I decided
[2324] to go."
[2325]
[2326] A general sense of regret, in which Elizabeth-Jane shared
[2327] not least, made itself apparent in the company. As she
[2328] looked at Farfrae from the back of the settle she decided
[2329] that his statements showed him to be no less thoughtful than
[2330] his fascinating melodies revealed him to be cordial and
[2331] impassioned. She admired the serious light in which he
[2332] looked at serious things. He had seen no jest in
[2333] ambiguities and roguery, as the Casterbridge toss-pots had
[2334] done; and rightly not--there was none. She disliked those
[2335] wretched humours of Christopher Coney and his tribe; and he
[2336] did not appreciate them. He seemed to feel exactly as she
[2337] felt about life and its surroundings--that they were a
[2338] tragical rather than a comical thing; that though one could
[2339] be gay on occasion, moments of gaiety were interludes, and
[2340] no part of the actual drama. It was extraordinary how
[2341] similar their views were.
[2342]
[2343] Though it was still early the young Scotchman expressed his
[2344] wish to retire, whereupon the landlady whispered to
[2345] Elizabeth to run upstairs and turn down his bed. She took a
[2346] candlestick and proceeded on her mission, which was the act
[2347] of a few moments only. When, candle in hand, she reached
[2348] the top of the stairs on her way down again, Mr. Farfrae was
[2349] at the foot coming up. She could not very well retreat;
[2350] they met and passed in the turn of the staircase.
[2351]
[2352] She must have appeared interesting in some way--not-
[2353] withstanding her plain dress--or rather, possibly, in
[2354] consequence of it, for she was a girl characterized by
[2355] earnestness and soberness of mien, with which simple drapery
[2356] accorded well. Her face flushed, too, at the slight
[2357] awkwardness of the meeting, and she passed him with her eyes
[2358] bent on the candle-flame that she carried just below her
[2359] nose. Thus it happened that when confronting her he smiled;
[2360] and then, with the manner of a temporarily light-hearted
[2361] man, who has started himself on a flight of song whose
[2362] momentum he cannot readily check, he softly tuned an old
[2363] ditty that she seemed to suggest--
[2364]
[2365]
[2366] "As I came in by my bower door,
[2367] As day was waxin' wearie,
[2368] Oh wha came tripping down the stair
[2369] But bonnie Peg my dearie."
[2370]
[2371]
[2372] Elizabeth-Jane, rather disconcerted, hastened on; and the
[2373] Scotchman's voice died away, humming more of the same within
[2374] the closed door of his room.
[2375]
[2376] Here the scene and sentiment ended for the present. When
[2377] soon after, the girl rejoined her mother, the latter was
[2378] still in thought--on quite another matter than a young man's
[2379] song.
[2380]
[2381] "We've made a mistake," she whispered (that the Scotch-man
[2382] might not overhear). "On no account ought ye to have helped
[2383] serve here to-night. Not because of ourselves, but for the
[2384] sake of him. If he should befriend us, and take us up, and
[2385] then find out what you did when staying here, 'twould grieve
[2386] and wound his natural pride as Mayor of the town."
[2387]
[2388] Elizabeth, who would perhaps have been more alarmed at this
[2389] than her mother had she known the real relationship, was not
[2390] much disturbed about it as things stood. Her "he" was
[2391] another man than her poor mother's. "For myself," she said,
[2392] "I didn't at all mind waiting a little upon him. He's so
[2393] respectable, and educated--far above the rest of 'em in the
[2394] inn. They thought him very simple not to know their grim
[2395] broad way of talking about themselves here. But of course
[2396] he didn't know--he was too refined in his mind to know such
[2397] things!" Thus she earnestly pleaded.
[2398]
[2399] Meanwhile, the "he" of her mother was not so far away as
[2400] even they thought. After leaving the Three Mariners he had
[2401] sauntered up and down the empty High Street, passing and
[2402] repassing the inn in his promenade. When the Scotchman sang
[2403] his voice had reached Henchard's ears through the heart-
[2404] shaped holes in the window-shutters, and had led him to
[2405] pause outside them a long while.
[2406]
[2407] "To be sure, to be sure, how that fellow does draw me!" he
[2408] had said to himself. "I suppose 'tis because I'm so lonely.
[2409] I'd have given him a third share in the business to have
[2410] stayed!"
[2411]
[2412]
[2413]
[2414] 9.
[2415]
[2416]
[2417] When Elizabeth-Jane opened the hinged casement next morning
[2418] the mellow air brought in the feel of imminent autumn almost
[2419] as distinctly as if she had been in the remotest hamlet.
[2420] Casterbridge was the complement of the rural life around,
[2421] not its urban opposite. Bees and butterflies in the
[2422] cornfields at the top of the town, who desired to get to the
[2423] meads at the bottom, took no circuitous course, but flew
[2424] straight down High Street without any apparent consciousness
[2425] that they were traversing strange latitudes. And in autumn
[2426] airy spheres of thistledown floated into the same street,
[2427] lodged upon the shop fronts, blew into drains, and
[2428] innumerable tawny and yellow leaves skimmed along the
[2429] pavement, and stole through people's doorways into their
[2430] passages with a hesitating scratch on the floor, like the
[2431] skirts of timid visitors.
[2432]
[2433] Hearing voices, one of which was close at hand, she withdrew
[2434] her head and glanced from behind the window-curtains. Mr.
[2435] Henchard--now habited no longer as a great personage, but as
[2436] a thriving man of business--was pausing on his way up the
[2437] middle of the street, and the Scotchman was looking from the
[2438] window adjoining her own. Henchard it appeared, had gone a
[2439] little way past the inn before he had noticed his
[2440] acquaintance of the previous evening. He came back a few
[2441] steps, Donald Farfrae opening the window further.
[2442]
[2443] "And you are off soon, I suppose?" said Henchard upwards.
[2444]
[2445] "Yes--almost this moment, sir," said the other. "Maybe I'll
[2446] walk on till the coach makes up on me."
[2447]
[2448] "Which way?"
[2449]
[2450] "The way ye are going."
[2451]
[2452] "Then shall we walk together to the top o' town?"
[2453]
[2454] "If ye'll wait a minute," said the Scotchman.
[2455]
[2456] In a few minutes the latter emerged, bag in hand. Henchard
[2457] looked at the bag as at an enemy. It showed there was no
[2458] mistake about the young man's departure. "Ah, my lad," he
[2459] said, "you should have been a wise man, and have stayed with
[2460] me."
[2461]
[2462] "Yes, yes--it might have been wiser," said Donald, looking
[2463] microscopically at the houses that were furthest off. "It
[2464] is only telling ye the truth when I say my plans are vague."
[2465]
[2466] They had by this time passed on from the precincts of the
[2467] inn, and Elizabeth-Jane heard no more. She saw that they
[2468] continued in conversation, Henchard turning to the other
[2469] occasionally, and emphasizing some remark with a gesture.
[2470] Thus they passed the King's Arms Hotel, the Market House,
[2471] St. Peter's churchyard wall, ascending to the upper end of
[2472] the long street till they were small as two grains of corn;
[2473] when they bent suddenly to the right into the Bristol Road,
[2474] and were out of view.
[2475]
[2476] "He was a good man--and he's gone," she said to herself. "I
[2477] was nothing to him, and there was no reason why he should
[2478] have wished me good-bye."
[2479]
[2480] The simple thought, with its latent sense of slight, had
[2481] moulded itself out of the following little fact: when the
[2482] Scotchman came out at the door he had by accident glanced up
[2483] at her; and then he had looked away again without nodding,
[2484] or smiling, or saying a word.
[2485]
[2486] "You are still thinking, mother," she said, when she turned
[2487] inwards.
[2488]
[2489] "Yes; I am thinking of Mr. Henchard's sudden liking for that
[2490] young man. He was always so. Now, surely, if he takes so
[2491] warmly to people who are not related to him at all, may he
[2492] not take as warmly to his own kin?"
[2493]
[2494] While they debated this question a procession of five large
[2495] waggons went past, laden with hay up to the bedroom windows.
[2496] They came in from the country, and the steaming horses had
[2497] probably been travelling a great part of the night. To the
[2498] shaft of each hung a little board, on which was painted in
[2499] white letters, "Henchard, corn-factor and hay-merchant." The
[2500] spectacle renewed his wife's conviction that, for her
[2501] daughter's sake, she should strain a point to rejoin him.
[2502]
[2503] The discussion was continued during breakfast, and the end
[2504] of it was that Mrs. Henchard decided, for good or for ill,
[2505] to send Elizabeth-Jane with a message to Henchard, to the
[2506] effect that his relative Susan, a sailor's widow, was in the
[2507] town; leaving it to him to say whether or not he would
[2508] recognize her. What had brought her to this determination
[2509] were chiefly two things. He had been described as a lonely
[2510] widower; and he had expressed shame for a past transaction
[2511] of his life. There was promise in both.
[2512]
[2513] "If he says no," she enjoined, as Elizabeth-Jane stood,
[2514] bonnet on, ready to depart; "if he thinks it does not become
[2515] the good position he has reached to in the town, to own--to
[2516] let us call on him as--his distant kinfolk, say, 'Then, sir,
[2517] we would rather not intrude; we will leave Casterbridge as
[2518] quietly as we have come, and go back to our own
[2519] country.'...I almost feel that I would rather he did say so,
[2520] as I have not seen him for so many years, and we are so--
[2521] little allied to him!"
[2522]
[2523] "And if he say yes?" inquired the more sanguine one.
[2524]
[2525] "In that case," answered Mrs. Henchard cautiously, "ask him
[2526] to write me a note, saying when and how he will see us--or ME."
[2527]
[2528] Elizabeth-Jane went a few steps towards the landing. "And
[2529] tell him," continued her mother, "that I fully know I have
[2530] no claim upon him--that I am glad to find he is thriving;
[2531] that I hope his life may be long and happy--there, go." Thus
[2532] with a half-hearted willingness, a smothered reluctance, did
[2533] the poor forgiving woman start her unconscious daughter on
[2534] this errand.
[2535]
[2536] It was about ten o'clock, and market-day, when Elizabeth
[2537] paced up the High Street, in no great hurry; for to herself
[2538] her position was only that of a poor relation deputed to
[2539] hunt up a rich one. The front doors of the private houses
[2540] were mostly left open at this warm autumn time, no thought
[2541] of umbrella stealers disturbing the minds of the placid
[2542] burgesses. Hence, through the long, straight, entrance
[2543] passages thus unclosed could be seen, as through tunnels,
[2544] the mossy gardens at the back, glowing with nasturtiums,
[2545] fuchsias, scarlet geraniums, "bloody warriors," snapdragons,
[2546] and dahlias, this floral blaze being backed by crusted grey
[2547] stone-work remaining from a yet remoter Casterbridge than
[2548] the venerable one visible in the street. The old-fashioned
[2549] fronts of these houses, which had older than old-fashioned
[2550] backs, rose sheer from the pavement, into which the bow
[2551] windows protruded like bastions, necessitating a pleasing
[2552] chassez-dechassez movement to the time-pressed pedestrian
[2553] at every few yards. He was bound also to evolve other
[2554] Terpsichorean figures in respect of door-steps, scrapers,
[2555] cellar-hatches, church buttresses, and the overhanging
[2556] angles of walls which, originally unobtrusive, had become
[2557] bow-legged and knock-kneed.
[2558]
[2559] In addition to these fixed obstacles which spoke so
[2560] cheerfully of individual unrestraint as to boundaries,
[2561] movables occupied the path and roadway to a perplexing
[2562] extent. First the vans of the carriers in and out of
[2563] Casterbridge, who hailed from Mellstock, Weatherbury, The
[2564] Hintocks, Sherton-Abbas, Kingsbere, Overcombe, and many
[2565] other towns and villages round. Their owners were numerous
[2566] enough to be regarded as a tribe, and had almost
[2567] distinctiveness enough to be regarded as a race. Their vans
[2568] had just arrived, and were drawn up on each side of the
[2569] street in close file, so as to form at places a wall between
[2570] the pavement and the roadway. Moreover every shop pitched
[2571] out half its contents upon trestles and boxes on the kerb,
[2572] extending the display each week a little further and further
[2573] into the roadway, despite the expostulations of the two
[2574] feeble old constables, until there remained but a tortuous
[2575] defile for carriages down the centre of the street, which
[2576] afforded fine opportunities for skill with the reins. Over
[2577] the pavement on the sunny side of the way hung shopblinds so
[2578] constructed as to give the passenger's hat a smart buffet
[2579] off his head, as from the unseen hands of Cranstoun's Goblin
[2580] Page, celebrated in romantic lore.
[2581]
[2582] Horses for sale were tied in rows, their forelegs on the
[2583] pavement, their hind legs in the street, in which position
[2584] they occasionally nipped little boys by the shoulder who
[2585] were passing to school. And any inviting recess in front of
[2586] a house that had been modestly kept back from the general
[2587] line was utilized by pig-dealers as a pen for their stock.
[2588]
[2589] The yeomen, farmers, dairymen, and townsfolk, who came to
[2590] transact business in these ancient streets, spoke in other
[2591] ways than by articulation. Not to hear the words of your
[2592] interlocutor in metropolitan centres is to know nothing of
[2593] his meaning. Here the face, the arms, the hat, the stick,
[2594] the body throughout spoke equally with the tongue. To
[2595] express satisfaction the Casterbridge market-man added to
[2596] his utterance a broadening of the cheeks, a crevicing of the
[2597] eyes, a throwing back of the shoulders, which was
[2598] intelligible from the other end of the street. If he
[2599] wondered, though all Henchard's carts and waggons were
[2600] rattling past him, you knew it from perceiving the inside of
[2601] his crimson mouth, and a target-like circling of his eyes.
[2602] Deliberation caused sundry attacks on the moss of adjoining
[2603] walls with the end of his stick, a change of his hat from
[2604] the horizontal to the less so; a sense of tediousness
[2605] announced itself in a lowering of the person by spreading
[2606] the knees to a lozenge-shaped aperture and contorting the
[2607] arms. Chicanery, subterfuge, had hardly a place in the
[2608] streets of this honest borough to all appearance; and it was
[2609] said that the lawyers in the Court House hard by
[2610] occasionally threw in strong arguments for the other side
[2611] out of pure generosity (though apparently by mischance) when
[2612] advancing their own.
[2613]
[2614] Thus Casterbridge was in most respects but the pole, focus,
[2615] or nerve-knot of the surrounding country life; differing
[2616] from the many manufacturing towns which are as foreign
[2617] bodies set down, like boulders on a plain, in a green world
[2618] with which they have nothing in common. Casterbridge lived
[2619] by agriculture at one remove further from the fountainhead
[2620] than the adjoining villages--no more. The townsfolk
[2621] understood every fluctuation in the rustic's condition, for
[2622] it affected their receipts as much as the labourer's; they
[2623] entered into the troubles and joys which moved the
[2624] aristocratic families ten miles round--for the same reason.
[2625] And even at the dinner-parties of the professional families
[2626] the subjects of discussion were corn, cattle-disease, sowing
[2627] and reaping, fencing and planting; while politics were
[2628] viewed by them less from their own standpoint of burgesses
[2629] with rights and privileges than from the standpoint of their
[2630] country neighbours.
[2631]
[2632] All the venerable contrivances and confusions which
[2633] delighted the eye by their quaintness, and in a measure
[2634] reasonableness, in this rare old market-town, were
[2635] metropolitan novelties to the unpractised eyes of Elizabeth-
[2636] Jane, fresh from netting fish-seines in a seaside cottage.
[2637] Very little inquiry was necessary to guide her footsteps.
[2638] Henchard's house was one of the best, faced with dull red-
[2639] and-grey old brick. The front door was open, and, as in
[2640] other houses, she could see through the passage to the end
[2641] of the garden--nearly a quarter of a mile off.
[2642]
[2643] Mr. Henchard was not in the house, but in the store-yard.
[2644] She was conducted into the mossy garden, and through a door
[2645] in the wall, which was studded with rusty nails speaking of
[2646] generations of fruit-trees that had been trained there. The
[2647] door opened upon the yard, and here she was left to find him
[2648] as she could. It was a place flanked by hay-barns, into
[2649] which tons of fodder, all in trusses, were being packed from
[2650] the waggons she had seen pass the inn that morning. On
[2651] other sides of the yard were wooden granaries on stone
[2652] staddles, to which access was given by Flemish ladders, and
[2653] a store-house several floors high. Wherever the doors of
[2654] these places were open, a closely packed throng of bursting
[2655] wheat-sacks could be seen standing inside, with the air of
[2656] awaiting a famine that would not come.
[2657]
[2658] She wandered about this place, uncomfortably conscious of
[2659] the impending interview, till she was quite weary of
[2660] searching; she ventured to inquire of a boy in what quarter
[2661] Mr. Henchard could be found. He directed her to an office
[2662] which she had not seen before, and knocking at the door she
[2663] was answered by a cry of "Come in."
[2664]
[2665] Elizabeth turned the handle; and there stood before her,
[2666] bending over some sample-bags on a table, not the corn-
[2667] merchant, but the young Scotchman Mr. Farfrae--in the act of
[2668] pouring some grains of wheat from one hand to the other.
[2669] His hat hung on a peg behind him, and the roses of his
[2670] carpet-bag glowed from the corner of the room.
[2671]
[2672] Having toned her feelings and arranged words on her lips for
[2673] Mr. Henchard, and for him alone, she was for the moment
[2674] confounded.
[2675]
[2676] "Yes, what it is?" said the Scotchman, like a man who
[2677] permanently ruled there.
[2678]
[2679] She said she wanted to see Mr. Henchard.
[2680]
[2681] "Ah, yes; will you wait a minute? He's engaged just now,"
[2682] said the young man, apparently not recognizing her as the
[2683] girl at the inn. He handed her a chair, bade her sit down
[2684] and turned to his sample-bags again. While Elizabeth-Jane
[2685] sits waiting in great amaze at the young man's presence we
[2686] may briefly explain how he came there.
[2687]
[2688] When the two new acquaintances had passed out of sight that
[2689] morning towards the Bath and Bristol road they went on
[2690] silently, except for a few commonplaces, till they had gone
[2691] down an avenue on the town walls called the Chalk Walk,
[2692] leading to an angle where the North and West escarpments
[2693] met. From this high corner of the square earthworks a vast
[2694] extent of country could be seen. A footpath ran steeply
[2695] down the green slope, conducting from the shady promenade on
[2696] the walls to a road at the bottom of the scarp. It was by
[2697] this path the Scotchman had to descend.
[2698]
[2699] "Well, here's success to 'ee," said Henchard, holding out
[2700] his right hand and leaning with his left upon the wicket
[2701] which protected the descent. In the act there was the
[2702] inelegance of one whose feelings are nipped and wishes
[2703] defeated. "I shall often think of this time, and of how you
[2704] came at the very moment to throw a light upon my
[2705] difficulty."
[2706]
[2707] Still holding the young man's hand he paused, and then added
[2708] deliberately: "Now I am not the man to let a cause be lost
[2709] for want of a word. And before ye are gone for ever I'll
[2710] speak. Once more, will ye stay? There it is, flat and
[2711] plain. You can see that it isn't all selfishness that makes
[2712] me press 'ee; for my business is not quite so scientific as
[2713] to require an intellect entirely out of the common. Others
[2714] would do for the place without doubt. Some selfishness
[2715] perhaps there is, but there is more; it isn't for me to
[2716] repeat what. Come bide with me--and name your own terms.
[2717] I'll agree to 'em willingly and 'ithout a word of
[2718] gainsaying; for, hang it, Farfrae, I like thee well!"
[2719]
[2720] The young man's hand remained steady in Henchard's for a
[2721] moment or two. He looked over the fertile country that
[2722] stretched beneath them, then backward along the shaded walk
[2723] reaching to the top of the town. His face flushed.
[2724]
[2725] "I never expected this--I did not!" he said. "It's
[2726] Providence! Should any one go against it? No; I'll not go to
[2727] America; I'll stay and be your man!"
[2728]
[2729] His hand, which had lain lifeless in Henchard's, returned
[2730] the latter's grasp.
[2731]
[2732] "Done," said Henchard.
[2733]
[2734] "Done," said Donald Farfrae.
[2735]
[2736] The face of Mr. Henchard beamed forth a satisfaction that
[2737] was almost fierce in its strength. "Now you are my friend!"
[2738] he exclaimed. "Come back to my house; let's clinch it at
[2739] once by clear terms, so as to be comfortable in our minds."
[2740] Farfrae caught up his bag and retraced the North-West Avenue
[2741] in Henchard's company as he had come. Henchard was all
[2742] confidence now.
[2743]
[2744] "I am the most distant fellow in the world when I don't care
[2745] for a man," he said. "But when a man takes my fancy he
[2746] takes it strong. Now I am sure you can eat another
[2747] breakfast? You couldn't have eaten much so early, even if
[2748] they had anything at that place to gi'e thee, which they
[2749] hadn't; so come to my house and we will have a solid,
[2750] staunch tuck-in, and settle terms in black-and-white if you
[2751] like; though my word's my bond. I can always make a good
[2752] meal in the morning. I've got a splendid cold pigeon-pie
[2753] going just now. You can have some home-brewed if you want
[2754] to, you know."
[2755]
[2756] "It is too airly in the morning for that," said Farfrae with
[2757] a smile.
[2758]
[2759] "Well, of course, I didn't know. I don't drink it because
[2760] of my oath, but I am obliged to brew for my work-people."
[2761]
[2762] Thus talking they returned, and entered Henchard's premises
[2763] by the back way or traffic entrance. Here the matter was
[2764] settled over the breakfast, at which Henchard heaped the
[2765] young Scotchman's plate to a prodigal fulness. He would not
[2766] rest satisfied till Farfrae had written for his luggage from
[2767] Bristol, and dispatched the letter to the post-office. When
[2768] it was done this man of strong impulses declared that his
[2769] new friend should take up his abode in his house--at least
[2770] till some suitable lodgings could be found.
[2771]
[2772] He then took Farfrae round and showed him the place, and the
[2773] stores of grain, and other stock; and finally entered the
[2774] offices where the younger of them has already been
[2775] discovered by Elizabeth.
[2776]
[2777]
[2778]
[2779] 10.
[2780]
[2781]
[2782] While she still sat under the Scotchman's eyes a man came up
[2783] to the door, reaching it as Henchard opened the door of the
[2784] inner office to admit Elizabeth. The newcomer stepped
[2785] forward like the quicker cripple at Bethesda, and entered in
[2786] her stead. She could hear his words to Henchard: "Joshua
[2787] Jopp, sir--by appointment--the new manager."
[2788]
[2789] "The new manager!--he's in his office," said Henchard
[2790] bluntly.
[2791]
[2792] "In his office!" said the man, with a stultified air.
[2793]
[2794] "I mentioned Thursday," said Henchard; "and as you did not
[2795] keep your appointment, I have engaged another manager. At
[2796] first I thought he must be you. Do you think I can wait
[2797] when business is in question?"
[2798]
[2799] "You said Thursday or Saturday, sir," said the newcomer,
[2800] pulling out a letter.
[2801]
[2802] "Well, you are too late," said the corn-factor. "I can say
[2803] no more."
[2804]
[2805] "You as good as engaged me," murmured the man.
[2806]
[2807] "Subject to an interview," said Henchard. "I am sorry for
[2808] you--very sorry indeed. But it can't be helped."
[2809]
[2810] There was no more to be said, and the man came out,
[2811] encountering Elizabeth-Jane in his passage. She could see
[2812] that his mouth twitched with anger, and that bitter
[2813] disappointment was written in his face everywhere.
[2814]
[2815] Elizabeth-Jane now entered, and stood before the master of
[2816] the premises. His dark pupils--which always seemed to have
[2817] a red spark of light in them, though this could hardly be a
[2818] physical fact--turned indifferently round under his dark
[2819] brows until they rested on her figure. "Now then, what is
[2820] it, my young woman?" he said blandly.
[2821]
[2822] "Can I speak to you--not on business, sir?" said she.
[2823]
[2824] "Yes--I suppose." He looked at her more thoughtfully.
[2825]
[2826] "I am sent to tell you, sir," she innocently went on, "that
[2827] a distant relative of yours by marriage, Susan Newson, a
[2828] sailor's widow, is in the town, and to ask whether you would
[2829] wish to see her."
[2830]
[2831] The rich rouge-et-noir of his countenance underwent a
[2832] slight change. "Oh--Susan is--still alive?" he asked with
[2833] difficulty.
[2834]
[2835] "Yes, sir."
[2836]
[2837] "Are you her daughter?"
[2838]
[2839] "Yes, sir--her only daughter."
[2840]
[2841] "What--do you call yourself--your Christian name?"
[2842]
[2843] "Elizabeth-Jane, sir."
[2844]
[2845] "Newson?"
[2846]
[2847] "Elizabeth-Jane Newson."
[2848]
[2849] This at once suggested to Henchard that the transaction of
[2850] his early married life at Weydon Fair was unrecorded in the
[2851] family history. It was more than he could have expected.
[2852] His wife had behaved kindly to him in return for his
[2853] unkindness, and had never proclaimed her wrong to her child
[2854] or to the world.
[2855]
[2856] "I am--a good deal interested in your news," he said. "And
[2857] as this is not a matter of business, but pleasure, suppose
[2858] we go indoors."
[2859]
[2860] It was with a gentle delicacy of manner, surprising to
[2861] Elizabeth, that he showed her out of the office and through
[2862] the outer room, where Donald Farfrae was overhauling bins
[2863] and samples with the inquiring inspection of a beginner in
[2864] charge. Henchard preceded her through the door in the wall
[2865] to the suddenly changed scene of the garden and flowers, and
[2866] onward into the house. The dining-room to which he
[2867] introduced her still exhibited the remnants of the lavish
[2868] breakfast laid for Farfrae. It was furnished to profusion
[2869] with heavy mahogany furniture of the deepest red-Spanish
[2870] hues. Pembroke tables, with leaves hanging so low that they
[2871] well-nigh touched the floor, stood against the walls on legs
[2872] and feet shaped like those of an elephant, and on one lay
[2873] three huge folio volumes--a Family Bible, a "Josephus," and
[2874] a "Whole Duty of Man." In the chimney comer was a fire-grate
[2875] with a fluted semicircular back, having urns and festoons
[2876] cast in relief thereon, and the chairs were of the kind
[2877] which, since that day, has cast lustre upon the names of
[2878] Chippendale and Sheraton, though, in point of fact, their
[2879] patterns may have been such as those illustrious carpenters
[2880] never saw or heard of.
[2881]
[2882] "Sit down--Elizabeth-Jane--sit down," he said, with a shake
[2883] in his voice as he uttered her name, and sitting down
[2884] himself he allowed his hands to hang between his knees while
[2885] he looked upon the carpet. "Your mother, then, is quite
[2886] well?"
[2887]
[2888] "She is rather worn out, sir, with travelling."
[2889]
[2890] "A sailor's widow--when did he die?"
[2891]
[2892] "Father was lost last spring."
[2893]
[2894] Henchard winced at the word "father," thus applied. "Do you
[2895] and she come from abroad--America or Australia?" he asked.
[2896]
[2897] "No. We have been in England some years. I was twelve when
[2898] we came here from Canada."
[2899]
[2900] "Ah; exactly." By such conversation he discovered the
[2901] circumstances which had enveloped his wife and her child in
[2902] such total obscurity that he had long ago believed them to
[2903] be in their graves. These things being clear, he returned
[2904] to the present. "And where is your mother staying?"
[2905]
[2906] "At the Three Mariners."
[2907]
[2908] "And you are her daughter Elizabeth-Jane?" repeated
[2909] Henchard. He arose, came close to her, and glanced in her
[2910] face. "I think," he said, suddenly turning away with a wet
[2911] eye, "you shall take a note from me to your mother. I
[2912] should like to see her....She is not left very well off by
[2913] her late husband?" His eye fell on Elizabeth's clothes,
[2914] which, though a respectable suit of black, and her very
[2915] best, were decidedly old-fashioned even to Casterbridge
[2916] eyes.
[2917]
[2918] "Not very well," she said, glad that he had divined this
[2919] without her being obliged to express it.
[2920]
[2921] He sat down at the table and wrote a few lines, next taking
[2922] from his pocket-book a five-pound note, which he put in the
[2923] envelope with the letter, adding to it, as by an
[2924] afterthought, five shillings. Sealing the whole up
[2925] carefully, he directed it to "Mrs. Newson, Three Mariners
[2926] Inn," and handed the packet to Elizabeth.
[2927]
[2928] "Deliver it to her personally, please," said Henchard.
[2929] "Well, I am glad to see you here, Elizabeth-Jane--very glad.
[2930] We must have a long talk together--but not just now."
[2931]
[2932] He took her hand at parting, and held it so warmly that she,
[2933] who had known so little friendship, was much affected, and
[2934] tears rose to her aerial-grey eyes. The instant that she
[2935] was gone Henchard's state showed itself more distinctly;
[2936] having shut the door he sat in his dining-room stiffly
[2937] erect, gazing at the opposite wall as if he read his history
[2938] there.
[2939]
[2940] "Begad!" he suddenly exclaimed, jumping up. "I didn't think
[2941] of that. Perhaps these are impostors--and Susan and the
[2942] child dead after all!"
[2943]
[2944] However, a something in Elizabeth-Jane soon assured him
[2945] that, as regarded her, at least, there could be little
[2946] doubt. And a few hours would settle the question of her
[2947] mother's identity; for he had arranged in his note to see
[2948] her that evening.
[2949]
[2950] "It never rains but it pours!" said Henchard. His keenly
[2951] excited interest in his new friend the Scotchman was now
[2952] eclipsed by this event, and Donald Farfrae saw so little of
[2953] him during the rest of the day that he wondered at the
[2954] suddenness of his employer's moods.
[2955]
[2956] In the meantime Elizabeth had reached the inn. Her mother,
[2957] instead of taking the note with the curiosity of a poor
[2958] woman expecting assistance, was much moved at sight of it.
[2959] She did not read it at once, asking Elizabeth to describe
[2960] her reception, and the very words Mr. Henchard used.
[2961] Elizabeth's back was turned when her mother opened the
[2962] letter. It ran thus:--
[2963]
[2964]
[2965] "Meet me at eight o'clock this evening, if you can, at the
[2966] Ring on the Budmouth road. The place is easy to find. I
[2967] can say no more now. The news upsets me almost. The girl
[2968] seems to be in ignorance. Keep her so till I have seen you.
[2969] M. H."
[2970]
[2971]
[2972] He said nothing about the enclosure of five guineas. The
[2973] amount was significant; it may tacitly have said to her that
[2974] he bought her back again. She waited restlessly for the
[2975] close of the day, telling Elizabeth-Jane that she was
[2976] invited to see Mr. Henchard; that she would go alone. But
[2977] she said nothing to show that the place of meeting was not
[2978] at his house, nor did she hand the note to Elizabeth.
[2979]
[2980]
[2981]
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